Baked

“People are not unsuccessful because they are up against their talent or capability limits, but because they are at their self-discipline limits.”

84 miles to go to the hotel in San Ignacio. The terrain was more challenging here. No fast open roads. Silt, and sand whoops. Then it turned rocky. Your front tire is about four inches wide. You have to pick lines where you can thread between the rocks without hitting many of them. When you have no choice but to hit one, you lean back, blip the throttle and pull up on the bars. When the front wheel hits the rock, there isn’t a lot of weight on it and it bounces up over it, or you wheelie over it and let the rear wheel take the hit. 

Our tires were not full of air. They had hard foam inserts so we couldn’t get a flat. This is what is necessary in Baja. Still, you don’t want to damage your tires and rims.

Last year a guy flagged me down at night at mile 500 or so with a flat. There was nothing I could do except tell the guys at the next gas pit – but I suspect there was little they could do either. We had the right equipment for the race, thanks to Chris Haines, our race support team.

It was 104 degrees out, and the rocky course headed toward the slopes of a small mountain. At this temperature, you don’t get cooler with wind chill – you heat up faster. When the outdoor air temperature is hotter than your body temp, wind is like a convection oven, making you hotter. 

Suddenly the course turned into a nasty uphill with nothing but rocks. It doesn’t rain often, but when it does it washes any loose dirt from wheel traffic down to the bottom, leaving only rocks to ride on. They range in size from watermelons to softballs, some rounded and some square-edged wheel-killers. It seemed like 45 degrees up. 

You get on the gas and pick a line up the rocks, and don’t let off the gas! As you bounce off the rocks, the line you had intended on taking changes really fast. You have to stay flexible, but don’t let off the gas and lose your momentum. It takes a lot out of your arms and shoulders as you hang on uphill while trying to control the accelerating beast with your hands gripped to its horns. Up, up, up, up. Finally, the top.

Down, down, rocks and boulders and drop-offs. Down, down, down. Over the mountain. So glad that’s out of the way. Five minutes later I see an abandoned block house to my right. Who would be way the hell out here? There are trees – there must be water nearby. The course gets rockier and rockier. Nothing but watermelon sized rocks. My bike bounces along as I struggle to keep it upright. You don’t want to fall in the rocks – you could break an elbow or shoulder easily or put a rock through your engine case. 

I use all my skills and strength to push into this rock field which I now see is part of a riverbed. I get to still water and try to pick up the course on the other side of it with my eye. I lost the course. I stop. I put the bike on the stand and get off. It was even hard to walk on these rocks. I try to find the course. Where did I lose it? I look and think for a few minutes. Then I hear Santana and Rick coming in the distance. 

I hop to where they can see me and wave and yell. They stop a distance away. It was clear these rocks were so ridiculously big that not only wasn’t it the course, but they weren’t riding out to me. Santana shut off his bike and yelled that I missed a turn a ¼ mile back. Damn. I walk back to my bike and had to start it and walk alongside of it to get it turned around in the rocks. I fight back that ¼ mile and Santana is there. I am so overheated and sweating big time. I see the house again. When I was looking left at the house, the turn was on the right.

I should have learned a very valuable lesson right there. But I didn’t learn it well enough.

Santana was way behind me and didn’t see me take the turn. Honestly, if he didn’t find me, it would have taken me a very long time to figure it out. “How did you know I took the wrong turn?” I asked him. “I saw your track” he said. I looked down at the parched sand. I couldn’t make out any tracks the way the sand was here. He had to be looking and have the eye of an animal tracker – and he did. Thank goodness for Santana.

We proceeded and were met by a twisted mini riverbed with embedded rocks and tree branches hanging over from both sides. It was really tough. I hated it. After 230 miles today in this heat…

Next the course turned up another steep rocky hill. This one was so ridiculously stupidly steep and rocky – nothing but rocks, I cussed in my helmet all the way up. When I got to the top I just couldn’t believe they’d make the race course go up this thing. And during the race, we’d be hitting this hill climb at night. That’s just great…

A few more miles and we got to the paved road and a military checkpoint just before San Ignacio. Andrew and Tanner were waiting for us. Race mile 607. While I knew the 20 miles of hellish terrain that preceded this place, I did not know the drama that would unfold in this little town for us during the race.

The three of us pulled up to the truck and when we stopped, we quickly realized we were in distress. We were overheated. Red skin, light headedness, and exhaustion. All three of us. I drank three cold waters from the cooler and poured some on my head and the back of my neck. Once we cooled down, we waited in line at the military check. When we got through, we’d follow Santana about four miles into town and to our hotel.

I couldn’t wait. I was baked.