Do what you say you will do.

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” – Nelson Mandela

Day 5 of pre-running the longest cross-country race course in the world had us with an initial goal to go from Loreto at race mile 831 to about mile 1000. The next day we’d finish to mile 1134. But that’s not how it turned out.

Tanner’s foot was still not well enough to ride on. The swelling was still there and the colors were coming out in deeper hues. Again, I felt bad. My son and riding partner was disabled. 

We set off on course and almost immediately we got to a hill climb so ridiculously steep and rocky… “Wake up! It’s me, Mr. Terrain, and I am here to kick your ass again!” Down into a long rocky river wash and then out onto a beautiful winding paved road. We switchbacked up over the mountains and the ascent brought beauty and cold air. I wondered if I needed my jacket, but it was too late. 

Chris Haines had told us a story with a cautionary warning. He said that a party of four racers from Sweden were riding this section of pavement and met disaster. What could happen on pavement? When a river crosses the paved road, you can make a bridge for the road – but that costs money. Here, they just let the river cross over the top of the road as a normal condition – a “spillway.” The water was about 25 feet wide and only two inches deep or so. Algae grew on the road surface and it was as slick as ice.

The first Swede went down, and the second and third went down trying to avoid him. Only one made it. When you crash on the road, it’s much different than crashing in dirt. There were broken bones and a concussion among them. “Be careful at the spillways” Chris warned. I told Rick and Santana, although I was sure Santana would know this already.

We approached the first spillway and I slowed, rolled through it touching neither the throttle nor any brake. There were four spillways over the next few miles as the same river meandered left and right of the road. Rick did not have such luck. He went through the first spillway okay and thought the warnings were overblown. On the second one, he went down on the pavement and slid 150 feet. His riding pants, very hard to tear, were ripped open at his thigh. He broke his foot in the incident, but he could still ride as it was small bones that were broken.

At this point, I was the only one of four of us who began four days ago who didn’t have a bad crash on this pre-run trip. I wanted to keep it that way.

The course kept crossing this wide rocky riverbed with rocks like bowling balls and watermelons. Then it opened up to sand whoops. Have you ever felt discouraged when you see the road ahead is long and difficult? 

I could see about three or four miles ahead – nothing but waves in the sand created by wheel action over many years. Up, down, up, down. Try to find a rhythm…get to the top of a rise and I could see another five miles of the same. Get to the top of the next rise…it went on for 80 miles. 

I got to the truck and waited. Eventually, Santana pulled up. Where’s Rick? He was between us. We waited and hoped we didn’t have to go back so many miles in those whoops to find him. Nearly an hour later he finally rolled in. He took a wrong turn but somehow figured it out.

The sun beat down on us as we ate some lunch. Santana had the idea that we’d finish pre-rnning the course today instead of tomorrow. Instead of stopping at a little town around mile 1000, we’d go on to the finish in LaPaz at mile 1134. That was a tall order. It would be 310 miles for the day.  Besides actually racing IN the Baja 1000, that would be the most I had ever ridden in a day. A deep breath of hot dry air… “Let’s go.”

As the course wound south, the terrain changed from time to time, as it does. When I saw the mile marker that said “1010,” I had to stop and take a picture. 1010 miles of this behind us. That was far. Very very far. While my body was exhausted, I knew I was getting better from all the “practice.”

I looked forward to seeing that sign again in two weeks…

"Decernere"

There is no education like adversity. – Benjamin Disraeli

Forty-three miles to the next hotel. It didn’t sound far compared to how far we’d come. It was mile 788 to 831, and it was punishing. The course seemed to say, “I’m in charge here, and you will pay your respect.” 

First, there were the winding silt ruts. Then rocky riverbeds strewn with boulders that course designers had you in for what seemed a cruel and unusual distance. Then there were steep rocky hills – and I mean steep. You’re riding along and look ahead and up to see it – and you have no choice. Go, and don’t stop. As many boulders as the front wheel deflects off, don’t let up. Stopping would likely mean going down on a steep rocky grade and getting back up would be really tough. You’d have to roll back down to begin another attempt.

Finally, there were dry winding river washes with deep sand peppered with boulders like landmines. Your wheels sinking 10” deep until you hit a hidden boulder – bam! Tree limbs hanging in your path didn’t make things easier.

I stopped at the top of a huge winding hill and flagged Rick as he pulled up behind me. I was drained. I had to check the map. It seemed like we should have gone 43 miles by now and I didn’t want to go off course in these conditions at this time of day. We determined we were on course. This would prove to be the hardest part of the 1134 miles we had to ride.

We started seeing trash strewn about to the left and then on both sides. It turns out the course went directly through the city dump. That’s where the truck was waiting. Our average speed on that last 43 miles was half of what it was on the rest of the course.

That’s how life is I guess. There are easier parts and harder parts. The harder parts tell us when it’s easy, and the easy parts tell us when it’s hard. The dark makes us appreciate the light.

I plopped into bed in a nice hotel in Loreto after a shower and eating with the crew. I was really tired. How was I going to ride 1134 miles non-stop on race day? This would be the fourth night of sleep I have had since starting pre-running and we still had 303 miles to go! It seemed impossible.

I was so beat up from four hard days of riding – it was scary. Wouldn’t the race make me feel 5x the pain? What about sleep deprivation? I would have no night’s sleep during the race. Nevertheless, I had committed to this. I couldn’t quit. I had to stay the course. I had to fight to figure something out.

I was in the confines of my own decision. The word decide comes from the Latin word “Decernere” which means to cut off all other options. I was stuck with my decision. There was no way out. 

I closed my eyes and slept.

The chase is the juice.

“Man needs difficulties. They are necessary for health.” – Carl Jung

We crossed a rocky river, maybe one of the same ones we had crossed before. On the other side, there was a 30-foot high vertical canyon wall. I was confused as to where the course went – left? Right? Up?? I looked around. It was right. Drop off a 4’ shelf into more rocks and then up and out of the riverbed. 50’ later there was a barbed wire gate across the course. It was there to keep cows in. During the race, the gates would be open.

I had some cold sweats thinking about barbed wire fences and gates. I heard too many stories about bikes and 4 wheelers running into barbed wire and catching it under their helmet. Sometimes a landowner would string barbed wire across a dirt road to keep the riders out, now knowing they would cause a decapitation. 

There was a lot of barbed wire in Baja. Sometimes you were riding three feet away from a line of it at 50 miles an hour, or parallel with it in the whoops. Don’t think about it. Don’t look at it. Your body follows your head. Your head follows your eyes. Don’t look at it. Mario Andretti said, “Never look at the wall” as that was a sure way to hit it. 

It’s the same with any goal. Think about what you want, not what you don’t want. Because if you think about what you don’t want, even though you don’t want it, you are thinking about it and you’ll very likely manifest it. Think about what you DO want, and keep your mind on that.

I dismounted to open the gate. Rick rolled through and dismounted to put it back up. I rolled through and kept going. Then there were the cows. Cows were everywhere in Baja. They were left free to forage for whatever they could eat out here. You’d be ripping along and all of a sudden there is a cow in your path. The startled cow doesn’t know which way to go and is unpredictable. Sometimes it’s a horse.

I was riding along and two adult cows and two calves were in the dirt road in front of me. They decided to run away and follow the road. I idled along at 15 mph as they ran in front of me, but they wouldn’t get off the course even after several turns. I revved the engine and got a little closer to scare them off the road. Finally, they turned right, but one of the calves tripped on a curb of rocks on the roadside and went down. It squirmed and got up and kept running, but I felt really bad.

In 2013, one of the best desert racers that ever lived, Kurt Caselli, was leading the Baja 1000, making first dust, when he hit a horse and died from the injuries in the LifeStar helicopter. Another hazard and a real risk of racing here. RIP Kurt.

Rick and I had planned to meet the truck at mile 788, 43 miles before Loreto. We stuck with our plan and rolled out to the paved road. No truck. Andrew and Tanner were very much delayed since they left San Ignacio that morning and got the call from Santana. They were pretty far away and had to go back to get him. The desert sun was hot. I felt like I was in a microwave oven. We both took our packs and helmets off and laid down on the gravel in the shadow of our bikes and waited. About an hour later, Andrew, Tanner, and Santana pulled up in the truck. We got some cold drinks and food in us, and decided to stay on plan and make a late afternoon effort to go the next 43 miles to Loreto where we had planned to spend the night. 

What started out a few days earlier as a team of four riders, was now down to two. 43 miles. That’s all. 

What could happen in 43 miles?…

The Way of the Master

“Mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process. A journey. A master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try and fail and try again for as long as he lives.” – George Leonard, ‘Mastery’

Just as Rick and I were rolling away from the makeshift gas station, the attendant yelled to us. I looked his way; he had a phone receiver in his hand. He motioned that the call was for me. Me? It could only be one person. I hit the kill switch, walked over and took the phone…hoping. “Santana! Are you okay? What happened?” “Oh Larry, I have big problems. I fell down in the river. The engine was full of water…” 

In over 40 years of riding, Santana had never fallen down crossing a river. Today was his day. A front wheel bouncing off a boulder you can’t see will do it. His whole body was underwater – helmet and all. The bike was completely submerged. He had to drag it out of the river. The oil had water in it. He worked on it some but had no oil with him. He had no choice but to baby the bike 30 miles back to San Ignacio and hope the engine didn’t blow up. He called Andrew to come back to get him with the truck. Then he called this little place where we found gas.

“How did you know we were here?” I asked him. “I know,” he said. Amazing. He had the phone number of this bootlegger’s little hole in the wall in his phone. He knew we’d need gas, and he knew this was the only place to get it. His local knowledge had just saved us over 200 miles of riding. His call was just in time and I wanted to hug him!

Rick and I went back to plan A – get to Loreto – about 90 miles to go. We rode a few miles out of town along a beautiful remote coastline and surfer paradise, where the course turned into the desert once again. The rocks began. First making their presence known gently, then more aggressively.

Riding a dirt bike. Fun, right? Well, in this context, nothing is easy. And that’s how life is. Everything is fun and interesting at first. But then it becomes repetitive; a grind, no fun. But to master something, you have to stick in there when it becomes work. You’ve got to want it more than you don’t. When nobody is watching, day in and day out, you’ve got to practice. You’ve got to stick with “the practice,” of doing your work, and improving.

The Master does it for the practice. The practice IS the reason. 

If I am to finish this race, I need to finish it before I start it.

Scorpion Bay – no Santana….

The water was about 20” deep at the deepest part, and there were rocks on the bottom, but I managed to thread in between the biggest boulders. Lucky. I got to the other side, put my feet on the pegs, stood up and took off to get my dust ahead of Rick and Santana. 

The course turned fast again. The course starts on the Pacific coast, winds through to the Sea of Cortez coastline, and now we were nearing the Pacific Coast again. It would wind back to the Sea of Cortez side again, back to the Pacific side again, and then back to the Sea of Cortez one final time for the finish in LaPaz. You see a lot in 1134 miles! The terrain, type of sand or rocks, and vegetation would change often. Quite amazing to see various desert environments this way.

We could never make it from San Ignacio to Loreto on one tank of fuel. There was an intermediate town between them right on the Pacific Ocean called San Juanico. It is known to American surfers as Scorpion Bay. Apparently the surfing there is always awesome, so the tiny town is a popular retreat for surf bums. We still had 80 miles to get there.

The course spilled me out onto salt flats. These are perfectly flat tidal mud flats that I suspect get wet only when a storm pushes an extra high tide in. The hard parts are like concrete. But there were areas that seemed dry on top, but a few inches down it was mush. You could see where vehicles got stuck and other vehicles had to pull them out. That’s the thing about this course – when it looks difficult – beware. When it looks easy – beware. If you hit a soft patch at 80 mph, you can go over the bars.

The salt flats gave way to sand whoops, and then dumped you back on the flats, alternating back and forth. Then graded roads peppered with rocks. There were three more rocky river crossings, but not as much water in them as the one I had crossed 50 miles back. The race promoter had paid someone to pipe them and fill them in with aggregate for a crossing for the race. I appreciated that. One was done, one was half done, and one was yet to be done. We followed the fast roads at 75 mph. They rolled up and down now, like a long stretched-out rollercoaster. I worried about oncoming vehicles coming over the rises, but there were only a couple vehicles for 40 more miles.

Finally, ahead of me was a tiny town. The tallest structure was one story. The main road we were on turned to asphalt, but there were no paved roads in town. I stopped. I knew I was in Scorpion Bay when I saw the Pacific Ocean and the waves. Beautiful. I didn’t see too many people. None really. A dozen vultures were hanging around. Rick rolled up.

We waited for Santana. We waited more. A guy pulled up in a jeep. An American. We started talking. He was a Baja 1000 racer – retired. Gary. He had a lot of stories. We hung out on the side of the road while he was parked in the middle of the road talking to us. He didn’t block any traffic – there was none. Another little surfer jeep pulled up with palm thatch on the roof. It was his buddies – laid back hippie surfer types in their fifties. They wanted to know if he wanted to go fishing. He would have otherwise, but he found us to talk to so he told them he’d catch them later.

We noticed we were almost out of gas. I didn’t see any gas station. Something was wrong. We had waited over an hour for Santana. No Santana. We covered a lot of miles, but surely he wasn’t that much slower than us. What happened? Should we go back? But we don’t have enough gas to go back. And if we did, how far would we have to go?

The American told us to follow him to the gas station. We went into town on dirt streets. A few blocks in, take a right, and one more block to a shipping container. A local comes out and opens the doors of the container to reveal gas cans and barrels. This was the gas station. We filled up. There were race team stickers all over the walls and door of the container, so I stuck a few of ours up there. 

Now we had gas and had to make a big decision. Go back and look for Santana. We could be going back all the way to San Ignacio. Rick last saw him about 20 miles in, and that was about 120 miles back. And if we rode that far back, we’d be out of fuel again, and have to come back…unless we went to San Ignacio where we started this morning. We could potentially have to ride an extra 240 miles today, on top of the 150 we’d already gone, and still be 90 hard miles from our truck and the hotel in Loreto. 

Survival was potentially the main factor. When you are in a place like this, you have to make the right decisions. But we couldn’t leave Santana. Something must be wrong. We decided to go back for him.

I started my bike. “Gracias!” I clicked it in gear and began to roll away. 

Just then, at that moment, the phone on the wall in the makeshift station rang…

The Crossing

After I got cleaned up I went outside. San Ignacio has an oasis of palm trees in the middle of a treeless desert. Really cool. Santana was outside. We were waiting for everyone to come out so we could eat in the place across the parking lot. 

Teenagers gathered around Santana and showed great reverence for him. He spoke to them and they listened. I didn’t know what he was saying, but I knew he was teaching them something. They were laughing and having fun too. Santana was friendly and charismatic and has great people skills. No wonder he knew everyone and all the places in Baja. 

People skills are valuable everywhere. Everything we need, tangible and intangible is now possessed by someone else. Being able to get along with and influence a wide variety of people is incredibly useful. I watched the sunset over the palm trees and checked my phone as we had Wi-Fi there.

I sat at dinner at the hotel restaurant hoping the food would come fast because I just wanted to go to bed. Three long days of riding was good for my training, but I needed sleep to go along with it.

In the morning, Tanner evaluated his now black and blue ankle. It was still swollen and he was still limping. Day 3 in the truck. So disappointing. We came all this way to pre-run this course and see it so we could race it, and Tanner couldn’t. So close…yet…

Rick, Santana and I set out for Loreto – 224 miles away. We were at race mile 607, and we had to get to mile 831 by nightfall. We glided out of the parking lot one block to the plaza in the center of town. A 233-year-old mission church presided at the end of this town square. I wish I had time to walk around a little. Past two blocks of little shops and small buildings and just like that it ended. We were out into the desert. We followed the paved road for 23 miles and then took a left into the dust. 

Seven miles later we came to a water crossing – the biggest one on the course. It always freaks you out a little bit when you cross a river on a motorcycle. First, you don’t know how deep it is. If you are the first one there and the water is still clear, you may be able to see, depending on the angle of the sun, shadows, and colors. Second, you don’t know what is on the bottom. Sand? You can get stuck. Rocks? You can go off balance easy and have to put your foot down or worse. Putting your foot down means your riding boots fill up with water and for the rest of the day, you’re squishing around. Wet pruned feet can blister easy or your sock could ball up…

I paused at the riverbank and took a good look. In South Africa, we crossed a river that was 150 yards wide. I perfected putting my ankles up on the radiator shrouds to keep my feet dry while sitting on the seat. That’s the technique I decided to use.

When you can see the bottom and you don’t know if there are rocks, I have learned that thinking about it a long time isn’t going to change anything. Like other situations in life, you just have to stop torturing yourself and go for it and see. If the other guys are watching, they have an advantage in seeing how you do with your line choice and technique.

Rick came in sight behind me, and I went for it…

Baked

“People are not unsuccessful because they are up against their talent or capability limits, but because they are at their self-discipline limits.”

84 miles to go to the hotel in San Ignacio. The terrain was more challenging here. No fast open roads. Silt, and sand whoops. Then it turned rocky. Your front tire is about four inches wide. You have to pick lines where you can thread between the rocks without hitting many of them. When you have no choice but to hit one, you lean back, blip the throttle and pull up on the bars. When the front wheel hits the rock, there isn’t a lot of weight on it and it bounces up over it, or you wheelie over it and let the rear wheel take the hit. 

Our tires were not full of air. They had hard foam inserts so we couldn’t get a flat. This is what is necessary in Baja. Still, you don’t want to damage your tires and rims.

Last year a guy flagged me down at night at mile 500 or so with a flat. There was nothing I could do except tell the guys at the next gas pit – but I suspect there was little they could do either. We had the right equipment for the race, thanks to Chris Haines, our race support team.

It was 104 degrees out, and the rocky course headed toward the slopes of a small mountain. At this temperature, you don’t get cooler with wind chill – you heat up faster. When the outdoor air temperature is hotter than your body temp, wind is like a convection oven, making you hotter. 

Suddenly the course turned into a nasty uphill with nothing but rocks. It doesn’t rain often, but when it does it washes any loose dirt from wheel traffic down to the bottom, leaving only rocks to ride on. They range in size from watermelons to softballs, some rounded and some square-edged wheel-killers. It seemed like 45 degrees up. 

You get on the gas and pick a line up the rocks, and don’t let off the gas! As you bounce off the rocks, the line you had intended on taking changes really fast. You have to stay flexible, but don’t let off the gas and lose your momentum. It takes a lot out of your arms and shoulders as you hang on uphill while trying to control the accelerating beast with your hands gripped to its horns. Up, up, up, up. Finally, the top.

Down, down, rocks and boulders and drop-offs. Down, down, down. Over the mountain. So glad that’s out of the way. Five minutes later I see an abandoned block house to my right. Who would be way the hell out here? There are trees – there must be water nearby. The course gets rockier and rockier. Nothing but watermelon sized rocks. My bike bounces along as I struggle to keep it upright. You don’t want to fall in the rocks – you could break an elbow or shoulder easily or put a rock through your engine case. 

I use all my skills and strength to push into this rock field which I now see is part of a riverbed. I get to still water and try to pick up the course on the other side of it with my eye. I lost the course. I stop. I put the bike on the stand and get off. It was even hard to walk on these rocks. I try to find the course. Where did I lose it? I look and think for a few minutes. Then I hear Santana and Rick coming in the distance. 

I hop to where they can see me and wave and yell. They stop a distance away. It was clear these rocks were so ridiculously big that not only wasn’t it the course, but they weren’t riding out to me. Santana shut off his bike and yelled that I missed a turn a ¼ mile back. Damn. I walk back to my bike and had to start it and walk alongside of it to get it turned around in the rocks. I fight back that ¼ mile and Santana is there. I am so overheated and sweating big time. I see the house again. When I was looking left at the house, the turn was on the right.

I should have learned a very valuable lesson right there. But I didn’t learn it well enough.

Santana was way behind me and didn’t see me take the turn. Honestly, if he didn’t find me, it would have taken me a very long time to figure it out. “How did you know I took the wrong turn?” I asked him. “I saw your track” he said. I looked down at the parched sand. I couldn’t make out any tracks the way the sand was here. He had to be looking and have the eye of an animal tracker – and he did. Thank goodness for Santana.

We proceeded and were met by a twisted mini riverbed with embedded rocks and tree branches hanging over from both sides. It was really tough. I hated it. After 230 miles today in this heat…

Next the course turned up another steep rocky hill. This one was so ridiculously stupidly steep and rocky – nothing but rocks, I cussed in my helmet all the way up. When I got to the top I just couldn’t believe they’d make the race course go up this thing. And during the race, we’d be hitting this hill climb at night. That’s just great…

A few more miles and we got to the paved road and a military checkpoint just before San Ignacio. Andrew and Tanner were waiting for us. Race mile 607. While I knew the 20 miles of hellish terrain that preceded this place, I did not know the drama that would unfold in this little town for us during the race.

The three of us pulled up to the truck and when we stopped, we quickly realized we were in distress. We were overheated. Red skin, light headedness, and exhaustion. All three of us. I drank three cold waters from the cooler and poured some on my head and the back of my neck. Once we cooled down, we waited in line at the military check. When we got through, we’d follow Santana about four miles into town and to our hotel.

I couldn’t wait. I was baked.

No oasis

I rolled out to the paved road on the gas Santana gave me. The course crossed the pavement, and there we waited for Andrew and Tanner to pull up in the truck. This was mile 524, and it would be my goal in the race to get here before nightfall or within one hour after dark. We just blew through 130 miles at an average speed of 49 mph – a blistering pace for Baja. This gave us some daylight left to go 60 more miles to San Ignacio where we’d spend the night. First, we had to eat. 

I laid down on the dirt, the shadow of my bike giving me shelter from the Baja sun, which felt like a microwave during the day. Santana and Rick did the same. There was a little block building about 150 feet away alongside the road. The lone structure in sight. It was a store, but it looked abandoned and neglected. We were waiting and there was nothing else to do, so I got up and walked over to check it out. The 3-parts water 1-part Gatorade I had in my pack was warm and getting old. 

There was no door on the front of the building – just a dog guarding the place. An old weathered woman commanded the dog back down. I looked in and she motioned that it was ok to enter. It was a store, and it was open.

Concrete floor. Dusty. Sparse. Two window openings, but no windows in them. There was one upright drink cooler. I was surprised there was electricity. She was out of water, and only had sodas, sugary drinks, and beer. I didn’t want any of that. In the 12’ x 14’ retail establishment there was also junk food – chips, cookies and candy. It was like a typical gas station in the US – junk food. This woman didn’t have much inventory or selection.

It used to strike me how poor people could be overweight. But the reason is not that they can afford lots of food, but that they can afford cheap sugary junk food that has become readily available and, in many stores I saw in Mexico, nearly the only option. The world has been taken over by Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola-like companies, and we’re paying for it. 

Just then, as if on cue, a guy walks in with a case of cold water bottles. It was a delivery she was waiting for. Now I had one healthy option – water. I bought a big bottle and it disappeared into me in a couple minutes. I was grateful this woman kept her shop open, even if she had so little business. No cars stopped here in the hour we waited. But she helped me, and I helped her. That’s what free enterprise is all about. I tipped her to show my appreciation.

I think about poverty – the natural condition of man over our history on earth. And I think about prosperity and what causes it. If we could only help create those conditions in places where people are poor, they’d lift themselves out of poverty. Property rights, the rule of law, free markets and trade, and stable money.

I went back to laying in the dirt with my head on my pack. Just as I fell asleep, the truck pulled up, Andrew and Tanner had six tacos each for us. They were pretty good, but in the heat, I only choked three down. We refueled and checked the bikes over, and we were on our way again – into the bright Western sun with the heat radiating off the midafternoon sand.

Experience counts

“Our being is in our becoming. Man is not born perfect. He is born incomplete. He is born as a process. He is born on the way, as a pilgrim. That is his agony and his ecstasy too. Agony because he cannot rest. He has to go ahead – seek, search and explore. He has to become. Because his being arises only through becoming. Becoming is his being. He can only be if he is on the move.” – Osho

We had six hours before dark to go 240 miles to San Ignacio. We’d only see our truck one time today, 180 miles from Bay of LA where we started late because of the engine failure. 

I was happy the course was fast. The terrain makes all the difference. You could lay out a 500-mile course in Baja that would take you longer and suck more energy from you than an easy 1000-mile course on graded dirt roads. I was hoping for the mercy of more easy stuff for this 1134-mile race. We wound over the mountain switchbacks, with the terrain falling near vertical to one side of the road, then the other.

As we were nearing the paved road crossing where we would meet the truck 180 miles in, the dirt road got so smooth and fast, I tucked in and opened the throttle fully to see what the maximum speed was. 88 – at least how it was geared right now. I backed it off to 80 and held the tuck for ten minutes or more.

I saw dust in front of me. Another vehicle. As I approached I could see it was a trophy truck – the most awesome desert racing vehicle on planet earth, just trolling along at 60 mph. Something must have been wrong because they can go 140 mph. 

I am only a few miles from the paved road by my calculation and suddenly, blughhhhhhhh – the engine quit. Not again! I coast to a stop and investigate. The translucent fuel tank was empty. Dang! 

We were debating how long the pre-run bikes, with their oversized fuel tanks, would go on a full tank. Now we know. 177 miles.

Rick pulled up. I told him but there was nothing he could do except go on to the paved road, find Andrew and get him to drive down here to me on this smooth road. Then Santana pulls up. I told him I was out of fuel. He looked at me sternly. “Yea, dat’s because you ride on the gas all the time. I see your tracks – up on the berms at the corners and gassing out. You no ride right.” He was serious as could be.

I look at his tank and he has 2/3 of a tank left. I said, “How do you have that much gas left?” “I know how to ride the bike,” lifting his hands up and giving me smartass attitude. I shook my head and tried to figure it out.

He couldn’t hold it anymore and started smiling. That’s when I learned that Santana was a prankster. You gotta love this guy. “Where did you get that gas?” I said when I knew I had been duped. “I know a rancher out here.”

Santana knew that we’d be on fumes by the time we got to the road, and he wasn’t taking any chances. He knew everyone, and everyone knew him from riding and surviving in Baja for 42 years. By being behind us, he could save either of us if we ran out. 

He got a water bottle out, emptied it, and disconnected a fuel line from his carburetor to fill it. He handed me a few bottles which I poured into my tank to get me a few miles to the paved road.

No matter what you are trying to do, listen to people who have done it before.

False start

We had ridden 215 miles on this first full day of pre-running the course. About ten years, ago I rode 200 miles in the Mojave Desert in California. It was just the guide and me. After 100 miles, I couldn’t wait to get off the bike. After 150 miles, I was in intense pain and discomfort. At the end of the day, I was so spent I couldn’t stay awake on the 30-minute car ride back to my hotel. Back then, the idea of riding 1134 miles in one shot…you may as well have told me I could flap my arms and fly to the moon.

We were riding along the Sea of Cortez, which is between mainland Mexico and the Baja California Peninsula, although for most of the day we couldn’t see it because of the mountains. As the sun got lower, we came across a rise and headed down a long slope. The Sea of Cortez appeared before us – a beautiful vision. We were heading into Bahia Los Angeles – the “Bay of LA” – the name of the bay and the little town. Big rocky islands jutted up from the bay. The road wound down into a very small town of a dozen dirt side streets off the main paved road, as in so many other little towns in Baja.

We pulled into a little hotel just across the street from the water. We were at race mile 410. We took our gear off, took a shower, and watched the last light on the water as we ate dinner. Another day over. We’ll only have about 28,000 of these. If you get in the habit of wasting them, you’ll wind up with regrets for what you didn’t do. 

I was tired. I got to bed as soon as I could. Sleep was the only antidote.

In the morning, I hoped Tanner’s foot would be okay enough to let him ride. No dice. His Achilles tendon was stretched badly, and the top of his foot was really hurting too. We didn’t know if it was broken or what. Another day in the truck. But Tanner made the most of it, as he always does. He took latitude and longitude coordinates, looked at satellite maps and plotted the course as Andrew drove the van along paved roads. In a way, he had a better perspective on how the course moves from town to town than I did being on it. Still, he wasn’t seeing the terrain, and that’s what we’d come for.

My headlight wasn’t working on my bike and attempts to fix it failed. If we got caught in the dark today, I would need it. So I hopped on Tanner’s bike instead. 

I headed out of town with Rick behind me and Santana pulling up the rear. I was going about 70 miles an hour on dirt when suddenly, about 7 miles out of town, my bike died. It felt like it ran out of gas. I thought that maybe the gas valve was off. I looked – it was on. I hit the start button and it started right up. Huh?

I waited for Santana to pull up and I told him. Maybe there was a valve I didn’t know about. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Keep going.” Five miles later, it happened again. Again, it started right up. I thought there was a constriction in the fuel system where gas flowed slowly and when you got to higher speeds using more fuel, the float bowl on the carburetor emptied. Again, I waited for Santana to pull up. 

He said, “Let’s go back.” He wanted to go back 15 miles before Andrew and Tanner left town, because they were going out in the opposite direction. We couldn’t afford to have one of our bikes break down in the desert 100 miles from the truck. 

You can tow a bike with another bike by wrapping a rope around the footpeg of the towing bike. On the bike to be towed, you wrap the rope around the handlebar one time and you don’t tie it but grip the handlebar with the rope under your palm instead. If something goes wrong the towee can let the rope go and be released. It’s not easy especially in sand and whoops. Going up a hill, the towee gets blasted with roost. It’s dangerous.

Santana wanted to switch bikes with me. I think he thought I was imagining things and wanted to see for himself. I hoped it would happen to him too so he didn’t think I was an idiot. He took off back toward Bahia Los Angeles. Rick and I followed. 

We finally got back to the pavement and went a few more blocks to the hotel to see if the truck was still there. It wasn’t. Then Rick and I look up the paved road and see Santana a block away pushing my (Tanner’s) bike towards us! What the…?

The engine blew. There was antifreeze in the oil (what happens when you blow a head gasket) and the motor was seized. We were so lucky this didn’t happen an hour or two later! We called Andrew on the satellite phone. He had a long trailer behind the truck carrying two spare bikes. Good thing we had spare bikes. Preparation and contingency plans!

Andrew made a wide swing off the pavement to turn around and got stuck in the sand. He and Tanner were there for a while working on it until a local pulled them out with his truck.

In places like Baja, where being lost or stuck somewhere could mean death, people help each other, because their common bond is survival. If you were stuck on the side of Route 95 where I’m from, 300,000 cars might go by without anyone stopping – because there are cell phones and tow trucks and “Hey I gotta be somewhere.” It’s not that they are all self-centered and uncaring. If they thought your life was in danger they would stop. But around here a stuck vehicle is just an inconvenience. 

There are moments in life I remember, and cherish. It’s those moments when you are down, vulnerable, hurt, or in danger, and you need help the most – and someone is there for you. Like a family member, they stop whatever they are doing and care for you. You are so incredibly grateful for them at that moment. You have to remember those people in common hours.

I look for those moments to be there for someone else when they need it, because being a more experienced human now, I know how it feels. I’m not just talking about a guy pulling our truck out of the sand. I’m talking about when people experience great loss or pain, or are weak and can’t provide for their own safety. To stand in front of them and be strong to shield them when they are down – it’s an opportunity to feel really human.

By the time they got to us and we swapped bikes, it was late morning, and we had 240 miles to go to the next hotel, and I had no headlight. 

Giddy up!