Today is B-day – Batopilas day. Seems like is it kind of a challenging road, rough dirt winding down the side of the canyon to Batopilis at the bottom. I’m trying to tip the odds in my favor by leaving most of the gear in the hotel at Guanchochi. Cheating I know, but not in the mood for picking up a fully laden Tenere…
I didn’t really have a plan to go to Batopilas. I’d heard the road was really bad at the best of times, and I knew the conditions could change from one week to the next, or one day to the next if it rained. Anyway, I came to Creel to check out the Copper Canyon, and was able to see it from the top at Diversadero, 30 miles of good tarmac from Creel.
If I was going to do the Batopilas road I needed to know what it was like currently. I’m travelling alone for the most part, and don’t want to be taking too many unnecessary risks. Fortunately I ran into Carol and Ken, an Aussie couple on an R80/GS, the day I arrived in Creel. They had a plan to go to Batopilas the next day, along with Rick, a Californian on an R100/GS. We swapped email addresses so that they could report back on road conditions.
After spending a few days in Creel I travelled 120 miles or so to Guanchochi, the nearest town to the road that goes down to Batopilas.
I found a nice room, with lockup garage for the equivalent of $11/night. Even has hot water (but literally only for about 1 minute before it gets cold.) Still, not going to complain for that price.
The next day Ken reported that the road was tough but doable. They had fallen twice but no injury or damage, and Rick had suffered NINE front tire punctures (8 from thorns, one from a rock). Fortunately they happened near Batopilas and he was able to get them plugged there. Ken had zero punctures, and we thought that the difference was that Rick had lowered his tire pressures, Ken hadn’t.
From this I concluded that I should be OK solo on the Tenere, but would be better without a load. I CAN pick the bike up fully loaded, under perfect conditions, but on a slope with a loose surface underfoot, fuggedaboudit. I didn’t want to have to be unloading the bike every time I went down (and I was assuming I would, at least once or twice) so I arranged to leave most of the gear at the hotel.
I got talking to a couple of guys from the electricity company that were staying in the hotel. They travel around towns and villages in the region, and spoke pretty good english. They told me there are some problems in the area, with narcos mainly but also drunks on the road… Their advice was, it’s OK in town, just don’t travel at night. Thanks, I wasn’t planning on it! With this in mind, I took off on my side trip to Batopilas.
First I gassed up… a full tank wasn’t necessary since there were a couple of places on the way to get fuel, and in fact I would been better off with less fuel as a way to lighten the load. BUT I wanted to measure my fuel economy, know that I’d be in first or second gear all the way. What kind of economy could I expect under those conditions? At some point in the future if I have to ride like that and fuel is harder to come by, I’ll want to have a pretty good idea of my range.
Here’s the road down. It’s pretty rocky with a layer of bulldust/fesh-fesh over most of it, with some gullys and a few easy water crossings. The bulldust wasn’t as big a problem as you might think – because it’s such a fine silt, it doesn’t take the front wheel in the way that sand does… it would if deep enough, but there aren’t many places it was that deep. The K60’s could dig through it to the hard rock underneath and get good traction most of the time. The biggest problem with it is that it does a good job of hiding whatever’s underneath, so you really have to focus and look out for signs of big rocks or gullys hidden by the silt.
The road drops from 8000ft to a little over 1000ft in the last 10 miles of so. Temps are crisp and fall-like at the top, vegetation is mostly pines, and by the bottom it’s almost sub-tropical, with cactus scattered over the hillsides.
I was pretty tentative at first but once I got a feel for the road I fell into a bit of a rhythm and started to enjoy it. Awesome views on the way down and stopped several time for photos, as well as a brief lunch stop in one of the small communities on the way. No real incidents, but there’s always something going on and I really had to keep focused. All in all not as difficult as I’d anticipated, and I suspect for many of those who’ve crashed on this road, it’s because they can’t stop themselves looking at the scenery!
And about the fuel economy – it was a 160 mile return trip, with about 50 of that being good pavement. I got 35mpg. Allowing for the fact that the pavement section would have boosted the average a bit, I’m going to say that 32mpg would be a good figure to work from if I ever have to do this kind of 1st/2nd gear riding again.
