Words and Photos by Brett Davis @brettrdavis
From the bed of the pickup, I focused on the fingers that lightly grasped and pushed up the truck's hood. The shutter clicked. This snapshot of time would be a lasting memory of the situation that was unfolding. How was this going to turn out?
My wife, Diana and I were 20 days into an off-road bicycle journey down the rugged and remote Baja Divide. Having ridden the final 300 miles of the route around the tip of the peninsula a couple of winters back, I sold Diana on tackling the entire route from San Diego to San Jose del Cabo (over 1700 miles). My pitch included visions of warm weather, easy pedaling, ocean-side camps, snorkeling along beautiful reefs, eating at inexpensive taco stands, sipping on tasty margaritas, etc. The salesman in me presented a picture of a bikepacking paradise, which I genuinely believed due to my previous experience.
Swaths of psychological research show that our happiness in any given moment is a function of reality minus expectations. When reality matches or exceeds our expectations, we feel good. When reality falls short of those expectations, we feel bad. Furthermore, suffering may take place if we can't accept the situation and shed our resistance to it. Expectations then need to be readjusted.
In the preceding three weeks, we had suffered quite a bit, both physically and emotionally. Reality did not meet the vision. Since pedaling out of San Diego, we had dodged two wildfires, the first one preventing us from crossing the border into Mexico on day one and leaving us wondering if we would even be able to continue. The roads, double track, and trails of the route were demoralizing at times with their steep ascents and burly descents that were rocky, rutted, and sandy.
The temperatures were anything but warm, with cool, windy conditions during the day and well-below-freezing temperatures at night. At each camp, it seemed as if every neighborhood stray cat or dog would find its way under our Ultamid 2 to nestle next to us in our down sleeping bags. They were trying to escape the fates of our water bottles each morning which were clogged with ice or completely frozen. So much for a bikepacking paradise experience. We were getting worked and needed to come to terms with what this route was going to throw at us. Things were not going to go as planned, and we needed to embrace each moment and release our previous expectations.
Shortly after pedaling ferociously through a section of deep sand, the knocking in my rear hub began. I disregarded it initially as just another sign that my chain needed yet more lube (which is a constant while riding this dry and dusty route). Pedaling through the next pit of soul-sucking sand caused the knocking to become forcefully louder. It wasn't the lack of lube.
Upon examination with our new cycling friend, Jonathan (known as "El Bombero Blanco" due to him being a Montreal fire fighter and his preference for riding in all white except for a pair of black shorts), we deemed that my free hub body was failing. A failure of this essential part where the cluster of gears on the rear wheel sits is a trip terminator. Without it, I couldn't engage my gears to propel myself forward. I would be dead in the water or sand as in this case. The only solutions would be a rebuild of the free hub body (if even possible) or, most likely, getting a new rear wheel. Would that be possible in Baja, Mexico?
For now, my forward momentum was stymied, and I had no choice but to begin a long hike-a-bike (9 miles) to the next town where I could hopefully get a ride 25 miles to the pavement of Hwy 1 and then down it another 25 miles to the nearest town with an operable bike shop. The challenges continued…
When I married Diana, I became privy to one of her magical powers: the ability to manifest in the universe a solution to a problem when in need. She has the uncanny ability to send requests out into the world that seemingly are answered and met over time. This isn't a genie-in-a-bottle sort of thing where one wishes for some grandiose longing such as becoming wealthy, being cured of an ailment, or saving all of humanity. Rather she has a knack for conjuring up small, simple events or happenings. Hence, after 20 minutes of pushing my bike, a Ford F-150 pickup came lumbering up the road, traveling in the same direction that we were. It was the first vehicle we had encountered in two days of riding. Unbelievable!
The hand disappeared from the hood as its owner appeared along the driver's side of the truck. The 70-year-old grandfather now had a hammer in his hand and crawled underneath the truck, instructing his granddaughter to turn the key in the ignition upon his command. The engine refused to start, and we were once again dead in the sand. Upon settling into the bed of the truck, we had only gone a mile or so when the truck's engine started faltering while going up short steep hills. At one point, while almost near the top of one hill, the engine stalled, and we found ourselves rolling backward off the side of the road and into a large cactus. Was it time for some more of Diana's magic?
With the hammer trick not working, it was decided that El Bombero Blanco would ride his bike to the little town up the road to fetch the town mechanic. Shortly after his departure, every rancher in the area began driving up and assessing the situation. Three different men had their heads under the hood—each speculating on what could be done. After numerous discussions and turns of the ignition key with the same inoperable results, a tow strap appeared, and Diana and I were back in the bed of the truck to be pulled behind a horse trailer that was attached to another truck. We were riding a train. This was going to be interesting.
Bouncing along as the sun set, we arrived in the little town that was made up of a few houses and an industrial-looking compound that El Bombero Blanco was guarding for the town mechanic. Johnathan had luck finding the mechanic though he was reluctant to leave his other job as the guardian of the compound. With Johnathan becoming the guard of who knows what, the mechanic met us on the edge of town where our truck was parked for future repairs. As I turned my headlamp on to assess a possible place to camp for the night, the granddaughter told me that our journey to Hwy 1 would continue, but this time we would ride in the horse trailer pulled behind the truck, which pulled us into town.
The 25 miles of deeply wash-boarded road provided a deafening and bouncy ride while applying a thick coat of dust to us and our bikes. We hung on in the dark as the driver barreled along the road ignoring any opportunities to ease the turmoil happening in the trailer. Now I know what horses and cattle experience when in those things. It is a wonder that they can walk or have any hearing left after such a ride. The audio torture subsided as we gave our gratitude and goodbyes to our rescuers. As they turned north on Highway 1 the dust began to settle. Now we had to find a suitable place to safely sleep away from the highway traffic. What a day?!
The following morning, Diana performed some more wizardry with the first passing pickup truck pulling over to give me a ride into our sought-after town with a bike shop. There wasn't enough room for all three of us, so Diana was going to have to manifest another ride for her and Jonathan as it was decided that I should get a head start on the possibilities for repairing my bike.
My ride was uneventful, as this time, I was offered a seat in the cab of the truck with a family on vacation and heading to the southern beaches of Baja. Flying smoothly along at 80 mph, I was soon dropped in front of an Autozone in a decent-sized highway town. My search for the bike shop was a dead end as it was locked up tight with a line of people calling around to find the owner. Seeking another option, I returned to the highway to find Jonathan and Diana unloading their bikes from a pickup truck. Jonathan's Google Maps on his phone showed another bike shop nearby. Pushing over to it, we found a cellular store that had a nice selection of bike parts, but no mechanic or fat bike rear wheels.
Upon speaking with the owner of the shop (Orlando) who was a local mountain bike racer, he offered us use of his personal bike tools and access to his parts bin in his garage behind the store. Heck yeah! Within minutes my bike was in a stand with the rear wheel removed and the gear cluster off the free hub body. Lying in disarray on his work bench was every tool needed to perform the job.
At this point, a crucial decision had to be made. My free hub body was considered unserviceable by the manufacturer, which meant it was unlikely I'd be successful in trying to disassemble it and figure out what was broken inside. The only other option to continue our journey on bikes would be to find a new wheel. This seemed like a daunting task and could possibly take weeks as a fat bike wheel would most likely have to come from the U.S. Or Jonathan and I could go against the manufacturer's judgment and attempt to disassemble the hub anyway, determine what was broken, and then find replacement parts between this shop and the closed one. Embracing the situation and yet more adventure, I began pulling the free hub body apart while Jonathan searched through Orlando's parts bin.
With the hub in pieces, I found the culprits to the knocking–two out of the three hub engagement points ("pawls" in technical bike speak) were broken and floating around freely in the hub. The third and final pawl was well on its way to breaking as well. As I was contemplating my next steps, Jonathan laid on the workbench an old free hub body he had found among Orlando's bike parts. A glimmer of hope surfaced. It was time to disassemble another hub.
As I pedaled out of town with a silent bike, a wave of gratitude washed over me. Call it luck, trail magic, or possibly good karma, we were back to pedaling down the length of Baja. Life was good. Twenty-two days ago, Diana and I had begun a journey with an unrealistic set of expectations that provided us with loads of physical and emotional suffering as wants were not met. With our self-imposed added weight of denial and resistance, we made it even more difficult to meet and overcome the challenges the route was presenting. It was hard to want to continue pedaling south.
Once we surrendered ourselves to the flow of the route and expected it to be hard, everything became easier. We could truly see and experience the magic of the place, people, and creatures that call this part of the world home. We found a bikepacking paradise where a broken bike opened our eyes to all that is possible when one is open-minded and accepts a situation as it is. The Baja Divide began to exceed expectations.
