Paul D'Orleans

Mexicanwheels Trophy Trails for Triumph

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TWO WEEKS SWINGING in a Mexican hammock had me hungry for two wheels, and I peeked out from my sombrero whenever a motorcycle sang its rumbly song. Mexico is a relatively poor country, but a rising middle class (and a lot of expats) means there’s an interesting mix of machines on the road. Well, ‘road’ has a broad interpretation at the bottom of the Baja peninsula; they vary from new four-lane toll highways to incredibly rough mountain tracks with no signage at all, and sometimes getting from here to there means riding on all the above.

There’s a picturesque dirt road up the East Cape from the principal town of San José del Cabo to the village of La Ribera, where the pavement resumes. It’s a 3½ hour ride along the relatively unspoiled coastline of the Gulf of California (calling it the Sea of Cortez is kinda uncool today), dotted with very expensive/empty homes and the very rough shacks of the goat herders and overseers of the vast, beautiful tracts of open desert, given by the Revolutionary government to local peasant collectives in the early 20th century.