BajaBound – The ExhaustNotes Blog

The Wayback Machine: Mike Huber, the real deal…

By Joe Berk

On my last trip through Baja while riding with a dozen guys on RX3s, we stopped for fuel in Catavina while headed south. That’s on the long stretch between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro, where the distance between Pemex stations is over 200 miles. Catavina is a tiny town in a beautiful boulder field (in fact, it’s the area depicted in the lead photo on the ExhaustNotes Baja page). The locals sell fuel out of gas cans in Catavina, and on a motorcycle, you have to stop here to top off. The boulder fields through this region are dramatic, almost other-worldly. You can get a bit of a feel for the area from this photo…

Baja’s Catavina boulder fields. This is some of the most dramatic scenery on the planet!

Anyway, we had stopped for fuel in Catavina when I noticed a guy on an adventure bike amongst our guys. What grabbed my attention is that I didn’t recognize him. It felt weird, because this was our second day on the road, and I thought I was losing it. Usually by the middle of the first day on these group rides I know everybody who’s riding with us. Incidentally, if you want to know what it’s like organizing one of those tours, there’s a story on that topic appearing in ADVMoto this week (you can read it here).

Anyway, I looked at this new guy and then I realized his bike wasn’t an RX3; it was a BMW GS1200. I was just about to razz him a bit about that, and then I saw the jump wings on his bike’s top case. You don’t get US Army jump wings out of a Cracker Jack box, so I knew right away this guy was not going to be your typical adventure rider. No one who rides a motorcycle in Baja is a “typical” anything, but I knew this gentleman was going to be something special.

I asked the guy if he was a paratrooper, the answer was yes, and over the next roughly thousand Baja miles I got to knew Mike Huber well. He rode with us for several days and all of us thoroughly enjoyed his company. As it turns out, Mike is not your everyday former US Army paratrooper (as if there ever could be such a thing); he’s a serious rider with a very cool lifestyle (more on that in a second).

Mike and I became good friends, and when he was in town a couple of weeks ago, Sue and I met him for lunch at La Casita Mexicana in Bell (just south of LA). If you’ve never dined there, trust me on this, you need to make the trip. It’s an award-winning restaurant with a unique cuisine that I learned about from Steve and Maureen at CSC, and to be blunt, it’s the finest Mexican food I’ve ever had. But I digress…back to Mike…

Lunch with Mike at La Casita Mexicana. Those enchiladas sure look good!

Mike is anything but a stereotypical guy. Nope, he’s the real deal. Mike’s has been living on his motorcycle and traveling North America (and a bit of Central America) for the last year, and he just published a story about his lifestyle in Intravel Magazine. It’s a great read, and you can see it here.

Well done, Mike! Ride safe and keep us posted on your travels!

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Riding into Baja? Don’t go there without BajaBound!

A New BajaBound Atlas

Wow, check this out…a new Baja road and recreation atlas brought to us by the folks who know Baja best: BajaBound Insurance!

I ordered mine already and I’m looking forward to getting it. You can be sure I’ll put it to good use. If you want to order yours, you can do so here!

If you’re headed into Baja, make sure you have your BajaBound motorcycle insurance!

Check our adventures in Baja!

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BajaBound Insurance Saver Package

This press release from BajaBound came in recently and we want to share it with you:

BIG NEWS! Baja Bound is very excited to announce our new Baja Saver Mexican auto insurance policy! The Baja Saver is a heavily discounted policy for travel in Baja California, Baja California Sur and Sonora that is available for six month or annual coverage. The Baja Saver offers up to a 60% discount compared to full territory Mexican insurance policies! Check out all of the Baja Saver features here:

https://www.bajabound.com/bajasaver.php

Since the essential travel orders are still in place we are rolling this out as a great option for expats and folks commuting across the border for work. We look forward to getting back to everything we love about Baja and hope to see you south of the border soon!

¡Viva Baja!

We always use BajaBound Insurance whenever we visit Mexico, and we’ve found it to be the best.

I’ve spoken with several folks who are in Baja, and although there is an essential travel order in place, it’s not enforced. Folks tell me that they can easily cross the border in both directions. Baja John tells me that life is Baja is much the same as it is here in the US, with folks social distancing, restaurants offering outdoor dining and socially-distanced tables, and people wearing masks. John mentioned that on a couple of recent holidays, there were roadblocks north of San Felipe and Ensenada and if you couldn’t prove Baja residence, you would have to turn around, but the roadblocks were only present during the holidays.

Gresh and I have been talking about venturing into Baja in another two or three months. I am looking forward to it. In the meantime, if you want to vicariously relive a few of our adventures in beautiful Baja, check out our Baja and Epic Rides pages!

Required Baja Paperwork

We’re often asked: What kind of documentation will I need to ride a motorcycle or drive a car in Baja? Here’s the list of what documents are required for a trip into Baja:

1. You’ll need your US passport, or a passport card. I’ve always used my passport; I’ve never had the passport card (the passport card is issued by the US State Department). Either one will work.

2. You’ll need a Mexican tourist visa. This is something you get immediately after you enter Mexico, not before. If you enter through Tijuana or Tecate (my typical points of entry), there are Mexican immigration offices off to the right as soon as you enter. That’s where the tourist visas are issued. You might be tempted to just blow this off because you can drive by and continue your trip into Baja, but if you’re stopped further inland and you don’t have the tourist visa, you’ll have to go back to the border to get one (don’t ask me how I know this). The good news is that if you’re planning a stay of less than 7 days, the tourist visa is free. If you staying longer, it’s $20.

3. You’ll need your US driver’s license.

4. You’ll need your vehicle registration.

5. You’ll need Mexican insurance for your motor vehicle (your US insurance is not adequate). We use BajaBound insurance exclusively, and we did a post about that great company here on the ExNotes blog a short time ago.

You can contact BajaBound directly at this link or by clicking on the photo above. If you get stopped in Mexico and you can’t show proof of Mexican insurance, you’ll have a real problem (like we said above, your regular US insurance won’t cover you in Mexico). You’ll need to print a copy of your policy (which you can do online after you purchase it from BajaBound) and bring that with you.

And that’s it, folks.

Want to know more about riding in Baja? Check out our Baja page!

Just when I thought I was out…

So I’m retired, sort of, but I feel this compelling need to keep writing. Hey, I like to write. I want to be as good a writer as Joe Gresh when I grow up.

Anyway, there’s a whole lot more coming, folks, while Joe and I (that’s Arjiu and Dajiu to about a quarter of the world’s population) share what we think on a wide range of topics, including motorcycles, Baja, adventure riding, Baja, riding in other countries, Baja, partying at 14,000 feet on the Tibetan plateau, Baja, guns, Baja, maybe a bit on reloading, Baja, cars, Baja, 4x4s, Baja, and more. Rumor has it that Gresh knows a bit about concrete and living off the grid. You’ll see some of that here. This blog is going to be all about the good stuff: Good writing, good photography, and good times.

Oh, yeah…did I mention Baja?

Wowee, this is going to be fun. We’ve got a lot of cool things to write about, not the least of which will be our impressions of CSC’s new electric bike and maybe a Zero, and a whole lot of other bikes from a whole lot of other people. Yeah, I’m still convinced that small bikes are the way to go for real world adventure riding, but I like big bikes, too. I’d like to play around with an Enfield. Maybe a beat up old Sportster is in my future. I’m still riding my RX3 and my TT250, and both are still going strong. Yep, I’m still an advocate for CSC Motorcycles, too, but we’ll be covering a lot more. There’s a big wave in the motorcycle world headed this way, folks, and it’s spelled C-H-I-N-A (for both small and large bikes), and it’s spelled E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C (and most, if not all, of those bikes are coming from China, too). I’ve been there and I’ve seen it. You’ll get to see it, too. Just stay tuned.

And there’s more. We have an idea about a review of the state of the industry in the motorcycle magazine world. It’s going through a dramatic transition. You’ll read about it here. Like I said above, just stay tuned.

Oh, and there’s Baja. We’ll be covering things like the hotels we like, which insurance is the best, the restaurants that make the adventure truly great, which whales are the fun ones to play with (yeah, we’re on first-name terms with our Scammon’s Lagoon denizens), which cave paintings are the most interesting, which missions are the most beautiful, which wines are the most satisfying, which roads are the most fun, the months you should avoid, where to stay, and more. The research is going to be grand.

You can poke around on some of the other pages on the ExhaustNotes.us site. There’s a lot of cool stuff here, and there’s lots more coming. Gresh and I have been at this writing and riding business for a while, and we’ve got pages with links to our stuff that you can access on the Internet. We’ve got a page just on Baja, and we’re going to cover a bunch of cool stuff on that page (and right here in the Exhaust Notes blog, too). We’ll be posting blogs about past grand adventures. And there’s more, but you can find that when you poke around on this site.

And one more thing: If you’ve got a comment on anything we post here on the ExhaustNotes blog, go ahead and post it. We want to know what you’re thinking.

I am really looking forward to this. Big time.