Baja Trip to the tip RR

Edit, here's a little teaser of this trip:



I'm going to Cabo Tomorrow. It's been a hectic few days getting ready to go.
Here's my bike two weeks ago


I'm going with a large group of guys from cafe husky. We have a chase truck and everything, ooh la la I'm not used to such luxury! One of the guys raced Baja and Dakar... If I come in 'not last' I'll feel pretty good about myself. We're riding from Tecate to Cabo San Lucas on Dirt. And then I finagled a little fishing on my buddy's yacht once we're there

Anyway, back to the bike. In all honesty I probably could have done nothing and hopped on the my bike and gone to Cabo. But I'm not one to pass on an opportunity to obsess, Farkle and stress out about trivial stuff so...

First on my hit list was this oil leak from the inspection covers


Its been bugging me since it started after my last valve inspection.

As I got into the bike I noticed that the breather hose was looking not-so-pristine



Next on my hit list is the chain guide


So I called my friends @ motoxotica and ordered a buttload of parts, new Ironman sprockets and chain, new tires new chain guide and hoses.

then I went REALLY nutso and scored a used Lynx fairing with dual HID headlights from fellow ADV'r.


SO I live on a boat in a marina, I tried really hard to be unobtrusive and work on my bike in a out of the way locale.
(my bike's the one behind the tree)


Sure enough the Marina Manager comes and tells me the property manager was giving him grief about me working on my bike on the property.
Rant mode on: YET, for some reason the other day when I went to the restaurant the 5 servers and manager didn't notice me and my girl sitting at an uncleared table for 10 solid minutes without service...
Before that, I sat with my little dog at a outside cafe table, and the restaurant manager came in like 30 seconds to tell me the dog couldn't be there... Then it took 5 minutes for a server to bring me a menu.

I "get" not wanting to have bikes torn apart on a resort lot, but seriously, get a F'n clue!

Lilly guarding the booty in my truck. Grrrrr!


I got the bike buttoned up on the 15th, but it made a horrible not right kind of noise... So on the truck it went so I could take it to the Doctor for a second opinion.




There are some 'issues' with owning a Husky. Here's a picture of my rear Fender support.


The 'issue' is that Husky hasn't imported any of these to the US for the last 6 months,
and this item fits multiple models. So as you can imagine replacements are rare. (IE: non-existant)

As you can see I've broken this one a FEW times. Anyway's Motoxotica couldn't get me a new one, so I was left with no choice but to take matters into my own hands.
I may have over-engineered this particular piece


Now don't get me wrong, there are a few plusses to owning a Husky as well, and one of the big ones is George Earl, owner of Up-Tite Husqvarna in Santa Ana Ca. I drove the bike down to have George have a listen to the tapping I thought I was hearing and we agreed it was better to do it again than risk a problem in Baja. But now the bike was warm from running, so I had to drive Back down to Santa Ana the next day to deal with it the next day.
George didn't care if I cluttered up his parking lot with my dirty bike, and his dog crash stood watch while I got back into the valves


Of course I had slopped thread sealer and permatex all over the inspection covers to adress my little oil leak, and then I had to go back in the next dang day.


Then George Worked his magic:


It was a good thing I took the bike in, cuz somehow I managed to totally mess up my first valve adjustment. George helped me out and whenhe got done the engine sang!

I found the engine mounts wanting a little torque so I tightened those up.


Got it buttoned up AGAIN. I hope I can keep it looking purdy for a little while:


George spent a good solid two hours going over my bike with a fine toothed comb looking for things to address for Baja.
I added a little extra battery hold-down in the form of a big-assed zip tie.


Next, I didn't like how the Lynx had a 30" power feed with no fuse at the battery, so I added a couple fuses near the Batt. One for the lynx and one for accessories.


I had George Fortify the husky fuel pump, replacing the lame & vulnerable plastic fuel disconnects with some brass ones he makes.

Then I added some bling
Pivot pegz was doing a group buy on their product so I thought what the heck and added a set.


Before you say anything, I'm not THAT retarded. I had to mount the thing to get enough leverage on the spring, but the pin wouldn;t go in because the brake lever interfered, so I had to get creative
They're so purdy I don't wanna fall no more and scratch em up!!


I added brand new grips, but they looked pretty worn by the time I wrestled the dang things on!!


I had a red Whelan Cop LED that I bought for my previous bike, but I could never find a place to mount it. So I decided to make a mount on the PMB rack. The only tools you need, vise grips and a BFH!


My new fender support was just a tad too wide and was a nightmare to get fitted. But now it's in place and it's a huge improvement. I'm pretty confident that this is one part that will survive. The fender may break around it, and I might mess up the sub-frame, but this piece is bullet-proof.


Here's the finished brake light. It's SCARY bright and with the flasher circuit I added, it's amazing how cages react when I hit the brakes. The HID up front has made a noticeable difference as well.


Next up I added a FuzeBlock. I got tired of adding stuff to my old bike and having wiring every where, so this time I decided to do it right.


I added seperate circuits for GPS, Heated Gear, and a 2-way radio that I got for this trip.

The Husky is pretty bullet resistant out of the box. There's not a lot of stuff to do
But George did suggest a little extra Chafe protection for the electrics


Honestly I could have probably done this and changed the oil and been good to go, but where's the fun in that?

I changed out several of the cheese colored husky bolts (co-incidence I think not!) with some hardened ones, and further beefed up my anti-chafe regimen.


I made a bracket for the Lynx to use the two for mounting bolts rather than the one it normally uses.


Lubed up all of the spoke nipples and zip tied the spokes


Added new brake pads and so that's the prep that went in pre-flight I decided to 'test' all this stuff before the big trip and took a ride out to stoddard wells. It went badly. Very Very Badly.

Decent riders? All dirt? I'm in! Make sure to post your GPS routes for us to follow along later

Fair warning, I think I broke a rib last weekend on my trial run. My gps track might be down Mex 3 in the truck!

Badly ???? Just HOW badly?????
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:huh
Hope you can still go....AH BAJA

Well, I was feeling pretty good. Ready to go. And then tonight...



I sneezed.




H O L Y C R A P ! ! !

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

SO some people got into my head about riding on new pivot pegs all the way to Cabo without trying them first. SO I decided I better have a shakedown cruise.

So last weekend I went out to Stoddard wells with my usual riding group in the LA Weekend Ride

I wasn't going to come on this ride, but I woke up inexplicably at 4:30am and figured I should test out some of the Farkles I've been adding to the bike. And I know and Like most of the folks who were going so I decided to slog 100 miles on the highway.


I Remembered Someone mentioning Denny's for breakfast, but I couldn't remember which Denny's. I passed one by and decided to turn around and see if anybody was there. Good thing I did because my new rear tire was thrashed. I thought DOT Rated was kind of a performance benchmark like SNELL. A not rated helmet still works. But Non-DOT tires do not work on the highway, at all I'm sure you knew this but I didn't

I was going to turn around and drive home super slowly, but Bouncing billy wouldn't have it and Nowwhat said I could ride the dirt all day on that tire. So we loaded it up in BB's Truck.

Here's my "new" Maxxis Desert tire, ready for Baja!!


We went UP a steep assed hill climb that tried to kill me and biggiefalls a few weeks ago. I made it first try back then,

Only two of us made it up some fairly steep & loose crap so I was feeling pretty good about myself.


The last time we rode this area there was a hill climb that gave biggie some problems. I went charging up it thinking I'd done it before how bad could it be? I didn't make it 1/3 the way up and my front deflected off a rock and I went down hard on my head and left side. Broke the visor off the Shoei, and put a nice scratch in the brand new Shield
My Wrist was killing me, I'm calling it a bad sprang, I have full movement and the swelling has gone down since it happened, but honestly I think I might have cracked something in there. 7 day trip to Baja in 6 days. And with the holiday only four shopping days to deal with the carnage. Smart

I destroyed my helmet, So a third trip to Orange County to Shoei's corporate office to pick up some screw and whatnot I put the helmet back together. That makes $100 in gas just to pick up crap for my lack of planning In all honesty, this helmet is done, but I didn't have the time or more importantly the $$ for a new one at the moment. So a little Krazy glue and $10 in parts from Shoei and it's ready to go:huh



Here's one of the bruises on my side.


Then all week I've felt pretty good and was getting excited about the trip, but then tonight I had a little sneeze attack and thought I was gonna die.

In.

Wow. I've ridden a lot of non-DOT tires, including Maxxis like that one, on the street and have never had anything like that happen.

I'd certainly return it.

Sorry about your ribs. They won't be better anytime soon, and I wouldn't go to baja with bashed ribs.

Those more powerful and of greater stature will now commence with their bravado:

A typical Baja RR in the making. In on this one.

Are you going solo to Baja? With this start you may want to have a wing man.

Looking forward to your RR

Heading out! Stopping at up-tite and then trucking to tecate.

Hey, can anyone tell me how to upload pix here from my iPhone?

I can upload easily to facebook, but then can't figure out how to view URL to post here. Can't seem to do it as attachment either

its tricky to do. Easiest way I've found thus far is to upload to Smumug using their app, then copy/paste the link they provide inline with the IMG tags.

Ibuprofen,Ibuprofin,Vicodin and you will be fine.
As long as you dont sneeze any more. Keep the ft end light and the sun at your back and you may miss a turn.
Wrap that wrist up.
A friend and I are heading to Cabo Pulmo for some snorkling,heading out this coming wed with luck, on two 650 Stroms from nor cal.
Bar to bar existance for 2 or 3 weeks.
Good luck to us all.

Amen Brutha!!

I have 6.5 Vicoden for 7 days

today we made it 30 miles to San Clemente, and one guy went home. I'm not naming names, but well... septic skeptic is a big fat pussy.

Ahhhh, nothing like little insomnia to make a trip more interesting

It's 2:30 AM, I gotta get up at 4 and ride 10 hours.:huh

It seems like somebody upstairs is trying really hard to tell me something...

My bike ready to go in the AM


I feel like I am riding a Harley and everybody else has "dirt" bikes.


I've never seen crash have so much energy! He was all over the place, howling and well 'crashing' into bikes. I think he thought he was coming along!


when I arrived several of the guys were out back with George (in the red)


norcalslowpoke & lifeinsepia, thanks for controlling the plumber butt guys! we all appreciate it




some of these guys sure came a long ways for this ride!!:eek



George workin his magic


This is a picture of 8 grown men, learning how to wipe their butt.


SepticSkeptic and the chase truck all loaded for the ride down to San Clemente.


we hit the road right as the sun was setting. SepticSkeptic and I on our 610's and the ladies in their nice cozy suv's



I sort of missed while taking this. if you ever wondered what the lynx dash looks like here you go


once we got to Mike's brother's we had to clean out the trailer, creating a bit of dust. i supervised and documented the effort.


Mike's brother's house is really cool


We went out to a hip little pizza place for dinner, and mike decided to move the truck into ridiculously small space.


All that matters is the end result I guess


We all laid into the beers but these two mormon guys (or was it Amish?) switched to water!!! Can you believe the nerve!?
Something about not wanting to mix Alcohol with Ambien later. Now that's I'm sitting here typing on the intergoogle at 3 am I'm wondering if they were on to something
(Yossarian and bentaero)


hot waitress brought cute pizza and we all grabbed a piece


Let me tell you, the stories were, um, interesting mealtime conversation.

"Ever heard of Bot Flies?"
"Bot Flies! Boy do I have a Bot Fly story!"
"Me Too! OMG!"
"MMmm, this pizza is delish, so how far did the maggots shoot out of your leg?"

It was a brutal day, 30 miles of slab on the 405. I dunno how I survived. SepticSkeptic Went back home to sleep in his own bed... But it was smart to give the east coast, Midwest and norcal guys a little break after driving so far. In theory we'll all be refreshed, bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning (yeah like in a half hour!) UG, I'm wide awake,
today I'm gonna be completely wiped AND riding hurt. Ever think "WTF am I doing?"

good thing I gave up caffiene last week, cuz It looks like I'm going to be right back on the wagon later today!!!

Go! Go! Go!

This can only get better......