Oregon to Ushuaia on an XR650L

[Ulyses]

We decided to take a short day today, and find a good place to crash in Puebla for a few days in order to perform some bike maintanence and touristy stuff. Rolled into Puebla around 11 AM and got down to business of hotel hunting. For me, that means pulling up in front of a likely establishment or just riding my bike straight into the office (I’m not joking, you can do that down here in some places) and shouting “Cuanto cuesto un cuarto?!” at the top of my lungs. If they say anything more than 350 pesos, I usually run off screaming in outrage. When the price is right, we get down to the real important questions: “Hay estacianmento seguro y internet?” (secure parking and wifi). Those are both deal breakers. Well, maybe not the wifi, but definetly the parking. If that all checks out, we then go take a look at one of the rooms to make sure it isn’t too heavily infested with roaches. I did this at about 6 different hotels before we found the right one.



After settling in, we made a run to Mexican Auto Zone. Picked up some gear oil for the chains and a little pump oiler for the application. Ed Zachtamundo says that he’s seen people zip tie a pump oiler to their frame so that the spigot is just over the chain. Then, they can reach down and oil the chain while they are still rolling. I might give this a shot tomorrow.



Finally today, we cleaned our air filters, oiled our chains, and thumbed our noses at Green Peace. We parked our bikes on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, pulled out the gear oil, and sprayed it all over the ground. We also managed to get a little bit on the chains too. We then took a water bottle, cut it in half, filled it with gasoline, then used it to rinse our air filters out into the storm drain. As we were busy destroying the environment and polluting the pristine Mexican scenery, a few cops walked by and totally ignored us. In California we would have been looking at 10 to 20 in a Super Max. I love this place!



Tomorrow we change oil and go do some of that touristy stuff that I’ve been totally ignoring so far.

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by vanveen

cool ride, I like your tapaderos, novel use for them

Thanks! What's a tapaderos?

[mathews42]

Tapderos = Lids?

What's Ed riding? Does he have a ride report too?

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by mathews42

Tapderos = Lids?

What's Ed riding? Does he have a ride report too?

He's on a KTM 690. It's such a nice bike! Although, one of his throttle cables is broken, and his fairing is held together with zip ties, and his bleeder hose on his rear fuel tank consists of a straw and some ducktape. He's got a blog, but I'm not sure what the address is yet.

[Elenore]

I'm in!

[eakins]

wow you guys are moving way to fast just to cover distance. you're missing so many experiences.

[Team Longriders]

I love it. Love the attitude, love the hooliganism.

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by eakins

wow you guys are moving way to fast just to cover distance. you're missing so many experiences.

Yeah, we know, but the riding is so much fun in and of itself! Haha. We are slowing down a little. We may back track and go see Teotihuacan today or tomorrow.

[alvincullumyork]

How are the hand guards working out?

[mathews42]

Originally Posted by alvincullumyork

How are the hand guards working out?

Pretty spiffy! Nice work Lee!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[Ulyses]

Originally Posted by alvincullumyork

How are the hand guards working out?

So far so good. They keep my hands warm and serve as a great conversational piece! Thanks a ton man. How's the hog doing?

[alvincullumyork]

Originally Posted by Ulyses

So far so good. They keep my hands warm and serve as a great conversational piece! Thanks a ton man. How's the hog doing?

I won't be able to grab it until thanksgiving!

[PDX Alamo]

Awesome ride report! Enjoying it here in the Oregon rain

[PDX KLR RIDER]

So glad to have found this thread...keep them post coming.

[Ulyses]

Well, the motorcycle maintenance continues. Following our air filter cleaning in the mean streets of Puebla, we were forced to find a hair dryer to dry them out before we could go find oil for our bikes. We couldn't find a hair dryer for the life of us, so we were walking around downtown Puebla, waving our airfliters about over our heads in the vain hope that the resulting air currents would dry them out. I finally came up with the bright idea of going into a McDonalds bathroom......





The next task for the day was to ride all over Puebla trying to find a special oil for Ed Zachtamundo's bike. He’s riding a KTM, which is a very expensive and nice bike, and the oil that it takes comes from unicorn blood and baby seal tears. Needless to say, all five motorcycle shops that we stopped at were all fresh out of unicorn blood, so looks like Justin will have to figure something else out. Meanwhile, I stopped at the local Honda shop, picked up a few quarts of oil, and convinced them to let me change the oil in their shop! They were all super nice and friendly and gave me lots of compliments on my bike. Everyone is super impressed by the massive gas tank.



The next day we stashed our stuff at the Hotel and made a mad dash back north via the toll roads to Teotihuacan. Amazing ruins! Words do not do it justice. We hired a tour guide who spoke passable english for about 300 pesos, and saw the sights! I'm not a scientist, so I won't bore you with the history and such of the amazing place, but feel free to look it up on Wikipedia. My main regret is that because I'm not Ewan McGregor, I was not able to convince the Mexican Authorities to allow me to do wheelies down the Avenue of the Dead or try my trials skills on the Pyramid of the Sun. But at least I got a good picture!



We zoomed back to Puebla on the toll roads (these things are exhorbitant!) and spent the night again. Then next morning we woke up at the crack of 8, had breakfast and started a leisourly stroll for Oaxaca. I forgot to mention earlier that Puebla has an amazing backdrop: several massive, snow capped volcanoes; one of which is over 18,000 feet tall! The mountaineer in me was sorely vexed to not have brought my crampons and ice axe.....



We avoided the toll roads to save money, but soon found why everyone had told us that Mexico was so dangerous: Donkeys! I'm serious, they're everywhere. You could be rocketing around a blind corner on some remote mountain highway, only to find a semi domesticated ass placidly chewing cud in the middle of your road! We saw about seven or eight untethered donkeys and about five cows all grazing on the side or in the middle of the road at various times throughout the day. It kind of gives you pause when you're thinking about hitting that corner hard and you don't know what's on the other side......



We finally made it into the state of Oaxaca and immediatly saw a huge downward shift in pavement quality and an upward shift in food quality. My brother has been pestering me to get some real off road time, so when I spotted this side road I had to appease him...



And after I had ridden up it just long enough to get a good picture, I turned around and got back on the black top. What do you think this is alvincullumyork, some sort of adventure ride or something?!