Monday – July 21, 2008

Kevin and I embarked on the ride of nearly all rides.  The goal was to complete our first Iron Butt ride.  1000 miles in 24 hours.  The route planned would takes us from Bakersfield CA to Springer New Mexico.  We would pass through Barstow, Needles, Flagstaff, Albuquerque and then on to Springer.  1022 miles in total.  There are three reasons for this plan; We want to get to the rockies, We want to do it quickly, and we’re totally insane.  The later one came into realization as the alarm went off at 5 AM.  We figured we could get on the road by 6 AM Pacific and be done by 10 PM Mountain.  Seemed like a pretty sound plan.  It wouldn’t be an interesting ride other than the fact we covered a massive amout of distance in a short time on a motorcycle.

For those of you who don’t know about the Iron Butt I’ll give a quick brief.  Specifically we are doing the Bun Burner (I’m guess cause your rear end is on fire!)  That is 1000 miles in 24 hours.  Its pretty doable in 16-18 hours.  When you start the ride you have to have a witness sign off that you’ve left as well as get a reciept from a gas station with a date and time stamp.  The key part of the witness is they need to be reachable to verify they did indeed see your crazy ass leave that particular place.  Then along the way you need to gather receipts at any stop possible as well as log these stops.  This is especially important when you are making a prominent turn in the route.  Then when you finally arrive at the destination you need a gas receipt with a date and time stamp as well as another credible witness.  Not much, but enough to make it interesting.

Time for the Iron Butt

The alarm went off at 5 AM, we were loaded and ready to go by 5:30.  We had to backtrack about 20 miles to get to our official starting point.  It didn’t take long so we got our receipt and hit the road.  Something of note, Kevin’s bike has nearly twice the fuel capacity as mine.  I can go about 200 miles before I need gas where as he can do over 350 miles.  We had our first gas stop in Barstow CA and took a quick break.  Then back on the freeway we went.  I’m so glad I bought the XM Radio receiver to run through my Zumo.  As the freeway is incredibly boring on a motorcycle.  As we approached the Arizona border and the Colorado river it started to get hot and muggy.  Uhg.  The kicker of taking this route via the 40 is you think you’re going to cross into Arizona an moment but instead you end up following the river south for a while.  In the hot mugginess.

At about 160 miles we planned to start looking for gas.  Unfortunately the nearest gas was 40 miles away.  That puts me pretty close to running out of gas.  In middle of the desert there aren’t many places to fuel up.  Kingman AZ was our nearest location.  My bike started flashing at me around 170 miles saying “Dude, get gas.”  At 204 miles we rolled into a gas station in Kingman.  My fuel guage said I had 0 miles to go until I ran out.  Fueling up, I put in 5.5 gallons into my 5.2 gallon gas tank.  Close!  We finished fueling and rolled over to CJ’s Steak house (Carl’s Jr. for you common folk).

Leaking Final Drive

After lunch we get ready to load up and what’s this?!  There is oil coming out of the rear seal on his final drive.  Let me tell you.  This is the one thing that Kevin always says he’s worried about.  And here its happened.  We were 350 miles into the Iron Butt and failed.  I wasn’t too worried about it, these things happen.  Something of note the particular BMW both of us ride (Not at the same time, we have our own bikes) has a shaft drive rather than a chain.  Unfortunately sometimes the seals have failures.  And, if you don’t catch it soon enough it can be really bad.  Pondering what to do I grab my iPhone and start looking up BMW dealerships.  The two closest are Las Vegas and Phoenix.  Las Vegas is about a 100 miles and Phoenix is just over 200.  Since Kevin’s bike said “Go to hell!” we figured Vegas was the closest we could find.  (Phoenix is a close second with the heat!)  So, knowing our Iron Butt run is over we head towards Phoenix hoping to get to the dealer on Tuesday morning and repair the bike.  For some reason, BMW dealers are closed Sunday and Monday.  Go figure.

We found the Devil's Hangout

Once we located the dealer in Vegas we had to determine where were gonna stay.  I pulled out the iPhone again and checked out some places.  Cheapest place I could find was the Tropicana for $50 a night.  Not to shabby but definitely no five star resort.  Nice thing it was on the strip so we could walk to go do things.  With our incredible desire for Vegas night life we went to the movie theater! Haha!  It was hot, and neither of us really wanted to be there so we saw Batman.  Great movie btw!  Afterwards we wandered over to NY NY for some pizza, beer, and people watching.  You see some funny stuff in Vegas!  Eventually we made it back to the room and crashed out for the night.

Tuesday – July 22, 2008

Tuesday morning we got over to the BMW dealer around 8:30 so we could be some of the first inline for their service department.  It was a good thing too.  Shortly after we arrived a number of other people did including a tour group with about 10 riders.  They were pretty accomodating and got Kevin’s bike in right away.  We went accross the street for breakfast with our new aquantence Chuck.  Chuck is down from Alberta on his way to San Diego via the BMW rally in Gillete Wyoming.  Great guy.  I’m hoping to catch him while he’s in San Diego.  By the time we got back from breakfast the bike was done and we were set to go!  Or so we thought…

About 25 miles outside of Vegas we stopped to get gas.  And his bike was leaking again.  Crap!  So, back to the dealer again.  This time they did some more diligence and took it for a longer test ride.  This seemed to fix the problem and we beat feet to get out of the heat.  Our Iron Butt was blown but we still wanted to see the Rockies so we got headed in that direction.  We figured we would stay somewhere near Flagstaff since it would be much cooler.  We had dinner at Rod’s World Famous Steakhouse in Williams AZ.  We had never heard about it but gave it a shot.  It was ok.  I think the touresty route 66 trap has taken its toll on it.  It was about then we remembered they don’t do Daylight Savings in Arizona and asked the waitress what time it got dark.  She said “About 8 or so.”  It was 6:45 now.  we had little time to find and setup a campsite before dark.

Camping in the mountains

We found a campsite near Lake Ashurst just south of Flagstaff.  It was nice and cool and a great spot.  Kevin noticed they had these giant ants.  I never saw one but I’ve heard about them getting that big.  I made sure I used extra stakes to hold the tent down.  Sometime around 1 AM I woke up with one of those “Oh shit, something is outside” feelings.  Sure enough, there were coyotes out sniffing around the tents and bikes.  Kind of a weird feeling but what can you do.  I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.  Waking up the next morning was awesome.  The weather was great.  I made some spegetti and meatsauce for breakfast.  Then walked around and took some pictures.

Next installment: Four States at a time and Durango

Friday at The Races – MotoGP 2008

Friday was the start of the races. I opted out of watching some of the qualifiers and ran some errands for things I had forgotten. Dropped by REI, Target & Best Buy. I failed to pack any T-shirts, toothpaste, or a headset to talk on Skype with (I had intended to get a little work done on the down time). I also figured out that if you buy a Starbucks gift card you can get 2 hours of free internet a day. Not too shabby (Again, thought I would get some work done).

Kevin and Karen

I grabbed some lunch and thought “Hmm, Santa Cruz BMW is close” So I hopped on the bike to head up there. It was about 14 miles away up in Watsonville. On the way up Kevin called so I pulled over on an onramp to talk to him for a few minutes. In the three minutes we talked about nine CHP on motorcycles went by. As I discovered five minutes up the road they were staging for a speed trap. There were between six and ten CHP sitting on the backside of the ramp with one on top of the bridge radaring people. DOH!

Rolled up to Santa Cruz BMW and took a look around. My only complaint about my GS is I get a lot of turbulance off the stock windscreen. And, non of the San Diego dealers have aftermarket ones laying around the shop. But! SCBMW did! So, I looked at a couple, picked one out. They graciously offered to ship my stock one back to house after I took it off my bike. There was the trick. I left my tools back at camp. Their service department wouldn’t let me borrow any. And all their tools on the sales floor were off at the BMW rally in Gillete Wyoming. Fortunately I begged tools off a fellow rider who was fixing his bike in the parking lot.

Price's foo foo drink

Motored back on down to the racetrack to meet Kevin and Karen when they arrived. Pretty mellow ride back watching for speed traps along the way. Rolled into camp and waited around for about 30 minutes and K2 showed up. Helped them get their camp setup and we set off to grab some food down on Cannery Row. We parked the bikes and did the obligatory walk down and back looking at all the bikes. Amazing some of the stuff people will do. The pumpkin bike stood out the most to me.

Dinner turned into a mass meal event. Everyone we were camping with showed up five minutes after us and sat down with and next to us. We of course had to help Price get his foo-foo drink. And the heckling amongst friends ensued.

Then, we were all off to a good nights sleep. (Except me, I forgot my ear plugs)

Saturday at The Races

Edwards in Turn 3

Saturday we watched some of the preliminary races and checked out the vendor booths. Kevin was quick to point out that I have the same pumpkin tent as Charlie and Ewan have in Long Way Down. Wasn’t planned that way, it was on super sale at REI. Watching some of the races I fell asleep up above turn 1 for a while. Then Kevin and Karen went to go watch the last race of the day from the Grand Stands. I found Bill and gang and was given an extra super paddock pass! Then went up to the turn 4 Grand Stands to watch the last two races of the day. Pretty laid back day over all. For dinner we went to Fisherman’s Wharf and had Italian food.

Race Day – Sunday

Sunday is the day of the big race. We planned to leave right after the GP race so we got up and packed up our campsites. Kevin and Karen had paid for Grand Stand seats so they went off to get their good seats while I wandered around looking for a good spot to watch. On the way up the Corkscrew I ran into Oz and Sully with a few of their friends. They had an extra ticket for the turn 4 Grand Stands so I chilled with them and watched the Red Bull Challenge racers and the final GP race.

The Red Bull Challenge races are pretty cool. Basically they and KTM setup teenagers with a bike a gear and they get to travel and race around the USA. Very nice!  I also got within 10 feet of Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards!

The GP race was very exciting. I’m not going to bore you with the details. Either you like racing and watched it, or don’t and don’t care. Rossi and Stoner put on a great first half. Very exciting indeed! Afterwards we headed back to the bikes and geared up to hit the road. We were originally going to drop Karen off in Bakersfield then move on to Kernville. That plan didn’t make much sense as we wanted to complete an Iron Butt the next day. So, we got to Bakersfield and all stayed in the hotel to get a good nights rest. I have to admit, I’ve been eating so little fast food the Carl’s Jr we had for dinner killed my gut.

Next installment. Iron Butt Run or Not?

The Photoalbum

Wednesday night I headed north on my way to Monterey and the 2008 MotoGP races.  Kevin and Karen were heading south from Idaho and we planned to meet by Friday.  The first leg took me from San Diego to Valencia where I met Bill, Jenny & Steve.  We all met at the Hyatt in Valencia which was the same place Alison and I stayed at for Darrius and Shannon’s wedding. What was weird is I ended up in the same room we had stayed in.  The evening was pretty fun.  Steve apparently is a great disher out of crap.  Well, so am I when prompted.  We got along great!  We went out for sushi at a pretty good place right across the street then had some ice cream before crashing out for the night.

The next morning we met up at 8 AM to head north.  Bill apparently has pretty good knowledge of the backroads up to Monterey.  Including a pot holed road that takes you up on top of some pretty cool passes.  Bill and I are on dual-purpose bikes but Steve was riding a BMW RT.  He had a to take it a bit slower through the rough stuff.  As for riding partners, we all were about the same pace.  Bill is faster with Steve and I being about the same speed.  A couple of exciting moments of the ride; Suicidal little dog trying to run under our wheels, pot-holed road, and the insidious tar snake.  Of the three the tar snake was the scariest.  Through a tight turn my bars went full right lock and the bike tried to take me off the road.  Made it out but scary non-the-less. Total blast of a ride!  One thing of importance on these long distance rides is properly taking care of yourself.  Stay hydrated, fed, and above all liberally apply Anti-Monkey Bugg powder. I cannot express the importance of this enough.

I have a few other pictures from the ride but I’ll have to upload them sometime this week.  I haven’t had much high speed connectivity along the ride.  I did however figure out that if I buy a Starbucks card I can get two hours of free Wifi per day.  Nice!

Catch you all soon! Monday is the day to follow the Spot Tracker!

Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin’ go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

-Born to be Wild, Steppenwolf

Funny story behind that song but I’ll get to that in a bit.

I thought I’d let you know I’m heading out on another adventure!  Kevin and I are meeting up at Laguna Seca this weekend to watch the MotoGP races then heading out for another seven days of riding and camping.  We’ll be at the races from Friday until Sunday morning.  Then we’ll head out to Kernville to camp by the river and prepare ourselves for an Iron Butt taking us all the way to Springer New Mexico completing a 1000 miles in 24 hours.  I’ll do my best to keep the blog updated for your enjoyment.  But if you want some near real time update click on the Spot Messenger link over on the right.  It will ask for a password, if you don’t have it email me and I’ll send it to you.

As for the song reference.  Last year when we did the Alaska ride I had loaded a bunch of music on to my Zumo GPS.  As I rolled away from my house I hit ‘play’ on the mp3’s and the first song that came up was “Born to be Wild.”  (I think because it was alphabetical).  The song is incredibly appropriate, and now I play it every time I embark on a big trip with the bike.  Kinda neat!

Ciao!

I have been trying a couple of times a year to take motorcycle adventures to neat and interesting places.  This month I’m taking a 10 day trip out on the motorcycle starting with the MotoGP races at Laguna Seca.  Saturday I did the 12k service on the motorcycle and Sunday I did the final gear check and packing.  Its actually amazing how much stuff you can fit onto a motorcycle.  I try to keep my gear under a 100 pounds.  Gregg came home while I was in middle of sorting everything and said “Dude, I don’t know how you get that all on your bike.”  Then a light went off.  I can make an exceptionally boring video demonstrating how much stuff you can fit on a bike.  And, here it is for your viewing pleasure!!!

Here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve got with me on the trip. (In no particular order)

• Clothes for 5 days (I’ll wash them along the way)
• Shoes
• Sandles
• Sleeping Bag
• Down Pillow
• Tent
• Shade Canopy
• Cooking Gear (Stove, fuel, plates, cups, utensils etc…)
• Toolkit
• Cycle Pump
• Tire Repair Kit
• Canon Rebel DSLR + Lenses
• Asus EEE 900
• Camp Shovel
• Camp Mini Hatchet (This thing is probably useless)
• Lantern (It can burn unleaded!)
• Shower Kit
• Camp Towel
• Tie Downs
• 20 feet of climbing rope
• Camping Hammock (Its nice to have)
• Sleeping Pad
• 5 freeze dried meals
• 2 freeze dried ice cream sandwiches (YUMMY!)
• 12 Mojo Clif Bars
• Camelback
• First Aid Kit
• Heated Jacket (Just in case)
• Rain Liners

I think there’s a few things I’m forgetting too.  In addition to prepping the bike I prepped my electronic gear.  I’ve been trying for the last week to get Windows XP to run on my Asus EEE to no avail.  Last night I caved and reinstalled the Xandros Linux system it comes with and relearned how to build and compile tools so I could get my wireless card working.  Fortunately it ended in success!!!  And, I signed up for a new Twitter account.  Its useful for keeping people updated on the road.  My old twitter account got hosed and no one in support over there is helping me.  (They probably got made because I used the support ticket like a Twitter update, haha!)  I can’t use my mobile phone to do updates as my number is locked up in the other bad account.

I roll out Wednesday night up to meet up with some others riding up.  Hopefully my toe doesn’t totally fall apart before I leave.  Its not looking too good.  If you’re going to the races in Monterey drop me a line!

I just got a call from the BMW Dealer that I bought my bike from. BMW USA asked him to invite some offroad riders to come try out the new BMW Motorcycle Rider Training fully covered! Basically, I just have to pay for my flight and lodging and I get the course and bike provided by BMW for Free! OUTSTANDING! I can’t wait to check it out! I was able to take the Jimmy Lewis course last year, so taking this course this year would be spectacular!

I also have to share one of my now all time favorite pictures.

Paco Villa Rides On!

Walking through the mall today at lunch (Supporting the economy of course) a girl walks up to me and asks “What kind of bike do you ride?”   I was wearing my gear, and had my helmet in hand so it wasn’t an out of place question.   I responded with “A BMW.”   She says “Nice! What model?”   Her seeming interested I reply with “GS, 1200.”   Then, she says “Do you stunt it?”

I could only laugh.   “Do you stunt it?”   If anyone has ever seen my bike or bikes like it, stunting is obviously not a primary strength of this particular bike.   I don’t even think I responded other than to laugh because she immediately went from ’someone who knows about motorcycles’ to ‘not so much’

I wandered off to the Mac store to get a case for my iPhone cause this apparent iDiot keeps dropping it.   Then, I found the coolest iGadget by Nike.   A bluetooth remote control for you iPod that also acts as a watch!   I’ve been trying to figure out how I can use my iPod on the bike and snowboarding without actually having physical access to it.   Problem solved!

I haven’t updated everyone in a while, mostly because I’ve not been doing too much adventurey things! In January Kevin, David, and I ventured to Death Valley.   Death Valley Daze is an informal motorcyclists gathering in Death Valley.   Several different groups come together and have fun riding with each other and meeting new friends. Kevin and I had discussed doing this a few months ago as we now live nearly a 1000 miles from each other. Our last get together was Utah which was unfortunately cut short. Funny thing about that is I wouldn’t have met David if plans hadn’t changed. I talked David into joining us in Death Valley as a shake down ride before he heads south into Mexico. As it got closer to the day of the trip the weather kept getting worse. I figured the worst case we’d hang out around the camp and enjoy each others company. Loading up the truck and trailer the night before I noticed a hissing sound coming from somewhere. After a brief inpsection, I’ve got a dry wall screw in my rear passenger side tire!!! Not much I could do about it at this point so I finished loading and planned to hit the tire shop first thing in the morning.

Thursday I got up early and went directly to the tire shop, and somehow there were three people ahead of me. Three hours later I’m good to go and go to pick up David out in El Cajon. Leaving San Diego it was raining lightly and stayed that way until we reached Cajon Pass north of Riverside. There, it turned into snow. Most Californians have no idea how to drive in the snow so it always makes for an interesting trip. The tire repair set us pretty far behind in schedule and we didn’t arrive until pretty late. Kevin had to entertain himself for about 4 hours, so he was pretty entertaining when we arrived.

Friday morning we got up and decided to set out for Scotty’s Castle and see the Racetrack. It was overcast but generally warm at below sea level.   The ride up to Scotty’s Castle takes you up to about 3000 feet.   Amazing, how in 3000 feet you can go from 60 to 34 degrees.   It was cloudy and cold.   No rain but it looked like it could have.   We got out and looked around for a little bit and went into get some hot chocolate and coffee.   The server said “You guys should be careful of the crows, they’ll get into your stuff.”   Kevin looks outside and sure enough, a big ass crow is on his bike picking at something on his handlebars.   This resulted in guard duty for the bikes so the crows didn’t tear into our bikes (Lotes of shiny stuff).   I asked a few people about the road to the Racetrack and everyone said it was the most terrible road ever!!!   (I should have applied my own experience at this point but failed to.   People said the same thing able the Dalton, and it was a super highway compared to roads in Mexico).   With that, we bailed on the plan to see the Racetrack and head over to Beatty for lunch.   Bad choice, it was cold, straight, and we road through snow.   We thought about stopping at some hotsprings, but we all decided we didn’t want to see each other naked (And the place looked kinda sketchy).   We did pass by Angel’s Landing Brothel!   Um, yeah…   We stopped in Beatty and had some lunch at the Casino and then headed down the road to Rhyolite eventually ending up back at camp. One thing I didn’t mention, is we were eating good.   Tonight, Carne Asada!!!!   Had some awesome dinner, a few beers and wandered around the campground to meet some other riders. (Oh yeah, Kevin is a Pyromaniac, don’t let him tell you otherwise)

Saturday was a much better day.   Much more sun, so we decided to check out the West Side road and see Badwater.   Additionally we planned to take one of the roads up into the mountains but later changed our minds as we’d have to turn around and come back the same way.     Today was a picture fest.   It turns out David is the best photographer of us all.   Most of the pictures I’m featuring here are his!   I must learn his tricks!   We got to see the Artist Loop, Badwater, and some other areas in southern Death Valley.   While looking at the map we met a new friend, George!   He rolls up on his KTM 950 with the biggest grin.   We chat for a few, and he decides he’ll ride with his and we come up with a new route bringing us around through Green Valley giving us pretty much a majority day of off-road riding.   Most of it was fast open stuff but we got to see some good scenary.

As we got closer to the road, it became apparent to me that I needed to find a restroom ASAP.   I guess I had one too many Clif Bars.   DOH!   We hit the road and I hit the throttle, and didn’t let up until we got to Shoshone.     We ate at the Crowbar, pretty typical American fare.   Filling, but generally ordinary.   There were some great stories to read about the place on the walls and in the menu.   From here we headed north along the road until we hit the turn off for Green Valley.   Some more good scenery and laid back riding.   It was a pretty uneventful but pleasant.   Got back to camp and threw the Lasagna in the oven and the four of us enjoyed an evening of good food, beers, and good stories.   George is affiliated with KTM somehow, and a fricken awesome rider.   Talking to him he is quite knowledgeable about Baja California so we picked his brain a little bit.   As we wrapped up the evening Kevin decided to stop enjoying beers early, load up, and head on home.   George said he’d be by in the morning and we’d go hit the Racetrack as he said the road is cake and nothing harder than what we did that day (I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO MY EXPERIENCE!!!)   Later that night the wind kicked up and it looked like a storm was going to roll in.   The trailer got knocked around a bunch by the wind, but eventually we fell asleep.

Badwater, looks like mars!

Sunday morning we woke and it was still wet from the rain the day before and that night.   George was supposed to come by for breakfast and show off his ‘Pancakes in a Can’ but he still hadn’t arrived yet.   I wandered over to his campsite around 9:30 and no George.   I’m guessing he got fed up with the weather and bailed out as well.     David and I lollygagged around and decided to write off riding for the day.   Instead I taught him how to use his GPS software, then we gathered ourselves up and drove up to Scotty’s Castle and actually look around.   Along the way we checked out the west end of Titus Canyon.   I really wanted to ride Titus, but the weather would not permit.   After our tour, we made our way back to the campground, had some delicious Ghetto Mac, and called it a night.   (If you don’t know what Ghetto Mac is, email me and I’ll ’splain it)

Monday we packed up and drove home.   Most of the night had been very windy and it continued into the day.   There were some areas were the visibility was 100 yards at best.   This caused havoc with my fuel mileage and just outside Barstow I was worried we were gonna run out.   Then! There was a gas station.   I hopped out of the truck while David went to pay for fuel.   I figured I was going to loose my hat so I go to open the door and its locked!   WTF?!   I ran into the gas station to ask if I could use their phone so Onstar could unlock my truck.   That worked like a breeze!   The wind at this point was so bad that if you stood with your back to it, jumped up, you’d go forward about 1.5-2 feet before you landed.   Crazy!   Rest of the trip was ordinary and we rolled back into town around 4PM.

I’m looking forward to going back to DV when the weather is better and seeing more!   For more pictures go check out the album.

CIAO!

Odd title for a post about motorcycles huh? This is actually two rides, with a break in the middle. You’ll get the title as you read along.

San Diego to San Francisco (Via Jalama)

Day 1: Christmas was coming. I’m personally not religious so Christmas is more of a time to go see the family. My family happens to be spread out along the California coast. Saturday morning I loaded the bike up and pointed myself north out of San Diego. Mom & Ted were camping at a beach spot in Jalama Beach, just west of Lompoc CA. The route from San Diego to there was pretty laid back. Unfortuantely there is just a ton of civilization between here and there. I could have gone inland and looped around but I was more keen on spending time with family. So, up the 5, 405, 101, 1, and then down a 14 mile twisty road to the beach. Along the way I tried out my new Spot Messenger. Its a pretty cool device, I think I bought as much for my family as I did for myself. I set it up to track my route sending its location every 10 minutes or so. It worked pretty well! Unfortunately they haven’t setup guest access yet so friends and family can check on it. Better yet would be if they setup an API so you can post the information on a website (I’m working on some php code to check an email address and parse the data).

I arrived at Jalama Beach just before sunset. My mom makes some of the best enchiladas for a gringa. Had an awesome dinner, philosophized about life, and crashed out pretty early. The next morning Ted and I wandered down to the beach. He was hoping to catch some fish, I was hoping to catch some good pictures. I got my pictures, he didn’t have much luck with the fish. (I think the act is more important to him than the catch). Had an awesome breakfast, wished them the best, packed the bike up and headed north to San Francisco.

Day 2: It was chilly along the coast this morning as I headed north. My route took me along the 1 with some intersections with the 101 all the way to Santa Cruz. I saw some new sections of the 1 here but this is a route I have ridden many times before on my way to Monterey. The wind was pretty gusty at times, and to be expected it was chilly along the coast. Around Big Sur I ate the most expensive hamburger I’ve every had. I think I paid $14.95 for it. It was good, but a bit pricey. At the stop I uncovered that shampoo in a not so sealed container can fill up entire open cavities with bubbles! DOH! Once I hit Monterey I realised that I’d have to take the short way into San Fran as following the 1 was going to get me in well after dark. Once I hit the 101 south of SF the traffic was heavy. I started to split lanes but apparently the SF 49er fans weren’t too keen on that. I also saw a couple of other bikes, but they weren’t attempting to split lanes at all. Go figure. Got to Jeremiah’s pretty easy and got to see him, Beatrice, and Carmen.

Day3: Today was chill day. Did some sight seeing around SF. Got groceries for dinner (We did our Xmas dinner on Xmas Eve rather than the day. Have turkey’s alway been that expensive? Spent the day playing with Beatrice, she apparently finds her Uncle Jason pretty cool. (I think she’s pretty cool too) Ate too much, passed out on the couch. A good day!

Day4: Xmas morning. I didn’t take off on Wednesday so I needed to head home today. SF to SD in one day isn’t a big deal. About 600 miles or so. I took a scenic route through Hollister, down the 25 to the 198. The 198 is a great road. That took me over to the 33 and south. At this point I had to put on my rain liners to shield me from the wind. It didn’t get above 40 degrees the entire day. I learned something about CA though. Along the 33 there is a stretch of oil wells about 24 miles long. After a while I turned off on Cerro Noreste. This road is fantastic. But, I advise doing it in the summer or warmer months. I came across snow, ice, and gravel all along this scenic route. At one point it was 35 degrees, brrr. Made it home that night, warmed up, and packed up for Baja!

Viva Mexico! San Diego to San Quintin

I should start this out by covering a few things. Our original plan was; Day 1 – SD to San Quintin via Tecate, Day 2 – San Quintin to Bahia de los Angeles (Bay of Los Angeles), Day 3 – Bay of LA to San Felipe, Day 4 – San Felipe to San Diego. Let me recap the bikes people are riding here so you have an idea of what we’re getting ourselves into. Byron is on a Suzuki DR650. Good bike, sturdy dualsport single cylinder. To most people this looks like any dirt bike. Andres has a Kawasaki KLR650. This bike is considered the poor mans adventure bike. Its a great bike honestly. Morgan is on his KTM 950 Adventure and I am on my BMW R1200GS. Morgan and I have big bikes, and later in the story you’ll see how the big bike affects me.

Day 6: Byron & Morgan came by my place around 8:30. First it was just Morgan. I asked “Where’s Byron?” The night before he decided to change the chain on his new DR650. He had some problems as it wasn’t a master link chain and it required a special tool (or a hammer) to mushroom out the rivets. Byron showed up a few minutes later. Loaded up we headed south to the Tecate Border Crossing. Today was fricken freezing. I was lucky, I have heated grips and a heated jacket. Crossing the border Byron got the Pase, Morgan got the Pase, I get the Regrese! I start to pull over for the inspection and the border guard gives me a wave and says “Pase Amigo!” Just inside Tecate we meet up with a final member Andres. Gas up and head south! About 14 miles south of Tecate we leave the pavement and roll onto the Los Compadres Highway. You can see a picture just above of Morgan on the ‘highway’. As you can see, its not much of a highway, but a dirt road.

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I must first start out with saying what an awesome team Jimmy and Heather have working with them during their Off-road Skill Course. Sean, Scott & Jesse were all outstanding. Heather was fantastic. And Jimmy was just awesome to watch. They all took time to answer questions and help you improve you skill. At the end of Day 2 if it weren’t for Scott, Jesse & Sean I probably wouldn’t have made my way back. Their encouragement of my ’stupidity’ was very helpful (More on that later). I will admit some of the areas covered in the class were things I already knew, but either got to lazy to do them or just never really put thought into them. I did however learn a few new things which I plan to practice anytime I get a chance. I’d also like to say that my fellow classmates were very upbeat and positive. I think everyone had a blast, even the few that broke their bikes a little (myself included).

My Husky’s engine is still in the shop getting new intake valves so I didn’t get to take the smaller bike. So, I took my BMW R1200GS with knobbies! One of my goals of this class was to learn how to ride my big bike better. I’d like to take it more places, and some of those places require riding through dirt and adverse conditions. What better place to do this, than with the Master of the Big Bike Jimmy Lewis!?

Morgan and I loaded the bikes into the toybox and headed on up to Primm Nevada Friday night. I figured it would take the same amount of diesel to drive with or without the trailer. Additionally lodging would be free, and everything we needed would be right in the trailer. It works really well for any kind of trip really. Personally I’d rather travel on my bike, but since we were taking a class that would be based out of Primm having the trailer as a headquarters is nice.

Day 1

Before the class started we ran into Bob from North County BMW along with Gary from San Diego BMW. I bought my GS from Bob back in June. It was pretty cool running into him up in Nevada taking the same riding class. Today started out with Jimmy telling us about the course, what to expect, and the general code of conduct. I thought it was very wise of him to point out that ‘Yes, you can get hurt doing this course. Its up to you however to make sure that doesn’t happen.’ Something that he said was very true ‘The most important bit of safety gear is yourself, use your head.’ Very sound advice. The format of the class is a show-and-tell where Jimmy shows us, tells use tips and tricks, then we go try it. Heather and the gang then watch us and give us pointers. Everything in Day 1 is about bike control. There are little to no high speed drills. Control of your machine is the priority. If you can control it at low speed, most of it translates into the higher speed actions. I took away a few things which were true pearls. We learned a variety of bike control techniques as well as simulated events that you don’t want to happen, so you’ll know what it feels like when it does and how to react to it. Everything taught through the day lead to another drill that added to your abilities. At the end of the day it finished with a drill that pulled everything together, and was quite a bit of fun. I didn’t get to take a picture of the final drill, its too bad too cause is one of the few times in my life I’ve ever seen Morgan fall over on a motorcycle!

The end of the day brought a sense of accomplishment, a beautiful sunset, and a good dinner. Morgan and I looked forward to tomorrow to really see our our beasts would handle the true off-road experience (and to see how we would handle it as well).

     Day 2

Sunday is the big day. This is where we get to test ourselves and our skills. Jimmy and gang took us on a 100+ mile dual-sport ride through the Nevada desert. The format was basically a ride with a easy and hard route which would intersect bringing the group back together. At these junctions there would be some more instruction and time allowed for us to try what we just learned. After the drill we could choose to go the easy or the hard route. Morgan and I took the hard route all day except for one section where Jimmy basically said “Don’t go this way with the twins, you’ll hurt you, your bike, and probably someone else.” We took his advice, and took the easy way for that section. For the most part the both of us were pretty impressed with how well the bigger bikes could handle the terrain. Most of them morning was spent riding double track, dirt roads, and paved roads. We had one optional section of single track that paralleled a dirt road. That was a little more challenging, but not impossible. We ended the morning with lunch at a nice pizza place in Sand Valley NV. The pizza was great! Heather was the first on there so she got to see the display of public drunkeness by [assuming] one of the locals.

Post lunch took us to the sand dunes. The ride out there was pretty uneventful, more double track but with the added spice of silt! For those of you who don’t know what silt is, its basically the closest thing you can come to fluid dirt. Its soft, it goes all over the place, and hides wicked things. Through the day I found I was generally faster than 60% of the people in the class. So rather than eat their dust I’d wait for a safe time to pass and go around them. As we were heading down the road the two people in front of me started to go really slow. I went to pass them and the front rider turned out to be Heather. Let’s just say I got reprimanded for passing in the silt bed. (DOH!) I have a bunch of pictures of us playing in the sand dunes. I apparently failed the ‘get yourself out of sand’ part of the course. Jimmy had to get me out of the deep sand. (pic) I passed on trying to make it up the big hill as I was having trouble on my bike on the little hills. Here are a few more good pictures from the day.

After the dunes we split back into easy and hard groups. I got myself turned around in the dunes and saw Jimmy’s bike heading out the way we came so I rode down the road to catch up. I realized when I got there that I blew it, and it was Heather on the GS Adventure leading the easy group back out. They got a few bikes caught in the silt bed, so I turned around and rode back to the hard group. At this point Jimmy took us back over the sand dunes (riding his KTM 525, I should have got a hint at this point). I got stuck at nearly the same spot in the deep sand that I got stuck in before. Two of the guys helped me dig out, and I proceeded off the dunes right into sand/silt that was worse than the dunes. I vaguely remember Jimmy telling us ‘Do not ride out past the dunes, you’ll get stuck!’ Then, here we are, riding out past the dunes and I’m getting stuck. If it weren’t for Scott and Sean being positive and encouraging I would have been alot more pissed than I was. I was pretty mad that I couldn’t make my way through this stuff without a great amount of difficulty. I would get stuck, dig in, dig out, repeat. Finally we caught up to the rest of the group and the first thoughts through my head “Ah crap! I’m the only retard on the GS!!!!” And I was…

Morgan had ridden his KTM 950 Adventure through there, and there were two HP2 BMWs. But I was the ONLY GS that attempted this section. On my Husky, this all would have been a breeze. On the GS, you can’t get lazy, you have to maintain control of the bike the entire time. Small mistakes get emphasized, and going done on a 600 pound motorcycle isn’t fun. Not to mention picking it up. So far I had done well as I hadn’t really dumped it. I had gotten stuck, but didn’t actually go down at any point. The ride from this point on was all loose rock. The GS did ok but the lack of a steering damper and the bubbly front tire it made this section very difficult. I did finally eat it on a downhill section. The bike just suddenly decided “I’d like a nap RIGHT HERE!” The crashbars were worth their weight in gold here. I got away with a broken handguard mount, scratched cylinder head, scratched exhaust, and a slightly rashed arm. When I arrived home I also discovered that my Bill Mayers Seat had some unexpected wear. I sent them some pictures and they said ‘We’ve never seen this happen before.’ I guess some of you R1200GS riders needs to do some more off-road riding!!!!

To sum it up. It was a great experience. I absolutely feel I am a better rider now than I was on Friday. If you want to improve your skills and be a better rider then I highly recommend this course. Not only will you ride away with some new skills, but you’ll ride away with some new friends.

For the rest of the pictures you can check out my Flickr Photoalbum.