Mike’s Rancho in the Sun

Day two, and lots of sunshine

“It never rains in Southern California”. Whoever wrote that song had obviously not been to Baja or they would be unemployed to this day. Anyway, we woke up at Mike’s, glad for the diesel heaters ‘cause it really got cold that night (we were at 5000 + feet), but somewhat apprehensive about the day’s ride ahead of us.

We all wandered down to the dinning room for breakfast (it was a “group feed”, again) and had our sixth Mexican meal in a row. If you are beginning to sense that I was getting a little tired of Mexican food—you’re right. In fact, I skipped this meal (those of you that know me, know that I don’t skip many meals).

Tim, Chris, and Tom, our tour guides, worked on the bikes, got the gear and truck straightened out and by early morning we were ready to go. Everyone was apprehensive about freezing on the ride (it hadn’t started to warm up yet). At first, I overdressed, but before we left, I “layered down” to a bicycle “wicking” shirt, a sweatshirt and my KTM jacket (not an enduro jacket). At the first stop (about a mile later), I was out of the KTM jacket and for the rest of the ride that day I wore the bike shirt and the sweatshirt. The next day, I wore the bike shirt and a MX jersey. So here’s the hot setup on clothes if you take this trip this time of year:

· Good rainsuit

· A “wicking” shirt underneath to get water away from your body or…

· Thermal underwear (if it gets exceptionally cold and/or wet)

· A sweatshirt or better yet, a fleece lined vest (what Tim wears)

· A good warm enduro jacket. I’m pretty sure I could have gotten by with just the enduro jacket and the bike shirt on the sunny days.

· A waterproof back pack to put stuff in and take stuff out of; i.e., if you’re still riding when the sun goes down, you’re going to want as many clothes back on as you can get, ‘cause it gets cold in a hurry in the desert.

The ride…

We rode for a short way on “fire roads” and finally, we got off the main roads. Marc, Bobby and I were still lobbying for “single track” and kept telling Tim that Jennifer (his wife) had promised us that single track or we could get our money back. Tim wasn’t buying any of it, because of the mixed riding skills of our group, but soon we were on some pretty decent trails that I would classify as rough “ATV” trails back east. We had a blast on these trails, as least I did, and they were some of the best riding we had on the trip. The rest of the morning we spent riding these types of trails, and more fire and graded roads.

Catching air on the XR400

Lunchtime found us at—you guessed it—a Mexican restaurant (Mexican meal number seven). And guess what we had? That’s right, tacos and burritos. But this turned out to be the best food on the whole trip, or else everyone was just ravenous from all the exercise, high altitudes, and good times. Everyone pigged out, got lazy from all the food, and was ready for a siesta (see how easy it is to get settled into the Mexican mañana lifestyle?).

Tom showed up with the truck and the spare gas, which was fortunate, since the gas station where Tim usually gets his gas was bone dry (a common occurrence), SOB (South of the Border). I’m sure everyone has heard the horror stories about how bad Mexican gas is, so I asked Tim about it. He said that sometimes you can get bad gas, but mostly it’s OK, and the bikes run fine on it. What you don’t want is a highly tuned bike with high compression that takes high-octane gas—then you could be in trouble if you had to use Mexican gas.

A ride up the Pacific…

The rest of the afternoon we spent riding along the Pacific Coast. In case some of you readers haven’t got a clue where the Baja is, it is, at least the part we were on, south of the US (SOB) and forms a peninsula with the Pacific Ocean on one side and a bay on the other. Most of the roads we rode (some were quite good, graveled and graded) were part of the Baja racecourses. On most of these roads, the race trucks could make great time on because the roads were in such good shape. If fact, they had run a race recently as many of the arrows were still up. Some of the course even ran through the small villages we rode through, which has to be a scary situation when you have those monster 4wd trucks coming through.

Since land closure and usage is such a big deal in the US, I asked Tim how on earth did SCORE and the other sanctioning bodies get permission to hold the races. He said that they get permission from each Providence, which in turns reimburses the individual landowners, towns, etc. He said it wasn’t unusual to find a rancher with a shotgun at the closed gate to his land waiting for the first race vehicles to come along. The rancher hadn’t been paid and wouldn’t open the gate until he was!

Apparently there is more and more pressure on the authorities concerning off-road riding in the Baja, just as there is in the US. Tim was careful to erase our tracks anytime he left the main roads to ride trails in an effort to hide the trails from all the other vehicles. In the Baja, as it is here, the four-wheel trucks and ATV’s can do a 100 times more damage than a motorcycle will do. Tim also closed all the gates that we went through and even took the time to repair some of them that had seen better days.

Bobby and me. Tim’s in the background

repairing a gate before we go through.

Anyway, the ride after lunch was more uneventful but the sightseeing along the coast was spectacular. Most of the coast is undeveloped, and generally unspoiled, although, the first thing you are struck by is the amount of trash lying along the highways--everywhere. Mexico definitely needs an anti-litter campaign.

We ended up in a small town somewhere—I don’t even know the name, but the motel we stayed at had a good bar, so we proceeded to test their Margarita-making abilities (are you beginning to see a pattern here?). Dinner was once again Mexican (number eight) and after dinner we hit the bar again. Thank god we were in a small town, because everyone was itching to go hit some more bars, but there weren’t any to hit! Anyway, by now you know that I’m not a night owl, so after the day’s ride, the Margaritas and the Mexican food, I was ready for the hay. I wandered on off, slept like a baby, and only later did I learn that Tim passed out earplugs to everyone because the motel was right beside a busy road and the trucks tended to keep everyone awake. You don’t need no stinking earplugs when you got a tank full of Margaritas!

Next…the ride back