Biking in Baja: Brutal conditions test local dirt bike rider

By Steve Miller, Journal staff | Tuesday, June 24, 2008

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Seven days on a dirt bike in Baja turned out to be more beautiful--and more brutal—than Bill Hearne imagined.

Hearne, managing partner of Outdoor MotorSports in Spearfish, got way more than he bargained for when he joined dirt bike legend Malcolm Smith for Seven Days of Baja in April.

“Physically, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I was way over my head,” Hearne said.

Hearne was invited to join the legendary 1,500-mile dirt bike ride in Baja, Mexico, by Smith, a champion dirt bike rider for decades, who was one of the principals, along with actor Steve McQueen, in the ultimate dirt bike movie, “On Any Sunday.” Smith’s annual motorcycle Baja ride benefits an orphanage in Mexico.

Hearne had met Smith, who owns a motorcycle dealership in California, at dealer conventions. “Last year when I saw him in Orlando, he invited me to go on this Baja ride. I didn’t know what it was,” he said.

Smith is a legend among dirt riders. “In his time, he was the Michael Jordan, the Tiger Woods of dirt biking,” Hearne said.

Hearne said that at a dinner the night before the start of the ride, he realized there were 10 award-winning riders in the room. “I thought, hmmm, who shouldn’t be sitting at this table?”

But Hearne survived the 1,500-mile ride filled with endless stretches of rocks, deep sand and fields of cactus.

Fourteen of the riders didn’t finish. Of those, four had bikes that blew up. The other 10 either had injuries too severe to continue or quit from exhaustion.

“When you get hurt, there’s no way out,” Hearne said. “It’s not like you can drive a vehicle in and pick a guy up. You might have to ride your bike out 30 miles to where a support vehicle can get to you. We had guys riding with broken ribs, one with a broken femur.”

The riders had to be self-sufficient, both for their bikes and their bodies. “If you break down, there’s nobody to help you. You’ve got to figure it out yourself,” Hearne said. “There’s no quitting.”

Hearne said there were times during the ride when he was spent with exhaustion. “The second day, I resigned myself to ride until I got hurt bad enough to where I couldn’t ride anymore.”

Hearne said he fell more than anybody else but didn’t get hurt seriously, partly because he was riding more slowly than the other riders. And partly he was just lucky, although he cracked his helmet on one fall.

Riders were sliced by sharp rocks or stabbed by cactus when they fell.

In the Black Hills, dirt bike riders might ride a rocky creek bed for a few hundred yards or even a mile. In Baja, the riders endured rocky sections that lasted 20 to 60 miles, Hearne said. “There is no path. You’re not on a trail. It’s boulders from the size of grapefruits to medicine balls.”

Hearne said the rocks were extremely sharp and cut riders up when they fell.

The deep sand required the riders to go fast to stay on top of it. “The bike is just jumping everywhere because the sand is so soft. You’re just going all over,” he said.

The cactus fields were an added obstacle. “You get on these long sandy stretches, there’s a path through the cactus that’s 6 to 12 inches wider than your handlebars. The bike is going all over heck. Even the good riders can’t keep it on a precise line. The cactus is just nasty.”

Hearne said some cactus spines penetrated his hard plastic hand guards, and one spike that went all the way through his knee guard, but they didn’t get him.

The cactus is so tough, he couldn’t pull the spikes out with pliers, but had to drive them out with a rock.

“We had guys who got pitched off into this stuff. They just got cut up to beat the band, like a razor blade in places across the back,” he said.

One rider fell and sliced his hand open 4 inches long between his thumb and forefinger, Hearne said. “You could see his tendon way down inside. I held his skin together and another guy dropped super glue and we super glued his hand together. And off he went,” he said.

Hearne said the riders covered 180 miles on the shortest day. He was usually straggling in two hours later than the others because he was so slow.

“A lot of it’s just mental,” Hearne said. “It’s relentless. You can’t relax for a second. You’ve got to go fast and it’s nasty ground. A rider of my skill level shouldn’t go on it.”

But he is glad he went. “It was great fun.”

He was astounded by the scenery as the ride crisscrossed Baja from Ensenada down to Cabo San Lucas. “Baja was so much different from what I anticipated,” Hearne said. “I thought it was just desert. The terrain was constantly changing, from mountains to plains to pine forests to forests of cactus up to 50 feet high,” he said.

Plus, Hearne said, “It doesn’t get any cooler than riding Baja with Malcolm Smith.”

   

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com