Baja Adventure Ride

Day 3 - San Ignacio to Ciudad Constitucion (219 miles)

Baja route map Starting the morning in San Ignacio, and after briefly exploring the historic plaza of this charming mission town, we headed southwest to Scorpion Bay and the town of San Juanico on the blue route. This is one of those classic sleepy Baja towns that tales of the area are derived from.

The ride out there was relatively sandy, but passable on the big bike with enough finesse and throttle. One of the other riders, Bill on a DR650 warned me that the last time out, there was a lot of deep sand, and it could be misrable with a bigger bike as he previously experienced with a Vstrom 1000. But after asking Marco, one of the Mexican guides on a 1200GS, he implied the conditions were friendlier. Taking my chances with his advise, I was not disappointed.

But during one somewhat embarrasing incident just after passing our more astute and sensible leader Kevin, I hit a large talc pit of extremely fine sand, probably going north of 40 mph. By the time I saw it, braking was too late, so I tried to ride it out, albiet unsuccessfully. Another rider in the distance witnessed the resulting impact, looking like a small mushroom cloud of dust. But given how soft the stuff was, it was more humorus than anything. The lesson I learned from this was riding through talc is not the same as sand, and that more speed does not necessarily help. For subsequent pits, I found it helpful to follow previous lines that were more compressed, or sometimes using the tracks of horses or burros that recently passed through the area, and passing through more gently but still maintaining enough momentum to get out the other side.

It was during this day of riding I also learned not to underestimate Missy's riding abilities. She was on what looked more like a sport bike (Honda CB500X) riding through the sand like it was a small dual sport. Having her catch up to you while riding her bike with one hand, and holding a GoPro with the other can be a humbling experience.

The cafe we stopped at in San Juanico for lunch was a classic. Run out of some family's house, after we placed our order, one of the kids from the family ran next door to a different family-run grocery store to buy some additional ingredients in order to cook the meals. The experience took probably 1-2 hours, but at this place near the water and the great weather, I don't think anybody cared if it took all day.

After a satisfying lunch we found a way down to the beach on the motorcycles via the ramp used for loading and unloading fishing boats. This turned into a free-for-all as we all started racing down the beach tickling the edge of the surf, chasing the vultures and seagulls, while trying not to get submerged. One lesson is that if decide to stop and park your bike on the beach for a photo, don't take too long, as the kickstand and the bikes tires will start sinking into the sand and the water beneath.

After lunch, while heading back inland toward the main highway, I ran into a problem with my shift lever when one of the adjustability bolts holding the foot peg to the lever rattled off somewhere, causing the peg to excessively bend to a precarious position, and thus limiting my ability to shift. When recovering from my crash on the rocky slope on the previous day, my shift lever got bent inward. I bent it back out, but not too much to avoid putting excessive fatigue on the metal. Apparently that extra stress weakened it enough to cause the adjustability connection of the peg to eventually fail. The aggravating thing is that I recently purchased this shift lever as an upgrade, given it has an adjustable length to enable a better match for my size 13 off-road boots, and had an ability to fold inward during a crash, supposedly to handle the exact situation I was trying to better survive. But the aluminum design and weak construction turned out to to be major flaw for off-road riding. To make it to our hotel at Ciudad Constitucion 100 miles away, I rigged a temporary fix with an extra bolt and nut I had as spares in my tool kit, and then wrapping it with gorilla tape to slow it from rattling apart. Once in town I was able to buy some longer bolts and lock nuts at a local auto parts store for something that would be good enough for some road type of riding. To up-shift, I now found it necessary to kick it up with the back of my heel to have sufficient leverage. Given this situation, my plan for the next day was to take a detour over to the larger city of La Paz via the highway before riding into Cabo, and find a close enough replacement shift lever that would fit my bike.

Lesson learned: Avoid cheap or complicated farkles for your off-road capable bike unless they are built to take a real beating.

Images (click to select the larger view at bottom)

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