The first leg of my journey took me from Tecate to Ensenada. In total 112 km from the hotel to my host's house. Not an easy ride, especially for the first day. Immediately I noticed how much heavier it was than I remembered from my last long bike trip. But this time I am also lugging video equipment around with me, so I'd be a fool not to get a bunch of audiovisuals out of it, hopefully decent ones.
When I reached Ensenada my whole body was hurting, so I asked to stay another night. No problem with my host. He even had a scale I could step on and finally put a number on what I only felt was HEAVY as. Standing on the scale and holding my bike, with all my gear, bottles all filled, measured up to 120 kg. Out of this my pure body weight is 64 kg. So I'm carrying close to my own body weight around with me! It makes me feel like an ant.
In Ensenada I made a bit of adjustments to my front wheel I had recently built, as it developed a bit of a squeak over the last few kilometers. New wheels may have to be re-trued, nothing new about that. The squeak went away, still I wanted to visit a bike-shop I had only heard about: At Bajadventours Bike Shop & Lounge they combine three of my favorite things: bikes, burgers, and beers.
I had them look at my bike to make sure I did not overlook anything, and in the meantime I sat down for a meal. When we were finished, the verdict was that the Red Fox was in top condition. Checking the bike was going to cost me 300 pesos, but in the end they decided to do it for free. Thank you very much!
Now that my body is hopefully well broken in, my next destination is the beach: La Playa Calavera.