18.) From Basasiachi to Hermosillo - a.k.a. Ken's 260 Mile Extended Butt Puckering Exercise

Well, well, well... I wanted fear. MX Route 16 gave it to me in spades on this 260 mile ride from Hell. After leaving Basasiachi, 260 miles of twisties lay between us and Hermosillo, and not much else in between. There as a gas station at mile 0, another at mile 160, and then not another one until Hermosillo. Normally my bike goes on reserve at 180, so I was nervous all day because of gas, and that is not even counting on the hairiness of the roads themselves!

The day started with beautiful Alpine twisties.















The roads were beautifully maintained. The curves were banked. There was no traffic. The cliff exposures were manageable. Rideable at very aggressive paces.

Then this happened...



We left Chihuahua and entered Sonora. The road surface went to dung in a heartbeat. Loose gravel. Pot holes. Several layers of peeling macadam, each layer shedding like sunburned skin. To put it bluntly, the roads were not confidence inspiring. And then the terrain changed. What used to be gentle banked curves made for bikes became death trap off camber 90 degree angles with no guardrails and thousand foot cliff exposures.

Oftentimes, I would be chugging up a hill approaching a hard left turn. There was a vertical cliff on the inside of the turn. The road just disappeared into thin air. Sometimes with matching disappearing skid marks.

After entering Sonora, we passed at least several mountain passes. Here is the view from one. It is not that impressive in the picture, but note that the ridges of mountains go on and on seemingly forever. And we were going east to west, essentially cutting across the ridges perpendicularly.










The cliff exposures were gotting pretty hairy. Many curves had either no rails at all, or low ones like this.






Here is a great example of the kind of cliff exposure this road is full of.




Blind curves were the norm. Though there was not a lot of traffic, occasionally, the errant bus or 18 wheeler would come across the yellow line on a curve.









Here is one victim of such a blind curve.



As an example of the cliff exposures we were seeing, this vies is down the canyon from the apex of a turn. The turn had no guardrail at all. Those are full sized 60 foot tall trees down there.









This is a typical Sonoran road surface.



After about 200 miles of heinous twisties, the road started to straighten out. Long sweepers became normal as we approached Hermosillo and came down out of the mountains. We were able to increase speeds, which was great, because we were running out of daylight.



Vegetation changed to these strange cacti.



As the sun set, a wonderful golden glow enveloped the semi arid grasslands. It reminded me of Texas.







When we finally arrived Hermosillo, it was pitch black. We were ecstatic. Jim took this outstanding photo of a typical Sonoran cactus right at the outskirts of Hermosillo.



A word or two about the Beemer and gas on this tough day. As I stated earlier, the first gas stop was 160 miles. I was worried because of the hilly driving and revving the engine all day. I was scared of running out of gas all day. When we finally got to the 160 mile gas station, my bike only took 6.5 liters of gas! That machine got 90+ MPG winding at near redline for hours in the mountains of Mexico. I could not figure it out until I got back home and looked at the GPS logs. Our altitude that day ranged between 9,000 feet and 12,000 feet. So, the EFI leaned the engine, thereby saving the gas. Jim's KLR, which is carbeurated, took almost a full 6 gallons when we filled up.

Yep, it pays to ride the Great German Machine!