01/02/08

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The Desert Expedition 2007

Friday, part I - riding across the desert

Friday dawned with more rain.  It wasn’t looking good.  I figured the road was going to be impassible with mud and the only reasonable alternate I could come up with was to spend the day slabing it south down to Muzquiz.  Once we got there we could evaluate the conditions and figure out if this was going to be a riding expedition or a drinking–and-getting-into-trouble-in-a-small-Mexican-town expedition.

Wearing our waterproof gear, Chris, Bill, Uncle, and I gathered in the agreed upon meeting place, waiting on Jeff and Scott to show.  The rain had let up to a small drizzle.

Left to Right: Bill, Chris, and Uncle

My Wee Strom with TKC 80 knobbies & Moto-sport panniers

We waited for a while but Scott & Jeff failed to arrive.  Finally we rode over to their motel where we found them completing the final bike packing chores of Scott’s bike.

Scott packing his KLR

Turns out the first bike issue of the trip had already surfaced.  The electrical system on Jeff’s XR650R was acting up.  The bike was ride-able but didn’t have blinkers or a brake light; not a big deal.

Jeff’s XR650R packed and ready to go.  His dirt bagz looked good and performed well for him.

Once everyone was packed and ready, we rolled for the border. With the main paperwork already completed the previous evening, crossing into Acuna went smoothly. We had not been able to change any money on Thursday evening though, so we had to stop for that, plus a couple of us needed to buy insurance. Once that was accomplished our expedition was finally underway.

Of most importance was that as soon as we crossed the border we left the rain behind. Even the streets were dry. Acuna had not had anywhere near the amount of rain that Del Rio had been getting the past few days.  It was odd how the rain just stopped at the border but none of us were complaining.  At least an impassible muddy road wouldn’t stop our expedition before it started.  But, even though it was dry the sky was completely overcast with dark clouds meaning we still faced the more serious risk of rain mid-ride trapping us in mud way out in the middle of the desert.

Looking west down a typical Acuna street. Note the dry streets.

I spotted this sexy little Italian (?) number and had to get a pic

The Bicimap didn’t provide any street details for Acuna. Either that or my lack of expertise with my Zumo GPS was hindering my ability to find the street detail within the Bicimap. I knew the general direction we needed to go to reach the start of the day’s journey but navigating through a fair sized city without a map is not the easiest of things and more than once I was unsure of which road to take. After about a half-hour of navigation and at least 1 u-turn we finally managed to find our way through town and onto the correct road.

The road leading west across the desert was not dirt, as I expected; it was paved. True, it had more than its share of pot holes and areas where the pavement was completely gone, but overall it was more paved than not, allowing us to maintain a brisk pace as we headed west into the desert and the next “town” of Santa Eulalia, which was about 40 km up the road. Santa Eulalia turned out to be a small collection of houses with and one or two small stores. Despite a completely cloud covered sky we were blessed with no rain and dry roads the entire way.

The road to Santa Eulalia, looking east back towards Acuna.

Taking a 5 minute break in Santa Eulalia

Immediately past Santa Eulalia the road turned to rock and then alternated between a mix of rock and dirt for the next 125 miles. I don’t believe a road grader has ever been down this road. It was a great ride because it was an awesome road - very beat up, rocky, rutted, littered with small boulders, and just plain knarly. It wasn’t all that technical, but it demanded our full attention all the time, lest one of us cross rut, or whack into one of the many small boulders scattered about in the road, or hit some other obstacle causing bike and rider to go down. We only averaged about 15-20 miles per hour during the entire 125 mile section of dual sport wonder.

Early in the day, headed west across the desert

Crossing an arroyo. 50 miles of primitive road to get here, 30 yards of concrete, then 50 more miles of primitive road.

We encountered a few muddle puddles along the way, but thankfully this was the only water crossings we had to make.  At the first one, we sent Jeff across on his XR650R to test things out, figuring he had the most capable bike for this kind of stuff.

Jeff crosses first - photo by Scott

Uncle crossing last on his BMW R100GSPD - photo by Scott

The mountains were just out of sight when we originally started but soon came into view as we made our way west. The road headed straight toward them, then skirted north. Eventually it would route us directly through the mountains and out the other side. Just prior to reaching the mountains, we stopped briefly at the abandoned town of Progreso. At least that’s what the 5 Caballeros told us when they rode up. My map indicated this was the town of Aguirre and that Progreso was many miles back to the east. But, like I said, with Mexican maps who really knows? Why and when was Progreso abandoned? Who knows?

A short break at the abandoned town of Progreso

The Five Caballeros

As you can see in the above pictures, the clouds were now almost completely gone. The sun had first peaked out behind the clouds at Noon and as we rode west the skies cleared. It looked like we were going to be able to avoid significant rainfall after all. Things were heating up and we started shedding gear during our stop at Progreso.

A short distance past Progreso we entered the mountains via a scenic valley. For the next few hours we rode through some wonderful desert mountain scenery. And, unbelievably, the road got even worse than before. The ruts got deeper, the boulders bigger, and the obstacles more technical. It was a real joy to be riding here.

Bill leading us into the valley

Something was wrong. I noticed I could only see 1 rider in my review mirror so I pulled to a stop. After a few minutes of waiting for the rest of the group to catch up, no one showed. Bill and I made a u-turn and headed back in search of our lost riders. The 2nd bike problem of the day had surfaced – Scott’s rear tire was flat.  No problem, he had a spare tube and repairs were underway. Unfortunately, he had to completely unload his bike to get to his tools, which made the job longer to complete. By this point is was mid-afternoon and getting uncomfortably warm. There were no trees so there was no shade to be had.

Bill waiting on the rest of the group to catch up

Friday, part II - running out of time