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How many of you have dreamt about soloing the Baja 1000 after seeing Dust to Glory?
Having grown up on bikes, participated in several dual sport rides, a few clinics, a race or two not to mention having watched countless motorcycle films, I thought I was ready to solo the Baja 1000. I was pretty naïve then. Back in 2007 I went to Baja to do 5 days of training on the course of the 1000 with Tim Morton and Jonah Street that’s when reality sunk in.
I realized that soloing the Baja 1000 is kind of like doing 2 RallyMoto events, 2 enduros, with a few hare scrambles thrown in all in 30 hours. Before going to Baja I had been religiously going to the gym 5 days a week, lifting, swimming, running and riding my bike as much as I could. I felt pretty fit, but I found out fast that gym muscles and riding muscles are very different things. The best way to get fit for desert riding, is desert riding. By the 4th day of riding in Baja my blisters were bleeding through my gloves, I couldn’t feel my hands or move my shoulders. I was eating Advil and Aleve like it was candy. I was experiencing a whole new level of riding, 300 miles a day in this kind of terrain, at these speeds, day after day, is very different then a day of racing or a casual cross country adventure. It was a bit intimidating having Jonah riding sweep right behind me for 5 days. He’s only one of the top riders in the world, but that pressure was eased since he is a super nice and down to earth guy. It was kinda like having Tiger Woods as your caddy.
Here are a few valuable lessons I learned from Jonah and Tim:
On the second day of riding I was behind a couple of the other riders and we blasted through a big puddle. Jonah stopped me and said, “What are you doing?” I said something like, “Umm, following them.” He said, “How do you know there wasn’t a big rock jetting out under the water?” like a scorn child I said, “I guess I didn’t.” Anyone who has done a few dual sport rides in New England is pretty accustomed to water crossings so it seems natural to blast through puddles. Jonah said, “If you can go around it, then go around it. I would never do something that could potentially jeopardize my rally.” I’ll never forget that. Another thing I learned is If you are going to do multiple days of racing then tape your hands because after a couple days blisters will mess up your ride. Don’t just ride the road, ride the terrain. When you look at the landscape ahead you can tell what the road will be like before you can see it. You can tell where the washouts will be by a dark line in the mountain ridge, where a tight turn will be by the slope. This is hard to do when you get tunnel vision and you only see the road up ahead but this is one of the reasons these guys are able to go as fast as they do. It’s almost like they have second sight. In the end Jonah told me If I were serious about Baja and Dakar I should move somewhere where I could ride longer distances off-road, And that I should get something like a KTM 450 exc and get some more race experience under my belt. This was one of the reasons I moved to NC and I sold my F 650 GS, since then I have owned a BMW G650 X, KTM 690 Enduro, and a Honda CRF450X and every RallyMoto and harescramble I have competed in has been as training for Baja.
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