Baja Adventure Ride NBMC & 2WheelTimes
Combined Stories of Doug Byers and Michael Hannas
Photos by Doug Byers
Baja Day One: Rancho Ojai to Mike's Sky Ranch
DB: It is almost time for takeoff: the start time got bumped forward from 6pm to 2:30pm Thursday and I am scrambling faster than ever to get everything dialed in before our drive south of the border. There were concerns with a snow storm closing the Grapevine, so we wanted to make sure and make it over before it shut down for the night. The adrenaline was starting to flow as I put the last few items in the Tahoe, slid some AC/DC into the CD player, threw the key in the ignition and was off to meet up with my Baja brothers and Pecore's motorhome.
We met up at BP's house, loaded the bikes and gear into The Motorcycle Shop Racing rig and hit the road so fast I think we missed the 30-second board girl. This band of Baja brothers was high on anticipation for this rodeo. Our crew included Brian, Roger, Jared, Michael and I. The total band of riders was 23 in all and we would join up with them across the border in Tecate.
When we hit the 101 south we pretty much just set the cruise control, found Hair Nation on satellite radio and started knocking off miles until we hit Harris Ranch Steak House on Hwy 5. We grubbed down on some killer steaks with all the fixings and refreshments we could get in our fat bellies. After telling some war stories it was time to jump back into the motorhome and continue our trip towards Tecate, Mexico. Some took turns napping while others played and laughed; we hit the Grapevine around 11pm with no snow problems and Hannas kept us at warp speed over the hill into LA. I took over in Anaheim and drove all the way to the border crossing. We arrived around 4:15am. Our boys, who were sleeping when we pulled up, told us the border crossing did not open till 6am, so we pulled off the two-lane road onto the shoulder and slept for an hour or so as diesel trucks with straight-pipes and bright headlights whizzed past on the dark and desolate road just a few miles outside of Tecate. At 5:55am I woke Brian up and told him, “It's time to fire this rig up and get on down the trail.” He jumped into the driver's seat, whipped up the heater and defroster, cranked up some tunes, and roared off towards the border crossing, crazy hair and all. We arrived at the border and noticed it opened at 5am, not 6am like we thought, which would explain all those loud diesel trucks heading north; we could have come through an hour earlier. No worries though, we’re on Mexico time now.
The one Mexican Border Guard asked Brian how many gringos in the motorhome and the purpose of our trip. Brian told him five gringos and we are here to ride dirt bikes and drink tequila! The guard cracked a small smile and asked him to please open the trailer and the back of the motorhome for a quick look. He flashed his light on the bikes in the trailer, and then the back of the motorhome where he saw Hannas napping in a sleeping bag next to Roger's KTM and lots of gear bags. At least he didn't think we were trying to smuggle Hannas into Mexico. The guard told us to have a good one and we were off to Rancho Ojai RV Park just east of Tecate to find our brothers.
MH: When we finally pulled up at Rancho Ojai RV Park east of Tecate and parked at around 7am on Friday the 13th, I decided it was time to get my butt up off the bed in the back of the Funmover and see what Mexico looked like in the daylight. It had been dark two hours earlier when we reached the border crossing at Tecate and decided to park it on the side of the road and sleep for an hour after driving all night from Santa Rosa, deep in the Nor-Cal. I had been awaken from my hour of slumber by the sound of the motorhome firing up and heading down the road towards the border. My first close-call of the trip had already taken place when the border agent yanked open the back door to the Funmover while I was still laying in my sleeping bag next to one of the bikes and he thought for a second I was trying to sneak into Mexico or something. Now that we were parked, I got up and emerged from The Motorcycle Shop Racing rig to a beautiful partly cloudy day and set my shoes on the perfectly moist Mexican soil for the first time. I think I began to fall in love with Baja right there.
DB: We arrived at the staging area around 7am to cool weather and the smell of rain as it had just showered the evening before we arrived. We began looking for the others in our group and figuring out our parking spots. By 7:30am we were all united and beginning to get geared up and put the final touches on everything. We unloaded the bikes and filled the Camelbacks with fluid for the first day's ride to Mike's Sky Ranch, which is about 215 miles away for the A group.
MH: We unloaded the bikes, got our gear on, and made sure we had everything we needed in our backpacks. Once my pack was all loaded up, the last thing I had to do was fill my drink bladder. Since the bladder was already in my bag and the bag was stuffed to the gills, I just grabbed a couple of bottles of agua and poured them in with the bladder still in the bag and sealed it up. I set my backpack down to grab my goggles and do a final check, and then when I went to put it on I noticed a huge puddle underneath it. “Awesome!” I thought. I grabbed it and yanked the bladder out but it had already dumped about 50 ounces of water in my bag. "Sweet, now I get to start the ride with a wet bag, maybe it will be like air-conditioning," I say to myself as I grab a few more bottles of water and stuff them in my bag. Good thing I put all my clothes in plastic bags!
DB: Before we hit the trail, Dave Froman, our group leader, master guide, and President of The North Bay Motorcycle Club held a riders meeting with everyone and laid out some ground rules to follow for the trip. For instance if you get lost go back to the spot you last saw someone and wait there! The group will find you. Do not waste time and fuel trying to find your way out. The rules for the Buddy system were explained: Your buddy does not leave your sight ever, you eat with them, party with them, sleep with them (separate beds of course), and ride with them; if their bike breaks it is you who will tow them out or stay with them to get help. We were told some common sense rules to follow: Ride within your limits as this is not a race and if you ride like it is you will get hurt, and of course be nice to the locals as this is their country and they will do most anything to help you if you are in need.
MH: We gathered up for a quick riders meeting by Dave Froman, The North Bay Motorcycle Club President who was also part of the infamous Dirt Dogs team who were hired by the club to guide the ride. The ride was put on by the NBMC for its members and they wisely took the Dirt Dogs, who have raced the Baja 1000 and have decades of Baja experience, along to lead the way. We were told not to do anything stupid and hurt ourselves or our bikes and to have fun. We split into three groups based on skill level and/or machinery. 2WheelTimes Editor Doug Byers and I rode with the A group, with our fearless leaders being Froman and Brian Pecore. Our group started with ten guys, who you will hear all about as the story continues I'm sure.
DB: We divided the 23 riders into 3 groups by ability or machinery. All the groups had two guides with previous Baja experience, a leader and chase rider. Dave Froman and Brian Pecore were our guides for the white duct tape group. Our guides even had 2-way radios just like Team Honda uses for the Baja 1000! These boys don't mess around. After the riders meeting we finished suiting up and making sure we had everything.
We began rolling out of the RV Park around 8 AM Friday the 13th, I had to muster all my willpower not to rip a huge wheelie leaving the RV park in the 5mph zone, I was so pumped to finally be on the bikes! I could tell our first trip to Baja was going to be one to remember as it had just rained the night before and left all the roads and trails damp with the perfect amount of moisture! NO DUST! We jumped on Highway 2 heading east for a few miles until we banked a hard right and headed south down our first piece of dirt two-track on our way toward Santa Veronica. We cruised past Santa Veronica and the old staging area the group used to use, feeling out the pecking order and skill levels of the riders in our group. It was obvious early on everyone had skills and knew what they were doing in the A group, so it was just a matter of getting along and not roosting the guys behind too hard in the early stages of respect building.
MH: We fired our bikes up and took off out of Rancho Ojai and down the highway. I was excited to finally get the ride started after all the preparation. Our group turned off the highway onto a dirt road after a few miles and headed south. We were already ripping pretty fast and the gearing on my KX seemed like it was OK but I was already looking for the non-existent fifth gear. We ripped the bumpy dirt road past Santa Veronica and then turned into some sweet sandy single track. This stuff was fun but soon turned tight and nasty with huge bike-smashing boulders. We scaled along some small rocky hillsides and down back into the sand wash, and I was already getting hooked. The dirt was perfect, after the overnight rain the whole trail was moist and tacky, whether it was sandy or hard-packed. I couldn't contain my excitement, I felt like a little kid riding for the first time I was so stoked! Within the first few miles I had been at close to 100 mph in the dirt, ripped tight and twisty single-track, and blasted some sweet sand washes. The variety of riding was already impressive, but I had a feeling it was going to get even better.
I was following Froman and my buddy DB when the trail got a little tighter and rockier, and I lost sight of them staring at the huge boulders and imagining them crushing my water pump less than an hour into our four-day ride. Once the trail dropped back into the sand wash, I could see fresh tracks and see their bikes up ahead so I put my head down and tried to catch up. I was ripping the sand wash and having a blast, roosting sand and winding through the bushes when I looked up to the right and saw two bikes ripping the road next to the wash. One bike was definitely an XR650 and the other looked like a KTM, so I figured Froman and DB must have jumped up onto the road somewhere. I found a spot to get up onto the road and started chasing them down. We ripped for a few miles when I finally got close enough to see that the bike I thought was a KTM was a Husaberg with a black rear fender, and the guy on the XR wasn't Froman. Uh Oh. They stopped up ahead and as I pulled up I realized there wasn't anyone with a Husaberg in any of our groups, and I didn't know the guy on the XR.
I looked at them and said, "Hey, uh, you guys aren't with my group are you...?" They laughed and said no, but they saw DB and Froman in the wash and the other guys behind us and they would have to come out where we were anyway if we were heading towards the Sawmill. They said I should just wait there for them, and they took off. I waited for few minutes then saw some guys from another one of our groups. Brad Seder told me that those guys were right, the rest of the group would be coming out there in a few minutes, so I just chilled out and waited instead of wasting gas backtracking.
The rest of the group pulled up in a few minutes, and I swear DB couldn't figure out how I beat them there at first! I told them how I got lost following the other guys accidentally and took the road. We all gathered up and took a little break so everyone could either take off gear or put more gear on, and check our bikes out. I couldn't help but notice everyone had a huge smile on their face and all we could talk about was how sick the conditions were. I think it was Pecore who said, "If you aren't having fun right now, there is something seriously wrong with you." I couldn't have said it better. I felt great besides the fifty pounds or so on my back, and nothing was falling off the KX; so far, so good!
DB: About an hour into our ride on El Compadre Road, we came upon a Y in the road and a big tree and stopped to do a quick gear check and make sure everyone was good and nothing was falling off any of our bikes. It was at this point we had a hint that we may have some bike problems later on. One of the bikes in our group began to leak some oil out of the stator cover from a newly installed high-output stator for some HID lights. We looked it over and decided to press on and keep an eye on the leak.
This was also the time I started planning my return trip to Baja in my head! We had already ridden on a Mexican highway, gone triple digit speeds side-by-side in the dirt, ripped some insane single track they used in the Tecate 250 Enduro, hit a bunch of perfect sand berms in the washes, left lots of roost marks in the wet sand and paid off a local Rancher to ride on "his property", yeah buddy that's why you're on the fenced-in side. More like trail robbery! It's all good, we chuckled and gave him ten one dollar bills and called it biker goodwill. It wouldn’t have been my first choice for a donation to the local economy, but oh well. It was at this point I could tell I was starting to fall for the romance of Baja.
MH: We started going south down Compadre Ranch Road as Froman led with DB and myself close behind. The rest of the guys were close behind us WFO as we tore up the dirt road having a blast. Froman and his XR650R was on the right and DB on his 530EXCR was on his left flank ahead of me, so I was kind of working the middle-right behind them trying to stay right with them but avoid the steady churn of roost they were dishing up at over 80mph. All of a sudden I see a rock that looks bigger than a softball rocket off of DB's rear Pirelli and come shooting towards me at mach speed. I swear it had flames coming off the back! I tried to brace myself in the split-second I had before it just nailed me in my right bicep and nearly ripped my arm right off the handlebar. I grabbed back onto the grip just as my fingers were slipping off at probably a good 80+ mph and thought my arm was broken. "Yep, that was definitely bigger than a softball," I thought to myself as I screamed obscenities in my helmet at no one in particular. It felt like some Paul Bunyan/Mike Tyson-combo monster had punched me right in the arm; I really thought my arm had to be broken. I just kept ripping to not think about the pain, and then I started trying to calculate in my head just how fast the impact with the rock had to be if you considered I was traveling over 80 mph and the rock had to be shooting towards me at close to the same speed. I figured that would be like a batter getting hit with a 160 mph softball! My arm would be sore the rest of the trip and my whole bicep turned some pretty cool colors, but thankfully nothing was broken and it didn't hinder my riding, so I didn't really think about it again.
We continued ripping down Compadre Ranch Road for few miles until we turned east and started climbing up the mountains. All of a sudden the terrain changed from the sandy stuff with cactus all over like I imagined Baja would be to something more similar to what we would ride up in Nor-Cal. The dirt was more hard-packed or muddy where it was wet, and the cactus was replaced with Manzanita and trees. The road tightened up as we continued to climb and then all of a sudden we were in the snow! If I wouldn't have known any better I'd have swore we were riding at Penny Pines or the top of Stonyford, with all the snow and huge pine and fir trees.
We stopped to take a little break and make sure no one needed to put any more gear on for the colder conditions when Pecore remembered that he hadn't gone over "The Bail Rule" with us at the riders meeting. He proceeded to explain that any time your handlebar or handguard touches the ground it is a "Bail," no matter if you actually crash or your buddy just knocks your bike over when you are parked. He explained that the leaders will keep track of these Bails over the four days and there may be some type of award for "The Bail Master" at the end.
We hopped on our bikes and followed Pecore back up the snowy icy two-track, and no more than two minutes after he had stopped to explain The Bail Rule, who do you think falls in an ice patch right in front of us? That's right- Pecore picked up the first bail right after warning all of us!! Maybe he was just showing us what a bail was just in case we didn't understand...
DB: We ripped up El Compadre Ranch Road as a group at full song with all ten bikes together sounding like a wild herd of 500 horses at full gallop. Then all of sudden our leader threw up his left hand, grabbed a handful of brakes and slid the back end of his XR650R sideways in the road. He pointed us up a new trail towards the National Park and Laguna Hansen leading to Ramona's shack in the middle of the forest at the old Sawmill. We rode at a brisk pace still full of enthusiasm and excitement as the trail began turning really wet with little streams running down the middle of it and all of sudden we were dicing it up on snow-lined trails with lots of thick ice puddles and Pine and Manzanita trees. That's where I found out about my new hard terrain front tire's lack of grip (20psi!) in mud, snow and ice conditions. I lost the front at about 30mph coming around a sharp left-hander with mud, sand, water, and some raised granite rocks on the surface to record my first hard bail of the trip! The front end slid out so quick I still had my left foot on the peg when I crashed and hands still on the bars. Ouch! Thankfully, I was wearing all the right gear and everything did its job, except one small problem. I had crashed pretty hard and blew apart my Asterisk Cell knee brace on my left leg. I completely destroyed the hinge and cables but the brace did its job and saved my knee from a major problem.
Unfortunately now I had a broken knee brace digging into my leg for 3 and half more days. At least I was not on my way back to California for knee surgery two hours into our ride!! Thank you Asterisk, that's three Cell braces I have broken without any surgery, knock on wood and a quality piece of gear!
Bruppp...I sucked up the pain, hit the magic button on the KTM 530EXCR and told Hannas to get on the gas and let's rip. The best way I've found to get rid of pain is with massive amounts of ADRENALINE; Hannas fired up the KX450F and dropped the clutch, roosting the crap out of me with snow, sand and rocks as we took off down the trail chasing the rest of the group down. Hannas is the best buddy you could ask for, he keeps it light and fun and is a blast to roost with, he always has your back and is good for some excitement! We must have rode on this insane two-track for 15 miles or so in the forest, jumping over huge puddles, logs, sand berms, and snow drifts, and just having a great time dicing with the guys. Without warning we came around a right hander and saw a magnificent lake with snow-covered shores. It was Laguna Hansen at 5280 feet in the Parque Nacional Constitucion De 1857. It was so beautiful and majestic up there with camping areas, places to hike, ride and just hang out in nature. What a jewel of a park.
MH: Sure enough, after our fearless leader had so graciously showed us how to bail, the 2WheelTimes.com team of DB and me had our first bails within the next few miles in the icy snow. I began to realize that twenty pounds of air in each tire kind of sucks as far as traction is concerned. I resisted the urge to let any air out though; I'd rather tuck the front all day than fix a flat, personally. Although I think I did catch DB letting a sniff out of his front after his bail...
We stopped to take a few pictures in the snow and throw some snowballs around, then kept going up the road towards the Parque Nacional Constitucion de 1857 and Laguna Hansen. The scenery was starting to get really cool now, it looked just like Tahoe with huge trees and snow and rocks bigger than most houses. The road was full of huge puddles but I was being pretty careful not to get too wet since I knew we would be riding pretty late. That would turn out to be a wise decision, but I didn't know at the time just how late we would be riding that night.
We reached Laguna Hansen and stopped to take a few more pictures. Laguna Hansen was really cool with super blue water and snow and ice all around it. I never expected to see anything like this in Baja I kept thinking to myself. I'm pretty sure it was right around this point that I decided I was certain that I loved Baja and would be coming back for the rest of my life. Within the first few hours of riding we had ridden everything from WFO dirt roads to twisty sandy washes to nasty rocky single-track to mud and puddles and ice and snow! You couldn't wipe the smile off my face!
DB: From Laguna Hansen we rode more along the snow and ice covered forest roads for about another 30 minutes or so and came upon a little track of primitive summer shacks. Wait, one of the shacks had activities going on and a sign, thank goodness because fuel was beginning to run low and I was already on reserve. We pulled into Ramona's Gas & Beer Shack at the old Sawmill.
Log on tomorrow for the rest of Day One of Our Baja Adventure... Day One Continued
