I'm actually writing this on Thursday as I was so exhausted last night that I excused myself from dinner first and proceeded to take some Advil, use Tiger balm on my knee, then pass out. I took some notes last night, though, so let me write up my thoughts from the first day of our Baja trip.
So we rolled out of Azusa, CA (near LA) at 4:30am. The reason was to beat the LA traffic and hopefully the San Diego traffic as well. We stayed in the right hand lane and kept it easy at 65ish mph as some of our bikes (including mine) were still in the break-in period. We rolled through the LA area without a hitch luckily. Only thing was the majority of us had not dressed warm enough as it was COLD! On our first stop at a Denny's after about an hour on the road, we bundled up a bit more and then headed to the Burger King in San Diego to pick up the rest of our group. There are a total of 15 riders on this trip.
We pulled into the Burger King and all 4 of the riders were there awaiting us. We parked the bikes and met one another and then got a briefing from Joe about the border crossing. He said we may get searched, but normally they just let you roll right through. Well it must have been our lucky day as they made all of us pull over and searched every bag on every bike. A couple of guys wanted to take pictures, but the guards made it VERY CLEAR that pictures were strictly prohibited. So no pictures. Except that I had my GoPro on because it was controlled by my remote and I didn't want to fool with it and have the guys think I was trying to film. Anyway, I finally got the GoPro off and then they finished searching all of our bikes and they let us continue on with our trip.
We skirt the border for a little while, which was a bit intimidating seeing all of the armed guards not far from you, but this was something I was going to need to get used to as I would experience it many times over the next few days. Anyway, we get out of Tijuana and make our way down towards Ensenada so we can eat breakfast at Valeros. Riding along the pacific coast was absolutely stunning, but holy moly was it windy!! This also made it cold! We ended up keeping most of our cold weather gear on until we got to Ensenada. Before we could get into Ensenada, we hit some pretty gnarly traffic mixed with construction. We also discovered that there was a cruise ship at port, which made the city even busier. We had a very hard time finding places to park our bikes, but finally got them parked and ended up walking right in to a table to fit all 15 of us. The breakfast was fantastic! I had the spinach omelette, which was served with rice and beans. It was a 3 course breakfast so it started with pastries, soup or empanadas, then the main course. I skipped the pastries due to my dietary restrictions, but couldn't resist the appeal of a beef empanadas to accompany my meal. Baja Bound (our Mexican insurance provider) sponsored our breakfast, which was very awesome of them!
From breakfast we rode down the road to get our Mexico tourist visas. Again, we had a hard time parking, so a guard had to park us and then we all had problems reading and following directions so each of us had to fill out our applications at least twice. The poor ladies were so frustrated with us and rightly so. We all just had to laugh it off and then we made our way down towards El Rosario to our destination for the evening called Mama Espinosa's. It's one of the stops for the Baja 1000 groups and one of Blake's favorite places from his Baja trip. In fact, we named our cat after this place, Espinosa.
On the way down we had quite the adventure. One of our riders had his tank bag go flying off of his bike into a field. Luckily the farm workers were kind enough to help him find it. Then we rode by some goats that were hanging out right on the shoulder of the road! We also drive by a lot of farms and at one point in time I got the smell of strawberries in my helmet. It was like someone had just sprayed strawberry air freshener and we rode through it. It was a very neat experience! We rode through the town of San Quintin (I believe is the name) and again we hit traffic and construction, but by this time I was exhausted and dehydrated, so I got a little cranky in my helmet. I just wanted off of the bike and to take a shower.
We finally rolled in to Mama Espinosa's and it was time for bike maintenance. I had to lube my chain and change my oil and oil filter since I put the first 500ish miles on my bike that day. I lubed the chain with no issues, except for finding out the the center stand doesn't life the rear tire of the ground because of the weight on the rear end, so I did it the old fashioned way of lubing a section of chain, then rolling the bike a foot or two and ten repeating until I was done.
Then it was time for the oil change. Let me preface this by saying I had my new friend John walking me through how to change the oil on this bike. He tells me that I have to vent the case, so I remove the plug using a quarter. I then need to remove the drain plug, which i know is when all of the oil starts draining from the bike and is normally the messy part. So I go to loosen the drain bolt, which is on there pretty tight, and my wrench breaks loose and I slammed my hand Ito the bike cutting my left wrist in the process. First battle wound of the trip, complete!! I finally get the bolt loose and I drain the oil with no problem. I then need to change the oil filter, so I loosen the two bolts holding on the cover and immediately proceed to drop the bolts, one by one, into my pan of discarded oil. I know have to go digging around for my bolts in the pan. I get them both out, clean the oil off, and then change the oil filter. Easy peasy.
So I replace the drain plug and the oil filter bolts and fill the bike with new oil. I go to run the bike so I can check the oil level again and when I do it spits oil all over my bike!! I didn't put the top venting plug back in so it shot oil out of it as soon as I started the bike. Whoops!! Chalk that up to a learning experience!! So John helps me clean the bike up a bit and when I check the oil level it looks ok.
Once I got done with the maintenance, it was already time for dinner. We had dinner at Mama Espinosa's, courtesy of Steve and CSC. They recommended the lobster burritos, but they were out so I had the crab burritos instead.
As we were sitting at the table, joe shouted to a lady walking by and it ended up being Carla King (sorry corrected her name - autocorrect strikes again). She's a fried of Joes and is a pretty amazing rider. Come to find out she recently purchased a house down in Baja and was heading back home to San Diego the next day, but El Rosario was her midpoint. She was a truly inspiring lady, as well as being super sweet, so I am looking forward to checking out her blog and reading some of her books.
Unfortunately, I had to excuse myself from dinner early as my knee was bothering me so much that I had to take some Advil and put some tiger balm on it to get some relief. Plus I was exhausted from the long day, not sleeping well for a few days due to excitement, plus being sore, so I needed my nap time. :-)
I called Blake to tell him that I was seriously reconsidering the trip back home as after putting that many miles on the bike, I was really doubting if I could do it. Luckily, he did what he always does and talked me off the ledge by telling me to wait it out and see how the next day goes. I thank him for being so supportive and proceed to pass out. I ended up getting the best sleep I have had for over 3 days.
My thoughts on the bike after Day 1. We put a lot of miles on the bikes and we all ende up with some monkey butt, even with the seat pads. The seat is not very forgiving, but you have to remember that this bike isn't necessarily meant for these log distances all in one shot. I think overall the bike did great and while the seat leaves room for improvement as far as long distance riding goes, I think it was as good as some Sportbike seats that I've been on, so it's really not a deal breaker for me! It's not fair for me to pass judgement after a day like that, though, as I was tired and cranky, so I was not in the right state of mind to really reflect on day with an unbiased view.
Btw more pics are on my Facebook page. More to come!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment! It will appear shortly! :-)
~Tiff