Tricepilot's México: Off-Road Through the Sierra Madre From Durango to Mazatlán

Hola kitesurfer

Sometime today I'll be sending you a PM to answer this. I enjoy talking about ride plans for México.

When you get a more defined timeline, you should keep ADV inmate Sjoerd Bakker in mind.

Sjoerd Bakker himself here at Casona Tricepilot:




Sjoerd is the king of México travel and knows more about the hiways and byways of the country than anyone on this board. He also has more miles down there than anyone on this board.

There are a huge number of variables that go into your question, but I'll tell you this extreme:

If you just wanted to cross the border at Laredo and get to Mazatlán, and you didn't want to hear my "take your time in México" speech, you could do it in 2 days easy if you haul the mail on the cuotas.

Of course, Emiliano was the original king of México routing

I'm pounding the miles on my road bike (bicycle) in 100 degree Texas heat getting ready for RAGBRAI which starts in 2 weeks and the Hotter 'n Hell which is next month.

Road cycling that past year in as many events as I could find in the San Antonio area is a big part of the credit I give to being in decent shape to do the Ruta.

If you (speaking to the readership here) are cruising through your 40s and certainly if you are in your 50s and you are not in shape DO NOT attempt the Ruta or it will eat you for lunch! This is NOT a lazy tour through the Sierra!

Living in Texas, heat doesn't bother me anymore, nor does humidity. Much.

The timing isn't my choice, the full run to Cabo is with Tim Morton and his bunch, and they do that run twice a year. I was going to do a paved Baja "recon", but with three big dirt rides under my belt I decided to complete a quad and do Baja all off-road.

Good job man! I hotlinked the vids/graphs to the opening post

Hey, since you're fishing up north, remember the old trick: stop by the store and get some filets and put them in your cooler - show the fam what an angler your are when you get home from what would otherwise have been an empty handed day

Yes and even better if you watched SR's videos while sitting on a jackhammer!

As an epilogue to the RR I'll be posting up photos of this whole subject, even though it occured first before we took off into the dirt.

The hacienda was asleep before Hollywood got there, and now has returned to a somewhat eternal state of slumber.

Some funny things happened there (dog attack! run away!) but I'll get to it later.

There is a very small ADV club I would think that has made the trek to find this famous filming location - which is out in the middle of No-wheres-ville Coahuila.

Got your PM, alls I can say is HIGH FIVE for you!

Go Full Screen

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Go Full Screen

Walter Bishop, the overall event organizer, hires a pretty good videographer to capture the complete event.

This is last year's video.

Walter, Hector, and Miguel, 3 great guys I met on this year's ride, are prominent in the video.

It appears they didn't have the good fortune with the overall weather pattern that we had this year. But you got to run through what nature gives you in the Sierra Madre!

Quite the ride

Quite the party

And our 2013 edition was no different

If you watch this video (and the one coming out soon for our ride last week) and you love dirt riding, you'll have the itch to be part of the 2014 edition of this ride!

From the 2012 video, this is Miguel, good friend of SR's and now one of my good buds, is a businessman and ATV/moto mechanic in Durango.

He's one of the event leads and rode sweep on this year's ride, getting in near midnight both on Friday and Saturday nights.

He and SR came up to San Antonio so SR could pick up a bunch of moto related gear he had sent to my house, and to put the hitch carrier on SR's vehicle so they could get SR's new WR450 on the back and take it home to México.

Miguel, SR, I, Schizzman, and a bunch of other ADV inmates then went to the track in Austin for the first MotoGP at Circuit of the Americas, won by Marc Marquez.

Interesting Miguel Fact: He and his cousin built a gyrocopter as kids, when their dads found out, they took it apart because the dads were convinced the kids would stop at nothing and kill themselves in the process of getting it off the ground.

Here we go!

But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve
of destruction

- Barry McGuire

Thursday afternoon, the day before the ride:

The 2013 ride HQ was once again the Holiday Inn of Durango

With the ride starting at 7am the next day, Friday, we rolled over to the Holiday from the Gobernador via taxi, and found the flood of ATVs - but no bikes! Were we to be the only ones on motos? Not fair!

You can always find a Walter Bishop event becuase where Walter goes, the Green Monster goes




SR probably has a better idea than I on how many of these were entered in the Ruta:



One of the first thoughts that came into my mind was "somebody around here has a LOT of money to spend on toys!"

Most of things were decked out - no expense spared. Farkles and sound systems and fancy looking suspension packages.

Wait! Why aren't we going to travel in comfort too? :eek1 We have to do this on dirt bikes?!?

What if it rains? These guys even bring a roof over their head in addition to unfair traction!