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GILBERT, MEXICO can’t say riding dirt roads across the Sierra Madre Occidental, northern Mexico’s remote mountain range, had been my original idea. Yet once I’d rode the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which had guided me all the way from Canada to the Mexican border via a web of forest tracks and desert trails, I Icouldn’t imagine any other way. By the time I arrived, I was firmly hooked on unearthing the most off-the-beaten path to cross a country, even if it was the most challenging. Luckily, I wasn’t alone. Meet the Dirt Bags Because of our tight budgets, our love of roughing it, and our desire to ride off pavement as much as we could, we’d named our band of misfit riders the Dirt Bags. The group consisted of myself, two brothers from Philadelphia, Jeff and Jason, whose endeavors included hiking the Appalachian Trail and riding across Africa, and Anna the Australian, who’d lived in a Brazilian favella for three years and counted circus acrobatics amongst her previous job titles. All four of us shared Alaska as our jour- ney’s start point, the same free spirit and wanderlust that sparks and drives so many bike tours, and the ambition to cycle all the way to the southern tip of Argentina. And as paths often have a habit of doing over long-distance journeys, ours had all crossed in the months it had taken us to reach the Sierra Madre. I’d first met Jeff and Jason in Fairbanks while stocking up on supplies Riding the Dirt Roads of Mexico’s Sierra Madre for the Dalton Highway, also known as the “haul road,” then again months later at a forlorn forest junction just as night had fallen in wintery New Mexico. Anna had Photos and story by Cass Gilbert taken a different route south, following the Pacific Coast through Oregon and California before cutting inland across Death Valley and Arizona to meet us in time for a pie- themed Thanksgiving — apple, cherry, pear, pumpkin, pecan, you name it — in the wonderfully named and time-warped community of Pie Town, New Mexico. Widely renowned for drug traffick- ing and the narcotrafficante cowboys who have corrupted its mountains, we’d been warned about traveling in Chihuahua, Mexico’s most northerly state, and through the Sierra Madre Occidental, an histori- cally wild, lawless range that harbored Geronimo’s renegade Apaches as late as the 1930s. As one of the world’s largest produc- GILBERT, MEXICO ers of marijuana, opium, and heroin, the across these mountains; our trail was at Along the way, manzanita trees with area is rich in gruesome tales — shootouts, times barely more than a jumble of baby- smooth, red bark and twisting branches, killings, and kidnappings — both past and head–sized rocks and rutted, tire-grabbing caught our eyes amongst the scrub oak present. Yet, we also knew that the major gullies. Dotted sparsely along the way and juniper. We resupplied in Ejido el media’s portrayal of an area and how it’s were quiet, forgotten pueblecitos, and we Largo, a dusty settlement built around experienced on the ground — especially camped on the edge of one of these, Colonia logging where dilapidated, grungy haul- when on two wheels — can be two dif- Hernandez. It couldn’t have changed much age trucks cruised the streets. It was also ferent realities. For starters, we wouldn’t since the Mexican Revolution in 1910, reported to be one of the many areas in the be venturing anywhere near the notorious when large tracks of privately-owned farm- north controlled by the drug cartels. Ciudad de Juarez, cited by some as the most lands were divided up and redistributed Barrancas, or deep ravines (many larg- dangerous city in the world. Conveniently, to villagers. Set in a peaceful river valley, er and deeper than the Grand Canyon), the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route ter- men still rode on horseback, fires were lit at pushed us in roller-coaster fashion from minates at a remote border crossing where central Mexico. From there, we planned night, and only the occasional old and sun- 10,000 down to a lowly 1,500 feet — then just a couple of friendly Mexican immigra- to continue west to the wild beaches and faded pickup truck hinted at the passing back up again. Pine forest, a powdering tion officials waved us onwards along an pounding surf of the Pacific coast before of time. With no electricity in the village, of Christmas snow, and nighttime tem- inviting dirt road, wending its way toward continuing on our respective journeys thick smoke billowed through the slender peratures that hovered around 14 degrees the midday sun and our first pueblecito. toward Central America and beyond. chimneys of its mud-brick houses into the Fahrenheit gave way to tropical vegetation As far as we could tell, the Sierra Madre soft evening light. As we warmed fresh and grapefruit trees, all in the space of Occidental had an undefined beginning The Adventure Begins cornflower tortillas around our own fire, and end — depending on what we read, Just a handful of miles away from an elderly man with a thick white mustache the maps we poured over, or the locals we its Americanized center, Nuevas Casas and a spotless white sombrero, looking spoke to. So for the first Mexican leg of our Grandes’ new and spotless highways gave resplendent on his white horse, made his adventure, we’d declare our starting point way to the undiluted rough and rugged way over to greet us and inspect our camp. to be Nueva Casas Grandes, just 125 miles mountain tracks we hankered for. In fact, It must have passed muster since he stuck from the border. We’d piece together our it may even have been a little more rough around for a bit of pleasant, if sometimes own Sierra Madre Mountain Bike Route to and tumble than we were expecting so undecipherable, conversation. lead us all the way to Zacatecas, a colonial early in the journey. It was hard to imag- As we continued on, we passed through way to Guachochi, another spit-and-sawdust town perched atop a hill on the edge of ine how trucks could make it in one piece swathes of forests en route to Copper Canyon. town that boasted only a handful of shops and a few hole-in-the-wall eateries. Here, sombrero-wearing narcotrafficantes, obvious to all around in their gleamingly new, dark- tinted trucks, gathered to pass the day. As if to redress the balance, occasional groups of sunglass-wearing, body-armoured federales swaggered by, brandishing assault rifles, machine guns bolted to their equally shiny pickups. Without a doubt, the cartels are part of the fabric of life here, but somehow, despite this accepted undercurrent of vio- lence, I never felt threatened. In any case, keeping to quiet backroads seemed to be working for us so far. Venturing once more off the confines of our map, we corkscrewed down another rock-strewn descent to Ejido Guazarachi, a set of warm springs cupped in Hello Mexico. Crossing the border at Antelope Wells, New Mexico. the base of a canyon. We may have been in sunny Mexico and one long, tortuously steep dirt-track descent they secured first, second, and fifth place pushing toward the warmer climes of the to Urique. Once a mining town, Urique before going on to set a course record in south with every pedal stroke, but it was now draws tourists and athletes alike, home 1995. According to local legend, it was this January, and up at 7,000 feet the nights as it is to the Tarahumara Indians. Here, running ability that resulted in these canyon were still intensely cold, so each evening loincloth-garbed men run barefoot, or with areas largely escaping the influence of the we gathered dead wood and lit a fire. shoes cut from old truck tires, covering 170 Jesuit missionaries, as the locals simply ran Laying our pots on the embers, the air was miles without stopping. When hunting, the off when they’d heard enough. soon rich with the smell of sizzling garlic as Ramaruri (“those who run fast“) chase their we dissected the day‘s riding. Riding as a prey until it collapses from exhaustion. Narcotrafficantes, Federales, and group was beneficial for our social dynamic In 1993, they were invited to compete in Cheap Mescal — as well as for security. Our soundtrack Colorado’s grueling high-altitude race, the Continuing along on an impossibly steep was the spine-tingling call of coyotes, and Leadville 100. Fueled largely on their uncon- track newly hewn from the canyon face, we we warmed ourselves further with fiery Local accessories. Improbably pointy boots and the classic sombrero, as worn by all discerning vaqueros in the Sierra Madre. ventional diet of pinole, beer, and cigarettes, climbed back out of Urique and made our mescal and tangy lime. At 20 pesos a liter, 20 adventure cyclist august/september 2010 adventurecycling.org adventure cyclist august/september 2010 adventurecycling.org 21 GILBERT, MEXICO just a dollar and half, it was the ideal dirtbag alternative to tequila for dulling the pain of our battered and bruised bodies. The dirt roads here were unusually rough in places, a gamut of loose stone, bedrock, and sand, and could make for slow, filling-loosening progress. Jeff and I rode with suspension forks, while Jason and Anna had stripped- down rigid setups. All of us experienced racks and panniers rattling loose or rico- cheting off the bikes as we rode the same grueling profile: up and down, up and down.

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