https://andyandnoreen.com/tequilasunrise.htm
Tequila Sunrise Tour
Jan 12-14
Los Angeles-Ensenada-Mexicali-Los Angeles
Hello all! Thanx for visiting. Instead of using slide shows to tell about a trip, we're high-tech! This is the report & pictures from a trip Noreen & I took Jan 2001 through Eaglerider, a chain that rents Harley-Davidsons and also runs overnight tours.
The trip starts in LA., to Ensenada, Mexico, then to Mexicali and then back to L.A.
It was lots of riding (we clocked 661 miles on our odometer in 3 days) and lots of fun!
Pics Page 2 has photos now...check it out!
Links...
CA Motorcycle Saftey Program - these guys trained me to ride!
Nick's article in the Evening Standard
This is the new and improved version...read this again, I've changed and added stuff.
Rain. Hail. 2 dropped bikes and 1 crash. A run-in with the Mexican Federal Police. Did I forget something? Let me think.....oh yeah, there was snow in the mountains east of San Diego on the ground (fortunately nothing on the road) It was a helluva trip.
The Tequila Sunrise Tour is a 3-day tour put on by Eaglerider that starts at their office near LAX on Friday and runs to Ensenada for the night. Saturday is a quick ride to Mexicali for another stop then on back to L.A. on Sunday. The formula seems like a good idea - bikes (not just any bikes, but brand new Hogs), sunny Southern California and Baja Mexican weather. What else could you want?
So, I write this ride report to tell you all what happened and to save me re-telling the story a billion times 
Wed: (2 days before we leave) The forecasts for LA and San Diego predict lots of rain. We'd been getting our fair share in San Diego, so I did the smart thing and bought 2 rain suits at El Cajon Harley-Davidson.
Day 1 (Friday):
We get up at around 4:30am or so and headed up to L.A. at 5:30. It rains basically all the way up to L.A. At the Eaglerider office, we get checked in and receive our bikes. I was issued a 2001 Heritage Softail with fuel injection (see the picture pages) We were told to be there at 8am, but most of the people showed up after that, which was OK. The first group of riders (about 15 bikes, the 2nd group had about the same amount) took off from L.A. about 10am. After a quick gas stop, we headed south on I-405 towards San Diego. It was raining and the rain wasn't bad, just annoying and cool. (if it had been warm, it would've been almost pleasant) Our speed was about 55-60mph and this was a good pace for our group as we rode thru the rain. It was difficult to see very far, so I wound up watching the taillights of the bikes in front of me and guided off of them, hoping none of them got into a jackpot.
Our first stop was just outside of Oceanside at a rest area along the I-5, which is where we snapped a couple of photos. We then rode down to the San Diego office of Eaglerider where they fed us lunch and Noreen & I bought a pair of new gloves to replace the ones I had that were soaked thru (and never did dry until sometime Monday). The leg of the trip that went from San Diego to the border is where all the fun started. We saw lightning off to the west (probably hitting on the ocean) and the rain seemed to pick up. I also noticed that the rain hitting my face started to hurt a whole lot more. I later decided that it wasn't rain, it was hail after I saw it bouncing off the pavement and my windscreen. In Imperial Beach (just south of San Diego) a couple of cars mixed it up and one was off the road and facing the wrong way. The rest of the traffic slowed down to see what had happened and Nick, a writer from London doing a story about the trip laid his bike down in the confusion. The guy behind him, John, also laid his bike down. Both were fine; Nick's bike suffered some minor cosmetic damage and was ride-able, but John's bike lost a hunk of metal from the primary drive...see the picture. We were about a minute behind the pack because they'd pulled out of the gas station in San Diego without us and came upon the aftermath seeing the cars part around the downed bikes. We pulled over to the center divide and CHP arrived soon afterwards. They stopped traffic and we got the bikes off the road and we all moved over to the right shoulder. The chase truck was about an hour behind us and Nick put his bike on the trailer and Joe took a good bike from the trailer and kept on riding. We later found out that we were on the news as part of all the traffic snarls that happened on Friday after dorking traffic up in the area for hours.
We carried on to the border and after we all got thru, we pulled under a bridge just past the border and Peter (one of the owners of Eaglerider) asked if we wanted to keep on going. There wasn't much answer from us...let's think about this: we've already come about 150 miles in all this crap, we're about 60 mi from Ensenada, already soaking wet and cold. What's the difference? So, on we went! We roared thru Tijuana traffic and after splashing our way thru 6" deep puddles and other garbage, we got onto the toll road to Ensenada (3 tolls at 20 pesos or $2.10 each!) and pulled into Ensenada.
We stayed at the El Cid in the center of Ensenada and we all ate dinner at the hotel's restaurant. For those of the group that didn't eat the lobster at the restaurant, all I can ask is WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YOU? I had steak and lobster and it was awesome. Washed down with a couple (ok, a few. Ok, maybe 6 or 8) Dos Equis beers it was a great reward for the ride to Ensenada. Mike (a rider from San Diego) provided cigars and the evening was almost complete...Noreen & I and Mike and his wife (I'm sorry, I forgot her name!) headed over to Hussong's. Hussong's is a bar in Ensenada that's been there since well before 1900. It's an old, classic cantina/bar and is very popular with the locals. Other riders came back from Hussong's saying they couldn't even get in. We went there and Mike's wife went in and about a minute later, there was a table with 4 chairs, open beers and a waiter rolling up selling us cigars. I had a couple more cervezas at Hussong's then Noreen and I went to sleep. In a warm, dry bed.
Day 2 (Saturday):
After Noreen and I woke up, we watched the news from San Diego and they mentioned that the route we were planning to take up to Julian (in the mountains NE of San Diego) was pretty well snowed in and CHP was requiring chains for cars headed that way. They also said that traffic was really bad. We also sorted out the weather for Saturday's ride by watching the Weather Channel en Español. It was supposed to be partly sunny and 17ºC...a nice day, except in the mountains where it would be cooler.
Nick, despite never having ridden a Hog before Friday, got back on his bike after a little work from the Eaglerider crew and rode the rest of the trip (out-STAND-ing!)
We first stopped for gas before heading out and we got some good pictures of the crew...then it was off to Mexicali. We were on a 2-lane road about 10 or 15 miles out of Ensenada when a Mexican Federal police car tried to get to the front of the pack an then managed to pull over the front few bikes of the pack. Seeing that some of the group stopped, so did the rest of us...the poor cop didn't expect to pull over 30 bikes at once. The first 6 bikes in the pack, including Peter, one of the owners of Eaglerider and a tour guide, passed a truck on a single yellow line (like a US double-yellow). After much discussion, he let us go with a stern warning and he was basically pretty cool about the whole thing...which surprised us all!
We stopped about 50 miles out from Ensenada for a smoke & bathroom break when we got word that another bike went down just outside of Ensenada. The guy was late getting to the bikes and we'd all taken off before he was there. He was trying to catch up to us when he took a turn too fast just outside of Ensenada and went up and down a sheer (70º) cliff face. The bike was wrecked and the guy broke his collarbone and really did in his back. He was released to a doctor on this side of the border on Saturday night and we all hope he's OK.
Just off of the toll road from Tecate to Mexicali was a village called La Rumorosa. We stopped there for lunch and as we gassed up our bikes at the single gas station (it had 4 pumps and 1 was broken...this made it very slow going to gas up), we became attractions for the locals. I suppose it isn't every day 30 Harleys roll thru the village. Just outside of La Rumorosa we paid our 10 peso toll and started on down the mountain through one of the most spectacular mountain roads I've ever been on anywhere. This rode was literally carved out of the mountain on the way down to the valley where Mexicali is. I'm not a fast rider, so I got a chance to enjoy the great views on the way down (and so did Bob & Judy, a couple that works for Eaglerider as tour guides...I want their job ...Thanx for stickin with the slow-poke, guys!) Anyway, we got to the bottom of the mountain and it opened up into this huge valley and a looooooong straightaway; let's just say that I caught up to the group in short order...he-he.
Mexicali is a very spread-out industrial town. Our hotel was the Hotel Lucerna, a kick-ass luxury hotel. The hotel was totally prepared for us - they'd blocked off part of their parking lot so we could park the bikes together in one long row and check-in was a snap. We all hooked up for dinner that night at their Italian restaurant and the food was great!
Day 3 (Sunday):
After we got through customs, a few calls were made and we decided not to take the route that would've taken us through the mountains east of San Diego on a 2-laner, through a great town called Julian; Julian was still pretty well snowed in and we found out later that the CHP was restricting traffic up to Julian; also, Julian was totally swamped with all of the So-Cal people headed up there to see the snow, so it was a good thing we didn't go that way. Instead, we took the freeway - I-8 to I-5 to the 405. The group was hauling ass through the mountains between El Centro and San Diego, and of course, I wasn't going that fast. Nick was back there with me and the chase truck was behind us. Through the twisties, the group got ahead of us...no surprise there. After negotiating the twisties, I left Nick and the truck behind in an attempt to catch back up to the group. (Did I mention there was snow on the ground in the mountains? There wasn't any on the freeway, but we saw some on the sides of the freeway.) I didn't catch up to them, so I'd either passed them somewhere (maybe they'd stopped for gas) or they were really moving out and I was way behind them, and I figured it was the latter. Noreen and I stopped for a bathroom break and called the Eaglerider offices in SD & LA, letting them know we were separated, but OK. Since I knew the route back, they weren't worried and neither was I. In Calrsbad, about 30 mi north of San Diego, Noreen & I stopped for lunch and gas. While sitting in the Subway, I noticed a new Electraglide pull into one of the gas stations on the corner. Then, I noticed a LOT of Harleys in the gas station across the street. The group caught up to US! One of the bikes got a flat tire at a rest stop on I-8 and the rest of the group waited for that to get sorted out before they continued. We joined them for lunch and rode the rest of the way up to L.A.
It took me a couple of days to come down from the rush of the trip! Wow, was it great!
Page 1 of the pictures. To get the fullsized version, click on the thumbnail.
This is a pic of the bikes at the rest stop outside of Oceanside
Andy at the rest stop in his rain suit (best $50 I've spent on motorcycling)
This is a picture from the primary drive from one of the bikes that was laid down on Friday. It's quite obvious why it peed all of it's oil on the I-5 and was un-drivable
These are a couple of snaps of Noreen and Andy at Hussong's Cantina Friday night. No, Andy's face isn't sunburned or red from all the beer - it's from getting beaten to death by hail and rain for almost 6 hours!
Here are some pictures of the gas stop in Ensenada, the first thing we did that morning. It was a great chance to get some good pics...
