My RX3, one of the very first bikes in the US. Numerous Baja trips, a ride through the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest, and more. That little 250 is always good for an attitude adjustment.
Not a lot of writing today, my friends. I fired up the old RX3 and rode into the mountains to clear my mind and create my own reality. It was long past time to shed the shackles of a world gone mad. No left or right wing news media (that’s all there is any more), no Covid 19, no protests, no riots, no police brutality, no defunding police departments, no masks, no shelter in place, no stupid stuff on Facebook (now there’s a redundant expression), no ridiculously bad choices in the next election (damned if you do and damned even more if you don’t), and no one telling me how to think about this, that, or the other thing. No thank you, I can think for myself, and today I thought I would go for a motorcycle ride. Other than captions, I’ll keep the words down and let the pictures do the talking.
That headlight grille and the spotlamps were gifts from Enrique Vargas, AKT Motos General Manager (and a genuine nice guy) in Medellin, Colombia.Steve Seidner, CEO of CSC Motorcycles, created decals for each of our multi-day company rides back in the good old days. I ran out of campaign ribbon real estate on my fuel tank.Glendora Ridge Road, my happy place. That’s Mt. Baldy and Mt. San Antonio dead ahead.Glendora Ridge Road is one of the best wildflower spots in the country. I’ve been up there when there are red, orange, yellow, and purple wildflowers blooming at the same time.I’ve done Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon on my 250. The most beautiful state? That’s easy: Utah, hands down. But they are all pretty if you know where to ride (and I do). The best riding and the best times? That’s another easy call: Baja. I’ve ridden Colombia and I’ve ridden China on RX3 motorcycles. Once, when I was in Turkey, a young Turk let me ride his RX3. This is a bike with long legs, folks.
So there you have it. I’m back, it was a great ride, and I had a good time. You might consider doing the same.
Good buddy Mike, a fellow former trooper who I met on a ride through Baja a few years ago, has been sort of stranded down there until recently. Mike and his good friend Bobbie went whale watching and they had a unique experience. Mike was kind enough to share the adventure with us. Here you go, folks.
So as someone who is always seeking adventure I may have gotten in over my head with this one. Not only am I three years in living fulltime off a motorcycle, currently in Baja due to a global pandemic, but why not throw in a rescue mission at sea just to ensure I have everything covered. Sure, why not?
It was a dark and stormy night and the sea was angry…actually it was just a bit windy around mid-day when we decided to partake in a whale watching trip on pangas (small wooden boats) in Guerrero Negro, Baja, Mexico. It’s a magical encounter with nature as these majestic creatures, which are the size of a school bus. These gray whales come up to your panga and you can actually pet them and experience these animals at such a close range. It is just a magical experience…a life-altering experience.
We begin with a standard safety briefing and get bussed out to the docks, fitted with life vests, and we are all excited to get out and see these beautiful animals up close. Prior to boarding our panga I noticed another boat with 8 senior citizens leaving the same time as us and for a minute thought maybe we should jump in their boat as there were less people then our boat, but we chose to just stay where we were assigned with 12 people aboard.
The tour was going pretty well, not great as there was a lot of chop in the bay, so the whales don’t get as close as we’d like since the boat was bumping up and down. As the tour seemed to be ending I noticed we were heading not towards shore but in a direction we hadn’t been. I first thought they had spotted more whales and soon saw a giant gray object in the distance. Once we got a bit closer I realized it was not a whale at all but a capsized panga with three people clinging to the upside-down vessel by the propeller. The reality set in as we saw others floating in the water along with backpacks, camera bags, and purses. I put everything I had into a waterproof compartment in my rain jacket and handed it to my girlfriend as I saw it was the panga with the eight seniors and I said “I guess I am going for a swim.”
As we moved in to begin rescuing people from the water I performed a headcount of those in the water. Knowing it was the panga with the seniors I had all nine (eight and the captain) accounted for and saw they all looked to be relatively well. Although it was windy, it wasn’t too cold. I also remembered from the safety briefing that there were no sharks in this part of the bay. We quickly realized no one was in immediate danger.
This is where it gets fun, sorta. As with all “disasters” there’s “that guy.” The guy that has to be a hero no matter how little they know. We were “fortunate” enough to have one on our panga (damnit). The captain of our boat spoke little English but was very competent and was trying to give directions that seemed to drown out by the time they reached us since the newly unelected hero was shouting his own directions on how to handle the situation best.
Knowing the people in the water were not in great danger I sat back on the far side of the boat as a ballast, shook my head, and let the hero begin to rescue people clumsily and haphazardly pulling them into our vessel incorrectly. While this was going on I kept contemplating the consequences of throwing him overboard and rescuing the remaining seniors myself. Would saving eight people but leaving one to swim back result in any criminal charges against me in Mexico? Luckily for everyone that was a fleeting thought.
One haunting moment that really still stands out is when the captain had to re-angle the panga to rescue the last three people clinging to the propeller. Those people thought we were leaving them and began shouting “Don’t leave us, please don’t leave us.” You could hear the fear and panic in their voices. Once we were angled our “hero” had realized his uselessness and backed off allowing us to properly load the remaining three people safely into the panga without issue.
The boat ride back to the docks was a quiet and bumpy ride. Everyone was soaked, including myself (and I never even left the boat). There were three ambulances at the docks by the time we had reached it. It was a great feeling that no one required them other than for warm blankets.
Feeling great being back on dry land (not as great as the nine that were in the water) we returned to the office where we met the owner of the whale tour company and began explaining our adventure in great detail, telling the story over tequila and tacos. He brought out his guitar and played requests for us for several hours.
Mike, that’s a hell of a story. I’m glad everyone got through it without injury. We actually read about that happening in Baja not too long ago. In all the times I’ve been whale watching, I’ve never seen that happen.
Hey, the rest of our readers: If you’d like to see more Baja whale watching, here’s the page you want!
We’re up to Day 5 in Colombia from my December 2015 circumnavigation of the Andes Mountains. The riding was incredible, the scenery even more so. Juan and Carlos were amazing riders, as was every person I saw on a motorcycle in Colombia. Ah, enough of a prelude…here’s what I posted for CSC Motorcycles on December 19, 2015.
Actually, it’s pronounced “Via Da Layba.” I’m learning how to be a Colombian and how to speak like one. Colombian Spanish is different than Mexican Spanish. Much to my regret, I don’t speak either one. Someday.
Juan Carlos and Carlos told me they’re making me an honorary C0lombian because my riding has progressed significantly in the last few days. Folks, these two guys are the best riders I’ve ever ridden with, and for them to tell me that was quite a compliment. Every rider I know in the U.S. would be subpar compared to your typical Colombian motorcyclist. The way they carve corners and carve through heavy traffic on these mountain roads is a thing a beauty. They are the best riders I’ve ever seen, and the two guys I’m riding with are beyond incredible. But I digress…more on that later. The focus of this blog entry is Day 5, which was yesterday for me.
As you know from reading the blog, we stayed in Barichara. It’s an awesome little town and we stayed in an awesome little hotel. Getting there was an experience. We passed through a bunch of small towns up here in the Andes Mountains. In these small towns, everything is either uphill or downhill. The roads are either cobblestone or dirt. And when I say cobblestone, I’m not talking about little rocks. These are 6 to 12 inch boulders that are basically mashed together to form a street. The cobblestones (actually, cobbleboulders) throw the bike left and right and up and down, and this is all going on while riding up or down extremely steep hills. The RX3 is the perfect bike for this. I couldn’t imagine doing it on anything bigger or heavier.
We stayed at the Artepolis Hotel, and it was an experience. The guy in the room next to me was an Austrian photographer who came here just to photograph the place. It’s that stunning. Here’s the hotel the next morning (it was dark when we arrived the preceding evening, and we had to ride up a rough dirt road to get to the hotel).
The next morning Juan and Carlos wanted to ride a bit and get some photos. They took me to the edge of a cliff and we got some great shots…here’s one of Carlos I especially like:
And here are a couple more:
We continued on a paved road to a little town called Guane, and along the way I spotted a couple of Colombian vultures perched in a tree not far from the road. I always wanted to get a decent shot of a vulture during my Baja travels, but my results have always been mediocre. I’m carrying my 70-300 Nikon lens on this trip, and I thought I would try for that vulture photo I’ve been wanting for years. The lighting was perfect and I think I did okay…
After photographing the vultures, I grabbed a couple of shots from the saddle on our way to Guane.
Guane is a beautiful little town with a magnificent church…I was working the little Nikon D3300 and its 18-55 lens as best I could. That camera is really doing a great job on this trip. I bought it because I wanted something light and small. You folks who are planning to ride to Baja with us in March might want to give the D3300 a look if you don’t already have a camera. It really adds a lot to the adventure if you can capture stuff like this.
In many Colombian towns, the taxi services use tuk-tuks. Tuk-tuks are little three wheel things that have two wheels in the back and one wheel up front. I’d seen them in Thailand, but encountering them again in Colombia was something I had not expected. The ones in Colombia are made by Bajaj, an Indian manufacturer (as in India, not Indian motorcycles). They’re powered by a little 200cc single, and I was surprised at it’s ability to haul Carlos, Juan, and me up and down the hills in Barichara (we took one to go to dinner in Barichara). Juan told me he tested one at Bajaj’s request a year or so ago and he was impressed with it.
The tuk-tuks are often customized with really cool paintwork, and so are some of the other commercial vehicles. Here’s the artwork on one such vehicle in Guane that caught my eye:
After our brief exploration of Guane, we rode back to Barichara. The guys had been telling me I had to see the cemetery, and they were right. It seemed weird to visit a cemetery for the artistry, but it was impressive…
After that we were back on the road, headed for Villa de Leyva. I had mentioned to Juan that I wanted to get photos of the police motorcycles in Colombia, and when he spotted a few motor officers in one of the many small towns we rode through, I checked another photo op off the list.
This first photo shows one of the more common Colombian police bikes, the Suzuki 200 single.
Here’s another bike the Colombian police use…the Suzuki V-Strom 650…
There’s a lot more to tell you about the Colombian police motorcycles, but that will come later. I’m seeing and learning so much I just can’t get it all into the blog. I’m thinking maybe another book is in order. We’ll see.
Juan found our hotel just outside of Villa de Leyva, we checked in, and then we rode into town. This is the town square…it’s the largest in all of Colombia.
If you’re really impressed with that last shot, so am I. I wish I could take credit for it. It was a photo for sale in one of the Villa de Leyva stores, and I shot a photo of that photo before they told me I couldn’t.
It was a good day. The next one would be even better.
And one last thing, folks. On that day in Barichara before we left, I did a video in their beautiful cemetery. This wasn’t in the original blog, but I thought I’d add it here.
One more thing…if you’d like to read the first several blogs from Colombia, you can do so here.
Continuing the Colombia adventure, this was my post for the CSC blog on the 18th of December in 2016. We were having a hell of a time and very nearly everywhere we went good buddies Juan and Carlos explained to me that we could not have ridden these roads just a few years ago due to the narcos and FARC instability in Colombia. It was an amazing trip and I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
More riding, another Andean crossing, a bit of rain, and we arrived in Barichara!
Barichara is an artist’s town, and it’s one of the most exclusive places in all of Colombia. It was another glorious day of mountain riding. I did not take too many photos on the ride to Barichara, mostly because of the rain, our late arrival, and I was enjoying our dinner too much that evening in Barichara to break out the Nikon. But I did get a few photos.
My lunch at a restaurant along the Chicamocha River…
One of my “from the saddle” shots of a hydroelectric dam on the Chicamocha River…
A couple of shots chasing Juan Carlos through a massive tunnel in the Andes Mountains…
A fine feathered friend at a fuel stop…
And finally, a shot after the rain ended of the Chicamocha valley…
I’m enjoying the AKT Moto RX3. It’s different in a few minor ways than the CSC bike, and they are both fantastic motorcycles. I’ll do a blog after I return home describing the differences.
I’m calling it a night, folks. More to follow…as always, stay tuned!
I’ll post a few more photos and another video or two from Barichara in the next installment of our Colombian trip travelogue. I wrote this blog before we went out that night, and I grabbed a lot more with my Nikon on our night out in Barichara. It was an impressive town. I’ve got to get back there one of these days.
More of the Colombia adventure and other epic rides are here!
Our Colombian adventure continues…this is the blog from the third day on the road in beautiful Colombia. It was a ride sponsored by CSC Motorcycles and AKT Motos (one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers in Colombia). Our destination was La Playa de Belem and it was awesome. Juan and Carlos were taking good care of me, proudly guiding me through their beautiful country, and I was loving every minute of it.
They tell me la playa means beach in Spanish, and Belem means Bethlehem. There was no beach, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
La Playa de Belem was our destination on the third day of our Colombian moto adventure, and it was indeed awesome. We did a cool 260 miles to get to the evening’s destination, and I have to tell you that 260 miles in Colombia is a long day. What I didn’t realize when we started in the morning is that a good 40 miles of it would be on dirt. And sand. And mud. And I’d even get a chance to play cowboy, except I was mounted on an RX3 instead of a horse.
No kidding, folks, those are cows, and they were on the road. This was something new to me. I mean, when you’re on a 250cc motorcycle, how do you make cows get out of the way? Even if you’re on a big bike, what’s the protocol? These questions were on my mind, when like always, Juan Carlos took the lead. Our bovine buddies just kind of moved aside to let him move through the herd. I wasn’t too sure about that, and then a guy on a little 100cc something-or-other did the same. In for a penny, in for a pound. As I got closer, the sea of cows parted, and I was through. Amazing stuff.
As was the case the day before, it was sweltering, so we stopped to get a juice drink. They have a lot of juices in Colombia, and I’ve been trying them all. I haven’t found one I didn’t like yet.
This little gal was fascinated by us. She let me take her picture.
What I missed getting a photo of were the dinosaurs. No kidding. I looked over at a tree and there were three or four iguanas that were huge. As in 2 1/2 or 3 feet long. They startled me. We ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. I jumped up and fumbled around putting the 70-300 lens on the D3300, but by the time I was ready the lizards were gone. Maybe I’ll see more of them again on this trip. Who knows? Things like that are incredible. I’m enjoying the hell out of this trip.
Ah, a few more “watching the world go by in Colombia” photos…all the gear, all the time.
After dodging and dicing through traffic (and there’s lots of traffic in these Colombian towns, and it’s mostly motorcycles), we finally hit a highway that ran straight. Yippee! We accelerated up to about 70 mph and cruised, and then Juan pulled over. What he pointed out to me was amazing. Ant hills. Not the little kind we are used to, but big monsters that are as hard as concrete. Check this stuff out, folks.
And then, much to my surprise, the animal signs started popping up.
Okay, that one was easy. Fox. I get it. I never saw a sign before warning about a fox crossing, but I can wrap my mind around that one.
What came next…well, that wasn’t so easy to surround with the old gray matter.
Anteaters. Wow. The image quality isn’t so great, but hey, we were zooming along and that one crept up on me. And how about this next one?
Okay, enough monkeying around. Back to the journey.
We entered the eastern arm of the Andes Mountains and started to climb. It was a two-lane road, and we rode it for a good 150 miles. It’s like the Angeles Crest Highway, but it goes on forever, and there were construction stops every 10 miles or so. These next few shots were taken at one of the construction stops. Juan Carlos told me we were very close to the Venezuelan border at this point.
A shot of Juan Carlos.
A Colombian taxi driver.
I’m seeing medium-sized trucks that are 60 years old nearly every day on these roads. The ’56 Ford seems to be especially popular.
Our next stop was in another Andean town at a cool little restaurant. This was our waiter.
I had chicken and mushrooms. It was awesome. I ate maybe half of it.
Carlos and Juan Carlos both ordered something in Spanish (naturally), and they were excited to get it. I thought it was beef, or maybe pork. Nope. It was pig stomach lining. Very tasty, according to them. They offered a taste, but I declined.
A word or two on the riding is in order, I guess, at this point. It is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. In the cities and towns, it’s a free for all. It’s like one of the YouTube videos you see of city intersections with tons of scooters in Asia. Here, it’s scooters, motorcycles, cars, and trucks. There are few traffic lights, and Juan told me nobody pays attention to the stop signs or speed limits. “They are like suggestions,” he said.
I’m a big fan of the twisties, but in Colombia, they take on a new meaning. The national sport seems to be passing everyone you can everywhere you can. It’s tense. Juan Carlos and Carlos are totally used to it. I’m getting there, but it is unnerving. It’s also weird just how good every rider seems to be. I’m riding at my limits (not the bike’s limits, but mine) too often, and while I’m doing this taking a corner way faster than I ever would in the US, some Colombian will pass me on a 125cc Suzuki cruiser or something with his girlfriend on the back, leaned way over, like it was the most natural thing in the world. They look totally at ease doing it, too. These folks are natural riders, and they’re good.
We arrived in La Playa de Belem about an hour before sunset, and immediately split for a one of many Colombian national parks. It was kind of like Bryce. I grabbed a few shots there, including one of my AKT RX3.
Getting in was interesting. We had to ride a pretty rough dirt road that had a stream running down it because it had been raining. The RX3 took it in stride.
So, back to the Bethlehem thing (as I said at the start of this blog, Belem means Bethlehem in Spanish). La Playa de Belem is a beautiful little town dominated by the town square and a magnificent church (like many little towns in Colombia), and it turns out we arrived at a special time. The Colombians start celebrating Christmas nine days before Christmas, and this was that day. The town was buzzing. We hung out and watched kids singing at an outdoor service, we saw fireworks, we watched the service in the church, and then we got to see the vaca loca. I recorded it, so I won’t tell you the vaca loca story now, but if this Internet connection holds I’ll upload the video and tell you about it later.
Two more quick photos in La Playa de Belem, a video, and that’s all for now.
There’s lots more coming, folks. You probably already know this, but I’ll say it anyway: I’m having fun.
If you want to catch up on the Colombia ride, or explore any of the other exotic rides we’ve had, click on over to our Epic Rides page!
The Colombia adventure continues. For those of you just joining us, this is a series of blogs I wrote four years ago for CSC Motorcycles when I was rode an AKT Moto RS3 (the carbureted Colombian version of the RX3) through the Andes Mountains. Day 2 of that ride was absolutely awesome, ending with a visit to an enchanted town after a ferry ride down the Magdalena River.
Our second day on the road in Colombia started in Coveñas, and the humidity was oppressive. It was going to get worse as the day went on. We’re in the tropics, not too far from the equator, and hot and humid is the normal way of things here. On the plus side, you don’t care if it rains because you’re already drenched. It actually helps because it’s cooling.
Anyway, back to the morning in Coveñas. We ate in the hotel, and while we were waiting for breakfast, this dude was selling some kind of yams or roots, and Juan Carlos pointed out the scale he was using. It’s about as crude a scale as I’ve ever seen, but it’s sound technically, and it sure makes for an interesting photo.
Here’s a typical Colombian breakfast: Scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, bread, and a corn or flour tortilla with cheese (that’s called arrepo). The Colombians are big on cheeses, with different regions producing unique cheeses. It’s quite good.
The guys pointed out this car as we packed the bikes. This probably didn’t end well for the passenger, who most likely was not wearing a seat belt. The riding in Colombia is glorious, but it is stressful. Juan and Carlos said when they ride anywhere else (other than Colombia), it makes them sleepy because there’s only scenery. In Colombia, there’s scenery, but you have to watch out for everyone else. It’s intense. In a country full of twisties, people pass on blind corners routinely. I guess the theory is you pray a lot. People think nothing of passing if the oncoming traffic has room to move over, or if the oncoming traffic is a motorcycle. It’s weird, but you kind of get used to it. But it is intense (just like the heat and the humidity).
When we got on the road after breakfast, we only went maybe a mile when Carlos had a flat tire. Watching the guy repair it was interesting, and so was hanging out watching the world go by in Colombia.
And here are some of those watching the world go by in Colombia photos.
Here’s a photo of our RX3s somewhere on the road, headed to the ferry that would take us to Mompos, a remote town 45 minutes down the Magdalena River.
This church was across the street and just down the road from the ferry loading spot.
I only grabbed a few photos while we were boarding the ferry. The heat and humidity were getting to me at this point. It was about 4:00 in the in the afternoon, and it was sweltering.
Once we were underway, it got a little cooler on the river. You probably saw my video of that ride.
We arrived in Mompos and it was impressive. It’s the oldest town in Colombia, and to say it is off the beaten path would be an understatement. We had dinner in a restaurant run by an Austrian, where I had the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life.
After dinner, we chatted with the owner for a bit, and then we walked along the river front…I grabbed a bunch of photos there.
Folks, that’s about it for now. I’m a day behind in keeping you up to date on this trip, but Internet connectivity is dicey in these remote locations. As always, more to follow, if not today, then in a day or two (or three). Stay tuned.
If you’d like to see our earlier blogs in Colombia, please click here.
Our Colombia adventure continues…a circumnavigation of the Colombian Andes on a 250cc motorcycle. For those of you just joining in, I’m reposting a series of blogs I did for CSC Motorcycles describing my ride through the Andes Mountains in December 2015. After spending the previous day tearing around Medellin and its surroundings, I had become acclimatized to the mile-high altitudes. As the adventure continued, we would head even higher, all the way up to 14,000 feet, but that’s all coming later. On this, my second day in Colombia, we headed into the Andes and then down to the Caribbean. Our real journey had started, and here is that story.
Wow! I never thought I’d been typing this, but here I am. I just rode across the northernmost range of the Andes Mountains. On an RX3. Here they are: The Andes!
I took that shot from a cool little spot where we stopped for a typical Colombian breakfast…hot chocolate, scrambled eggs, and arrepa. More on that later…here’s a shot of the bikes at what has to be one of the coolest biker restaurants I’ve ever enjoyed.
And here’s another shot of my AKT Motos RS3 (the RS3 is the carbureted version of the RX3).
I liked that restaurant a lot. They painted it to match my jacket.
We rode about 370 miles yesterday, and about half of it was in the Andes. 370 miles may not seem like a lot, but picture riding Glendora Ridge for 6 or 8 hours. The Andes are a motorcycling paradise. The Andes Mountains.
Wow!
I guess you never know what you’re going to see in the Andes. This old goat was kind of cool…and I had to grab a shot.
We stopped to take a break and some of the local paramilitary/police guys came over to check out the bikes. The RX3 is a prestige motorcycle in Colombia (just like it is in the USA) and these boys wanted a closer look. They gladly consented to a photo. They are most definitely well armed. You see police and military units everywhere.
These next photos are from the saddle after we descended from the Andes. Good times, my friends.
These next photos are of young ladies who are gas station attendants. When they saw our 250cc RX3 motos, they wanted to know what it was like riding such huge motorcycles. That’s a bit different from what you might hear in the USA, I suppose.
It was a long day, and it ended in a town called Covenas, right on the Caribbean. We stopped for a few shots with the sea in the background.
Keep an eye on the blog, folks. I won’t be able to post every day, but I’ll do my best.
And that wrapped up the second day of my time in Colombia, and the first day of our ride through the Andes. We’re going to make it a little easier to track this adventure for our blog readers. You can get all of the good stuff from our Colombian ride here. I’ll post the next blog from our Colombia adventure in a few days, so stay tuned!
My ride through Colombia started on 13 December 2015 (it’s hard to believe it was more than 4 years ago; it feels like it was last year). What started this trip down memory lane for me was the Netflix TV series Narcos, and yeah, Susie and I binge-watched the first two seasons (which culminated in the Colombian forces taking down Pablo Escobar). It was an awesome series, filmed in Colombia, and the scenery took me back to that awesome adventure ride with my good buddies Juan and Carlos. Like I said in the last blog, I wanted to treat you to the blogs I wrote for CSC when I was on that trip, and this was the first one I did upon my arrival in Colombia.
There are no straight roads in Medellin, there are more motorcycles than cars, the weather is awesome, and the cuisine is incredible. If that doesn’t sound like heaven to you, well, you need to rethink your concept of fun. Colombia, folks! On an RX3! What an adventure!
So today is Day 1, we put a couple of hundred miles on the AKT Moto RX3 motorcycles, and we haven’t even started our journey yet (it officially begins tomorrow). My good buddies Juan Carlos and Carlos (there are a lot of guys named Carlos over here) set today aside just to let me get used to riding in Colombia.
Here’s a shot of me with my two moto buddies in a village somewhere in the mountains surrounding Medellin.
Back to the RX3 designation…AKT Moto is one of Zongshen’s largest customers, and they sell a carbureted version of our favorite motorcycle called the RS3. It’s a cool bike. Here’s a shot of mine…it’s the one I’ll put 2500 miles on here in Colombia in the next week or so.
And that village? It’s actually called Mesopotamia. Folks, I can’t make up stuff this good!
Motorcycling in Colombia is substantially different than what we’re used to. For starters, there’s the prevalence of motorcycles. I’m not exaggerating. I saw far more motorcycles today than cars. It seems to be the national pastime. There were thousand (maybe tens of thousands) of riders in the hills this morning.
More interesting facts:
Motorcycling is predominantly a social activity here in Colombia. We must have stopped at 4 or 5 coffee houses and restaurants today. The pattern is you ride for 45 minutes or so, and then stop for coffee. Hey, is this what café racing is all about? Juan Carlos knows everybody at these coffee stops, and they all know him. Juan Carlos founded the only motorcycle magazine in Colombia (DeMotos), and he’s an icon over here. Any you know what? Some of these guys recognized me! Juan Carlos ran a feature story in his magazine on our Western America Adventure Ride, and these guys were all familiar with it.
The bikes are predominantly in the 100cc to 150cc range, and these folks are all happy with that. Small bikes rule over here. We saw people dragging their pegs on these things having as much or more fun as we do on the big bikes in the US. Nah, scratch that…they were having more fun!
I asked about freeways and the guys laughed at me. They pointed to the winding set of twisties just outside the restaurant and told me, “that is our freeway.” These are my kind of people!
There are elite riders over here on Triumphs, Ducatis, BMWs, and MotoGuzzis. There are lots of large Yamahas over here, too (or, is they say in Colombia, Jamahas). They’re not arrogant. We had coffee with a bunch of them, and they were all great guys. The photo below is a typical roadside restaurant, and they all looked like this. What a place!
The food is awesome. Here’s a shot of my lunch at that restaurant above. The dish is called Capresse Buenaventura.
Ah, let’s see, a few more photos from some of the little villages we rode through today.
Juan Carlos picked up his cousin Heronimo (you gotta love their names!) and he rode with us in the afternoon.
After I took that shot above and Juan Carlos and Heronimo pulled out, I saw a cool police bike painted in fluorescent safety yellow (or is it a green?). I always wondered what a bike would like painted in that color.
Bikes are both sporting propositions and utilitarian vehicles down here. I saw bikes carrying all kinds of cargo (no photos, but I’ll get some of those later), and I saw a few bikes that had to be 20 or 30 years old and were still doing hard time.
One of the guys I met at one of our coffee stops is a retired US Army Colonel named Miles. I liked the guy immediately…he’s a dead ringer for Lee Marvin and he even sounds a little like him. Talk about stories…this guy has been everywhere and when he retired, he decided to hang his hat in Colombia. Here are a couple of photos of my new buddy Miles…the first one with the guys listening to him in Mesopotamia, and a shot at yet another coffee stop. I sure drank a lot of coffee today!
Well, I think that’s enough blogging for Day 1. We’re rolling out at 4:30 tomorrow, and I want to get a good night’s sleep. The altitude bothered me a bit yesterday and I didn’t sleep too well, but I think I’m used to it now. The plan tomorrow is to put 300 miles on the bikes, and like I said, there are no straight roads in Colombia. We’re climbing up over another mountain range and headed for the coast. It’s going to be fun!
So there you have it. The above was my first day in Colombia, and it was sort of a “get acquainted” bit of tearing up the roads around Medellin. The real journey, our romp through the Andes Mountains, would start the next day. Stay tuned, folks. There’s a lot more to this story.
If you’d like to see the entire Colombia ride, just click here!
Susie and I are hanging out at home, getting out for our daily walk or two, and generally obeying our fearless, fiercely-partisan, and fear-mongering leaders as we wait for them to declare a CV19 victory. We’ve been watching a lot of TV while under house arrest, and it’s a big deal when we find a series we haven’t seen before. We had one such discovery last week with Narcos, a series on Netflix about the drug wars in Colombia.
Silver or Lead, Amigos y Amigas. Or in this case, a Model 625’s stainless steel and six full metal jacket .45 ACP rounds. That hat is one of my favorites.
Somehow we missed Narcos the first time around, although I was vaguely aware of its existence from a hat I picked up at an International Association of Chiefs of Police convention in San Diego two or three years ago. Good buddy and retired police chief Mike was going to the IACP convention and he invited me along as his official “Assistant to the Director.” I was even issued an official laminated ID card, but Mike drew the line when I asked him if I would get a gun, too. His answer was immediate and clear: No. That’s okay, I already had a gun.
Mike and I had a good time at the IACP show and we came home with a lot of swag. One bit of that haul was a Narcos hat embroidered with the show’s tagline: Plata O Plomo. If your Spanish is a bit rusty, it means Silver or Lead, with the premise being (if you were a Colombian cop or politician) your choice was either a bribe or a bullet.
The Narcos Netflix series is the story of Pablo Escobar, the activities involved in taking him down, and the drug wars in Colombia. From the first episode, I thought the scenery was stunning. I mentioned to Sue that it looked exactly the way I remembered Colombia from my Andean adventure. We started in Medellin’s Antioquia neighborhood (which, by the way, was Pablo Escobar’s old stomping grounds). Sue checked it out on her cell phone and, sure enough, Narcos was indeed filmed in Colombia.
Riding with good buddy Carlos in Colombia. That’s me in the green jacket. Photo by good buddy Juan DeMotos.
We’ve been binge-watching Narcos and every scene brings back a memory for me. Colombia is a magnificent place, and I loved every minute of that adventure. I’m going to recreate that ride by posting some of the photos (the one above is but a sample) of one of the grandest adventures I’ve ever enjoyed. I’ll post a series of blogs from our Colombia trip over the next two weeks.
I stopped by CSC Motorcycles last week to visit with my friend Steve and see the new TT250, San Gabriel, and RX3 colors. I and my camera will try to do justice to the new CSC paint themes, and hey, while we here, we’ll share a few videos.
The TT250 line has an entirely new set of colors, and I like the new look.
There’s a cool decal on the TT250 side panel, too, which i like a lot. It reminds me a bit of what new Triumphs had in the 1960s, when every one of their bikes had a “world’s fastest motorcycle” decal on the tank.
As you know, I have a TT250, and mine is from the very first shipment that came into CSC a few years ago. Mine is black with bold TT lettering on the tank and side panels. I like that bike, I’ve ridden it in Baja (the video below is taking it through the Rumarosa Grade in northern Baja), and I’m going to fire it up and ride it around a bit today.
Next up is a photo of the San Gabriels. The new colors on the SG250 work well, too.
You know, I did one of the very first San Gabriel videos when those bikes first came to America. It, too, was a hoot.
And here are a few photos of the CSC RX3, a bike that has generated lots of smiles and lots of miles since its introduction to the United States in 2015. The new colors are much more interesting and maybe a little more subtle than what we’ve seen on RX3 motorcycles in the past. There’s a gray and turquoise theme, and a silver and red alternative. They both look good.
I like the new RX3 paint themes, and I like the original ones, too. I ride an RX3. Mine’s a 2015 model and, like my TT250, it’s one from the very first shipment to the US. My RX3 is orange (the fastest color, as good buddy Orlando knows), and it’s one of the early ones that faded to a kind of subdued yellow (that’s before Zongshen started adding color stabilizers to the paint). I like that look and I’ve had a lot of great rides on RX3 motorcycles, starting with our initial CSC Baja run. That ride was a hoot and a half. Imagine that: A brand new shipment of RX3 motorcycles (the first in the US), and yours truly and 15 other intrepid CSC riders did 1700 miles in Baja on these bikes. Take a look:
Our next big RX3 ride was the Western America Adventure Ride…5000 miles across the Western US, from So Cal to Sturgis to Portland and then down the Pacific coast to home. I didn’t do a video on that ride, but good buddy Joe Gresh sure did!
We did several more CSC Baja rides, a bunch of rides in the US, and our absolutely amazing 6000-mile ride across the ancient kingdom on RX3 motorcycles:
Not enough? Hey, how about a ride through magical Colombia on RS3 motorcycles? The RS3 is the carbureted version of the RX3, and it, too, was an amazing adventure:
If you enjoy watching YouTube videos, we have quite a few more on our YouTubby page. Grab a cup of coffee, click on the YouTubby link, and have fun. I sure did.
Good buddy Mike, a fellow former trooper who I met on a ride through Baja a few years ago, has been sort of stranded down there until recently. Mike and his good friend Bobbie went whale watching and they had a unique experience. Mike was kind enough to share the adventure with us. Here you go, folks.
You know, I did one of the very first San Gabriel videos when those bikes first came to America. It, too, was a hoot.
