On Any Sunday...or Friday, as the case may be

This morning, we rose at our usual hour, but just for coffee and snacks (or Diet Dew, in my case.)  This was to be a very different day from yesterday.  Today, instead of Pepe, we had multi-time Baja 1000 competitor Oscar as our lead rider.  Now, Oscar and Pepe have slightly different styles.  Pepe is very much the "Gentlemen, be very careful and safe, we will stop every few miles to group up again.  Please do not ride in the dust," and so on.  Safety first.  Oscar?  His style is more like, "Okay guys, see if you can keep up."  Pepe brought up the rear as our sweep rider.

Anyway, we jumped onto the bikes and peeled out of the Mision Santa Maria parking lot – and right out onto the beach!  We then proceeded to do our best impression of the closing scene in "On Any Sunday", ripping down the hard-packed sand with the Pacific Ocean 50 feet to our right.  It was amazing – 11 miles, averaging probably 65 with a top speed of 75 mph showing up on the GPS.  We can definitely check “ride a motocross bike on a public beach” off of the old Bucket List!

After another hour or so of great trail and fire road riding, we ended up in the little town of El Rosario for breakfast.  Turns out that “Mama Espinosas” restaurant belongs to Oscar’s family and is sort of a shrine to all things having to do with Baja racing – including having a small museum with one of Oscar’s old race bikes.  We had a great breakfast and continued our journey.  The rest of the day included some of the most amazing riding I have ever done.  It’s all kind of a blur, because we rode 250 miles today!

Riding included long whooped-out sections of the Baja 1000 race course that BURNED the thighs, along with long sections of tight, tight, tight single-track through rocks, sand, cacti (more on that in a bit), huge Saguaro, and hard-as-rock agave plants.  This was a VERY technical single-track called the "Window Rock Trail."  In fact our guides said that they take very few clients through this section.  The group must be fast enough and good enough to get through it.  I guess we qualified.

Today we also had steep, rock-strewn hillclimbs, deep sugar-sand corners, drop-offs, high speed sections, and steep downhills.  In short, a little bit of everything we were hoping for.  We also rode several long (35km) road sections at speeds of 85mph!

In addition to the beach riding, there were several other nods to the old "On Any Sunday" movie.  We rode for several miles past Lake Chapala – a huge dry lake bed.  I quote from the movie, “… but every other year, that lone dust cloud across Lake Chapala was Malcolm Smith and his motorcycle.”  Cool stuff.  I think Ol’ Malcolm would be proud of the way these six Florida boys rode the Baja today.  Or another movie quote, "It's hard to understand just how long six days on a motorcycle really is."  Yup.  VERY long - but insanely fun.

In short, this whole day was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for when I booked this trip.  "EPIC" does not begin to describe it.  Afterwards, sitting at the outside Tiki huts at Costa Bahia hotel & restaurant, enjoying ICE-cold Pacificos, we were a very happy, tired, but satisfied bunch.

But there were a couple hiccups.  Most notably, with Peter Jr.  The youngest (and probably fastest) member of the group crashed his brains out on a rocky sand wash crest shortly after lunch.  Ripped the headlight unit off the bike and gas was pouring out of what looked like a fractured fuel tank.  Fortunately, the crash had just yanked the fuel hose off – so an easy trail fix.  As far as the rider, we were at first concerned that Peter might have concussed himself, because he was seriously shaken up.  But after fifteen minutes or so to regain his senses, he was able to continue with the rest of the day.  The extent of his injuries appears to be some monumental crash rash and colorful bruises on various parts of his body – and he is going to be seriously sore in the morning, but he will certainly be able to continue the ride.

Then there was Chris vs. the Cacti.  Let me start by saying that Chris is riding GREAT for it being so long since he last rode a motocross bike (like 25 years?)  And the only real way to keep him from trying to go too fast and get in over his head, is to have him follow me.  I set a very reasonable (plenty fast enough) pace.  But I DO NOT want to get hurt, so it’s not a banzai crazy pace.  Anyway, Chris had some real trouble today with the famous (as Pepe says) “Yumping Cactus”.  Several times, Chris brushed up against, or bumped into some very sharp cacti and came away the loser, with shoulders full of needles, requiring minor surgery by Peter and me.  On one of his impacts he smacked the hell out of an agave plant, generating no spines, but an impressively purple and orange bruise on his bicep .Final tally: Cacti 4, Chris 0.

Isaac suffered a little bit from one bout with a cactus, but the needles ended up in his knuckles and hand.  Ouch.  Needed pliers to get the needles out.  Really.   I pulled a couple spines out of Jay’s arm too.  Speaking of Jay, his bike woes continued and the guides finally just stuck him aboard one of their non-electric-start, very fast, very heavy XR650s.  This made Jay VERY happy – until we got to that tight, tight, tight single-track, where the big XR was a real handful.  He rode it all with flying colors, but Jay says his arms are jelly tonight!

It was an epic day.  One I am sure none of us will ever forget. Tomorrow is a bit shorter at only 160 miles or so, plus we will get to visit some 10,000 year-old cave paintings!  Keep following us on SPOT – and look for the new blog post tomorrow.  The adventure continues!  Pictures from today below.