baja

Creating the Baja Divide

January 2, 2017 By Advocate Cycles

The Baja Divide is a rugged 1,700 mile off-pavement bikepacking route down the length of the Baja California peninsula, from San Diego, CA, USA to San Jose del Cabo, BCS, MX, researched and developed by Nicholas Carman and Lael Wilcox in the winter and spring of 2015-16.

This route connects the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez, historic Spanish mission sites rich with shade and water, remote ranchos and fishing villages, bustling highway towns, and every major mountain range in Baja California on miles and miles of beautiful backcountry desert tracks.

January 2, 2017 marks the Baja Divide group start in San Diego, CA. Prior to this event, we caught up with Nicholas Carman to talk about the process and motivation behind the creation of the route.

The Baja Divide route that you and Lael have created is an incredible resource. What gave you the idea to develop this route?

The idea to publish a route occurred to us while riding in Baja last winter. We crossed the border in early December 2015 hoping to enjoy some fun backcountry tracks and long night of sleep in the desert. Lael and I had ridden in Baja in 2011, on more conventional touring bikes, and with the few off-pavement rides we enjoyed on that trip we knew we needed to come back with more capable bikes. I was already riding 29×2.5” tires, and Lael started the trip on a brand new Advocate Cycles Hayduke with 27.5×3.0” tires. We weren’t sure about the 27.5+ concept at the time. After some years riding fatbikes, Lael was averse to pedaling unnecessarily large tires outside of their useful range, but the 3.0” wide tires on wide rims—tubeless—proved to be the perfect bike for most of the terrain we encountered.

Within about two weeks, after some fortuitous routing connections, it seemed obvious that there was something we needed to create, and to share. I was well aware of the potential that Baja offered—including the riding, the culture, and the climate—and I was also sure that there was far too little information available about backcountry cycling in Baja. There are lots of forums and GPX tracks dedicated to moto routing, but that doesn’t always translate directly to good bike routing. So, over the next three months, with help from a few friends, Lael and I rode all over the place to connect a massive off-pavement resource.

We’re really proud of the final product. The route uses about 93-95% off-pavement routing, and almost all of the pavement is on smaller secondary roads in Baja, which feature very little traffic. The riding is engaging, challenging, but almost entirely rideable. Resupply is found along the route frequently enough to make the route accessible, and the information we provide lowers the stress of guessing where to find food and water. I think the basic guides we have provided will help people get on the route and into the backcountry, although there are still many discoveries to be made on route.

Was it always your intention to create this free resource for everyone?

The resource was always meant to be free, and digital publishing makes the most sense. Most of all we wanted to encourage as many people as possible to discover international backcountry bicycle travel—that’s where the world really comes alive! I often say that our goal is to “put more butts on bikes”, and in this case we’ve succeeded. By making the resource freely available we’re limiting the number of barriers for others to do what we do. I’ve heard all the excuses over the years. So we went down to Mexico with our own money and time and made a route for others to use, and the resource is one less excuse.

Once the route project was underway, we looked around for some help to cover a few basic expenses. We didn’t have to look far, as Advocate Cycles and Revelate Designs each committed some money to cover airfare for three riders from last season, and a few other expenses associated with the women’s scholarship and the group start. As such, it isn’t a business because none of us are making money, but the support of these companies is what helps us offer the resource for free. I’ve often thought that the companies asking for our money should support the things that we love, and the things that make this sport possible. Advocate explicitly does that by supporting ACA, IMBA, People for Bikes, and the Baja Divide. Revelate has been a grassroots supporter of a lot of adventurers and racers over the years, and we’ve known Eric since we bought our first framebags from him out of his garage in early 2012 in Anchorage, AK.

What gave you the idea to organize the group start on the route? Do you think that this group start/group ride structure could take the place of races for this niche within the cycling community?

The group start on January 2, 2017 was conceived last winter when we first published the route concept to our freshly minted www.bajadivide.com website from a hostel in La Paz.

We had talked about the idea for a couple of weeks and were already planning to publish a route, but nobody knew about it yet. And then, with a spare day, I pieced together a basic WordPress.com site and announced the route project. In support of the route project, we suggested a group start from San Diego on the morning of Jan 2, 2017 as a way to encourage people onto the route in the first season, and to provide a unique social opportunity for the bikepacking community. The route concept and the group start were an immediate success. People stated their interest immediately and eight months before the first riders were even on the route, the concept had a strong following. Through the spring and summer of 2016, it was our job to deliver on our promise and we finally published the route the week before Interbike while taking a couple of rest days from the Colorado Trail in Salida, CO.

For many years I’d read in the pages of Bicycle Quarterly about the springtime Pâque-en-Provence meetings that Vélocio and the cycletouring clubs in France would organize. The Bikecentennial of 1976 is also a hugely influential event in American cycletouring, and Lael and I consider it proof of what a small group of people are capable of accomplishing. We were fortunate to meet Greg and June Siple and Dan Burden this summer at the Montana Bicycle Celebration, who are largely responsible for the modern cycletouring movement in the USA.

At the moment there are few bicycle travel gatherings in this country—excepting bikepacking races, organized for-profit tours, and group rides like RAGBRAI or TOSRV—so we went forward with the concept and organized a social group start. In retrospect, I’m not sure we needed the group ride to bring attention to the route, as the response to the Baja Divide has greatly exceeded our expectations. The group start has required a lot of extra work, but it is a novel project and I’m excited to experience this “experiment in living”. I also hope that the group will make a clear statement to communities on the route that our presence has the potential for a positive economic impact. We welcome new businesses and services along the route that provide the kinds of support that cyclists need.

Last spring, I would have been excited to think that a couple dozen people would ride the route this first season. Now, I expect the there will be over 200 people on route this season.

I see a lot of participation in bikepacking races that could easily be redirected to non-competitive events. Also, the success of other group rides concepts including local group events, charity rides, and long-distance group rides are proof that people like riding together. Still, the core of bike travel will always be individual adventures. Most cycletourists and bikepackers are traveling alone or in pairs.

The Baja Divide group start is meant to be a one-time event. It has been a lot of work. The things we want to inspire most are individual adventures. These may be solo or with a partner or some friends, but we would love to see people conceive and design to their own rides based upon the resources we’ve provided.

What aspect of this resource was the most difficult to create? Are there parts of your resource that you wish were available on other routes you have done in the past?

On the ground route research was the most challenging. It required over three months of riding and a lot of time looking at maps and talking to locals. The riding included two rides down the peninsula and a lot of dead ends, but also a lot of successes.

The main published resources include the GPX track, a folder of GPX points representing resupply points and other resources, a simple two-page distance and resupply chart, and a condensed version of the section narratives found on the site. It’s pretty low-tech stuff, but in total it makes a powerful, portable, and low-cost resource.

However, the resources are more accessible and more complete than is available for many other routes. Most routes don’t provide the digital section narratives that we’ve included—those are either included in a printed guidebook or not at all. Digital publishing allows me to update the resource as soon as needed to reflect changes along the route.

Would you personally rather ride an unmapped route as you originally did on the Baja Divide, or follow an established route?

I enjoy both methods of route exploration, and having a mapped resource does not diminish the potential for adventure. In particular, I like established routes because they ensure that you have a connected and mostly rideable resource, although the experiences you have along the way are still very unpredictable. Plus, there’s more to it than the riding. Riding is literally the vehicle to experiencing other parts of travel, when you meet people, encounter weather, and luck upon serendipitous moments that are unique to your experience, like being invited into people’s homes.

Lael and I have enjoyed lots of mapped routes and the Baja Divide is influenced by our experience on the Holyland Challenge in Israel, the Dragon’s Spine Route in South Africa, the 1000 Miles Adventure in Czech and Slovakia, the Top Trail 3 in Montenegro, the GR5 in Holland and Belgium, the Bike Odyssey in Greece, and the Traversee du Massif Vosgien in France. Of course, the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, the Colorado Trail, and the Arizona Trail are major influences here in the USA.

I do love making new routes while traveling, but doing that day after day takes a lot of effort, especially as part of a longer trip. For that reason, I’m expecting a lot of riders that are trekking from Alaska to Argentina with an interest in off-pavement routing will appreciate the Baja Divide. For about two months, they can take their focus away from daily route design and focus more on the place and the people, and of course the riding should keep their interest as well. There is a lot of engaging riding on the Baja Divide. There have already been three couples that have ridden the Baja Divide as part of much longer journeys.

Even when lots of resources are provided (i.e. information), none of this stuff comes easy. It still takes a lot of work to ride a route like the Baja Divide.

You spent the majority of last winter down in Baja and will be doing that again this year. What is it about this place that you enjoy so much?

We enjoy the climate during the winter months, the vast and powerful landscapes, the cerulean Sea of Cortez, tacos and ceviche, and the people. Our experiences in Baja have always been relaxed and restful, even when paired with strenuous riding days. Big starry nights are one of the best parts of traveling in Baja.

Will the Baja Divide ever be an event like the Tour Divide or do you hope that it will stay a bit more casual?

The Baja Divide group start is not a race. There is no losing in bicycle touring, and I’m hoping that with the resources provided and with encouragement from the bikepacking community, we can achieve a relative success rate as near to 100% as possible. That means, a person sets out for an adventure, they do some riding, and they stick with it even if they have to modify their plans. They go home a changed person, happy, successful, and full of pride. You actually can’t fail at bicycle touring, unless you stay home.

Lael’s Globe of Adventure Women’s Scholarship, the first of it’s kind for women and for bikepacking is a very great idea and it’s very refreshing to see you both create this scholarship. Do you think this is something that will catch on and do you hope to continue this idea in the future?

We hope to offer the scholarship again next year.

We received two hundred amazing applicants and selected a really inspiring young woman named Lavanya Pant, who will be riding an Advocate Cycles Seldom Seen starting on February 14. Influenced in part by the women’s scholarship, I estimate that the percentage of women on route this season is higher than on any other off-pavement bike route in the world, and I expect that trend to continue on the Baja Divide.

Another year, another ride down Baja. What do you look forward to most on adventures like this?

On this particular trip, I’m looking forward to riding the route like anyone else, one pedal stroke after another. I love the linear perspective of long routes likes this, and the feeling of knowing where I am going is calming. Ride, camp, resupply, repeat.

View the Baja Divide route resource online at BajaDivide.com.

Building The Baja Divide: 12 Days Towards Christmas

February 8, 2016 By Ryan Krueger

Building The Baja Divide: 12 Days Towards Christmas

Words by Lael Wilcox, Photos by Nicholas Carman

In San Diego, we photocopy a colored atlas into white and black. We cut the pages down to size and highlight probable routes in orange and possible routes in pink. There remains a lot of black and white in between—lots of unknown and lots of hope. We trace our fingers over thin lines, then dotted lines—over mountain ranges and to the sea. Maybe this road actually goes through? Could we ride there? If we can’t ride, could we push our bikes and make it anyway? Let’s go try. How else do people get there? Who lives there? What do they do? Let’s go see.

We take a ferry to Coronado. Saying goodbye to my godmother in the morning, we ride the Silver Strand to Chula Vista and to a dirt road over Otay Mountain. From the top, all alone, we can see both San Diego and Tijuana. Both America and Mexico—where we came from and where we’re going.

We descend to the pavement and drink soda in the shade at Barrett Junction. We pass a road sign to Campo, the start of the Pacific Crest Trail. We continue to Tecate, the border crossing. I sit in a customs office on the American side, while Nick goes to find pesos to pay for the tourist visa. He returns to retrieve his passport and gives me a cucumber-lime Gatorade while I wait. It’s delicious.

On December 8, a couple stamps later, we cross the border to Baja. We pedal through the gate, to Tecate and pass a tree-lined plaza. Old men play dominoes on park benches. We don’t stop because we’re on the hunt for dirt roads to other places.

On the first night, a Mexican businessman that commutes daily to San Diego invites us to camp in his yard. On the second, a shop owner in Ojos Negros invites us to camp out front. We buy a half-pint of Mezcalito. Are you sure you want that? Why not? She’s right, it’s gross.

On the third day we pass vineyards on the way to Santo Tomas and almost make it to the Pacific. We climb steep and camp on a hilltop. In the evening, trucks honk hello from below.

In the morning, motos flash thumbs up as they pass. I wave to their backs. We stop at the top of a climb to look out at the Pacific Ocean. It’s all downhill from here. Let’s ride to the beach! I crash hard on the way down riding too fast into deep sand. I hear my back pop in four places and burp my front tire. Ouch! Nick digs the sand out of the tire bead and swirls Stan’s while I pick the sand out of my teeth and finally sit up. He helps me back onto my bike and we ride slowly to Erendira.

On the fourth evening, brilliant purples and reds paint over dark clouds at sunset. It’s both stunning and menacing. Ripping down the coast with a strong tailwind, we watch the storm brew. We need to find camp. To Nick’s dismay, I stop and steal brussel sprouts growing on tall stalks by the sea. He points to the sky and urges me on.

Shielded on two sides by rock walls, we set the tent up. It’s sandy and the tent stakes hardly hold. Nick stakes and re-stakes. The tent walls flap loudly in the fierce breeze. We’ll be fine. If we have to, we’ll pack up, ride on and look for shelter. Under the cover of the tent, Nick steams the brussel sprouts with onions and tops them with a dry, crumbly sheep cheese. I swear it tastes like clams and drink the tasty broth. It rains in the night and after several hours the wind dies and we fall asleep.

On the fifth day, we cross the primary paved highway, the MEX1, at Colonet. We ride dirt to Ejido Benito Juarez and follow a sandy arroyo away from the village. Fresh water flows through the valley. Behind a fence, I spy fields of tomatillos, but I don’t steal any. The night is clear and we camp under the stars. A heavy wet frost covers our bikes.

The next day we climb to El Coyote and then Mike’s Sky Rancho. We drink beer with Canadian mototourists until dark. One of their Mexican guides, named Oscar, works in a fish plant in Seward in the summer. He packs salmon. You’re from Alaska? Yeah! When you go home to Anchorage, go to Thai Tom’s and tell my boss that Oscar says hi. Where are you biking tomorrow? To Coco’s Corner. You’re going to Coco’s Corner? He’s the greatest! When you see Coco, tell him Oscar from Ensenada says hi.

The Canadian motos invite us to stay for steak dinner, but they’re not cooking the steaks. Oscar and the crew are, they’re running a business. We’d rather not impose and we’re ready to find camp. We pedal away in the dark and across a stream. The sky is overcast and it looks like it’s going to rain again. We ride half an hour uphill to find a flat spot. Then I realize that I lost the tent. Dang! Where is it? Nick says that we’d better retrace our steps. With our lights on, we descend slowly to Mike’s and look hard for the tent. We don’t find it. Well, what now? We could either ask to stay here, pay to stay here or look again. If we stay here, we won’t find the tent and then we won’t have the tent for tomorrow. Let’s go look again. Nick suggests that the tent might be in the stream. I’m sure it’s not. And then, sure enough, there it is in the stream. I let out a cheer because I’m so happy that he’s right and I’m wrong. We’ve got the tent! We climb back to our flat spot and set up camp. Instead of steaks, we eat beans and tortillas and they taste great. Heavy rain pounds through the night.

The morning of day 7 is clear and bright. We roll out of camp and start climbing. The ground is still wet from the night before and it’s muddy. It’s that nasty clay mud that stops bikes dead. The mud cakes on our tires and chains and my chain drops off the ring. I put it back on, but it won’t stay. A few steps later, Nick’s tires clog in his frame. Neither of us can pedal. We start pushing our bikes slowly through the mud. It’s sunny and not a big deal, we’ll walk until we can ride again. Eventually, the sun will dry out the roads—for now the air is cool and it might take a while. We keep pushing.

And then I see them. On the side of the road are two unopened cans of beer. It’s the little things; cold treasure can make all the difference on a muddy forced hike-a-bike. We stop in the sun, on the side of the road to drink the beer. Meanwhile, a big white pick-up approaches, engine roaring and sliding all over the road. It’s Oscar from Ensenada! Want a ride? That’d be great!

We put the bikes in the bed of the truck and take a ride to the MX3. Back on the bikes, we rip pavement with a tailwind 60 miles to San Felipe, a tourist town. We stay in a hotel for three days and watch full-length movies on YouTube and eat tacos and write.

On day 9 we head for Coco’s Corner and stop short at Bahia Gonzaga. At the end of a paved road, on the other side of a military checkpoint, there is a really nice store. The owners are having a Christmas party and they invite us to join them. We all dance to loud music and drink Tecate Light and eat cake. We camp on the beach nearby and return to the store in the morning to fill up on water. A middle-aged man in a comboy hat asks if he can try reading my Bukowski novel. He does a good job sounding out the words. He wants to learn English so he can drive a truck in Canada. I see his son eyeing my bike. I ask him if he wants to try and ride it. First he shrugs no and I ask again and he agrees. He barely stands over the frame, but he pumps on the suspension fork and he knows how to ride. It’s awesome!

On day 10 we make it to Coco’s and stop early. He insists that we stay. Coco is alive and well! He’s the greatest. That night, a man arrives at Coco’s Corner. His truck has a flat tire and his family is waiting with the truck and he can’t get the lug nuts loose. Coco—it should be made clear that he has no legs—goes out to help with the truck. We make egg and bean burritos and leave one on a plate for Coco when he returns. In the morning I sign his guest book before we leave.

On day 11 we camp in a half built house just above Bahia Los Angeles. The four walls protect us from the wind. The un-paned windows give us a view of the bay, and the lack of roof—a view of the stars.

On day 12 we eat tacos with Pancho in San Rafael. Pancho lives in a trailer above the beach. He fishes when he wants to and he rolls fresh flour tortillas when he wants them. He fries everything on a propane stove top and I swear they are the most delicious fish tacos I’ve ever tasted.

It’s December 20, four days to Christmas and we’re half-way down the peninsula. We pedal across the imaginary border from Baja California Norte to Baja California Sur. It only gets better from here.

The Baja Divide is a projected 2000-mile off-pavement touring route from San Diego, CA to the southern tip of the Baja California Sur. Lael Wilcox and her partner Nicholas Carman have spent two months researching the route, and have recently returned to San Diego to start a second routefinding mission down the peninsula. A digital track will be published by summer 2016, with additional guiding resources scheduled to be published later in the year, leading up to the inaugural group start on the route on January 2, 2017. This group start—neither a group tour nor a race—is a way to encourage people to ride the route self-supported, at their own pace, by starting amidst a community of like-minded riders. Lael is riding a 27.5+ Advocate Hayduke. Learn more at www.bajadivide.com.

Rider Profile - Lael Wilcox

January 11, 2016 By Ryan Krueger

If you haven’t heard of Lael Wilcox, allow us to introduce you. Lael has spent the better part of the last decade touring around the world on her bike. It all started about 8 years ago when Lael and Nicholas Carman decided to take off on a two-month paved tour in the United States—in some ways, the ride has yet to end. Since that tour, they have been splitting their years between working to save up money and traveling by bike.

They have spent time touring throughout North America, two summers chasing dirt routes across Europe and a substantial amount of time in both South Africa and the Middle East. Recently Lael has also taken to ultra-endurance racing with great success, setting the female record for the Tour Divide in the summer of 2015, although for the both of them, travel is most important and will probably always remain the focus.

Currently, Lael is down in Baja, Mexico aboard an Advocate Cycles Hayduke where she and Nick are working on mapping and planning a roughly 2,000 mile bikepacking route through the area. In the end, they hope to be able to publish the route for others to use as a springboard for their own rides. You can check out their project online at www.bajadivide.com. We caught up with Lael during her tour and asked her a few questions about what it’s like living this lifestyle.

RK: For starters, when you aren’t riding, where do you call home?

LW: I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. That’s where my family lives so that’s where I’d call home. I don’t spend too much time in Anchorage. I don’t have a house or a car, but I’ll always go back there. When we’re not traveling we may work in different places. We’ve lived in Tacoma, Denali, Key West, Annapolis, Albuquerque, and France, but for the last eight years, we’ve spent the majority of our time riding.

RK: What do you do for work in between these long rides? Do you keep a similar schedule or does it change year to year?

LW: I usually work in restaurants as a server or a bartender. I’ve been working in restaurants since I was sixteen. The first year I cleaned a bar in the mornings and washed dishes in a cafe for the afternoons. Since, I’ve worked in at least twenty restaurants. It’s usually an easy job to find and an easy job to quit, and I enjoy the work. I’ll work hard for four to six months in a stretch, often two jobs at once. I save money so I can travel on the bike again.

I’ve done other jobs as well. I taught English in France and yoga in Anchorage and once worked the door for a bar on New Year’s. I’ll take any job I don’t dread. Although, serving is fast-paced and fast cash and I prefer it.

I don’t have a set pattern of work and bike travel. Mostly, I travel until I run out of money and pick up a job to save for the next trip and leave town when I can. It’s nice to mix it up. I’ll often live and work in different places. It’s fun and exciting to learn a new place and make new friends along the way, but I’m always ready to leave after a few months. There’s a lot to do and see.

RK: Tell us about your first extended bike tour and what effect that tour had on your cycling and the course of your life.

LW: I met Nick when I was twenty years old while in college in Tacoma, Washington. He gave me a bike so I could commute to work four miles away—otherwise I got around on foot. The bike opened up my world. I love walking, but the problem is walking takes a lot of time. The bike really speeds things up. We started biking all around town together.

At the time, one of my sisters lived in Seattle. The other sister flew in for a weekend visit. I wanted to go see them both. Normally, I would’ve taken the bus—its only $3 even with a bike. However, we didn’t have enough cash to pay the fare. So I said, hell let’s just ride there instead.

At the time, Nick and I were riding fixed gear bikes and it was definitely the longest ride of my life—45 miles. We pedaled and talked the whole way on bike paths, through industrial zones, outskirts and in town. Along the way, I turned to Nick and said, “If we can bike to Seattle, we could bike across the country!” I’d never known anyone to do it, but I could imagine the lifestyle of pedaling all day and camping somewhere different every night. We figured, I’d graduate in the spring and we’d leave from Tacoma and ride to the east coast.

I graduated, but we didn’t have any money—none. So we worked all summer, saved what we could and left in the fall. We flew into Boston to visit Nick’s sister, rode north to Montreal and south to Key West, Florida. We chased fall colors all the way to South Carolina and then rode the coast. Sometimes it was cold and hard, but we learned a lot: how to camp, eat, ride, and spend all day with each other and feel safe and free.

We ended up in Key West in November. It was the end of the road and we were out of money—it seemed like a great place to spend the winter and work. We both got jobs as pedicab drivers and I worked in a restaurant. We shared a small house on a tropical lane with a French guy who assumed the name Jack. We dove off the pier for lobsters and I spent many afternoons at the outdoor laundromat down the street because we only had two white work-shirts. Besides, Felix the coffee man made good Cuban coffee and sassed me cause I was from Alaska. He called me Palin.

We saved enough money in three months to ride out of town and we haven’t stopped since. That was eight years ago.

RK: What do you look forward to most on these adventures? Is it the riding itself, travel to new places, seeing new cultures and landscapes? Tell us what it is that makes you want to live this lifestyle.

LW: This is my life. How does anyone look forward to their life? Do they appreciate what they have? Do they daydream about what could be different? Do they daydream about other places or other people’s lives? Does traveling on the bike allow me to do all of these things? Yes.

I see and experience and feel new things everyday with my best friend in the whole world. We do this together. And then we talk about it. And then we sleep next to each other on the ground and then we wake up and do it again and pedal somewhere else. What else could I want?

It’s not always easy and sometimes it rains and sometimes we fight, but that’s life. Life is not always easy, but it can be damn good.

I look forward to mixing it up. And along the way, I look forward to sunny weather and climbing mountains and sleeping hard and smiling until the wrinkles at the ends of my eyes hurt.

What I look forward to most is going somewhere new every day.

Everywhere I’ve been, Ukraine, South Africa, Israel, I’ve been invited in and I feel like a special guest. People see us on the bikes—they’re curious about us and we’re curious about them. To be invited into someone’s home, you learn so much about how they live and what they care about. If we share a language, then we talk. If we don’t, then we do our best. It’s real and it matters.

In the end, I guess we find a home away from home. We learn new places. We ride our bikes and we’re happy.

RK: Why did you decide on Baja? What was it about the area that made you want to ride and travel there?

LW: Baja is just south of California and, snowbiking aside, it’s one of the last mountainous places we could ride in North America in winter. We rode here five years ago, mostly on narrow, paved Highway 1. This time we came back with bigger tires and less luggage to ride a mostly dirt route. To do this, Nick invested a lot of time and money into printed and digital maps. We’ve decided to commit more time to this project to ultimately publish a high quality route for other riders to enjoy in the future. This means we’ll probably ride the peninsula again this spring to explore alternative routing. I’ve come to learn that the Hayduke is the perfect bike for Baja. The 27.5+ wheels eat up loose rock, sand and washboard.

The peninsula is a desert, the least populous region in Mexico, with open water on either side. On Christmas Eve, we arrived at the dead end of a dirt road. A family was slaughtering a cow and they invited us to stay for dinner and singing and breakfast.

In the month we’ve been here, we’ve ridden along both coastlines, spent a lot of time in the mountains, and encountered lots of fresh water and the camping has been awesome, with mostly clear skies.

Throughout this ride, we have been working on connecting dirt roads and rough jeep tracks as much as possible. We hope to share our route with others and encourage them to ride here too.

RK: What’s next? Any plans after your time in Baja?

LW: We plan to be here for another month or two. We’ll be riding with friends and working on the route and then we’ll see. I’ll need to work sometime in the next few months. We might go back to Alaska to ride fatbikes in the snow. I’d love to ride parts of the Iditarod Trail and in the White Mountains near Fairbanks.

RK: Thanks so much, we wish you all the best in the rest of your Baja tour and will be excited to see where you end up next.

All photos courtesy Nicholas Carman