My Road to the 2017 NORRA Mexican 1000
The Biggest Adventure of them All
1,300 + Mile Off-Road Race through Baja Mexico
This is a wild husband and wife team preparing for 12-months to race a motorcycle through some of the toughest terrain on this planet, Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. We have never raced a motorcycle before so this for sure will add to the adventure. Hang on here we go…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Of course, skip all the dribble if you like and just check out some photos
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All Right!
We had one day to chill around the pool at the Gran Mayan resort, how perfect. It was a blast expounding about the race with everyone around the pool, what a great time. The next day we have to prepare the bikes for a thousand mile ride back north up the Baja. Time to get stuff done. There is a car wash just up the street, I wish I had the camera, the guy at the wash fired up his pressure washer and did an awesome job. How great, he is into Baja racing and seemed to enjoy all my bad Spanish about the race. I love Mexico.
it's time to finally change the XR400's oil. My fingers are so fatigued it almost feels like pain when i try to use them and they don't work. It's like I need to muscle up everything I have to grab a wrench and position it on a nut.
Hipster is again a huge help. He does the air filter and helps with the skid plate removal and the bolts to drain the oil.
All good and ready for our ride back to Ensenada tomorrow (Say What!)
The goal now is to enjoy Mexico and its food as much as possible while we ride north.
What a score, Marlin empanadas with all the fixins.
And of course the family running the place loves Baja racing, and our Spanish.
We meet some Baja bikers who have a biker clothing business in Cabo, they gave us stickers. Super fun people.
Gas stop, Ciudad Constitucion. Heidi and i loved this town and the PM street food.
Loreto was a blur, we wanted fish tacos but it was not the time for the highway truck we wanted. We keep going.
Getting supplies in Mulige where we spent the first night. We found a great restaurant Heidi and I ate at years ago, it was recommended in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Hipster and I just stumbled on it.
Yesterday was a long day, over 400 miles. My body is acting like a robot, it's hurt but it knows what it has to accomplish 'ride the bike and stay alive'
I need a rest bad so I find some shade.
I'm concerned of running out of gas, I should have stopped at that truck selling gas a while back. I ride slow pissing Hipster off with his big 990 but I do not want to run out.
Sweet as honey...
A 440 plus mile day but we make it to El Rosario and Mama Espinosas, a great place to chill. Oh Yes!
There is a fatigue cycling through my body that seems unfamiliar. At least I can understand what it's from. I suck it up and Like-It.
We have less than 200 miles today to make Ensenada where our truck and trailer is parked. A piece of cake.
The place is like a ghost town, just our truck. FirePig drops off my tire and a FirePig Racing sticker for the trailer. Thanks man!
A little radiator stop-leak hopefully will help us get across the border.
Ready to shoot for the border. We have lots of water just in case.
The border was a joke, it took almost an hour. After we smell antifreeze I shut off the engine after every time we moved up in line.
We make it across but find the radiator needs a half a gallon of water before we exit California.
We find a great camping spot in the mountains north of Phoenix. Its starting to sink in what we just did.
The weather is perfect and there are billions of stars overhead. I never knew how much Tom and I are alike as far as solo cross country motorcycle camping adventures at a young age are. The stories are intense and detailed, we tell everyone we know. It lasted until after four AM.
Another half gallon. Not bad but something to keep an eye on.
South Dakota Badlands. The weather is ideal so we decided to camp the last night. It gets real cold later that night.
Tommy gets dropped off in Minneapolis and all is good. I'm only an hour from home now so I celebrate with a moolatie and a selfie at the Turtle Lake Dairy Queen.
Eight miles from our cabin home I loose oil pressure... Not happy. I unload some gear and unhook the trailer while I wait for Heidi to come to the rescue.
The bike, Heidi, Hipster and I all make it home, that's a total win.
The Ford Exploder does not make it home, and that's OK.
OK, so that is it "The End"
To sum it up:
This race is the hardest thing I ever attempted, the hardest physically and the hardest mentally, by far.
This race is the most dangerous thing I ever attempted. I can't believe how many times I narrowly escaped serious injury.
This race is absolutely the funnest thing I have ever done, ever, hands-down, nothing else even comes close.
The funnest part is racing the course itself, absolutely fantastic course lined with super Mag-7 support people and other racers the entire way to Los Cabos. It is like a racing family strung along the entire Baja peninsula, and that is a great thing to say the least.
This was a hell of a year, the bike, the body, the mental preparation and the race community experience with meeting all the great people is something I will always remember. Racing the Baja during the fifty year anniversary of off-road racing, on a motorcycle, in the Baja, the whole Baja, racing in the NORRA Mexican 1000 is now in my DNA and will be forever.
I found this on some video I ran across on the internet. How fun!
Stay tuned for more fun in Baja Mexico…
Continued: ---> 2018 Mexican 1000!!! <----