Biking South through Baja: Thoughts, Notes, and Stories

Empujando: Lessons from riding (and pushing) a bike in Baja California Empujando  (em-poo-han-do). Pushing. From  empujar  (em-poo-har). To push. Lesson #1: Life is like riding a bike: Pedaling is fast and efficient. But sometimes you just have to get off and push. When I first began planning a cycling trip that would span the length of Baja California, I learned through reading about the trail and watching video-logs of adventure cycling content creators that portions of the section would require a bit of pushing. Big deal, I thought, naively. If I have to push, great, I'll think of it as a break for my legs! Neurons fired, neural networks connected, and surely enough, the image my brain perceived as pushing a loaded bicycle through a harsh desert environment became more amenable, perhaps pleasant. The armor of imagination is its ability to perceive and anticipate problems, formulate solutions, and trick the body and mind into a sense of preparedness. It's weakness? Real...

I came out of my rest days in Ciudad Constitución with achy knees and a waning motivation to return to the trail. I admit I was tempted to call it a voyage complete and hop on a bus with my bike and take the easy route to La Paz. While the temptation strongly pulled me in that direction, I dismissed the urge and set out on the bike for the final stretch of the trail. The Baja Divide finishes in La Paz and I wanted the experience of coming out of the wilderness and riding, triumphantly (in my head, at least), into the city. Only in that way would I feel that I had truly accomplished the goals of this trip. And so, packed out with enough food and water for a few days on the trail and with some pain killers to manage the pain in my knees, I rode out of the city. My goal for the first day was to make it past the steaming, burning dump outside the city as quickly as possible, and to put as many miles on the bike as I could on what I expected to be relatively good, flat roads heading east. T...

After a relaxing two nights at the Don Huerta Cancha RV park in Mulege, I saddled up and took to the highway to make for El Rosarito and the resumption of the Baja Divide trail. The ride on the highway was absolutely stunning. The Sea of Cortez, specifically the Bahía de Concepción (Conception Bay) was the most emerald colored water I think I've ever seen and I enjoyed a tailwind for the majority of the ride, making for quite the enjoyable experience. I made great time to the turn off just past El Rosarito and, feeling buoyed, jaunted onward down the trail into the mountain/canyon passes onto familiar rough and shoddy roads. In my head, these extra miles were gravy towards what I expected to be a few days traversing the back country where I expected to come across small mission towns, a hallmark of former Spanish colonization. I camped just off the trail near a dusty cattle path and readied my mind for the ride ahead to San Ysidro and San Miguel de Comóndu. The morning ride into my...

I spent two days recuperating at the wonderful Camp Archelon outside of Bahía de Los Ángeles where I relaxed on the beach and gave my body a needed bit of R&R. The days passed at a leisurely pace as I mentally prepared for packing up and leaving for the next section of the ride. Andre and I left after our brief respite, and were met with awful road conditions as we climbed out of Bahía de L.A., and for the first time during the entire journey, they did not improve. These roads were about a step below the absolute worst roads I had traveled on thus far in Baja, but those roads all eventually improved throughout the day; this day was a cursed anomaly. The picture doesn't give my description much justice, but imagine riding a road with constant "washboard" bumps, sand that gives way under the tires unexpectedly, and piles of rocks that make riding straight impossible. And then imagine you look as far ahead as you can see and you can't see the end of the road. That...

I spent two nights in Cataviña taking a well needed break to rest and plan for the next leg of biking that needed to be done to push further down the peninsula. Andre and I had always planned on skipping the Cataviña to Santa Rosalia section because it would require carrying enough food and water for 5-6 days without resupply and, to be honest, that didn't sound fun. Instead, we chose to take Mexico Highway 1 down to Highway 12 and then cross to Bahía de Los Ángeles that way, a trip of 177km or about 105 miles. We would try to hitchhike but sparse traffic on the road probably meant we would need to camp at least a night. Unfortunately, Andre came down with a sickness and could not cycle and so I elected to continue alone and possibly meet him in Bahía in a few days. The first two hours were grueling with an opposing headwind and long climbs along switchbacks that led out of the valley. At that time, I felt that surely I would be camping that night if I were to maintain such a slow ...