I used to be the guide for these guys, but last year they went without me as I had some medical issues, and they have shown that they can teach me some routing tricks now.
I think they have been there 4 years now or so.
They can usually get a week in Baja plus a few travel days. Ian stores the 2 DR400s in Denver. Bruce flies in and they haul the bikes to Westmorland, near EL Centro Ca.
That's where I'd make my connection riding my DR350 from Oceanside Ca. We planned to camp when possible or necessary, realizing that spur of the moment rooms would be hard to find with all the race personnel/activites out along the course.
To that end I left Oceanside a 11am on Sat the 13th of Sept. That would give us 5 or so days of riding before the race on the 18th. We would try to get as far south as Loreto...... Catavina was the boy's furthest penetration up till now.
My trips never really start till I cross the mountains east of San Diego when I'm headed east. I always get a pic from a view point on the Montezuma Grade just west of Borrego Springs.
Way in the background you can see some Salton Sea.
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| From Baja 1000 10 |
From there it was 60 more miles to Steve Horvath's home where the boys would leave their truck. It's always fun to ride thru Ocotillo Wells, and note all the off road activities. I was feeling on top of the world, and looking forward to riding in Baja once more.
Here we are a Steve's, locked, loaded and ready to roll. Ian and Bruce are on low mileage DRZ400 and I'm on a pretty well used DR350. I feel pretty good about the DR as it's never let me down in the 30000 miles I put on it.
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| From Baja 1000 10 |
The boys pulled in at 3pm and we intended to make San Felipe that night. After changing some money to peso and crossing the border at 4:30 we realized there would be a little unwelcome night riding before we pulled into Pete's Camp just north of San Felipe some 130 miles away. Little did we know how much.
We found our way thru Mexically just fine. Once out of town the traffic wasn't bad. Bruce was leading at about 65mph. That was about as fast as my DR liked to run. Occasional passes would cause spurts to 75 or so. At about 40 miles from the border, On one such spurt my bike tried to respond, but went dead instead. The moment I gave it the throttle it lost all power.
I was running 3rd, and coasted off the road to a stop. It was 5:30, and absolutly dark by now. The boys didn't miss me right away. While I waited for them, I found the bike would idle, but take absolutely no throttle. I found that it would speed way up if I pulled the choke on.
Hummm, I must have sucked summat up in the main Jet, Damn. Bruce and Ian came back in 10 minutes. We decided that I'd ride it with the choke on....maybe whatever was in there would work it's way free.
So I rode with the 2 bikes following for a couple hours holding the choke on with one hand. It was a bitch as the choke handle is pushed off by fuel lines. My left arm was dying. We made it to the Ensenada turnoff at 25mph short of Pete's.... I'd been avoiding the tow rope because a lot can go wrong on the end of a strap, but we decided to tow it the last 25 miles which worked out pretty well. I have a welded in spreader bar on my Handle bars where I can hook a rope dead center which made keeping my bike under control very easy.
We pulled into Pete's Camp at about 9pm. They were still serving dinner, which hit the spot.....and to Boot they had the Pacquiao vs. Margarito fight on a big screen TV. We watched the whole thing over a few cervezas.
Bruce, left, and Ian
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| From Baja 1000 10 |
Pacquiao kicked the other guys ass. Then it was off to camp on the beach for the night.
Work on the carb would be done in the morning. We awoke to a nice sunrise
Jason, Left, Wayne, center, and me
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| From Baja 1000 10 |
We hooked up with ADVrider pit crew of Trey 650 and SummerinMaine in the morning at Pete's
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| From Baja 1000 10 |
Wayne, Jim and Jeff
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| From Baja 1000 10 |
Jim's baja cruiser, camp set up
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| From Baja 1000 10 |
Frist thing I did was pull the carb, and then the main jet. My heart sank when I saw that it was clean. On Carburater I'm a C- mechanic. What now???
Well, A little more investigation showed that the c-clip that holds the metering needle to the vacuum slide had broken and dropped the needle. I was able to bend a piece of bailing wire into a u shape, then hammer it flat with a hammer that I borrowed from Jim, for a Jackleg Kludge repair. The bike ran like a new one when reassembled.....well, it still burned oil. :D
We were on the way to LA Bay by 8:30am.[/COLOR]
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