Back road Baja

After spending the best part of two weeks staying in and cycling through cities and suburbier I was massively keen to get out into some desert landscapes, you know, get away from it all. My first foray was met by edgy border patrols, who took my efforts at free camping near the border as acts of illegal immigration and drug smuggling, unfortunately for them they succumed to my charm and left smiling and waving. The next night I stayed in Ensenada, and despite my host's best efforts, convinced myself that the best way south down the peninsula would be head out East, adding about 50 miles and more importantly 105km of dirt road. On a map this looked fairly benign, I mean after all I was the great conqueror of the casscades, who had dared go where no other biker would (they have more sense). In comparison this would surely be a piece of piss, on the map there were no major inclines. So I happily clipped into my pedals and headed off for a two day jolly to San Felipe and my first taste of the Sea of Cortez. On the way I encountered many dirt bikers, a truely arrogant race - with a few notable exceptions. They were preparing for the Baja 1000, the biggest, bestest, most important thing on the face of the planet, ever. The fact that I hadn't heard of it coupled with, when explained what the race was, the complete and utter failure of my jaw to hit the floor or a total lack of a gleam of hero-worshipping awe dawning in my eye, did not go down too well, not too well at all. I mean how hard can a 1000 mile dirt bike race be, they do it in teams and they have fricking engines! I managed to escape these fiends of the road about a days ride south of San Felipe (Where I met a con on the run from US law enforcement). Here is where the dirt started. The first couple of Kms where bad, the next 3 practically unrideable, with the kind of gradients I would have struggled on with a road of beautifully laid tarmac, combined with loose gravel and sand and rocks pushing you to the edge of the cliff, I struggled up about 1.5 km, riding the rideable, walking the rest. A pickup came past, stopped and offered me a lift to the top. I looked at the rest of the track, it was even worse. I didn't even hesitate. Descending down the other side, every bone in my body attempting to shake itself loose, I consoled myself, this was just the construction site detour, tomorrow the road would be better. I was so very very wrong. The next day started off with sandy tracks, which when more than half an inch deep, bury the front wheel and fishtail the rear flinging me into the road. This is usually not so bad as the landing zone is normally just as sandy as the crash site but every now and again you hit a rock. The worst one took the weight of both me and my bike, at a good tilt, right between my quad and hamstring, allowing me to unleash my Peter Griffin impression on the unsuspecting desert. The real problem with this injury was that every-other pedal stroke the two mussels squeezed the bruise between them, not fun. I managed to do 35 km of the 45 km stretch to the next water supply, before I was once again offered a lift (cars pass by about once an hour), by this time the road had headed into the hills and the 4x4's were travelling at about 10 mph and I was walking about 90% of the time, so I excepted. However, when he said he'd take me back to the tarmac I said no: I wanted to finish this road otherwise from now on i´d be afraid of going on dirt tracks. In Spanglish it is hard to put across this kind of psychological argument. I tried to set off that afternoon but a bolt in my pannier rack sheared off, leaving me neck deep in trouble. A dirt buggy passed by after a couple of hours of me trying to pries the bolt end from the eyelet, and they take my stuff back to the water hole. I follow and heading down to the Campo (beach side community of, mainly, Americans) I spot a guy working in his garage. Peter drills the bolt end out, dismantles my rack, puts it back together with new bolts and then does the same to my rear rack. Not finished with his generosity he then insists on me staying for supper and then gives me a bed for the night. I am truely grateful to Peter and Donna for helping me out when I was at my most vulnerable. The next day was pay(back)day for me taking those two rides. I reckoned if I could do the remaining 60 Km of this hellish track then I could call it quits with my ego. I preceded much the same as the day before but without the truly appalling sections of road (I didn't have to walk more than a couple of hundred meters at any one time to get out of the deep sand or over the ridiculously rocky sections). However I was only making progress at a rate of 5 kmph, slower than walking pace and by 12 had covered half the distance, with less than half the days light left. For the last day and a half I had been riding out of the saddle, it was just not possible to sit down and maintain any kind of control or keep my posterior from turning black and blue. As it was I stacked it more times than I can count on all my fingers and all my toes but I kept pounding away and by 2 had reached Coco's corner, where I was able to drink aenough beer to dull the ache in my feet, legs, hands and arms. Then on again: I finished the day 8 kms short of the road huddled in a canyon trying to keep out of the wind, feeling oddly extremely happy. The next morning it took me another hour to get back to the black-top but by 8 I was having huevos Rancheros and giving my legs a bit of a breather.