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Big Bikes at B A J A R A L L Y!


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 Congrads to everyone riding a big bike at the Baja rally, Great job all the way around, It makes me really wish I was there rather than at a dealers show in Fl.  Scotty really should have known better about the abbreviated course. ADV bikes have been proven to be near as capable if not more so in some conditions than a dirt bike. I think the guys got a bit jipped out of some great riding. But in the end all is good and a great event.. Of course hoping Brian has a quick recovery, driving home with a broken shoulder couldn't have been fun. That man is an Animal and one tough SOB.  Maybe next year myself and Wes can make the trip.

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 Congrads to everyone riding a big bike at the Baja rally, Great job all the way around, It makes me really wish I was there rather than at a dealers show in Fl.  Scotty really should have known better about the abbreviated course. ADV bikes have been proven to be near as capable if not more so in some conditions than a dirt bike. I think the guys got a bit jipped out of some great riding. But in the end all is good and a great event.. Of course hoping Brian has a quick recovery, driving home with a broken shoulder couldn't have been fun. That man is an Animal and one tough SOB.  Maybe next year myself and Wes can make the trip.

They dropped that whole abbreviated course thing after the prologue (which everyone raced) when they saw the big bikes could hang.  Scotty and his team are all about safety and the last thing they wanted was a bunch of big bike riders stuck/injured.  What's interesting Casey, Chris and Keith all said they probably not do it again on a big bike which kind of validates what Scotty was thinking (a bit).  I kind of feel the same way.  There's lots of things I've done on a big bike and come away saying "well I did to that but I probably shouldn't have."  I think it would be nice to have something geared more for the bigger bikes but that's just not really feasible without a lot of work.

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I can't really talk that much because I didn't finish. However, there is no way in hell I would have wanted to do an abbreviated course, just for big bikes.  That goes against the entire point of showing up.  That's not what I signed up for.  I was trying to be diplomatic when that first came out and the rumor kept circulating, but I think we all know what my less-reserved response was.  When Scotty floated it after the prologue and it sounded like it was going to happen, I argued against it.  Otherwise, you finish the race and everyone says you didn't do "Baja Rally", but rather, "Baja Rally*"  That * always gets appended.  Screw that.  I was also kind of irritated hear that discussion after I'd already committed a ton of funds and preparation to the race.  Thankfully, none of that ever came to pass.  The terrain I got to experience in the prologue and day 1 isn't anything harder than what we do up here--it's just at speed and there's a lot of it.

 

As for the collar bone and the road trip (most uncomfortable ever!), I'll recover.  It's the night of 18OCT and I have a plate and screws going in in the morning.  Should be back on a bike for light duty around New Years if not sooner  I've got plans for big stupidity on big bikes in the spring, and I sure as hell want another swing at Baja in 2017.  Had an incredible time, but no one wants a DNF next to their name!  

 

BTW, I'm pretty sure I said I didn't want to do Starvation Ridge again on a big bike again after that crap-fest last year.  That said, I sure was planning on going and running it again next weekend...on the 950SE again...in the slop.  Give the others some time to forget the bad stuff! ;-)

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I put this video together with various clips from behind the scenes, watching the action and after the race to give you an idea of what it was like.  I'd never been a part of any kind of race or rally so this was easily one of the best experiences of my life.  One day I'm test riding a rally-equipped yet still stock Africa Twin on the streets of Ensenada, the next I'm scouting my own photo location on a whim only to see a rider and helicopter suddenly emerge from over the top of a large dune, the next I'm manning a command center monitoring racer locations & sending/receiving radio messages from pilots in the air, the next I'm dispatching a driver to retrieve our radio man who landed at the local air strip only to find he's gotten a ride from some friendly Mexican army troops in their Humvee only moments after they had sped up to him with guns drawn not knowing why he'd just landed.  Doesn't get much better than that!

 

I'm leaving the default thumbnail image of Chris Ambrosio on the video you see below because I think he best embodies the whole "Beyond Starbucks" message and a key theme to XLADV; one of simply riding a big adventure bike off road and seeing where that takes you.  Chris had never raced before and he felt bad that he didn't do better but I said c'mon man, how many guys would sign up for the Baja Rally just for the experience?  Once in a lifetime.

 

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Some day 5 interviews here with Chris Ambrosio (KTM 640) and Keith Billings (KTM 990R).  Interestingly, they both say they'd probably not do it again on a big bike given the difficulty of the terrain.  However, they may change their mind once they reflect on the race over time is my guess.

 

Chris really embodies the whole "Beyond Starbucks" thing to me given he just got into this recently and thought the Baja Rally would be fun to try.  He was in no danger of winning any stage and says he kind of felt bad with his performance but I had to correct him on that straight away.  I think what he did is fantastic and wish a lot more riders would do what he did.

 

 

Next is Keith Billings.  Keith rode extremely well and was close behind his buddy, Lawrence Hacking, most of the time.  Interestingly, he started out with Mitas E09 Dakar and ended up being happier after he switched to the Motoz Tractionator Desert H/T he acquired from Brian Englund after Brian's injury took him out.  The E09 Dakar rear is a favorite of mine but I think their front knobby is way too meek for what it was tasked with and totally get the switch to the Motoz for this type of event.  Keith says "well you kind of just go with what you find online and hope for the best but once you talk to actual racers, you get much better intelligence on what works."

 

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I like Chris even better now.  I like how his approach was, "Well, I don't know much about it, so I'm gonna do it."  Definitely my approach when I got started off. Riding big bikes hard is really a small community when you look at it.  Hell, who am I fooling, I'm still starting off.  I've been riding hard off-road since, what, 2015?  I'm sure you can hardly tell...as I recover from having a plate and screws installed on my collarbone yesterday. ;-)  

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Seriously though, and I don't want to take away from other riders, but the big bike riders in events like these tend to be just good riders all around.  Like that start on the beach from San Quintin I was shocked at how many guys just don't know how to ride sand.  At. All.  On a big bike you'd better be good at sand if you're going to survive.  I said something similar two years ago and your buddy got butt-hurt and somehow twisted that into me saying riding a small bike was easy.  It's not easy, just easiER on a smaller bike/hardER on a big bike.

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That was indeed Jenny Morgan.  I guess perhaps because she wasn't riding a big bike but on second thought I would have liked to get her on camera to talk about her recent Rubicon Trail ride she did with BigWan (I think?) on her CB500x.  That was epic.

 

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Man! Thanks for the kind words, but I had it easy next to the guys on truly big bikes.

 

Brian, hows the shoulder? Going back next year? 

 

-Chris

Chris, doing well. Itches like crazy but range of motion is good, pain is down, and the staples and creepy discoloration make me look like Frankenstein just in time for Halloween. Score!

Definitely intend to return if the job allows for it. Hoping to recruit a larger, meaner big-bike crew to head down there and kill it!

Gonna make a return?

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Seriously though, and I don't want to take away from other riders, but the big bike riders in events like these tend to be just good riders all around.  

your buddy got butt-hurt and somehow twisted that into me saying riding a small bike was easy.  

Casey doesn't believe that he's in the top percentile of big bike dudes. Probably because there's a good number of us who consistently ride that way here and tend to hang together. You have to show up at a big event like the Touratech to see a better cross section. I'm not crapping on anyone in saying that either. Most dudes just don't want to shred big bikes. They're likely smarter than me!

As for my butthurt cheater-bike bro, he's an odd dude. Lots of knowledge, but lots of bias. I think his big bike foray started and ended with a GSA that he took to Alaska and back and hated offroad as much as he loved it on road/on gravel. Ah well, can't please them all. Personally, I thought the dunes and washes were a hoot. May even be more fun than technical rocky stuff!

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Chris, doing well. Itches like crazy but range of motion is good, pain is down, and the staples and creepy discoloration make me look like Frankenstein just in time for Halloween. Score!

Definitely intend to return if the job allows for it. Hoping to recruit a larger, meaner big-bike crew to head down there and kill it!

Gonna make a return?

 

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll have to do it again. Bike TBD.

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I'm proud to see some great magazine coverage of the BAJA RALLY from Upshift Online; even more proud that I wrote it! ;)

 

Check it out!

 

Screen Shot 2016-11-01 at 9.33.20 AM.png

 

FYI, I tried to tell this guy you can't start a bike uphill in deep sand but he was adamant at figuring that out himself.

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