As you’ll recall from our last installment of the CSC Mustang Baja saga, we left Ciudad Constitucion the next morning and we continued south. We wanted to make Cabo San Lucas that evening. That would be the turnaround point for our journey from southern California to the tip of the Baja peninsula, and we rode the entire distance on our little single-cylinder, 150cc, hardtail Mustang replicas.
Our intent was to bypass La Paz, as it is a large city and we didn’t want to get bogged down getting through it. The map showed a bypass road, and that’s what we intended to grab. But, our plans meant nothing. We missed the bypass road, and we found ourselves in downtown La Paz. Like I said, it’s a big town, and the temperature was over 100 degrees again. We were getting goofy from the heat. It’s almost hard to describe how oppressive the heat was. We were literally in the tropics, having descended past the Tropic of Cancer. High heat, high humidity, the hottest month of the year in Baja, fully suited in our riding gear…it was tough sledding. Simon had the best idea…he started shedding the heavy riding gear.
Simon wrote an entry on his blog that said it all…
La Paz is a hot sweaty city on the Sea of Cortez. We are hot and sweaty (other than J. who travels in air-conditioned splendour). We miss the bypass and are lost. I ask a lady for directions. She begins describing the route. I understand individual words, even entire sentences. The whole becomes a jumble. My eyes betray a fatalistic acceptance of inadequacy.
The woman halts her instructions. Her smile is familiar. It is the generous female’s smile of understanding when faced by male incompetence. Men are men. They have their uses. However, rational thought is not the male’s strong point (expect even vaguely mature thought and you will be disappointed). Humour them. Lead them by the hand. Such is the Latin way…
In brief, she stops giving directions and says, “It will be best if you follow me…”
Once we were out of La Paz, we were on the open road again and it was much better. Even when it’s hot, you can still stay cool on a motorcycle if you are moving. When you stop, though, it gets warm and it does so immediately. So, we kept moving. We were approaching the Pacific Ocean on the other side of Baja, and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees.
After La Paz on the eastern side of Baja, it was about 70 miles directly across the peninsula to Todos Santos on the Pacific side. It was a nice ride.
We stopped in Todos Santos for lunch. I grabbed this shot of my bike and I want you to notice the BajaBound.com decal.
BajaBound was one of our sponsors on the CSC 150 run, and they are one of our advertisers now. We were very grateful to Geoff and the good folks at BajaBound for their help on this adventure.
I wish I could remember the name of the place we had lunch in when we stopped in Todos Santos. It was great.
After lunch, we were on the road again…headed to our next stop and our destination for the evening, Cabo San Lucas!
We encountered a lot of construction during our trip, which gave the CSC Mustangs a real workout. I would guess that we probably did about 50 miles or so on dirt roads where the main highway was under repair.
We didn’t intend to do any dirt riding on this trip, but we sure rolled through a lot of dirt. One of the things that surprised me was how well the little Mustangs handled in the dirt, and in particular, in soft sand. Soft sand has always scared me on a motorcycle. At the time, I also owned a KLR 650 and a monstrous 955cc Triumph Tiger. With their narrow tires, these bikes would just sink into soft sand and do their best to toss me. The Mustangs didn’t do that. They had wide tires (almost balloon tires) and they were very light. They handled the soft stuff just fine. I’m not advocating using a CSC 150 as a dirt bike, but if you find yourself on a dirt road with soft sand, these bikes handled it with grace.
And finally, the California Scooter contingent arrived in Cabo after 1100 tortuous, hot, and beautiful miles through Baja! This was the perspective from our guest villa.
Yep, some of the toughest riding in the world…and we did it! We ran the entire length of the Baja peninsula! I will tell you that I was absolutely beat when we finally made it to Cabo. The heat was bothering all of us, my leg was giving me a lot of grief from a prior injury, and we were all feeling the burn of a long ride. But we made it.
More good Baja trips on all different kinds of motorcycles…check out the ExhaustNotes Baja page!
If you would like to get up to speed on the prior installments of our CSC 150 Mustang replica ride to Cabo San Lucas, you can do so at this link: The CSC 150 Cabo Run
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