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Hail Yes - MexTrek 2010

Thank you Richard,John T.,Pinklloyd,Don and all the rest of the guys.

I just woke up after that long haul all the way back to Dallas............722 miles non stop! Well,except for dropping Jimmy off in Austin with his sick KTM990.
I

What happened to Jimmy's KTM? And I could have sworn it was the 950 Adventure, not the 990. He's had it a few years.

Thanks to Richard for putting on this incredible ride. To Milton for putting up The Gold Standard - it is aptly named. To Jthompson for the lecture on GPS. I may break down and get one. and to the other guys I rode with for being great riding partners.

Everyone I met on this trip was friendly, helpful, and welcoming (well, except for one). I like riding with this bunch, and I hope to see you guys at another TAR event soon. Or a non-event, either way.
 
I'm still mad I missed it but I found it too hard to leave my daughter on Memorial Day weekend.

Can someone please list the towns this Gold Standard route goes through? Rayones, Las Adjuntas, Casillas, Laguna Sanchez, Cercado and then pavement back to Rayones?
 
I'm still mad I missed it but I found it too hard to leave my daughter on Memorial Day weekend.

Can someone please list the towns this Gold Standard route goes through? Rayones, Las Adjuntas, Casillas, Laguna Sanchez, Cercado and then pavement back to Rayones?
You got it. Add San Juan Bautista and Cienega (de Gonzalez) between LdeS and Cercado and thats the deal.
Oh yeah, Mesa del Oso is between Casillas and Lde S.
 
Gimpy...
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It was only a 2 block walk. What a pansy ;-)
 
Milton is a maximalist and carries lots of stuff in a home-grown kind of style. He just keeps stacking and arranging till it’s all on the bike. He calls his packing method “vagabond” but it works for him and that’s all that really matters.
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It's called the vagabundo style, sir.
 
I suspect it goes like "I was dicing it up with Scott (Stingray) and went a little wide..."
 
Saturday was my day to explore. Earlier in the week Richard and I had heard of a route we were unaware of, that went east out of Aramberi, or a little south of there, up into the mountains, circling around the back of Cerro Viejo and descending down to Zaragoza. A nice short loop. NOMM. (Not On My Maps.) Jimmy asked to "tag along". Oooookay. You can tag along. Even on his behemoth KTM he seemed to handle himself well, and didn't ask for help in picking up his beast.

70 miles south of Galeana on Hwy 2 pavement is Aramberi, where we gassed up. I checked with my man in Aramberi, Mayo, just to make sure we could do this thing. He mentioned the place names of Portreo del Padre, Agua Fria, and Garza. He also cautioned the "road" was brecha, or just a breach among the trees. That was enough for me. Ready to go, Jimmy?

About 3 miles south of Aramberi is a place signed Aldea, and 100 meters south of that sign is a dirt road that leads off the highway to Zaragoza up into the hills. We left the pavement around 12:30. And very quickly we were climbing into the mountains.

The oasis that is Aramberi
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Portrero del Padre
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Portreo del Padre from afar, with Aramberi valley behind the mountains
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Rest break
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This is a place called Corral Viejo. We know that because Andres told us.
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Andres Guerra, a veterinarian from Zaragoza, with a clinic in Galeana as well.
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Andres confirmed that the road lead to Zaragoza, though advised that it was little used.
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Off into the unknown
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A closed gate, near the community of Agua Fria
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We were moving into the clouds
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Toward Agua Fria
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We often consulted Jimmy's GPS though it was of little value. I believe we found a certain security in it.
("See, we're right there.")

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The road got pretty gnarly. Luckily we didn't have to cross the logs.
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Jimmy's KTM reminded me of a Cadillac Escalade out there. Big, but extremely capable.
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High in the clouds we came upon this old school house. We felt this was a good sign.
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Nearby were freshly plowed fields and houses and cows. But no dogs, chickens or open doors. We couldn't raise a soul. The place was deserted. Jimmy's GPS demonstrated how close we were to Zaragoza. "We're only 3 miles away." Yeah, but there's a mountain between us and Zaragoza. As encouraging as it was to see houses, they were empty and the road led higher and higher and deteriorated further and further.
We pushed onward into the fog.

Our road deteriorated into a cow path.
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And finally our road was nothing but a huge eroded gully. OK. We were lost. Our watches told us it was 4pm, but the cloud was so thick you would swear it was much later. Whatever, it was time to turn back.
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On the way back down we tried another road. By chance it led us out to Zaragoza.
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Down, down, down. Down is good. At the bottom of a steep canyon we found another gate, outside the community of Paso del Niño, where we found gente, people.
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The man we talked to confirmed we were on our way out the forest, but first we had to climb, climb, climb. As an interesting note, when I asked the man where we were he had to think about the question for some time before coming up with Paso del Niño.

This guy asked for money before he'd tell us which fork to take. We gladly paid him. We still weren't finished climbing.
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Finally El Viejo. We knew for sure now that we'd make it off the mountain.
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The road to Zaragoza, there was no doubt now
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This is the road to Rufugio, leading out of Zaragoza. No MexTrekers have been up this road either. Does it lead to Miquihuana???
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Zaragoza within sight
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Gringo mountain biker John Mermon and his wife and baby. Makin' pizzas in Zaragoza.
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Down off the mountain after a day of exploring, listening to the Grateful Dead, waiting for our pizza. Life is good.
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The 70 miles or so back home were pretty straightforward. All paved road. We left Zaragoza about 9 pm. On the way home to Galeana I was feeling pretty satisfied. Jimmy led the way with his superior lighting. I couldn't keep up with him in the curves. He waited up for me long enough to announce he was low on gas, did I have any in my little can? Yes, but I'm low too. Sure enough I ran out of gas in the dark by the side of the highway, threw a little gas into the tank, afraid to take too much in case Jimmy ran out. Didn't put in enough, ran out of gas again, and had to stop a second time to go thru the whole process again. Just past Pabillo the skies opened up. Lighting was ka-booming and cracking all around me and so much rain was coming down I could barely make out the difference between the shoulder and the road. This is no good, I'm going to run into something. I pulled over to wait it out. Got out my rain poncho to augment my rain slicker and waterproof riding pants. Draped it over me, the wind pressed it to my body, got down on my haunches away from the bike, afraid of lighting, and hunkered down like an animal. Storm, wind, booming thunder, torrential rain.

Then came the hail. Hail yes, I was caught in a hail storm out in the open. I made myself small and endured. What a racket.

The hail stopped. It kept raining. What's this I see? Movement at my boots? I flick on my flashlight and its a rising tide. :eek2:

I've bivouacked in a hole or depression of sorts and its now filling up with water. In fact, the road is a flowing river. The sides of the road are forming lakes. Ayeeeee! :giveup:

What a day! Rolled into Galeana about 12:30. Jimmy had waited out the storm under a covered bus stop. Humph.
 
An idea of our route. I'm not sure what happened in the middle.
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Jimmy: "You're not going to include that in your route guide, are you?"
Answer?
Hail Yes!
 
I think that route is on my map as an "Advanced Hiking Trail".
 

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I think that route is on my map as an "Advanced Hiking Trail".
Yep. That be it. We came out at La Escondida though I never saw where we joined the "main" road to Snta Engracia.

Good map, that map has been the guiding light for many of our routes.

Next quest is to see if there is a way from Lampasitos to Los Chorritos in Tamaulipas.
 
Good map, that map has been the guiding light for many of our routes.
Yeah, I saw one another ride had the first time I was in Galeana a couple years ago and made a special trip to the Cola de Caballo hotel the next time to pick one up. I have it scanned as a Legal size PDF and thought about sending it to Richard to distribute but didn't want to get arrested by the Federales for copyright piracy.

If anyone would like a sample, PM me.
 
This is the road to Rufugio, leading out of Zaragoza. No MexTrekers have been up this road either. Does it lead to Miquihuana???
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According to Mapsource/Bicimaps, Yes.
 
Great feedback on trip. Where can I get one of those Texas Flag ADV stickers I'm seeing on some of the bikes? I believe that is Miltons Suzuki.
 
That, would be interesting.
Jared and Scott were all jazzed to head that way but got side tracked somehow.

Yeah we were planning to do that on Sunday but Jarrett tweaked his knee the day before so thought we'd better hold off until next time.
 
Day 2 – Milton tries to kill me
Sunday dawned cool, clear, and beautiful. The temps were in the mid-60s but the sun was up and the sky was blue. It looked to be a fine day for Milton to try and kill me.

Okay, “kill me” is an exaggeration. Maybe “break me and my bike” is a better description. In any case, he had us scheduled to ride a road that turned out to be rockier than anything I’ve previously ridden.

The “not on the map” route. Start at General Zaragoza and ride east across the mountains.
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We headed south from Galeana, enjoying the crisp morning air and blue skies.
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The clouds were just peaking over the distant mountains.
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Life in rural Mexico
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The paved road through the mountains
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Frog rock, on the road to Aramberri
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There aren’t any Pemex gas stations along this route so we stopped at a convenient store / “gas from a barrel” place just outside of Aramberri. You buy the gas by the liter and a cloth filter keeps the bigger pieces of stuff out of your gas tank.
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We made a breakfast stop in Aramberri. It was our first meal of the day and there was the possibility that we might not make it across to the other side of the mountains today. This little gal was our waitress.
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Milton took advantage of our lunch stop to ask some locals about our proposed route. Milton had ridden this road twice before but it had been about 10 years since the last time. You never know what might have changed in 10 years.
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Time to ride. Once we located the correct road out of town, we started climbing. As we rode higher and higher the views got really spectacular. That’s Zaragoza in the distance.
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That’s the currently unexplored road to El Refugio, south of Zaragoza. The map shows the road becoming a trail going all the way through to Marcela but everyone we asked said it wasn’t passable except on foot or by horse. Somebody’s going to have to go ride it to confirm or deny. Maybe next year.

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Next: Rocks, rocks, and more rocks. Skinny dogs. My bike breaks. Milton crashes. The only show in town.
 
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