Road Trips
Road Trip #4
Lee Timms (@_leetimms)
Myself & Ben, one of our graphic designers, travelled to LA to shoot a bunch of our Summer’19 content. Our plan was simple; leave the studio at 3:30am, fly (and land), grab a quick In & Out, shoot 8 days worth of content & have a laugh!
Following a 13.5 hour flight, we hit the tarmac in LAX ready to pick up the rental & begin our drive out to Palm Springs. We’ve been out there before, but this time we had lot more on the agenda. With more shoots come more driving 1132 miles of it.
Getting out of LA is always a challenge, I’d say it’s as equally famous for its traffic as it is the Hollywood sign. After about an hour on the road the scenery changes dramatically. City skylines turned to vast deserts very quickly, and as the sun went down I could tell this was going to be an amazing shoot. 
Day 1 After some sleep we took a drive over to Back Alley Coffee in Redlands to meet up with Cam (videographer) & John (photographer). We were all there to catch up with John from Craft Union to talk bikes & coffee for our upcoming YouTube series ‘Caffeine & Gasoline’. If we learnt one thing from that first day, it’s that their Nitro Brew definitely wakes you up!
We hung out for bit, then decided to swap the coffee for a quick beer & pizza at Hangar 24 before we started shooting. John showed us some awesome builds that he’s currently working on. His outlook was to make it black & silver, fast & loud, and strip it of anything that carries some weight. He was eager to get out & ride so we spent the whole day shooting & chasing planes at a local strip.
Day 2 We set out for the first main day of shooting, and took the hour and a half drive into the vast 600,000 acres on Anza Borrego. We met up with Eagles of Death Metal drummer, Jorma on his Triumph Scrambler at a little local restaurant. We looked through the moodboard, scoured google maps for some canyons to carve through and set on our way!
We quickly ended up in terrain that looked like something from early Starwars films. We had some fun tearing through the canyons and exploring the vast terrain. 
We had some fun tearing through the canyons and exploring the vast terrain. We then wrapped shooting and started our drive back to Palm Springs. We took a quick detour on the way home to Salton Sea. 
We made it just as the sun was setting and we shot the bikes ripping up and down the beach. We experienced a phenomenal sunset that dropped behind the mountain and left us shooting the last few frames in pastel skies. 
Day 3 This shoot was to hero our brand new ‘Paradise’ shirts. My vision for this shoot had it’s own narrative; a nostalgic looking shoot that referenced mid-century Palm Springs and followed a couple till sundown.
We had an immaculate ’62 Thunderbird lined up, Palm Springs as the back drop and two awesome models to shoot. This day was always going to go well! 
Day 4 We’d got today booked in for myself and Ben to edit some shots but when Cafe Racer Dreams call you to say they’re in town with one of their custom BMW builds and a vintage Porsche you’re not going to turn it down.
We quickly jumped in the car to Huntington Beach to meet Carolina, Jaime and Matt, the lucky owner of the CRD bike. 
We spent the day shooting out the back of an open-top golf cart listening to Bob Marley whilst the Porshe and customs BMW followed! 
We’re going to be in Madrid shooting something really exciting with Cafe Racer Dreams in the upcoming months so watch this space! Day 5
This day was a bit more chilled but we ended up shooting again near Redlands. We got over there and met at our new favourite spot, Back Alley - queue more Nitro Brew! We shot a few bits round there with Cam’s room mate, Sev then all drove back over to shoot some extra bits at The Craft Union with John! I text him to see if he was free to shoot. That guy just loves to ride - any excuse for him!
Day 6 We’d booked an awesome old VW bus to shoot out in a great little cabin out in Joshua Tree. Early morning - i get a message that the owner of the bus has pulled out as he didn’t realise it was Mother’s day! Cam, our video guy lets us use his Jeep as a backup - we had a knock back early on but we were still excited to get to the location and get shooting!
his shoot was art directed to feel pretty nostalgic, a little 70’s. We’d got some really cool raglan and ringer t shirts to wear that had some really retro typefaces on them. I’d got a few rolls of Portra 400 to shoot to add to the look and feel to the shots so i was excited to get going. 
Lindsay (singer/song-writer/model) gave me a call 5 minutes before call time saying that she’d got her car stuck in the sand about 15 minutes from the cabin. An eventful start! We went to get her out but somehow managed to get our rental stuck in the sand too! 
4 hours later we managed to get both cars free from the sand and finally got back to the cabin to shoot!
It was like shooting with lifelong friends. We cracked open some beers at the cabin and smashed out the quickest shoot i think i’ve ever done with the brand. We all ended sitting around the fire, drinking beers and telling stories! A day to remember for sure!
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