4 min read

section 1 and 2 of CABDR - riding report

Are you interested in riding the most challenging sections of the CABDR? Here is a different perspective to tell you something more about this adventure: an interview with one of my favorite riders.

Introduce yourself.

Do I have to?

Ok. Introduce your bike and your team for this travel.

On this adventure, we were only myself and a friend of mine. My friend was riding his new Tenere 700, while I was on his iconic 1988 BMW R100 GS, which runs pretty well considering the 96,000 miles on the clock.

What were your essentials?

Moka for coffee.

Memory foam pillow.

Inner tubes.

Machete.

I like your concept of essentials. Speaking of musts, how much gas and water you brought with you?

For the BMW I had 6.4 gallons of gas in the bike tank, plus 2 extra gallons.

For the Yamaha Tenere my friend had 4.2 gallons, plus one gallon extra.

We had 2 camel bags with 2l of water each, plus 3 gallons of water on the bikes (which actually wasn't enough. I would had brought 4 gallons of water).

Did you have any problem with the bike or the gear during this trip?

Nothing major.

We left on Thursday at 5 PM from Long Beach in LA, and then we took one shot down to San Diego. Only there I figured out that my USB charger wasn't working. The day before leaving I went to Motorcycle Gear in LA, and I got the charger for the BMW and installed, but I didn't check if it was actually working. We ended up buying a cigar lighter plug at Autozone and modifying it. We lost 40 minutes of light because of that crap, but at least we had a navigator.

From there, we got on Interstate 8 and began climbing up the mountains. It was getting cold. We decided to find a motel not too far from where we were, and I set the navigator to it. About 40 minutes before getting to the destination it started being very cold and foggy, with visibility at 15-20 feet and, of course, just 15 minutes before we got to the motel, it began raining. We were optimistic, so we didn't bring any rain gear. So I would say that the only problem I had with the gears was not having rain gears.

The last unplanned emergency happened close to Yuma, we stopped to release some pressure on the tires and realized that the BMW's cardano was a little loose. Of course, we had the right socket, but in my attempt to make the baggage lighter, I left the wrench that goes with it at home. One more time, Autozone was our salvation, which was only 20 minutes away. Tighten up the cardano, we were ready to start section 1.

Did you have a lucky moment?

On our way to Yuma, we decided to stop before because it was getting late. When we arrived at the motel, there were other bikes parked there. Two Harleys and two guys on a 1200 GS riding from Canada stopped there because of the weather as well. We got lucky, we got the last room available. It was 8 PM. There was no food around, and the guy at the motel only had snacks and junk food, so we chose to eat our pre-can camping food, which was definitely the healthier choice. We set up our gas jet burner and 10 minutes later we were having fettuccine Alfredo with mushrooms and a glass of wine in the motel room. Not bad.

Besides the lucky dehydrated Fettuccine Alfredo, what was the best meal of the trip?

Besides the dehydrated food around the bone fire, the best food was probably at a food truck at Yuma where we had delicious shrimp tacos. Too bad they didn't have beers.

What about the most memorable moment?

We were riding through CABDR Section 2 and around 5 PM we started looking for a spot for the night: we established this good rule to stop between 5-6 PM since nothing happens on big adventure bikes after 5 PM. At the beginning it was a little windy, so we set the kitchen down into a little dry creek bed, and we built a rig for a bone fire. After a couple of hours, the wind calms down. We had red wine around the fire, ate some chocolate, and started gazing at the sky. It was a beautiful night.

And the best landscape you encountered?

A few miles before reaching Yuma, we came across an area with a large dune, that looks like the Sahara Desert. We stopped for a quick hike on these powdery and smooth dunes and enjoyed the moment.

The most challenging section you experienced during this adventure.

The day we rode CABDR Section 2, we deviated from the BDR going West to reduce the amount of paved road we would have to do to going back to LA. The first portion was literally like riding on a dry river bed, which was a perfect way to wake up. We had the second coffee of our day at Bonanza Spring. We continued on what we believed was a gravel road. After a few miles, the gravel road turned to be a deep sand road. We were feeling a little tired at this point, so we stopped several times along this section of sand. We also ran out of water and only had an extra gallon, so we decided to jump on the Needless Freeway at Kelbaker Road, and 30 minutes after we were at the gas station to refill of water and fuel.