Road To Baja - Episode 3

Jan 21, 2010

I was pulled over at the side of a dirt road in “downtown” Ojos Negros, townsfolk wandered past my door in the darkness as a gaggle of M-16 armed soldiers stood on the dimly lit street corner. I was just taking in the weird scene, observing a bizarre mix of people; some were just hanging around while others seemed to be walking with no particular destination in mind – I'm sure that I stood out and must of looked like I was parked there waiting for trouble. My drifting train of thought was interrupted as the satellite phone came to life with a green glow and an electronic warble.

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Watch: Episode 1 - Preparation

Watch: Episode 2 - Preriding
It was Radek, and he sounded stressed, he had just spent the last several hours trying to make his way back to the highway so he could ride north to rendezvous with me in Ojos Negros. He was actually a long way a way, somewhere outside Santo Tomas south of Ensenada.

“Can you drive down and meet me in Santo Tomas instead?” Radek asked, “I'm not sure where I am but I'm gonna try and make my way there”. Then he explained to me what had gone wrong.

Earlier that day he set out solo from San Felipe to pre-ride the last 200 mile leg of the race; he mounted my 25 litre “whale belly” tank on the bike, loaded up his Dakine pack with survival goodies and set off. Most of the gas stations in the northern Baja peninsula had run out of fuel the day before, both diesel and gas, but late that morning a tanker loaded with gas showed up in San Felipe and Radek managed to fill up the bike before he set off. That tanker only showed up with gas, so I went back to our team digs at Kiki's R.V. Resort so that I could return to meet another tanker early that afternoon that was “scheduled” to arrive with diesel. It didn't matter that I left later because I would be driving a much shorter distance on paved road to get to Ojos Negros, so I would have plenty of time to play “chase”.


Meanwhile Radek pulled into San Matias to assess things where he met another Baja 1000 racer, “Mike”, who was out pre-riding the same section. Mike was also running solo so he joined Radek and they rode together to Valle de La Trinidad. There Radek had to top off with gas - it was a long way from the heart of the peninsula traveling west out to the Pacific coast and there was nothing but the untamed desert in between - running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere was not an option. Mike had decided to take the highway back to Ensenada to meet his team, he made up his mind that he would ride the rest of the course the next morning. Radek didn't have this option since he and Andrew had to be in Ensenada the next day to register for the race.


Unfortunately the Pemex at Valle de La Trinidad had no gas either, so they sat and waited for an hour for a tanker to show up. By then it was apparent that they would soon be riding in the dark and Mike had no lights with him, or on his bike. Before they parted ways, Radek pulled out his spare HID light and gave it to Mike.

Radek left the station and realized a short time later that he had lost his GPS, it had most likely bounced off the bike just after Valle de La Trinidad, darkness was rapidly falling and he was in unfamiliar terrain.

When he left earlier in the day the temperature was so warm that even at riding speed a jersey was all that was needed to feel comfortable, but as he left the central peninsula making his way toward the coast he was enveloped in freezing cold, it was as if someone had suddenly opened the door to a continental sized meat locker and he had just ridden into it with no way out. A thick bank of advection fog sits off the shore during the day but in the evening it creeps onto land bringing bone chilling moist air with it.


Things had changed rapidly, unsure of his location without his GPS, cold without a jacket, thirsty but now out of water, and to make things worse he had to ride without his goggles because they had tinted lenses. As bad as things were, he ran into a pair of buggies that were stuck out in the fog in the same predicament, they had such a hard time seeing that they were forced to drive at a snail's pace.

Finally making his way to a fishing village somewhere on the west coast, he managed to find a store that had just shut down for the evening. The owners were still inside closing up shop and Radek managed to summon them to the front door. They gave him some water and he bought a bottle of Coke off them which he vigorously downed before getting on his bike to make his way north. He was not sure exactly of where he was but he had no choice but to carry on.

Not wanting to consume the battery of his helmet mounted night rider light he left it unmounted and turned off. When it was too pitch black to see he tried to assemble it, this was made exceptionally difficult because he had given it to Mike earlier in the day.

While he was fumbling around on the side of the road shivering, out of nowhere a voice pierced the night, “Do you need help?”. It was a rancher, that had come out of his house to see who was stranded at the road side. Radek thankfully declined help and took comfort that he wasn't alone in the middle of nowhere. He eventually managed to get his night rider light turned on and he placed the call to me on the satellite phone notifying me of the change in plans.

Just past the fishing village he had run into another buggy team traveling in the opposite direction - they had warned him that the very last section of the course just before Ojos Negros was so silted out that they had found it impassible. Cold and tired, Radek thought the best he could accomplish that night would be to reach SantoTomas. So I left Ojos Negros, made my way through Ensenada and down to meet him. Carrying on any further would have meant that he would have had at least two more hours of challenging riding ahead of him. The reality was that two nights later he would have to complete this section on his own, with little chance of anyone reaching him while he was on course.


As I rounded the last bend on the highway north of Santos Thomas I found Radek parked on the shoulder outside a humble looking motel, he was exhausted but never the less relieved to see me. We were supposed to be back in San Felipe that night, but we were both too worn out to make the journey back to meet Andrew and the rest of the team. Efforts to raise them on the phone were not successful and we knew that they would be looking for us, but we simply could not muster the energy to drive three hours back to the other side of the peninsula knowing that in the morning we would have to return to Ensenada.


Thankfully the restaurant at the motel was open so we walked in, and to our surprise, managed to devour a fantastic steak dinner before deciding to spend the night right there in the motel. In the end this made the most sense, we awoke the next morning, ate a junk food “breakfast” at a gas station grocery store next to the motel, and Radek carried on to pre-ride the rest of the course.

Later that day the team met in Ensenada, registered, and put the bike through tech inspection. By then nerves were beginning to fray and the occasional argument broke out. It was understandable given the effort that it took for Radek and Andrew to get to the point that they were set to race, juggling time between completely rebuilding the race bike and pre-riding the course, there was no time left at any point for them to just unwind.


That night before the race, we went back to our hotel room in Ensenada and scribbled a final race plan on the back of the SCORE race rules sheet. Afterward Radek made his way back to San Felipe so that he would be positioned to take the bike off Andrew at race mile 190. Andrew slept the best he could that night, woke up, climbed on the bike, rode it to a nearby Pemex station, filled it up with pump gas and took his position at the start grid.

And so there we were, nearing the end of the Road to Baja.