| Protesters are Morons |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|07:34 pm] |
At this very moment there is a big angry pro-gay-marriage protest at the center of 18th and Castro, right next to my apartment. They're loud, blocking traffic, and assaulting cars that try to squeeze past. Full of self-righteous indignation and causing as much trouble as they can... for all the people who live in the Castro.
Fucking morons.
...and cowards. This needs to happen in Salt Lake City, not here. |
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| Day 12: San Evaristo |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|11:16 am] |
Monday, April 13th
I'm writing this on the morning that I leave for a monthlong ride to Alaska. Sigh.
Our goal: The tiny beach town of San Evaristo.
Leaving Loreto, we rode the transpeninsular south until Ciudad Constitución. After a last gas, we headed east onto the dirt roads - right through the city garbage dump. This was about as foul an experience as you can imagine, but fortunately it will stay with your imagination - we didn't stop to breathe, let alone take pictures.
A little farther on, the road became remote and picturesque, although a few stretches of silt kept the day exciting:
We stumbled across a large hydraulic project and might have considered riding down into the concrete basin if we hadn't had a lot of miles to put on that day:
The Bicimapas are pretty out of date for this region, and we ended up on a few abandoned trails:
Finally we had to take a nearly cross-country section to get back to the main road. More sand!
While I'm helping extract the stuck KLR, my bike was demonstrating why you should REALLY BUY that stupid Touratech sidestand foot. It took me five minutes to find a place I could set down the bike:
...and it didn't work:
On we went, only slightly the worse or wear:
El Mision de San Luis Gonzaga Chiriyaqui, built in 1753 in the middle of bloody nowhere:
The road went up and across the mountain range:
...and finally down to the Sea of Cortez:
...but not without a couple crashes:
Obviously Jon was paying more attention to the view than the road:
...and the KLR's muffler FELL OFF!
After a quick repair (always bring extra bolts!), we pulled into the tiny town of San Evaristo just as the sun was setting.
There are no services in San Evaristo, but there was a cute little bay with a couple sailboats anchored and plenty of space to camp on the beach. Dinner was canned tuna in chipotle sauce, yummy:
It was a great place to wake up.
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| Day 11: Rock Garden |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|01:13 pm] |
Sunday, April 12th
This would be the most technically challenging day of riding on the trip, although you wouldn't guess it from looking at the map. Fortunately we had been warned about the condition of the road, so we were prepared for what we got. The plan: Southeast to San Isidro, southeast San José de Commondú, east over the mountains to Loreto.
The ride out of San Juanico was easy, solid ground:
San Isidro is a small inland town around a palm oasis. No ocean view but it does not lack for scenery:
We found a single "restaurant" - really the backyard of a shop with a woman willing to make us a few tortas. While there, we did a little work on the KLR. Unfortunately Nicole's new brake lever had been made too short, so it needed a riser built to the proper standards of KLR repair:
Stocked up with full stomachs, plenty of gatorade and water, and a small reserve of food... we're off!
...or not:
It was Jon's turn for a flat. Fortunately we were only ten minutes from San Isidro, so we hauled the tire back to town. I hate to imagine what trouble this would have been deeper in the wilds, especially after I watched the professionals struggle to seat the bead on the low-profile tire.
Patched up, we headed on up the mountain... into rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.
Our first attempt at repairing the KLR's rear brake lever didn't hold, so we tried "advanced KLR engineering":
The rocks got UGLY - and steep:
$@#%^!!!
Nicole had it the toughest. There are two ways to get through rocks like that. One is to stand up, grab some throttle, and let momentum, suspension travel, and the absorptive capacity of disposable KTM rims carry you through:
Another is to slowly plod your way through, wrestling your bike on your feet. Nicole could do neither - the lowered KLR suspension wasn't up to the task and the bike was too big for her to manhandle. Nevertheless, she toughed through it without complaining - I think she even had some fun.
Of course, she wasn't the only one to drop a bike. Jon and I managed this two-fer:
Just to make Jon happy I'll add his favorite view of this particular incident:
It finally smoothed out a bit...
...and finally we were in the picturesque little village of San José de Commondú.
On the way east we stopped in the road as a handful of WILD HORSES tentatively approached us. They walked forward, got spooked, ran back, walked forward, chickened out... finally we rode on, slowly chasing them up the hill until they could get off the road. This is the first time in my life I've ever seen wild horses. I had no idea they existed anywhere... it's almost like finding a wild, free-range Buick.
The rest of the way to Loreto was not without mechanical incident... the KLR's speedo cable broke and had to be tied off (yes, we taped over the hole too):
...and we performed Professional KLR Repair(TM) #3 on the rear brake lever:
We rolled into Loreto just after dark.
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| Day 10: Submit Your Lolwhalez Entry Here |
[May. 15th, 2009|12:16 pm] |
Saturday, April 11th
We woke up to cold, howling wind.
Two hours on the ocean in a panga in gale-force winds was not an option, so we waited a couple hours before giving up and packing the bikes up in disappointment. But just as we were preparing to leave, the weather calmed!
Fortunately I had charged my (waterproof) camera from the camp's wind generator. Fifteen minutes after stepping on to the boat, we were surrounded by whales!
This curious baby got pretty close:
...and then got closer:
....and then got CLOSER!
It swam up to us several times and we actually petted a baby whale! It felt blubbery. Go figure.
Eventually we moved around to a different pair of whales, this time two very friendly adult females:
I mean REALLY FRIENDLY! They practically tried to jump in the boat.
I will never again be able to enjoy regular whale watching on a big boat with binoculars. I can't believe we nearly missed this experience - if the wind had kept up for another 15 minutes, we would have lost out.
Packed up and back on semi-dry land, we headed south along the coastal mud flats.
It really does just go on and on like that. It wasn't entirely dry, either. Here's the evidence of Jon nearly learning how hard it is to push a bike in mud:
Of course, we're still in Baja, not on the moon, so there is the federal mandatory minimum of abandoned cars:
The road eventually turned inland, and ran over these hard-packed dunes. It was the smoothest, most pleasant surface I have yet ridden over in Baja:
We landed in San Juanico, a small surf town, and called it an early day.
We ate good food, drank beer, did laundry, and - most importantly - found the local vendor of barrel gas.
 
Home!
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| Day 9: Gold Rush |
[May. 11th, 2009|04:35 pm] |
Friday, April 10th
We woke up early. Well, most of us woke up early:
Jon's wrist was feeling better, although it was turning a lovely shade of purple:
I've got to say, this is one of my favorite scenes to wake up to. Motorcycles and beaches!
Our plan was to head across to the Pacific side, to the Laguna San Ignacio where the gray whales spawn:
We rode off with a little over 20psi in the tires, decent for the graded baja road we were expecting. But the GPS told us to take a sandy little turnoff. Now, I realized at the time that the GPS was getting stupid, but I actually like it when the GPS gets stupid. Little sandy roads are fun, especially when I have some degree of confidence that they will take me where I want to go.
It turned out to be a bit too deep for 20psi. I couldn't pick this one up myself, at least not without dismounting the gear. This made Jon happy :-)
We found a route back to the graded road and headed southwest. My camera battery was dead so Jon has the only pictures from this day.
We stumbled across an old mining town called Los Arcos, surprisingly still populated. Since we hadn't done anything sufficiently dangerous yet today, we played around on old rusty mining equipment.
Jon got artsy with the camera.
     
Next step, an 80mph race down a wide, straight, boring gravel road:
At this point, the KTM and the DRZ were running on fumes. And then I ran out of fumes. Once more, suckling from the giant boob that is the KLR:
We stopped for a late lunch in San Ignacio, a cute palm oasis in the near-center of Baja. They were preparing for some sort of desert race. I'm guessing this is a popular hobby in Baja.
Leaving San Ignacio was surprisingly irritating. Upon leaving town, first the road turns to dirt and sign says (in Spanish) "badly maintained road ahead, 4 wheel drive strongly advised". We dropped tire pressure down to 16/17 psi. Then, as soon as we hit the town limits, the highway turned to this:
I was not amused by another 20 minutes of tire-filling while daylight fades. By the way, am I the only one that thinks Jon is carrying WAY TOO MUCH CRAP on the DRZ?
Of course, because Mexican highways are never paved completely, the asphalt ran out after about 20 minutes and we had to air back down. Ugh.
We reached the mud flats on the Pacific coast just as dusk was descending:
Camp Kuyima was a little hard to find in the dark, but find it we did. It was incredibly windy. Camping was cheap, but for only a few bucks more we camped on cots in a tent they already had set up. We were the only ones there, and yes they would take us whale-watching in the morning!
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| Day 8: Little San Francisco |
[May. 6th, 2009|02:33 pm] |
Thursday, April 9th
Breakfast in Bahía de Los Angeles was like most of our meals on this trip - good, but not exciting by Mexico standards. The problem with spending all your time on dirt roads in out-of-the-way parts of Baja is that you're lucky to find food at all, let alone really amazing restaurants. I suspect the difficulty of obtaining fresh produce in a state that's mostly desert doesn't help.
On the other hand, the views in Baja are fantastic:
...and the whole beach is your driving range. I love the lack of tort liability in Mexico. This is a free country!
Our plan was to reach a little point on the Sea of Cortez called Punta San Francisquito.
Nicole and Jon were feeling a little better, so they joined me for some fun in the sand. At this point we all have sand riding pretty much dialed in. Whenever we hit dirt, we drop the tires down to about 16 psi and it makes all the difference. Smooth, whoopy sand is far more fun than hard rocky washboard.
   
...and then my front tire went flat. I was riding sweep, but fortunately Jon and Nicole were within radio range. They couldn't talk, but they could hear me yell "FLAT TIRE!".
We were carrying enough tubes to replace any tire twice. All I needed to do is remove the wheel and pry the tire off.
A confession: I'm really bad at this. After ten minutes of brutalizing my wheel and tire, I decided to seek professional help. We were only 45 minutes out of Bahía de Los Angeles, so I loaded the wheel onto Jon's DRZ and speed back to town. It took me 25 minutes.
These guys have REAL tools:
The actual failure was not obvious, a small pinch flat on the tire that the Ride-On sealant couldn't fix.
My high-speed antics with low tire pressures probably aren't helping the matter.
They fixed the tire in about a half hour. After another 25 minutes racing back to my poor disabled bike, I have a whole new appreciation for KTM suspensions. The DRZ weighs next to nothing and makes powerslides joyous ("it's like a toy motorcycle!"), but the suspension can't keep up with rough terrain at high speed. Part of this may be the poor state of factory adjustment - the front was way too stiff and the rear was way too soft. I complained to Jon and he promised to do some fiddling.
The graded road continued:
...and continued:
...and continued:
...and continued!
Jon finally caught me in a drop again... but wasn't fast enough with the camera. It's amazing how fast I can pick up the Katoom when Jon is just about to come around the corner behind me! FWIW, he dropped his bike in the exact same place immediately after I did :-)
San Francisquito is a nice place to go if you don't like people. The beach is pretty. There is one restaurant that also rents palapas, which were quite welcome because the wind was howling like crazy.
The full moon rose over the sea right in front of us:
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| Day 7: Well Trodden Ground |
[May. 5th, 2009|09:25 pm] |
Thursday, April 9th
Jon's wrist and Nicole's ankle were still recovering, so we stuck to fairly mild roads on the way to Bahía de Los Angeles.
Deserts are beautiful when you aren't about to expire from thirst.
Reveling in my newfound riding skills, I spent every possible opportunity riding in the sand ruts that parallel the main road. With far less rocks and washboard, they make for much more comfortable (and occasionally much more exciting) riding!
We came upon that famous Baja landmark, Coco's corner, and said hi to The Man.
Sadly, we skipped the Calamajué wash. It's high on my list of future adventures, though.
Once more, we refill the tires. This process will be repeated many, many more times on this trip. My new rule is a minimum of one pump for every two bikes. The CyclePump is far too slow.
The road into Bahía de Los Angeles is paved.
We stopped at a combination restaurant and hotel on the beach. We weren't sure if we were going to eat and ride south, or eat and stay. The availability of cold beer made the decision for us.
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| Day 6: Alfonsina's or Bust |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|07:51 pm] |
Limping along, we set the modest goal of reaching Alfonsina's at Bahía de Gonzaga. This follows a nicely graded, pleasant coastal dirt road.
I've been hearing talk (and sighs) about this road getting paved for years. Well, it's finally happening.
December 2008, on the way south to Panama:
Now:
Then:
Now:
Still, progress is very slow. At this rate they'll reach Coco's sometime in 2030.
The views are breathtaking:
Just in case you haven't been to Alfonsina's or don't read every Baja report on advrider religiously, it's the building on the end:
It's not a pretty hotel, but it's the only one around. Very popular with 4x4s, sandrails, and motorcyclists like us:
They had a room for three:
...beer and fish for dinner:
...and a killer sunset:
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| Day 6: Damage Report, Mr Scott |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|06:53 pm] |
Wednesday, April 8th
We spent the morning in San Felipe, taking inventory of our damage and repairing what won't heal by itself.
Nicole was walking with a serious limp from the ankle injury she suffered the previous morning. Jon's wrist had swollen up but didn't appear to be broken; he had it x-rayed at a doctor just to be sure. They gave him a wrist brace and a prescription for a very appropriately-named pill (click the image for larger size):
The DRZ was scratched up and needed some body parts bent back into place but was otherwise not much the worse for wear. Later in the trip we would discover that two of the attachment points for Jon's rack were broken off the subframe, no doubt in large part due to the crash.
 
The KLR's forks were twisted but easily fixed:
The brake pedal required some aluminum welding. Fortunately this is Mexico, they can rebuild anything!
 
Total damage to the Katoom? One of my Ortlieb bags is starting to come apart from all the high-speed bouncing through sand whoops. From here on I secured them with an additional bungee.
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| Day 5, Conclusion |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|05:59 pm] |
We finally broke through the sand dunes onto the flat of the Laguna Salada. We're going to live!
The solid surface allowed much higher speeds than we had been taking in the sand.
...and then, tired and thirsty, Jon fucked up going around a gentle turn at about 35mph. I was right behind him and watched it happen. All I could think was OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT as the bike went tumbling and Jon was thrown off:
This was exactly what I was hoping would not happen.
Astoundingly, both bike and rider were intact. Jon was dazed and his wrist hurt, but he could still ride. The bike seemed fine and started right up. We got back in the saddle and rode on.
The road ran around the dry lakebed, no doubt because it gets muddy in the rain. The surface was bone-dry so we just cut straight across the lake, cross-country. At long last, we hit the road.
It took twenty minutes to air up our tires to street pressure with my cycle pump. A local in a pickup stopped to see if we were ok; at this point we were confident in our survival but we graciously accepted a bottle of warm coca-cola. No beverage has ever tasted so delicious.
We stopped at the first roadside tienda and consumed a gallon of gatorade each.
Energized, we continued south... but the DRZ and the KTM both ran dry. With the rally tank I normally get a 240-mile range; my odometer was reading about 140. We "borrowed" some gas from the camel...err...KLR and just made it to the next Pemex.
We rolled into San Felipe, found a hotel, and had our first meal of the day just as darkness fell. Despite the trials of the day, we were in pretty good spirits. We had survived.
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| Jon's Favorite Picture |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|01:08 pm] |
This is Jon's favorite picture. For the rest of the trip, he showed it to anyone and everyone he met. He could barely wait; the camera came out almost immediately after pleasantries and a handshake. "Jon, the waiter doesn't care about our bikes!"
It's the one time I went down that day. I find it incredibly funny that Jon managed to get himself banned from advrider for a week and therefore cannot gloat. |
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| Day 5, Continued Continued |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|01:00 pm] |
Suddenly the road took a significant turn for the worse. We were crossing through washes and riding up and down soft dunes.
I finally get myself stuck and need help:
Jon too:
The road got even WORSE.
It's 2pm. We ran out of water three hours ago. I long ago stopped taking pictures of downed bikes; every two-to-five minutes I have to dismount and help a bike up. We're down to 12psi in the tires but we're still spending twice as much time stopped as going. The KLR has been dropped so many times it's a wonder that it still runs. Jon and Nicole are showing serious signs of heat exhaustion, and even I am starting to feel dizzy.
Life is a function of willpower - as long as we keep making forward progress, I know we will eventually reach the other side. Various scenarios run through my head; if the DRZ or KLR were disabled, I could probably drop my luggage and ride someone out two-up, but if the KTM failed, we'd be in trouble. If someone got injured, would the 911 button on my SPOT bring help in time (or at all)? Coming here inadequately prepared was a dangerous mistake. |
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| Day 5, Continued |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|12:52 pm] |
It's 11am and the sun is nearing full force. The road, while well marked, is a long expanse of deep, soft sand. Breakfast was a single powerbar each, we've run out of water, and my novice companions are discovering how to navigate the terrain one tiring crash at a time.
I now confess a secret: I'm having the time of my life.
I've done a little bit of sand riding before, but not enough to feel like I ever "got it". This day, everything clicked into place and suddenly I was sailing across the dunes like a Dakar racer. I was riding 40-60mph in the soft stuff, bouncing through whoops, screaming "Wooo Hooo!!!" into my helmet like a teenager who just stole the keys to daddy's new Porsche. I used to think "Who the hell can actually ride a 950 Super Enduro?" and now I want one in the worst possible way.
I now present to you the not-so-secret of sand riding (at least, with a big katoom):
* First and foremost, low low tire pressure! There is a magic point somewhere around 17psi at which the bike's handling goes discontinuously from barely controllable to joyously stable. The difference between 19psi and 17psi is night and day; progressively lower than 17psi made only small differences.
* Stand on the pegs and lean your weight back. Extra important in whoops.
* Keep the speed up. The magic number is 25mph; below that the bike plows and bucks. Above that it feels like you're on skis. You're sliding all over the place but it still feels like you're in complete control.
* Start in second gear. For some reason twitchy throttle control destabilizes the bike.
* Buy a Rekluse. HOLY COW this is the best motorcycle toy EVER! Every review I've ever read said "it's almost like cheating". Guess what, IT'S TOTALLY LIKE CHEATING! Forget that the clutch lever exists, just twist the throttle and zooooom!
I'd like to think that it's all about my master skillz but the Austrian team deserves a fair amount of credit. The suspension is magic, the v-twin roars and launches the bike forward at the mere thought of "I want to go faster". The big katoom can easily hurl roostertails of sand into the air at 65mph. I'm beginning to believe that there are no hairy situations that cannot be fixed by standing up on the pegs and making a twisting motion with the right wrist. Can you tell I like my new bike?
At this point I'm literally riding circles around Jon and Nicole. Riding fast is easier than riding slow, so I ride ahead for a ways, ride back, give them a head start, and then pass them. I still have yet to drop my bike, which infuriates Jon far more than having to pick up his own. |
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| Day 5: Sand Trap |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|11:58 pm] |
Tuesday, April 7th
The Plan: Wake up, ride the remaining distance around Laguna Salada to MEX5, get breakfast on the road, ride to Bahía de Gonzaga.
It didn't work out that way.
The AAA map of Baja shows a road connecting Cañon de Guadalupe with MEX5. Bicimapas and Google do not. On the other hand, Google satellite maps (I had checked) clearly show the road. It's only about 25km. Sounds like maybe an hour, hour and a half? We left camp about 8:30am. We wouldn't see pavement for another SIX HOURS.
First order of business was to acquire drinking water, since we finished off what we were carrying the previous night. Breakfast, merely an hour away by mental calculation, could wait (!). The campo across the canyon had a little store, the only trick was getting there.
A rocky water crossing:
A rocky hill climb:
Unfortunately this crash snapped off Nicole's rear brake lever. Wrestling the KLR in the dirt just got considerably more difficult.
Right about here Jon and Nicole decided to send me up the hill by myself to fetch supplies. Since breakfast was only an hour away (!), I only bought what I could carry easily - a liter of water each plus a couple bottles of gatorade. You can see where this is going, and it's not pretty.
Nicole's ankle was still smarting from the last drop so I took the KLR back across the rocky stream. This was my first time riding it. I've ridden a KLR in the dirt before; I don't love the suspension but they work. I believe that the 1" lowering link on Nicole's bike seriously screwed it up. It feels like there's no travel in the rear end and no ground clearance.
And we're off! See how cheery everyone looks at this point:
Then the sand got deeper!
We take another couple psi out of the tires. This helps somewhat.
By this point we've ridden two hours and haven't even gotten to the halfway point. We just finished the last of our water. Jon and Nicole are exhausted because they keep dropping their bikes. Nicole isn't quite strong enough to pick up a fully-loaded KLR so every time her bike goes down, Jon or I must find a surface stable enough to stop on, dismount, and help out.
We hadn't even gotten to the hard part yet. |
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| Day 4: ¡Viva Mexico! |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|03:51 pm] |
Monday, April 6th
After a quick breakfast in San Diego we rode out to Tecate, our chosen border crossing. Our plan was to camp at the hot springs of Cañon de Guadalupe, on the western edge of the Tatooine-like Laguna Salada.
The border crossing was predictably placid. We didn't need temporary import permits for the vehicles; if we decided to take the ferry to the mainland, these can be acquired in La Paz. Traveling into Baja Sur requires a ~$16 tourist visa, however. Tecate's one failing is that the bank (where you must pay your fees) is about three blocks away from the immigration office, down a steep hill, under blistering sun.
It's always a great feeling to be officially designated as Temporary Mexicanos, even if it only lasts for 180 days :-)
We dined at a random roadside restaurant, then sped off to the dirt road that branches off from the main highway south along the edge of Laguna Salada. This is where we made our first major mistake.
It is my general policy to always carry a liter or two of water and a can of tuna whenever traveling in Mexico. We were going to pick up our emergency rations at the next good-looking store after dinner... but then found nothing but a long stretch of empty highway right up until the turnoff. Evaluating our inventory, we decided that the three liters of water and three powerbars in Jon's pack would last us until "breakfast tomorrow" back in civilization. Daylight was fading and a trip into Mexicali would waste an hour. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
We dropped tire pressure down to about 20psi. It's funny how shiny the bikes look at the beginning of the trip.
The road to Cañon de Guadalupe is wide and nicely graded:
...well, mostly. It gets sandy in some places:
...and thus we tasted the first of what was to become tomorrow's gruesome, sandy fate:
We have a strict protocol for motorcycle crashes:
1) Check rider for injury requiring immediate attention (as opposed to injuries that merely leave you with a limp for the rest of your life)
2) Take pictures
3) Help rider pick up motorcycle
Cañon de Guadalupe is pretty cool. There are two campos, one on each side of the canyon. Both offer campsites with little stone hot tubs which they will fill with hot (and actually hot!) water from the natural spring.
These pictures are from the morning; I woke up with the sun and watched the sunrise from the tub.
We found this ugly toad swimming around the pool... oh and a froggy too :-P
Palm trees are everywhere.
We were pretty much the only guests.
The next morning the fun *really* began. |
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| Day 3: Tired Tires |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|12:57 am] |
Sunday, April 5th
This turned into a day of errands. Here are the bikes loaded up:
Nicole and I are carrying new tires. The original estimate for this trip was over 4,000 miles - around the limit of how long a rear tire is likely to last, especially with dualsport knobbies. Slabbing 500 miles through California could make the difference between skidding home on the last few threads or having to hunt down exotic tire sizes somewhere in Mexico. We decided to squeeze the last few miles out of our existing tires and replace them just before we cross the border. Jon had already worn his previous rear down to the bead so he left SF with fresh Distanzias, the most aggressive tires he could find for his toy 17" rims.
Losing a day to the angry god Kawasaki put us in a difficult situation; instead of changing the tires on a Saturday, we now had to change them on a Sunday or Monday. There are two days you can be nearly guaranteed to find every motorcycle shop closed ("gone riding"), and you can guess which those are. Fortunately, Cycle Gear employees don't seem to actually ride motorcycles, so they can stay open.
Unlike the other two bikes, this will be the only time the KLR has wheels removed on this trip.
Fresh MEAT!
 
In addition, Nicole bought a replacement for one of her Chatterbox cables. It had broken, preventing her microphone from working. Up to this point she could hear Jon and I converse but was unable to respond. This seems to be the standard mode of operation for Chatterbox products; the mic had also been defective out-of-the-box and had just been replaced under warranty. The new microphone would last less than a week before it too ceased operation.
We rode to Jon's dad's house in San Diego. I had decided that delaying to mount the tires until the last minute was a time-consuming mistake and we should have just lived with the extra wear. That is, until I actually *rode* on the knobby rear. The road manners of the Dunlop 908 RallyRaid rear tire are HORRIBLE! The big Katoom carves like a sportbike on Pirelli Scorpions. Mounting a TKC-80 in front just before the trip significantly reduced stability, but it was still a joy to scrape footpegs in the twisties. Switching to the Dunlop rear completely destroyed any pretense of street performance. Over 80mph on highways the bike now develops a low-frequency (1-2 Hz) sway. High lean angles at any speed are downright scary. The California leg of the trip would not have been nearly as much fun in this configuration.
I will say one positive thing about the 908RR's road handling: When you push it past its limits, it gives way very gracefully. Several times I felt the rear tire slowly start to slide out, allowing plenty of time to back off the throttle, depucker, and keep going.
Despite all the complications, we are exactly one day behind schedule. The next night we will be camping in Mexico! |
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| Day 2: Electrical Gremlins Are Exposed To Sunlight |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|10:47 pm] |
Saturday, April 4th
Nicole and I returned to the stricken KLR armed with new weapons: A comprehensive wiring diagram, a resistive load (aka 12v light bulb), and daylight. Jon stayed home to smugly wallow in unbearable self-satisfaction for not having bought a KLR. Don't worry, the DRZ will get its turn.
The wiring diagram turned out to be the key. We discovered that the main electrical bus goes not only between the battery, the voltage regulator/rectifier, and the ignition switch, but also takes a short excursion across across the bike to spend some quality time with the cooling fan. By flexing various parts of the wiring harness I was able to find a spot that tickled the short:
Tearing into the wiring harness...
...I found this:
The hanger for the wiring harness has a sharp edge and wore through the insulation. A little electrical tape (actually a lot, just to be safe) solved the problem. This is not a high-mileage bike; I believe it had 3500 on the odometer when the trip started.
By noon we were finally on the road! Our ambitions were scaled back to merely arriving in Los Angeles, where a friend offered us crash space. We took my favorite route for getting between the Bay Area and LA: Highways 25, 198, and 33. It's not much slower than going out to the 5, and *way* more entertaining.
We celebrated our first successful day on the road with Mexican-fusion sushi (complete with jalapeños) and a long night of drinking beer at the Red Lion. My mild hangover was tempered with this awesome view out the window:
We hadn't yet gotten in the groove of taking pictures, so they are a little sparse up to this point. |
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| Day 1: Escaping The Bay Area Event Horizon |
[Apr. 24th, 2009|12:23 pm] |
Friday, April 3rd
The Plan: Leave Friday after work, get a couple hours down the road.
We failed.
Since I am a semiprofessional slacker, I spent the previous night at my girlfriend's house in Santa Cruz. Jon took the day off work and met me there that afternoon. Nicole is the only one of us with any sense of professional responsibility, so she didn't make it out of SF until around 7pm. Our plan was to meet on the road near Salinas.
Some time around 8pm we get a call from Nicole. Her KLR stopped running in San Jose and was electrically dead. We all carry basic tools but I'm the only one packing a multimeter so Jon and I speed off to meet her.
One hour into the trip and we've already had a major failure. This is not a good sign.
Nicole has the shop manual for the bike but the information is thin. In addition, the bike isn't stock - it took some hunting just to find the main bus fuse (popped, of course). A new fuse popped instantly. We're dealing with a short. The manual doesn't have a wiring diagram. After a couple hours of tracing the wiring harness in the dark, we gave up.
KLR 1, Team 0
The new plan: Go back to Santa Cruz, spend the night. Find a proper wiring diagram. Get a 12v bulb with two wires - essential kit for hunting down shorts, especially since my multimeter has an inductive current detector.
This will not be the first time "effing KLR" is uttered on this trip. |
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| How I Nearly Killed My Friends In Baja |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|03:33 pm] |
I have been bragging about my Central America trip to all my friends ever since I got back. The responses tend to fall into three basic attitudes: A) I hope to read your further adventures in your blog. B) I expect to read your further adventures in your obituary. C) I want to go!
Response C, of course, is where this story begins. I put out a call to my rider friends to see who would be interested in a trip into Baja. Despite an initial outcry of interest, when the time finally came to fill the scrotum with gasoline and ride, I only had two compatriots with sufficiently large testicles:
* Jon, a brand new rider on a shiny new, yet-unscratched (heheh) DRZ-400SM. He spent decades racing pedal-powered road bikes and believes that this gives him crossover skill on a motorcycle. The strange thing is, it actually seems to. What you should know about Jon is that he loves to create photoshop "art" of people standing next to downed motorcycles. Fortunately I can teach you how to recognize the fakes: The clear giveaway is that it will be a picture of me standing next to my own motorcyle.
* Nicole, an experienced sportbike rider who bought a kitted-out 2005 KLR just for this trip. She's one of four people in the universe currently alive that plays classical piano for a living and actually earns enough money to afford a KLR. Incidentally, I believe her armored gloves cost more than her motorcycle. Other than two days of American Supercamp (worth every penny, btw) she has no dirt experience. I believe she hopes to sell what is left of the KLR when we return, then get on her knees and beg her Triumph Daytona to taker her back.
A quick message to my friends who didn't come on this trip: YES, THAT'S RIGHT, A GIRL HAS BIGGER BALLS THAN YOU DO! Of course, if you've ever ridden with her, you probably already know that Nicole has bigger balls than you. On the other hand, as you can guess from the title of this narrative, you're probably spitting less sand from your mouth, sleeping in beds with comfortable little springs in them, and walking upright without a limp. Wuss.
Jon and Nicole may chime in on this thread with their version of the events. Let me assure you in advance that these will all be lies and fabrications. Especially the pictures. See "Jon" above.
To make this even more interesting, I'm riding a new (to me) KTM 990A with a lot of thorougly untested gadgetry and farkles that I installed last week.
Oh, did I mention that our plan is to take the nastiest, ugliest dirt roads we can find? By "our plan" of course I mean "my plan", because Jon and Nicole have no idea what they are getting into. May the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe (burned into a slice of toast, preferably sourdough) bless their poor, naive souls.
So, to sum it up:
Two weeks to get from San Francisco to La Paz and back, taking as many dirt roads as possible. Three bikes, only one rider with dirt experience and he has a 100+ lb handicap over the next lightest bike. New, untested bikes. What could go wrong? |
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