More trail riding in the Baja…

We left the small town where we had spent the night about mid-morning, after another Mexican breakfast (well, we are in Mexico) and headed out to ride a similar mixture of trails, roads, and single track.

Today was a little different in that I had purchased a “helmet cam” (for my Christmas present) before we left Richmond and Bobby and I wanted to see how it worked. We didn’t have time to really play with it before leaving Richmond, so this would be the trial by fire. I had “bobwhite-engineered” a pretty trick-mounting bracket for the lens and microphone on my visor, and bought a back pack/camelback to carry water and the camcorder and batteries.

I had been planning the types of shots I wanted for two days. First I wanted to get in the lead, and than have everyone pass me—all the time providing a running commentary on what was going on. In addition, when we were on the hard pack, I got Chris (the Pro-Motocrosser) to blow by and do a fifth or sixth gear wheelie on his XR600, which he could carry for a long, long way.

Everything went as planned, but when we stopped later on down the road and checked out the action, I found that we had mounted the lens (it’s round) so that it was shooting sideways. Also, the lens was pointed straight down at the front fender, even when I thought I was looking straight ahead!

I had made some provision for raising the “angle of the dangle” as they say, corrected the position of the lens so it didn’t shoot sideways, and prepped everyone to do a another take. Everyone obliged, but…

All of you out there in readerland will just have to visualize how neat all this would have been because the second recording wasn’t much better than the first. The problem is that you don’t realize how much your helmet is pointing down, even when you think you’re looking up and straight ahead. Anyway, I’ve since mounted the cam on the side of my helmet at a severe angle in order to compensate for looking down.

Some single track…

Most of the roads we rode were fire-type roads, and in fact, some of the same trail we were on the first day (in the rain and snow). It was amazing how dusty it got, even through it had rained just two days before. The only way to ride in the dust is to just spread out.

Tim took us up one ravine that had me sweating and panting before we got to the end of it, and then he took us on some “single track” that for an Eastern Rider, was diabolical. This trail wound through ravines and hillsides, generally going downhill. The problem was that instead of the small pucker bushes we were normally riding through, we rode through (really around) bushes that were over 6 feet tall. Guys that ride through trees all the time might not think this is such a big deal, until you realize that you can see around trees and can see which way the trails are going to go. We had the hardest time trying to develop a rhythm because you never knew whether the trail was going to turn left of right…very frustrating.

Anyway, when I got to the bottom of the trail, Tim, Marc and Bobby were already there. We waited and waited for the other riders, and because of the way sounds carried we could hear their slow, tortuous progress down the trail. Finally, we heard someone yell, “f*** this s***” which immediately had the four of us rolling on the ground.

When everyone finally got down, Tim said we had to get going as we had about ten more miles of the same stuff and dusk was falling. It turned out to be a joke as we were within a hundred yards of the Rancho Veronica where we had started our trip.

The trip back to the States was somewhat uneventful except that we had to go through a Mexican roadblock; the Army was searching for contraband and drugs. Chris started talking to two of the guards about the motorcycles and then bribed (I mean gave) each of them a pair of Scott goggles, to let us get on our way.

After we got back to the states and had been dropped at our car rental place, Bobby and I had just one thought in mind…find a real American restaurant and have a real meal with bread and meat and potatoes!

Afterthoughts…

1. Bobby and I spent the next four days seeing California (including such landmarks as Chaparral, Malcolm Smith’s store, etc.). We put 1200 miles on the rental car. I would recommend this, or when we go the next time, spending more time in Mexico.

2. Don’t worry about passports, birth certificates, etc., Mexico is an easy place to get in and out of if you look “American” and all you need is a couple of forms of identification (unless you are Cheech Marin and “born in East LA”).

3. Tim tries to tailor his tours to the riding level of his guests, so if you can get a party together, or have enough lead time to go on a tour of guys with your skill level…that’s the way to go.

4. The cost of the 3-day tour, including bikes, meals and all accommodations was $1,250 per person plus, of course, airfare. Tim has tours up to 10 days long.

5. Here’s Tim and Jennifer’s Address:

Baja Bound Motorcycle and Off-road Adventures

POB 461715

Escondido, CA 92046-1715

1-888-664-2252

Fax 1-760-739-9596

E-mail bajaboundmoto@abac.com

Web site www.bajaboundmoto.com

The Tweetybird “Tweet” Rating:

(out of five)

Four and one-half tweets

(only because Tim let it rain and snow on us and didn’t believe us when we told him that Jennifer had said we could ride single track!)

We would go back in a heartbeat!