Got the text from a good friend "Copper Canyon, you in?" I immediately sent a "yes" It was the dead of winter and I didn't even look where it was just knew I had to get the hell out of the grip of winter, or at least something warmer to look forward too. Said friend rounded up a total of 6 for what turned out to be a bucket list ride that we didn't know was going to be. Bikes were hauled down to Phoenix behind a truck and camper destined for a camping trip in Baja, and left in a secure storage yard waiting to be ridden. Pic is getting ready to go out of Phoenix through Nogales.
My bike is the KTM 690 Enduro, we had a 1190 Adventure, and the rest of the group was BMW R1200 GS and GSA rides, including one rental. We picked up all of our visas and got as far as we could with the import permits online, and had the good fortune of e few guys landing in Phoenix the day before to get everything ready, and jump through the rest of the hoops which were minor but saved a lot of time, the Mexican consulate in Phoenix was VERY helpful and easy to deal with for the balance of the paperwork and information. The ride to Nogales was about the worst part of the ride on the 690, I threw a 16 tooth countershaft sprocket on before we went and I am glad I did, 140 KMH on a 690 for a few hours is enough, especially in the wind, was a little annoying. The border crossing was pretty straightforward and easy to navigate. Once we were though we headed south, the roads good, looked a lot like American farmland to a degree, my GPS was conveniently shutting off every 5 minutes, so I just left it off. That worked great until I blew the turn off and had to do a quick turn around, the beauty of motorcycles and Mexico, you just simply turn around wherever, the median is no match for a 690. After we turned east, the road turned to absolutely pure motorcycle ecstasy, Not really for a knobby tired 690 but I rode it until the ABS was buzzing the brake lever and pedal going into the corners and backed it off a notch, occasionally getting a buzz on the rear brake pedal going into the curves, fast enough for the tires and a lot of fun because of it. The desire for a super moto set up was offset by some pretty vivid memories of my bad history with 900 and 1000CC crotch rockets and hospitals. After an hour or so we arrived in Cucurpe, a small town, with lacking services and we were running low on fuel, EVERYBODY in Mexico will happily point you to the next town for fuel, and the info is what they have, there are fuel pumps there, but off the beaten path they don't always have fuel!
First stop Dentons in Cucurpe, extremely limited spanish on our part, and the same comprehension of english on the hoteliers part had us playing a good game of "figure it out".
Due to diamond drilling and gold prospecting in the area the place was actually full, except for one room with 10 beds, try to get that across in 2 non meshing languages, thanks to one of the workers who showed up with pretty good english we got it figured out. Was like summer camp! We ate, the food was excellent, which was to become very consistent through the whole trip. No matter where we were, we had great fresh food. Pic of our "dorm".
And a little brown scorpion in the shower, I picked him up and put him outside.....right after I flattened him.
My bike is the KTM 690 Enduro, we had a 1190 Adventure, and the rest of the group was BMW R1200 GS and GSA rides, including one rental. We picked up all of our visas and got as far as we could with the import permits online, and had the good fortune of e few guys landing in Phoenix the day before to get everything ready, and jump through the rest of the hoops which were minor but saved a lot of time, the Mexican consulate in Phoenix was VERY helpful and easy to deal with for the balance of the paperwork and information. The ride to Nogales was about the worst part of the ride on the 690, I threw a 16 tooth countershaft sprocket on before we went and I am glad I did, 140 KMH on a 690 for a few hours is enough, especially in the wind, was a little annoying. The border crossing was pretty straightforward and easy to navigate. Once we were though we headed south, the roads good, looked a lot like American farmland to a degree, my GPS was conveniently shutting off every 5 minutes, so I just left it off. That worked great until I blew the turn off and had to do a quick turn around, the beauty of motorcycles and Mexico, you just simply turn around wherever, the median is no match for a 690. After we turned east, the road turned to absolutely pure motorcycle ecstasy, Not really for a knobby tired 690 but I rode it until the ABS was buzzing the brake lever and pedal going into the corners and backed it off a notch, occasionally getting a buzz on the rear brake pedal going into the curves, fast enough for the tires and a lot of fun because of it. The desire for a super moto set up was offset by some pretty vivid memories of my bad history with 900 and 1000CC crotch rockets and hospitals. After an hour or so we arrived in Cucurpe, a small town, with lacking services and we were running low on fuel, EVERYBODY in Mexico will happily point you to the next town for fuel, and the info is what they have, there are fuel pumps there, but off the beaten path they don't always have fuel!
First stop Dentons in Cucurpe, extremely limited spanish on our part, and the same comprehension of english on the hoteliers part had us playing a good game of "figure it out".
Due to diamond drilling and gold prospecting in the area the place was actually full, except for one room with 10 beds, try to get that across in 2 non meshing languages, thanks to one of the workers who showed up with pretty good english we got it figured out. Was like summer camp! We ate, the food was excellent, which was to become very consistent through the whole trip. No matter where we were, we had great fresh food. Pic of our "dorm".
And a little brown scorpion in the shower, I picked him up and put him outside.....right after I flattened him.
