CSC Blog

What a week this was…15 riders, 15 brand new motorcycles, and a 1700-mile adventure ride.   Wowee.   Do the math…that’s 25,500 miles in 5 days on Chinese motorcycles that are new to America.  Folks, the RX3 and our band of intrepid Baja blasters are awesome!

First, a look at 15 real adventure riders…our 2015 Baja Blasters!   From left to right and then row by row…my traveling compadres on our epic CSC Inaugural Baja Run….Eric, Greg B, Juddy, Keith, John S, Justin, Pete, John W, Abe, Reuben, Tiffany, Greg M, Jay, John F, and yours truly.   It was a blast!

The folks you see above are real riders and they were enormous fun to be around.   These guys (and one gal) thought the idea of buying a new Chinese motorcycle and blasting through Baja for 5 days would be a good thing.   They are my kind of people.

To be sure, the last couple of days sure were challenging.   As you know from following the blog, Justin’s bike lost its countershaft sprocket nut.   You already read about Justin’s ingenuity in resolving the lost nut…the guy is flat amazing.  A regular MacGuyver.

Let me tell you more about that story.   We thought we’d be able to find a replacement countershaft sprocket nut in Guerrero Negro because there’s a motorcycle/ATV repair facility there.   We sent the rest of our group on to San Quintin under Baja John’s capable scouting and leadership, and five of us hung back in Guerrero Negro for what we thought would be about a 30-minute delay to find a countershaft sprocket nut for Justin.   Boy, were we ever wrong.

Abe and Pete rode off from Malarrimo’s to find the motorcycle repair shop, and Pete, Justin, and I went to an automobile repair facility.   No dice at the auto shop; those guys work on cars and Baja race trucks.   And Abe and Pete struck out at the motorcycle shop.   The guy who owned the shop had died a few days ago.   I know it’s cruel, but my initial thought was, gee, if only the guy could have held on for a few more days…

There’s a small airport outside of Guerrero Negro, and airports usually have hardware, so Abe and Pete left for it.   Juddy and I rolled up the town’s main drag and we found a very small auto parts place.   When I say it was an auto parts place, don’t get the idea that I’m talking about something like a Pep Boys or an AutoZone.   This was a tiny building that looked like the Mexican version of the old TV show Sanford and Son.   It was full of rusty parts, junk lying around, and a main character (the shop’s owner) right out of central casting.   I explained what we wanted and I thought I was doing a pretty job until I realized that my new best friend Santiago spoke no English.

Hey, no problemo…he brought out a large coffee can and emptied it on the grease-encrusted floor, picking through corroded nuts and bolts.    No luck.   No problemo, said Santiago.   He took us outside and showed us a ratted out old ATV.  It was under a disintegrating tarp.   The thing looked old enough (and corroded enough) for Moses to have ridden it across the Red Sea.  Santiago pulled the tarp back, and smiled as he pointed out the countershaft nut.  The heavily-corroded countershaft nut.

We tried for half an hour to get the nut off that old ATV, using a socket wrench and a cheater bar that probably could have reached all the way back to the US border.   And it was hot out.  And humid.   That nut wasn’t budging.

Do you remember the scene in Animal House when D-Day fires up a blow torch?   You know, after the guys wreck Flounder’s Lincoln?  It’s the scene where the torch casts this weird glow on D-Day’s face, and he gets a wicked grin that says “all is well with the world now that I have my torch lit.”   Folks, picture Santiago doing the same.   He put the heat on that countershaft sprocket nut, all the old grease (and most of the crankcase paint) vaporized instantly, and Santiago got the nut to break loose!  He poured water on it, unscrewed it, and….and…wrong thread size.   Too coarse.  Rats!

Just then, Abe and Pete rolled in on their RX3 motorcycles.   They found a castellated nut at the airport that looked right, and it had the fine thread we thought we wanted.   Our spirits rose again, only to sink when the thread still wouldn’t allow the new nut to fit on Justin’s bike.  Major league bummer.   It’s already close to noon, it’s hot and humid, and I’m wondering if maybe I ought to start looking into real estate in Guerrero Negro.   Maybe I could give up writing the blog and sell fish tacos…

Abe, who is cool as a cucumber, said not to worry.   Abe is unflappable.   He said that the guy at the airport has a friend at the salt factory who has a machine shop, and he could make us a new nut.

Folks, I can’t make stuff like this up.  So we all saddled up and rode to the edge of town, where we pulled into the salt factory parking lot.  Abe went up to the gate, talked to a guy there, and in a few minutes this friend-of-a-friend-who-works-at-the-salt-factory-and-has-a-machine-shop walked out of the plant, looked at Justin’s bike, took a few measurements, and…you guessed it…he told us no problemo.  But he had to go to lunch first.  He’d make us a nut when he came back.

Wow.   Juddy and Abe rode back up the road to get us some fish tacos from Tony (everybody loved those, as you saw from our Day 2 Baja blog), and Justin, Pete, and I hung out in the parking lot in front of the salt factory.   Lots of people were interested in our RX3s.   I had brochures in my saddlebags.     I was doing my full tilt sales boogie (you know, what do you need your monthly payment to be?), all the while wondering how these guys (Pete, Justin, Abe, and Juddy) are staying so relaxed about this countershaft nut business.  I felt depressed, embarrassed, and guilty, and that’s when it struck me.   Justin said “it’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.”   Well, folks, if that’s the criteria, we were having one hell of an adventure.   My embarrassment and guilt aside, these guys were loving it.  They were amazing.

While all this was going on, the guys were busy snapping photos.  I didn’t photograph any of this stuff.   I felt responsible for it, and I didn’t want to take pictures of all that ensued after the countershaft sprocket nut went AWOL.   The guys were loving it, though.   Maybe I’ll get some of their photos later.

The friend-of-a-friend Mexican machinist came back from lunch, he measured the shaft again (always a good sign…there’s an old saying in the machine shop business that goes “measure twice, cut once”) and he disappeared into the factory.   I wondered if he tells his wife when he goes to work each morning that he’ll be spending another day in the salt mines.

An hour later, and oila, we have our new countershaft sprocket nut.  It was a thing of incredible beauty.   If Justin ever rides into a nuclear conflagration and his RX3 takes a direct hit from a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile, that nut will still be hanging on to the countershaft sprocket.   My feelings soared.   I went from being depressed to being jubilant.   Let’s ride!

And ride we did.  We left Guerrero Negro around 2:00 p.m. and pinned it all the way up to San Quintin.   Gas in Catavina, gas again in El Rosario, and then the turn on the dirt road to the Old Mill Hotel.   Four miles of dirt road.   In the dark.    30 miles an hour on hard pack, and then pow!, we hit the soft sand.   By the grace of God, I didn’t crash.   It wasn’t due to any great riding skills on my part.  I’m convinced I had a lot of help from the Almighty.   My bike was sashaying around like an exotic dancer in a room full of heavy tippers, except I was most definitely not enjoying this show.   I was the star, and I didn’t know how the movie was going to end.   We went through about a mile of this stuff.  It seemed like it went on forever.  I was sure I was going to drop the bike.

Finally, we pulled into the Old Mill Hotel’s gravel parking lot.   Baja John came over and said he sure was glad to see us.   Me, too, dude!   I asked if everybody got in okay and if there had been any problems with the bikes.   No problems with the bikes, said John, and everybody got in okay.   That’s good, I said…I was really worried about the soft sand we had just ridden through and I didn’t want to even think about anybody dropping their bikes.

“So everybody got through it okay?” I asked again.

“Sort of,”  John said.   “Four guys dropped their bikes.  One guy has a sprained ankle.   We thought he broke it, but it’s just sprained.”

Whoa!   Four dropped bikes.   One sprained ankle.   Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

Another emotional roller coaster.   I felt terrible that this happened.

John told me everybody was over at the restaurant, and they had the fight on big screen TV.    I didn’t even know there was going to be a fight, and I was a little bit afraid to face the guys (especially the ones who dropped their bikes).    But I was hungry.

The restaurant was jumping, and we had to wait to get a table.  Folks, we’re 4 miles out on this sandy dirt road, and the place was packed.

I found our guys and they were having a blast (along with a few beers).   The guys who had dropped their bikes were grinning ear to ear.   They were excited to see us (we were 8 hours late getting into San Quintin due to the nut debacle in Guerrero Negro, and they had been worried about us).  The restaurant had this marine motif (we were, after all, right on Bahia San Quintin).    To my amazement, the guys were telling war stories about losing it in the soft stuff and dropping their bikes.   They were enjoying it.   I looked around.   I listened.   It was amazing.

Do you remember the scene in Jaws when Captain Quint (played by Robert Shaw), Chief Brody (played by Roy Scheider), and Richard Dreyfuss are comparing scars?   You know, they’re in this fishing boat, bobbing around on the ocean, drinking, and they’re comparing war wounds?   I looked around and listened to the riding and dropped bike stories in this marine-themed restaurant.   I suddenly realized:  I was in that scene in Jaws.   I was living it.   It was yet another awesome moment in what was turning out to be a truly great adventure ride.   Everyone was in high spirits.

Okay, enough of me babbling….a few more photos from our epic ride and we’ll call it a day.

I was up super early the next morning (Day 5 of the Baja ride) and I grabbed a few shots in the hotel parking lot…

Then I strolled over to the dock and I grabbed a few more photos…like I said…a scene from Jaws.

And a few shots from the road…

You know, when you launch on an adventure like this, crashing around in Baja for a combined 25,500 miles over 5 days, things happen. On any new motorcycle (or on any not-so-new motorcycle, for that matter), bolts and nuts are going to loosen.  Sometimes things will break.  These are pretty extreme riding conditions.   It’s always a question for folks like us to ponder….do we do these kinds of rides and talk about the difficulties we’ve encountered?   Or do we do like the other guys do, sell motorcycles through dealers with high prices, inflated shipping costs, $800 setup fees, and not share the things we’re finding?   If we tell people about a problem, won’t that scare people away?   It might, but we are going to continue doing these rides and we are going to continue talking about it.   We’re not the other guys.

Folks, this is life, this is adventure riding, and things happen.   When I read some of the silly things people have written on the Internet (none of the folks on this ride, mind you), I shake my head and wonder.   The seat is too hard (ride a motorcycle for hours on end and guess what…you’re going to get a sore butt).   When you change the oil you’ll spill some of it on the skid plate (we have an app for that…it’s called the shop rag).  You get the idea.  Don’t get me wrong…we’re doing things to make the RX3 a better motorcycle and we will continue to do so.   But if a bolt or a nut vibrating loose puts you in low Earth orbit, perhaps you would be happier with a Prius.

And folks, that’s about it for our Inaugural Baja ride.   I know you’re wondering…are we going to do this again?

You tell me…anybody want to buzz Baja next year?

Just a short one today, folks…it was a long day.   John led nine of the guys to the Old Mill Hotel in San Quintin while five of us hung back in Guerrero Negro to get a countershaft sprocket nut for Justin’s bike.

Here’s our one photo for today out in the desert…

The old saying about the adventure beginning when things go wrong certainly seems to be true on this ride, and the brave souls on our first Inaugural Run sure are having fun.

I was feeling guilty about Justin’s bike losing that countershaft nut; Justin and the three guys who hung back in Guerrero Negro were enjoying the hell out of trying to find a replacement.   We ended up finding a friend of a friend who was a machinist and that guy made a nut out of bar stock.   It’s a long story that I’ll post on the blog later, and it’s been a long day, but it sure was an adventure.

Everyone is having fun.

The Old Mill Hotel is packed….we’re 4 miles out on a dirt road and there must be 40 motorcycles in the parking lot.  The restaurant showed the fight on the wide screen, we all had a few beers and a great dinner, and life is good.

The adventure continues…

What a day, and what a life (to borrow a phrase from our good buddy Reuben’s Four Corners blog).    Wow!

Last night, as you know, we had a great dinner at El Muelle’s in downtown Santa Rosalia.   We were down about 700 miles south of the border in Santa Rosalia, and it was our turnaround point.   The dinner was great, and the owner (Anna) really took good care of us.   So good, in fact, that we went back there again for breakfast.

We stayed at the Frances Hotel, and it was fun.   There are no Holiday Inns around here, folks.   The Frances Hotel is the real deal, and everyone enjoyed it.  Here’s what it looked like in the morning…

Here’s a photo of our good buddy John, who had a genuine war story for us.   John was chased down and bit by a dog (hey, it’s Mexico, and you remember me telling you about the dogs in these parts).   The dog chomped down on John’s shoe but didn’t break through, and John told us all about it in the Frances Hotel courtyard this morning…

While we were prepping for the ride down to the El Muelle for breakfast, Justin somehow managed to climb up on the roof for a better perspective…

This guy is amazing…Justin is a regular MacGuyver, but more on that later.

Here’s a photo our southern Cyclone, Tiffany, in downtown Santa Rosalia….

Justin and Juddy at breakfast.   The black Canon is faster…

After breakfast, we visited the Gustav Eiffel church just around the corner.   You’ve read my stuff about this church here on the blog before.   The churches in Baja are amazing.   More on that in a bit, too.

On the road again, leaving Santa Rosalia and heading for San Ignacio…

Tiffany, on the way into San Ignacio….

Those are date palms behind Tiffany.  The Jesuits introduced date farming to this region hundreds of years ago.   San Ignacio is natural oasis, evidently perfect for growing dates.   The area is beautiful.

Here’s a photo of my bike…

My bike again, in front of the San Ignacio Mission.

We kicked back for about an hour in San Ignacio.   Good times.

The Colonel, Justin, and Keith.   Great guys.   I’m having a blast traveling with these folks.

My good buddy Greg…another great guy.  I first met Greg at the Phoenix IMS show a few months ago.   He wanted to know all about the Baja trip, and what do you know, here he is.

And here’s Reuben, another great guy.   Reuben is an interesting man.   I already told you about his blog.   Reuben is doing a Four Corners run on his RX3, which he interrupted to ride Baja with us.   Let me tell you something else about Reuben…he owns two RX3 motorcycles.   One is in the Philippines, and the other is the one he is riding in the US  (and of course, Baja).   Reuben bought his US bike just to run the Four Corners, and he loves it!

Here’s a photo of the Colonel on his red RX3.   Eric is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel with two tours in Vietnam under his belt.  He’s a cool guy, and he rode with us out to San Francisco Sierra this afternoon.

Here’s another photo of Greg on the same road.   It was a glorious day in Baja…

Here’s a shot of Greg piloting his RX3 in Mexico.   Greg’s day job is piloting a Boeing 737.   Greg is another very interesting dude…he’s a real gearhead.   We had a great conversation at dinner last night.

Here’s Justin on the way to see the cave paintings…

These are our guys who opted for the cave painting ride this afternoon, high up in the San Francisco Sierra Mountains…

To get to the cave paintings, it’s 27 miles off the Transpeninsular Highway on an absolutely stunning paved (but deserted) road, and then another 7 miles on a really gnarly dirt road.

This church is in San Francisco Sierra…

One of the cave paintings…the black figure is a cougar.   These paintings were done over 10,000 years ago!

The guys taking it all in…

The question I know many of you are wondering about is how the bikes are doing.   They’re doing well, thank you.   Not perfect, but pretty good considering the service they’ve seen in the last few days.   We’ve put about 20,000 collective miles on the 15 new RX3s on this ride, most of it in Baja under some fairly extreme conditions, and we’ve had a exactly four things happen so far.

The Colonel’s bike didn’t want to turn over twice the first morning we left.   We push started it both times, it fired right up, and it’s run fine since.   It could have been a lot of things, including a weak battery, but whatever it was, it’s doing fine now.  We’ll give Eric’s bike a thorough checkup when we get back to the plant, but we are thinking this problem is behind us now.

Two guys have had centerstand problems.   On Keith’s bike, the centerstand appears to be distorting at the gusset.   That’s a hefty part, so it might be a piece of soft steel.   We’ll replace it for Keith when we get back to California.

The other centerstand issue was on Justin’s bike.  One of the Circlips securing the centerstand pivot popped off.  We removed the centerstand from Justin’s bike and we’ll reinstall it when we get back to the plant.

The other problem we had on Justin’s bike was something I’ve never encountered before on any motorcycle…the countershaft sprocket nut came off.   This was right after we rode that gnarly dirt road to the cave paintings, but I really don’t think the road had anything to do with it.   As I said earlier, Justin is an amazing guy.   He walked back along his path and found the nut lock, but we couldn’t find the nut.   That didn’t slow Justin down at all, though…he put the retainer on, grabbed some baling wire, and fixed the problem…

To be sure, Justin’s fix is a temporary one, but it got us the 70 miles back to Guerrero Negro tonight.   We bought spare parts with us, but not the countershaft sprocket nut (like I said, I’ve never seen this happen before, on any motorcycle).   We’ll find a new one when the shops open up here in Guerrero Negro, and we’ll be on our way in the morning.

It sure feels good to be in Malarrimo’s Hotel tonight here in Guerrero Negro.   I grabbed this photo of Juddy just a short while ago, and his expression seems to capture everyone’s feelings about this trip…

That’s it for now, folks.  We’re having fun.   It’s been awesome.   The bikes are great and the folks on this trip are incredible.   Like Reuben would say…what a life!

We made it safely to Santa Rosalia after leaving El Rosario and crossing the Vizcaino Desert.   What a day…it was hot, but boy oh boy, we sure packed the fun in!   Take a look at us rolling through the mountains…

Good times, it’s late, I’ve got flaky connectivity, so I’ll load as many photos as the Frances Hotel’s wireless will allow.

And you thought Llanterians had no sense of humor…a tire repair facility in the middle of nowhere….

Reuben topping off in Catavina, Baja style…

Pete doing the same…

Baja John cooling off in Punta Prieta…one of our rest stops today.

Reuben and Justin catching 40 weeks before getting back on the Transpeninsular Highway…

Rolling in to one of many military checkpoints…

The Pemex station just north of the 28th Parallel, which divides Baja and Baja Sur…

Guerrero Negro!   Juddy, Tiffany, and the Colonel stepping up for a couple of fish tacos!

The man of the hour…Tony Lopez!   He did not disappoint…everybody loved the fish tacos!

South of Guerrero Negro, heading toward San Ignacio…

A man, a motorcycle, and a mission…here’s Justin kicking back on the steps of the San Ignacio Mission.   This church was built in the 1700s.   It’s a great stop.   We stayed for about an hour.   We needed the break…it was a good hundred miles from Guerrero Negro to San Ignacio and we were all hot and tired when we arrived.

Reuben, Pete, Abe, and John relaxing in San Ignacio…

My RX3 under the Volcano.   That’s Volcan Las Tres Virgenes in the background…it’s the volcano that formed the San Ignacio oasis.

Need more horsepower?

Reuben’s rear tire…at 3500 miles, it’s showing no wear at all.

The Tourfella aluminum bags are nice.   I could have used the extra storage capacity on my bike.  Several of the riders on this trip have them.

I think this is Justin’s tank bag…

Rolling on into Santa Rosalia…

Coming up…the descent into Santa Rosalia, La Cuesta del Infierno…

One of the best e-ticket rides in Baja…

And finally, our first glimpse of the Sea of Cortez….

We had a great seafood dinner in downtown Santa Rosalia this evening (thanks again, John!), and it’s about half past midnight right now.  When we crossed into Baja California Sur, we moved into a new time zone.   Folks, I’m tired, and I’m going to call it a night.   More tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Folks, we are having entirely too much fun!   We’re in El Rosario tonight after a great dinner at Mama Espinoza’s (thanks, Steve!), and we had an incredible ride here.   We left at 4:30 a.m. (yep, you read that right!) and all 15 of us are really enjoying our RX3 motorcycles.  Ah, so many great photos and such limited connectivity….let’s give it a shot and see what I can upload!

Dinner at Mama Espinoza’s!

Justin in a sea of RX3s…

Abe, who seems to be having a good time…

Reuben, a traveling man!

John, who is enjoying the Baja run with his son…

And John’s son Jay…a great guy!

A great part of the game is shooting photos on the fly…the lightweight D3300 is just awesome for this sort of thing…

A typical small agricultural village along Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway…two horsepower!

So, all you haters out there…tell me again why I shouldn’t be enjoying this?

Filling up at the cheapest gas station in Mexico…

A colorful doorway in Santo Tomas…

On the road…in Baja…folks, it really doesn’t get any better than this.   I had the easiest job on the ride…I was out front and living large!

Youngsters mesmerized by the RX3s!

Javier, a future RX3 pilot…he told me he wanted a red one because it’s faster, like his bicycle…

Rolling through one of the ag communities.   This is where we were caught in the labor riot a few weeks ago…

A youngster on a dirt bike paralleling the Transpeninsular Highway shows us how it’s done…

Another shot from the cockpit…

New RX3 owners changing their oil in El Rosario after riding 365 break-in miles today!

Roselda, the prettiest gas station attendant in Baja!

My reward at the end of a great day, after the bikes were put away…

And finally, a great view stopped at a light somewhere in Baja…

We’re up early tomorrow for another great Mexican breakfast…and then we’re riding into the Vizcaino Desert!

Keep on eye on us, folks…we’re having fun!

Even more photos today, folks, and I have to tell you, the excitement around here in advance of the Baja trip is tangible!

That’s my good buddy John, who rode down from Washington state to pick up a gorgeous white RX3 and join us for the Baja run!

John put a few hundred break-in miles on his RX3 yesterday and he was in the shop for the first oil change this morning…

Here’s a photo of my good buddy Tuan picking up his RX3…

Tuan is a good guy.   Like me, he’s a mechanical engineer…I know, because he was in a couple of my courses at Cal Poly Pomona!  The smile is real, folks!

Here’s another photo of John and Jay setting up their RX3s for the Baja run.  More smiles, looking forward to those Baja miles!

And speaking of smiles, check out this photo of our good buddy Tiffany, who flew all the way out from Georgia to buy an RX3 and ride with us to Baja!

Tiffany has her own blog featuring the RX3 (A Southern Cyclone) and it is a great one.

Our good buddy Reuben is going with us on the Baja run (we’ve written about him on the CSC blog earlier).   Reuben is another blogmeister…he writes a dynamite site about his RX3 adventures (you can see it at What A Life).   It’s another blog you might want to watch; I’m sure everyone will be posting about this grand Baja adventure that starts in just about 15 hours!

Here’s a photo of Reuben’s RX3 coming back down the Pacific Coast Highway…Reuben has already been up to Washington on his RX3 and he rode it back to ride with us to Baja!

Good times, folks!