Baja Bound
Day 1: Boring Slab Day
Off to a flying start the trio set forth from El Paso in the freezing cold at 0630. Destination: Creel, Chihuahua. Paochow was already regretting his glove choice as the 33 degree temps quickly overcame the handwarmers and thin leather gloves…
BCRides to the rescue with the first mechanical failure of the ride. No more than 10 miles into Old Mexico, BCRides cleverly caused his hydraulic clutch to fail to disengage giving the trio a chance to warm their hands. A quick diagnosis by paochow revealed that the clutch reservoir was dry, pumping air into the line, which for reference is more compressible than fluid.
An early wake up call was placed to Pao’s wife who graciously met him at the border with a syringe required for back bleeding the line, and some warmer gloves.
As the trio pushed on, a pit stop several hundred miles into the monotonous pavement revealed another issue with the 525 as BCRides discovered his boot was coated in oil, along with the front tire rotor and engine cases. KTM Medic paochow went to work and diagnosed the problem as a leaky fork seal.
Paochow asked BC when the last time was that he had bled air from the fork legs, whose bewildered look suggested that he didn’t realize that this was required maintenance. Popping the top screw revealed about 30PSI of pressure prompting codys to reevaluate his earlier decision not to bleed his forks. Unfortunately one of the small bleeder screws leapt to freedom proclaiming “Viva Mexico!” prompting partial bike disassembly before it was found in the gravel along side the bike.
Paochow added some motor oil to BC’s fork with the syringe through the bleeder hole and used a beef jerky wrapper to clean out the leaking seal. Then the trio feasted on a yummy MRE (new style of course).
While packing up, the trio encountered this farmer, who apparently had left the US to seek employment in Mexico?
The riding plan was fairly ambitious for the early legs, one day to Copper Canyon, one day to Los Mochis, to allow sufficient time for Baja. BCRides made the best of limited downtime, by employing a lanyard mounted camera to take shots along the way…
Here is the lookout south of Buena Ventura..
Some more of BC’s handwork as the trio approached Creel at dark…
The trio pushed on through Creel, relying on Paochow’s HID and PIAA’s to light the way, which due to an extra 100# of gear, caused them to be aimed ever so slightly high… Several hours after dark the trio ended up camping about 40 miles south, right as the route turned to dirt.
Nighty night….
Wait a second where is that damn barking noise coming from. Doesn’t the local constable enforce the noise regulations in the middle of nowhere?
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