Baja Adventure Ride NBMC & 2WheelTimes
Combined Stories of Doug Byers and Michael Hannas
Photos by Doug Byers & Rob Rowland
Baja Day Two: Mike’s Sky Ranch to San Felipe
MH: I awoke in the morning at Mike’s to see that the rain had stopped and we were blessed with another day of perfectly-moistened dirt and blue skies. I threw my pants on and staggered over to the kitchen to pour myself a nice hot cup of café. At Mike’s, you just walk right in the kitchen and over to the stove and grab yourself a pot and pour a cup. Thankfully they even had all the sugar and creamer all laid out on the table so people like me who can’t even see straight until they get a few sips down could find it all. I slammed down my coffee, poured myself another cup, and sat down at the table for breakfast. They served us some grubbin’ scrambled eggs with steak and chorizo I’m pretty sure, with beans of course, homemade salsa, and some more of those awesome tortillas. I made myself a burrito and swallowed it down, then went to the kitchen to get one more cup of coffee before they shut ‘er down.
I went back to the room to get geared up and pack my bag back up, then went to do a little bike maintenance before we hit the trail. The ‘ol KX needed a little chain adjustment after so much high-speed pavement running the night before, and I also pulled my seat off and ripped off my Filterskin. It was covered in shiny gold sand, dirt, and mud, but the TwinAir filter underneath looked cherry so it did its job. My oil level looked fine and everything else was good so I buttoned her back up and got ready to hit the road.
DB: I woke up around 6:30am after a solid night's sleep and becoming the undisputed World Snoring Champion. I peeked outside to the sight of clouds rising up off the mountain tops and moist dirt. Apparently it had showered again during the night while I was working to win the Championship, I must have missed it! I think someone special was looking out for us, Danny Hamel we are thinking about you too, RIP. I put on my jeans and a jacket and headed to the mess hall for some self-serve coffee and Mexican style breakfast. We were joined by a group with Wide-Open Baja Tours at the mess hall. Outside we could see at least ten Baja 1000 race-ready off-road buggies with chase vehicles, a spare buggy, spare motor, transmission, shocks, satellite GPS, you name it and they had a spare for it, even spare food and water. The group was on an epic, four wheeled, four day off-road rental adventure. Note to self: “Someday book one of those tours!”
DB: The crew at Mike’s was extremely friendly and accommodating to everyone (lights out Hannas!), and they cooked us a fine meal to start day two. I cleaned my plate, remembering yesterday and how little food we ate. After breakfast we squared up the bar tabs from the night before and did whatever bike maintenance was necessary. I pulled off my Filterskin. It was covered with damp sand and fool’s gold, nevertheless the Twin Air underneath looked fresh. So I snapped the side cover back on, checked my tires, chain, oil levels, coolant, and nuts and bolts. It’s a good thing because my kickstarter bolt was about two turns from falling out. I opened my fanny pack and found my blue Loctite and a wrench to tighten her up. That was a perfect example of why you do a nuts and bolts check prior to riding every day. When that bolt falls out about 15 minutes into our ride today, I would've risked the chance of losing my kick starter. Yeah I have a magic button on the KTM, but without the backup of a kick starter you are asking for trouble. Just ask Brad Seder our Beta 525 rider about his charging system. It failed from the new lighting system he installed, resulting in a dead battery and no magic button. Good thing the Beta had a kick starter. We finished our maintenance, geared up and got ready to rip. We fired up the bikes to the dismay of Mike’s dog, which started barking crazy and acting like he was going to bite us when we tried to leave. I guess he just wanted us to stay longer. We took off down the hill and turned left to cross the Rio San Rafael Creek and hit some sweet single track leaving the Ranch on our way back north to Trinidad for fuel, from which we were heading southeast toward the famous Laguna Diablo. On our way to Trinidad we did some sandy single track which was so much fun, we were ripping along in 2nd & 3rdgear not using any front brakes, just slamming the sand berms, and roosting to the next turn. We did this for 20 minutes or so and worked up a hell of a sweat early in the day, until we came back to the main road to Mike’s.
MH: We took off out of Mike’s and crossed the creek, then started ripping up some of the sickest single-track I think I’ve ever ridden up the mountains across from the ranch. We weaved and twisted our way up the hill around cactus and over some nasty rocks, then ripped up to and around a huge boulder bigger than most of the houses we saw during the trip. Although this tight section was just at the limit of being too tight for my super-tall gearing and I was trying not to abuse the clutch or smash something on one of the deadly rocks, this was one of the sweetest sections of the ride. It didn’t really last that long until we popped back up onto the road, but it was definitely enough to get warmed up.
We ripped down the dirt road back towards Valle de Trinidad to get fuel again before heading south towards San Felipe. We turned back off the road after a little ways and started tearing up some more sweet single-track in the flats and washes along the road. The sand was perfectly wet and tacky as the trail weaved in and around the small scrub bushes and cactus, with a few nice rocks buried here and there just to make sure you weren’t getting too comfortable. This was another one of my favorite sections so far; it seemed like the more we rode in Baja the better it got.
We popped back out onto the dirt road and started ripping again. Froman was leading the way again with DB and me in tow as we blasted the dirt road like we were racing the Baja 1000. DB waved me by after awhile, he probably felt bad about the meteor he hit me with the day before, and I started chasing Froman. We were shredding down the road, over the crests and around the fast sweepers pretty good, just having a blast. I went to dive to the inside on a nice clear left-hander where I could see there was no one coming the other way and started to hammer the throttle to blast out when suddenly I was way too sideways. I tried to save it but I swapped to the left, then back to right, and finally back to the left and onto the ground on the edge of the road right in front of a huge rock. Thankfully I landed right on my backpack after flipping through the air, so the landing was actually pretty cushy, but my stainless steel water bottles had ejected themselves fifteen feet down the road! DB was right behind me so he got to see the whole thing, he was laughing pretty hard once he saw that I was OK and laughing myself. Pecore cruised up and stopped, took a look down at the tracks in the dirt and me trying to pick my bike up with my ejector bottles laying down the road, and with the wisdom of a true Baja Vet says, “Wow. That must have been a pretty good one. Look, your bottle is way over there!” Once again, he was right; it was a pretty good one.
DB: We regrouped and sent the B group off on their route, while the A group ripped up the road a bit before finding a wash to follow the back way into Trinidad. On our way up the main road, we were all going at a fast clip again, duh, roosting every corner and ripping fat wheelies over every clear rise. I was following my Baja brother and riding "buddy" Hannas when he put on a show to remember! I was just outside his roost zone a few feet apart on the gas over a slight uphill left-handed sweeper in 3rd gear, when all I saw was the BIG # 2 on Hannas left side plate blocking the road at 45mph still on the gas! I let off and applied some brake to get ready for the show. Hannas, still hanging on for dear life and determined not to let me by, must have grabbed a big handful because his fire-breathing KX450F bucked him sideways on the moist exposed-granite surface coming up out of the sandy road surface and then swapped him sideways in the road to the right, full side plate view, and as he’s still trying to save it, it swapped him one more time to the left, full side plate view again, before he hit the “high-side ejector boosters” on his backpack. Off went Mr. Hannas at 40mph, water bottles launching from his bag 20 feet in the air at the same speed, with Hannas landing squarely on his backpack and gear to make for a cushy landing then tumbling up against a four-foot square rock on the side of the road. I parked my bike and ran over, yelling, “Are you OK?” Hannas nodded yes and did an extremity check, “Everything is working, I am OK!” he yelled. Phew, then both of us started busting out laughing and describing the 5-minute crash he just did looking at the marks on the road...with the booster bottles and all as Pecore rolled up.
MH: I grabbed my water bottles, had DB help me put them back in their slots in my bag, fired up the KX and took back off after the rest of our group. We were now down from ten guys at the start of day one to only six. Steve and his buddy Carl decided to drop down to the C group since Steve had no clutch on his XR, and Carl wasn’t going to leave his buddy behind; and we had already left the Brokebike Boys in Heroes de la Independencia the night before. We caught up and all stopped on the road so we could take off a layer of clothes since we had dropped down into warmer conditions. I got to retell the story of Bail #2 for me, and we all had a good laugh at my expense.
The Seis Amigos de Motos, as we were now known as in my mind at least, dropped down off the road into a huge sand wash and started blasting up it. Froman and Pecore said we could follow it all the way to Valle de Trinidad so we all started ripping. DB and I tried to keep up with Froman but it seemed like our bikes had anchors attached to them and his XR had a supercharger as he started to disappear. The sand was pretty deep with big rocks buried in it here and there just to keep it interesting, and we were ripping in fourth gear for me, and probably fifth for Doug when Roger comes blasting past us like we are parked, hanging off the back of his bike WFO. When I saw him coming flying past and noticed his extreme body position I realized why my bike felt like I was dragging a truck behind me. I got my butt back up over the rear fender and sure enough, the ‘ol KX started floating up on top of the sand and picking up RPM. Thanks Rog for the clinic.
DB: After we gathered up the pieces from the Hannas show, we remounted our machines and rode to the group where they were waiting for us. We turned into the sand wash heading towards Trinindad and some fuel. The sand wash our guides chose was a blast, 4th and 5th gear WFO with sand berms and some medium sized hidden rocks to make sure the steering damper is working. Roger and Froman were making it look way too easy as Roger came flying by me pinned, hanging off the back fender leaving a three-foot roost of sand! I followed for a little bit then had to back it down some so I didn’t hit the ejector button myself. We made it to the end of the wash and Froman and Roger were discussing our route options. We raced along some WFO two-track until we found Highway 3 again and hit the pavement for a couple minutes, then came into Trinidad the back way.
MH: We cut through some farm land and down some dirt roads into the back side of Valle de Trinidad, and cruised down the main drag to get a soda and some snacks. As we were cruising into town we saw a Hummer full of Federales with M-16s parked at a market, we waved and they waved back. It is kind of funny, but the Federales seem to try to pack as many guys as they can in one Hummer; they’d have the whole inside full and like five guys standing in the back, just like we see from the Hispanics here in California. I guess they must have more soldiers than they have Hummers for.
DB: We came up the famous street in Dust to Glory where the two trophy trucks were racing side-by-side at over 100 mph when at the end of the street one of the trucks used the big motorhome parked on the outside of the turn for a berm slamming into it and knocking some pieces off as the trucks roared away and the fans screamed in excitement! Except this time instead of a big motorhome, there was a Hummer full of machine gun toting Federales. We waved and they waved back and thank goodness no one was screaming in excitement! We traveled up the road a little farther to a local market for some sodas and snacks. There were some young kids walking on the street with their mom, we called them over and gave them some stickers. They were all smiles and thanked us in Spanish. We hit the Pemex station and refueled before leaving town. No one took cuts this time! I don’t get it…
MH: We stopped at a small market to grab some snacks and sodas; I don’t ever drink any type of soda at home but I had my fair share of little Coca-Colas in the sweet glass bottles while we were in Baja. For some reason they just taste so good, but remember not to try to take the bottle or they will chase you down to get it back.
We met up with the guys from the B group there at the market and I got to tell more people about my bail, then we all headed up the road to the Pemex to get fueled up. We took off from there south on Highway 3 again towards the pass and Laguna Diablo, aka the dry lake bed. We ripped some sweet dirt road that skirted the right side of the road, then crossed over and ripped some sweet stuff on the left side of the road. We stopped to take a picture by the sign at the turnoff to Mike’s since it was dark the night before when we passed it, and then kept heading down the road. We cut off to the left side of the road again and ripped some rocky, sandy trails over the pass until we hit the highway again and gathered back up.
DB: We headed southeast on Highway 3. We took a mixture of pavement and two-track speeding to the turn off of Highway 3 towards Laguna Diablo. Mind you there are no signs out here, just dirt roads, so our guides pointed down this dirt road and said it will take us the right way. We grouped up and took off in pairs, since this was one of the only sections that had some dust. It also had some nice whoops, we pounded that section for about an hour before the road opened up and it was wide open as far you could see. We reached Laguna Diablo; we had made it, now to find the famous shack on the dry lake bed.
MH: With only six in our group and little dust, we didn’t have to wait long for everyone to gather and we crossed the highway and headed down a really sandy whooped-out road towards the lakebed. Once we hit the whoops, Roger came flying by again like he was in another gear and took off after Froman. The whoops didn’t seem to be too bad in the beginning, but as we got a few miles in and I got more and more tired it seemed like the whoops were just getting bigger and bigger. Usually I can blast through a whoop section on the moto track pretty good and recover enough energy around the rest of the lap to blast through them again for ten seconds. Faced with a never-ending road of whoops that were only getting bigger, I knew I couldn’t attack them much longer. Once it was no longer possible for me to try to attack them, I just tried to relax and be smooth as I rode up and down them, but that seemed to take even more energy and take twice as long! I cranked up my Scotts damper two clicks and tried to attack again as hard as I could for as long as I could, knowing that there was some sort of shack with cold refreshments waiting for me somewhere in the lakebed at the end. Somehow I managed to make it through without swapping myself into the ground, most likely thanks to the Scotts, and rode up to Froman, Roger, and DB, who were waiting with Lago, who was one of the guides for the B group, at the edge of the lakebed.
Since I had a four-speed and was limited on top speed, Froman told me to head out across the lakebed to Jose’s Beer Shack with Lago, who was on an older Husky that I guess didn’t do much past 100 mph either. I didn’t need to be told twice to get a head start to the cold beer, so I fired up the KX and pinned her towards the beer shack. Lago and I were ripping about as fast as my KX would go, which even in the salty dry silt on the lakebed had to be over 100 mph, for what seemed like almost ten minutes, right next to each other. It was pretty cool going that fast and looking over at the guy next to you and how fast it looks like his bike is going. The only bad thing is after running your 450 WFO for over five minutes; the rest of the ride just doesn’t feel that fast anymore. Finally a circle of bikes and a small shack appeared out of the lakebed up in the distance, almost like a mirage, and we were at Jose’s Beer Shack. I hit the binders and parked the KX up against the tree branch and barbed-wire fence, and went into the shack to grab a nice cold Tecate.
DB: We all took off at warp speed as fast as the bikes would go; I saw 108mph a few times chasing Froman's XR650R that was just motoring away. Dang 650s! We did this for about 10 miles and covered some ground quickly. In the distance on the right, I could see this massive mountain range stretching up into the sky and in the distance on the left was a little plywood shack with a group of motorcycles. “That must be José’s Beer Shack!” I yelled in my helmet, “WhooHoo!” Dave started laying his 650 over to the left still hard on the gas spraying a three-foot wall of roost and I am on his inside doing the same thing. He pulled off to the right and started to ease up. Not me, I am going to put on a little show for the boys already at the shack. I see the group standing there, with some bikes lined up along a fence. So I think, “I will come in hot, slide it in sideways supermoto style and stop next to the parked bikes, no problem right?” Well, there was a big problem, as I was still going at least 95mph when I decided to let off and hit the brakes, which isn't your normal trail speed of say, 30mph, that this crusty tree-slammer is used to. I missed my brake marker big-time and hit the brakes as hard as I could trying to slow 600lbs of momentum from warp speed. She was starting to lift the rear tire and slow but not fast enough; then my eyes started to get real big as I saw the barbed-wire fence and bikes in my path approaching too quickly. I just needed another five feet and it would have worked out perfect, but instead I crashed into the two bikes parked on the barbed-wire fence and fell into it myself, piercing my hand and causing instant laughter from the group that had watched it all unfold...Lasting impressions, that's my motto! As I laid there with my bike pinning me against the barbed-wire fence, Ron ran over screaming, “Don’t let my bar hit the ground, don’t let my bar hit the ground!” Damn, I didn’t realize this bail rule was so serious, sorry Ron! After Ron picked up his CRF450X, he turned to me and asked, “Are you OK?” I nodded as I felt the pain in my left hand as I pulled it from the rusty barbed-wire fence and the barb that got me. I picked up myself and my bike, recorded another bail, recalled my last tetanus shot was about a year ago (phew), and was ready for a cold one after that performance.
MH: I came back out and walked over to the group of guys who were hanging out, which was the whole B group. As we started to talk about how sweet it was to rip wide open across the lakebed, we saw Froman and DB blasting towards us at well over 100 mph. Froman sat up and hit the brakes but DB was still pinned as he started getting pretty close. I started to think to myself, “He ain’t gonna get that thing slowed down before that fence!” as Byers slammed on the brakes and skidded for probably 100 yards before parking his KTM and all 6’6” and 260 pounds of his body and gear in the barbed-wire fence, traveling at still probably ten miles per hour, knocking down two bikes and almost the whole fence in the process! I guess he needed 105 yards. The whole group was watching and gave DB a big cheer as he dismounted and climbed out of the fence. I think I heard someone remark, “Damn, he must have been thirsty!” as I walked over to help Byers pick up one of the bikes he knocked over and wrestle his orange beast out of the barbed wire. DB had a nice wound on the inside of his wrist from the barbed wire, so I did what any good buddy would do. I went and got him a nice cold Tecate.
We all chilled out and enjoyed our cold Tecates while taking in the beautiful scenery from the lakebed. We could see the Parque Nacional de San Martir up in the clouds above the mountains to the west, and nothing but desert to the south. Our guides explained that we had started the day at Mike’s on the other side of the mountains and ridden down and all the way around the north side of the range basically to where we were in the middle of Laguna Diablo.
DB: We got our cervezas and snacked on some jerky and energy bars while taking in some of the breathtaking scenery Baja has to offer. After some more photos, we geared up to do some more wheelies and big figure-eights on the massive dry lake bed. After a few minutes of playing we were off towards the dump road and San Felipe. We rode hard and fast as we covered more miles of two-track and whoops, and on our way we came across some intersecting roads, and a local or two driving the back county just hammering their vehicles. Our guides were right again: always expect the unexpected in Baja.
MH: We finished up our refreshments and got back on the bikes, heading south out of the lakebed. We played around a little bit as we were leaving the lakebed, weaving in and out of bushes and drifting with both feet on the pegs at close to 100 mph. That was pretty fun but soon I saw DB taking off down the sandy trail south out of the lakebed so I took off after him, thinking he was following one of our trusty guides as we ripped down some more sandy two-track with those sniper rocks hiding in the sand for a few miles. I began to notice that it was getting a little dusty behind us but there was no dust at all in front of us. I guess DB noticed this too, because he finally slowed and pulled over as I yelled, “Bro, I think everyone is back there!” We hung out for a minute until Roger came flying past and pointed ahead like we were going the right way, so we chased after him until he stopped. We pulled up and Rog goes, “Uh, I think we were supposed to turn back there somewhere.” We sat for a minute and didn’t hear any bikes at all, and I started to think that we must have gotten really lost. We decided to fire the bikes up and head back down the trail, and not more than a few hundred yards back down the road we turned around a bend and saw our trusty guides Froman and Pecore sitting there, waiting for us patiently at the trail split with their engines off. No wonder we couldn’t hear them. Froman and Pecore gave us a quick scolding about not stopping and waiting at intersections. We tried to blame it on Rog, but they weren’t having any of that.
Rob pulled up and we headed down the sandy road towards San Felipe. There were some fast open sandy sections and some more whoops as we headed south along the mountain range, then we came to another split and gathered back up. Once we had stopped I realized that I could now see the clear blue water of the Sea of Cortez off in the distance, as well as our destination of San Felipe. I guess Froman must have been getting sick of me asking how far it was to the next stop, or how far we had gone since the last stop, for basically the whole trip, since when I asked him how much further it was to San Felipe, he replied, “Oh, probably about 65 miles or so.” I replied, “Well, we must have some really good visibility today then huh since I can see it right there buddy,” and quit asking questions that didn’t really need to be asked.
DB: We found our way onto the dump road and the home stretch into San Felipe, they call it the dump road because thousands of locals drive to this area and dump their garbage and trash into the desert, right off the sides of the dirt road and sometimes in middle of the road. You have to see it to believe it, just this huge expansive desert and trash everywhere for as far as the eye can see. It will take a long education process for this to change. Trashed California is pristine in comparison.
MH: We fired up the bikes and headed down the road that split to the right, which took us through some more sand whoops of course. Eventually the whoops got smaller and then all of a sudden there was trash all over and around the road. There were bags of trash, trash just sitting in the sand, old tires, couches, you name it. I figured out this was the old dump our guides had warned us about and made sure to try to avoid running over anything that could cause a flat. I guess in Mexico a dump is just a spot in the desert where you drive out and dump your trash. They didn’t seem to be too concerned with burying it or burning it like those of us that live North of the Border, they just threw it out and left it on the ground. It seemed like we were riding through trash for miles, dodging broken beer bottles and burnt up pallets like they were land mines. Finally the trash stopped and we could see the highway and San Felipe up ahead. We stopped at the end of the dump road before the highway to gather back up before we cruised through town.
As we were sitting there waiting for Rob and Pecore to roll up, DB pointed out the police station across the street. We noticed that la policia en San Felipe drive Dodge Chargers; it was pretty funny that the Mexican cops have faster cars than the Ford piles our fine boys in blue get to drive back in the states. When Pecore and Rob pulled up we took a quick vote, and it was unanimous: to the Miramar for some refreshments and fish tacos it was.
Log on tomorrow for the rest of Day Two of our Baja Adventure…
