The 2018 NORRA Mexican 1000
1,362 Mile of Off-Road Motorcycle Racing over the Length of Mexico's Baja Peninsula
Always slow to a crawl when seeing this.
All Right! Time to figure out if I know what the H I’m doing. Pics are fun but it doesn’t get any conversation going. I hope this will correct that. So here we go: Baja Desert Racing ‘Stuff ya gotta do’ list (I think)
Lessons learned. And do I have it All Covered:
1: Navigation: Get familiar with my GPS if I’m going to use it. Last year I found out I had the wrong type of GPS two days before the start. Now I have the right GPS but I’ve been playing with it for over a week now and am just starting to figure it out.
-For the first week the terrain on the display was dark green and the NORRA track line was dark purple, vary hard to see. Now I have ‘Terrain’ turned off so the background is white, now the dark purple line shows up great.
-The GPS (I have a Garman GPSmap 78) screen is only brilliant when direct sunlight is on it. I need to adjust the angle of my RAM mount so the GPS is flatter and able to take advantage of the sun at more directions, more then when it’s at your back only. Taking off the old Stella mounting bracket will give me total adjustments. I will experiment.
-Make sure I know how to load the race GPX files onto your GPS. Garman BaseCamp software sucks, I can load up to two days of tracks, but when I try to delete them to add another day the software and/or the GPS unit whack out (I’m a geek and that’s a technical term) So after hours of playing today I believe I got it. When the GPS is whacked and won’t show your tracks:
-Through the GPS, delete any Tracks that are in there, you can have only so many Tracks loaded at one time.
-Import the current tracks into BaseCamp into ‘My Collections’
-Click on the GPX file you want on your GPS, the race GPX for that day.
-Right click that file and click 'Create Garman Adventure'
-In the Adventure selection find and highlight all the tracks for that day. Do it.
-Now you will have an adventure of the entire day.
-And you will have all the tracks separated in the race stages. Which is what you want and what you use during the race.
-Done, now just make sure you delete the old day before load on the new day.
-Race Gear: Carry two sets of googles, a lighter pair for early mornings that go through fog and heavily shaded areas, like day-one last year. The pair I used last year is supposed to adjust to the bright sunlight but it never got dark enough no matter how bright is was. My new googles are much less fatiguing in the bright sun and have never seemed too dark.
-Chase Support: This year ‘Team FirePig’ is supporting me and haling my duffel bag with oil, spare parts and my laptop so I can load on the next day’s race onto my GPS. Fantastic!
-Nutrition: Last year I never felt I had a sufficient breakfast before the start of the day. I was always desperate to find and consume calories. Like last year I will have a baggie of weight gainer powder for each day that I’ll use to end the day and start the day, a lot of water and Heidi and I are thinking just some tortillas and refried beans with salsa in the AM. I love that stuff. I’m also hailing a small Tupperware and will try to scarf up some food from the nightly banquets. We’ll se how that works. I don’t wan t to feel I have to stop at the first little store just for calories.
-Training: Do not train hard on the motorcycle in the Baja several days in a row for 4+ hours (unless of course you are an alien) I have been beating yourself up and have been slow to recover. This is like training arms heavy 5-days straight. That’s not how you do it, you build muscle on the rest days, and arms should have at least three or more rest days between heavy lifting. Legs and back are different, you can do those more, but then you need a longer recovery period to properly take advantage of that kind of training. I learned this lesson the hard way, I was way over zealous the first week here. But I love the science, it’s fun to continually monitor what you are doing and how your feeling. I got under control I think, I’m properly recovering, I do a rest day every couple or every other day and just go out running or swimming with Sam and Heidi. And I mix up the training days, one day it may be 4 hours on the easier route (South of Los Barriles), the next day maybe a two hour tougher, bumpier, rocky with steep hills north of Los Barriles. Or maybe a two hour on the easy route South. I ‘Play it by Ear’ on the rest days, If I’m completely toast I rest, if only a few body parts are feeling it, I ride. I’m a firm believer that if you’re not sore the next day after training, you did something wrong.
-Bike Setup: I like the taller gearing Tim from Baja Bound Adventures suggested I run last year. It feels like every gear has more usability without shifting. I should have run this last year but I just ran out of time, I wasn’t going to try it without testing.
-Bike Setup: I’m going to run my steering damper stiffer and go super stiff when I know I’m going into silt. Last year I just kept it around medium and I tumbled twice in the silt. I’m just concerned about the super steep bolder fields with 180 degree turns. ?What do the rest of you guys do, do you turn the thing down on the fly or just go with it?
-Racing: Be masterful with my throttle control. Last year I attribute all my spills to being over aggressing on the throttle. I have much more experience with this bike now, I don’t need to go nuts to bring on necessary power. I can only imagine how masterful you 450 guys need to be. I bet those things are like a jet engine.
-Communication: Make sure I have a phone that works in Mexico. Last year I thought I was being so cool by purchasing a couple of cheap burner phones for Hipster and myself in Ensenada. Less then a hundred bucks for two phones with unlimited minutes for the first month. Of course they worked great in Ensenada but as soon as we traveled South they no longer Now I upgraded my flip phone to fifty dollar smart phone and pay $40 a month for unlimited time in the US and Mexico. And the best thing is they work, Heidi has one to and we have tested them thoroughly all the way down the Baja between each other and from people back home. So here are the rules we discovered: Say your number is (920-123-4567)
-To dial this number if you are in Mexico and the phone is in Mexico, start with (001) then the number.
-If your calling our phone from the US and we are in Mexico, start with nothing, just dial the number (920-123-4567)
-And of course when we are in the USA it starts with (1) 920-123-4567
-Bike Maintenance: OK, bike plans look like this:
I have oil and filter for a change prior to the start and like Team FirePig is doing, a change before day 3 in Guerrero Negro.
I met a guy, the husband of our rental manager who rides a Honda 450, is going to be in Ensenada for the NORRA start and he knows a person in town who has all the tools and is good at changing tires with Bib moose. Is that great or what.
Every day I will start with a clean air filter and filter skin. I will remove the skin nightly and apply a new one. I’m carrying two pre-oiled air filters also. I will just make the call when to deploy those. My discussions with Loren sounds like his team is doing similar, so all good, the team is in sync.
Transportation: To get my bike up to Ensenada for the start of the race I’m meeting Tom and his crew from Baja Bound Adventures in San Jose del Cabo. He’s supporting a big ride from Tecate to Cabo and has room to trailer my bike and me. How nice is that!
Onward -->Unreal what a difference a few tweaks to the nav equipment can make.
I turned off Terrain coloring and disabled the Mexico E32 maps on the GPS. The Stella box bracket is removed allowing the GPS to move up and flat. Now I can clearly see and read the thing at any direction of travel. Oh freaking Yeah!
Next, I’ll move the iPhone RalltBlitz thingie over to the right a little so it’s protected more if I crash. I moved it to the left to make room for the Stella bracket. I did that to make room for the Striker unit where the Stella bracket was. Now I’m removing the Striker odometer unit that’s under the scroll chart box to make room for the new rally race box in the same spot the Stella was originally. The battery died on the Striker thing so it’s doing me no good anyway, and where it was the odometer was shaded by the scroll chart box making it difficult to read, and it was too far down to see easily also, which is a safety concern i.e. you never want to take your eyes too far off the road by looking way down. Anyway, hopefully I can get a new coin battery for the Striker odometer in Ensenada and have that as a backup ODO. I have my cellphone as a backup compass. And now that I’m removing the Striker I will experiment with using the Striker handlebar switches to increment and decrement the odometer on the iPhone RallyBlitz app. I read somewhere that a momentarily short to either the right external speaker line or the left will do this. I found a Radio Shack in Cabo last week and picked up the male jack I need to do this. This is so flipp’en fun.
Perfect, now it's not hanging over the bracket.
Riding toward Cabo yesterday I meet this group going the other way. I couldn’t figure out what the deal was, 3 race cars and 2 race bikes I thought. Now I can see they are just normal people and may be doing this for the first time. I think the bikes were running lead and chase. If I were a tourist in Cabo and had some extra cash I would want to do this to. That’s a good way to live I believe....
It’s fun stopping in Cabo Pulmo on a ride, a good rest spot to check out the scene, hydrate and do my ‘check-in’ call to cavegirl (that’s protocol, when I’m out off road I let my crew chief know where I’m going, approximately how long I will be gone and I call her about half way when I’m turned around and heading back. I’m an independent type of dude but I’m not stupid). Anyway, there were a lot of diving and snorkeling groups heading in and out today. My sister and her kids did a snorkel group two years ago and reported it being fantastic, well worth the effort.
The Next Day:
My plans for a giant ride today fell way short, my engine seized. I am not a happy camper, not at all, not like I was when I started writing this post. Heidi is out on her giant hike so I'm alone, just me and my thoughts. The brain is starting to accelerate, I can feel it, something has to give. I've had problems before, I've even seized this engine before. There are solutions out there
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