Baja Adventure Ride

Day 4 - Ciudad Constitucion to Cabo San Lucas (232 miles)

Baja route map In my quest to find a replacement shift lever, I ended up doing a detour out to La Paz. Bill on his DR650 joined me, as he was concerned about his clutch showing signs of excessive slipping and wanted to see if he could find mechanic able to service it.

Getting a tip from Brian, another rider on an F800GS, he mentioned that a Honda XR650 shift lever might fit. Given no BMW outlets or mechanics in La Paz (or Baja for that matter?), we got an address for the local Honda motorcycle dealer. But this lead failed to pan out with no such shift levers in stock, or any other that might fit my bike. But they gave us the address of two other used motorcycle shops and repair places. One of them found something that who knows what it came from, but I was able to get it to fit with the help of a borrowed rubber mallet. Even better, when I asked "how much?", he charged me 100 pesos (about $5 American). I joked that if this was a BMW dealer, it would probably have been closer to $100. Although the lever was shorter than my original stock one, it was good enough, and made from steel, and thus hopefully would not give me any more problems for the trip.

During this bike shop hunt in La Paz, I also met up with another F800GS rider from the Netherlands who was in the middle of a ride around the world, also looking to do some bike repairs (see some of the photos below). He mentioned that that travels can get quite tiresome and that he planned on taking a break in Mexico for while with a female friend he met there (taking the ferry across the Sea of Cortez to the mainland), do some work to raise a bit more money, before continuing on his saga.

Meanwhile, Bill was trying to see if he could find a mechanic to potentially replace his clutch. But this was more problematic as nobody had the clutch in stock, and his efforts to have it shipped ahead to one of the hotels we were staying at failed to happen. Looking over and talking to the mechanics at one of the shops willing to try did not inspire confidence, getting a bad vibe of the situation. My advise was to just adjust it out more and try to live with it until you got back state-side.

After a lunch in Todo Santos, we arrived into Cabo that afternoon via the highway, while some of the others came in via the blue dirt route (see Joey pictured below). I was struck out how over-touristed the city of Cabo is, having a feel more like the "Las Vegas" of Baja. This was a turn-off in comparison to the innumerable more innocent smaller towns and villages that we had encountered elsewhere in our travels. The locals here were also different, and much more fixated on trying to hustle you out of your money or sell you drugs. I could not wait to get out of this place the next morning.

Images (click to select the larger view at bottom)

Intro Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Conclusion

Home Motorcycle Corner