Slow Baja - An ADV Ride For The Ages Chris Gardiner And Dom O'Mahoney On The 2023 BajaXL Rally

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Longtime riding buddies Chris Gardiner and Dom O'Mahoney share a harrowing tale from a Baja ADV ride gone wrong. "When it's time to shut it down --when you are on your last redundant backup plan --it's not time to keep carrying on and bombing down these roads. Our ride was over, but we were just overwhelmed with fun, and we lost sight of that." -Chris Gardiner on an ADV Ride For The Ages. Strap in as these two highly experienced riders talk about how they were having too much fun to shut it down when everything went wrong. Dom was lucky that the fire he experienced on the first night --that burned almost everything he had with him --spared his Garmin In-Reach and waterproof tent cover. Those two items probably saved his life. He used the tent cover for warmth and shelter as he weathered the cold and rain on the night he spent exposed to the elements. Coincidentally, he had just gotten his Garmin In-Reach charged the day he broke down. He chose his out-of-country communications contact wisely, as that fellow (Matt) a former Navy Seal --remained very calm, all things considered. Ultimately, we were lucky that we only had a modest story of endurance while exposed to the elements in Dom's case --and a harrowing tale of devotion to one's mission in the face of extreme adversity in Chris' case. Happy New Year, and thank you to all who tuned in in 2023 and are still listening today. Please watch this conversation on YouTube. And as always, subscribe, post, tag, and remember to enjoy the ride.

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. You know, I've long said it, ask your doctor if Baja's right for you. Well, you've got to check out the Adventures tab

at slowbaha.com. The slow Baja is from February 23rd to March 1st. It's a slow roll from the beautifully rustic Rancho Labayota to stunning San Ignacio and back up to sunny San Felipe. We're going to have a one full week to explore some of my favorite places and meet some of my favorite people. We're going to have two nights in San Ignacio and everybody's going to get to go whale watching. You know those gray whales in the San Ignacio Lagoon are noted for their curiosity and

friendliness. So be prepared for them to get up close and check you out. And I'm proud to say, I'm going to be doing. doing a little giving back on this trip. My friend Matthew Schnitzer, the founder of Barbers for Baja, you know the great work they do, sending kids to college. Well, he's on board, and we're excited to launch our new project delivering desperately needed baseball gear to teams and coaches up and down the peninsula, and we will make our first gear donations on the Slow Baja. You know, it's not the longest or the largest or the most miles. It's the slowest and the best miles,

and hopefully the most smiles. Okay, for more information, check out the Slow Baja at Slowbaha.com. to ask questions, you can always reach me through the contact link at slowbaha.com. And remember, the slow Baja is open to four by four vehicles of any age. Got a two-wheel drive that you think you can make it? Well, let's talk. Once again, that's the Slow Baja, February 23rd through March 1st, 2024. Help me keep Baja slow on the slow Baja. You know, I'm a minimalist when it comes to Baja travel, but the one thing I don't leave home without is a good old paper map. My favorite is the beautiful and I mean beautiful Baja Road and Recreation Atlas by Benchmark Maps. It's an oversized 72-page book.

It's jammed with details. It brings the peninsula's rugged terrain into clear focus. Get yours at Benchmarkmaps.com. In fact, get two. One for your trip planning at home and one for your Baja rig. Hey, big news. Benchmark just released the second edition of the Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. They are always striving to improve these maps.

And they've added a bunch of new features, bunch of places of interest, including the Chenet Legacy Lodge. It wasn't on the first printing of the map. It's there now. It's awesome. You can see it right there in Perseboo. Get your brand new second edition of the Baja Road and Recreation Atlas from BenchmarkMaps. And while you're at Benchmarkmaps.

com, you've got to check out all their other atlases. I think they're up to 17 now, including British Columbia. They've got folding maps. They've got digital maps. They've got giant wall maps. My favorite, and I've got it up on my wall right here at Slow Baja HQ, is the 30. inch by 46 inch Baja wall map. It's so great to just look at one thing to see the entire peninsula there. I love it. Benchmarkmaps.com. Slow Baja approved. My heaping dose of gratitude today goes out

to you, the Slow Baja listener. To you old timers, thanks for staying with me. We're into year four now, year four. Jesus. And to you folks that just started listening and Spotify said a bunch of you found Slow Baja last year. Sincere thanks for jumping aboard. We covered a lot of ground in 23 and making the leap to video, while it almost killed me, was huge. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had Kaiser shooting on my first two Baja trips of the year. That Johnny Johnson interview, if you haven't seen it, you got to watch it on YouTube. It's one of my all-time favorite Slow Baja conversations. And I guess I've got to say, I'm lucky to have it for posterity. So RIP, Johnny. Okay, today's show was recorded way to

back in February of last year. And I'm, I'm sorry I wasn't able to share it sooner, but you know, I try to keep a mix going on slow Baja and not just Fiji a steady stream of off-roading. And this show got bumped a couple of times. It just did. And listening to it today nearly a year later, I got choked up. I did. You can feel how raw the emotions were when we recorded this. Dom and Chris, you know, two buddies on a motorcycle trip in Baja XL. Dom freely admits mistakes were made. and eventually one really came back to bite him. And Chris, he's just a dude. I mean, you know, I'm just going to get right into it.

He, in his work life with the Navy, he did bomb disposal for the Navy SEALs in Afghanistan. He's been in some shit. Excuse my language. And he had the ride of his life, doing his dardest to save Dom's life. And you know how the story ends because they were both sitting with me to tell the tale. But that said, it's a tale worth hearing. Honestly, there's nothing tall about this one. Chris and Dom, they're pretty self-effacing.

They tell it like it is, or at least like it was. And, well, enjoy this harrowing tale with Chris and Dom on the 23 Baja XL today on Slow Baja. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It's pretty nice, man. Christopher. One more time, Chris. My name's Chris Gardner, and Dominic's my buddy here, who I constantly have to, problems with time and time again. Awesome. All right. Hey, it's Slow Baja and we are, you can hear the

dust and tequila on my breath. We are just back across the border from the Baja XL rally. And, well, we've got some stories to share. I'm with Dominic O'Mahoney. Say hello, Dominic, so they can hear your voice. Hello, all. We're at Chris's house here in San Diego and it's pretty close to the airports. There may be some flying, some planes flying in, but we wanted to get this story. right now while it's still raw. So Chris, Chris, say hello. Hello, Baja. Slow Baja. It's nice to be here.

So Dom and I met, Dominic and I met on the Baja XL 2021, correct? A rainy day, you remember that? Yeah, it was a freezing cold rainy day, the first day in a very busy restaurant with a, that was extremely overcrowded. During COVID. Yeah, it was.

We're singing. Indeed, yeah, indeed. So we're freezing, because we've, driven down this road in through rain and snow and we've got an open vehicle and we're freezing and I see your bikes out front. I'm like, these guys know what to do. This guy is an experienced rider. We're going to come in this restaurant and get warm and there's no room in the restaurant. And there's all this fun and fiesta going on and singing. And you guys were like in an ante room or a fenced in porch or...

I think it was a fenced in porch. Because, you know, like yourself, I think misery loves company. We have all of our stuff exposed on the vehicle, so we have to keep an eye on it. Yeah. So we're cautious of that. This is a restaurant in Valley Tea, folks, Fiae, Trinidad. And I think I ended up helping myself to a cup of coffee, which nobody cared about. And we certainly weren't getting any attention.

So we moseyed on down to the Asadaria and ordered some tacos. And that just said something to me that this guy is tough. He's riding his motorcycle on this event with your friend that you talked into it, Andy, if I recall. Well, Andy hadn't ridden in 30 years. He came home one day to find his wife, his new wife had sold his motorcycle. But he's quite an adventurous guy, he's a triathlet and stuff. And at his birthday party, I convinced his wife to, if we promised to only ride off road, could he get a bike?

And she'd had a few drinks, and she agreed in front of witnesses. So three days later, we had the bike for him. and then I convinced him to do this, which he didn't want to do this time because he has an aversion to large portions of sand. Gotcha. Gotcha. I think we call that a Baja. You're a Baja influencer on motorcycles.

Indeed, yeah. So set it up. You've had a number of bikes because I put you in touch with Kaiser, my podcast producer, to get him sorted on his bike for his first Baja trip. And you really did sort him out. And then he ended up in the car with me. I rode street bikes for a number of years. When I moved to California, it was in the Great Recession, so I had a lot of spare time because I was a general contractor building restaurants in Chicago, then they all sort of fell apart.

So I did 10,000 miles in the first year, and I got sick of it and then just started wondering where all these roads were going to go, all these dirt roads, and that's what got me into it. But my first foray was on a BMW F800GS from here to Mike Skyranch, and I Google the night before, how do you ride on dirt? And it just essentially the expressions that hit the gas, it'll save your ass. Excuse me for laughing. Yeah. So I got all the way up to Mike Skyrown's first time on dirt, didn't fall, I thought I've got this. And then on the way back, it was utter carnage. And then I realized how expensive BMWs in particular are to fix. And then that's when I became a pretty competent mechanic because I didn't want to pay anybody else to do it. So that was, I've had five of those bikes. And then Chris here tricked me into riding his bike one day. And I said, after the last Baha XL, I broke my BMW. It couldn't handle the riding. So I thought, well, maybe I've progressed to the next level. and I bought the same bike as Chris has got. And then it destroyed me on this, on this, this Baja Excel. And that's a KTM.

Yeah, KTM 1090 Adventure R. Okay. Hey, Chris, say hello. Let's talk about, you've got some bike motorcycle experienced. Yes, thanks. And hello, everybody, at Soba. Yeah, I grew up riding dirt bikes, never, like racing or anything, just free riding recreationally like Yamhas, Hondas.

And I wrote us Johnny Campbell's 650 forever. until I met this guy in 2013. We did five days in Death Valley. They were all on GSs. I was on my XR. I had put some soft bags and a couple extra rotopac cans just to have legs to keep up with these guys as far as fuel. And I realized, hey, that's this kind of adventure-style riding

is the kind of riding I want to do for the rest of my life. And I sold my two Japanese bikes, and I got a KTM adventure bike because I wanted the most off-roft. a capable bike to get as close to what I used to do, but also be able to just jump on and go anywhere, any, any place. And I've been riding with Dom, Dom ever since. And that's always an adventure. And it's always an adventure.

And I'll tell you, Dom is a great mechanic, and it's just a testament to how much his bike breaks. He's an experienced mechanic, and he's our go-to guy on the trail. Bad ride a good mechanic. Well, let's, can we, Dom, can you tell the, tell the listeners a little bit about the whole world of adventure bikes now. It's just exploded. It's like overlanding, but on bikes, right? Explain ADVs and adventure, motorcycling and all that. If you think of riding motorcycles in general, people who have an NEM license, I think it's about maybe 10 or 15% of the driving population or license to drive, ride a motorcycle in the U.S.

And then of that 10 and 15% probably 10 or 50% can take a, you know, a 500-pound bike off-road. successfully. And a lot of guys think they can do it because they've ridden dirt bikes, but it's a whole different animal. But what it does, it's essentially, it's the, it's the land, the four-wheel drive or the Jeep, whatever you want, of the motorcycle world. There's not a lot of vehicles that will take you on a two and a half thousand mile for a in some of the hardest terrain in the world and then drive you home at 80 miles an hour and pull in your garage. And it's the, it's the, for what I like about it, it's the ability to have everything that you need on the vehicle and go anywhere that your skill is capable of bringing you.

And the type of person that is into that, just like going into Baja, you know, on these forays in any vehicle, there's a very specific kind of person that that can do that. And it leads to them being quite interesting typically. Typically. It's a win-win, right. Present company. They don't always have large amounts of the tail. But sometimes that you don't need that. Yeah.

And Chris, I'm just getting to know you, but we had a nice dinner at Austin, Ashley, and Halley's house in San Juanico. I'm sitting there next to you and I can see immediately that you're a person of substance and seriousness. You don't say a lot. You look a lot. You take everything in. And then I hear that you're retired Navy and explosives EOD. Is that it? Yes.

Yes. Your explosive. What does that stand for? Give me the definition. So EOD stands for explosive ordinance disposal. Or everyone's divorced. Well, yeah. That's kind of a joke, but it stands for everyone's divorced.

It's because it's a tough life and, you know, guys are gone a lot. And it's just really, really tough on families. So in the military, it's, you know, pretty common to make light of serious things to cope. Yeah. I don't know what you can talk about and the work you did in the past and the people you worked with in the past, but you spend a lot of years at this, correct? Yes, I did. I was in a Navy 25 years. I was an EOD technician for 21 of those years.

My first four, I was an aircraft mechanic. But I was in an EOD school training, learning. to be a bomb technician when 9-11 happened. I got to my first unit, January 2001, and was in Afghanistan that summer with SEAL team, with the SEAL team three. And then it was just deployment, deployment, deployment after that. And the reason I bring that up is because I noticed it immediately,

you're a thinker. You can see it. So that's going to be important later in the story. There was a lot of stuff that went wrong here. And your skills and your thought and thinking this through is probably what saved Dom's bacon. And I think we just need to start getting into that story now. So you're on the Baja XL. And Dom is a maniac.

And you had some problems. So Dom pick up the first problem. You lost your luggage. You lost your stuff. It burned up. The first problem was the rider that we've analyzed this. post race and we think it starts with the starts with the rider not being prepared but yeah

I was had to work the day of leaving a job that needed to be completed and had it work so I was late leaving and then rush rush rush but essentially that the the fire thing was the sleeping bag got burnt up on my exhaust and ignited and then burn all of my luggage on the back of the

bike which is all my sleeping stuff and all my clothing but the kind of funny start of it was I drove by a guy on the highway I'm doing about Let's get to the funny part Yeah The funny part was I drove by a guy on the highway Just before the turn off to the first campsite

I was about 11.30 at night You know empty road Clear road so I put my high beams on Overtook him on this old Baja truck You know beat up truck And he starts flashing me I thought It's a bit rude What's his problem there?

Because I'm overtaking him So I ignored it of course as he do And then just you know Went a mile ahead and then turned left onto the dirt and then I see him come screeching around in front of me I thought oh this doesn't look good but then I realized there's a car behind me

because I can see lights behind me so I thought there's two of them trying to jump me or something but you know I thought you know there's always a way out of to talk your way out of most things I find but then I look over my right shoulder and there's six foot flames behind me with all my luggage on fire so the guy as I rode by him my bike was on fire that's where he's flashing me for but I thought this guy's going to get some

he's going to get beers on this for the rest of his life on this story because where else no one's going to believe him So I literally panicked because my old bikes have always had the fuel tank on the back. I thought, oh my God, the bike's going to go. So I'll kick the bike over in the sand, and then you think you'd act all swam, but you're just going to fall in panic. Try to panic with my gloves, and it melted my gloves, of course.

It's all burning plastic. And then I managed to cut it off the bike and then put it and just pulled it all off into the dirt. But it was, you know, six or seven hundred bucks worth of equipment and gear and riding suits and things. So that was the start of it. And then I arrived at the, proceeded to go on because I've got 14, 10 days off from the wife and kids. I'm not going to waste that for no money. So when I got to the campsite. That's hashtag Baja addict.

Oh, it's all right there. So that was there. That was the first night. But in the morning, though, when I pulled out of my tent with a tiny little blanket on me, freezing cold, I look at my front fork and all the oils leaked out of that. I thought, oh, that's not a good start either, is it? And then that was the catalyst that led to our demise, as it were. So it was essentially, there was no compression, so the tire was taken all the hits.

And we really, really, really pushed the bikes hard this trip. I mean, we were laughing to ourselves how crazy we were driving, you know. So that was the issue of the tire exploded on the third, the third day, was it? Yeah, I think it was. Well, you got the hole in the tubeless tire first, remember? Yeah. And then it was the, we attempted to, and we plugged it like you were a car tire. Plugged it, didn't hold, put a, put a tube in it, that burst.

Can I back up on that? The plug didn't hold because Dom and I were riding so hard we think it threw the plug out. Yeah. I mean, we were... Because if you hit it hard enough, it'll double the pressure on the tire, you see. So it just kept bursting and bursting and bursting and bursting. You got that. Yeah.

Exactly. It was more like a bullet going out at that speed. So that was a sort of a progression all the way through it. And we got a patch professionally a couple of times. And now, we thought, oh, we're good now. but and the probably the one day I met you guys on the road from to San Ignacio

I was that was a four hour five hour delay maybe because we fixed it twice changed the flat put it back on moved forward and then that was two hours wasted and Chris said look we'd take the wheel back so he rode back again with my 60 pound wheel on the back of his bike all the way to about 40 miles

yeah to San Juanico San Juanico so yeah we saw you there on the on the dirt road heading north out of of San Juanico. Yeah. And we spend, I don't know, probably an hour and a half with you, and you're pretty nonplussed about it all. Yeah.

And we did see Chris on the ride. He was heading south. We were heading north, but you were right behind a big raptor, some truck that was moving very quickly. And I came over a little rise, and that truck was using much of the road. And I thought, wow, that's not something I had anticipated that I could meet somebody in a head on in a blind rise. I didn't see any dust or anything.

Did you spill your martini? Well, we're not drinking and driving in a slow Baja for the record, folks. But no, we weren't. And then you were right behind the guy. And Christopher said, I acknowledge that I saw a motorcycle and it looked like a KTM. And Christopher said, Kaiser said, hey, that's Chris. And he's got Dom's tire on the back. I'm like, oh, crap.

Oh, crap. Well, we're going to find Dom here soon, I'm sure. And you were out there full sun on a wide open dirt. road, but not a highly traveled road. There's, you know, I mean, I saw a guy on a horse out there last trip and that was the, that was the only guy I saw the whole time. So, yeah, after there were three, three or four vehicles past us, well, the Marines of course, past us, but. Great Scott, team great Scott. Two Scots and then FJ.A out of Idaho, I think. Yeah, so they they passed us and then stopped to help and then good, brilliant guys, absolutely brilliant guys.

And then there was, I think one or two other people who, like groups of people going by and then you guys came along but you're the you uh stopped stopped had a nice little chat for about an hour or so and then um Chris came back uh suppose about an hour and half after you left Chris came back with the wheel and then off we went for me on that on that one that wasn't as a much of a risk as far as my concern because we had traveled that 40 miles I knew what was that road was like we had plenty of daylight left so to me that wasn't uh that was comfortable. That was an acceptable trip to leave Dom. And you knew you were going to find a tire guy. You knew there was a tire shop. Yeah, you knew you were going to find a tire repair guy and fuel, right,

which you do have to buy from Los Chenero. You go see Aaron over there. It's really upset. He wasn't wearing my slow Baja hat when I rolled in. But yeah, so you got back as rapidly as possible. And Dom, you looked like you were, you were not worried when we saw you. And we hung around a bit. and then we got up the road and what happened next. Chris came back, plugged up the wheel, because I think one of the beauty of the great things about the Baha Excel in particular is the best part is getting to the camp. The days are very, very long if you hit all your marks

and you don't have any mechanicals. But the best part for me is always meeting the people at the camp because that's how we met. The Marines actually ironically we met on the road. But the best part, I think, is, spending time at camp with people. And then everyone's got a great story. I haven't found a person there that I didn't like really enjoy hanging out with.

You know, usually there's people who are 50-50 on, but they're all great people because that do that kind of activity. So that for me, the only bummer was not being able to spend more time and meet more these people at that time. But I was lucky enough to meet great people the last time because it was more of a, when it got shut down by the authorities, it made it more risky. 20-21, yeah. Yeah.

So we had really, really. I had good friends from that before, but we met the Marines this time because of the breakdown, which is, you know, I guess the irony. But we, you know, put the tie back on. We stopped into San Ignacio. I had some food there in that restaurant that had the raccoon last time when I was here.

No, the raccoon's gone, and there's some sort of odd-looking New Zealander there, who's right of the central casting was there, was the server, but we ate there, and we got to the camp late and then bumped into the Marines again. With big cheer, whee! We pulled in. And then we thought that would be the end of it really.

We got we went into we loaded up on patches. We went to three different places to buy you know good good patch called patch kits for the tube in case because I knew that what that road was going to be that day the following day is a pretty is a pretty long arduous ride and then but I Patches only no tubes. Yeah, no tubes in Baja, which I think was a mistake. Yeah, lots of tires with no tubes because all that's all the vehicle tires are tubeless. But I did it with Andy last. time and Andy did that the first part of it was awful for Andy because he didn't like the sand but the second part of it was more technical because he was a mountain bike rider so he was

pretty good on that on that part of it and I don't remember the second part being as bad as the first part and the first part thought oh it was really good on this bike we really enjoyed it with a couple of turnarounds because the the trails washed out but then of course when that happened you realize where you are you think you're 70 miles of the direction from anything so you're not going to hike out so the when you give somebody when you say listen there's very few people in the world that you can think, right, my ass is in your hands, as it were, that, you know, that can I trust this person to, A, complete the task and be, you know,

come back as well within a reasonable time frame. And I thought, Chris and I had beers chatting about this. I thought there's not a lot of people I would trust to do that. And he's one of two, I think, that I would do that with. So it's critically important to choose the right person, I think, that you do anything with, right? So like, as I say, you told me that guy that disappeared and gave his friend 100 pieces for a bus ticket. Yeah.

So it happens, right? Yeah. So, but it was pretty hairy in fairness. I mean, my water situation was getting pretty bleak by the time he got back a day later. Yeah, so we're going to take a quick break here. And then we'll be right back with Dominic O'Mahoney and Chris Gardner. We'll get the rest of the story of the extended stay, your extended stay in the Baja Wilderness. So we'll be right back.

Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser south of the border. And when we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at BajaBound.com. That's Bajabound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Big thanks to my new sponsor Nomad Wheels. They stepped up and sponsored the Slow Baja Safari class at the Nora Mexican 1000. And I don't know if you've seen the pictures, but Slow Baja is running a set of five O-1 convoys in utility gray, and they look pretty damn sharp.

They were a little shiny. I will admit that. They were a little shiny when I got them installed at Basil's Garage just before the Nor-Mexican 1000, but after, I don't know, 3,800 miles from Baja dirt, they look perfect. They really do. Nomadwheels.com. That's right. Check them out, reflecting a minimalist approach to off-road travel.

Nomadwheels.com. Hey, we're really. back. We're having some laughs talking about funny stuff with Chris Gardner and Dominic O'Mahoney. And the story gets kind of serious here. And so you've fixed from when we saw you in San Winico, you're on the dirt road out of San Juanico to San Ignacio. You've had a meal. You've bought some tire patch kits in San Ignacio. And there's not a lot of places to buy this kind of stuff. So how do you do? What are you doing? Where are you going? And we're an agro. Okay.

I went to a, yeah, like an oil place. Right. Once they figured out what Spanish, what, you know, what the Spanish was for a tire patch. She's like, oh, yeah, but they're all small bicycle ones. So I went to a car, like a proper car place. I had my tie patch last time I was there. And then they gave me these, you know, sort of two inch, two inch diameter, the circular patches. So they'll be big enough.

So we had, you know, three different kits. We thought, we'll be cool and we can handle anything. But clearly that wasn't the case. So when we're about. Have you heard of glue tread, the new tire patch kit? I was giving them out, but... You were? Unfortunately, I didn't see you at the start.

Oh, my Lord. Yeah, and had I known you needed a tire patch kit, I had one in the car. I didn't have any water for you or anything. Is it the one that you stick on the outside of the tire? Yeah. I had one of those, but it didn't hold. No, that's too bad. Because there's too much pressure on the energy of the thing.

But I think we were about maybe 60 miles into that trail. And before it, when it was a fairly flat ground, but then it turns into something entirely different going back. to the camp but I remember that being faster and easier than the trail like we came along the beach because the Andy that was riding with the doesn't like the didn't like the sound at the time so he was it was quite quite a long quite a long ride but that was for us it was about 45 minutes and we were through it and then I thought oh well it could be great because the camp that final camp the catavina is a lovely camp I really want to make it there yeah spectacular and I didn't know the

rain I had no idea the rain was coming nobody you had your own you had your own problems yeah looking at weather forecasts so we stopped And we had, again, the Marines came, drove by us again, helped us pump up the tie. You know, a patch of the tie, put it on, they had a really good compression on their vehicle. Pumped it up and it was holding fine. So off they went on the merry way. Put it on the bike, a kilometer later, bang, goes again. And it was just, the tear in the tire in the inner tube was just too big to patch it, I guess.

So I changed it maybe 10 times over the course of 24 hours. Wow. And at 5 o'clock, that was at 12 o'clock, at 5 o'clock, Chris says, listen, there's only one way to go here. And that's could go out and get, there's a spare inner tube that Allison's bike, her generator on the bike, crapped out. So her bike was sitting there with the same tube that I needed. So the plan was for Chris to go back, get that tube and then come back as soon as possible. Or as a backup plan, take the wheel off his bike and bring that back to mine. And then, which is what we ended up doing.

In a car. Yeah. So like you would come back in a four-wheeled vehicle. Well, that was, we didn't know that was going to happen yet. we're like I'm sitting there watching Don Patches. Hang on for a second here. Hang on. Let me just ask you to one more time go through your, quickly, your background and the sort

of mental checklists that you go through in exposing yourself to danger and at your, at your previous employment. Okay. You have all your fingers and toes. I know she had some foot surgery there, but probably wasn't related to work. Motorcycles, actually. Okay. So you've got some protocols that normally go through your mind for your 25.

years of service. Right. Thank you for that. But just just talk a little bit about you're going to make a decision here where Dom's going to stay and you're going to go. Right. So it was that was definitely in the dark. It was definitely a tough decision. I was I I like to have redundancies, you know, so backup, we have backup plans and we were and we had backup plans, but we had used them all. We had blown all the tires. We were no more tubes. We had patched it and continued on. And, and we were, at normal and then tried to repatch a patch, pull old patches off. And we had one patch left and it was about five o'clock. And I was just like, we're not going to, this is not going to work.

It's just not going to work. And I need to go get assistance for us. And in my gut, I really didn't want to leave Dom because we did get an in-reach-out to our friend Matt Walther. And it was a very long communication chain to get it back around to it, I think it got to you guys and a few other people, but I just wasn't confident that we were going to get rescued or get the equipment really because I knew, like Dom said, Allison had a tube that we could use, but she's only going to be at the camp for so long. I needed what I needed was going to be there, but for a small period of time. A small window, yeah.

For a small window. If that wasn't there, then we were back to, I don't know where to get a tube. So yeah, I made a decision to leave Dom, even though it was difficult. I left him water, food, a stove, and some extra warm, a bag to sleep in. And I took his GPS and mine because his had the tracks on it from last year that got me out. But on that previous trip back to fix his tire, it had. gone out on me and I was having mechanic issues with it. So I wasn't trusting it. So that also added to my anxiety about going to a place I hadn't been yet, unlike the other. I didn't know what

lie ahead. Dom here was with his keep calm, carry on attitude. Very, very compelling way. He was like, oh, it's easy, mate. So yeah, I set out. I had about 20 minutes a light. and it was very flat beachfront road until you turn into the mountains. When you got into the mountains, it became very rocky. There was a lot of erosion that had happened since Dom had done that two years ago. And now it's dark. There were some hill climbs there that really tested me. knew Dom needed, I needed to get there so that I could get myself and Dom out.

If I crashed, now I'm out separated from my partner who's also stranded. It just, that's a nightmare, right? And I was wrestling with this decision to leave those four hours. Like, was this right or wrong? Especially when I started hitting these hills that are just exposed softball, soccer ball size boulders with erosion ruts at night 12 inches more deep in this you know jeep wide trail and at one point i can i know it's a cliff but it's just black nothing and it's dark and and it's dark and even right now i can even feel a little bit of anxiety thinking about it and i don't

Mike, I don't know how I got up some of those hills. I really, something helped me, man. We went back the next day and I'm like, I wouldn't want to ride that even in the daytime. And I did fall on one hill halfway on the ascent. And I remember thinking, like, I can't get up this hill, but I have to get up this hill. I just kept, I picked the five. hundred pound bike up on the side of this hill I just grabbed front brake it's in gear I start it and I just get it I just get it up that hill you know in the second hill that really and when I get

up to hill I'm just thinking and I'm actually talking to myself I'm alone in the dark and I'm like okay you made it it's behind you and I'm like I hope nothing that I can't handle is ahead of me like rain. And then it starts raining. Sorry, I'm laughing. And then it started raining. It's funny.

It's funny now. Just pile it on. It wasn't. And this trail is just riddled with exposed, you know, call them kickers or baby heads or whatever, but they're like softball size or sometimes soccer ball size rocks that are, you know, half buried, quarter buried, three quarter or three quarter exposed. And you hit them.

And in normal dry conditions, you hit them and you bounce over them. and but in the rain you slide you bounce and slide and it's just very very you know you're on a fine fine balance with these 500 pound bikes with these motorcross bikes that are 200 pounds you can really lean and save yourself because you can just kick kick yourself up but if you fall off your center of balance with these 500 pound bikes you just have a very narrow error margin of error there So again, the second hill climb, which I didn't fall on, but I don't know how because I started ascending that thing and it was so rocky and so rutted. And I started bouncing and getting a little whiskey throttle and overreving.

And I bounced from the left side of this Jeep Trail to the right side of this Jeep Trail and back. Never, I don't know how I made it, but I did. And it's raining and I get in a couple hours I think of off-road and I'm I'm like finally I'm on the road But now it's really raining. It's raining sideways and I've got 45 50 miles of highway now in the rain. I mean it's sideways and it's blowing semi trucks are going by me I at the most I'll do maybe 40 but when the semis would kind of I'd have to, I'd literally slow down to like five or less.

I'm second gear. Just, and let just let them go by. And just wear it. You're going to wear it. You're going to wear the air blast. You're going to wear the weather. All of it. And you're going to hope that you're not going to get run over.

And I, you know, I have to have my visor up because I can't see, but. And I remember going, having this little mental issue of like, with the visor down, it's hard to see, but I can see the reflectors on the road. I know I'm on the road. I can see the, the line. but when I have to lift my visor, I can see how hard it truly is raining. And I'm like, I don't want to know this. I don't want to know how bad this is.

But yeah, obviously I was soaked. I contemplated stopping, but I just can't. I just couldn't. You've got a narrow window to find Allison. Hopefully, who's hopefully in camp. Who's hopefully in camp. Who's hopefully in camp. Has no communication from you to know that, you know.

Right. Wait for these guys. They need your tube. Right. And so that's a gamble. But, you know, I'm also, on top of this, I'm also thinking, because we're traveling with a couple guys in an FJ. They were on a different track that day, but we're expecting them to be at camp.

And I'm going to get their help as well. But so I'm thinking that. But I get to camp and realize, okay, cool, Allison Spikes there. But our guy, our friends in the FJ. are also having a mechanical, a major mechanical issue out there. And they're stuck. So they're no longer an option when I get to camp. Allison's bike is there, but Allison's not at camp.

She's at the hotel. Like the smart people. Right. And the two Scots, whom are who, Dom calls the Marines, which they were. Great Scott. Great Scott. Team great Scott. Those guys welcomed me in like instantly.

And I know I was. wound very tight and shivering freezing soaking wet. I was so hyper-focused on what was directly in front of me for four plus out, however many hours it was. And they could immediately see that I needed like some help. Right. And they did just that. They welcomed me in. They fed me through hand warmers in my pockets. I slept in their tent. The three of us in their tent. So that was great.

Those guys, they were on our team from the second I got there. The next morning went like clockwork. Our plan was, one, find Allison. When I got to the hotel where she was at, I saw the car she was riding in, but there's 14, 15 doors. I'm like, it's 6 o'clock. So I'm like, I'm going to start knocking on the door. So I just knock on the door closest to that truck,

it's Allison. Wow. It's Allison. Amazing. Six o'clock. I didn't know you had a lie in. Yeah. Yeah.

We were taking it easy. Not much to worry about. But it's Allison. And of course, you know, we all know Allison. She's so, so helpful.

And she gave us her permission, which I needed. She also gave me some spoons to get the wheel off because I left them all. I left them all with Dom, even though our plan, I realized I needed those

when I got there. but she gave me her tire irons and spoons and uh the guys from baha the medic in the medic van they they helped me out too um we got the we got the we got the tie uh john john and justin strong john and jordan yeah john clark and justin strong good guys justin yeah justin was also recognizing my level of stress and he gave me some perspective to help me calm down he told me to chill out calm down basically which i appreciated because i was wound up tight because on top of this you know i'm my first adventure rally. I was like, it's over on the 26th.

I'll be back that night to pick up my kids because I'm a single dad. And now I realize I'm not going to be home in time. So also, no service, I can't get a message out to my family. I was stressed about that too. Sure. But I was able to get a message out. And again, Chris, you're a guy who destroys bombs with the Navy SEALs in Afghanistan 20 years ago. I mean, like you've done some stressful stuff.

Yeah, it's weird. I have no problem putting myself, assuming risk for myself but like I'm trying to I'm his only I'm his last line of defense so to speak.

Right. So I feel very very responsive. I feel a very heavy responsibility to get it done and get it done. Right. So you got the wheel and in the tire and what came off of Allison's bike and went with you flying back with the great Scots and their FJ 80 which

just kind of a slow vehicle, but I bet they might have motored on down the highway. Yep, they got it done. So I got Allison's tube from her front tire, and then we got the Guatemalans to help me speak to the employees at the hotel to allow me to leave my bike there while we go rescue Don, because I wanted to pull my wheel, because we have the same bike. So now I have a redundancy again. We can either put the tube on or we can put your wheel. the wheel on. Yeah. Which I talked to the Scots and we,

we come to the conclusion that it made sense to just put my wheel on. Sure. Once we got there and let him ride it back. And then they can, once we're back, they can go there away and Dom and I can work the tube. And which is exactly what happened. But we did ride in their trucks on that route that I rode out on.

And, you know, seeing it in the daylight just reconfirmed to me like, I mean, even in the daylight, I would look at that and be like, I don't, I don't want to do that because I'm probably going to destroy my bike. Yeah. So, Dom, you're out there for over 24 hours. Well, I mean, I don't want, you know, I don't want to make it all about me, but I almost bit my lips on my hot coffee while he was in the rain. So there's that, there's that to worry about. But the irony is, I read a great book called Jupyus Travels a while ago about, um, I'm,

very into the philosophy of traveling by motorcycle and just what it does and I would never met any of these people that we've met if we weren't on the bikes if we were in a car you'd never have met them so I'm a great proponent of it it just makes you there's a humans are very empathetic by nature and when you when you look vulnerable it enables that empathy to come out I've found and I've never had anything but great experiences on bikes especially in trouble but the opening line of that the opening sort of scene of that book is when he's laying he's Ted Simon who I've met is in India in the 70s, a 45-year-old, you know,

kind of middle-class English newspaper writer, never ridden bikes really before, but he runs out of petrol in India in the 1970s and he's just casually leaning against a tree because what he's learned around his travels is that somebody will always help you. That's kind of my philosophy. It's always going to work out.

You've just got to figure out how you're going to fix it. You're not going to starve, you're not going to die, but there's always a way to get out of it. But unless you know, like I was kind of worried about Chris because I thought if it rained, that train would have been, that trail was a disaster. But we, my concern was hit was how long he was taking. I thought, well, he's a good rider.

So he would have been up and down and then be back by now. Even if he came back says, hey, there's nothing we can do. Let's hike out. He would have come back. But I think, I think Baha in general, what's good about it is, Chris is a good example. He's been in some hairy situations for 25 years. but it's always meticulously planned.

He's got, you know, second and third plans, that sort of stuff. But Baháh doesn't allow that. And you've really got to just let the universe take you where it's going to take you, I think, in Bahá. And I think if you can't let him accept it, it's okay. And I think that's why it attracts a certain kind of people. I mean, it was still a fantastic experience, even though it was nothing with a massive dumpster fire as it was from day one to today and night. Which is what we dubbed him from day one.

He's dumpster fire dog. So, you know, again, it's not about me. And as I'm burning my mouth on some hot coffee at this little roadside cafe that we stopped in. Terrible. And I see that they have a little sign that says Wi-Fi and Tips. You know, there's a little old canteen hand-painted on the wall. It says Wi-Fi and tip. So I get on the guy's Wi-Fi.

And my phone just explodes with problems. We were just merrily tootling along. Had no... I'm glad I could you ruin your day as well. Ignorance is bliss. And then, like, this message. text thread just explodes. Lovely, isn't it? And I'm trying to,

and it took a long time for this guy to make the coffee. It was good old fashioned find the water. Put it in the pot. Tell us six stories. Boil the water. Put the coffee in the sock. Put the water through the sock. Tell us more stories. Try to sell us property. You know, tell me all of his problems in the world. And I'm just like, scroll, scroll, Jesus, what the heck? Oh my God.

What would it? And I'm, now, Christopher is engaging with the guy, bantering back and forth, having a a good time and I'm like, who can I help? Can I get Edson at the ice cream shop, all this stuff? And the guy for whatever happened, some freak, maybe his metabolism, maybe his blood alcohol level, what have you. He gets angry at us and shuts off the Wi-Fi. And I'm flipping because like, listen, there's an emergency happening here. And now I can't communicate. And so I offered it, you know, 50 pesos for a minute, five minutes, you know, 100 pesos, and he's not taking, get out of here, get out.

What was this? I peel my sticker off his door. I'm talking about sticker and I'm leaving. It is not Slow Baja approved. It is not slow Baja approved. And so we drive back down the road 45 minutes in the direction of you to get back to the hotel Catavina. And, you know, and actually you go to the mini super and buy some Wi-Fi time and get back on

the thread of what can we do, what can we do. And I called your guy here in San Diego on FaceTime, because we had the Wi-Fi, to just cut out all the chatter and see if there was actually somebody going to get you because we had issues, my own lack of modern navigational stuff. We had your coordinates, but I'm not a guy who can plug that into my phone and make that stuff happen. And I learned how to do that as I was on Wi-Fi in the minisuper. And we got a guy from Long Beach BMW that we had met the night before at... Oh, really? He plugged into his GS.

And we'd met him the night before in San Ignacio. And so he plugs it into his GS. And I'm videotaping it as he's rolling through his instructions. That's hilarious. And then I find it in my benchmark Baja Rodin Recreation Atlas. So he had you pretty well triangulated exactly where we were. Then I figured out how to get your exact location into my good. Google and then it was like three hours and 15 minutes from here.

And so once we had discussed with your guy in San Diego who's relaying your messages and that's another story for another time, but the guy who was handling the information distribution, then we had to figure out, is anybody coming inside of that three hour window? Is somebody going to solve this problem before we go tear-assing back to get you? and at this point I'm super anxious like you've experienced but nothing to the level and just as I came I was walking from the refrigerator with two cold gallons of water

a bunch of coax under my arms and about to pile that up on the register and buy an armload of food and we don't have a cooler or anything you know so that's when the message came through that you guys were riding out. Oh that's awesome. It's funny I got on the Facebook this morning

and it was quite, it was very heartwarming really because there's about 40 people on that chain. And it was, again, it's just the epitome of what this rally is about and what that type of person is about anyway. I mean, if it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's been quite annoying because if you stop to take, you know, to take a leak by the side of the road or just you stretch your legs, people hit the brakes and say, are you okay? Do you need anything constantly?

I love that about it. Yeah. We do that here. You know, if you, if you stop by the side of the road here, they'll call the police on you in, in California for that you, you, they treat you like a leper. I'm going to. The guy Matt Walthor, he's how I know Chris. How I met Matt Walthor, this might be an edit,

but how I met Matt Walthor was about 10 years ago. I was at Nashville about 11 years ago when I got my first GS. There was a guy visiting on a road traveler from Canada was driving out of Panama, so he ended up staying in my garage for like a week. So I took him to Roe Hyde. It's like an off-roads.

Jim Hyde is a guy. He teaches off-roads riding skills for BMW. So Matt Walthor and his Navy SEAL friend of his had just got back from deployment and they were there giving these demonstrations on what to do when things goes wrong when thing goes wrong. And I just got one of these, the original spot connect, the satellite tracker. And so there's me and about, you know, BMW owners have got the most money out of any except for me. Of course, I'm the broke one there, but there's all these, me and all these rich, basically rich middle age dudes in this tent in all of these two special forces guys just. got back from, you know, doing Lord knows what in the Middle East. So they were still in that sort of, that kind of, you know, mentality. And then, so they were doing, they pulled out one of these

spot connect devices. And they said, we do this, you do that. Always keep these on your person. And I asked a question. I said, hey, I have a question. If, if I'm riding along and I hit the SOS button on the spot detection, because I find a guy who's got a broken leg, but all of a sudden he jumps up and he says, I feel finally drives off. Am I on the hook for that, for that? that helicopter rescue, who pays for it? And he says to me, what, do you care? You've just saved his life. I said, no, he's fine.

He's ridden off. But am I still? Who pays for that service? He said, are you telling me that you'd rather risk someone's life rather than pay for a rescue that wasn't needed? I said, no, I'm not saying that at all. I said, I don't want to pay $50,000 if this guy rides off. And that's the answer I was looking at.

And he just said, you know, he essentially said to me, why don't you sit down and shut the F up? because you could have, you're the cause of that guy dying. In front of like 50 people, made me feel like a complete idiot. So then three weeks later, I'm on Craigslist, looking for half years tired to do a trip down to my Sky Ranch. I'll go knock on the guy's door on Imperial Beach.

It's the same guy. I knock on his door, I'm like, oh my God, not this, A-hole again. Ring the doorbell, he says, are you here for the chickens? He says, what? Because are you here for the chicken coop? I said, no, I'm here for your tire. So he goes, all, come in. He's all grumpy.

He's a big, he's a huge dude. So he brings me inside, and then, And he's got the old GS that you had, the old R-100. So brings me inside, I thought, oh, good. He hasn't recognized me. Just get the tie and get out of here. And he said, hey, man, because you want a coffee? I said, oh, I love a coffee.

So we started chatting about bikes and getting along really well and stuff. And he said, you want another coffee? I said, yeah, I'll take another one. And then I said, I do know you, by the way. He goes, yeah, you look familiar. I said, I'm the guy that you told to shut the F up and sit down. And he said, oh, sorry, but we've been best friends ever since. But ironically, he was the one that was doing all of the satcom for us.

That's how met this guy. Awesome. Little at it, so. Oh, awesome. Awesome. And so you were on to the, yeah, we got to wrap this up. You were on to the problem of Baja that you might be just taking a break, taking a roadside P-break. Yeah.

And people are going to stop and say everything okay. Yeah. And, you know, I think it happens to me just because I'm in this iconic old vehicle. Because you look destitute. Yeah, with the fifth helmet, the name of the vehicle on the, Or and people want to say, hey, everything, all right, slow bah. And I'm like, just taking a break here, just, you know. Yeah.

But it really is like that. It really is like that. But when we saw you on the road in San Juanico, I always figured that I'm the last guy. We're traveling the slowest. Yeah. We're leaving the latest. That's true. We're doing that, you know, we'd gone, done a podcast with the folks who hosted us for dinner the night before.

So I figured there's nobody behind us. So whenever I see somebody come from behind me when I'm pulled over it, it blows my mind. So when you're out there and we're three hours away, I'm figuring that there's pretty much nobody behind us for sure. There was one vehicle passed me in the whole 24 hours. I was there, and it was about 15 minutes before that Chris and the U.S. Marines showed up. Amazing. But yeah, there's no one there at all.

Well, let's wrap it up. You spent more than 24 hours out in the wilderness. Chris went through a harrowing night where he has no idea how he got up these hills in the night and rode through sleeting rain and it was awful. I was worried about where I was going to park. It was raining so hard because, you know, I didn't want to have Lake Baja in the back of my open truck. How soon are you guys going back?

Tomorrow if I could. Yeah, actually, well, we're going to go back with the lessons we've learned. We've definitely learned some lessons. Like, you know, we could have planned better gear. I think we'll plan better gear next time. But the biggest takeaway for me is, you know, when it's time to shut it down, when you're on your last, you know, redundant, you know, backup plan, it's not time to keep carrying on and bombing down.

Chris is the front police. It hits him when I'm happy. Our ride was over, but we were just kind of overwhelmed with the fun and the excitement of bombing down these roads, and we didn't, we lost sight of that, you know. And you said to me earlier before we started rolling here when we were waiting for Dominic to show up, you said, you know, you're always in a team in the military. You're always in a team. There's always a team there. I said, it's only in the movies that the guy's out there by himself, getting the job done, carrying the weight of the world on his back. And you had, you both had that experience on this trip. And Dominic, you jumped in immediately and said, yeah, I'm ready to go back tomorrow if I could. Oh, yeah. Chris, I cut you off. So finish that thought. That actually comes from a conversation I had with the Scots because, you know, being Marines, Scott said, yeah, we all, you know, look at ourselves as tough guys and can do anything.

But in the military, you're always on a team. You have standard operating procedures. You have structure. You know what to do if this happens, if that happens. You're never truly alone. And that's it. rarely and it's never by design

so when I found myself in that situation it was just a straight the first time I really had someone else's life in my hands I felt and like I said I just I don't know how I did that I did it I just got it done

well thankfully you did and Dominic you'd go back tomorrow oh I was yeah wrap it up for us definitely would well unless you know if you haven't experienced Baja then you don't you just don't get it i think there's there's so much to do and it's and i think that what's annoying me now is that we didn't finish that road of course which is that the well i did well some of us did yeah yeah but in the dark doesn't count chris you can't see it but that's what i

want to do is go back and finish that road that's my that's my big uh my big takeaway from this but i'm going to get the bike ready first and fix it yeah it sounds like you need some kit i do yeah that's a fun part any ktm dealers out there willing to donate parts where i will gladly take them you can reach uh dominic through Slow Baja, KTM folks through Slow Baja. Yeah, there's, we had Taco Moto at our hotel the night before we knew all the problems. So I tried to reach him from the road. He was down there with a KTM lead ride.

Oh, really? Yeah, so unfortunately I wasn't able to get to him when we, when you were out there in the bush. But, and so satellite communications. Last thing. The in-reach saved your bacon to some degree, yeah? This in-reach, so the two things saved my bacon, actually. Both bought at the Overland Expo, friendly enough. One was about 10 years.

I bought the original in reach from DeLorm. Didn't have a battery, but Patrick had a spare, sorry, didn't have a charger, but Patrick had a spare charger. So I only turned it on that morning, ironically. And the other one was a lot in 2021. I met this smooth torquence-marine guy who lives in Oceanside. They have a company that make these sort of thermal, semi-waterproof thermal shields that you put over your tent to keep your tent cool.

But it was $200, which is, you know, it's a lot for a small piece of kit. I'd never used it. but I wrapped that around my camp chair, my RIA camp chair, which is another big luxury, and then that kept the rain off me. And then, of course, the in-reach was, I mean, my wife,

of course, wives, you know, they worry constantly when you're doing these ridiculous, you know, masculine adventures. But keeping her, made her feel a lot better, and without Matt, without me really, relaying everything to Matt,

and then luckily I had your numbers, I just, I gave them all the numbers of all the people that had on the Bar HRA XL, and it was like a, it was like a, snowball from there, I guess. But it was good. Well, we are all worried about you.

I appreciate it. I do appreciate that. And that's the spirit of Bob. Yeah, we're going to leave it right there. We've got a lot of miles to make today in an old truck that's not running all that well. And this was a terrific opportunity to get that story. And we're all going to have a beer over this another time and another place in Bahá and we'll be laughing. Yes, indeed.

We'll be laughing. Another Bahá' story. When it's not so raw. All right. Thanks, guys. well how about that one yeah that was a harrowing tale and i'm glad that everybody was there at the end to tell me on slow baha all about it um chris and dom if you got fired up about a bahaw trip on your ad v bike well you can join us you can join them they're going to be leading the motorcycle

side on the slow baha february 23rd through march first takate down to San Ignacio, a couple of nights in San Ignacio. We're going to do some whale watching down there. And then we're going to work our way back up and have a little beach fiesta, a little leap year beach fiesta in San Felipe. And if that sounds like fun, you better hit me up quick. I've got a couple slots, a couple of slots for bikes. Hit me up on that contact button or reach out via Instagram or Facebook. And we can talk about getting you on the slow Baja. If you like what I'm doing, please take a second, share the show, rate the show, drop a taco in the tank. You know, that is actually the most helpful thing. If you got tacos jingling around in your pocket after the holidays here,

you still got a taco in your pocket, drop one in the tank. Por favor. And if you don't, I get it. You know, you can go to Spotify. You can go to Apple Podcasts. You can drop a five-star. You can say something nice. You can text the show. You can share the show. You can send it on what's app to a friend. and that is helpful as well. I've got stickers in the shop. I've got hats in the shop. There's some large sweatshirts, some double XLs and XLs. If you're thinking it's getting a little chilly and you need a sweatshirt, get on that site,

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So be ready for that. All right. Well, you know, Mary McGee, Slow Baja alum, now an off-road Motorsports Hall of Famer. She had a pal, Steve McQueen. She went to a New Year's Eve party back in 62, met this cool cat, Steve McQueen. He said, you've got to get off your pansy road racer, Mary, you got to come out to the desert and ride with me. And she did. And she got pretty dang good at it. But her friend Steve, he loved Desert. He loved Baja. And he said, you know, Baja is life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting. You know, people always ask me, what's the best modification that I've ever made to slow Baja?

Without a doubt, it's my Shielman seats. You know, Toby at Shieldman, USA could not be easier to work with. He recommended a Vario F for me and a Vero F XXL for my navigator. Ted, as Ted's kind of a big guy. And Toby was absolutely right. The seats are great and they fit both of us perfectly. And let me tell you, after driving around Baja for over a year on these seats, I could not be happier. Shieldman, slow Baja approved, learn more and get yours at shielman.com.