My friend Jess was visiting Los Angeles and he was tight on time so we agreed to meet up for a quick breakfast. I had not seen Jess in probably 20 years.
We figured since he had a tight schedule we better pick a meeting spot close to where he was. It was a bit of a hike for me but I don’t care. I ride motorbikes to nowhere for no reason so I was happy to have somewhere to go.
I rode there on a Friday night, had breakfast with Jess at 7:00 am, and then came home. I rode my 2019 Honda Africa Twin Adventure Sports CRF1000A2 which has the longest official name of any motorcycle I know. It was about 500 miles there and another 500 miles home. The complete trip was about 28 hours door-to-door from the time I left to the time I came home.
That’s my total for the trip. 1073.1 miles. That temperature is when I got home in the evening on Saturday. Going through the desert near Yuma, AZ the temperature was 112 degrees for hours. It doesn’t bother me. It bothers me when I have to lift up the Africa Twin several times in a day but this was not that kind of trip.
At one point on this ride the temperature dropped from 112 to 73 in the space of about 45 minutes.
Outside of Gila Bend, AZ on the way out to Los Angeles I experienced some pretty heavy buffeting while passing a semi at about 100 mph and my helmet converted itself to this.
This really reduced my visibility. Down to just about nothing. I couldn’t lift the fallen-down visor (it’s called a peak) because of the hinge mechanism but I could see over the top of it through a little half-inch opening if I held my head right. So I held my head right and got to the side of the road.
I couldn’t get it off on the side of the road but I could bend it straight out behind me. That was fine except the way it caught the air I couldn’t turn my head. I made it to Gila Bend where I bought a few tools at a Pilot station and was able to cut the peak off. I didn’t take a picture if it after the peak removal which is odd for me.
We met up at à bloc LA. I wish I got better pictures of the place. My photography was off on this trip. It was kind of a lot of effort getting there and back and I was in the zone.
The cafe was great. I had a vegan breakfast sandwich. It was so tasty. And the place looked awesome and the people working in there were really nice. One of the workers liked my Long Dog Cheddar Man shirt so I gave her some stickers.
It was great seeing Jess after all those years. We are in touch frequently but had not been in the same place at the same time. We easily fell into conversation as if that was just a regular standing weekly meet-up that we had.
I gave Jess a little sticker pack. Maybe he can be like Chilly Most some day and install these in exotic places like Portland and Waikiki. Just like Chilly Most will do in the future from when this meet-up happened.
I did a little on-the-spot installation here at the cafe. I have the weird bear up there at the top left and toward the middle I have an Andre the Giant.
When I got dressed to go to the breakfast I noticed one of my boots was oily and the other one was not. That’s never a good thing. In this photo the crash bars on the right side of the bike (left side of the photo) are blackened with something and the crash bars on the other side are not. Same is true of the radiator cover. Whatever that is, is probably what got on my boot.
This is my front left brake. It’s what it normally looks like. Filthy.
This is my front right brake. Very oily. I was relieved to notice this after the breakfast. The only way that would get oily is if I blew my right fork seal. That’s not a big deal. This is the second set I ruined. I ride in thick mud, and I get the CRF1000 airborne, so blown fork seals are going to happen. Noticing it 500 miles from home was t the best feeling but it’s a LOT better than if it was coolant on my boot. That happened to me one time on a rented BMW coincidentally on a trip pit of Los Angeles.
I didn’t mind riding home on a blown fork seal but I altered my route a lot. I was going to try to pick my way through a dirt route by the Salton Sea but with this I just figured I’d take it easy and go home the way I came, through San Diego and Yuma.
I wasn’t originally planning to go home through San Diego but because of the blown fork seal I did. If it weren’t for that I’d have never stopped at the Leucadia Donut Shoppe in Encinitas, CA. I was coming into the San Diego area and the traffic was worse than I thought it would be early Saturday morning on the 5. So I tried lane splitting for a while which was pretty entertaining on a bike that’s about as wide as a car with the bags on. Then I got off to try my luck closer to the water and that’s when I found the Leucadia Donut Shoppe.
The shop was awesome, the donuts were delicious, and I met the owner, Tom, and his wife whose name I don’t know. I only knew Tom’s name because a guy parked out front was talking to me about Tom like I already knew him.
They don’t take a card for payment but you can pay with I think it was Venmo. I apologized for my clumsy management of the payment and Tom laughed patiently and said it’s no problem, he will always be happy to teach someone how to spend money.
These were my take-home donuts. I can’t exactly say that sustained temperatures of 112 degrees improved them, but they were still delicious the next day. Outside of Gila Bend I rode through a huge dust storm and then heavy rains. I wrapped the box in plastic bags. The donuts were fine.
You can see my cut-off helmet peak on top of the donut box. I felt bad leaving it in a trash can at a Pilot Station after having ridden with that peak for thousands of miles so I hauled it home at least. It’s still in the garage. You can have it if you want. If I still have it.
Now this was, for me, the best part of the donut shop. I like donuts. But what I really like are stickers and this donut shop had a completely fantastic sticker display completely covering the windows. It was spectacular. I asked Tom if it would be ok to put a sticker up on the window and he enthusiastically endorsed the plan and invited me to find a spot.
There’s Long Dog up on the window. As I was packing up my bike to leave Tom came out and told me he’d look after my sticker.
That’s the donut box after the rain storm. I was soaked. The donuts were not. I was too lazy to get my rain gear out even though I had a complete rain suit and an additional rain jacket. You just stop caring after a while. Wet is just a thing that happens. Things dry fast at 80 mph in 100 degree heat.
It was a great breakfast in Highland Park with Jess, fantastic donuts at the Leucadia Donut Shoppe for second breakfast, two great installations, and a very nice ride.