Road to Oaxaca or Pancho Villa Didn’t Do It This-a-Way (Letter written January 17, 2004)

reh@knology.net — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 20:59:49 GMT

Pancho Villa actually purchased several motorcycles for his revolutionary army in 1913(+/-). It seems that he bought three or five Indian Motorcycles while in Albuquerque and had them shipped to Mexico (talk about a porous border). General “Blackjack” Pershing, the leader of the Buffalo Soldiers, was issued 20 Harley Davidson motorcycles at approximately the same time. These two leaders played tag along the border but there is no evidence that the bikes were involved in any action.

January 17, 2004, Saturday, 7:00 AM Slept well, slept late. Got on the toll road and headed west. There, abruptly in front of me, were the steepest most rugged mountains. Fortunately, I turned in for the night when I did because I was way too tired the afternoon before and there is no way off the road until the top.

The road twists and turns up these mountains. Around one curve and I look across to four switchbacks up the side of the next incline, and this is a divided highway with two lanes each. I could see trucks struggling up while cars were picking any appropriate speed. For the motor-heads out there, they were sweepers with tight exits. Grades up and down were constantly in excess of 5%. Once you ride this you won’t even mention Deals Gap again. The speed is your choice and you have both lanes! Temperature dropped from 71 to 51 in 18 miles. Stopped and put winter clothes on. Then miles of an irregular plateau more than 5000 feet above MSL, at the toe of the high mountains. The road turns south to Oaxaca. Several times, the plateau drops several 1000 feet into a basin with jagged mountains all around, then climbed back to the plateau.

Since I was ahead of schedule, I turned off the toll road and took the two-lane road through one of the basins to see a few of the town that the toll road passes.

I was really enjoying the ride through the arid, unpopulated highlands when the bike started to drift left, then right. I pulled over. Flat rear tire. Not completely flat, but too low to ride. I walked the bike to a wider area that others obviously had used as a pull-off. The road is straight and flat behind and ahead so other vehicles will see me and, presumably, adjust accordingly. I used a small jack that I had brought along and raised the rear tire off the ground. I found a small nail and pulled it out with pliers. Spoke wheels require tires and tubes. The tube had not lost enough pressure to slide within the tire. I attached a short air hose, attached a small CO2 canister and blew the tube up, let the air out and blew it up again. This procedure is intended to let the tube re-form to the tire after having been stressed and torqued during the deflation/riding time. My interest was to accomplish a fix that would last long enough for me to get to the Guzzi dealer in Oaxaca. I put enough CO2 in the tire to gently hold the tube to the tire and rotate the puncture place to the bottom. I then attached a pressurized can of tire Stop-Leak and started to add the Stop-Leak jell. While crouched over at the rear tire, I noticed an old ’63 Plymouth four door sedan with the slant six cylinder engine coming from the north in my direction (I know the details because I owned one back when they were new). The car was worn out, completely ragged. The car slowed to a stop beside me. There were four laborer types, two in front, and two in back. There was some kind of small bore rifle on the rear window deck behind the back seat. Not an uncommon site out in the country. “Having trouble?”, asked the one riding shotgun through a window that hadn’t been closed in years. “Flat tire, should be done in a half hour”, I lied as I started filling the tire with Stop-Leak. I don’t mean to sound paranoid, nor did I want to feel paranoid but, at the moment, I didn’t have the upper hand. They said something among themselves and drove slowly away with appropriate salutations. The Stop-Leak was in. I put tools back in the saddlebag as the car drove around a wide sweeping curve a quarter mile ahead and went out of site. I took the jack out from under the bike. The directions instruct the user to wait 15 to 30 minutes for the Stop-Leak jell to set up before driving. I checked my watch and noticed the same Plymouth coming into site from the south. I put my riding coat, helmet and gloves on as the Plymouth approached. I swung my leg over the bike and started it. I glanced at my watch. The stop leak had only been in for 5 minutes. I glanced back at the tire, it was still firm. The car was pulling over into my turn-out. I gave it some throttle and slowly let the clutch out being sure not to spin the back tire but accelerating pretty hard. As I roared past, the Plymouth the guys were calling to me as they opened the doors. The rifle was not on the back bench. I cranked the throttle and headed south and would continue heading until I reached Oaxaca or the rear tire completely gave out, whichever came first.

I believed that my actions were unwarranted and that I successfully offended four workers on their way home who just wanted to help. Paranoia can be a hard thing to control.

Everyone has had a charley-horse - one that you will do anything to loosen up. The instant pain is all consuming. Well, as I was going around the wide sweeper and out of sight, I got one in a muscle just below my right shoulder blade. Remember, the right hand controls the throttle and the throttle is spring-loaded so that, when one lets loose, the throttle shuts down and the bike slows to a stop. It is essential to maintain a grip and keep the throttle turned. Without giving relief to the tightened muscle, it would not loosen up. What muscle, and why? How would I know? Ask a doctor. I was not about to let loose of the throttle and let those guys catch up with me. If they weren’t mad earlier, they are now, and there’s still an outside chance that they had decided to rob me. I got back on the interstate at the next entrance ramp. The next 35 minutes was mind-numbing agony. Soon enough, the pain had spread down my right arm and leg. The actual tight muscle went numb, but I could feel every vibration in my forearm and right thigh. Navigating turns, the smallest bumps, and finally, stopping/starting at traffic lights, took total concentration. The interstate dumps you right into Oaxaca so I stopped to at a gas station to give my back some relief.

1:00 PM I put the kickstand down, took the ignition key out, swung my leg over the seat and took a step. Just being on my feet in the city where I could recoup seemed to make things a little better. I slowly unzipped my riding jacket with my left hand and gingerly let it slide off my shoulders. Modern riding jackets are made of the same fabric (to a lesser spec) as flack jackets. The shoulders and elbows have built in semi-flexible plastic pads, much like football pads. A semi-flexible pad, or shell, is built into the back. If you watch a super-bike race and see a small hump on the rider’s back, you may assume the hump is simply air lifting the jacket. In fact, this is the protective shell, commonly called a turtle shell (I never claimed that bikers are imaginative). While riding jackets like mine look like any other jacket, they are a little cumbersome to remove, especially with muscle cramps. I draped the jacket over the rear seat sissy-bar, much as one puts a jacket over a hanger and slowly walked around the bike to stretch, mostly, but, also to check the bike out.

As I walked behind the bike I noticed a small tear in the back of my jacket. But, that couldn’t be. I threw it over the sissy-bar bag when I changed the tire. It had been in contact with nothing. I looked closer. It was more of a gouge or rip like a barbed wire fence would make than like a slice. Remember, this is a special fabric that doesn’t tear easily. I looked closer. There is a mark/depression in the protective shell. The mark is a dull silver streak of lead that got wider as it pushed along and into the shell. The mark abruptly stopped at the widest and deepest part of the indentation. I had been shot!

Any marksman will tell you that you don’t shoot a small bore rifle with open sights from the standing position at a rapidly moving object at least a quarter mile away that is also traveling in an arc and expect to hit the object. The only explanation that works is that the four men were aggravated that I wouldn’t stay around to be robbed. In frustration, one of them fired a few rounds down range. Essentially, I was hit by a stray bullet that hit the shell at such an angle that it ricocheted off, rather than penetrate.

I walked around the parking lot for a few minutes to limber up, remembering that I was not yet at the motel. During that time, my bike drew a few curious bystanders. Mostly, they wanted to know if I actually rode the bike to Oaxaca. In the process I asked a young man, on a 150 cc bike, in my best Spanish, if he knew where the hotel was. He said he did so I asked if he would guide me. He was glad to. I quickly got initiated into splitting lanes to move through a city. Twenty minutes later we were at the hotel. I offered to pay, which he adamantly refused. I asked if he would have a beer. He smiled, but refused. As we shook hands he said, in perfect English, “Welcome to Oaxaca”.

This is where being alone is a disadvantage. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that a rib had been fractured and was poking into my lung. Had there been someone to bounce the idea off of, we would have quickly concluded that I had no trouble breathing and was couching no fluid. It was just a bruise. But you don’t think like that when you are alone with only your thoughts, and pain. Through an ex-patriot on-line newsletter, I had collected names of American doctors and lawyers along the route. I called a doctor and explained that I had been in an accident and may have punctured my lung. He gave me his address and told me to come right over. He looked at my back and the jacket and told me that he wasn’t even going to x-ray. At the very worse, a rib might have been cracked, though he doubted it. Even if it was, all I could do was keep the area relaxed and let it heal. He gave me an arm sling, a prescription for pain pills, and told me not to ride the bike while on the pills. His office is in his house so he invited me to join him and his wife on the patio for an afternoon drink. They are a retired couple from Montana who simply wanted a warmer climate and slower pace. The Doctor did not go through the red tape necessary to get a license to practice in Mexico, and he only sees certain people of his choosing. I didn’t ask why he chose to see me. I was simply glad that he had. I explained that I was riding to Costa Rica. He, as many others had, advised that I cross El Salvador during daylight. I walked back to the motel, took a pill and slept. It is early evening and I am waiting for Elise and Becky to arrive so thought I’d get my notes down.

Later

Ron

The Motorcycle Diary

Road to Oaxaca or Pancho Villa Didn’t Do It This-a-Way (Letter written January 17, 2004)