Baja Adventure Ride NBMC & 2WheelTimes
Combined Stories of Doug Byers and Michael Hannas
Photos by Doug Byers and Rob Rowland
Baja Day Four: San Felipe to Tecate
MH: We awoke at around 6:30 in the morning on our last day in Baja to clear skies over San Felipe, but the dark clouds off to the northwest confirmed our fears that we might be getting a little wet before we arrived in Tecate that afternoon. DB and I got all our gear on and headed over to the restaurant to meet the rest of the group for breakfast. After stuffing down some more omelet burritos washed down with more fresh-squeezed OJ and a couple cups of hot coffee, we said goodbye to the nice waiter and chef who had taken good care of us for the previous couple of days and headed back to the room to grab our bags. We gathered up our humungous backpacks, which we had thoughtfully packed the night before to save time, so I just made sure everything was safely bagged up and put my rain gear and cold-weather gloves where I could get to them easily.
DB: We woke up to the threat of rain only to find blue skies and a brisk temperature. Everyone had done their bike maintenance after yesterday’s ride so the bikes were ready to rip; it was time to fuel for our bodies. We gathered for breakfast at 7 AM sharp, all dressed in our riding gear, and all 21 of us ate breakfast together at one long table in the hotel restaurant. The food was great and service was first rate, with real fresh-squeezed orange juice and the best BLT ever, along with some delicious omelets with beans and tortillas of course.
MH: We headed down to the hotel parking lot with all our stuff to meet the rest of the group and I went over to the office to check out of our room. With the nasty storm obviously on course to meet us somewhere between San Felipe and our destination of Tecate, everyone was revved up and ready to get going in an attempt to get as much of the way back as we could while it was still dry. I taped my hands up again, hoping they would make it back to Tecate without losing too much more skin. We fired up the bikes and took off to the Pemex to fill up on our way out of town. After filling our tanks full of fuel, we set off down the highway and out of San Felipe. I was a little sad to leave as we were heading out of town, but I consoled myself with the fact that I would indeed be back again.
After we passed the big white arches on the way out of town, we jumped across the highway median over to the dump road, right in front of the police station we had seen on the way in two days earlier. I laughed as we ripped our dirt bikes off the highway and launched down the dirt median and across the other side of the freeway over to the dirt road that went to the dump, thinking how you would be in handcuffs in an instant if you did something like that in California. We ripped back down the dump road towards the dry lake bed, dodging trash once again for miles. As we got across the dump and started hitting some of the bigger whoops on the way to the dry lake, I could tell pretty quickly that my blisters were going to be a problem for me all day long, and we still had around 200 miles left to ride. I couldn’t grip the handlebars like I normally would while I hammered the whoops, and grabbing the bar all weird trying not to aggravate the blisters only made my arms pump up and my hands start to go numb. I knew there was no way I could hold on like that for the whole day, so I had to back it down and just try to relax my grip on the bars and keep it smooth to minimize the blister damage. Of course slowing down meant I had to suffer even longer with less rest while waiting for the rest of the group, and I probably covered twice the miles of the other guys as I think I rode up on the top of and down the valley of each and every whoop until we got past the lakebed and up to Highway 3.
DB: Following breakfast, we gathered up all our belongings and geared up for the day's long ride. We split up into two groups this time with different routes for each. The B group left first taking more highway and direct routes back trying to beat the approaching storm. Our group, the A group, took much of the same roads and trails on the way back to Valle de Trinidad as we did getting to San Felipe. We fueled our bikes in San Felipe on the way out of town heading towards the dump road. We blasted the dump road and a few other dirt roads on our way to the dry lake bed. This time though there was no time to stop and enjoy a cold one, although we did notice a group of Federales driving a Humvee with machine-guns & RPGs. We roared past the beer shack at about 70mph and waved, thankfully they waved back. Phew...I think they had other thoughts on their minds, like the drug lords in the mountain ranges nearby or the cold Tecate beers they were sipping! Nevertheless we hammered the whoops leaving the dry lake bed, and came out Highway 3. We could see the storm front off in the distance, so we fired the bikes up and ripped the highway over the pass into Trinidad for fuel and to suit up in our rain gear.
MH: With the storm looming darker and closer off in the mountains to the north, we didn’t stop at the beer shack and just motored on by, waving at the Hummer full of Federales that was hanging out at the shack while blasting by at close to triple-digit speeds. We kept heading across the dry lake bed, this time spreading out in pairs since it was pretty dusty. Db and I somehow got over onto the wrong path across the lake and were headed too far north when we suddenly saw Froman blasting over towards us from the south trying to get our attention as we are ripping WFO the wrong way. Luckily we saw him and changed our trajectory back towards him and the two-track that would take us back to Highway 3. We ripped the same sandy, rocky, whooped-out two-track that we had taken on the way to the lake bed on our second day, but this time the other way. With two more days on the bike and my blisters stinging now, these whoops seemed a lot more punishing on the way back through than they did two days earlier.
When we hit the highway, we turned left and headed up the pavement over the pass to try and make some time instead of taking the dirt road like we had on the way to San Felipe. Ripping over the pass was a blast, with big fast sweeping turns all the way up and over the mountain range. It was fun ripping a little supermoto Baja-style with the other guys as we ripped over the pass blasting past cars and trucks. We just blasted down the highway all the way to Valle de Trinidad, where we stopped at the Pemex again to fill up.
While we were waiting in line for gas we could see the dark storm clouds approaching quickly. We decided to throw our rain gear on then, since it looked like we would be hitting some moisture pretty quickly. I took my thin rain jacket, my plastic rain pants, and my cold-weather gloves out of my bag and put them on. Unfortunately, I was going to get a chance to test my plan of riding in motocross gear and bringing lightweight rain gear along to throw over the top. The rest of the group geared up and we set off up the highway again and into the face of the storm.
DB: We left the Pemex station and headed north a short ways on the highway, then hung a right up the famous "Goat Trail" on our way to Heroes de la Independencia. We were still fresh enough to rip the Goat Trail at a high rate of speed, then about halfway through it started to shower, which turned to rain by the time we made it past the farmlands heading into Heroes de la Independencia. We came out on Highway 3 and saw Group B at the same little shack and gas stop we had been at on day 1. This was the same place we had two bikes break and left the riders, and Hannas received the shivering schoolboy gift of a jacket from the senora. Well, Hannas gave the senora her jacket back along with some highly sought after stickers for her young boy. As the rain started to get heavier, we filled up the bikes with gas out of milk jugs again and prepared ourselves mentally for the cold and wet ride into the storm and on to Tecate.
MH: After blasting up Highway 3 for a few miles, we turned right off the highway and scaled up a rocky little two-track along the road, known to many as the Goat Trail. We ripped up this nasty little section and climbed to the top of the range, then headed across the ridgeline along this awesome section of trail. It started out steep and tight for a road that we actually saw trucks driving on, and then opened up once it reached the top of the hill. We ripped along blasting the sand berms and having a great time when the clouds finally opened up. It started out as a light sprinkle which turned to a steady sprinkle as we reached some ranches and farms and cut back down to the highway. We headed north up the highway into Heroes de la Independencia and met up with the other group, who were fueling up at the same place the two KTMs died on the first day.
As we waited for the other group to fill their bikes with the plastic Sunny-D jugs of gas, I went over to the little house to return the jacket I had borrowed from the senora on our first day. She looked happy to see us again as she came out to help with the gas. I hadn’t used the jacket at all since the night she gave it to me but had been carrying it the whole time strapped on my backpack so that I could return it on our way back. I tried to hand it back to her, saying “Muchas gracias mi amiga!” but she put up a fight just like she had when she made me take it two days before. This time I didn’t back down, and I made her take the jacket back despite her resistance. I told her that maybe she could just save it for the next freezing dirt biker that came through, and that seemed to do the trick as she took the jacket back and smiled. I gave her some stickers for her little boys since I knew she wouldn’t let me pay her for the jacket rental, and headed over to make sure the KX got topped off, since we wouldn’t be stopping for gas again. By this time the sprinkle had turned into a steady rain, and I warned the rest of the guys to take it easy on the wet pavement before we took off north on Highway 3 and headed into the storm.
Log in tomorrow for the conclusion of our Baja Adventure...
