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Hey All, Looking for suggestions for a removable wheel chock system for an aluminum trailer. I need it to be removable easily so the trailer can still carry the Sportsman 700. Any suggestions? Want to carry a F800GSA and F650. Thanks Jason

Eric L and I spent a few days south of the border. Great time. Great food. A little unexpected bike trouble, but it all worked out great. Day 1 saw us leaving Orange County headed south around 6:30 am. We stopped in Chula Vista to top off on gas and so I could go to a Kinko's and print my Mexican insurance docs and sign a few online documents. We went through Tijuana, which I usually never do, or only in the daytime. We took the toll road south to Ensenada and ran across this group of riders on the new CSC Chinese adventure bikes headed down. Lunch in Ensenada was awesome. Eric on his phone We hit the dirt at Santo Tomas and made our way down to Erendira. That road is quite easy. Very big bike friendly! Got to Coyote Cal's quite early, maybe 1:30. We clearly didn't do enough riding! We ended up just relaxing, had a cigar, few happy hour drinks and then a great dinner of fried ling cod.

It was an awesome trip. The "holed" piston on the XR only started the process of meeting several extremely great people that helped us out. The roads in and out of Coyote Cal's were great well graded roads with nice views. Coyote Cals is clean, well organized, great food, right on the ocean, and reasonably priced. After a great morning of riding, my beloved XR650L went to sleep....no knocking, not exhaust sputter, no strange sounds at all. It just lost power and quite going down the highway before the turn off to BDLA. My first thought was that, I was out of gas; but I thought it was strange that switching to reserve didn't work. So I look in the gas tank and it's low, but not too low.....so now I'm thinking...please just be out of gas, please just be out of gas....because we're 300 miles south of the border. Anyway, I pour my rotopax into the tank and hit the starter....and it sound very strange. Also, there's a little blue smoke coming out the tail pipe.....so we're done. I ride with Eric Hall 2-up to BDLA and meet are hostel hosts, really awesome people. I'm a little anxious because I have a bike sitting out on a remote highway.....and it's not that exotic....it would make anyone a great parts bike if you know what I mean. I call ACE Insurance booked through Baja Bound. I get transferred to a Mexican call center, the representatives English is very good, but something was not clicking with this guy. He couldn't even find BDLA on the map, he could not understand anything. After 20 minutes of me say "Bahia de Los Angeles" and him repeating back "Los Angeles" I said, hold on.....do you think I'm Los Angeles USA or Los Angeles Baja Norte? "USA Sir" this guy is clueless....so one of our hosts gets on the phone to speak Spanish.....this doesn't improve anything. Finally, he says he'll call back when a tow truck is set-up. He calls back and says the tow truck will call me in 3 hours. At this point, I just said, that isn't going to work, I'm going to hire a local and ACE will reimburse me. Strangely, the guy sounded relieved and said just call me back to get the reimbursement information. Our wonderful hosts at Mauro's Posada had a pick-up...I bought them a tank of gas and we went and got the bike with no problems. Patty, Mauro's wife introduced us to Marcos and Marcos Jr. who are local mechanics and fishing guides in BDLA. Marcos pulls the plug and I can see the look in his eyes as soon as we turn the engine over.....no compression....and there's aluminum dust all over the spark plug...piston is toast. As I'm sitting there wondering how I'll get back home and when I can come back down with a truck to pickup the bike, Marcos Jr. speaks up and says there's a Canadian headed to San Diego tomorrow, he might haul me back. So we go meet Paul the Canadian.....Paul doesn't even hesitate...."Sure, let's load it up now, and we'll meet for breakfast at 7am". At the end of the conversation....Marcos doesn't want to take any money because he could do anything to help the bike and Paul doesn't want to take any gas money for the ride north.....what hell just happened??? Here's Paul...my savior with his KTMs. So, 6:30 am, Eric Hall and I say goodbye and good luck....and I'm headed north with Paul the Canadian. The bike is home and I've started disassembly.....I can't wait to go back and see my new friends in BDLA!

Day 3 we woke just before sunrise and got to enjoy this great view with our coffee Eric L's plan was to ride back with Bob the Canadian and mine was to ride back via San Felipe and figure out from there. I made great time and got to San Flippy by 10:30 for an early lunch. It was so good I just stayed there for awhile checking up on my phone using their wi-fi until I got hungry again and had two more tacos! I was thinking of staying the night there but it just seemed so early and I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I decided just to ride home. It got pretty hot too: 102 in Mexicali. Got into San Diego around 4:00 just in time for a bbq at John's house w/his wife, Franco and his wife, etc... Really good way to finish a trip!

Day 2 we got an early start and headed south on dirt to the highway. I've been testing these Hemisphere panniers out for AltRider and they've been doing very well so far. I'll have a review up soon. This is my second trip with them (first was in Death Valley) I'm liking the new gear from ICON Raiden too. This is their Arakis pants, jersey and gloves I'm wearing. These pants are perfect for warmer weather, especially Baja. Review here. You can see Rick has a chicken coop for fresh eggs and sells gas too. There's gas in town out of a barrel but you never know how clean it is. Definitely give Coyote Cal's a visit when you're down there. Be sure to get the Thai massage from Ta. It's the best one I've ever had by far! Had to put the new sticker up right below another popular one It may have been a bit too ambitious on our part, but our plan was to make it to BDLA and we were making good time to do that until Eric's 650 broke down about a mile north of the turnoff to BDLA. He thought he ran out of gas but after he put a gallon from his Roto-Pax in, it still wouldn't start. There were puffs of white smoke that smelled of oil and no compression! We put his stuff on the back of my bike and I rode him on the back the remaining 45 or so miles to Mauro's Posada in BDLA. He said it was more comfortable on the back of my bike than riding his! We got to Mauro's and were greeted by his lovely wife, Patty, and their two children Maxine Rose and Giuseppe. We tried calling roadside assistance which Eric has as part of his Mexican insurance, but they were clueless and said it would be three hours before they could even get back to us on who was going to go out to get his bike. Patty was kind enough to ride us back there in her truck and we just got it ourselves. We brought it back to a mechanic friend of Patty's by the name of Marcos and he and Eric spent some time looking at it while we went to grab some fish tacos for everyone. While at the mechanic's Eric met a Canadian guy he's calling "Bob" (because he said "bob's your uncle") who said he was driving back up north the next day and offered to haul Eric and his bike back! Very cool. You definitely need to stay at Mauro's the next time you're in BDLA.

Don't own one, but.. http://www.ebay.com/itm/BIKE-PRO-Motorcycle-Wheel-Chock-Black-Removable-Chocks-/231201568165 They have killer ebay feedback, so if you buy, at least they can be trusted.

Now, what's that white stuff? I've seen it before, but it's been a l o n g time. Looks purdy. I bet it's nice in the summer, when it's hot in the valley. Found this pic of the road

Not offroad. But 26 degrees and snowing at the summit of Chinook pass last Friday after work. Headed to the east side.