Where did I get to
last time? I was in Puerto Vallarta,
eating this great fish Noel had prepared and we were waiting for Ruben to show
up. Around 2 PM he calls - he is in
Coatzacoalcos,
that is in the far eastern regions of Veracruz,
and about 1500 kms (~930 miles) from Puerto Vallarta.
Oh yes, he still has to cross Mexico City
if he takes the shorter route, or loop around it, adding distance if he
doesn't. The good part is that it's December 31st, and commercial traffic
should be light to none. We tell him to take it easy, to stop when he gets
tired, not to try to push to Puerto Vallarta
that night.
We had a traditional midnight New
Year's dinner, watched the fire works in town (from Jose Luis's house). No
signs or phone calls from Ruben yet. The plan for New Year's day was for Jose
Luis to show us this beach he says they go to every year, where a lot of the
bikers in Puerto Vallarta meet. He
said it was 40 kms south of Puerto Vallarta.
He said there was a dirt road to the beach, what he didn't say was it was
another 40 kms of dirt road, not always in the best condition, from the main
road to the beach. It had not rained in a while, so it was very dusty (well,
probably better than being muddy). I kept my distance from whoever was in front
of me at the moment, so I could see where I was going. On a couple of
occasions, I met an oncoming car that was traveling at a good clip using the
whole road to make a turn, one in particular was very close, literally. We
passed through a couple of small villages (I had to wonder what do these people
do for a living, this was literally in the middle of nowhere) that we used to
stop and allow the ladies to catch up in the Jeep.
We finally made it to the beach, and it was certainly worth it. It was a small
cove outside Bahia Banderas (where Puerto Vallarta
is located), seemed like a small fishing village, a few houses, some small
restaurants on the beach, and that's about it. This was a beach that you don't
get to by mistake, no tourons, only locals, and not many of them either. Just
like Jose Luis said, there were many bikes by the beach, most of them enduro
type, as off-roading seems to be more popular than street riding around here.
Several dad, mom and kids riding groups, so a real family outing on New Year's
day. The restaurant was a bit disappointing, their service was painfully slow.
At around 3 PM we started to leave
(big group, takes a while). We were no more than 3 kms from the beach when I
spot Jose Luis parked next to another R12GS up ahead. It was Ruben who was just
making his way to the beach when he ran into Jose Luis leaving. When they
stopped to chat, Jose Luis notices something leaking out of Ruben's engine.
It's a black liquid. He tells him to stop the engine, Ruben does, and the rest
of his engine's oil is dumped on the ground...
Turns out that in Ruben's rush to meet us at the beach, he was going a bit too
fast and bottomed his GS' "skid plate" on something. Instead of
shearing a bolt, the bolt snapped the rear mount, which is part of the oil sump,
and he had been losing his oil over the last 3 kms. OK, so we are about 40 kms
from the main road (but Tuito is hardly a place to find a solution for this,
just easier to pick up the bike later), we have 300 kg worth of bike and gear
to take back to Puerto Vallarta.
Ruben has not eaten since breakfast, so we send him (on Noel's GS) with Johan
back to the beach to get something to eat and drink.
While Johan and Ruben are gone, we find some guys in a Nissan truck that are
willing to help us take the bike to Tuito. We have no ramp. Between 4 of us, we
lift the beast up on the (very) short bed of the truck, secure it and send them
on their way. I offered Noel to give him a ride back to town, so that we
wouldn't have to wait for the other two to come back and then start the longish
and slow two-up ride on the dirt road. It's getting dark quickly too. Noel was
brave (stupid? ;-) enough to accept the ride, so we left, catching up to the
Nissan quickly. It was good to see that these guys were taking it easy with
this load in the back, but it also meant we'd have to wait for a while until
they got to town. After we passed "our" truck, we caught up with a
few more trucks, but it had gotten dark already, so I wasn't sure I could find
a safe place to pass (with Noel on the back, I was also worried about
clearance) so I fell back and waited for an opportunity. We ate a lot of dust
in the process. When we got to Tuito, Noel mentioned how impressed he was with
the V-Strom’s suspension, that he thought it handled the dirt road better than
his GS. I was very surprised to hear
this, as I generally think the GS has better suspension, especially for
off-road riding. Jose Luis (or el doc as he is referred to, he is an MD)
knows a lot of people in Puerto Vallarta,
he knew someone in Tuito that would store the GS in secure place until the next
day. I was very impressed that it took no more than 10 minutes to find someone
to store the bike. I gave Ruben a ride back to Puerto
Vallarta, he was dully impressed with the V-Strom too.
Needless to say, after that off-road adventure, both the bike and I needed a
bath when we returned to Puerto Vallarta,
the rims and my 'Stitch were almost the same color.
I left around 8:30 the next morning,
heading north through San Blas towards Mazatlan.
Just before Mazatlan, you take the
road to Durango, and this brings
you to one of the finest roads I have ever ridden. The road between Puerto
Vallarta through San Blas until is not bad, but I
guess many people were returning from the holiday weekend, so traffic was heavier
than I have ever seen on this section. The views of the ocean and mountains,
when you get close to San Blas are fantastic. I took the libre section north of Tepic,
and it didn't disappoint, much more fun than the highway. I got to Villa Union
around 12:30, fueled the beast (those passes on long lines of cars showed up at
the pump), and got back the road. El
Espinazo del Diablo has an almost mythical reputation, both in Mexico
and among many riders that have been there. Most car drivers are afraid of it,
in the olden days, loosing your brakes going down El Espinazo was common, it led to accidents with on coming traffic.
I doubt this would be an issue in a modern car (unless you are a totally
incompetent driver), but the folklore is stronger than facts.
How good a motorcycle road is it? Let me put it this way, it took me 3 hours to
do the first 200 kms (120 miles). This is for sure one of the best motorcycle
roads I have ever been on. Not the best, because it has a lot of traffic (for a
good moto road) and that traffic includes wild semi drivers that use the whole
road to negotiate turns much faster than they should. I knew this was an issue,
but I almost became a hood ornament on a semi twice, despite being cautious. I
was setting up for a tight left hander, on the far right side of the lane,
looking for my late apex when a big
white semi comes around the corner, cab all the way in my lane. I moved all the
way to the right, basically riding the fog line (no shoulder to speak off), and
changed my line to a very late apex.
I felt him go by, even though the speeds were relatively low, he went by pretty
close. So just when I think time to make this bike turn, his buddy in an
identical truck appears on the same wide line (they were running very close
together). Damn, that was a long moment.
Despite the traffic, and the need to be cautious, it was a fantastic ride. I
stopped only twice to take pictures. Once, I got stuck behind a police pickup
truck. I figured passing them on a double yellow between curves would not be
the best way to make friends, so I spotted a place to park (there aren't many,
and those that exist, are typically not in the good sections) and took a break.
The second was to take the obligatory picture of the sign that reads: Espinazo del Diablo. It's like riding a
combination of all the good roads in the PNWet I know put together without
connecting straights (or at least very short ones on occasion, so few that you
can't remember them). By the time I got to the high plains I was really tired. It's
like riding 3 hours straight on the track. Needless to say, it was a lot of
fun. I decided to call it a day in Durango
despite the fact that it was only 5:30,
I figured riding tired at dusk on these roads isn't good for my health or life
expectancy.
I found a nice hotel a block away from the zocalo.
They didn't have parking, but the bell boy assured me that parking on the
sidewalk is safe. Durango was a
bit disappointing, there wasn't that much to do downtown. It's certainly cowboy
country, hats, boots, blue jeans and big belt buckles seem to be very popular,
and many of these guys are indeed cowboys, you can see them herding cattle as
you drive the backroads of Durango.
The next day I wanted to get an early start, but as soon as I walked out I got
reminded that I am back in the high desert. It was a bright clear morning, the
sun was shining, but it couldn't have been more than 4 deg C (38F) at 8 AM. I took my time, but at 8:30 I was ready to leave, so I made my way out
of a sleepy Durango. There was
little traffic on any of the city streets, and little traffic on the road to
Parral too. I stopped for gas an hour later, and I was still cold. Only around 10 AM I started to feel the sun was really out
there. The road got more interesting as it snaked north, but I wasn't getting
into it. I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong, but I wasn't
comfortable picking up the pace, despite the low traffic. Then I saw a pickup
coming in the other direction and it hit me, this road is really narrow, much
more so than a normal road, the lizard brain was in self preservation mode... Once
you cross into Chihuahua, the
roads show a significant improvement. They are back to being normal width, are
well paved and marked, a nice change. I made it to Chihuahua
much earlier than expected. So much so that there was nobody home to let me in.
There is a saying in Spanish: No por mucho madrugar amanece mas temprano. Look
it up.
After a few days in Chihuahua, I made my way to Las Cruces to meet my old
riding buddies and go on one of my favorite rides, up to the Emory Pass and
over to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. You know how sometimes your memory of a trip
makes a particular road seem much better than when you go ride it again? It has
happened to me before, I attribute some of these to improving skills and added
experience. NM152 isn't one of those roads. It's as good now as I remember it
being when I was a student at NMSU. It's tight on the east slopes and opens up
to higher speed turns on the west side, it may not be quite as challenging
after riding El Espinazo, but the
30-odd miles between Hillsboro and San Lorenzo are pure motorcycling bliss. The
section between San Lorenzo to NM15 is not bad either,
but NM15 is much more interesting. Around 160 miles round trip of good curves.
Hard to argue with that as a Sunday ride destination.
While we were having lunch in the Hillsboro General Store (still a great place
for breakfast or lunch), my friend John mentions that there has been almost no
snow this year, and that all the roads to Alpine are clear. Hmmm, I could ride
AZ191 on the way home... By the time I go to bed, I had made up my mind, the
road to Phoenix goes through Alpine
tomorrow. It was another cold morning, but I ignored it and took the road to
Duncan
anyway. It was just starting to warm up a bit when I started to climb into the
mountains. It's close to 70 miles up to Hannagan Meadows, and it includes
everything from crazy switchback hairpins to fast sweepers and fantastic views
of the Apache-Sitgreaves
National
Forest. Unfortunately, the fact that there was
little snow this year didn't mean it wasn't cold. Who in their right mind would
ride to a place called Alpine, which
is at about 8000 ft elevation in the middle of winter? I guess I am not that
smart... The heat-troller was maxed out, so were the heated grips, and I needed
some extra time to take my helmet off when I stopped for gas in Alpine. The
road to Globe was nice and scenic. I love riding in the desert, I love the open
spaces and the ability to sometimes see a hundred miles from horizon to
horizon. The section that passes through Salt River
Canyon was great and luckily no
LEOs were out there that day, with a ridiculously low speed limit of 35 MPH I
can't see how they miss the opportunity for revenue. Not even the slowest cars
were going that slow.
I was feeling like riding some more when I went by the Phoenix
metro area, and I found myself on the AZ-CA border when it was time to take a
break. I stopped at a Super 8 in Quartzsite, but we had a communication problem.
I asked for a room for the night and the clerk said it's $120. I looked around,
sure looked like a Super 8, $120/night? Supposedly there was a something going
on at the local fairgrounds which drove the prices up. Talk about price
gauging. I decided against it, and went across the CA border to a small motel
(yes, it was run by a nice Indian gentleman) that had much more reasonable
pricing for similar rooms.
I was hoping for a warmer day on the leg to Sacramento,
but it didn't turn out that way. Again, it was very cold morning, only warming
up a bit near LA, where I finally took my fleece off when I was getting gas.
Didn't last long, there was a sort of high, thin fog in the central valley,
which made the temps drop significantly right outside of LA, and on came the
fleece again. It remained like that all the way to Sacramento.
So much for warmer SoCal weather. I was in a hurry to make it to Sacramento
early, so I could check the condition on the I-5 passes. The Weather Channel
claimed there would be snow at the higher elevation the night before, so I had
to decide on whether I wanted to try I-5 through the Siskiyou pass or go with
rains along the coast. I-5 cameras showed clear roads both around Weed and
Siskiyou summit, so I decided to go for a ride straight up I-5.
Another cold riding day, but at least I made it past the Siskiyous before the
snow started falling. Of course, as soon as I got to Ashland,
it started raining. Welcome to Oregon.
It didn't stop until I pulled into my garage 4 hours later, but at least it
wasn't as cold as it was going over the mountain passes.
A quick check of the odometer revealed I had ridden about 11K miles in the last
6 weeks. Not IBR pace, but a nice riding vacation nonetheless. Despite some
good efforts by OR, CA, AZ and NM's finest (and only a half hearted one by the
Federales), no HPDAs were awarded. The bike ran flawlessly (not counting the
chain, which is a regular maintenance item I should have replaced before
starting the trip rather than assume this chain would last as long as the
previous one did). Surprisingly, I ran the whole trip on one set of tires (that
still look like they can do another 2K), but that's about the only good thing I
can say about the Metzeler Tourances. I don't like the handling, especially not
the vibration they induce at medium speeds and while braking. I'll be going
back to Anakees for regular road riding.
I hope those who are still following enjoyed reading (and the pictures) as much
as we enjoyed this trip. I can't wait another 6 years for another one of these
long vacations...
YMexicanAdventuresMV
Gustavo
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