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

Just added the following video on August 25 2013:


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"Fo Full Screen" I'm in the video at about the 11:50 and the 20:30 marks

Here it is! Fresh this week, direct to you from the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental.....my hardest yet most rewarding ride I've done yet in México - 24 hours in Sierra Madre backcountry just 2 days. 1 of only 2 gringos. In terrain best suited to vehicles with 4 points of contact to the ground.

ADV inmate SR suggested to several of us that frequent México that we come down to Durango and give this unique off-road event a go. SR works and lives in Durango and is very well tied into the off-road scene around there (Durango city is the capital of the state of Durango) and the state of Sinaloa. Several of us considered it, and I took the bait. I'm glad I did, I'll be talking about this 30 years from now (if I'm still alive ).

With this tale, I hope in the near future to change the fact that I was the only rider living outside of México to come down to ride in the event, and I especially want to make this more well-known and get more ADV dirt junkies to the 2014 edition

The machines:



SR on his fuel injected Yamaha WR450R

Me on SR's spare DRZ400

Riding the cliffs next to 2,000+ foot drop offs:







This was the fourth edition of the Ruta ATV Durango - Mazatlán



The vast majority of vehicles making the run (and with the most attrition) were ATVs.

The roads were old logging and mining routes through the very heart of the Sierra Madre in the states of Durango and Sinaloa. There were spots cut by landslides that turned back many of the ATVs.



Don't worry about security, the Federales were out in force (mas o menos! mostly menos! )



The views were incredible!



So come along for an intense, challenging ride from Durango to the playa at Mazatlán, and find out what it might take to get you to bring your dirt bike to the Sierra Madre and do this ride yourself.




Hot link to SR's ourstanding flyover videos and graphs of the 2013 Ruta DGO - MAZ is HERE

Don: He himself the master of the dirt

Bienvenidos to the Sierra Madre, Poolman

I'm still giddy that I was able to survive this, Baja Ho By rights, I still should be out there in Sinaloa, serving beer to the "unauthorized authorities" (who we did run into) :eek1

This is SR, veteran of the Durango - Mazatlán off-road ride, and year-round resident of Durango, but originally from Colorado.

SR grew up riding rough stuff up there, and in México only enhanced his Mad Skillz riding with the locals in some of the gnarliest terrain the mountains and valleys of the Sierra have to offer.

He has been a right-hand-man to event organizer Walter Bishop, a Mexican with an American sounding name. SR has been in on a lot of the route planning the last few years, and this year was the one go-to guy loading GPS routes the night before the send-off from the Catedral in Durango on Friday morning a week ago.

He kept his DRZ400 in the garage for me, so all I had to do was to ride my 1200GSA down from San Antonio, through Parras de la Fuente (made a stop there - more on that later) and on to the Gobernador in Durango as the ride HQ.

It was also fun to be with SR, his family, and Schizzman (who took shots of the start and of other goodies forthcoming) for SR's 40th birthday bash at a local restaurant.



Mad props to SR - without whom I would not have thought of this ride, much less attempted it, and while on it, he made sure I made it to Mazatlán.

Like I said before, this is a ride I'll be talking about 30 years from now. SR was huge in making this happen.

PS - be assured SR didn't do the Ruta on his VStrom

And that hooligan Schizzman will pop in because we did the Casa Madero Winery, Parras de la Fuente, and a huge 400 mile Durango state road ride which he was a main ingredient in

Ha! Says the guy who's reporting on the shootout scene at the end of The Wild Bunch had me and Schizzman riding through no-man's-land with nothing more than a scrap of paper with a strange name and some sketchy Google Earth clues!

Bienvenido veriest1

The smoking sombrero man used to be my sig