Baja On A Royal Enfield

Winter was easing into its usual patterns of long, cold nights and travel advisories. December was just two days away and I was preoccupied when my phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was Jimmy, asking if I wanted to do Baja in March—a trick question?

- Kirk Labelle

Our ride was set to begin in Tecate, navigating all the way to Cabo, then returning by a different route to southern California. All told, we would cover 2,500 miles in 10 days. But first was the motorcycle selection, which needed to suit both challenging off-road routes and some very long paved sections. Jimmy chose a Honda CRF250 Rally with new Dunlop D606s carrying heavy-duty tubes. For me, it would be the Royal Enfield Himalayan, which had no performance upgrades, but did have several ergonomic changes: Seat Concepts’ tall seat, handlebars and handguards, and Doubletake mirrors, along with heated grips. Stock tires were the Pirelli MT60s with heavy-duty tubes.

We met our chase vehicle driver, Thomas, in San Diego, and were off to Tecate for the border crossing in temperatures barely above freezing. The crossing was quick and painless, though we did have to ask for directions in getting our visitor forms.

Each day we had three types of tracks to choose from, but we’ve never been able to ignore the more challenging “red” options. Thomas would stick to the green route, paved and civilized so he could arrive hours ahead of us on most days, book our rooms and haul in our gear from the van—talk about first-class service.

We picked up our first day’s track just south of Tecate, turning onto the Compadre Trail, a winding, dirt path through rural Mexico. It was one of the most amazing we’ve traveled, taking us through ranches, hills, villages and arroyos, and making it quickly obvious that Baja’s fauna require appropriate levels of caution.