Looking for input! Planning stages!

A buddy and I are doing a 5 week bike trip starting in Canada, thru the US and into Mexico. Our families are going to fly down and meet us at a resort somewhere in southern Mexico for one week (probably Mayan Riveria). After that we are good to go. We would like to explore off the beaten path and on the way home spend some time in Copper Cannon. Looking for "Mexican travel experts" to give us some input.

Anybody needing travel info for Ontario or a place to crash just drop me a line.

Darryl

Darryl:
Mexico, as any other country has a lot to offer to adventurers, I think it will mostly depend on the kind of trip you want and the level of "comfort" you are looking for on this trip.
Camping in Mexico is good mostly on beaches that have the special "palapas" for that matter. I do not recommend camping in open-lonely places. Also small modest hotels are so cheap that I wouldn´t choose sleeping on the floor by saving 25-30 US Dlls that a room might cost (You can also find 500 dlls. rooms!)

Baja California is a paradise, lots of books specialised on this subject, maybe 7 days will make a nice & interesting (but basic) trip along the Baja peninsula from Tijuana to La Paz

Cooper Canyon is a MUST, also the pacific coast, Michoacan, Oaxaca, etc. But again it depends if you want to go to very touristy places like the Mayan Ribera or almost virgin beaches like Zipolite or Mazunte in Oaxaca.
Or Zihuatanejo (touristy but nice)

Guanajuato, Zacatecas, San Miguel de Allende are another style of Mexican pueblos, That is in the central part.

Another choice is the Native Mexico where you can visit all kinds of old native constructions like Paquime, Teotihuacan, Monte ALbán, Palenque, etc.

I think that your question is one very tough to respond for me, since there is so much to see and you have not that much time, Mexico is not as wide as Canada but it is very long! So in aprox. numbers I guess it will take you 1 to 1.5 weeks to get from Ontario to Mayan Ribera at a fair pace, this makes 3 weeks total of traveling for the round trip then you will have only 2 weeks for spending in the places you like so think how many places you want to visit and how much time you want to stay at each.

I as a Mexican can say that one or maybe the best publication on all kind of sites to visit is The Lonely Planet´s, if you can get one, it is worth it, you will see what I mean when you read its texts and see the photos.

If you give me some more info I will for shure help you recommend some good places at pinpoint. I hope this helps.

Have fun planning your trip



Humberto Moro
I got some pics of Mexican places in my site www.morocycler.smugmug.com

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THE Motorcycle JOURNEY is making known the unknown.
http://www.morocycler.smugmug.com

Senor Morro made some very good points.

I suggest making plans to 'blast' through the US, both outbound and inbound legs, maximizing your time south of the border. Buy some maps. I like the large ITM type of maps for overall trip planning. These can be found at most large bookstores. You'll also want/need a good road atlas for Mexico. www.guiaroji.com.mx has the best available.

Where will you spend your time? What's really important to you? Stick a map on the wall and list/mark your priorities. Mexico offers so much.

You will have a blast and want to return many times.

Guys,

We will be blasting straight thru the US directly to the Mexican boarder. We are planning 2.5/3 days hard riding to Brownsville Tx. Once into Mexico we would like to take our time traveling 300-400 miles max per day. We don't mind travelling every day as we want to see as much as possible. Is 300-400miles per day reasonable travel distance in Mexico?

Again, I really think Hotels are the way to go as it may be not be practical locating camping spots, carrying all the gear and equipment and cooking your food. We do not want to stay at expesive Hotels so cheap ones will be good as we have a fairly tight budget.

When we pin down where are families are going we can plan which areas we would like to explore and whether we should do it on the way down or on the return trip.

We will be going to Copper Cannon for sure. Whats the weather like in April?

Thanks
Darryl

Hey Darryl &Co.,
Mexico is indeed great riding country and a trip there can take however long you can afford the time. Give yourself breathing room with the daily planned travel distance allotment,.Instead of planning on 300 to 400 MILES per day , you ought to be downsizing your expectations to 300 to 400 kilometers per day, as an Ontario resident km will be familiar to you. Much more and you will wind up just racing past all the scenic stuff during the limited amount of daylight riding hours available between getting breakfast, riding a bit , stopping for pics, for pit stops and finding a place for the night before the evening then finding supper. This winter it took me more than two weeks , with a very meandering route to get fro m Eagle Pass Texas to Chetumal at the bottom of the Yucatan Peninsula. If I wanted to though I could have bee-lined along the Gulf coast and done it in a week or less. 500 to 600km days are only easily made in the desert interior of northern Mexico with the long thinly populated highways.

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http://advrider.com/index.php?thread....207964/page-5 then scroll down to post #93

Darryl:
From April on, many places in Mexico start becoming a microwave oven, May-June is the hottest, then the rain releases some cool.

Some time ago I posted this text for an adventurer who was planning some tight schedule thru Mexico, here is a copy of it, maybe it will help. 400 miles is a lot! for a day in a long distance trip, if you do it you will remember very little from the trip, maybe it is fun racing but I guess that is not the purpose of your trip.

Here it is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE: "If we can average 45mph for 6 hours a day (good lunch, see some sights, stop early for camp), that's 270 miles per day, for 13.5 days of "easy" travel."·

My Posting:
I have been travelling all around Mexico and some countries in central America, roads are not that bad,they are fair and some pretty good, but you should consider:

I have records of all my trips taken from my GPS info and I can say that it is very very hard to get more than 46 miles per hour "Moving Time Average" in our roads (mostly on twisties), even when I speed up to more than 100 miles per hour on some toll roads I can barely pass the 46 miles per hour moving average for a day of 6 to 10 hours of ridding.

Plus, you will have to stop and eat, refuel, etc. So the Overall Average will drop some more.
Also consider that maybe the first couple of days you could make 650 or more miles but the next days your performance will be affected and you will feel comfortable only with much less miles per day than that, I mean, maybe 250 or so, per day.

Also consider that riding our latin american roads involves more fun but it also takes a bit (or much!) more of concentration, like being aware of suicide dogs, truck drivers, kids, F%&@ing TOPES, and TOPES, and More Topes! So probably you will have enough riding earlier a day than what you plan.

I am not discouraging you trip, MAKE IT! You will enjoy it very much but consider your time limits.

And as Grant advices, "If you don´t have enough time, do not go faster, visit less places, enjoy more"

Good Luck guys, if you pass by Guadalajara in Mexico, send me an e-mail, maybe I could join you for some miles, chat, or share some , you are allways welcome.

__________________
THE Motorcycle JOURNEY is making known the unknown.
http://www.morocycler.smugmug.com

Just a few questions out of curiosity and a few tips.
Is this a first ever trip to Mexico ,or have you flown down to a resort before? Is this going to be a once in alifetime trip which tries to pack in every possible thing , or will you be able to do more trips later? Any previous experience in iron butt type long distance running? What do you mean by "family " going to resort on the Mayan Riviera- the missus and the kids, ma and pa, cousins..?Would they be disappointed if you did not show up?
I ask this because your estimate for riding from Belleville Ontario to Brownsville Texas and your guess at possible daily driving lengths are wildly optimistic .
I spent 15 minutes with my Mexico road maps' distance tables and a Rand McNally for the US and added up the distances for a trip of the length you are proposing.No surprise it comes to roughly 15000km of which 8000km will be taken up just by getting to the Mexican border from Belleville and back, and this is all predicated on taking the fastest most direct routes , interstates in the US and the major highways of Mexico.For 5 weeks, or 35 days, this comes to averaging 429km per day. Now how long do you plan on hanging out with the family?--- add more km to the daily quota!
How many hours per day do you think you can ride? Late March from Belleville your departure date if riding the bikes may suffer some major adjustment if it is still crappy winter weather and it will surely be crisp at night possibly freezing down to Georgia- no fun riding all night. Also , you know of course that to Brownsville would be around 40 hours just riding, maybe two of you could do it in a car sharing driving chores but on two bikes you would be testing your endurance. In Mexico you definitely should NOT be riding on the open highways at night, not because of crime but because of the many hazards from livestock , horses etc of open range( the entire country) broken down vehicles , junk , landslides.... Also do not expect that just because temps are summerlike in Mexico that you will also have long days for riding as you do during Belleville summer. Figure on 12 hours- and -a -bit of daylight every day ,year round.Ok,so that means you start riding after breakfast and stop well before sunset so you can find a hotel. And you hit it right on when you propose staying at low cost hotels which you can find in nearly every town. A typical rate for a room is now around $14US equivalent, but many times you can get for less around $7, and in the major cities you can find older hotels which are right inthe heart of the city at surprisingly low rates,e.g. 3 blocks from the Zocalo in Mexico DF there are perfectly good hotels asking only $17US.
Now I'm not saying you cannot do such a trip in five weeks km-wise but you will not be able to do much exploring off the beaten track which is great fun but devours time, and certainly you cannot afford to hang out on the beach with the family.
My suggestion is to decide which is more important to you- family visiting or exploring at an enjoyable pace. Perhaps the folks won't mind if you take the scenic routes. It may be a question of either the Mayan Riviera , which is back east, or the Copper Canyon which is way out west when compared to Canada.
Then come back and do the other region on a next trip,...and a next...and a next.....
PS to moderator; these posts ought to move to the more appropriate section for Mexico,Central and S.America

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http://advrider.com/index.php?thread....207964/page-5 then scroll down to post #93

Hello Sjoerd,

I think it would be great if we could meet over a coffee and discuss your Mexico Experiences. It is only a quick jump over to your area from where we are.

As for some of the questions...we have to meet and spend 1 week with the families...that is how we were able to make the trip fly so to speak. We both have wives and kids(older). We will be doing other big trips like this but this one will be our first long one or at least longer than one week. We are both experienced riders, I have done numerous long distance runs so 1000m days are not out of the question and have done them before in various weather and temp conditions. We realize that travel in Mexico will be a lot slower and as evedent by the posts....300-400kms would be a long day. We will not be travelling at night due to the hazards and would like to do 5-7 hours max during travel days. Copper Cannon is a must see for us so we will have to adjust the trip accordingly.
All of this info is great as we are planning this adventure. Let me know if your interested in meeting over a coffee somewhere. Its always a great day to go for a ride on my bike!
Darryl
dman230@hotmail.com