Would love some advice from those more experienced than I on biking the Pacific Coast with a surfboard. I know some do it and I’ve found one other who’s done it. He helped me weld a surf rack and table onto a Bob Yak trailer that I recently towed from Santa Cruz, California where I started to San Diego, California on a Surly CrossCheck and carrying a 5’5 FireWire mashup and a 6’0 Lost step up.
I worked my way through lots of technical difficulties with the weight distribution in the first week with death wobbles and the through axle slipping through the horizontal drop out. Then really got a feel for hard hilly miles going through Big Sur, and recently made my way through a few storms that have passed through here in California. To make it from my house in Santa Cruz to my parents in San Diego took me exactly 3 weeks, 560 miles, and got to surf 6 times despite the stormy conditions for nearly half the trip.
All of this being said I feel ready for what’s to come. Baja. I’ve been maybe a dozen times, driven the sea of Cortez, surfed as far south as Punta Baja, I speak a little Spanish and feel comfortable. I am aware of the current situation in Mexico, have been monitoring it as close as possible, and feel as though waiting a week or so here at my parents before leaving should be enough time to know weather or not things will rapidly get worse or continue as business as usual. I went into this knowing and expecting cartel nonsense and honestly am still afraid of opportunistic petty theft happening to be violent than anything (the cartel rely on tourism dollars damn near everywhere and so far tourists haven’t been targeted).
My plan is as follows: Leave Ocean Beach, San Diego early and ride to a friends house at K-38 to avoid camping close to the border (53 miles should be doable, most I’ve done was 65 and I started at noon). Then hug the 1, getting a room in Ensenada and following IOverlander until I get past El Rosario where I feel it should be safer to wild camp and look for waves. Maybe surf San Miguel or 3Ms as I go through Ensenada, then really only make detours if the surf forecast looks like it’s worth it. Does anyone have any advice for Baja in particular? Going through Tecate is much chiller and the road that goes to Ensenada is safer too, if there’s no waves I have no issue doing that but camping advice would be appreciated to break up the ride. Then I’d like to relax and spend some time in Todos Santos, maybe bike the cape loop if there’s swell and I’m not sick of the desert.
From there I’d take the ferry to Mazatlan, a city I’ve been to and know people in. The guy that i know who’s done this doesn’t speak any Spanish and doesn’t seem like an athletic god by any means and he biked through from there, “bussing through sections that people told him were too dangerous to bike”. Are people familiar with these busses? If I decide riding is only a little dangerous I might either take busses along the coast, so I can bike to spots like Pascuales, La Ticla, Rio Nexpa, Sayulita, La Saladita (I’m a goofy footer and I’d be a little bummed to miss these spots, maybe 2 months from now some miracle happens idk). OR I take a long distance bus (probably most reliable to fit my bike+trailer+surfboards underneath) to Mexico City, a place I’ve never been, sounds significantly safer than other parts of Mexico at the moment, and I could continue riding from there past Pico De Orizaba, through Oaxaca City, down to Puerto Escondido where I resume the surf portion of this trip.
Once I get there I’m imagining I’m through the crux of the most dangerous part of the trip and I’m into the most fun leg of it. Biking Puerto to Salina Cruz should be dreamland, then Guatemala, El Salvador, ferry to Nicaragua and skip Honduras, then Costa Rica, Panama, sail the San Blas to Colombia. Ecuador sounds extremely unsafe at the moment as well as portions of northern Peru around Puria and an option could avoiding it and going inland although theres a lot of waves in Northern Peru that really have my attention, then Chile sounds like the happy ending to it all.
This is a lot of reading, my main questions are about Baja road conditions and weighing my option between the coast and inland route to Ensenada as well as getting your bike on a long distance bus in Mexico. I’ve done a lot of research and would love to hear from those who have biked in these regions of the world or done surf bikepacking trips.
by Pretty-Goal-8244