My Baja breakdowns…

No, it was not my RX3.  I’ve probably ridden motorcycles through Baja 25 or 30 times and the only time I ever had a motorcycle breakdown was about 15 years ago, and that was my Harley-Davidson Softail.   The bike started missing badly in Ensenada, so we turned around and I rode it all the way back to Upland (that’s about 200 miles north of Ensenada).  It turned out that one of the Harley’s roller lifters stopped rolling, and that turned it into a solid lifter.   And when that happened, the little wheel that was supposed to rotate along the cam profile started wearing a path through the cam.  And when that happened, the metal filings migrated their way to the oil pump.  And when that happened….well, you get the idea.   My 80-cubic-inch V-Twin Evo motor decided to call it quits after roughly 53,000 miles.  Eh, it happens I guess.   Nothing lasts forever.  We salvaged that trip by my substituting my Suzuki TL1000S sportbike with a set of soft luggage, and things worked out.

What bothered me more than anything is that the Harley dealer near my home wouldn’t work on my bike because it was more than 10 years old.   “Huh?” I said.   “What about all that heritage stuff?   You know, the 103-year history of the company?   You’re still making Evo motors.”  Nope, I tried as hard as I could, but there was no getting around it…the Harley dealer would not work on my engine.  It was over 10 years old.  That’s that.  Rules is rules.

So, I went with Plan B.  I took the Harley to a local independent shop, and they were more than happy to work on my bike.  I could have the Harley engine completely rebuilt (which it needed, because those metal bits had migrated everywhere), or I could have it rebuilt with an S&S motor. I went with the S&S motor (the cost was the same as rebuilding the Harley engine), doubling the horsepower, halving the rear tire life, and cutting my fuel economy from 42 to 33 mpg.

My re-engined Harley, I thought, was fast, but then a funny thing happened.  One day when I was out and about on my hot rod Harley, I came home and Sue asked if I had picked up the milk she had told me about before I left.   Well, you know how that goes.  I had to make a run to the grocery store, and for whatever reason, I took my KLR.   It was to be an unintended back-to-back comparison of the KLR versus the Harley.

So, the Harley had 96 cubic inches and the KLR had 40 cubic inches.  The KLR had, I think, 36 or 38 horsepower, and God only knows what that S&S motor was cranking out.  The weird thing about all of this?  As soon as I got on the KLR I knew I liked it more, and there was no doubt about it:  It was faster.  A lot faster.  My transition to riding smaller bikes had started.  I put the Harley in the CycleTrader that day, and it sold the next.  I’ve never missed it.

On to my next Baja breakdown, and the main topic of this blog.  Nope, this wasn’t my RX3, either.  It’s what you see in that photo above:  My presumably indestructible Casio G-Shock watch.  But it’s my fault and not the watch’s.

The story goes like this.  I bought the G-Shock a year or so ago and I love it (it’s orange, and everybody knows that’s the fastest color).  I even wrote a blog about it back then.  Well, after wearing it for all that time (and using the light in it as a flashlight three or four times every night…you older guys will know what that’s all about), the battery went south on me during this latest Baja trip.

Fortunately, the battery had the good manners to do this in Guerrero Negro, where there are a few stores in town.  I asked the guy who took us to see the whales (Oswaldo) which store would have a battery and he pointed one out on our way to the docks.   After seeing the whales and having a couple of fish tacos at Tony’s, I rode my bike to the place Oswaldo had mentioned.  Nope, they didn’t sell watch batteries, but the farmacia two doors down did.  Okay, so I went to the farmacia two doors down.  Nope, they didn’t have watch batteries, but another farmacia two doors on the other side of the first store did.  I guess I turned right when I should have turned left.   You know, there are lot of farmacias in Mexico.   As in two per city block in a little town like Guerrero Negro.

Then things got interesting.   This second farmacia had the battery, but they told me I had to open the watch to get my old battery out.  Little tiny screws, and I was wearing my contacts, which gives me great far field vision but lousy near field vision.   Hmmmhhh…

The lady behind the counter gave me a little box of tiny screwdrivers, but I couldn’t see those screws (I could barely make out the screwdrivers).   I tried to explain my predicament to the very nice lady, but she didn’t speak English.  So, I took my right contact out (they’re one-day disposables, so it wasn’t that big a deal) and I did the best I could (which evidently was not all that good).

The watch lit up as soon as the battery went in, but the rear cover is orientation sensitive, and I got it wrong.  The bottom line was that the watch crystal fogged over within an hour (on the inside), and by the end of the day, the now-thoroughly-soaked battery called it quits.   So that’s my second Baja equipment breakdown story.   I dropped the watch off at my battery/jewelry/watch place this morning (where I didn’t have to listen about them not being allowed to work on it because it was more than some arbitrary number of years old), and hopefully, it’s salvageable.  I’ll let you know.