amazing ride ...there ...and beautiful pictures

Beautiful

...let us know how the mighty Goldwing rides!

All the best sir. I am glued to this thread now. The beautiful view of LA and LAX is making me nostalgic.
I did this 101 highway several times more than thirteen years back but in four wheelers. As a kid I was always fascinated by the leather jacket clad motorcyclists on loud bikes (Didn't know the bike names at that time ) in this route. Also Visit Santa Monica, San Louis Obispo, San Jose. Las Vegas will be in a different route. And the beauty of the desert road between LA and Las Vegas through San Barnadino country is something that I am sure you don't want to miss.

Wow, the trip has begun in true style and all its majesty.
Eagerly waiting for more.

Dumb-struck! Some of the meanest machines to tour on. Keep them coming, sir.

Same here...even i noticed the classic mild packet 1st!!! Other than riders thats the only desi thing there I guess

@Anurag : Thanks for sharing this trip of yours...The machines look monstrous!!! Glued to this thread now!!!

All the best

Wow, what a start Anurag Sir!!!
This post made my day...
Thanks for sharing and have a Safe journey...

And we are glued to this thread...

@ Anurag: Apart from the excellent pictures and mouth watering motorcycles, I see a carton of Wills Classic on the bed. Jai ho...Jai Ho!!!!

and am waiting for more.

Ride safe, explore the places and come back safe with amazing tales to tell.


P.S: do we have anybody to sponsor me for a ride outside India. dont mind going to Ghana either.

Very very interesting. I like this - the posh life. Am glued for more

What better way to start the morning than to look at this thread! The goings on are enough to make everyone envy. Brilliant stuff sir, especially the store - it's MASSIVE and just look at all the motorcycles and accessories, etc.

And to think that it is a "small" store gives me goosebumps already! All the very best sir, for the ride. Good to know you have bought brand new riding gears for this ride! Will be waiting for more updates as the riders hit the road.

Anurag Sir -amazing, I read the whole post and yeah good to see that the REWINDERS have hit the road, I would be keeping a look for some beautiful pics by you.... All the Best Sir

The Spyder has found its true place in this one!

Good going and best of luck for the trip!

Day 2 - The Great California Roadtrip Begins !!

I had gone to sleep around midnight on the 8th. It was a very long day. I left for the airport from Delhi at 1 AM on the 12th and after a 20 hour flight arrived at 12:30 PM on the 8th in LA. There was still another 12 hours left for the date in the calender to turn! We had made good use of these extra hours in my life on this date horsing around in Los Angeles. I went to bed at approx. midnight and due to Jetlag, could not muster more than 3 1/2 hours of sleep. I got up at 3:30 AM on the 9th and chatted up with Old Fox over Google Chat. That is when I had put up this thread also. After having breakfast at 6:30 AM, I freshened up and packed up my stuff. I had a small strolley which was full with my basic necessities and here in LA I had added 3 Draggin Jeans, 2 Draggin 100% Kevlar T-Shirts, Body Armour for almost all places a body can have and a Draggin Long-Johns also of 100% Kevlar. In addition, I now had a spare set of boots, A new Helmet and basically, didn't know how to put everything together. Somehow I managed thanks to the Helmet shoulder bag.

Tinu had earlier in the morning talked to Eagle Riders and arranged to advance the departure date to "TODAY". When we checked out of the Hotel (We had to forego the day's rent as the hotel had a no-refund policy and we had paid 100% in advance). We arrived in the porch and the car (like an Innova) was brought by Tinu from the parking. 6 of us and all the other guys baggage proved too much for even this car! We arranged and re-arranged stuff till we fitted in. Finally, we went off to Tinu's relative to drop all the extras and then reached Eagle Riders. Here we did the paper work and got handed over our bikes.


Anurag - Honda Goldwing 1800

Sanjiv - Harley Davidson Electra Glide
Sanjay Gupta - Harley Davidson Electra Glide

Tinu - Harley Davidson Electra Glide
Sanjay Aggarwal - Harley Davidson Electra Glide
Ajai Gupta - Harley Davidson Softail






We headed first via Las Virgenes and entered into Malibu on the Pacific Coast Highway. I suggest folks look the history of this highway on the net. This highway runs from California all the way upto Alaska I am told. It has some of the most scenic and beautiful places on earth along it and that is also the reason REWINDER'S chose this route to kickstart our international riding for REWIND.

We had lunch at Malibu beach and then headed towards Santa Barbara. We spent the night at Santa Barbara Inn. This is a very beautiful hotel facing the beach which came to its full glory when we were to get up the next morning.







The beach was beautiful. Notably, the seagull's were so used to the human presence that you could actually walk within a couple of feet of them and they would still be there.






Enroute to Santa Barbara, we had had the usual stuff. We had riders taking off on wrong routes and then everybody looking for him, looking for Gas etc.. In short the trip had begun and it was fun. We re-fueled once.

While we waited in a lonely place in the middle of no-where for one of the riders who had taken off on a wrong turn, we thought we were in Detroit of yore

Just look at that stuff lying around!!

Waiting with bated breath for more!

Day 1 - Los Angeles

Folks. The trip goes on and there are many interesting things happening. As I write this post, I sit in my cozy room in the Hadsten House motel in Solvang looking at a fire burning in the fireplace. When putting up my first post, I had mentioned that I watched planes land at LAX while I typed that post in. Here is the picture.



on 8th March, Immediately after landing in Los Angeles, we headed for Eagle Riders, the people from whom we rented the bikes. This outfit is present all over California and they have thousands of bikes (yes, not hundreds) spread out over multiple locations in the state. We didn't want to check in to the hotel, we did not want to rest, we did not want to freshen up but just look at the bikes.

We reached eagle riders and there were many bikes parked out there waiting to be either taken away by tourers like us, or serviced in the in-house facility. Only bikes other than Harley Davidson's were either Honda Goldwing's, BMW XS1200 or some Off Roader's.







Raphael, Eagle Riders representative patiently answered all our questions and took us through all the procedures. We promised him to be back again. He said that he badly wanted to own a Royal Enfield and we offered to ship one to him !



I had landed up in LA with only my riding gloves and a small strolley with basic clothes. I had pre-ordered some stuff like Draggin Jeans and Chest, Back, Elbow, Knee and Shoulder protectors online to be delivered and waiting for me when I arrived. I still had to buy a new helmet, riding boots etc.. Others also had to pretty much buy all their stuff before starting the trip.

We went to Del Amo, a motorcycle store. Here I picked up Alpine Star ankle high shoes, A Shoei Modular Helmet, A Bluetooth Scala G4 device, a new kidney belt, balaclava etc.. So did the others. We feasted on the bikes parked in the showroom! What a place and this place is considered to be a small outfit. In America, everything is max and so are their motor bike stores.






This Intruder I saw in DelAmo showroom made my day



LA by night


We drove around in LA in a car that Tinu had rented earlier and returned to the hotel at around 10 PM.


West Wood theatre in LA, where premieres of most Hollywood movies takes place. This is the place we see on TV with a red carpet and stars walking.

Just as we reached the hotel, we realized that we had forgotten to eat and so the only option was a drive through Burger King! We picked up a burger each and a sandwich for me and headed for the hotel. We were like children, Everything that was purchased for the trip was spread around all over his room.


We thought we had done an overkill! My bill alone was in excess of US$ 1000 and this does not include the 900 I had spent pre-ordering the Draggin Jeans stuff!

We were all very excited and now there were six of us. I had mentioned that Timetables are never adhered to, they merely act as a guideline. The words will be prophetic for this trip. Before even starting out, we decided to chuck the first day of rest and instead of riding out on the 10th, start the very next day if bike rentals could be advanced. Resolving to give it a go, we went to sleep.