Ride with Norman Reedus (2016) s01e01 Episode Script

1 Reedus: Northern California is so much different than Southern California.
- Imogen Lehtonen: It's different.
- It's such a different energy.
Lehtonen: Epic cliffs and huge ocean underneath it.
Just from right here we can go ride the ocean, get the sun, and we can go right up into the redwoods and be in twisties.
Reedus: I kind of feel like this is the future.
Cali's the mecca, man.
So many great little excursions on the way up.
Ah! Whoo! - (Reedus laughs) - Lehtonen: This is so crazy.
I'm so happy we found this place.
Anything that makes noise attracts zombies.
Is your dog snoring right now? Is that what that was? - (motors revving) - Man: Are we gonna ride or what? Let's do it.
(theme music playing) Reedus: I was in my early 20s when I moved to Los Angeles.
Just a kid trying to figure myself out.
Dreaming of being an artist somehow.
It was in the late '90s, and I kind of fell into this underground scene of outsiders and rebels and actors.
And then there were the bikers.
(motor starts) I'll always feel at home here.
This is the place where everything came together for me.
The first place where I felt I belonged.
And now? Now I'm pretty damn lucky.
I have a cool job where I get to ride motorcycles and kill zombies.
On the weekends, I just ride motorcycles.
(music playing) Even though this is where I really learned to love bikes, and I rode all the time, I never really had the chance to explore.
That's why I'm so excited to be back.
Taking my first ride up the Pacific Coast Highway.
Announcer: From the Mexican border, the highway runs parallel with the Pacific coast through California.
At times the highway winds along the sheer cliff face above the sea.
Reedus: I've heard that the Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most savagely beautiful roads you can do anywhere.
I'm starting out in LA, then winding 400 miles up the coast, stopping in Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach before ending up in the ultimate biker town, Santa Cruz, where I'm gonna talk bikes and "The Walking Dead" on one of my favorite podcasts.
Before heading out, I'm stopping in Long Beach to pay homage to motorcycle guru Roland Sands.
Roland's an award-winning, record-breaking road racer turned custom bike artist.
He's got a solid rep and towers over the innovative California biker scene.
There's no way I'd miss a chance at finally checking out his shop.
- Hey, what's up, Norman? - Hey, nice to meet you, Roland.
- Absolutely.
- I've heard great things about you.
Welcome, man.
I've heard some great things about you as well.
Yeah, I came over here on this sucker.
- This Hypermotard.
- Sick, man.
Reedus: I'm riding a Ducati Hypermotard 939.
It's got a sleek minimalistic design and sweet "Blade Runner" curves.
That makes it great for navigating through mangled city traffic and cutting loose on the open road.
These bikes, man, to me, they're just, like, the sickest hooligan bike ever.
Show me some of your stuff, man.
I want to see everything.
This is our home, dude.
Wow, it's like a museum.
Man, there are so many bikes crammed in here.
- There are 75 bikes in this building.
- Wow.
We build cafe racers out of Sportsters.
So we have a whole line of hard parts that we sell.
That's a Hypermotard slash 999 Ducati.
This is so "Mad Max" right here.
Super zombie killer bike.
Sands: That's one of the first customs I ever built.
Reedus: This is beautiful.
You pretty much do everything.
Is there anything you don't do? Sleep.
I know that very well.
What's up? Good morning.
Hi.
How's it going, everybody? (camera clicking) When people see your bikes, they automatically know they're yours.
- Kind of, yeah.
- What makes a Roland Sands bike? I think primarily, like, I want to build bikes that work better than the stock bike.
We increase the performance level, better brakes, better wheels, you know, and I think the blending of styles, too.
Like, this bike kind of just kicked off my career in a sense.
'Cause this bike was, like, the blend of sport bike and chopper culture smashed together in one motorcycle.
And people just had never seen that type of approach to a bike before.
Reedus: Wow.
- Is this your pop right here? - Yeah.
My dad started a company called Performance Machines.
So, I mean, when I was five years old, I was at drag races.
You know, I used to go to Laguna Seca and go watch the grand prix back then.
Seca's awesome.
So I can ride one of these? This is the fleet, man.
So we got flat track racers.
Harley softails.
Cafe racers.
This is a Superleggera.
What about this guy? How's this one? This is a BMW nineT.
- Reedus: It's so pretty.
- It's a fun bike.
We did a number plate on the front, moved the oil cooler up so we exposed the breastplate.
Ohlin suspension front and rear.
Custom exhaust, one-off exhaust.
- It's a badass-sounding bike.
- Yeah.
(motor starts) I'll grab your bike and I'll meet you in the back.
All right, cool.
Reedus: Roland's taking me to one of his favorite spots nearby.
Never thought I'd get a chance to ride alongside a legit championship racer like him.
The dude makes crazy, mindboggling stunts look easy.
- Reedus: I've never been here.
- This is my old hood.
- This is your hood right here? - This is where I grew up.
Yeah.
(laughs) (laughs) Yeah.
That was awesome.
Yeah, I like to mess around a little bit.
I'm kind of an idiot.
I will not be doing that.
- Loving this.
- You like it? I like the way this handles and rides.
It's so nice.
Reedus: There's nothing like being on one of Roland's bikes.
It's clear that he takes pride in every single detail.
The machine fits your body like a glove.
This is beautiful, dude.
Where are we right now? - Sands: Palos Verdes.
- Palos Verdes.
This is beautiful up here, man.
Yeah, this is like a ride we do on the weekends.
We come up here.
- And that's Catalina.
- That's Catalina right there.
Spend a lot of time over there.
Is PCH like this? This sort of vibe? It's even a little bit more grand.
It's like the mountains just got like God cut the mountains off and it drops straight down into the ocean.
- Wow.
- It's amazing.
I could live here in a heartbeat.
This is great.
Well, dude, right on.
I'm out.
I'm gonna go head up and go back to work, man.
- I wish I could go with you.
- That would be great.
I would love it.
I might steal your motorcycle and take it with me.
- Go for it.
- (laughs) - I think it likes you.
- Can I take it? Yeah, as long as you get it back, I don't care.
- Eeee! Done.
- (laughs) - Thank you, bro.
- All right, Norman.
Be safe.
- Have fun and take chances.
- I will.
It'll be fun.
("Can't Get Enough" playing) You stand there naked in my blood, I want to gut you This new sensation, as I hang I want to touch you Is this the first time, last time I feel love? Can't get enough, I can't get enough Reedus: As soon as I was on the bike, I felt buckled down to the road.
That kind of connection is super rare, and I was honored that Roland let me borrow it for the rest of the ride.
Now I'm heading to West Hollywood to pick up one of the dopest bikers I know.
Imogen Lehtonen.
Imogen's from New Zealand who came here to open the LA outpost of her family's shop, The Great Frog.
Imogen's family invented the skull ring 40 years ago, and they're still churning out handcrafted, one-of-a-kind pieces to this day.
We met a year ago when she tore through Georgia on a cross-country trip.
She invited me to come ride the PCH back then, and I'm stoked we're finally gonna do it.
- Yay! - Hi, sweetheart.
- Hi.
- How are you? - Good, how you doing? - I'm good.
I'm good.
- It's been a minute.
- Hell, yeah.
- Look at this thing.
- Yeah, right? I took a Ducati to Roland Sands' place, and I liked this so much I kind of stole it from him.
- That is a crazy looking bike.
- Yeah.
So we'll take this up the coast with us.
- I mean, this is yours, right? - Yes.
Well, it's not mine.
I'm borrowing it, but I love this thing.
Reedus: Imogen is riding a custom Harley Dyna T-Sport made by LA's own Powerplant Motorcycles.
With high-set T-bar handlebars and a blacked-out powder coating, this bike is as badass as she is.
This'll be great going up the coast.
- I know, and this has, like, an adjustable windshield.
- Oh, it goes up and down? Reedus: I'm excited to get on our bikes and start the ride.
- But first - Show me your shop.
I got to pick up a ring Imogen promised me.
- Come in the shop.
- This is awesome in here.
Reedus: Did you I mean, this is all you? Yes.
So my uncle and my aunt started it, and my parents my mom and dad met working there together, So I have a jewelry family.
Wow.
Tell me about that creepy skeleton up there in the corner.
- Real or not real? - It's not real.
This is actually our resident only real skull in the shop.
Our London shop is actually built on a plague pit.
So when there was, like, the Black Plague and they had mass graves and they excavated in the basement of our shop, and it was a mass grave.
And a lot of the original skulls we have in our London shop are from there.
What? What? That's sort of creepy.
You need to pick a ring as well.
You've got to have a skull ring.
Can you pick one for me? - I can do that.
- Yeah? I feel like you need a gnarly looking skull.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is perfect for me.
Let's see if he fits.
Are you excited? I'm excited, yeah.
This is my first ring ever.
- And it fits.
- Yeah, this is badass.
Were you wearing all your stuff in Atlanta when we met? On the cross-country trip I wore some of my stuff.
I wasn't as heavily loaded as I usually am when I'm around LA.
That was really fun when you guys all came down.
I had such a good time.
Reedus: And we're going up PCH to Santa Cruz.
Okay, that's the most beautiful ride in California you can do.
There's a podcast up there which is "Motorcycle Misfits.
" Really? I'm scared to hear my voice on a podcast - Your voice is great.
- but it'll be fun.
Tonight, there is an Airstream motor camp - that would be so cool to stay at.
- Oh, nice.
- They deck them out to make them look awesome.
- Where is that? - In Santa Barbara.
- I love Airstreams, but I've never been in an Airstream.
- All right.
- Cool, let's go hit the highway.
Reedus: All right, let's do this.
Lehtonen: All right.
You ready, babe? This changed so much here.
There used to be this place called Damiano's right there.
A pizza place.
It's where I first became an actor.
- It was in that pizza place.
- That's cool.
Reedus: It's true, I really did become an actor at Damiano's.
It's a long story, but let's just say I was in the right place at the right time, and the rest is history.
Now it's time to head north 97 miles to Santa Barbara.
- This is fun.
- I like riding around with you.
It's gonna be even better when we're on the open road, too.
And it will be, like, daytime and, like, beautiful coast.
Reedus: We'll be picking up the PCH in the morning, so we just need a place to bed down.
And the Santa Barbara Autocamp with personal Airstreams couldn't be more perfect.
- This is so cool.
- They match my bike.
Oh, yeah.
I love that they put AstroTurf around, too.
- Yeah.
- All right.
Oh, my God.
They have a bathtub.
- Coffee pot, check.
- It's even got a little kitchen and a mini fridge.
- I'm having this one.
- This is yours? You got it.
Done.
Tomorrow's gonna be, like, PCH.
Beautiful, no LA traffic.
- Yeah, let's hope so.
- It'll be the pretty part.
Yeah, good.
I'm gonna go take a bath in an air bubble.
- (laughs) - Bye! What the (bleep)? You peeper.
- (man laughs) - Little peeper.
- The ocean! Whoo! - Oh, the ocean.
- Are these electric? - Oh, cool.
He built this whole place out of junk.
- He was a garbage man for 30 years.
- Lehtonen: Wow.
- Oh, my God! - (Reedus laughing) (music playing) (bird tweeting) (camera clicking) ("Hollywood" playing) - (knocks) - Are you having a party in here? This is so cool.
I like sleeping in an airstream.
It was pretty cool except for every time you walk by a desk, you clear the desk by accident.
- You know what I mean? - I didn't have that problem.
Yeah, well, you're skinny, that's why.
- All right, let's roll.
- You're not exactly fat.
Not exactly fat? What is that supposed to mean? (music playing) - I'm excited to ride.
- Yeah, it's gonna be nice today.
- (motor revving) - Ready? Wow, it's so pretty.
- So beautiful.
- Yeah.
Reedus: We're headed north on the PCH 104 miles from Santa Barbara to Pismo Beach.
Can you hear me? When do we get to the ocean? I can't understand you.
Reedus: How'd you sleep in that Airstream? I'm just gonna guess at what you're saying.
Something about an alarm clock.
Nothing about Alaska.
(laughs) A baked Alaska.
- The ocean! Whoo! - Oh, the ocean.
- Yeah.
- Whoo-hoo! Reedus: The Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most breathtaking roads ever.
It opened in the late 1920s as part of the Roosevelt Highway, the first road to link the Mexican and Canadian borders.
With its snaking curves and sharp drops, people travel from all over the world to see what makes it so uniquely Californian.
- Look how sparkly it is.
- Yeah.
Reedus: With the ocean right there next to you, man, this is how you're supposed to ride.
I mean, check out that view.
Pismo Beach, 15 miles.
Yeah.
Reedus: Pismo Beach is five and a half miles of pristine sand dunes and one of the only beaches in America you can actually drive onto.
Let's go to the beach.
Reedus: Which is right up our alley.
I'm down to see what kind of off-road action we can find.
Look how pretty this is.
Yeah, this is beautiful.
(grunts) What are these little birds called? Oyster catchers.
They're cute.
Catch one.
How cold you reckon the water is? - Freezing? - I bet it's freezing.
Stay away from me.
That looks like a dune buggy, right? That's cool.
Have you ever dune-buggied? - Never.
- Me either.
- Let's go dune buggy.
- Little dune buggy.
Reedus: Dune buggies on the beach? Right on.
There's no way we're gonna let this opportunity pass by.
How's it going? I'm Norman.
- Glad to meet you.
Robert.
- Hi, Imogen.
- Oh, cool.
Thank you.
- Your first time out here? - First time ever here and on a dune buggy.
- First time dune-buggying.
Part of our protocol too is you have to watch a safety video.
Okay.
What did you do to your screen? - Well - It's beach modified.
It's kind of scary to watch a safety video on this screen.
- You know what I mean? - We're a little hard on things out here.
Man on video: Avoid all wildlife.
Can you imagine trying to run over these little birds? - Do people do that? - They try.
You are assuming all risks for any damage, - injury, or loss of life.
- Lehtonen: This is gonna be fun.
- Loss of life? - Animal life.
Now you're ready to drive the dunes.
(music playing) - Reedus: Shall we hit it? - Let's do it.
What's the fastest one you have? This one? - (laughs) - Have a good time.
- Yeah, I'm excited.
- Thank you.
Reedus: Everybody say "whiplash.
" Man: You guys can go.
Whoo! ("Endless Mountain" playing) Reedus: You ready? Check this out.
Are you serious? Oh my god that looks crazy! Yeah! Whoo! (laughs) This way.
Go right down this big mountain.
Aah! (laughs) - Whoo! - Whoo! Hold on, I got stuck.
I got stuck on this hill.
(laughs) I'm over here.
(Reedus laughs) Whoa.
Whoa, I don't know if I can do this.
Whoo! Whee! Whoo! (Reedus laughs) - Aw! - I'm coming! - I'm sorry, Norman.
- I got you, babe.
I'm driving like a grandma, aren't I? Whoo! This way.
Here we go.
Follow me.
Ah! - (shrieks) - (laughs) Oh! Whoa, airborne.
I just went airborne.
My God! Whoo! Whoo! - I got some air.
- (laughs) Let's go to the big one.
- Oh, (bleep).
- Oh my god.
And good-bye.
Ah! Oh, my God, I want to do this for, like, five hours.
All right, all right.
- That was awesome.
- That was so cool.
(camera clicking) Reedus: I could seriously ride these dunes forever, but we've got miles of highway in front of us.
- Man: Was it good? - Reedus: Oh, it was rad.
- Any time.
- Thanks, man.
Reedus: So it's time to get off the beach and back on the road.
Man: It's basically a place built out of junk.
There's stuff in here from, like, the '30s, '40s, - up until the '80s.
- Lehtonen: Wow.
- This is from "The Walking Dead.
" - That's rad.
- This bike is running right now.
- Wait, it's running right now? - It's running right now.
- Shut up.
- Let's do it.
- All right, all right, all right.
You look so cool.
You're a ninja right now.
Yeah, dune buggies are awesome.
Yeah, dude.
I had no idea it was that much fun.
I feel like I've gained weight in my palms on this trip.
My palms have become meaty.
I think that the dune buggying like, whacking your hands on the steering wheel I think makes them swell 'cause my rings are all real tight.
Yeah, I couldn't get the thing on my thing.
That's why I put the thing on your thing.
- Know what I mean? - Yeah.
- Know what I'm saying? - Know what I'm saying? (both laugh) Reedus: We've ridden 200 miles with another 50 to go tonight.
And this next leg of the ride is magical.
Wow, California sunset right there.
Reedus: See, that's one thing I don't get to see in New York, an ocean sunset that rolls over the waves to the end of the world.
- So beautiful.
- So beautiful.
Reedus: When I first got to LA, I worked at a Harley shop called Dr.
Carl's Hog Hospital.
I did a lot of grunt work, but on the plus side, I got to see a lot of different bikes.
Back then, I always wondered what it would be like to ride up the California coast.
And this is exactly how I pictured it.
I start to daydream.
I just start like, "Ah.
" I have ADDDDDDD.
You know what I mean? (laughs) No.
- Reedus: Good-bye, sun.
- Oh, yeah.
- Feel the cold creeping in.
- Yeah.
Reedus: It sounds like a tornado right now.
I can't hear what you're saying, but I'm happy.
I can't hear what you're saying.
(both laugh) (wind whistling) Lehtonen: Is that an abandoned house? Yeah, it looks like it.
That looks amazing.
Can we go in there? What the hell? - Hey.
- What the? - How you guys doing? - How you doing, man? Norman.
Hi.
- Pretty good.
My name's Mike.
- Nice to meet you, Mike.
Reedus: California is full of weird tourist attractions like Nitt Witt Ridge in the small town of Cambria.
The man who built this place, his name was actually Art Beal, but they gave him a couple colorful nicknames, and one of them was Captain Nitwit.
- Oh, wow.
- He started building in 1928.
He lived in this place till 1989, till he was 92 years old.
Lehtonen: Wow.
- Lehtonen: I love all the stonework.
- Yeah, that's cool.
- See all these handrails? - Yeah.
This was the plumbing system.
They all carried water.
There's handrails throughout the whole property.
He also had a lot of toilet seats, which he would actually use for picture frames.
- (laughs) - Oh, my God.
He called this his woman's room.
- What the? - Wait, who are you? Like, how are you involved here? My wife and I bought this in 1999 from the Art Beal Foundation.
I thought I'd give the Anti-Hearst Castle tour.
William Randolph Hearst built this place in 1919 out of his massive amounts of money, and this is the anti.
This guy was a garbage man in town that took all the garbage from town Oh, so he collected garbage and put this together from it? He got paid as a garbage man.
But now watch your head and I'll take you up this stairway.
Art claimed this stairway stayed 50 degrees.
- This was his refrigerator.
- I feel the chill in here.
It is colder.
- That's his stuff.
- What is that? There's peaches, there's apricots.
There's stuff in here from, like, the '30s, '40s, up until the '80s.
This is so crazy.
I'm so happy we found this place.
As you guys can see, his clothes are still in here.
Lehtonen: Oh, my God.
Mike: People said half the time all he'd be wearing is this bathrobe with nothing else on under it, and he'd walk around town in that thing.
They tell me he got older and it'd get windy.
- Oh, my God.
- (laughing) And this is his two-seated outhouse.
He said he put his and her toilets in here.
He could sit here and have conversations with people.
Lehtonen: What a crazy guy.
He thought he was a swinger, but then he never had kids.
- He has no family? - And he never had any family.
I thought by now, after 15 years I've been up here, "I'm his grandkid.
I'm his" no.
It's weird.
But he liked ladies, and ladies liked him.
- He's, like, an enigma.
- He's kind of a romantic.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Mike: And then a guy with no family or anything created his own legacy with nothing but junk.
Reedus: This dude literally built his whole life into these walls.
Coming up with a way to turn trash into treasure.
There's a toilet on top of the roof.
And people said that's his throne.
He's the king of the castle up there.
Reedus: Even toilet seats.
Thank you for showing us all of this.
- Take care, man.
- Yeah, you, too.
Reedus: This is just the kind of wacky stuff I've been expecting to see since we crossed from Southern to Northern California.
And just a couple miles away from where we're going to call it a night.
Bye, cool house.
("Swing" playing) Everyone is seeing that I'm something else I'm not living on somebody's shelf Reedus: Day three.
There's nothing better than waking up in Big Sur, home of the Bixby Bridge.
260 feet high and 700 feet long, this bridge is a beast.
One of the tallest single span concrete bridges in the world.
And finally, after 400 miles, we're here in Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz is a little town tucked between the Pacific and the Santa Cruz Mountains.
I just like the way the air smells up here.
It's so clean.
Reedus: Surrounded by incredible natural beauty, and with a close proximity to the San Francisco counterculture and Silicon Valley tech scenes, it's the perfect spot for anyone coming to California looking for reinvention.
- Look at that crazy house.
- Yeah, that's beautiful.
It's got a nice eclectic feel.
I hate when cities start taking over and making everything look the same.
Reedus: We're here to drop in on a local podcast.
but first, we're headed to Zero Motorcycles, a pioneer manufacturer of electric motorcycles.
- Are these electric? - Lehtonen: Oh, cool.
For some reason I imagined them looking all crazy different.
Reedus: California is a hotbed of environmental action.
So it makes sense that they made their home here.
- Ready to check this out? - Yeah.
I used to have a dog named Zero.
- Really? - Yeah.
Reedus: Zero's Scot Harden is gonna show us their bikes and take us for a spin.
- Nice to meet you, too.
Welcome to Zero.
- All right.
All right, let's go on back into the belly of the beast.
Harden: This is where all of the main assembly is done.
Reedus: It's weird to go into a motorcycle shop, building motorcycles, and it's not loud.
- It's just super weird to me.
- Yeah.
(laughs) This is where it all started for Zero.
- This is the first electric motorcycle ever built.
- It's like a dirt bike, right? It was kind of cross between an overgrown mountain bike and a motorcycle.
I think it's cool.
I really like that one.
Well, it was the idea of what could we do to change the way the world experiences motorcycles.
What kind of bike did you ride before you got into electric motorcycles? I was a dirt bike rider.
I was born in Las Vegas, and I rode dirt bikes.
And then I started doing all the big desert races.
I kept taking on bigger challenges in Europe and then Africa.
Scariest moment in my life on a bike was in Senegal going down these roads at 80, 90, 100 miles an hour with these bushes that are this tall on each side, and there's animals running out in front of you.
Pigs and ostriches.
You're just thinking, "God, don't step out - in front of my front wheel.
" - That's terrifying.
It scared me to death.
I hit a cow at 80 miles an hour.
- You hit a cow? - I've bounced off the hoods of cars.
- That would mess you up.
- You are so lucky.
I could tell stories.
How's it going, guys? Do you guys all ride electric bikes now? - Do you? - I have ridden some before.
- Yeah? - I ride my own motorcycles mostly.
- What do you have? - Got a Harley and a couple dirt bikes.
Is that, like, the enemy, or is it everybody loves everything? Everybody loves everything around here, yeah.
- Have you gone on one yet? - We're about to try one.
Yeah? Sick, dude.
I hope you like it.
Yeah, I'm excited.
Nice to meet you, dude.
- Nice to meet you.
- Yeah, it's a pleasure.
- How's it going, man? - Good.
Since you're here.
- Lehtonen: Oh, my God.
- Uh-oh.
- No way.
- This is from "The Walking Dead.
" - That's rad.
- So (laughs) - Big fan of yours.
- Thanks, man.
Have you guys ever thought about doing an electric dune buggy? - I want a hat.
- All right.
- Great Frog! - Whoo! That's when I had short hair.
That was way back when.
I feel like I'm the only person whose never (bleep) seen this show.
- I need to watch it.
- Get out of here right now.
(laughter) Bye, guys.
Go to work.
- Go to work.
- Lehtonen: Get back to work.
- Okay, I want to see if I can touch the ground.
- Try it out.
See what fits you best.
What's your favorite color? What's your favorite flavor? Reedus: This is a straight up dirt bike right here.
That's an off-road trail bike, yeah.
- I'm taking this one.
- This is the FXS.
This is the inner city hooligan bike.
- It's very lightweight.
- Lehtonen: It feels light.
Harden: It's only 290 pounds.
I think you'll really like that one.
All the stuff's where you'd normally expect.
- Your turn signal's here.
- Okay.
Brake where you'd normally expect it.
Foot brake.
And then the last thing you do to arm this thing - is hit the throttle switch.
- Okay.
Now that means this bike is running right now.
- Wow.
Wait, so it's on already? - It's running right now? - It's running right now.
- Shut up.
Wow.
- Wow.
- Away you go.
- Ah! - I think we've chosen our weapons.
- Let's go out and give them a whirl.
- All right.
- All right? - Cool.
I can't believe that that was running while we were standing there.
Reedus: It's weird getting on a bike and not knowing how it's gonna feel, but that's what I love about trying out new bikes.
- Harden: Are we ready? - I think so.
Reedus: Scot's taking us up to see the legendary California redwoods.
Whoa.
- This is so crazy.
- Yeah, this is nuts.
Reedus: It's gonna be the perfect way to find out what the Zero is all about.
I'm just this is blowing me away how smooth this is.
It's like your ass is sliding on ice.
(laughs) Santa Cruz redwoods.
- Hi.
- Oh, (bleep)! I just creeped up on you and you had no idea.
No, I didn't.
I was like, "Where's Norman?" Reedus: Sometimes I get on a bike just to escape.
The roar of the motorcycle creates this wall between me and my surroundings.
- It smells really fresh.
- It does.
- Healthy and green up here.
- Like mossy.
Yeah.
Reedus: That's what makes being on this bike so strange.
There's no wall.
It's just you and the world feeding off of each other.
I mean, it's perfect really for, like, going through this beautiful forest.
You're just kind of gliding.
I kind of feel like this is the future.
- I really do.
- Yeah, imagine in, like, 50 or 100 years when, like, cities are smogged up, everything will be electric.
Whee! This is crazy 'cause I can't see the bike.
Does it feel like you're flying? - Yeah, it does.
- (laughs) Reedus: And there's nothing like riding it through the redwoods.
You should try it.
Amazing.
Harden: Go to sport! Whoa! Whoa! Have you put it in sport mode? Yeah, dude, it's like, oh, my God.
- It's terrifying.
- Lehtonen: All right.
Whoa! Whoa! I put it in sport.
It's crazy.
You feel the extra tug.
It's like, whaa! I swallowed my Adam's apple for a second.
(camera clicking) - It was great riding with your guys.
- You're awesome.
- Thank you so much, Scot.
- Imogen, it was really nice meeting you.
- I want an electric motorcycle now.
- Yeah, me, too.
We got more converts.
That's cool.
Cool.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, tell me.
This belonged to my late brother Chris.
He was a huge, huge fan of yours.
Used to have posters of you guys up in the room and everything.
- Oh, man.
- He loved you guys a lot.
And this was actually in the wreck with him.
- That's why it's all mangled like this.
- Oh, dude.
I wanted to see if you could sign it.
It would mean the world to me.
Come here.
Come here.
Yeah, dude.
- Thanks, man.
- Of course.
- Sign it to Chris if you would.
- To Chris.
Of course, man.
- It was a pleasure to meet you, man.
- You, too, man.
- Thanks for coming.
- Yeah, dude.
Yeah.
Be well, dude.
- Ride on.
- Yeah.
Take care, man.
- Later.
- Bye.
Reedus: Hearing something like that just rips me to shreds.
Reminds me that life is fragile.
I'm honored that I got to meet that guy and hear his brother's story.
Ride on, brother.
Lehtonen: This is a pretty town.
I like it.
Yeah, it's really cute here.
Reedus: You know, Santa Cruz has some really cool streets.
This is cool.
Look at this wall.
Reedus: So it's nice to get off our bikes and check out the details we might have missed when we're riding by it.
Hi.
Oh, shut up, hi.
- Good to see you.
- Nice to see you, too.
- Congratulations.
- Do you live up here? - Yes, this is where I live.
- Shut up.
- You guys know each other? - Shut up.
How are you, dude? Nice to see you, sweetheart.
Yeah, what a pleasure.
That lady that just said hi, she was a director on "Walking Dead.
" - What a small world.
Santa Cruz.
- She's awesome.
Still have to watch it.
I'm gonna send you every disc.
- Okay.
- Then I'll send you like a little you'll have to write an essay or something.
How long have you been riding? How did you get started riding motorcycles? I'm into riding because of my dad.
I used to hitch a ride on the back of his bike to university and to work.
He had a BMW Dakar dual-sport thing, and I would jump on the back of that.
And now it's carried on as the inspiration as to why I love to ride.
It's because of my dad.
He died, like, a year and a half ago.
So whenever I ride, it's like - my special time.
- Yeah.
That cross-country trip was, like, the one-year anniversary of his death.
- I remember.
- So it was very, very special thing to have happen.
I like how your family you pass the torch from like how you do your rings and the store.
- Unintentionally, but, yes.
- It's great.
People don't have that.
It's great.
I like that they have shrubberies everywhere.
- A shrubbery.
- Shrubbery.
- Do you like Monty Python? - Oh, my God, I love Monty Python.
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is my favorite movie of all time.
- With the little rabbit? - Yeah.
It goes after his throat.
- "We are the Knights that say Ni.
" - Exactly.
(music playing) (motors revving) It's nice to be back on my own bike.
Yeah, I agree.
Kind of like the rumble, but those bikes were cool, I got to say.
I like how he said, too, he's not trying to replace other motorcycles.
- It's just another experience, you know? - Yeah.
Reedus: Last stop, and I couldn't be more excited.
We're headed over to the Re-Cycle Garage I like Santa Cruz.
home of this really cool podcast called "Motorcycles & Misfits.
" Who doesn't like geeking out on bikes with a bunch of misfits? Welcome to "Motorcycles & Misfits" at the Re-Cycle Garage.
- You guys are getting all Batman on me and stuff.
- (laughs) What's the best bike for the zombie apocalypse? I'm gonna tell you, and you're not gonna like my answer.
(music playing) Reedus: Wow, I love it up here, I got to tell you.
Lehtonen: Love it.
Northern California is so much different than Southern California.
- It's different, yeah.
- It's such a different energy.
You know what I mean? Reedus: My first big California ride is winding down.
But first, Imogen and I are gonna make one final pit stop at the Re-Cycle Garage where a bunch of local bikers put on one of the coolest weekly podcasts on the West Coast.
It's called "Motorcycles & Misfits.
" - Hello.
- What's up? Hi.
- I'm Norman.
- Liza.
- Nice to meet you.
Hi.
- Hi.
Imogen.
- Hey, Imogen.
- Nice to meet you.
These are some nice little rides you got.
This is a little bit nicer version than mine, but you know.
- This is awesome, though.
That's beautiful.
- Thank you.
- I built that one.
- Did you really? Right on.
Yes.
Do you teach people that don't know how to work on bikes how to work on bikes? Yes, but nobody here is a mechanic.
- Oh, wow.
- Everyone helps each other work on bikes.
We teach people how to ride, help them buy their gear, teach them what are the cool movies to watch.
Expose them to the entire culture.
- How cool.
- Yeah, so we've kind of built up this crazy community.
Lehtonen: I like that you have such an eclectic mix of bikes here.
- Liza: Hey, if they can ride, we'll let them in.
- How did the podcast start? When you get a group of people sitting around the garage working on bikes, you have conversations.
We play pranks, we tell stories, we share rides and experiences and opinions.
Wow, that's so cool.
So we thought, "How can we bottle this and share it with everyone? Podcast.
" - We're ready.
- Check, one, two.
- Microphone check.
- Oh, oh, oh, oh.
We are gonna go in five, four, three Hey, there.
Welcome to "Motorcycles & Misfits" at the Re-Cycle Garage here in All: sunny Santa Cruz, California.
- Warm and sunny.
- It was quite sunny.
Liza: Let's get to one of our topics.
What's the best bike for the zombie apocalypse? And we have a special guest here.
Somebody who actually has experience in this field, and I want to get their opinion.
So I'd like to welcome here Norman Reedus.
What's up? What's up? What's up? - Hi, thanks for having me.
- Hey, dude.
Welcome.
I'm gonna tell you, and I think you're not gonna like my answer.
- Oh, yeah? - I think what I would do is I'd get one of these Zero bikes, and I would put a solar panel on the back of it.
(laughing) 'Cause anything that makes noise attracts zombies.
- Right.
- Right? And I caught a lot of flack for having that Triumph with the ape hangers.
I caught a lot of flack, and then I built another bike, miraculously in, like, six hours on that show.
And I get a lot of flack because that one makes a lot of noise as well.
How did you come to have that bike? That's supposed to be Merle's bike.
Did he customize the frame up that high? I guess.
I don't know.
What the (bleep)? - Um - (laughing) - So I would like to make some suggestions.
- Uh-oh, here we go.
First you should consider an anti-theft device of some kind.
- Oh, I like it.
- Just saying.
Second, more mirrors, I would suggest.
It would be nice to maybe see something coming up behind you.
Yeah, I yeah.
Lastly, a machine gun on the front because what bike isn't cooler with a machine gun on the front? Yeah, we've thought about attaching weapons to that thing.
You could just drill a hole in your exhaust and squirt some soap in it and make a smokescreen.
You guys are getting all Batman on me and stuff.
(laughing) How's motorcycling changed you? Reedus: A bunch.
It's changed me a bunch.
Like, I ride to work every day and I think about what I'm about to do and it really gets me in the mood.
And then I ride home.
I think about what I did.
I don't know.
It's almost like yoga or something at some point.
- You know what I mean? - Lehtonen: It's therapeutic.
Reedus: The best rides I think are the spontaneous ones.
I gave an award at the Country Music Awards in Nashville when I was down in Georgia and, you know, they booked me a flight to go there and everything.
And I'm sitting there watering my plants and I'm looking at my bike, and I'm watering my plants, and I said, "(bleep) it.
" And I grabbed the suit, I shoved it in a backpack, wrote all my directions on my arm.
And then I kept going through rainstorms, and I just kept losing them.
But that ride to Nashville is one of my favorites.
(snoring) Is your dog snoring right now? Is that what that was? Oh, my God, that's adorable.
Liza: Thank you, everyone, for listening, and thank you guys for joining us.
Lehtonen: You guys are so much fun.
Thank you.
I was looking for a group ride when I first moved here, and I ran into Zach.
He had a crappy motorcycle but a nice jacket, so I asked him - (laughing) - I was like, "So where's the ride?" And I asked him if they could show me how to change my oil.
- And this is where we are now.
- Yeah.
- That was three years ago.
- Nice.
When I fist showed up, Liza just shoved a broken moped at me and was like, "Here, fix this.
" She does that to a lot of people.
That's how she hooks you in.
She's like, "Oh, here's this free bike.
Just get it running and it's yours.
" - And two years later, I was still here.
- That's cool.
And she's all, "Hey, Dad," when she was 13, "I want to ride motorcycles.
" I'm all, "Hell, no.
" And she's like, "Whatever.
I'll be 18 someday.
" I'm like, "Ugh, yeah.
" So you guys are father and daughter? That is so cool.
Yeah, so then I started hanging around.
And then I just got hooked.
You guys all know what it's like.
You hop on the bike, you're rolling the throttle, - and everything melts away.
- Yeah.
(music playing) Liza: So we're chasing the sun.
- Let's saddle up and do a quick ride.
- Shall we hit it? Reedus: I always feel at home surrounded by a bunch of outsiders.
And California is a magnet.
It attracts people who don't fit in anywhere else.
Everyone's got a totally different vibe here, but their love of bikes ties them together, and I love that.
And the Misfits are doing the rest of us a huge favor bringing these unique bikes back to life.
That's the kind of passion for motorcycles, for life, that has made my ride up the California coast so incredible.
It's not just here.
California is a place where all of us misfits can fit in.
And sure, you're not gonna find roads like the PCH anywhere else on the planet.
Liza: It's empowering to learn how to do something.
If you can build or fix something, what else can you do in your life, you know? Reedus: But California is more than just breathtaking beauty.
It's the people here.
The sense of rebellion you find everywhere you go.
The creativity.
The freedom to try whatever the hell you want.
That's the California I found on this ride.
And that's the California I'm gonna keep coming back to for the rest of my life.
You guys are awesome.
I really love what you guys have going here.
This is really cool.
- Bye, guys.
- Bye! - Bye.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming on this trip.
- It's been a blast.
- You are very welcome.
That was awesome.
Dune buggying.
- Dune buggies, yes.
- Yes, and the coastline and the sunsets.