A Winter Ride Report, ADV Rally Info and an Interview at KM 0 in Baja, Mexico.

We are discussing the setup of GPS tracking for motorcycle rallies and adventures. Additionally, we'll provide updates on the ADV Cannonball Rally. Aaron will share a ride report from late January, detailing his trip from TJ to Bisbee, AZ. During his journey, he visits Slab City and the Salton Sea but encounters some snow along the way.

Aaron also interviews the owner of the ADV Baha GS Garage in Baja, Mexico. 

Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast, where we discuss all things on 2 wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle-related nonsense. Alright. Welcome to season 2 episode 3 of ADB Cannonball podcast. My name is Taylor Lawson, and I am your host. And tonight, my tonight, Aaron's this morning, Aaron Pufal is joining us today.

Nice. How are you doing, bud? Yeah, man. Doing great. Excited for this podcast.

Excited to to learn a little bit more about, the things you've been up to, and I've got some interesting things I wanna share with you. Nice. Let's do it. Alright. So first of all, what are you drinking?

Today, I'm doing a little bit of leftover, spice rum and a diet Coke. So it's a poor man's dark and stormy. Cheers. Nice. Very nice.

Alright. And I'm gonna go with the, I'm gonna go with the tall boy 10% Depa, double IPA, from Norway. Wow. 10%. Or is it Denmark?

Yeah. Anyway, maybe it's Denmark. I think it might be Denmark. Anyway, you know, I gotta hang with you drinking that hard stuff. So I was doing, I was doing a little bit of searching through the web this week, and I came across an interesting statistic.

Are you ready? Mhmm. So what so in the in the in the Great Britain market segment for a for adventure motorcycle podcast, what number do you think we are? 87. No.

We are number 2, baby. We are number 2. Number 2 in Great Britain. I love it. Congratulations.

That's that's big news. Yeah. No. Who who knew we'd get there? Who knew?

Here we are. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks very much. Thanks so much.

Thanks for all your support. Thank you. So let's see here. So you know what? I just wanna say that we've got a really exciting interview coming up at the end of this podcast, and I wanna I wanna tee it up right now.

We're gonna talk a bit about some of the the emails that we've had. I have to say the chat, the chat is going off, man. The chat about the actual rally is really becoming it's becoming an entity unto itself. We've got a lot of great information there. So Yeah.

That's on, the Facebook group, not the Facebook page. And, I think it's a great place for people to get excited about it, trade some information, and get some questions answered. I try to respond whenever I can, and often people in the community will, will help will help each other anyways. Yeah. It seems I mean, what's really nice about this, and I think it was the same thing I experienced when we did the Alcan rally, is that, like I said, we walked into we walked into a bar one night.

We were, like, the last ones in the door, and, and people were like, come on. People who are really experienced, they called us over and they said, come on. Sit down. Let's talk about how to get this right, and we'll keep help we'll keep helping you right up until you pass us. Right.

Fair enough. So so it's it's really nice. There's a lot of there's a lot of, camaraderie. There's a lot of good sportsmanship, and that's really paramount in this, which is it's nice. It's really nice nice feeling, nice community.

I think that most of the competitors in the ADV cannonball are have signed up for the adventure, and to be part of a well organized group. I think that the few that are very serious about arriving first each night at the hotel for those bonus points are, you know, probably keeping, keeping quiet and, being super competitive about it. But, it's really nice to see everyone helping each other out. You know, that might be a good segue into it. I I actually, I didn't I don't think I mentioned it, but in terms of the interview coming up, it's actually with Marco Marco from ADV Baja Garage in Tijuana, Mexico.

And that is I'll let you get into it. Maybe you can tee it up a bit more about how you how you came to know him, and, I think you may even cover that in the interview. But anyway, that's what's coming at the end of this podcast. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, you know, we started touching on the questions here.

Hans actually put a, he put a great question in, which actually came in this morning, and it was talking about the service plan for the Garmin inReach. And what should Cannonballers sign up for when activating a mini 1 or a 2? Like, what's the lowest cost plan, unlimited tracking? Flash out some details, if you would, please. Yeah.

Well, first of all, you don't have to have a Garmin inReach or a Mini inReach. But if you are gonna go buy 1, and it's probably a good idea, perhaps let me say give you an example of why it's a good idea. If you plan on doing the off pavement sections, and you will you will surely be outside of cell phone range. So to satisfy the regulations, you have to be part of our spot wallet tracking page. That can be, achieved in 2 ways.

1, by running a a free app on your phone, but that requires being connected to cellular service, or you can be super safe and have that tracking be satisfied by a Garmin inReach. If you have a Garmin inReach, I don't care which one you have, that's the right one because, you know, you own it. If you're gonna go buy 1, and I'm not saying you have to go buy 1, get a Garmin inReach Mini 2. This is the the idiot proof version that you can just throw in your pocket. And perhaps you can indulge me with a I can, with some time to tell you about a story, about an on ride a on road rider where it could have come in handy.

Oh, is this the story about the guy in Sturgis? Yeah. So he was coming back from Sturgis, and he went missing. And, you know, everyone was looking for him and figuring out where he was. Eventually, he was found, but he was in pretty bad shape, and he was found several days.

So I think the story was he basically went off the road. And, you know, I always carry my inReach in my chest pocket of my of my riding jacket. That way it has a pretty clear view of the sky, it's never failed, and I don't put my tracker on my bike. Because if you come off your bike and you break your leg, you know, you're not it's gonna be a bad day to get to your bike. And sometimes when people have a have a yard sale, you know, their bike went off the side of a cliff or something.

So I recommend that everyone puts their Garmin inReach Mini 2 or whatever version you have in your pocket on your person. So if you come off your bike and you're alone, in that case, it could have really saved this guy a lot of, a lot of trauma, because he was just in a A pain. Yeah. Yeah. He was in a ditch for days.

And I don't know how someone found him, but someone did. And he and he could have died simply just going off the side of the road. So, so, yeah, there is a case for having a GPS tracker on your person. Yeah. And I just wanna talk about one thing that's, so we had a checklist when we did Alcan, And one of the checklists, it was actually as the co driver, that was my job.

I was the guy turning the pages in the book, entering the data in the iPhone on my it was tied to my my lap, to the dash, to the actual clipboard on my lap, and then I'd send the information. But one of the things so I'd send the information from my computer over to Aaron's, and it would tell Aaron whether he had to speed up or go slow. And then the the meter went from, imagine like a sunrise, and it went from on the left hand side, if he was 2 minutes slow, 2 seconds slow, he would speed up in dead, like dead center straight up 12 o'clock. That was on time. And if he was too far to the right on the other side of the right hand side of the horizon, then he was 2 seconds too fast, and he had to slow down.

So anyway, the point is that it's really important that all of that equipment be charged. And one of the things on our checklist every day was take all 5 computers in, all 5 phones in, including the inReach, and charge them overnight. So I just wanna make that let me kind of point. So have a checklist. It's it's a bit nerdy, but, hey, man, they work.

I mean, David Lee Roth David Lee Roth had a checklist on how to make sure his his his he he did. He had a he had a he was he was the first rock and roller with with a checklist that had a couple hundred points on him, and people wouldn't honor those things. And he couldn't do a performance because he couldn't they meant things like you've gotta have this amount of amperage service. You've gotta have this. You gotta have this.

You gotta be able to get this much. You know, the doors have to be this wide to get the amps through. Anyway, checklist work. And, I can give a reference to a book that I that I read that it was quite good. But the I highly recommend that that is the top of your checklist.

At the end of the day, before you get out oh, yeah. Aaron, what's the most important thing about checklists? Is you read them, and you check them off as you do them. Unfortunately, you get you get a little you get a little comfortable in your nightly routine that sometimes, you can forget. I I will say that I think the Garmin inReach Mini 2 surely has a USB c charging port, and the older mini 1 that I have has a micro USB, which I have to carry around an extra cable just for that.

So that might be something to to consider also. And that battery lasts all day. That lasts a whole day of riding. And then in mine, several years old, and the battery still still works. And I have that on several days a year.

So, so, yeah, you don't you don't have to worry about it running out of power as long as you charge it at night. Yeah. Good point. Talking about things, you said you use it several days a year. So that brings me to the one of the questions that we had that came up and it said, what or do you need to do you need to keep it activated all year, or are you able to, like, downgrade the service part of the year?

How do you sort that out? Yeah. So maybe, maybe I forgot to answer that. Sorry. So it's important that whether you buy used one or you have one, that you choose the service plan that's most appropriate.

So the service plans changed in the last year some of the, some of the terminology, and they're trying to compete with the free satellite messaging that's coming out on the iPhones. And that does exist, but there's no satellite tracking. So our main purpose is to have satellite tracking and, additionally, emergency signaling. So, you want the package that has the unlimited tracking. So, in our case, unlimited 10 minute tracking is more than enough because the Spot Wallet interface doesn't have the resolution anyways to have anything more than 10 minutes.

So the premium service from Garmin provides 2 minute interval tracking, and the standard package provides 10 minute tracking. So my recommendation is go go for the standard package, and it's reasonably priced. And, I think you're getting to the point that you can discontinue that service at will now. So Garmin does not lock you in to an annual plan. However, there is a reactivation fee.

So, unfortunately, in our hemisphere, unless you live in Southern Arizona, you're probably not riding that much in, in the winter. But in any case, yeah, the standard plan is the is the best price plan for the Cannonball or in any other rally. Okay. Fair enough. Good good information to have, especially when activating these plans.

So I tell you what, let's take a commercial break, and then when we get back, maybe you can give us some information about your ride from Tijuana to Visby, Arizona. Ladies and gentlemen, could I please have your attention? I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story, And I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen. Cannonball. Hey, Cannonballers.

Thanks for subscribing to our podcast. We appreciate it. If you're not a cheap Canadian and want to buy us a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee dot com, or better yet, buy us a case of sweet ass craft IPA. We'll visit on patreon.com. Links are in the show notes.

Now back to the riveting podcast in progress. And we are back, season 2 episode 3. Alright, Aaron. So I've been dying to hear about this trip from Tijuana to Visby, and I wanna know what I wanna know is I know it's been a while. I want you to I want you to give us the details.

I know it's been a while since you actually have been in the saddle for I don't know. How many what was your longest day? What? 10 hours in this trip? 10 hours?

There was a brutal one after Bisbee from from Bisbee to Northern California through the snow, by the way, and it was brutal. Nice. Yeah. I think it was over 750 miles. I want you to talk about maybe how to prepare for it, things you should do, and what it's like that compared to what's happening in the actual rally because it's important for people to prepare themselves for it like anything.

I mean, it's an event. Right? But, anyway, I think that's an important element to to bring into this. I know you had mentioned that, but I just wanted to Yeah. I want you to focus.

Bring that up. Riders being physically used to to crushing miles. So after my first day, it was brutal. I was in that hotel, and I did not wanna get up. I was dipping into the painkillers, like like in like in a bad way.

Thank goodness there is no camping in Arizona. There really isn't any KOAs down there or anything. There's very few of them, so you're really hotelling it. And I was looking forward to the hotel. I was in bad shape.

And another thing I remember is that I was unfamiliar with a lot with a lot of my gadgets and my and my tracking systems, and I'm always, running beta versions of the of the Rally app and stuff. And, you know, I was I was clumsy with it all. So advice gained from this recent trip after not being in the saddle for a while is, a, go for some long rides before the cannonball, and 2, be familiar with the equipment on your bike that you're interacting with, and never bring a piece of kit to a rally that you are not thoroughly familiar with, because it is gonna distract you, it's gonna hold you back, and it could actually be a little bit dangerous. If you're down staring at your dashboard and fooling around with a phone or something, you could end up in a ditch very, very easily, if you're not familiar with it. So that's my advice.

That's a really good point. And, I'm gonna give you an example that I had that was related to a very, very simple piece of equipment. No electronics at all. You ready for this? It's called a pair of rain pants.

You're so wild. Yeah. I I know. Crazy. Woo hoo.

So here's what happened. So I got these. So I I have the, the the the the Tech Sevens, the Alpinestar Tech Sevens. And they have a pretty big shin plate, shin guard. And it was, you know, it's a 4 buckle boot.

It's a it's just one step down from a motocross boot. It's in a kind of enduro boot. And so it's but but as yeah. I remember when I bought them, you're like, can you shift with those things? Yes.

Day 1, I could shift. It wasn't a problem. So it was there's still a lot of flexibility in them, but not laterally. Anyway, so I got these on and I when I when I bought them, I the the pants that I normally wear, this is a Swedish made pair of riding pants that I have, and they're over boot. So I put those on and I was like, oh, they're good.

And then I bought then I got my rain pants. I'm out in the torrential downpour. I'm like, oh, I can bust it. I can I was just riding the from the, like, you know, grocery getting? Right?

And I came back and I was like, oh, it's downpour. I'm gonna put on my new pants. And I was like, oh, and I couldn't get them. Oh, no. Like, full like, they're full zip, full leg zip.

Right? So they zip from the hip all the way down to the bottom of the boot. Well, in my case, they zip all the way down to the boot, well, just to the just to below my knee. And I was like, okay. I'm gonna have to trade those out because I wouldn't go over the whole get up.

The bottom line is that you need to put everything on, including your electronics, and go ride with it. Anyway, I've made that mistake. It's so important. And, plus, you know, if it's your first big ride of the year, maybe, maybe things don't fit anymore. I will say that okay.

So leaving from Tijuana, if anyone remembered my very first field note, I tried to walk from the San Diego airport to the trolley system down to the Tijuana border, and then walk across the border, because it's really expensive to fly directly into Tijuana for some reason. Anyways, I had found out that there was a free commuter bus from the airport to the trolley. So this time, it was a lot easier than being a strange man walking down the side of the highway, leaving San Diego airport trying to get to the trying to get to the trolley. Yeah. Nice.

I gotta tell you something I did that was really that was really dumb. So, it's one of those things. You look at a map, and you're like, well, I mean, how hard can it be? Right? You got down there.

There was construction, and then you're the guy, you know, dragging a bag down the road. Or, you know, your bag was already shipped down there. Either way, you're you're walking down the road in a place where there's clearly no place to walk. There's no sidewalk. So I was I was going to a ski resort in Northern Sweden, and I didn't know I, like, I saw the road and I was like, okay.

I'll just go. I was like, so the cab can drop me off here, and then I can I get off the train, take the cab off the mountain, and then it can drop me in this parking lot, and then I'll just take my rollie bag straight across up that path, and and and then there's the lodge? And it was a ski and scout place, and what I didn't what I didn't recognize is that you actually had I had to drag my rollie bag across the across the slope. It was embarrassing. People were like, what are you doing?

I was like, it's for the cabby. I gotta get to the airport. I mean, I gotta get to the hotel. What do you want? Gotta get to the hotel.

Anyway, apparently, Cabby Cabby dropped us on the wrong side. So just saying things happen. Don't be that guy. Yeah. So once I got into Tijuana this time, I went and met Marco.

We had way too many drinks. And right after we closed this topic, we'll, we'll play that interview. And I needed new tires. So I have a flat tire during that rally. So anyways, they were able to put on all new tires.

I put on Michelin Road 6s, because I was doing a lot of highway riding in the next the next few trips. And I was impressed, because normally, I service my own bike, including oil changes and the computer reset, and I always take my my wheels off to get to get the the tires changed. Anyways, this time, they did everything because it was reason reasonably priced. And I was really impressed that they put the paint marks over all of the torque areas. So on the brake calipers, on the pinch bolts, on everything on my ride, they marked everything with paint.

Because normally, if someone else touches my bike, I will just quickly, you know, not right in front of them, but I will I will go and check torque on everything. It's so dangerous. If a caliper comes off and gets and gets in your spokes, it is it is a very bad day. Yeah. So I was really impressed.

And the paint is super nice because, you know, it's not as good as being wire tied. But at least with the paint, when you stop for fuel, if you take a moment, you can visually and super easily and quickly check if any of those bolts have indeed, moved. So I was really thankful that for the first time in a long time, when someone else has has put their hands on my bike, it actually, it actually went well. Yeah. That's nice.

And, it seems like I mean, he runs a really professional operation. So it's it's it's that totally makes sense that that would have been done there. So I'm glad you had that good that good experience. The Baja GS garage. So you would think they they would know how to work on a GS, which is great.

And and I had left my bike there for months. So, you know, you just call them up and say, I'm coming down in the week. By the way, can you service it, and can you change those tires? And then, you know, they wash it for you. It's not expensive.

They made sure that the trickle charger was on the whole time it was there. It was great. But when I left Tijuana, I had to go to Bisbee to meet with Sterling Noreen, and I had taken Mexican roof. Sterling Noreen. You kinda just blast over like Sterling, Norleen.

Like, you had a you had an interview with Sterling. Really? Yeah. Yeah. He's a OG badass of the ADV film world.

He's a super cool dude. And, you'll hear in the interview, you know, he's he's really polite. He he's he's he's welcoming, and I was honored to, to spend some time with him at his motel in, in Bisbee. But when I was on my way there, the trouble is it's the end of January, so I took Mexico route 5, which goes into some pretty high altitude. And, you know, I'm fairly prepared for these things, but it was cold, man.

It was 0 degrees Celsius. It was just above. And I had stopped, and I had immediately gone into the winter gloves, the full on gauntlet winter gloves. I had Got every bit of layer I had, including including my rain shell that I put underneath my jacket. So it was it was cold, and it was cold all day.

It was not fun. But once I got off the mountains and crossed the border at Mexicali, I think it's I8. You join I8, and then I10 for a little bit. And, boy, there were a lot of bikes, man. There were huge groups of baggers coming westbound on either i8 or i7, and they were heading towards California.

And it was really cool at the end of January, on a Saturday afternoon, to see so many bikes on the road, and they were kicking it down. It was really awesome to see that. And they were riding it as a group, but there was a bunch there were several big groups. Yeah. Huge groups, like proper formation riding.

Nice. How do I put it? A bagger is definitely in my future at some point. I, you know, I don't know if I can give up so much performance. That's the problem.

You know? But it is cool to ride with a group and and to see people who know how to ride information properly. That's always a pet peeve of mine, is that people don't know how to do that. You know, they're not badass enough to know, or they don't have the skill set, to do that. But, it was really rewarding to see them, you know, such a massive group.

Alright. So you did touch on formation. Can you just give us a heads up? So I know that when I went when I went out with you and we had I think we had 9, The the day has changed. Some people sat sat them out.

And some people would decide to go fishing when we were in Aspen. But one of the first things that you required everyone to do was to, first of all, watch you draw it out on a whiteboard and then to watch, like, a 2 or 3 minute video on formation. But just to be clear, talk about that for a minute. Right. So ride leader is always, you know, on the forward left hand side of the lane, and then you stagger stagger from there.

And, you know, my rule is if we are all of a decent riding caliper, is to keep the gap small enough. I don't like using a distance reference. It's like a time reference. It's a couple of seconds, gap only. But the point is is not to have, you know, cars sneak into your formation and and split up the group or just be dangerous.

You know? The number one reason for a formation is to keep others outside of your group. Plus, when you get into into cities and towns, you know, you I think in California, you can even ride 2 by 2 through stop signs, and other traffic controls. So the system is set up to allow riders to ride as a group, but the group must be tight. Now I realize I'm pressuring people to be in a group.

If you can't if you don't have the skills and experience to ride in a tight formation, don't. Go to the back of the group and and, you know, stay there. But, I would encourage everyone to have the skills to to ride in a proper formation. Yeah. And just to comment on that, I remember when we were coming past one of the reservoirs in, just outside of Aspen.

I can't if you think of the name, the the what's the the one pass we just kept doing back and forth over over and back independence pass. Right. We came in. There's a straightaway there. And, I remember we were we're going by the reservoir on the other side, other the the non Aspen side, and we were stat we were out.

So there were some people who were slower in the group and the and the formation there's only 9 of us, so it could have been, you know, the formation could have been fairly tight. But there were certain people who were like, I don't think that that's a good idea. Not that they didn't have the riding school, they just didn't wanna do it. It. And, and they hung back, and then cars would so a car goes out and looks.

So the first rider is almost right on the line, and then the other riders are sort of in in in the wheels, in the stagger formation. And then what happens is his car comes up from behind and ducks out and looks to see how far up it is to see if they can pass. And they see the the bike at the very front is a little bit further to the left than, say, the 3rd bike, and they go, wow. That's a big train. I can't get past that in this port in this period of time.

Well, first of all, what are you doing going that slow anyways on Independence Pass? But if it's actually a fun section and an epic climb, I'll often tell a group that, especially in a place like independence pass or passes like that, okay, everyone. We'll all meet at the at the top of the pass, at the turn off, and then we'll all let our brakes cool down, and we'll laugh about how much fun that was. So often, I will I will just tell the group, everyone's on their own, because I know that there's a pull off, at the at the top of that at the top of that pass. But most definitely, when you are on a major highway and you're doing crushing boring miles, having a tight formation specifically as you described it is important for that reason.

Yeah. It gives you that safety element. I just wanna make a comment that, you know, whenever whenever you you're you say that into the headset, I'm like, right. So when we get to the other end, Aaron will Aaron Aaron's brakes will be cold. His oil will be cold.

He will have already been there. He'll have been out, had lunch, and come back, and the rest of us roll in. I don't believe a word you're saying. Fair enough. But I do wanna say this.

One time I was out riding, I was riding a I was in Chama, New Mexico. I was out with my buddy Derek, and I was riding his XR6 100. And I was with a bunch of guys, and they were really good. They were they were way better than I was at that point in time, probably probably probably still, if not more. And they were out there, and they were just crushing it.

So the problem with being the slow guy is that when everyone's done having their break, they're when you get there, they're ready to go, and the last guy never gets a break. So that's so the first guy gets to remember that. I'm just saying, Aaron. That's that's interesting. Yeah.

Oh oh, that's never been a problem for you, has it? You've never been you've never been that guy. No. I I will say that as I get older, I just I don't go off pavement, as much. But I find myself riding with other big GS riders, and we're all of the same, you know, riding caliber.

So so we're all kinda okay. Time for a break because we're all we're all, you know, needing a break at our at our at our vintage. Yeah. Fair enough. But I have to say, one of the things, just to talk about comms, and then we'll get back to more of this.

But, one of the beautiful things about having good comms is that you don't have to come up with these crazy signs and how to talk to people to get the, what does it mean by that? What what what's he what is that symbol? What does he mean? No. I think he needs to go to the bathroom.

So the bottom line is that when you've got these amazing calms, it's like you and I are having this conversation right now. It's the same thing. You're ripping along at whatever miles or kilometers per hour, and you're having this cheetah, cheetah, cheetah, chatty. And then you can hear each other really well. Hey.

I'm gonna stop in the, you know, the next turn off, I'm gonna stop that sign. There's a good spot. We'll turn off there. So anyway, my point is that comms are really important so you can have that conversation. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Let me, let me tell you my I'll I'll I'll finish the the ride report by telling you that it's the first time when I was leaving Arizona, and I was trying to get as quickly as possible up to Northern California, past Sacramento, all in one day. I think it was over 700 miles. So I was just taking the interstate. I I did stop, in Slab City, which is which is I don't know.

It's super, super awesome. Slab City and the Salton Sea is just I don't know. It's a mandatory stop. I can't really explain why. It's it's not the most beautiful place in the world, but it lack it has it has some character that's that's important to stop and witness.

I haven't been there. Why is it called Slab City? It's like a little bit of an outlaw area. I don't see it. Outlaw.

It's it's turned into a place of like, they call it a lawless place, but it's it's it's really not. It's just a artist, kinda ramshackle hangout. It's it's kind of a voyeuristic view into this this nomad life. It's kinda hard to explain. Salton Sea is a is a 2 part podcast all on its own.

If you get bored, hop on YouTube and get the history of the Salton Sea. But that area is definitely worth riding through. It's a small, two lane, roads. And in that in the doldrums of of of that area, it's a little bit of, nice riding to get off of I 10. Got it.

Isn't that where you pass through the the lodge where Hunter s Thompson used to sit and do some riding? Is that No. That's in, that's in Colorado. Oh, okay. Sorry.

I mixed them up. That's fine. So I was talking to a buddy of mine, Chris, who actually, he's he's a, an ex captain and a ex motorcycle aficionado. Now he lives here in Sweden, and I've known him for many years. He moves here about 5 years ahead of us.

And I and he said, I listened to your podcast, and I heard you guys talk about Hunter s Thompson. He said, I was in Aspen in May in 1990 when he was in trial. He attended the trial of Hunter s Thompson. Wow. You know, he's brought yeah.

Anyway, he said he's gonna he he ended up getting he he ended up I think he was acquitted. But, anyway, he he said he did crazy stuff when he was in in he when he was in the, in the courtroom. He, like, he dumped water on his head. I don't I don't know to the effect of what, but he dumped water on his head. And then, he went out and he rolled around in the snow during a break.

So I mean, I was like, is this guy nuts? He's like, oh, he was totally off the charts nuts, but I don't know if he really No. He's nuts. So when, you know, he he he actually took his own life, but he wrote in his will as the badass that he is, is that when I finish taking my own life, I want you to take my ashes, put it into a cannon, and shoot it, and shoot my ashes everywhere. So, he lived his life in a certain way, and he ended his life in exactly that that same that that same vein.

In that explosive fashion? Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Right?

So, anyways, so to finish the to finish the ride ride report, I 5 was closed down because of snow. Now I'm talking not in Oregon or smart that. I'm talking in California. In that first mountain pass as you leave Southern California, it was closed because of snow. Not it it was really unbelievable.

So I had to actually slow down a bit, and I figured, well, I could tell on the radar that the snow kinda had slowed down, and I could tell that it was above freezing. So if I slow down a little bit and actually grab some lunch, by the time I get there, the road should be open. And then lo and behold, the road reopened, and there was, you know, wasn't a lot of snow on the sides, but there was definitely snow on the sides. So, yeah, it's a it's a challenge riding around, even in the the southern part of of the US when it's the end of January for sure. Yeah.

Fair enough. And well, thanks for that. I'll tell you what. I think this might be a good time to segue into you actually having an interview with Marco. It's time for field notes.

A collection of voice notes recorded on location while we're on wildly exciting motorcycle adventures packed together for your amusement and our public shaming. Okay. We're sitting here with Mario. Mario is the owner of ADB Garage in Tijuana. My opinion is better described as a ADB complex.

He has a shop here. He has a bar. He has, he organizes rallies. And the facility is located just 10 minutes across the border into Tijuana in Mexico. It really is the gateway to, to Baja.

Whether you're coming in or out, it's absolutely the place that you want to stop. And full disclosure, why why am I here? Because I have my GSA here. He's fixing it up after the rally. We we, gave her a a bit of a beating, and, she's getting new tires and a and a service.

So, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Harry. Oh, thank you for having me here, and welcome to Baja, here with Kilometers Hero with Baja Starch. Perfect. Perfect.

And, you know, how would you describe this facility? It's really something special. I've I've ridden all around the world. I've never seen anything like this. So how would you describe it in your words?

This is a a man cave, a blown man cave, that I used to. I still do have it home, but, you know, for 50, 60, 70, 80 bikes to come. Right. You know, it's it's a place where, you know, when you ride from south of Mexico into the states or when you ride from from your home down to Baja, this is a must place to stop because we got everything. We got a 4 bay, shop that we have the state of the art, facility in software for your bikes and, maintenance parts, repair parts, and we have a a a band that in case you need it, we can go help you out.

At the same time while you're here, you can have a beer, you can have a glass of wine, you can have water, Or you do enjoy a, you know, freshly made pizza or a burger or or burrito. Right? But it's it's a good place to come and stop. And everyone who knows me knows that my happy place is at the bar. So this is a casual, not really polished, interview, but we're here at the bar.

We have, we have the pizza oven behind us. The guys are making tacos, and, the the ladies are serving some beers for us right here. And I came back after the ADV Baja rally, and thank you so much for hosting that. It was that was an amazing amount of work, and you did an amazing job. And I came back, because you you don't know this, but I sat down with one of your instructors.

It was the Korean guy. What is it? What is his name? Jean Kim and I ride Baja. I ride Baja.

So I was sitting with him, and I was trying to find out, you know, why is my why are you doing this this this rally and there's so much effort? And it's obviously, a big money pit that you shovel money into. He told me your story that he was standing outside in the front with you, and you said you were gonna get some containers and build a a bar and build a shop and you wanted to become a tour tech dealer. And, he told me this inspirational story. So maybe you can describe that conversation you had with him and why he thought maybe you were a crazy person and now maybe he admires you a bit.

He's not the only one that I think I'm crazy. Right? And and about admiring, well, my hats go up to him. You know? I ride Baja.

It's it's Jean Kim is is a passion about motorcycle, and and we're we're gonna start working together a lot. Nice. But we'll get into that maybe into another podcast. I keep saying passion is my thing. You know?

Back in the days, I started on an o 7 1200 GSA that I still have it. It's got a 101,000 miles. And every time I would see, like, an errand on the side of the road, you know, pushing buttons on GPS, all dressed up, he said he's got an issue. So we'll always stop building out loud. So there's where the idea part of building a place for the traveler to come over and have a good time.

Right? Right. But, the main thing, the idea was that. They said, okay. Well, and if I do this going on the side of the road, you know, why do we have a place that people can say that would be my comfort bracket.

Right? Right. Place that I can go and I know that I can get either directions to go to Baja, you know, a little service, some pointers, or just come over and enjoy the amazing facility that that we have here. Yeah. You know?

Outside there, once you walk in, the first thing you see is the Baja. Baja that I build out there, it's just made out of the leftovers of the chains that we replace on bikes. Right. You know, hopefully, you guys be able to visualize it, but please, Google us up in Baja ADV Garage. We are on Instagram.

We're on Facebook, and we also have a website. Right. I'll, I'll put all those links in the, in the show notes. We forgot to ask you an important question. What we always ask everyone who comes to the podcast is, what was your first motorcycle and how old were you when you acquired that motorcycle?

I was 16 years old. Same. Same. It was a 1984 Kawasaki EX 500. Nice.

I bought it without knowing it how to ride. Relation with my brother, you know, it wasn't too good. And I called him up and I said, hey. I bought a motorcycle. The first thing he says, you knucklehead, you don't know how to ride a bike.

And guess what? I backfired him and I said, that's why I'm calling you. So after he picked it up and brought it back, I said, what do I need to do? He said, one down, 5 up. I don't need you no more.

And from there on, you know, look at me. 37 years riding bikes, you know, since I was 16. That's really great. What a story. We all have those stories and they all seem to be rather rather similar.

And right now you have a 12 50 GS. That's the same as me. Is that a The latest one. Yeah. It's a 2024 12 50 GSA Trophy.

Yes. That's exactly what I have. My last bike now is, it's not a Trophy, but I have the, triple black. Right. Yeah.

And what's your when what's your thoughts on the 1300? When are you doing upgrade or what's in your what's in your your your stable future? I got 6,000 miles working on 7 on this thing. I'm gonna get it till, you know, my last bike. It was a 16 prior to this one.

It's a 2016 1200 GSA with a 120,000. Wow. So hopefully this one I'll put be able to put a 150,000. Right. So I love the 1300 and the reason why I can say I love it because I rode it, you know, for about 7 days.

Okay. You know? I had an issue with my 1200 heading to a tour tech rally, and I called my nephew, Robert, that when you come over and visit us at the garage, you'll be able to greet him. He's a great kid. I said, hey.

Send me my 2,005 115 GSA. Yeah. You know? And put it on the van and send it over to, to, up north. I was at Lakehead, near Oregon.

And guess what? He sent me his 1300 GS. And I say, you, what up, me? Come on. What?

Oh, that's the least that I can do. And I rode it for 7 days. Yeah. It's an amazing bike, but I don't see it in my future. I love the 12 50 GSA.

I have the same opinion. You know, I've had 2 of those. Used to have one nice to ship around to different rallies, and I sold that with, I don't know, how many tens of thousands of miles on it. And I don't have an opinion to really upgrade, but my pit my my advice to people always is, if you have a big bag of cash today and you were to go buy something, okay, fine. You know, go buy it.

But I don't really see the need feel the need to, improve on that. And, I wanted to, I wanted to tell you a story. I live part time in Victoria, British Columbia. It's on Vancouver Island. And I take a ferry to to the headquarters of ADV Cannonball in Port Angeles.

And I always ride the motorcycle except for the dead of winter. And I like riding the motorcycle because it is a thoroughfare just like you just like you talked about. It's a thoroughfare for people coming from Ushuaia up to Alaska or or vice versa. Inevitably, there's always someone talking about going south. And I want you to help me help my fellow Canadians and Americans get over this strange thing we have about Tijuana.

They always say, okay. Well, when you get to Mexico, I have a countdown timer in my head. And they always talk about, oh, is it safe? Is it that? You know, here we are right now.

We're sharing way too many beers. We're having a great time with our fellow bikers, and I've never once felt unsafe. How do we how do we convince everyone that this is a great place and it's a totally safe place and it really is the gateway to some really serious adventure? Okay. My name is Marco Salgado.

I was born in, July 27, 1971. Born in race in Tijuana. Right. I seen the the beautiful, the bad, and the ugly. I travel quite a bit around the world, and I don't see myself living in another place of the world by Tijuana.

Right. You know, I remember the days when people used to say Tijuana is, you know, deadliest city in the world. And all I can tell you is I'm the bad guy, and I'm treating you like this. Can you imagine how the good guy is gonna greet you? Yeah.

Yeah. There's nothing to worry about. You cannot go any further west because there's the ocean. You cannot go any further north because there's the the famous wall. So it's an iconic place to visit.

And I give you a spoiler. If you don't know where the Caesar salad was created, it was created in Tijuana. So we have a lot of wonders here that, you know, I don't believe there's bad people. It's just, you know, people that have different points of views that you do. Me being, you know, quite a bit of a traveler.

Yes. Not here in Tijuana, but I have come across, you know, scenarios where people have talked about guns. Yeah. And not only in Mexico, you know, I'm telling you. It was in Montana.

It was in Oregon. Right. And just recently here in California, I say enter at your own risk. You know, owner has, you know, a gun. So it's like one of those things that what do you wanna call dangerous?

You know? We don't call ourselves adventure riders, you know? Just stay home and, you know, watch whatever your favorite opera. But, you know, I do believe that scenarios may come. And I told my fellow friend when we went riding and said, if somebody stops and asks us for our bike, I said no, I'm not gonna give you my bike.

Why not? Because I promote motorcycle safety. I'm gonna give you my helmet and my jacket too. You know? We we have so much fun on these bikes, but you know, don't believe too many what what do they call it?

Too many news is bad news. So too much information is bad information. So Tijuana, it's an amazing, we get travelers from all over the world and no, it's not dangerous. Yeah. You know, I suggest everyone, I'm gonna put you on the spot here, but are you planning on having that rally again next year?

Yes. We have a date. Yeah. So come on down December. I'm gonna kick your ass next time because I screwed up at at the last one.

But, I will tell people that this is the gateway drug. I will tell everyone that this is a great opportunity to hang out, to have, have a mission. We call it a tourist rally, and you had the tourist minister there. I was really impressed with the with the officials there. And I think this is a a great gateway job.

To finish the conversation about safety, we have a a saying in ADV cannonball which is don't be an ADV weenie. K. And a weenie is someone who sits on the Internet, on the forums that goes, you know, I heard in 1972 that, you know, you shouldn't go to Mexico because something happened one day. So you know what? This is an ADV we need.

So based on what I know about you and riding with you, I'm gonna present you with one of our stickers. It's a ADV badass sticker. So I've officially called you an ADV badass, and I hope you display the sticker, with pride. I sure will. I definitely take it with pride, and thank you very much.

It's an honor for me, Aaron. Yeah. So thanks again for being on the podcast. And, we're sitting here at the rider spot in Tijuana. We're gonna have a few more beers and, reminisce about our ADV travels.

Of course. Come over, you know, whenever you get a chance. Happy to greet you here with chit check about your travels. And, Baja Baja starts here, kilometer 0. Baja ADV Garage.

Registration is now open to the public for the next ADV Cannonball rally. All riders on any motorcycle are welcome to join the adventure. Whether you're looking for an exciting and highly organized coast to coast ride with a group of like minded riders or a friendly competition for cannonball glory, it doesn't matter. Everyone can participate. Head over to advcannonball dotcom to secure your rally starting position today.

Now back to the podcast. Alright. And we are back. That was a really nice interview. You know, miss I guess it was more like a chat.

I mean, there was a there's a whole lot of noise going on there in the background, a lot of music, a lot of festivities happening. A lot yeah. There was a lot of beer going on too. Yeah. It was really nice.

I have to say one of the things I enjoy most about the interview is when he said, look. If I'm the bad guy, he said, imagine if I'm the bad guy and he gets treated this way, imagine how the good guy would treat you. First of all, I have to say, I don't think he's a bad guy at all, but it does also show that he's extremely humble. And I think and also as if you can as you have communicated in all of your dealings with him, they have been extremely professional. He has treated you like family, and, I think that you could you know, anyone could expect that from him.

So Yeah. That was really nice. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. It was fun.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about Cannonball News? Alright. There are 2 spots open for shipping to the start of the rally, and there are 4 shipping spots open from the rally. And I suppose let's do sign ups. Sign ups have been ramping up.

We're hitting kind of a kind of a critical mass right now. Nice. Okay. So we have Mike. Mike is from Savannah, Georgia, and Mike is on a to be determined.

Don. Don Hold on. I I once had a to be determined. It was a 650, and it was a rocket ship. I think we all hope our to be determined is something awesome.

Help to be is awesome. Yeah. Mar Don is from Mars. He's from Mars, and he's on a 12:12:50 RT, And Shane is from Guyana, South America. Is that right?

Guyana? Yeah. Guyana. Yeah. Guyana, South America.

And he is on a TBD determined also. A TubeBd? Yeah. Let's do Chris. Chris is from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and he's on a Ducati Multistrada version 2, which sounds awesome.

Let's do one more. Thelmo is from Dallas, Texas, and he is on a 12 50 GSA, which we all know is the proper bike. Well, you know, I would have to say that a triple black That's right. Can really be the a triple black would really be it, but, you know, I'm gonna Yeah. We're gonna give him credit for that.

That's right. So, like, every time we do a podcast, they're like, we're hitting critical mass as you say. So it might be a good time to talk about what is left. Yeah. I know you've already mentioned in terms of the in terms of the the motorcycle transport, but, like, there's there's a couple things.

There's rooms, availability, and then there's riders. So where are we in those? So everything is governed by the rooms. There are only 30 rooms available, and it's about 5050 people choosing to bunk with someone. And if you don't have any to bunk bunk with, we can assign someone to you.

There are a few groups that have signed up together, and, there are about 50% of those riders are solo. So we have, I think, 9 or 10 or 8, some somewhere in there. We have 8 or 10 rooms available, so we can do the math, on how many spots. And that's for the 2025, Cannonball. I'm gonna start working on the 2026 when I can take a breath, and get and get and get that route up.

But right now, there's, 8 or 10. And I wanted to mention, if people wanna contribute to the Spotify playlist, we have an ADV cannonball playlist, and please email me anything you want added to that playlist. Nice. Very nice. Alright.

And, I think you got one. I have one more thing. Point. Yeah. And reminder that the day negative one, if you wanna come the day before and the hotel after the banquet is not included in all the hotel fees just because I don't know who wants to come a day before, and I don't know who wants to hang out after the banquet.

So those hotels aren't aren't included. But if you email me, I have a discount code for both of those. Very, very nice. I'm sure everyone will appreciate that. And and having having done one of these events before, obviously, this is the first ADB cannonball, but having done rallies before, I have to say that it's really, really good, especially if it's might be your first one, to show up at least one day before and, and when schedule can permit 2 days before.

Because, first of all, you really get to hang out and get to know the other people who you're competing against, and you realize just what a fantastic opportunity is to, in a lot of times, meet lifelong friends who share a common a common interest to you. So that's fantastic. And I also wanna say that I've mentioned it time and time again, but if you come the day before, I will have a practice rally route, on the Outer Banks for you to test all of your equipment. And you'll have several opportunities to get used to running that. So the 1st day of the rally, your eyes are up, and you're just having fun, and you're not fumbling through all the technology.

So, please come the day before if you can, day negative 1 and day 0, and, you can work through all those technical aspects. Now focus on having having fun. Yeah. That's a really good point. And also get it helps you get your it helps you get dialed in.

Right? Your gear, understanding it. So you get to run a very, very teeny mock bit of it, and you get to understand it in in much greater detail, and you understand how you interact with your electronics or in case might be with me, your rain pants. And with that, we thank you very much, and, this is a wrap on season 2 episode 3. Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast.

Please give us a 5 star review on your preferred podcast platform. That really helps us with the algorithm gods. All hail the algorithm gods. You can buy us a coffee on buy me coffee.com/advcannonball, or directly help save this sinking ship for the price of a pint at patreon.com/advcannonball. Follow us on all the socials with the handle at advcannonball.

If you'd like to send us a question or comment for the air, or if you are a musical artist and want your royalty free music played on our podcast, or if you'd like to contact us for advertising opportunities, email us at podcast@advcannonball.com. Thanks for listening, and remember, don't be an ADV weenie. Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the banks.