BAJA JOURNEY

its official, the baja journey has begun. i'm homeless , i've left my wonderful girlfriend of 5 years :?: and i've made my 1st stop north of durango. the dodge got a 1110$ clutch job :? (got 209,000 out of this one) and the berg needs a new front tire. what time is dinner ken? i'll try to keep some pre run updates, not that anyone cares, it just makes me feel important.
cheeseberger

well, i made it to bergers house, barely, the dodge was leaking transfer case fluid. fixed that in bergers driveway yesterday and now i have a bad front axel seal :cry: finally got to see the 650 i paid for a month ago. berger and i preped it all day yesterday and part of today, muchas horas. finally got to ride it today. we went out to the mile markers and rode from 5-7pm . didn't really get up to baja speeds but the bike felt good. ken wired up the tecate light supplied by bergdaddy and got to test that cause we rode till after dark. the light is SWEET but it definately makes the the bike feel heavier with that added weight at the bars. pulled the shock 2nite and will take both my shocks(550and the 650) to get serviced at palo verde suspension, also will put a stiffer rear spring on the 650. the forks already have stiffer springs. i did wave at camp verde NED, hope all is well. look forward to moab . i think i may have to get a hitch put on the 650 to get the dodge back from mexico, anyone know whos the best? looks like the dodge will need more prepping than the bikes.
cheeseberger

well, my truck has seen better days. i took it to the dealer, i know, and it needs a sh*t ton of money thrown at it. not only does it need new front axel seals, but also new u-joints on both sides and the drivers side front axel has developed quite a groove,690$ just for the one axel side with a 300$ discount. oh well. picked up both shocks at palo verde and put new wheel bearings all the way around in the 550. they were almost fused to the hub in the rear even though there wasn"t any play. at bergers right now and will put the shocks back in tonite and forks back on the 550 and hopefully ride the 650 tomorrow sorry nic but i will be leaving sat, come tomorrow.
cheeseberger

i sit here in la paz in the cool sea breeze right now we made it here this afternoon. we took 7 days to run the whole course. wow from 10+ mile sections of dry lake bed that are as smoth as glass 100mph to 20+ miles of whoops non stop to trophy truck eating mud holes and rocks, rocks and a few more rocks. a ton of easy dirt roads too. the dodge decided to try and eject the cummins again out in the middle of bfe. luckily there was a expat community near and we scrounged up some bolts to fix the motor mount. After fixing the Dodge in the AM, machining a cylinder head on the window of the Dodge (from a CR500), changing oil, tires, air filters, we decided to check out the terrain from the air. A local expat we met the night before at the Halloween bash told us to join him in his antique 1961 Cessna 182 for an hour of scenic flying. After seeing the course from the air, it looked pretty flat and easy enough for us to do.
Recovering from these setbacks ate a day of our time, but we were back on the road to La Paz shortly. The following day, I was wheelie-ing through one of the numerous dumps, when a vulture decided to protect it's food (a decaying dog carcass) from the invading riders by projectile vomiting all over me and the mighty FE 550. The bike ran flawlessly, excepting eating two aluminum rear sprockets, and rupturing the fuel line to the carburator (fixed with a section of bicycle pump hose). More to come later, we are off to eat football-sized shrimp.
cheeseberger.

so far it has been an incredible journey. the universe has really been aligned and treating us incredibly well. the people we have met have been amazing. right now i'm sitting in an incredibly nice familes house in san diego that has adopted us. we have been staying here since the 9th. we have our own "house", they have been feeding us well, yellowtail and mako shark that they caught last night, the dad washed and vacuumed my truck, lent us wetsuits to surf the overhead waves today, and shared many tales from the baja, they have been down 19 times. the Josefs are one of a kind. oh yeah, we also took a boat ride today.
the 650 is ready to go and so are we. we will head to ensenada on tues and stay at the flamingo hotel, another miracle that we found a room with such short notice and its 1 block from the san nicholas. even more incredible is that we found a room in la paz, and for under 50 a night. got the sheared bolt from the motor mount in the dodge fixed in san quintin for 50$ while we rode wheelies down the beach. i finally looped the 550 was doing about 45. jeff the elder and nite rider (47) was impressing the locals wheelieing all the way through the gears on his CR500. we had a blast, it the only non business, fun riding we really did. we will sleep as much as possible to morrow as we are all a little sleep starved, lots of visiting with our new family, surfing, and i changed 4 tires, and no bloody knuckles
as i said earlier the 550 ran awesome as usual. 4500 miles 170 hours and starts and sounds great. only pre run issues were upper banjo bolt on front brake coming loose, loose chain cutting rear brake line and a fuel line cracking. oh and i got 1 front flat before i slimed the tires. fixed everything on the trail no prob.
hope everyone is well cant wait for moab
cheeseberger