Mother of All Mexico Dirt Bike Rides - March in 2015!

[Fontanaman]

As you can see from Russ' video it was very wet on too many days.

 

[yamafitter]

Stopped in at the Corvette Museum this morning. They had a very interesting display around the sinkhole that shallowed a couple of very important Corvettes. They were able to recover all of them including the "Blue Devil" that survived with only minor damage that was since been repaired....

The Z06 will need a little more buffing....

I'm at Barry's place tonight and we just got back from dinner. It won't be too much longer before I am too intoxicated to post anymore tonight.

 

[Abercrombie FJR]

I sure wish we knew how that old goat Bust is doing. He's keeping a low profile.

 

[yamafitter]

Barry is doing fine and is pretty much returned to form. He was to go back for one more procedure where they are going to cauterize a few nerve endings that are sending out false signals that led to his last hospital visit. Both he and Sheila are looking forward to hosting the upcoming Owosso Tech Day. There is currently a local's Yamaha ATV is the garage that Barry is working on.

It seems the ATV sat a while and needs the carb cleaned to get it running properly. It looks pretty ratty, just like Barry.

 

[yamafitter]

Let the jockularity begin.....

https://vimeo.com/122968438

 

[El Toro Joe]

Looks like you guys put on a good show for the locals...Crazy Gringos...

 

[Fontanaman]

Bill's video shows how splendid the weather was. After the video ended the group road up into the mountains on the way to the La Florida Spa and Resort on an off pavement route. It rained like crazy this day - likely the worst day of the bunch. The off pavement route was abandoned due to inclement weather, lack of visibility and 34 degrees temps. The group returned to pavement the way we came.

This was the day Bill's bike dropped a valve so I decided to share my bike with him because my back was a bit sore, the weather was crap, I was tired of riding in rain, mud and shit. It was comfortable in the chase truck talking to Juan about Mexico - I learned a lot. Hell if Bill wanted to ride in this garbage I was happy to have a break. I was more interested in arriving at our next destination, getting a message and having a drink or three.

The spa in La Florida was the place with cabins with leaky vegetation huts. The hot rocks massage was nice and the people running the place were happy to have us as guests. The cabins on the other hand were not suitable for the conditions.

 

[Bustanut joker]

as always, it wouldn't be a lame azzed yamafitter video without him tipping over.

 

[beemerdons]

Poetry from AZ Beemer Barry "BearTrax" McRary:

My dear friends raise your glass, say a cheer,
For our friend Don, who can’t be here,
To MotoDiscovery who leads the way,
Got our asses lost the very first day,
To mother Nature who let the rains come,
Just so we could have even more fun,
And when a Mexican says in his on native tongue,
“It’s a good graveled road, Go you will have fun”,
The truth be told he does tell lies,
For this I have seen with my own two eyes.
Juan and Aberto lead the way
We laughed and had fun day after day
The mud it was slick and made us slide,
Gotta admit it was one hell of a ride
Really it was not all that bad,
A true ADVENTURE was defiantly had,
It did rain and we missed the sun,
But all in all it was still great fun!
~Bear

 

[Fontanaman]

Bear could make teqilla using only lemonade.

 

[yamafitter]

So here is my entry for this year's FredW Lame Ass Video Award. This video is from Day 2 out of Santiago and heading west into the Sierra Madres Mountains. BackRoadBob said it would stop raining as we headed west. Bob is a liar as you will see for yourself.....

https://vimeo.com/123050630

Soundtrack provided by Peter Gabriel from the album "So". The track is called "Red Rain". For some reason I thought it was kind of appropriate for the day.

 

[Fontanaman]

Nice video Bill. Thanks for posting. Again it captures just how fooking wet it was.

 

[escapefjrtist]

That's some nasty weather...thanks for the vids Bill!

--G

 

[Niehart]

That's some nasty weather...thanks for the vids Bill!
--G

+1

 

[yamafitter]

On the second day of the ride we were delayed about an hour getting into town due to a serious accident on the only paved road into the town of Galeana, our destination for that night. We were less than 5 minutes away from getting out of the rain adnstripping out of our wet riding gear. There were some cars and trucks taking a muddy dirt laneway to bypass but the cars were getting stuck and it looked like complete gridlock.

Most of us retreated to a Pemex station to wait it out but Juan and two of the riders had in the meantime made it through the muddy trail. After about waiting for an hour the police had cleared the stuck vehicles and had set up signal stations at both ends of the laneway so that the traffic took turns in each direction. It was slippery but passable and everyone finally made it to the hotel.

Unfortunately no one took any photos or video of the section so on our way out of town in the morning I shot this video with my GoPro. Brian did take some photos of a few of the bikes after getting through the section...

The next morning I had the GoPro running and rode the laneway on the way out of town....

https://vimeo.com/123070479

As you can see the rest of the traffic had packed all the mud down and conditions were drying out nicely. The police finally had the main road back open by 10PM that night so it was the right move not to wait for the road to open.

 

[Niehart]

Thought this was the way the KTM's were suppose to look. Good stuff fitter.

 

[yamafitter]

Just spent some quality time with the WR450 out in the garage and initial findings are not good. When I removed the oil drain plug on the transmission side there was more antifreeze that oil that came out. there was no sign of antifreeze when I removed the drain plug on the crank side. Draining the antifreeze showed no signs of oil so antifreeze was being pumped into the transmission. Transmission and crank share the same oil so not sure why when pulling the crank drain plug there were no signs of antifreeze.

I had replaced the waterpump shaft and seal last season and had a couple of rides and the bike showed no signs of a waterpump seal issue. Given the catastrophic nature of the failure at speed I'm thinking a blow head gasket if I'm lucky or if not lucky there is a cracked head or cylinder.I have the bike apart to the point where I can pull the motor from the chassis. I'm just waiting on a friend to come over and lend a hand lifting the motor out. At that point we will be able to pull the motor down and find the root cause of the failure.

Step 1 - Get rid of the tank, seat and plastic....

Step 2 - drain the oil....

I'm seeing antifreeze in the oil at this point. Never a good sign.

Start pulling the rads and other parts to get ready to pull the motor.....

to be continued....

 

[yamafitter]

More video from the FODS Mexico trip.
This one is from the third day after we had left Galeana and had stopped for lunch at the waterfalls. On leaving the park we headed into the backcountry.
I borrowed our guide, Alberto's Contour Camera footage to give you folks a little taste.

https://vimeo.com/123142078

The Beemer guys in the group found sections of this a little too rough but I was loving this stuff and was well out front playing in the rocks. It did get rougher towards the end and there was a muddy section just before we reached pavement but it was no problem on the WR450.

 

[Fontanaman]

Yep the third day was one of my favorites. The waterfall and road after it was a highlight of the trip. The DR650 was in its element and the road surface offered just enough challenge to keep it interesting.

Thanks for posting the video Bill.

 

[Fontanaman]

Yeah at the end of the mud video Jim made a damn fool of himself taking the wring line and allowing the front tire of the bike to slide into the tire rut just big enough to wrench the front tire to the right. I should have taken a different line and or done of better job of moving the bike into the tire rut. Fun was had by all.

I road down that thing the night before with Brian and had no trouble. In fact a school bus went down that mud road the night before I and was giving Alberto, our guide, a hard time about a bus running down that road while all the BMW GS riders were being a bunch of pussies. Then I tip over the next day - damn.