Road To Baja

[Music] got into riding dirt bikes as a kid and rode for probably four or five years got back into it three years ago it's called my buddy rat akin to it I've only been riding about a year and a half it was the summer of 2007 and uh and I got a phone call on my salad and here's Andrew telling me that I should get a dirt bike well I have never ridden a motorcycle up until that point and thought about it bit and I said listen if you find me a good deal on a dirt bike down there I'll buy it and we'll go dirt biking I was actually just kidding whoo I did a couple of neural races I had a ton of fun then we picked up dust to glory and that was it was gotta do ba I think I saw dust to glory probably the first few months I started riding man delicious amazing to see that type of riding about the type of drama and excitement there are a few things that inspired us to go watching that first one for me is watching the bikes the trucks come off the start line mayhem it's hitting the streets and through downtown into that ad you hover faster going crazy second thing was watching the guys like Joey Campbell and Mouse McCoy just ripping through the desert in the middle of the night stars everywhere nobody around had this magical feeling almost but when it was over you know it was just something to me it was something that other people did by no means that I ever think that I would be doing that well it's November 7th and we leave for the Baja November 8 so that's tomorrow this is our to-do list this is our done list the kind packs those are in that's done most of this stuff got completed just yesterday that's all there's left to do Veronica had pretty much decided on her own door we were gonna do this and we weren't really 100% serious about it but things started to happen they started to fall into place about what two months ago we finally said all right let's let's do it we entered the race and went on Baja net man posted a work of it down and we're gonna be doing a hundred miles of the hours to go whoops yeah right okay are you kidding Wow oh I need this we need that we need two satellite phones we need this like 20 years ago you just rolled into Baja did the race and now it's all you need all this high-tech stuff I'd be pretty cool just we rollin down with my dirt bike and sleeping bag and a couple of cans of wolf chili and that's it to be done but this is getting out of hand having never raced it I think we're getting a little bit over our heads talking to some some other people on the internet they tell you look come down and just pre ride ride on the baja we can only prepare so much for that well you know what this place is actually pretty good for practicing it's got dirt sand rocks and most of all it's got a bunch of like rednecks driving around the wrong way on the highway on the trails quads other motorcycle I figured it's a pretty authentic training ground [Music] twelve hours to drive my land cruiser Calgary to our zero miles an hour the flats think I'm ready for BA the lack of knowledge about the Baja is is really is really a challenge we have our we have our map and we've planned out okay I'm gonna ride this section and you're gonna ride this section and then we're gonna swap out but never having ridden our course before you don't know how long those sections are going to take us to ride this part over here apparently is the shittiest roads see the whoops along this road see these discoloration between dark light dark light dark light dark light dark light those are the whoops and it goes on for it's like 60 miles of whoops at one section you can be riding down the salt bank cruising at 80 miles an hour and then you could be riding through this hundred miles and at 50 miles an hour there's this difference of terrain that we can't account for because we've never been there before as far as who are we gonna talk to you around here there's not a whole lot of people that have done Baja locally I was talking to this one guy that actually raced the Baja 1000 and this was finally a guy that had done it and I was excited because I wanted to pick his brain and I started asking questions you know do I need a Sat phone do I need radios you know how hard is it to find the trail and he starts telling me you know you don't need anything man you just you know when I did it he says I just got on my bike and ripped my section and I could told him to find out which way to go and I thought all right that makes it easy oh that must be all right and then he goes oh wait when I did it I had a radio in my helmet and the chase chopper behind me was telling me where to go so everybody it's a little bit different we're gonna roll a little different we can't find the registration for the 525 that's the bike they were gonna be racing they could try to scam that out did you have to bring your original registration yeah I had I had the registration paper the problem is we can't import it into Mexico for their race we don't have the registration big problem no this is the motorcycle registration it's not like that other one but it has the dude's name on it and a customer signature your signature it's different than that other one that officials yeah they won't know these how are they gonna know it registration papers look like an Oregon initially we thought it'd be really awesome to get brand new KTM 690 you know it's specifically made for the Baja but that bike is so popular it's completely sold out in North America talking to a few people seems that the 525 is really the proven platform it's been raced down there yourself we started building this thing up it's the bike I learned to ride on so I rolled the clutch all the time I couldn't couldn't figure out how to go up hills so it was completely beat I took it into the guys I had no limits in Squamish they looked at it and you just shook their head they said man almost everything on this bike is toast what we ended up changing is we got a 540 big bore kid in it supermoto cam MX carburetor new clutch pretty cool HT racing oil coolers you know new bearings new bushing some of these bolts you normally don't call for Loctite but since 1,000 we're gonna take some precautions and Loctite as much as you can so they don't have any issues of anything rather than lose the forks were completely redone by the guys at riders edge suspension ian mckellen here we spent a day and a half just building the thing up alright we've installed the ELCA suspension steering damper on this KTM 525 XC it's gonna allow our racers in the Baja to ride for long periods of time with less rider fatigue and greater safety and comfort they are coming from the mountain biking world it's really interesting to come to a new sport when new things that I recognized right away and the companies and the people that really do it for the love are the first ones to step in and help you this bike feels a lot better than the last time I find it on some of those bigger holes I had to be concerned before because if I came in with my front end into it it would completely bottomed out and I you know my hands were basically basic collapse against the front end and now I can just smash into the front of that the take off there and whatever like we want to make a significant adjustment that's a whole bunch of firmer and then have you ride it into you think of a firmer feel yeah because it's real easy to define tuned once we kind of bracket what it is we're trying to do this much bigger difference and when we make those you got to go with their right keep in the back of your mind that you know ba has been it's it's legend it's been talked about and done for you know 30 40 years it's the holy grail of off-road racing people's reactions when say we're doing bajas people kind of look up and raise her eyebrow God of all I wanted to do that you know I think everybody talks about doing the BA you watch the movies and you you're excited about it you talk about it as if it's your dream and for most people that always remains that a dream this this trip means a lot to me from from a goal perspective you've got certain things in your life that you want to achieve and you want to do and that you want to experience like riding the Baja for me those are the experiences that I remember in life you know you can live your life every day getting your car and driving to work and life's pretty boring when you reach out and actually look for that adventure and go and do it it's a pretty good feeling and I don't think a lot of people put that time and effort into chasing that adventure in your life like they should know we didn't make it all the way man chemistry every truck pull the trailer California he does vehicle over 5500 no more than five miles I'm giving you a little bit of a break on your speed I'm right near 470 versus 280 so 10 miles an hour on the speed need to get a signature right there the whole ride down were thinking about how hard or how easy it's going to be but we had no idea of what the terrain was like how long it was gonna take us is because we never ready to go forth [Music] yes yes we're running it better than the stuff that we got off to the some guys back [ __ ] that he say that have an older age barrel that was nice kitchen well if we got there and hit the course we realized that there's not much technical about it it's it's a logging road [Music] we jumped on the course south side of San Felipe and we're ripping along as fast as we can and we're looking at each other thinking totally easy [Music] and then we had the whoops we're thinking okay you know maybe this is a couple miles of this whipped out stop we're just rolling these things along we've never really ridden that type of stuff for any extended period of time and it just kept holding and pulling and pulling first thing that crossed my mind was man there's 80 or 90 miles of these there's no way that I'm gonna be able to analyst one of the big things that hits you riding whoops is you know you get just work so hard [Music] definitely learning my limits were very free running which was good I got it's going around the bed you know put my thumb got knocked out for a bit give me a good understanding of where my threshold was it's one thing you do learn out here is you push it just that much too far and you're gonna pay and it's gonna hurt whoo the best thing about riding down here in Baja and in this desert climate and install our riding is you're out there and you're I don't wanna and it really is a world apart from you know from back home it's it's pretty quiet out here it's wide open just a sense of freedom it's almost like stepping back in time as a result we had a couple of pretty good adventures of running out of gas hitting the wall hast but relying on you to get your own gas supply then right okay so there's also depend on whether or not you can even get gas where you're at now right where he's at right now he's out of gas and you can't can't find him so we couldn't try and poach them off a local my first pre ride the Baja was probably my the best experience I just want help by myself in the afternoon I didn't know where I was going I just had GPS and a map I was riding along and I really didn't know where I was I was totally low on gas and I was trying to make it through this one little town I finally made it there and asked some people around to get some grass for me told me that the gas station is another 30 miles up the road found this one guy he had some barrels of gas in his backyard and I guess it's a pretty common thing there you just pull up and a guy comes out grabs a little gallon milk jug siphon gas out of his barrel and sells it to you for for some pesos and you know you're on your way like that after we had an opportunity to pre run the course became quickly evident that the toughest part of the race was just gonna be the length of it being able to stand your bike that long definitely got the feeling that this is gonna be tough it's gonna be a lot tougher than I thought it was gonna be well we're three days before race day now it's Tuesday races on Friday but I've been pretty runny pretty much every day for the last five days and me a day off my thumbs like black and my thumb in the whoops in San Felipe two days ago still sore swollen did 150 miles yesterday I'll be done give me 600 miles total now I'm laying off I'm done plus we had to build our race bike goes out together hopefully we can get that put together by where gets dark today so we thought we were pretty prepared you know we had we build up this awesome bike it was running really well it was great man this thing really pulled through the sand pulled to the whoops with the suspension it was good you're looking forward to riding in there but I don't know what happened you know we crashed the bike it feel the swap and the stock in the engine it just didn't sound quite right it you know the engine blew up in it and two days before the race luckily there were a couple of guys that were staying with us that were bike mechanics and they had a listen to that said you know why to be racist you're you won't make it hit 250 miles into the race so we spent two days tearing down the 525 and swapping everything over the 450 a little bit modification to the ground steering damper is falling it down to hitting right here so suspension light steering stabilizer electrical all the plastics because they already had all the decals and numbering on him the tracking system sprockets tires rims MELAS topic I think we're gonna get it done well looking particularly bad good morning we can't really see you right now so what's up I got up early Wednesday morning around 6:00 a.m. to jump back on the on the tools to just you know finish up some loose ends and quickly realize that we weren't even close it's a day before we go to Ensenada to race and I still have to pre ride my section which is 250 miles long and which I'm gonna be doing that night so I just got this big tank buddy rusty just happen to have one and when I do the whole shot right now this is a crop that I'm taking with me doc Dave's app straps rear flasher medical GPS some extra lights satphone flashlights spare clutch and brake levers battery tube gloves allen key to my KTM toolkit with everything that I need to disassemble the bike EVs neck brace spine protector and body arm extra water Visa Mastercard cash and toilet paper I'm gonna pack this up and probably gas up over here and barely did not really dad and then then this part is kind of sketchy because then I'm gonna take off the West Coast basically doing from 420 just 600 so almost 200 miles way tonight 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. now and tomorrow we have to be in Ensenada by 8:00 a.m. protect inspection I spent pretty much 12 hours today on the bike getting it ready meanwhile radix been pre running his section for the first time and I hope he's backed by at least nine of ten this evening so that we can sort out some details on PIPP some changes in downloader gps with their mac 17 information so we know where we're getting gas that's how fast things go wrong 6 o'clock here thursday morning we're still in san felipe we have to be in Ensenada by 10 a.m. for tech inspection erotic and rusty went out for a pre run yesterday to the coast and we haven't seen them since and they're exclusive back here at 9 o'clock last night we gotta fight a.m. and we're edge md parking lots at the big they're somewhere near Ensenada so we're heading our way to go find them and get it sorted out give us a call I guess last night Radek he didn't get sin sent us an awesome 9 o'clock or something like that you see the fog world in off the coast so silted out they couldn't even get there through there and ear to button so yeah we got got to Ensenada that morning and there's erratic and her us spent a night in Santo Tomas this was new a long way we had no first aid kit and no survival gear so here we are running into this Pharmacia ten minutes we had together I don't helmets the bike inspected yep so you got a lab packed up in a couple Snickers bars and you went to tack inspection holy [ __ ] look at these vehicles I thought we were just showing up for something like grassroots event man saying it was a gong show there was people everywhere Park over there yeah okay it's fun to see and fun to watch but didn't realize how long was gonna take going to get registered there's a line up two hours long I'd rather be racing than it alone I'm kind of tired from waiting in line then we had a head over every bike inspection I was a little bit worried we may have some issues getting through tech inspection with the bike just because we've prepped it at the last minute we're so worried about the inspection the guy didn't even check what's in our medical kit or anything like that the most important part was that the bike had a score sticker on it it was pretty stressful getting me the star line there's so much stuff that you have to organize and put up just trying to get there just all the little details that you have to get done and take care of you're stressed out you're tired and that manifested itself and a couple of blow ups people freak it out you said you were coming back and stressing out you said you were going to check it out flip it out and tweak in and listen okay we're coming over let's go got pretty hairy there for a couple of moments well it's just was like I was just like it's right there man it's right there and right there it was it was there the last time through and we got lost it's a total [ __ ] show just trying to organize it all in it actually might be a relief to get on the bike and ride because you got only a single focus and you're trying not trying to run around and coordinating and you just get on your bike and your ride looking forward to it actually we had a rough plan from back in Canada and we got out there a little bit worse possible sleep think you ever have before doing Baja 1000 oh we heard all night chicks coming and going literally alright start line keep the show on the road we're on the start line was it wasn't as panicky or hectic as I thought it would be [Music] I was so I met the guy I don't know I haven't proved that the first 45 record s go cool thing was this guy Coco who many of you have washed up to glory they profiled him and is it'll branch out in the middle of the desert he was at the start Alliance lop the stickers on everybody's play and then then they waved the flag and I was off see mr. Avila took the corner and headed out of town they have pretty well marked but I really wasn't sure where I was supposed to be going so it's a bit cautious definitely didn't pin it as hard as I could or should have sitting here at grace mile 190 waiting for hundred to come in the top more guys already came through here we're going super fast you know when they're coming through when you see the chopper first because that's their chase vehicle I think he's about less than an hour away someone I can start getting ready well I got some Montezuma's Revenge I couldn't sleep last night so let's see how this goes getting a little nervous all these quads have come by already they kick up a huge dust feels like real racing just like on tv it probably took me 50 miles just to settle into the race you know you're you're not sure what pace you should be riding at if you can hold that pace just the diversity the terrain that I had to cover in that hundred ninety miles pretty much covered everything hill climbs big rocks and boulders whooped out roads big sand washes silt beds and I was done by the time I hit that 190 mile marker I was so ready to get off that bike I'm drew Kaelin to the check boat to sort of bounced him into the pit and almost have a bit out of control and I could see that he was just were pretty stoked that he made it without any any problems it is crazy out there it's just balls out quad passes you have light passes yet and God you just chuck it on dust or you burn forever hey be careful be safe [Music] you you want to pace yourself because people keep telling you you know pre-write out 65% of your speed and then race that 85% of your speed that's great when you're sitting on the sidelines or if you have that discipline but when you're finally on the course you you ripping along you you start to paste some dust from the guy in front of you yeah there's there's there's something that turns on where you have to catch think that the first second when I first got on that bike I was just so excited I was super fresh I was on the salt flats just fully pinned as fast as I could go and then finally get into the technical section catching some guys you know being it on his tail and in his dust and I knew there was rocks everywhere I knew there was turns I knew there was stuff all over the place that could take me out but I just pinned it for about 15 seconds I was completely blind finally I pull out of the dust bug right beside him I was just completely pompey just awesome that way the doctor never saw him again [Music] this next section should be pretty good if we wrote it three or four times we'll have to wait and see I feel pretty fresh now I had college before - - so I'll tell you about an hour and 40 minutes ago and running pace was coming out in five hours we want to make sure that we get as far as ahead of it by the trophy trucks as possible yeah we do not want to get caught behind those guys okay so you could be here any minute then when I got to the checkpoint after my first section and I was I was pretty exhilarated I I think I went about 20 minutes faster on that run than my career on so you know I was super excited I wanted to go actually more fast the quad pasture bike pump man this is awesome but I had this a night section coming up so I was pretty glad to give up to Andrew and you know send them out on the whoop section Pole cuz I'm feeling good man come printed at 5:30 this thing's a [ __ ] pouch while the next section it's all the way down for about 70 miles it's fiery you throwing balls out and then on the way back it's 60 70 miles of whoops it's his last section so we agreed that he can just give it his all and hopefully he can just wear himself out and pass the bike to me for the final 200 miles a night ride I tried to do this section as fast as I could just to give him as much land as I could but he is gonna get caught in the dark and hopefully ahead of the trucks riding at night is it's a totally different experience and skill set then didn't ripping it up during the day you're always wondering am I on the right course here cuz there's roads everywhere and then you come across almost look like this oasis in the middle of the desert at night and then once you got through that you kind of back on your own again just out there in the middle of the dark and then I felt this like vibration through my bones of this massive rumbling and you're you're a shadow you can see your own shadow in the lights of these trucks 30 40 feet ahead eid holy smokes these guys are coming down quick [Music] the second pit stop was the first time I saw like my first trophy truck full speed during the day racing by and it's just amazing like it's like a surging bod moving through the road it's the whole table stays completely still and those wheels are doing all the work and they just they completely flow it's it's unbelievable that this is about everybody fears big thousand horsepower trophy truck on your butt [Music] separate four to six four to six and about half an hour the top bikes are finishing and we're waiting for a writer still 220 miles from the finish line his a satellite tracking GPS unit is malfunctioning because the last reported position is the spot where I handed the bike off to him tried to call in some of the pits they do recall him crossing pit seven three hours ago but since then one of the tough things is that the trucks will be coming through any moment now so they have caught us in the middle of the day [Music] it looks like two little lights yeah this is it [Music] holy [ __ ] 80 bottles of whoops never ended it's absolute mayhem out there now go to the woods okay the only guy out there all of a sudden it just started getting dark I didn't know we're just people and fires and hanging out drinking beer cheering yawn and like booby-traps is he's getting pretty crazy out there man you know waiting for Andrew out the pits we met some guys from from another truck race team Mike Childers was there with his whole crew Mike's won the overall I think twice now and we just shootin shooting [ __ ] having a good time finally and rural rolls in that point a day I've been on the bike for 10 hours and I was I was done I wasn't even able to really think of what needed to be done we had to change the tire save the brave topped up the oil filter change put on the lights a bunch of things like that Mike just jumps in there starts barking orders starts ranching on give me a 10 mil here get that tired switched off probably burned up your first break this break is screwed we gotta change the breakout it was great man just taking charge and getting stuff done and he's got his whole pit crew in there they're wrenching on stuff they're getting the call on the radio come on let's go and still he's still there right to the last second it's great to see that the heroes in the sport never forget where they came from [Music] that's one of the cool things about the Baja that I noticed that once you're riding once you're racing everybody will help you as much as they can so you get to the finish well I don't know why we didn't break down there I never used to break neither of them eyes used to used to throttle yeah it's good man the bike man well that he's a bit old for 50 just fold and pulled and pulled stock 450 KTM just doing so small for 20 now and we have 210 miles left to go and that's a huge pool for Radek especially at night sure wishing I don't have to get back on the bike tonight but we'll see at that point it races more than half over and undone my to pieces and it's all up to erratic now to take it home it was gonna take a major disaster or screw up or mechanical failure at that point to prevent us from finishing the race when I got on the bike for that last leg I was I was wavering between two sides one on one hand I wanted to make sure we finished but at the same time as I started riding I really wasn't getting excited and and it gets amplified when you're riding at night there's only got there's this light in front of you you can't see anything beside you you just strictly focused on what's up what's in front of you so I was starting to go faster faster caption some guys passing them and that that really encouraged me even more so I was giving her pretty good Sun been sending I fueled up and went through another checkpoint and you know I started realizing that we're getting close I think we could make it about five minutes after that thought I came over this filthy mound sort of sunk into all this silt and my bike completely stalled get passed by all these vehicles [Music] what was wrong with the bike I realized that the chain was completely tight there was something wrong with the chain guide so I tried to take the tire off their rear tire off but a lot a last checkpoint we must have tighten it too much in the little way that I had kept bending on me so I couldn't get it I really haven't broken down at this point and that's it we're not gonna finish the race because of this stupid mechanical I was there probably half hour 45 minutes just trying to get this thing going so you know what I did it one more time I took the thing apart again I've wrenched on that chain tried to free it up finally I got a go I got it to loosen up and tighten it back up start it up and I finally finally had powers after that pit barrel and I headed back in Ensenada to hook up with the rest of the of the chase crew who were tracking the bike on line he was definitely moving slow slower than we had expected but everybody was through that section of the course so we hung around the hotel room until until we figured that he was within probably 40 45 minutes of the finish and rolled down to the finish line [Music] that point it was funny one o'clock in the morning and the freakshow who's going on for a while and I think the trophy truck had come across the line a couple hours prior and all the top buddies were coming through and some of the solo riders were going through at that point so it was pretty cool to be at the finish line there across the road at ojos Negros and started riding the section I hadn't free rode before which was you know the last 50 miles back to Ensenada so I finally take the one last corner and I see all the people I see I see the finish line at that point I was I was pretty happy how to girls through just like oh just like this kind of like roll in there and guys thinking pictures selfish comes up shakes your hand all right browning told my buddy we started to start telling the stories and stop stop so I stopped in front of them they're going go this way down to some alley they run behind me they grab my lights ripped off some [ __ ] off my backpack they try to talk to Jackie it was awesome as far as life experiences you know this is a big accomplishment you know the challenge isn't just racing the dirt but it's listening to all the people of saying how hard it is a home possible it is and still planning to do it and then actually accomplish it it's true just because of the experience they have along the way and the near misses and the mishaps and potential from the disaster it's such a rush and to come off that high just settle back into this life of monotony I don't know it just definitely leaves you looking for something else what the next biggest challenge is that's for sure [Music] [Music]

Channel: Radek Burkat

Views: 26,022

Keywords: baja1000, score

Id: QQzUQvbdn6Q

Length: 44min 51sec (2691 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019