LOS ANGELES TO LAS VEGAS: My new motorcycle & a roadtrip from California to Nevada

Los Angeles, the city of angels. A place where dreams are coming true. And the city where my next journey was about to start. Get to know my new motorcycle, visit the best motorcycle workshop in town with me, meet old friends, and join the ride through the Los Angeles forest all the way to Las Vegas. I traveled to the United States of America to stay a few months to visit family and friends. Neither having a plan nor a motorcycle. I am at the COVID vaccination center today and I'm getting my second dose. Unbelievable, I'm so happy. Only a few weeks later this happened. I had bought a motorcycle and was on the road again. But wait, let's start where it all began. In Los Angeles in California. Welcome to LA, the city of angels, Hollywood, of celebrities and wannabe actors. But my star was nowhere to be found near a movie studio, but in the city Cyprus in California, where I was about to pick up the real protagonist of this series. So I just picked up this beautiful motorcycle here and that's part of the Yamaha team here. And that's the nice guys who shot a video with me. Upon my arrival in the United States, I tried to find a company that would rent a motorcycle to me for a month. But either all their bikes were already taken or it was way too expensive. So I started to research the market for used motorcycles and planned to resell it after ending my trip. I didn't find the right fit. So I tried to get a new Yamaha Tenere 700. In the end, Yamaha USA sold me an equipped Tenere from their press fleet. Yes, I bought another Yamaha Tenere 700. And no, I have not yet sold it again. So these are my first meters of riding with my new motorcycle. Oh my God, can you believe it? I just bought another motorcycle. How crazy is this? I'm very close to Venice now in Los Angeles and I will visit a very good friend. Yes, I know this road. I stayed here on my road trip and those of you who read my book will know who I'm visiting now. The first time I met Tim and his friends in Uzbekistan on my world trip, when he offered me a place to stay once I would reach the United States of America, I didn't think twice. And you can guess it. We have been friends since then. And here he is. That's Tim. Hello. How are you doing? Oh my God, I'm so equipped. I feel like an astronaut. Yes, you are, yes. Oh, I love it. Hello, we can even hug because I'm vaccinated too. Yeah, me too. I'm double vaccinated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great to see you. Oh, it has been a while. Yeah, I thought you had one of these already. Yeah, I do. Now I have two. Look who's riding my bike. So let me introduce you to someone. This is my friend Tim and we met in... Uzbekistan. We met in Uzbekistan. I of course wanted to see my friend Tim again, but he as well offered to help me to connect my GPS. And helping me in this case meant that he would install it while I would take videos of him and watch him work. Take this. I'm gonna route this wire through the bike. So here's something we should talk about. Something serious. Yeah. The serious thing that Tim wanted to talk about was the decision to connect the cables of the GPS with a connector or just hot wire them. We decided to try to find a connector and to have a ride in Tim's very special car and visit some friends of his in their workshops. Are you at your shop? I'm out with my friend Leah and I'm just gonna run to see if I can find a connector, like an electric connector. The place that Tim took me to in search of our connector is a big workshop where several customizers have their space. Restore old bikes or build completely new motorcycles. So we got all kinds of bullshit here. I love it. For example, Mike restores vintage bikes but couldn't find the connector we were looking for. Then I can't help you. Yeah, no, if you don't have it, you don't have it. You gotta do some work. Or Hutch from Hutch Built Motorcycles. Kawasaki Ninja GPC 900R. The one that Tom Cruise rode in Top Gun. Wow. I'm building this exact replica of the Top Gun bike for a hotel in Oceanside. Cool. Who as well makes amazing off-road bikes. Or Willie, whose motorcycle studio is called Wise Performance. Yeah, I've known Willie since he was a teenager. Oh, really? 19, yeah, 18. He's like part of our family. Okay, nice. This is the one you want to take a picture of right there. And it looked like we got closer to the solution of how to connect the wires of my GPS. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Did you find the right one? For finally connecting the GPS, we got some moral support. Jesse, who has the brand Meridian Child Motorcycle Club. Look at these two people. In the end, Tim decided to not use any of the connectors we got from the workshop and just do it the traditional way. Look who's riding off here. Goodbye. But it was a day very well spent. So nice to see my friend Tim again. And tomorrow we will take off. So on this first two weeks of my trip, I will not be alone, but I will introduce you to everyone tomorrow. This is the first day of a new trip, the first day of a new adventure. Welcome to the journey. The next day started with a big surprise. Tim decided to join the first day of riding from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and offered to be our guide. And you might have guessed it. My travel partner was ready to ride too on a rental motorcycle to join the journey until Colorado with his blonde pillion, who already joined us in West Africa. Off we are. I'm so excited. I have to admit that being three motorcyclists and four people literally feels like traveling in a huge group to me. But I'm so happy and grateful that we all started riding together today. It's so amazing. Did I already mention that I love Los Angeles? You have the ocean and if you ride inland, you end up right on some super beautiful curvy mountain roads. I really think it's the best city in the United States. We are riding in the Los Angeles forest now and look at this amazing backdrop. We approached one of the areas that was hit very badly from the devastating Californian wildfires. Wow, crazy. Look at these trees. I think the last time I saw something like this was in Australia after some very bad fires. Terrible. Just to say, I'm just amazed at how much is burnt around here. So this is the town Wrightwood and I have been here before and it looks like Tim is even taking us to the same or similar breakfast restaurant that I've been to. How nice is that? I didn't know that we would go here. So Tim here behind me just took us on all the amazing roads in the Los Angeles forest and now we're going to... So we're going to go to Las Vegas. Vegas. Viva Las Vegas. With leaving the Los Angeles forest, we as well left a nice riding behind. But since I had traveled California already intensely twice, I wanted to do some kilometers and reach Las Vegas the same day. To be honest, I don't know how much 95 degrees Fahrenheit are, but this is an American bike and I don't know if I can switch it to Celsius. But however hot it is, I tell you it's pretty hot. It didn't take long though until we stopped for a very special sight. Here you see where we go next. It's the biggest thermometer in the... Thermometer? Thermometer in the world. The world's tallest thermometer is more than 40 meters high and stands in Baker, California, the gateway to Death Valley. On their Facebook page, you can guess what will be the first day to hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit each year. When we visited, the temperature went up to 99 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 37 degrees Celsius. We now decided to leave the major highway because my travel partner and me are not going to Vegas. We decided when we were here on the road to head to a city called Boulder, which is a small village southeast of Vegas. And we just didn't feel like having the hustle and bustle to drive into the big city. And Tim will say goodbye soon because he is visiting his family in Vegas. Before we separated, we decided to hit a casino together. So we are ready to hit the casino. Yeah. But this was all the gambling we did on this trip. So now we soon have to say goodbye to Tim, who was leading our day today. We're actually saying goodbye right now. We're saying goodbye. Time to say goodbye. It was so nice to ride at least one day with Tim. I tell you, people you meet on the road are just the best. This is Boulder City, close to Vegas. We decided to stay here because it's very close to some beautiful state parks that we will explore tomorrow. Thanks for joining the kickoff to my new adventure. Are you excited to cross the United States of America with me? If the answer is yes, leave me a comment and a thumbs up under this video. The next episode will take us to Lake Mead and the beautiful Valley of Fire State Park. Tune in next Thursday and continue the ride with me. Get to go.