Baja Riding Gear

The right bike and the right clothes make for good traveling, and this is especially important when you’re riding Baja.   Travel light and travel right is the way to go.  What you don’t want to do is travel like I did on my first Baja trip.  On that one, my Harley looked like that opening scene in The Beverly Hillbillies (you know, the one with everything strapped to Jed Clampett’s old pickup, including Granny in a rocking chair on top).

I guess it all starts with the right bike, and for all of us, that’s the bike we have.   I’ve ridden Baja on many different motorcycles, and they all worked for me.  My preferred bike for Baja riding, though, is my CSC RX3, which I think is perfect (especially with its standard luggage).  I’ve settled on a 250 as the perfect size for real adventure travel (your choice may be different, I’m not trying to pick a fight, and if my choice upsets you, hey, you’re young…you’ll get over it).

When I’m on the RX3, I can carry everything I need in its two panniers and the top case, with nothing strapped onto the bike with bungee cords.  I don’t like to carry stuff outside the luggage, because everything is locked and I can leave the bike when we stop to eat or take pictures without worrying about anyone stealing anything.   I’m usually carrying more than most of the folks I ride with, too, because I’ve got my Nikon DSLR, a laptop computer, the power supply and cord for the laptop, the recharger for the camera battery, an extra camera battery, and a laptop mouse.  I need to keep the beast fed (i.e., this blog), and I blog daily from the road.   The top case is devoted to the computer and the camera gear.  I keep tools, spare parts (you can read about recommended Baja spares here), and chain lube in the right pannier, and clothes in the left pannier.   Remember what I said above…travel light and travel right.

If I’m on a bike that doesn’t have luggage, my preferred approach includes an older Nelson Rigg tailpack and a set of Wolfman soft pannier bags.  That’s all I need.  These two items go on and off the bike easily and they are high quality items.   I bought the Nelson-Rigg tailpack 20 years ago when I rode Baja on my TL1000S, and I bought the Wolfman bags from CSC when I rode Baja with my TT250.  I’ve been impressed with both the Wolfman and Nelson-Rigg brands.   Wolfman, especially…it’s good gear.

My helmet is another item I bought from CSC.  It’s an HJC and I like it.  It’s not heavy (which makes a huge difference when you’re covering hundreds of miles day after day) and it’s comfortable.  I’ve tried others, but I keep coming back to the HJC line.   I have a Scorpion, but it doesn’t have a visor position that allows opening the visor slightly for air flow.  Others don’t form a good seal between the visor and the helmet, so when it rains the visor gets wet on both the inside and the outside.  Nope, for me that HJC works.

My jacket is made by Olympia.  I like it because of the color (fluorescent yellow), and the fact that it is all one color.  Most (maybe all) of the other fluorescent yellow jackets available today have black panels along with the fluorescent yellow and I don’t care for that approach.  My jacket has a removable liner and it keeps me warm, and at night if it’s cool and I’m off the bike, I can wear just the liner as a light jacket.

I should mention that I hated the Olympia jacket the first two years I owned it.  Olympia used cheap stitching when they had these made, and most of it came undone.  Every time I washed that jacket, more stitching came apart.  Oly wouldn’t make good on it (they were quick to point out that the jacket had a 1-year warranty).  I paid a tailor to resew all the seams, though, and after that, it stayed together (even after repeated washings).  It’s the jacket I wear most often now.

I always bring along my R Heroes 505 workshirt, an ultra-high quality sweatshirt I wrote about in an ExNotes blog a few months ago.  I own two of these shirts (one of which has held up for 10 years now).  It’s warm and it’s extremely comfortable.  It’s also loose enough that if you’re carrying a concealed sidearm, it provides good coverage (don’t do that in Baja, though). I love my R Heroes shirts.

I wear Walmart jeans (I’m not into fancy jeans and I think anybody that pays big bucks for blue jeans is bonkers) and an old set of motorcycle pants.  On  warmer days, the motorcycle pants go into one of my bags and it’s just the jeans.  On cooler days or if it’s raining, I wear both.  My motorcycle pants are water resistant but not waterproof (if the rain lasts long enough, they’ll soak through).   Every year or so, I’ll spray the paints with Kiwi water repellant to refresh the Scotchguard.  I’m kind of embarrassed that I don’t know who made the motorcycle pants.  I’ve had them for more than 20 years and the labels are long gone.

My gloves are Joe Rocket.  Joe Rocket gear is reasonably priced and the quality is there.  I have two pair.  I cut off the right index finger tip off on one so I can work my iPhone when I’m using it as a nav system.  I also have an older set of BMW cold weather riding gloves, and they work gangbusters. I think I paid a hundred bucks for the BMW gloves (everything that says BMW is big bucks), but on supercold mornings, I’m constantly reminded that was money well spent.

The last item I’ll mention are my boots.  I’m not a big fan of any of the motorcycle-specific boots because they are too big, too heavy, and too uncomfortable when you get off the bike.  I like military or police style boots, and my preferred brand is from an outfit called HAIX.  They’re Austrian (the boots are actually manufactured in Croatia).  They’re expensive (about $200), but they are worth it. The first pair I bought lasted 10 years.   I bought a new pair a year or two ago, and I’ll get 10 years with them, too.