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The Weekend Ride...
Rayo Del Sol, Mexico
By Scott Forward
A true story of adventure, intended for your enjoyment, and of course for my buddies' enjoyment too--and dedicated to those whom I have tormented over the years during their "not-so-good" rides.
NOTE:Graphic details not for the faint of heart.
This is a long story, but filled with giggles.
We started out on a Thursday morning about 7am from Rayo Del Sol, Mexico headed uphill to what we liked to call "our cabin on the rocks." It was cool and dusty when we left, just four guys out for a three day ride. We all had many, many years of experience and had planned everything in advance; each of us carried backpacks with tools and all that we "could possibly" need for two nights out in the middle of nowhere.
I had a simple, stupid crash early on and put a nice bruise on my leg along with some spiny cactus thorns in my thigh, an unusual occurrence for me. Crashing is not normally in my riding manual as it's become painfully obvious that crashing hurts, so I strive hard to avoid such happenings! This should have been the early indicator for what was to come.
At about the seventy mile mark into the ride, one guy heads back for the truck with a bad stomach, as in upset, not the “under warranty” type bad, a much smarter move than we could have ever thought, as we would find out later. The dust began to go away about now--normally a good thing--but this time in trade for light rain and a touch of snow in the air. Temp is now about thirty-five degrees and we are gradually climbing in altitude. At the ninety mile mark, we were in some very tight single track full of rocky outcroppings, four foot shear step-ups, and lots of tree roots and little “nasty's” that tested our skills. Yes we are still into our first day's ride.
Snow is getting worse now, but still fun, until we are riding in about eighteen inches of fresh snow, having difficulty staying on, or even finding the trail.
The trail no longer exists when the snow gets high enough and the terrain loses all the lank marks we are used to. We rode for about three hours in deep snow, and it's not cute anymore, in fact it's transcending into mini-survival as dusk descends on us. We should have been at our destination over two hours ago. By 5:30pm it’s pitch black and both the darkness and mounting snow are successfully staving off our arrival. Underneath the snow the ground is frozen and forms a base of very slippery ice, worsening each minute with the cold and darkness, making it almost impossible to keep the bikes upright and aimed in the direction we wanted to go. I felt like I was riding one of those little toy motorcycles I’ve seen kids playing with, where the bike gets a good shove across the kitchen floor and then the kid waits to see how far it travels before it flops over from lack of control and speed.
We had to maintain a constant battle to keep up enough speed to force our bikes ahead and push through the snow, but not so fast that the fall would have killed us. To avoid going down, we had to wiggle and waggle, allowing the front of the rig to wander two to three feet side-to-side while applying enough throttle during this ballet to maintain the direction of choice. This continued on with an occasional “completely-instantaneous-broad-slide” at 30 mph, coming to a complete abrupt stop at 90 degrees to the direction we were heading only moments before. The more talented riders manage this maneuver without falling down but my arms were pumped solid due to the constant muscle flexing and the anticipation of what was coming next. In addition, we were battling all the unknowns we couldn’t see under the snow, like rocks the size of basketballs, and ruts a foot or so deep. More often than not, the rear of the bike was sliding at a 45-degree angle and then wham, it swaps back over to the other side, while trying to correct the front end. Then, WHAM, it slides completely sideways the other way, with no warning, and then I’m sliding to a stop trying not to fall. The other option is to fall and dig in like a large airplane hitting the snow at an awkward angle, shoving snow into every cavity on your body that can be stuffed with white fresh snow. Did I mention the snow is cold?
Having almost mastered this "out-of-control" style of riding I became numb to it after an hour or so. Then, to add some excitement, I manage to slide out on a large frozen rock face and slowly tip over, "high- side" we call it, falling while hanging on, thinking all the time "I'm going to save this." Couldn't have picked a better place to land, as I glance just before impact at a fully grown, and proud of it, extremely large CHOWA cactus bush (almost tree), as it gently inserts and with grand precision, about two-hundred or so, three inch long barbed needles into my butt cheek. Not to be outdone, the bike follows me down to have a look for itself at this thorny cacti and falls on top of me, ramming a few more needles in and pinning me to the chowa cactus (adding an exclamation point to the already low I.Q. I was displaying).
Well now my pants and riding skins underneath are perfectly stapled to my real skin with chowa thorns. These needles don't just pull back out, due to the barbs, they are intended by Mother Nature to stay put and some folks say they hold the space shuttle together with them. The process is, you have to break off all the ones you can feel, which of course requires removal of your gloves...Do you remember it has been snowing now for about four hours and we've been crashing enjoying the fruits of fresh snow? Well, this feature drastically reduced the “feel” factor of my fingertips, and there I am trying to surgically remove chowa needles. Mind you, I'm only trying to break off the external thorns in order to remove my pants (IN THE SNOW), so I can start pulling out all the thorns that are inside my pants.
Now, I can't actually see the thorns on my backside, no matter how much I try. So, I finally reach the point of dropping my pants and riding skins, standing there, butt-ass naked in the middle of the Mexican snowy darkness, bent over, picking needles out of my butt, and hoping Candid Camera is not lurking around.
Finally I hear one of my riding buddies approaching from behind, who stops, looks and says, "Oh, this doesn't look so good, maybe I'll ride up ahead and tell Grant you're going to be awhile". Without waiting for any kind of response from me, he motors off. Now was that a calculated move or what? I suppose, only for a fleeting moment there, I actually thought he was going to offer to help me pick them out. Silly me.
After about thirty minutes I have most of them broken off with the residue remaining as little quarter inch barbed nubs, just enough to annoy the crap out of me when I tried to sit down. It's difficult to get my pants back on, as they catch on the remaining nubs as I slid them up.
Thus I ride for the next hour standing up with a quick reminder from my thorny friends, should I try to sit down. My feet are pretty much frozen now with no feeling, my arms are mush, I can't feel any extremities, but luckily the cactus needles are becoming numb now too. Here's the image, I’m riding along in pitch black with the light bobbing up and down over a perfectly ironed, white blanket, making terrain that I know very well look like another planet. I have no clue where I am, other than being pretty sure I’m still on the North American Continent.
So what could happen next, right?
Well, the Mexican Federalies occasionally set up shop somewhere in the middle of nowhere hoping to find drug runners and low and behold, you got it, here they are on our snow adventure ride from Hell. They stop us in the pitch black of night, deep snow, at El Topo, a mere title given to a spot, which is basically in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Now these guys are frickin’ nuts. Like who would be smuggling drugs in twenty-five degree weather in the middle of nowhere! We stop of course and they mumble in Spanish and point their AK47 style automatic rifles at our back packs for a few minutes, acting like they think our packs might raise their arms in surrender. After a fifteen minute display of "who's in charge" these rocket science Federal soldiers finally determine or discover--all on their own--that we are just stupid ass motorcycle dudes who've lost their way. They point the "OK" sign with their rifles and we trek on in what is now a "white out".
Our fun isn't over though, as two of our three bikes have now RUN OUT OF GAS. Due to the added rpm required to ride in the deep snow and the weaving, we've consumed a lot more fuel than we planned on. The only good news for the moment is that my bike isn’t one of them. Not knowing how far we are from our destination, a cabin on the rock, another one of those spots in the middle of nowhere, we make a plan to send one bike (mine), to get gas. I suppose that meant with me on it, leaving the other two guys in the dark, in the snow. I was hoping they meant "send the bike" you know, like you would send Trigger the horse for something special. Their lighter, the one they've had for fifteen years or so in case of such an emergency, is quickly disbursed for it’s emergency use and...yes, it does NOT work!!
Turns out we are only fifteen miles from the cabin on the rock, which takes me about forty-five minutes to negotiate after several falls at 30 mph, necessitating that I find my bike on my hands and knees in the dark. The light on the bike goes out during a crash you know! Unable to see, I hunted for the sound of hot exhaust melting fresh snow and hoped I wouldn’t melt my fingers off because I could no longer feel them and wouldn't, in the moment, know the difference.
I finally make it and round up the residing rancher who has closed up this remote location/destination, assuming that we are no longer coming due to weather or death, that latter being the more desirable by now. I proceed to siphon two gallons of great tasting low-lead gasoline in the dark and head back out to save my riding buddies from a weary night in the snow and ice--I'm butt cold, with icy wet socks, no feeling in my appendages and the sweet taste of gasoline to accompany my hungry tummy for the trek back. For a moment I thought igniting the fuel in my throat might warm me up, but based on my earlier IQ test, I decided to abandon that thought.
I rode back and found them both in the darkness, shivering and trying to decide which one of them was going to be sleeping on top for the night. Actually, I think they were both thinking silently who was going to eat the other first in order to survive. Needless to say they were grateful to see me. We transfered fuel to the empty bikes and head out. We do not arrive until after 9pm at the "cabin on the rock," one hundred-thirty miles later in snowy single track.
The rancher brewed up some Tequila-soup and what he calls "fresh deer meat", and serves us by flashlight as because the generator is out from the weather (what else did you expect?)!! We try to warm up by the wood stove and I try to pick some more cactus nubs out of my thawing butt cheek, accompanied by my two giggling buddies. Two tequilas later, we go to bed fat and happy, not quite thawed out yet but with our wet gear by the wood stove and obviously higher IQ scores for the moment. We light the wood stove in the cabin, chase the bats out, and try to inject some heat back into the remote corners of our bodies.
In the morning, I awake with the positive thought that it's a new day and all is and will be good. My theory is dissolved almost instantly when I discover that the heat from the wood stove has melted the glue on my boot and the sole falls off!! To add insult to injury, those same boots are still not dry either! We try the combination of Zip ties and duct tape to put the sole back on,neither of which work very well. In case you're taking notes, boots with no sole are much like wearing thongs in the snow and feel even worse on top of sharp metal grates for six hours.
It has snowed all night and it's still snowin--and twenty-five degrees outside--not to mention that the bikes are covered in snow (as in disappeared). We make a corporate decision to "get out of Dodge" (IQ rating is increasing now), and ride back to our trucks one hundred thirty miles away, in what is now, twenty-four inches of snow. It's very difficult to find the trail or the road or recognize anything or any direction....and... on top of that, I feel like crap--literally. But we have each other you know!!
All of sudden, and I want to emphasize ALL OF A SUDDEN, I have to panic stop, start throwing my eighty-five layers of clothes, gloves, and paraphernalia off, and sprint for the woods for the most grand of "El Poopo’s"...and of course my buddies laugh and giggle some more as I slowly come back out of the woods with the "cowboy walk," similar to the way Gumby walks after getting off a horse, almost dragging my feet as my body tries to recover from the violent expulsion. All of my gear is strewn in a trail, from the bike to the woods, a glove, a backpack, a pair of goggles, another glove, a fanny pack, a jacket, etc.
Once put back together, we motor off again, only now I start to think of home, when Mom used to fix chicken soup by the fireplace.
We ride for about an hour and my pace, being more than on the slow side now, has made me lose visual with my riding buddies. I think, although I’m not completely sure, that they are uncomfortable with the weather, but due to the number of negative events that have become me, the entertainment factor has transformed them into happy go lucky, feeling above it, chaps.
Then it all changes. I ride up slowly on an open area after not even hearing their motors for an hour, to see a glove, a goggle, a string of TP heading for the woods and realize that one of those laughing, pointing, riding buddies has had the same El Poopo emergency happen to him! Ahhh, the sweet feeling of revenge rears its head and we collectively decide that the $90 deer meat dinner in the middle of Mexico, wasn't such a good idea after all. However, I was grateful to be able to exercise my giggle and pointy finger as I saw the trail of glove, goggle, glove, kidney belt, etc. mark the trail into the bush where Grant had decided it was necessary to land.
Having laughed a bit too soon, five El Poopo's later I found myself out of toilet paper, with frozen gravy poop on my butt, no boot sole, twenty-five falls in the icy snow under my belt, frost bitten fingers and toes, and unable to see from the snow on my goggles. Other than that, things are almost perfect!! Grant reappears from the woods with an empty small packet of Kleenex, the kind that are usually good for one nose blowing. We did not have the guts to question him about the quality of his clean up skills, it was too much information at this point, and not necessarily required among riding buds. Well, you get the idea.
It was certainly good to get back home, where my loving wife of thirty-three years and loyal supporter says in a shrill voice, "ARE YOU NUTS? I'M NOT PICKING ANY FRICKING SPLINTERS OUT OF YOUR BUTT, CALL YOUR RIDING BUDDIES!
Needless to say I'm selling all my bikes and taking up the violin now. Can't wait for my first WARM violin lesson.
Sincerely,
Mr. Adventurous (aka "Thorny")
P.S. If there is anyone out there with a heart who might be able to help me pick the remaining chowa needles out of my butt cheek, it would be appreciated and re-paid dearly at some future point in life. With a few days of festering, it now has the look of a shot gun blast on snowy white buttocks.