Baja Adventure Ride NBMC & 2WheelTimes
Combined Stories of Doug Byers and Michael Hannas
Photos by Doug Byers & Rob Rowland
Baja Day Two Continued: San Felipe and More...
MH: We hopped up on the highway and cruised into town. I have to say it is pretty cool just ripping your KX450 down the street like it is no big deal, then cruising down the main drag on the ocean and ripping up onto the sidewalk to park. We pulled up at the Miramar but the gate for the fenced-off motorcycle parking was closed, so we just parked our bikes on the sidewalk in front of the bar. I leaned the KX on a telephone pole as our fearless leaders grabbed us a few tables right next to the bikes. I took off my helmet and finally got my backpack off my back, phew!
We sat down as a nice senor brought out some ice cold Pacificos, while Rob waited for his soda. We sucked down our beers as we took in the ocean view and all of the San Felipe locals. The nice senor came right back out and asked us if we wanted another beer, as Rob was still waiting for his soda. He took one look at Rob as he was asking us this, and all of a sudden turned around mid-sentence and ran into the back. I guess he got the hint from the look on Rob’s face, because he came right back out with a soda for Rob and said he was very sorry he forgot. We ordered some more beers as Roger went on a mission to score us some of San Felipe’s famous fish tacos.
DB: We reached the end of the dump dirt road and hit Highway 3 at the big white San Felipe arches. We rode our bikes into town and stopped at the famous Miramar Bar in San Felipe to wash up and wet our whistles from the long rough trek that started early that morning. The Miramar let us park our motorcycles right on the sidewalk in front of the bar. I like this town already! We ordered some beverages and took in some of the local sights of this beautiful town on the Gulf of California or as the locals call it The Sea of Cortez.
As we are sipping our beers I notice all the street vendors and hustlers walking around, and the locals riding without helmets on motorcycles and ATVs, the adults are speeding up and down the streets pulling wheelies and having races on the side streets for cash. The police are around but choose not to get involved unless you're doing something really stupid like causing fights or being drunk in public and exposing yourself or ripping vehicles down the sidewalks.
All of sudden Roger shouted, “We need some fish tacos!” Fish tacos? Hannas and I say “Uggg…nah,” and then Rog returns with a few plates of the first order of many to come. Wow, they looked pretty darn good for fish tacos I thought. Even though I never had fish tacos before… I took my first bite and my taste buds hit the power band, yahoo, this was off the hook good stuff man! I looked over at Hannas; he had not picked his up yet. I told him they were great and he said, “Nah, I hate fish.” The group heard that and everyone jumped on his back and started riding him to try one. Hannas took the pressure for awhile like a pro, blocking the inside line with his elbows up, then he caved in like all of us would and tried a bite...The first thing I heard from him was “Umm, this is good!” as he stuffed the rest of it down his throat in about five seconds. Meanwhile the guys are telling us stories about how the fish tacos are cooked and where the fish comes from. The fish comes from about 250 yards away in the Sea of Cortez! We saw a man running from the water with a fish he had just caught bringing it to the woman at the taco stand to cook up. That’s about as fresh as you can get, and so tasty even Mikey liked it! Roger ordered about 20 tacos for us and we grubbed down and enjoyed our first afternoon in San Felipe. Thanks Rog & NBMC!
MH: Roger came back with a plate of tacos for our crew, and offered me one. I of course refused, since I don’t like fish and never ever eat it at all, which of course got our fearless leader’s panties all tied up in a knot. “Oh no, these aren’t like any other fish tacos, they don’t even taste like fish, you have to at least try one, come on,” Pecore kept repeating like a broken record as I was shaking my head. “Dude, I hate fish,” I kept telling him but he had more determination than the senora who made me take her jacket. I finally agreed to try a bite just so I could spit it out and shut him up, so I grab the taco from him and took a bite. It was one of the best things I have ever tasted in my life! I looked up at him with a big grin on my face and said, “You aren’t getting this back!” as I stuffed the rest of it down my throat. Luckily, Roger got a few for everyone and I devoured another one as the local street vendors found our little party.
As we were sitting at the Miramar I took a look at my hands which had been feeling a little sore from all the riding, and noticed I had a major blister problem on both hands. I had gnarly blisters at the base of each finger on both hands, with some of them bleeding. This wasn’t good since I still had two more days of riding left, and I felt like an idiot since it was totally avoidable. In my scramble to get ready I had packed my dirty old worn out gloves, the ones with the palms so wore out they have holes in them and the leather has the texture and thickness of 600-grit sandpaper, instead of my newer ones, and wore those the first day to keep my other pair clean for later in the trip. The second day I broke out a fresh pair that I don’t wear very often, since I usually wear my old favorites, which had some extra reinforcement pads sewn on the palm that didn’t agree with my office boy hands either. Combine that with handlebars that somehow ended up adjusted a little too far back during my steering damper installation, a heavy backpack that was causing me to ride in a weird position sometimes, and brand new grips before the ride, and my hands were shouting “No Mas!”
The street vendors would walk by on the sidewalk and hold up some pieces of jewelry, or some candy, or some other thing they made to try to sell to tourists, seeing if any of us would take the bait. My favorite had to be the guy who made these goofy-looking birds that rocked back and forth like they were pecking at the sand out of these pretty big rocks from the beach and some steel tubing. I just looked at the poor guy and pointed at my bike saying, “En motos amigo,” trying to make him see that he was wasting his time trying to schlep a forty-pound piece of steel and rocks on any of us since we were on our bikes. Eventually a guy came up who was making these cool custom bracelets out of nylon string right on the spot, you just had to write down on his little notepad what you wanted him to put on it and pick your colors. I had to get something for my girl, so I broke down and had him whip something up. Three dollars and five minutes later, I was the proud owner of a green and black “2 Wheel Times” bracelet that I promptly mounted on the crossbar pad of my KX. “There you go honey, now you be good the rest of the trip,” I whispered to the green machine as I tied the bracelet on.
Froman figured we should probably head to the hotel to meet up with the other two groups so they weren’t worried that we had decided to make another twelve hour day out of it, so after the bracelet guy was done making a few more bracelets for DB and Rob we got back on the bikes and rode down the street to our hotel, El Capitan. It looked like a nice little place when we pulled in, and proved to be excellent during our stay. We met up with the rest of the NBMC guys and tried for a minute to make them think we had gotten lost and been riding for the past two hours instead of hanging out at the bar. They weren’t falling for that one; I guess they could smell the beer and fish tacos on our breath.
DB: Following the food and refreshments, we jumped on our bikes and headed a few streets southwest to our hotel, the El Capitan. The staff and hotel are perfect for motorcycle groups. They have a restaurant, pool, clean rooms, and a protected courtyard for parking the motorcycles. The staff was always friendly and helpful, as well as watchful of our bikes. We did most of our bike maintenance right in the parking lot; we even borrowed tools from the staff to repair a clutch problem or two.
MH: DB and I checked into the palacial VIP suite they had reserved for 2WheelTimes.com and dropped our bags. The room was actually pretty decent, not too bad for $50 a night. As a bonus I noticed later that since our room was at the end of the building and had one wall that the hallway was on the other side of instead of another room attached, we had a sweet huge tiled Virgin Mary plastered on the outside of our room. It was definitely not something you’d see anywhere but Mexico, but I was happy to have a little extra protection from the Lady of Guadalupe.
DB: Later that afternoon some of the guys wanted to shed our heavy packs and explore the mud flats just south of town for a little moto action before it got dark. So we grouped up and headed south on the main street on our dirt bikes heading for the mud flats. We rode past numerous incomplete and undeveloped resorts, condos and homes. You could really see the results of the current economic conditions down here too! Off to our left there was the beautiful Gulf of California and all the abandoned properties, and on the right was desert and mud flats. We hung a right off the road down a sandy trail onto the largest mud flats I had ever seen. The group came to rest together as Froman scouted out a moto track, you could see him picking lines and finding natural features to use. He rode around and connected his tracks, then we all joined him and in about 5 minutes, we had a grooved-in full-on moto track to race on. Only in Mexico! We held some heat races and then some motos. The dirt had a hard crusty layer on the surface, then once through that there was good mud and then through to hard-packed slick clay. They were very challenging surfaces to race on to say the least, especially when trying to moto bikes setup for Baja, with large fuel tanks, high tire pressures, hard terrain tires, tall gearing and so forth. But let me tell you the smiles were huge for most and it was fun for all, even while collecting some bails.
MH: Some of the boys wanted to go down to the dunes or the mud flats south of town to play around, and of course the 2WheelTimes crew was in for that. My hands were stinging by now, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from some mud flat racing. I pulled out the brand-spanking new pair of my personal favorite Fox Bombers I had stashed in my bag waiting for a chance to break them in, and just threw them on, figuring I might as well break them in now as they couldn’t be any worse than what I had been wearing. We hopped on the bikes with a pretty good-sized group and headed first to the Pemex to make sure everyone had enough gas to play. We then headed south down the highway along the coast. We checked out the small dunes near town but kept going further south to the mud flats on the west side of Highway 5. Those looked like fun, so we dropped down onto the flats and started ripping around. The mud was crusty and dry on the top but as soon as your knobby dug in it was nice and moist. We let Froman lay out a little track that weaved in and out of the bushes and then started ripping. It was easy to tell which way the track went; you just followed the fresh tire marks like a dotted line. After a few minutes we had a forty-foot wide full-on scrambles track with some of the sickest dirt ever.
We lined up for some racing. I ripped the holeshot in the first three-lap moto and pulled away from everyone, although I do think I had a bit of an advantage racing against heavy dual-sports and XR650Rs.
For the next moto I was forced to start from the second row, but was in the lead by the second lap and won easily again. For the final moto, they tried to make it more interesting. I was forced to start about 50 yards behind the rest of the guys in basically the last corner. By the end of the second lap I was through the field and up to second, but Joe still had a pretty good gap on me on his KTM 525EXC.
I put my head down and charged, and he started making little mistakes. With a few corners to go I was on his rear fender but left with little options to pass. As we entered the final left-right-left before the finish I was suddenly looking at his side panel as his KTM got a little more sideways than he was planning. I dove for the inside since I couldn’t stop but still nailed him somewhere around his leg. He didn’t fall down but instead kept on the throttle and tried to beat me to the right hander but forgot to actually turn right and all of a sudden our bikes were hooked together and going straight. Neither of us let off and somehow we managed to separate ourselves and continue racing to the flag despite missing the final corner. The KX nipped him at the line, but the official win was awarded to Randy on his two-stroke KTM even though he crossed the line third, since we cut the course. I ripped over to Joe to say sorry for smashing into him but he was laughing just as hard as I was and we just couldn’t believe that neither of us went down.
We headed back to the highway and started going north back to the hotel. A few miles down the highway Joe’s beanie flew out of his pocket and he stopped to pick it up and then chased down the rest of the group. When we pulled into the hotel, Joe realized his pocket on his pants was ripped and he not only dropped his beanie but also his cell phone. He threw his helmet back on and went back down the road to look for it but came back an hour later as it was getting dark still with no phone. He said he checked all over the road where his beanie fell out and down in the mud flats where the collision took place but couldn’t find it anywhere. Now I felt kind of bad for smashing into him and apparently ripping his pocket open, as he seemed pretty upset about losing all the pictures he had saved on his phone. I told him again I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do so I was pretty much over it. Rubbin’s racin’, right?
DB: After the moto action we all headed back to our hotel to shower and clean up so we could walk downtown to start our first night of grazing and partying in San Felipe. We did just that and enjoyed ourselves, with everyone laughing, telling stories and counting bails from the ride so far. Well, that is all of us except for one of our group. You see Joe and Hannas were racing for the win in the final moto on the mud flats with Randy close behind, when they had a little coming together and Hannas hooked Joe's riding pants, ripping the pocket and making a hole. None of us saw it at the time, but that pocket is where Joe had his cell phone and other items, and they fell out somewhere between the mud flats and San Felipe. Poor Joe made numerous missions back and forth between the flats and the hotel looking for his cell while we were downtown having a good time, but his phone and all his photos stored on it were lost to the San Felipe sands forever.
MH: We took a quick shower and headed out to graze on the local cuisine all together. We stopped at a small taqueria and munched on some tacos, washed down with some Pacificos. It was funny because I don’t think they even sold beer there because when we ordered it, the waiter would run across the parking lot to this other place and bring the beers back over to us. That was just another example of how the Mexican people would go out of their way to try to take care of us.
We finished our tacos and wandered down the street in search of some San Felipe’s famous bacon hot dogs. Richard, one of the guides for the C group, of course directed us expertly to a hot dog cart on the corner of the alley near La Iguana, where we were treated to another one San Felipe’s tasty creations. I was a little skeptical about the bacon hot dog, but after my mind-blowing experience with the fish taco earlier, I ordered one up “con todos”, except mayo. In case you don’t know, a bacon hot dog is a hot dog that is wrapped in bacon before it is cooked on the grill, and “con todos” is with onions, cilantro, hot salsa, nacho cheese, mustard, and ketchup. You can even add some more jalapenos or peppers if you want. That was pretty good too, but it was almost like overkill. Way too many flavors at once I think, but overall it was still grubbin’. Little did I know I would pay for this pleasure in the morning.
We hit up the Miramar again for some beers, where we experienced the guy with the crazy shocker device. He was a real treat; he was this old Mexican dude with what looked like an old radio or something hanging from his neck with a guitar strap. There was a two-foot cable coming out of each side of this device with a metal handle on each end, and a little dial on the top of the box. The dude walked over and held out these handles towards me, and everyone that had been there before and knew what the hell that thing was started nodding their heads yes and saying go for it, so I grabbed the handles, one with each hand. As soon as he touched the dial I felt a shock like I was getting electrocuted and dropped both handles instantly! Everyone called me mean names so I picked the handles back up and tried again. This time I got past the initial shock and kept holding onto the handles as he cranked up the dial. At first my hands and arms felt tingly and then I couldn’t really move my fingers as they clasped the handles tighter. My arms were getting even more tingly and then my hands and wrists started curling up like I was doing a curl, but I wasn’t controlling them! It got too be too much and I yelled at the dude to stop and he shut the machine off. I dropped the handles instantly on the ground again and shook my arms out. The dude looks up at me and says, “Eighty-five.” The guys explained that was how high I got before I wussed out, but I didn’t know if that mark was good or bad until a bunch more guys tried it after me and nobody else broke eighty. My arms felt weird for a minute or two but then my hands and wrists felt really relaxed and less sore than they were before the shock therapy. I don’t know what the hell that thing was but I’d use it after every ride if I could.
Some of the troops went back to the hotel to get some sleep, while some of us hung out at the bar for some more drinks. Others checked out some of the other clubs San Felipe has to offer, while DB and I had a couple more beers and walked back to the hotel to hit the sack to get some sleep for day threes ride.
Log on tomorrow for Day Three of our Baja Adventure Ride...
