Tag: Moto Baja

A Baja Endurance Run!

AMORAK (a Mexican motorcycle group) is having a Baja endurance run next month.  It’s a ride from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas…a cool 1,632 kilometers (or 1,014 miles) that entrants must complete in less than 24 hours.  The run commences on 12 January (you have to be in Tijuana on 11 January for inspections, registration, etc.).  If you’re interested in taking this one on, here’s the link to get started.

I’ve done that exact same trip on two different motorcycles at the extremes of the motorcycle spectrum.  One was a Harley big twin (my old Heritage Classic) with 1340 cubic centimeters; the other was a CSC-150 Mustang replica that had a 150cc engine.

On both of my TJ-to-Cabo rides, we took several days.  Doing 1,000 miles in 24 hours anywhere is a challenge (as Rob Morel wrote about here on the ExNotes blog); doing a run like this from TJ to Cabo is an extreme challenge.  The roads are a combination of twisties, desert, coastal roads, mountain roads, and rides through the centers of many towns.  It’s not freeway riding, and you never know when a burro or a vaca might wander onto the road directly in front of you.  Add in the facts that gasolina may not be available in the middle of the night, you would have to eat somewhere along the way, and the police down there (both local and the Federales) are more rigorous about enforcing the speed limits these days…man, I don’t know.   It’s more than I’d care to take on, but your mileage may vary.  Our job is to help spread the word, and now you know.

If you would like more info on riding in Baja, check out our Baja page.  Better yet, pick up a copy of Moto Baja.

Make sure you get BajaBound Mexican insurance before you venture into Baja, and if you want to get the right gear (and world class moto gear), be sure to check out British Motorcycle Gear.

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Baja Bound

Tuan, on one of the CSC Motorcycles Baja runs.

Good buddy Tuan asked me for a suggested 4-day itinerary for Baja, and I referred him to our Baja page and its included suggested Baja rides.  Here’s another 4-day ride that would make for a great 4-day Baja visit:  Tecate, Ensenada, San Quintin, and home again.

Tecate is one of the better best-kept secrets in Baja, and it’s one of my favorite towns.  It’s about 150 miles south of the Los Angeles area and getting there is an easy ride.  I like to stay at the El Dorado Hotel, have dinner at the Amores restaurant, and then breakfast at Malinalli’s, which is right next door to the El Dorado.

Jonathan and Pablo at Amores. It’s world class dining in downtown Tecate, and it is amazing.
Maria, one of the friendly folks who took care of us in the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant in Tecate.

After breakfast, it’s an easy run through Tecate to Ensenada along the Ruta Del Vino, maybe with a stop at El Naranjo’s for lunch.  It’s about an 80-mile ride and it’s quite scenic.  Ensenada is touristy, but I like the place.  You can get fish tacos at any of several taco spots along the embarcadero and have breakfast at Velero’s (world-class dining; it’s where knowledgeable Ensenada business folks take their morning meal).   I’d stay in the Best Western and have dinner at Birrieria La Guadalajara.  It’s a family style place my good buddy Tim introduced me to, and it’s great.

Breakfast at Velero’s. The place is amazing.
A veritable feast at Birrieria La Guadalajara in Ensenada. Bring an appetite!

From Ensenada, it’s another easy run through northern Baja’s wine country and the agricultural region down to San Quintin.  There are two great hotels in San Quintin.  One is the more modern Mision Santa Maria.  The other is the Old Mill Hotel right on Bahia San Quintin, which is the one I prefer.  The Old Mill has a new restaurant called Eucalypto’s, and it’s world class.

The good folks at the Old Mill give you a beer when you check in. Here’s Uncle Joe, hard at work after a long day’s ride.
Watch for the sign pointing to the Old Mill Hotel in San Quintin. It’s a classic Baja stop.
Seared Tuna at the Eucalypto. Man, was it ever delicious!

After San Quintin, it’s about a 300-mile run home to get back to the Los Angeles area.  It’s a long stretch, but it’s doable in a day, and it would nicely wrap up a great 4-day run.

If you do a ride like the one I describe, or any other, don’t forget to pick up your Mexican insurance, and for that, BajaBound is the best there is.

BajaBound Insurance for travel through an enchanted land. It’s the best there is!

Want to learn more about traveling through Baja?  Check out Moto Baja!

How did we miss this?

Boy oh boy am I embarrassed!   Good buddy John Burns listed Moto Baja as one of the 10 Best Books for Motorcyclists for 2018 a month or so ago and it went right by me!

John, thanks very much!

Want to see all our books?   Take a look right here.

Want to know a secret?   Gresh and I have a couple of new books in the works.   You’ll read about them right here on the ExhaustNotes blog!

Would you like to be entered in our quarterly contest for a free moto adventure book?   Just sign up for our automatic email updates!

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.