Month: May 2019

Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part VI

Ah, here we are…the final installment of the 2009 KLR Baja ride.  It was a great ride, and if you want to catch up on the first five installments, you can do so here.   Read on, my friends…

Ensenada, like Rosarito Beach, was an empty town, struggling with the impact of the 2008 Great Recession and the media’s obsession with demonizing Mexico. The streets were empty, devoid of tourists.  We saw some cool cars, though, and I asked the guys around this one if I could take a photo.

A car from an Ensenada car club.
The car club. They looked intimidating, but when I asked about their cars and if I could take a few photos, they warmed up immediately.

The club was friendly and we had a good conversation. The car in the background (the one shown above) belonged to Reynaldo, the guy with the Southeast sweatshirt. He explained that Ensenada had an active car club.

The guys asked me to grab a shotof the artwork on Robert’s car (he’s the tallest guy in the photo above), and here it is.

Roberto’s ride.
Ensenada in the early evening. It was as if a neutron bomb had struck the place. That neutron bomb was the LA Times.

I awoke early the next morning and took a few more shots walking around Ensenada.   I like getting up early, and it seems that I always get great photos on these early-morning walks.

This is Edgar, whom I saw playing with a very energetic puppy in Ensenada’s La Patria park early that morning.
Three of Mexico’s great patriots in La Patria Square…Benito Juarez, Miguel Hidalgo, and Venustiano Carranza.

I found out Edgar’s name by doing my usual “Como se llama usted?” routine. After introducing himself, Edgar also introduced Brittany.  It was nice meeting a dog in Mexico that appeared to have no interest in having me for dinner.

So, there you have it…four days and 1300 miles of KLR riding in a round trip blitz down to Guerrero Negro, with a few off-road excursions that resulted in more than a few interesting photos.  The ride had been a blast, the Kawasaki KLRs performed flawlessly, and we visited places only accessible via dirt roads.  And it was safe, at least as far as all the negative publicity about the narco-terroristas goes. The dogs (and maybe the odd tarantula or two), well, that’s another story…

If you are thinking of going into Baja, don’t let anybody scare you away. It’s a great place to ride, it’s safe, and it’s fun.

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Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part V

Read Parts I, II, III, and IV of the 2009 KLR Baja foray here!

Our planned stop for the evening (and our turnaround point) was Guerrero Negro. It’s a town just south of the 28th Parallel, which forms the border between Baja California and Baja California Sur, the two states in Baja. It’s about halfway down the Baja peninsula.

Guerrero Negro is an interesting town. It’s named for the Black Warrior (Guerrero Negro in Spanish), a sailing ship that sank off the Baja coast a long time ago.  It’s one of the best spots to see the whales in Mexico (you can read about that here).  The whales hang out in Laguna de Ojo Liebre (the Eye of the Jackrabbit), also known as Scammon’s Lagoon.  I’ve been down there many times to see the whales, and it is one of life’s main events. That’s a strong statement, and if you’ve never seen the whales in Baja, you’ll think I’m exaggerating. If you’ve seen them, though, you’ll know I’m not. It’s a surreal and awe-inspiring experience. The whales are in town from January through March, so we wouldn’t be seeing them on this visit.

We usually stay at Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro. It’s a great hotel with a great restaurant. I had a cup of coffee that morning that was just perfect.

The little town of Guerrero Negro has another distinction: It’s one of the biggest salt producing regions in the world. The area has hundreds of square miles of shallow flats that the Mexicans flood with sea water. They let the water evaporate and then they bulldoze up the salt. Mitsubishi owns 49% of the production operation; the Mexican government owns the other 51%.

We stopped for fish tacos in Guerrero Negro’s Baja Mision restaurant. These were the only two dogs we saw on this trip that didn’t chase us.
Laura, our waitress in Guerrero Negro when we ate at the restaurant in the above photo.
John saw this Chinese restaurant in Guerrero Negro, which seems kind of funny. We had dinner there.
Chicken chow mein in Guerrero Negro. It was great.

I got up early the next morning and rode around for a bit, exploring Guerrero Negro.  With all of the luggage off the KLR, it felt much lighter and faster.  I grabbed a few shots around town. I rode through all of Guerrero Negro, including its residential areas. Another 8 or 10 dogs chased me, intending to do me serious harm. None succeeded. By this time itwas almost funny. See a dog, go like hell, hope for the best. It was grand sport.

This is a mural on Guerrero Negro’s supermarket wall.
This is one of the salt flats. When this area dries, the salt company will scrape up the salt, flood it again, and repeat the process.

As I mentioned above, Guerrero Negro was our turn-around point on this trip. Here’s a shot on the way home, in the desert headed north.

Those Cardon cactus are impressive.

We stopped again in El Rosario, this time for a lunch at Mama Espinoza’s. This is their take on fish tacos. They were excellent.

Fish tacos at Mama Espinoza’s. Life doesn’t get any better.
Maria, our waitress in Mama Espinoza’s. There are a lot of ladies named Maria in Mexico.

After Mama Espinoza’s, we topped off at the Pemex station in El Rosario and continued north.

On the Transpeninsular Highway, south of Ensenada. I had to stop and grab a shot of this cactus path.

We rolled into Ensenada well after dark and decided to call it a day. That night we stayed in the Best Western in Ensenada’s tourist district, and it was nothing like any US Best Western. It was a really nice place. We unpacked and parked the KLRs right next to the entrance, and a guy who worked at the hotel put a rope barricade around them. We didn’t know if it was to keep people from touching the bikes, or if it was to isolate them for another reason…John’s KLR’s fuel petcock had developed a drip, and because of that, the area soon reeked of gasoline.

To be continued…

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Motoracism

Hugo, Joe, Tony and Zuo near Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota.

My good buddy Joe Gresh is an astute observer of the human condition and he writes about it well.   This is a piece he did after the 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, when we rode 250cc Chinese motorcycles from LA to Sturgis to Portland and back to LA.  We had about a dozen riders and not a single motorcycle breakdown.  The bikes’ stellar performance notwithstanding, we sure caught flak on the Internet about riding Chinese bikes (and it was only on the Internet; no one we met in person had anything but compliments for us and the bikes).  Joe wrote a column titled “Motoracism” in the now-defunct Motorcyclist magazine about that trip (along with an outstanding story about the ride).  Joe’s adept at stirring the pot by telling the truth, and the keyboard commandos  crawled out in droves from under their bridges when “Motoracism” was published.  Here’s the original article.  Take a look…

Motoracism and Brand-Bashing in the Moto World
Are you offended by a Chinese-built bike?
Joe Gresh January 11, 2016

Look out! An army of strange bikes aimed at our heartland! Or is it just a line of motorcycles like any other, except this time they’re made in China?

We all suffer from racism’s influence. It’s an off-key loop playing from an early age, a low frequency rumble of dislike for the “other.” It’s ancient and tribal, a rotted pet forever scratching at the door because we keep tossing it scraps of our fear. Racism gives the weak succor and the strong an excuse for bad behavior. We work hard to become less racist, but exclusion is a powerful medicine.

Especially when it comes to motorcycles. Brand bashing is ancient, part of what motorcyclists do. It’s our way of hazing new riders and pointing out the absurdity of our own transportation choice. Unlike more virulent forms of racism, motoracism doesn’t prevent us from enjoying each other’s company or even becoming friends.

In web life, we are much less tolerant. Whenever I test a bike for Motorcyclist I spend time lurking on motorcycle forums. This is partly to gather owner-generated data, stuff I may miss in the short time I have with a testbike. Mostly I do it because it’s a way to rack up thousands of surrogate road test miles without having to actually ride the bike. Think of yourselves as unpaid interns slogging through the hard work of living with your motorcycle choice while I skim the cream of your observations into my Batdorf & Bronson coffee.

Every motorcycle brand has fans and detractors, and I enjoy the smack talk among riders. Check out the rekindled Indian/Harley-Davidson rivalry: They picked up right where they left off in 1953. Then there’s this Chinese-built Zongshen (CSC) RX3 I recently rode. Man, what a reaction that one got. Along with generally favorable opinions from Zong owners I saw lots of irrational anger over this motorcycle.

All because it was built in China.

To give the motoracists their due, until Zongshen came along Chinese-built bikes were pretty much crap. (I read that on the Internet.) Except for the Chinese-built bikes rebadged for the major manufacturers. I guess if you don’t know that your engine and suspension were built in China it won’t hurt you.

Mirroring traditional racism, the more successful the Chinese become at building motorcycles the more motoracists feel aggrieved. The modest goodness of the Zongshen has caused motoracists to redirect their ire at US/China trade relations, our looming military conflict in the South China Sea, and working conditions on the Chinese mainland.

Like Japanese motorcycles in the 1960s, buying a Chinese motorcycle today reflects poorly on your patriotism. You’ll be accused of condoning child slavery or helping to sling shovelfuls of kittens into the furnaces of sinister ChiCom factories. Participate in a Zongshen forum discussion long enough and someone inevitably asks why you hate America. I’ve had Facebook friends tell me I shouldn’t post information about the Zongshen—that I must be on their payroll. I’m just testing a bike, man. This reaction doesn’t happen with any other brand and they all pay me the same amount: zilch.

So if you’re angry about working conditions in a Chinese motorcycle factory, but not about similar conditions in a USA-based Amazon fulfillment warehouse (selling mostly Chinese products) you might be a motoracist. If you type moral outrage on your Chinese-built computer complaining about China’s poor quality control while sitting in your Chinese-built chair and answering your Chinese-built cell phone you might be a motoracist. If you’re outraged that the Zongshen 250 can’t match the performance of a motorcycle five times its displacement and five times its cost you might be a motoracist. I want you to take a thoughtful moment and ask yourself if your motoracism isn’t just plain old racism hiding behind mechanical toys. If it is, stop doing it, and let’s get back to bashing other motorcycles for the right reasons: the goofy jerks who ride them.

Good stuff, and great writing.   If you’d like to read Joe’s piece about the ride, just click here.  And if you’d like to know more about the RX3 motorcycles we rode on our ride through the American West, just click here.

Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part IV

The view, peeking out from the Mission San Velicata de Espana ruins.

Read Parts I, II, and III of the 2009 KLR Baja foray here!

When the Transpeninsular Highway continues south after leaving El Rosario, it crosses a long bridge across the dry Rio El Rosario and then winds into the mountains on the northern edge of the Valle de los Cirios.  The wilderness starts here, and it is awesome.   I love this area. It’s the first place you encounter cardon cactus and the cirios. These things grow only in Baja (you won’t find them anywhere else on the planet). The Cardon are the giant cactus that look something like the saguaro cactus in Arizona, but the cardon are much, much larger. The cirios are the weird-looking thin shoots that grow to heights of around 30 or 40 feet (maybe even more). Someone once wrote that they look like a plant that Dr. Suess would have designed, and I think that’s a good description.  They have this kind of weird, whimsical, goofy look…the kind of thing one might create when under the influence of, well, whatever your preferred mind-altering substance is.

I grabbed a few shots of our KLRs a few miles into the mountains.  You can see the cardon and the cirios in the background.

My KLR 650. I had the Kawi soft luggage on it and a Nelson-Rigg tank bag.
John’s KLR. These bikes just keep going and going. They’re perfect for this kind of ride.
Baja cacti. It’s one photo op after another in Baja.
A shot along the Transpeninsular Highway in the Valle de los Cirios.
Baja John standing by my KLR. The background almost looks like it’s been painted into this scene.

After rolling along the highway a few more miles, I saw something out of the corner of my eye on the road.  At first I wasn’t sure, and then as I was playing back the image mentally, I decided I needed to turn around and take another look…

Yep, my eyes weren’t playing tricks.  I had seen what I thought I saw.  Is that correct grammatically?  Whatever.  The spider was huge.

Wow, that was one monstrous tarantula!  We parked the bikes and started taking photos.   This spider was easily double the size of the tarantulas I’ve seen in California.

John got down in front of the tarantula.   He squatted to get a closer look, and then something wild happened. The spider ran straight at John. We were both shocked at its speed. They normally seem very deliberate and slow, but I have to tell you, that one moved terrifyingly fast.

John jumped up, screamed, and propelled himself backwards faster than a Democrat mistakenly wandering into a Trump rally.  John was paddling backward so fast he looked like an old Warner Brothers roadrunner cartoon.

We both laughed after it happened.  Here we were, two guys old enough to know better, screwing around with a ginormous tarantula in the middle of the Baja peninsula, laughing like a couple of kids.  Baja does that to you.

Look at this fellow’s little beady eyes. And his hairy butt. That’s quite a hairdo. It kind of reminds me of Beavis and Butthead. Come to think of it, those might be appropriate names for John and me.
The tarantula crawled under a plant, I took a few more photos, and we were on our way.

I think I already mentioned that I had my Nikon D200 on this trip and an older (non-VR) 24-120 Nikon lens. I mostly shot at f/8 (the 24-120’s sweet spot) in the aperture mode, which is a mode that works well for me. I also had the 12-24 Tokina wide angle lens along for the ride, but I never even mounted it on the camera. The 24-120 is not a macro lens, but it did an acceptable job here.  The Tokina lens does a good job, too, but the 24-120 Nikon was handling everything for me on this ride.

Our next planned stop was the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata. We almost didn’t go. I had been spooked by the dogs, and I told John the night before that I wasn’t too keen on rolling through any more little villages with dogs. John waited awhile and casually mentioned that he really wanted to see some of the sights accessible only by dirt roads. I acquiesced and I’m glad I did.   We saw some amazing things…things we wouldn’t have seen if we hadn’t wandered off road.

Further down the Transpeninsular Highway, we saw the sign for the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata and a dirt road veering off to the west.   I took the turn first, and son of a gun, a dog materialized out of nowhere and started chasing me.   This time the dog was so small it was funny.  It was a little Chihuahua, and he looked anything but threatening.   The little guy was behind me yapping up a storm and I was enjoying the chase.   Those little legs were pumping for all they were worth and he still couldn’t keep up.  It was me, the Chihuahua, and John (in that order) rolling down this dirt road.  The pup was struggling to keep up, barking all the while and trying his best to be intimidating.  I could hear John laughing behind me.  I should have grabbed a picture.

On the road to the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata

The Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata was the only one in Baja founded by the Franciscans (the Jesuits did all the others).  It only lasted from 1769 to 1818. It was built to convert the local Cochimi Indians to Catholicism (that was how it was advertised; basically, the missions were labor camps with a touch of that old time religion).  Unfortunately, the Spaniards brought diseases for which the indigenous people had no immunity, and disease soon ravaged the area. The entire mission system in Mexico ended in the early 1800s, when Mexico gained its independence from Spain.  It’s not a pretty story, but there’s a history here and it’s intriguing to visit these ancient places (especially when they are well off the beaten path).

The Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata. This is all that’s left of it.
Our KLRs parked in front of the mission ruins.

The place was amazing.  I’d seen the sign and the dirt road to get to the mission on each of my prior Baja visits, but I had never been to see it.  Getting there and taking it all in was fun.

After visiting the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata, we rolled south along the Transpeninsular Highway a few more miles and took another dirt road (this time to the east) to see the ruins at El Marmol. El Marmol was a world-famous marble and onyx quarry 50 years ago. Like the mission, we’d seen the signs for it on our earlier travels through Baja, but we had never made the trip out there to see it. I always wanted to see what El Marmol was all about, especially after reading about it in several Baja references.  Carole Lombard had a bathtub made from El Marmol marble, you know.

The ride out to El Marmol was exciting.  The road was rough and had deep sand in several spots. My friend Bob had previously told me that the best way to take this stuff was at high speed, and that’s what we did. It made an enormous difference. I could see the rough road beneath me, but the KLR’s long-travel suspension let me fly over it. It was almost an out-of-body experience.   I enjoyed it.  I was in the zone, and suddenly, we were there.

El Marmol. There isn’t much to it, other than a pile of big rocks.  Folks still come out here to get the marble.  We saw a few Mexicans loading some into a tiny pickup truck.
I bottomed the suspension in a few spots on the ride out to El Marmol, and this is what it did to my KLR’s license plate.  Many first-gen KLR owners relocate their license plate up on top of the rear fender. Now I know why.
Two KLRistas at El Marmol. That’s my yellow riding jacket on my KLR.  It seemed to aggravate any dog who saw it.
The KLRs at El Marmol.

We stopped for a break on the way out of El Marmol where the dirt road rejoined the Transpeninsular Highway.  We had a good conversation with Jose, a police officer from Catavina who consented to a photo.

Good buddy Jose, my tocayo.

There were two dogs hanging around the place watching John, Jose, and me.  They seemed friendly enough when John gave one of them a snack.  Then we got on the motorcycles and it was as if someone had flipped a switch.  The dogs instantly turned mean, snarling and going after John, who was accelerating sharply way (a relative term, to be sure, when you’re on a KLR).  There’s a rule in Mexico, I guess.  If you’re a dog and you see a guy on a motorcycle, you’ve got a reputation to maintain.  This time, though, both dogs went after John and ignored me.   They chased John all the way back to the highway, with me following.   Hey, that’s was okay by me.  I’d already earned my combat pay.

The dogs chasing John, though, didn’t seem to have their hearts in it.  They were chasing John like it was part of their job description and the boss was watching.  Going through the motions.  Phoning it in.  You know the drill.

I thought about that as we continued south.  I reasoned and hoped that as went further into Mexico (and we were about 350 miles into Baja at this point), the dogs might be nicer.  Our next destination was Guerrero Negro, 500 miles south of the border.  We would soon find out.

Check out our other Epic Motorcycle Rides, and watch the ExNotes blog for the next installment of the Baja KLR Khronicles!

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Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part III

When I left off with the last post about our 2009 KLR Baja trip, I had a dog hanging onto my leg on a dirt road just north of San Jacinto.  It was terrifying, and what I was mostly scared of was that the thing might have managed to sink its teeth into me.  If that had happened, there was no question but that I would have to undergo the rabies shots.  In order to avoid doing that, I’d either have to know that it hadn’t penetrated my leg or I’d have to kill the dog and get its head to a lab to be tested for rabies (gruesome, I know, and don’t ask me how I know about such things).   That second option wasn’t going to happen, and in any event, I had no idea where I could go in Baja to get the head tested.  Nope, all my bets had to be on no penetration, or I’d have to go for the abdominal rabies shots.

When the dog finally released its grip, John and I slid to a stop a half mile  further down the road and I frantically stopped to check my leg. I didn’t know if the thing had actually bitten me or if it had just got a mouth full of denim and boot leather. I didn’t feel the dog’s teeth penetrate me, but I was too adrenalized to feel anything.

It’s a good thing we were out in the boonies, and it’s a good thing no one was there to see what happened next.  And what that was, well, let’s just say it was picturesque.  It was me frantically undoing my motorcycle pants, and then my blue jeans, and dropping both, with John kneeling in front of me to look for bite marks.  Anyone seeing this might get the wrong idea.  I know, we’re close, but not that close.

I checked my leg and I didn’t see any bite marks. John examined me and it was official:  I was unharmed. Had I not been wearing boots and my motorcycle pants, that probably would not have been the case.  All the gear, all the time.  It’s an adage that holds true.  Dodged a bullet, I did.

So, toothmark-and-rabies-free, we rolled past another little cluster of dwellings, made a sweeping right turn as the dirt road followed the coast, and there it was…

The Isla Del Carmen, off the Pacific Coast near San Jacinto, after confirming I was not going to become a rabid motorcyclist.

We hung out by the Isla Del Carmen for a while and I took a bunch of photographs.  The Isla Del Carmen sank right off the San Jacinto coast during a storm in 1984.  I’d seen the wreck in another photograph, and now I was seeing it in person.  It was awesome being there.

I like these photos, partly because of what we had gone through to get them (the rough roads and the canine assault), but mostly because it was a shot I had framed in my mind before we arrived and the actual photos turned out better than I had imagined.  Indulge me.  I’ll show you a few.

The KLRs in front of the Isla Del Carmen. That’s the Pacific in the background.
John’s is green. Mine was red. Loved those bikes. Simple, fast enough, and fun.
Baja John, at ease along the Pacific coast.
Leave something in salt water long enough…
Coastal stuff.

After spending a while taking photos, we took the direct route out of San Jacinto heading east. It was another sandy dirt road, but it was hard packed and it ran relatively straight to the Transpeninsular Highway north of Camalu.

We stopped in Camalu for lunch.  John and I opted for the chicken fajitas at the Las Brisas, a small restaurant, and our mid-day meal was amazing.  Octavio, the owner and chef extraordinaire, took good care of us.  We had a two-hour lunch, and we spent a lot of that time chatting with Octavio.  It was fun.

The Las Brisas, the hot spot in Camalu.
John enjoying Octavio’s chicken fajitas.
This is Octavio, the propriet0r and Camalu’s philosopher-in-chief. He patiently explained to us that Camalu is the best place in the world. Who knew?
America and Palmyra, two young ladies in Camalu.

We got as far as El Rosario that second night, and we stayed in the El Sinahi hotel. It was an inexpensive, no-frills kind of place (exactly what I like in Baja).

The El Sinahi. Check the spelling.
The KLR, docked for the evening.

We ate at a restaurant adjacent to the El Sinahi, and it was great.  I don’t think it had a name, other than “Restaurant.”  It didn’t need one.  It was wonderful.  You know, folks tell me I spend a lot of time talking about the cuisine in Baja.  Guilty as charged.  I love that aspect of exploring the peninsula.  I guess there are bad restaurants in Baja.  In 30 years of exploring the place, though, I haven’t found them.

Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat!
John had fish tacos, the quintessential Baja dish. They look great, don’t they?
Maria, our waitress in El Rosario.

I didn’t know it yet, but the rear window to my El Sinahi hotel room faced a neighbor’s yard. A neighbor with roosters. Lots of roosters. The kind that start cock-a-doodle-doodling at 4:30 a.m. Right into my window.
I had visions of making rooster fajitas, but I decided not to. Truth is, those things sounded so strong I didn’t know if I could take them in a fight.

There’s another abandoned mission west of El Rosario about three miles down a dirt road that winds through more small villages. We tried to find it that next morning, but we couldn’t.  While rolling down that road, we encountered more Mexican dogs, and sure enough, the dogs came after us again. We outran them that time. We could have poked around longer trying to find the mission, but the dogs unnerved me. I reckoned that we had gone far enough to pass where the mission should have been, we never saw it, and I turned around.  On our return through the area where the dogs chased us, we blitzed by at 60 mph.  No dogs, no bites, and no problems.

Ah, but the day was just starting.  A little further down the Transpeninsular Highway, in Baja’s Valle de los Cirios, we would be chased yet again.  But this time, it would be by a titanic tarantula.   But that’s a story for the next installment of our Baja KLR Khronicles.

Stay tuned!

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Bonnier Kills Motorcyclist Magazine

The distance from being read in the crapper and actually being in the crapper is a short one. According to Dealer News, Motorcyclist magazine crossed that span this week. I’m not happy about it. In fact, I’m well pissed-off. Over 100 years of print publication down the tubes. I was a part of that glorious history for 10 years. MC mag was always my favorite. They had Burns, they had Boehm, they had Frank and they had that crazy kid that kept crashing GSXR’s. MC mag was way cooler and funnier than stodgy old corporate-Cycle World. When I first decided to submit motorcycle stories for publication MC mag was the only place I submitted to.

Bonnier bought most of the USA’s larger motorcycle magazines a few years back and instead of finding a way they have shuttered magazine after magazine. They’ve managed to turn the largest motorcycle enthusiast’s print group into a damn Internet blog. What a stunning waste of money. Bonnier is supposed to be the experts. The much-touted single-source vertical integration has become a major horizontal screw-up. Thanks guys. Thanks for screwing up nearly everything I liked about your books.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a blog (you’re reading this one), but a hard copy is forever and we motorcyclists need a permanent record of our existence. Besides, Motorcycle.com does the Internet better than anyone and they have Burns to boot. Vendor sites like Revzilla and Twisted Throttle are doing a great job reviewing what they sell and in-house sites like Indian, Hog and BMW keep us up to date on the latest models. I’m saying we’re covered: The world does not need a rump-Motorcyclist magazine spewing cheesy sponsored content on the Internet. The world needs the real thing.

Bonnier’s press release tries to spin the magazine’s closure in the best possible light citing MC’s huge social media reach. Most of those puffy numbers are a direct result of Brian Hatano’s work years ago and Ari/Zack’s well done YouTube channel. Anyway, as Berk and I have learned, Facebook friends do not equal views. When a page with a million-plus followers puts up an interesting post and gets two comments, I’m telling you the reach is just not there. I get more response from a post about adobe blocks.

Yeah, I’m angry at Bonnier. Not only for firing Jack Lewis and me (in their defense, we weren’t exactly killing it) but also for doggedly sticking with a failed process. Chris Cantle and the new crew were doing a good job with the magazine’s content but the masthead was bloated with salaries and middlemen making it a struggle to pay off the ossified blob smothering their best efforts. You could have given Cantle three guys, an art director and one ad salesman and they would have done just as well, and maybe even turned a profit.

Mixing Cycle World and Motorcyclist diluted both brands and the titles became a slurry of interchangeable writers. Competition between the two formal rivals became cooperation: It didn’t seem to matter who wrote what. The magazines lost their personality and sense of humor. They wrote like they knew they were doomed.

Instead of charging what it costs to produce the magazine like American Iron and other smaller operations, Bonnier stuck with trying to pay for the magazine with advertising and giving the book away free to create a large subscriber base. This stupid-ass method changes the customer base from the reader to the advertiser. And the readers knew it. Charge $29 a year for 12 issues and write to me, damnit!

I don’t know. Maybe nothing would have worked. To me it seems like Bonnier gave up. Instead of raising rates they gave up. Instead of publishing 12 times a year no matter what they gave up. Instead of building reader loyalty with old school give-away items like stuff bags, key fobs and T-shirts they gave up. Readers, just like writers, love to see their stuff in print. That positive interaction was killed when they got rid of the letters to the editor page. If Bonnier group doesn’t care what we think, why should we care what they think?

Nimble, focused magazines that charge what they cost to produce seem to be doing ok for the moment. Their subscriber numbers might be lower but the numbers are real and they make money. It might be as simple as charging more for the product. The hated Cycle World is still publishing today, barely, and what they are doing is not working. Unlike Motorcyclist, it’s not too late for Cycle World. The question is whether Bonnier Corp has the will power to attempt something different and well proven, or give up like they have done so many times in the past.

Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part II

This is a story about a 2009 Baja KLR ride.  In Part I, we covered the ride from southern California to Rosarito Beach.

The breakfast at Velero’s in Ensenada was impressive (it always is), and it was a glorious morning as we rolled south.

Two KLRs headed south in Baja.  John forgot his toothbrush, and I wasn’t going to let him use mine, so we stopped at a farmacia so he could buy a new one.

We had several offroad explorations in mind as we rode deeper into Baja that morning, but our first stop was at a farmacia.  I like Mexican pharmacies.   Here in the US in 2009, all the stories in the news media were about the drug wars in Mexico.  Right church, wrong pew, as they say: The US news media had the wrong story.  The real drug story in Mexico was (and still is) how cheap prescriptions are down there.  You don’t need a prescription in Mexico for many of the drugs that require prescriptions in the US (like penicillin, and prednisone, and Lord knows what else), and meds are trivially inexpensive.  The drugs are the same as what we get in the US (literally, the same, from the same US manufacturers in many cases).  I wish our so-called “investigative journalists” would write an expose on that topic, but they were too focused in 2009 on killing the tourism industry in Mexico with distorted news about the drug wars. Go figure.

We continued south on the Transpeninsular Highway.  There’s about a dozen miles of traffic leaving Ensenada, and then Baja switches suddenly from squalor to splendor as the road climbs into the mountains and descends into Baja’s wine country.  It really is spectacular.  If you’ve never made this ride, or if you’re idea of going into Mexico is TJ or Ensenada, you need to venture further south to start to get a feel for the real Baja.  Trust me on this.

John and his KLR on the Transpeninsular Highway in Baja’s wine country.  This is where the beauty of Baja begins to emerge.

Ah, Baja.  It was beautiful. It always is.

Our first excursion in the dirt would be to the abandoned mission in San Vincente, well into the desert and well south of mountains.  We saw a sign for the mission and took a dirt road heading west from the Transpeninsular Highway.  As it turned out, there was a lot more out there than just an abandoned mission.

The sign pointing to the Camino Real mission ruins.

We first saw a building we initially mistook for the mission. It was a private home (one of several). We were stunned. The homes were magnificent, tucked away in the hills down a rough, soft sand road.  I’d been by San Vincente on many prior Baja rides, but I had no idea the hills held such secrets.

Wow.   Who knew this was back here?

We saw a young lady and asked her for directions to the mission.  She pointed and told us to go over a hill.   We did, and the first thing we found was a well-maintained rural cemetery.

I’m in no hurry to be buried, but when it’s time, this might be nice. If there’s such a thing as elegance in a graveyard, this place had it.

There was something about the cemetery that was simultaneously captivating and tranquil. It seemed to come from another era, and after reading the headstones we saw that it did. It was meticulously maintained.  It’s always nice to see that.

Impressive. A family plot. The wife lived to be 100.  Imagine that.
Magnificent. I shot all the photos in this series with my old Nikon D200 and the first-generation 24-120 lens.  It was state-of-the-art in 2009.  I took a lot of pictures with that camera.

After the cemetery, we found the San Vincente Mission. The local folks are restoring it.  I’d seen signs for the mission on the Transpeninsular Highway, but this is the first time I’d ventured off the asphalt to see it.  John and I were the only folks out there that day.

The San Vincente Mission was built about 300 years ago.  It’s one of several that run the length of the Baja peninsula. I’ve been to several, and a few are still working churches.   What’s left of the San Vincente Mission is not.

What’s left of the San Vincente Mission.  The restoration was a labor of love. The mission’s adobe walls were being resurfaced. I need to get back there to see how it looks today.
The mission walls underneath the restoration.

We rode through the soft sand back toward the Transpeninsular Highway to the town of San Vincente’s contemporary church (which is visible from the highway).  It offered great photo opportunities and we took a bunch. We wanted to enter the church, but it was locked.

San Vincente’s church in 2009.
John relaxing in front of the San Vincente church.
John yanked on the cord, and that bell was loud. We stopped. We didn’t want the San Vincente residents to think they were being summoned.

It was fun being out in these remote areas on the KLRs.  The experience was a lot different than seeing Baja from pavement only, and John and I were enjoying it.  I’m normally not a guy who likes riding dirt, but John had talked me into getting off the highway and I’m glad he did.

Shortly after leaving San Vincente, it was time to check off another item on our wish list, and that was seeing the Isla Del Carmen shipwreck. I wanted to see it, but I didn’t know exactly where the wreck was other than that it was somewhere off the coast near San Jacinto, so we took another dirt road due west for about 8 miles and hit the Pacific coast.  Our plan was to intersect the coast several miles north of San Jacinto, follow it south, and find what was left of the Isla Del Carmen.

The dirt road along the coast was rough, and I’m being charitable when I call it a road. It was mostly soft sand.  At one point the sand was so deep it was nearly impossible to control the KLR, so I wrestled the Kawasaki up into the weeds. It was a marginal improvement. I couldn’t see where the wheel was going, but at least the sand wasn’t calling the shots anymore.  And before you tell me the trick is to get up to speed and float on top of the soft stuff, all I can say is hey, I was there.  You weren’t.

Then we encountered something we hadn’t expected:  Dogs.  A pack of dogs, actually.  And they were pissed.  At us.

Well, that’s not quite accurate.  Their anger was focused on me.  Specifically, me.  At least that’s how I felt.

In California, you almost never see a dog off a leash. In rural Mexico, you almost never see a dog on a leash. Those things are aggressive, too.  We were chased by more dogs on this trip than I have been chased by in my entire life. They weren’t just interested in scaring us or getting a good laugh. Those things wanted us for dinner.  Or rather, they wanted me for dinner.  I’ll tell you more about the angry dogs of Baja as this story progresses, but one dog story at a time for now.  And this one was enough.

I don’t like dogs. I was mauled pretty badly by one when I was kid, and I still have the scars to prove it. I know that those of you who have taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course or who have read about such things are thinking that being chased by a dog is no big deal. I know about slowing down, letting the dog calibrate his intercept based on your reduced speed, and then accelerating to confuse the cantankerous canine. That works on pavement if there is one dog. Try doing it in soft sand when there’s pack of four or five that are fanned out along your flank. In that situation, you are not just a motorcyclist. You are a potential meal.  And that was the situation I found myself in that fine Baja afternoon.

A tranquil scene, don’t you think? It was right after I shot this photo that the dogs descended on us.

We were approaching a rinky-dink little fishing village, eyeballing the coast for the shipwreck, when the pack of dogs came after me. I think it might have been my green fluorescent riding jacket.  Maybe they had an unhappy childhood.  Maybe someone unfriended them on Facebook.   Who knows.  Whatever the reason, they were snarling and spitting and literally smacking their jaws as I tried to fool them with the slow-down-speed-up maneuver. In soft sand. Trying to keep the motorcycle vertical.  Wondering what the hell I was doing down there.

Then it happened.  One of the dogs got me.

I felt him crash into my right leg, and when I looked down, the thing had clamped down on my motorcycle pants just above my ankle.  The dog was literally being dragged along for what seemed like an eternity.  It locked eyes with me, and if there’s such a thing as telepathic communication, or maybe interspecies body language, the dog’s eyes said it all.   It was not a pleasant message in either direction.  The dog might have thought I was a sonofabitch; I had no doubts about him being one.  I’ve known some SOBs in my life, but this bastard was the real deal.  I didn’t feel any pain, but that’s normal in a traumatic situation.  I didn’t know if the dog’s teeth broke the skin around my ankle, but I knew what it would portend if it had.

“Not good,” I thought.

I could see it all the while that miserable sonofabitch was clamped down on my leg, as he was being pulled along at 30 mph.  What I saw was me making a beeline for the border to get medical treatment. Rabies shots, and who knows what else.

To be continued…

Hey, check out our other Epic Motorcycle Rides, and watch the ExNotes blog for the next installment of the Baja KLR Khronicles!

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Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part I

What this trip was all about. I grabbed this somewhere in the Vizcaino Desert.  That’s my red KLR up front and John’s green one behind it. These are the perfect bikes in the perfect place.

In October 2009 it had been a year since my last motorcycle trip in Baja, and that was entirely too long.  I was good to go, but most of the guys I hung out with here in So Cal were timid.  They believed what they read in the LA Times.  You know, about Mexico being dangerous.  Me?  I knew better. I needed to get my knees in the Baja breeze.  My good buddy Baja John felt the same way.

My first journey into Baja was with John back in 1994, and it would be good to ride with him again.  Our earlier trips were on cruisers…John on a Viagra (spelling intentional) and me on a Harley.  We’d both be riding Kawasaki KLR 650s this time.  I bought one, and after listening to me rave about it, so did John.

Don’t get me wrong.  There’s nothing wrong with a Yamaha Virago, and if driveway jewelry is your thing, there’s nothing wrong with a Harley (Harleys are the world’s most efficient machines for converting gasoline to noise and self-perceived status upgrades, you know).  But the KLR 650s…those were real motorcycles.  No pretense, all business.  I wish I had kept my KLR.  I let the guy who bought it know that I’ll but it back.  But that will be a story for another time.

The plan for this trip was to explore places off the Transpeninsular Highway. On previous trips, we’d seen signs pointing down rough dirt roads to the ruins of various abandoned Spanish missions, the marble quarry at El Marmol, and a few other places promising adventure.  On those prior trips we quite appropriately opted not to take our cruisers down those gnarly dirt roads. This time, though, we had the right bikes and we would go wherever we wanted.  Dirt?  Soft sand?  Mud?  Banditos?  Rabid dogs?  Hey, bring it all on.  We were ready.

So, here we go.

John rode south from Tehachapi to meet me near the Cal Poly campus, and we left late on a Thursday afternoon (John worked his job at Palmdale AFB, and I taught that day at Cal Poly).

We made it to Rosarito Beach Hotel that first night, my favorite hotel in that town.  It’s a classy joint with a great restaurant, but the adverse publicity and overall economic climate in 2009 were killing the place.   Think unending stories about drug wars and purported lawlessness in Mexico, and the worldwide Great Recession.  My guess is that fewer than 10 rooms were occupied that evening.

The KLRs, rode hard and put away wet that night in the Rosarito Beach Hotel.

Our plans for this trip were purposely vague, other than to head south and consume large quantities of Tecate after the bikes had been put away. We briefly talked about doing a banzai run all the way to Cabo San Lucas, but that would have been a push. It was already dark when we passed through Tijuana, and south of TJ, the Pacific Ocean mist was fogging my faceshield. I thought about Susanna’s restaurant in Rosarito (more on that in a bit), and all thoughts of Cabo vanished. For that night, Rosarito Beach was it.  And that was a good thing.  I love having dinner in Susanna’s.  Susanna’s is the best restaurant in town, and maybe the best in all of Mexico. A stay in Rosarito Beach without dinner at Susanna’s would be a crime against nature and good judgment.

Susanna, don’t you cry for me. I’ll be back.
Ah, yes. The perfect antidote for low cholesterol. The dining at Susanna’s is as close as you’ll get to Heaven without a one-way ticket.

After a five-star dinner, Baja John and I walked around downtown Rosarito Beach for a bit.  It was deserted.

Rosarito Beach 2009. The LA Times was killing this place with its unending negative stories about Mexico. More than half the stores, restaurants, and other places were shuttered. Normally a hopping party town, in 2009 it was dead, and there was really no reason for it other than the US news media’s fixation on demonizing the place.
At a club in Rosarito Beach.  We were the only two people there.  That’s Baja John on the left.

The next morning we rolled south along the Pacific coast to a great breakfast in Ensenada.  Good God, we were packing on the calories.  My favorite breakfast spot in Ensenada is Velero’s, a place near the ocean just  behind the Corona Hotel.  The clientele is mostly local business folks, the breakfasts are great, and it’s the hot ticket.  They bring a large plate of light, delicious pastries as soon as you sit down.  The coffee and the orange juice are superior. That’s followed by a tortilla with melted cheese and salsa. I could have (and should have) stopped at the pastries and the cheese tortilla, but I went for my customary two eggs over hard with the fixings you see below. It was as good as it looks.

Simple, delicious, and filling. Velero’s is the breakfast spot in Ensenada.
Velero’s is on a side street that juts off the road along the coast. The Ensenada sign is gone.  A pity, as it made for a great photo.

After a great breakfast, we were on the road again, headed south out of Ensenada toward points south, including the aforementioned abandoned missions, a shipwreck on the Pacific coast, and more.

To be continued…

Hey, we have a couple of pages you should check out.  One is our Baja page, which includes great info on taking a motorcycle into Baja.   The other is our new Epic Motorcycle Rides page.  Take a look and let us know what you think!

Cool things are happening!

This has been a busy week, and lots of good things are happening.  We’re having rain all over, and even thunder, lightning, and hail, but things are happening!

For starters, our good buddies at Janus Motorcycles made the New York Times in yesterday’s edition.  You can read the story here.  Folks, from a public relations perspective, it just doesn’t get any better than getting a story in the New York Times.  It’s a tremendous accomplishment, especially when considered in light of the fact that the story spoke so very well of Janus and their team.  I enjoyed the Baja ride with Devin and Jordan tremendously, and it’s good to see these guys doing well.  Wow.  The New York Times.  I am impressed!

Devin Biek and Richard Worsham, the Janus founders. I rode Baja with Devin. Richard rode a Janus across the United States.

Next up:  The CSC guys are in the middle of their Moab get-together, and following the photos on Facebook, it looks like they are having a hell of a good time.  Good for them!  CSC does more rides with their customers than any motorcycle company I know, and that’s a good thing.  They’re out there offering test rides on the new San Gabriel and the RX4, too.  Cool stuff.

The CSC RX4 in the San Gabriel Mountains.

And a few more developments…we’ve now got a page indexing our more memorable adventure rides, and it’s appropriately titled Epic Motorcycle Rides.  Click on the link to take a look.  We’ve covered past rides on the ExNotes blog, and this new page provides a convenient index to all our rides in one easy spot.  The Janus run, the Enfield run, the Three Flags Classic, the 150cc Mustang run down to Cabo, motorcycle racing in Baja, videos from the different rides, and more.  It’s all on Epic Motorcycle Rides!

Check out the new ExNotes Epic Motorcycle Rides page!

We’ve got a lot of new stuff coming your way, folks.  I’ve been playing with some cast bullet loads in the 1903 Springfield and we’ll have a piece on it soon.  We’ve got more motorcycle stories queued up, including one about running the KLRs through Baja.  We’ve got two new Facebook groups launched…one is the Crappy Old Motorcycle Association (or COMA, for short), and the other is Guns and Ammo, each with a focus on just what their names imply.  And of course, we have our Facebook ExhaustNotes page.  We’d like you to sign up on all three…hey, we all could use more Facebook in our lives!

One more thing…please consider signing up for the blog’s email updates.  You might win a copy of Destinations at the end of this quarter if you do!

Ride safe, my friends, and stay dry!

Adobe Construction: Dirt Cheap!

It takes 60 shovelfuls to fill the adobe mixer. Originally designed for mortar, the outside drum of our mixer looks like an inverted lunar landscape. Dimples as large as a quarter, back when a quarter was worth 25 cents, protrude far enough to run afoul of the mixer’s I-beam chassis. It’s the rocks, see? Mixing adobe eats up the rubber wiper blades on the paddles and as the gap between the blade and the drum grows larger things start going south. When the gap grows large enough the mixer paddles wedge into the rocks and a sharp pop, like someone hit the machine with a 16-pound sledgehammer, is followed by a lurch of the heavy machine. Another dimple has been created. If the conditions are just right the mixer blades will lock up solid and it takes a quick hand on the clutch lever to prevent a smoking V-belt.

I’m telling you this now because when the machine is running it’s so loud conversation is impossible. Big Pappy and I are mixing mud and filling wheel buggies with adobe for blocks. Pappy’s arms are as big around as my legs. Those protruding dimples rubbing the chassis make rotating the hopper to dump mud a two-man operation. We push so hard we nearly tip the machine on its side. Big Pappy nods, which I take to mean push harder. It doesn’t. The handle slams Pappy upside the head and he gives me a murderous look. “What the hell are you doing? I told you to stop.” I’ve only been on the job an hour and I’m already injuring my coworkers.

With adobe mixing the show must go on so Pappy and I work in silence. Not total silence though, because we have to keep count of how many shovels we are throwing into the hopper. “I’m at 13,” I tell Pappy. “15” for me, Pappy replies. The mixer locks up, I grab the clutch. We move loaded buggies to the block-making area then we shovel more dirt into the hopper. Soon the injury is forgotten. “Is that good?” “More water.” Pappy says. “4 more shovelfuls.” “Ok, that’s good. Let’s let it mix” Pappy feels bad about yelling at me, I feel bad for hurting Pappy. We are a team again. I’ve got to be more careful working around others.

Buggies full of the sticky clay, sand and straw mixture that makes up an adobe block are dumped into 2-block forms and smoothed by hand. We have plenty of willing helpers because this is a New Mexico Humanities Council program created to teach the traditional ways of adobe construction (nmhumanities.org). After 2 full days of class a student will come away with a sore back and respect for the ones that came before.

We make adobe block after adobe block. Pat Taylor, our maestro of mud has more than a little Tom Sawyer in him as he makes the hard work of mixing and pouring adobe seem like fun. Several hundred blocks later we have filled up much of the parking lot. After a month of baking in the sun the blocks will be so hard that it takes a solid blow from a hammer to fracture them.

“Who wants to give it a try?” Pat asks and several would-be adobe builders jump in and start laying blocks. Instead of cement mortar, more mud is used to set the Adobe blocks. I’m cutting a bevel into the blocks to create a space for small volcanic rocks. The rocks are fitted into the bevels and held in with a white lime mortar. Once these protruding rocks are set the lime plaster will adhere to the rocks, hopefully keeping the plaster from sloughing off the wall.

Amazingly, we make a pretty decent looking wall. The lime plaster hides all manner of sin and if you can keep the rain off of your adobe wall the thing will last several centuries.

There’s another, even older method of finishing adobe walls borne from necessity: More mud. Mud plaster doesn’t last as long as lime plaster but if you don’t have lime what’s a poor boy to do? Think of mud plaster as a sacrificial coating. It erodes so that the adobe blocks underneath don’t. Mud plaster is applied by hand or trowel, and re-applied every few years as needed. As Pat’s students, we got to try all application methods with special emphasis on the difficult ones.

The mortar, the blocks, the plaster, everything except the lime was made from a mixture of clay, sand and straw. Only the ratios varied depending on what you were using it for. And they didn’t vary all that much. Adobe uses the simplest building material, dirt, and combines it with human muscle to fashion living spaces. It’s the oldest building material yet adobe techniques will likely see use in future human settlements anywhere dirt is plentiful, the land is inhospitable and a Home Depot is far, far away.