Today’s ride takes us down the coast through fishing villages perched atop shore hovering cliff tops, the kind of cliffs that mesmerize you and pull you closer to the edge of 2-stroke bliss.
Using a screw and some JB weld cement, Peter gets the tank patched and sealed saving enough fuel to ride on.
Putting on my imaginary Luchador wrestler mask we take down the rear tire. Using the remaining espresso caffeine in my system, we devise a plan that includes Peter guarding the Honda with a #17 wrench and a warm Gatorade, and me strapping down the flat tire to my handle bars using the spare front innertube… Please remind your children that all life-threatening stunts were done by semi amateurs in uncontrolled situations…
A couple hundred sweaty pesos gladly paid to the local tire fixer later, and I am wound out in top gear back to that unmarked spot in the desert, imagining Peter surrounded by hyenas, scorpions, and rattlesnakes… Hitting the front break a little hard for soft sand, I come to a lurching halt, stall the bike, and deliver the new tire with a bug smattered smile.
With all the passion of an Italian F1 pit crew changing tires for Claudia Schiffer during fashion week, we mangle the tire, chain, and bolts back together and hit the trail fighting woopdeedoos, ruts, washouts, and motor block cracking rocks the size of mangos and Idaho potatoes. We must be home before dark… Katie is a motocross thoroughbred with no headlight and the Honda’s headlight shines a wee high of the horizon!
“Lord please be with our bodies, bikes, and bowels” is normally our morning prayer, this evening it is my mantra until we see Gordie back at the moto-hacienda a couple hours past sun down!