Land of legends...

Flatiron Mike

If you haven't met FIM on the past two EDRs, you should take the time to buy him a beer this year. He was the first dude to meet us at the bar the night before the very first run. Talk about self-contained. He trucked his bike to San Diego, flew in, picked it up and jammed his way up to our area ready to go, no baby-sitting required. His trademark low slung, all-business bikes are fun to look at and have landed him in a couple magazines recently. This year's 80" Flatty will not disappoint! Looks like he's got a little more work to do, but has obviously been making more progress than most of us. We look forward to seeing you and the rest of the East Coast invasion soon, Mike...

3000 reasons why you should own this...

Bike Of The Day! Found this on Craigslist tonight. In Norco, CA. Someone please buy this and ride it on the EDR. I wish I had an extra three grand kicking around!

More Sweet EDR Bike Show Prizes!

The hits just keep on coming from this year's super-generous trophy builders and contest sponsors. What you see here is the grand prize for the Huevos Grande division of the EDR bike show:



EDR sponsor, alumni and badass leather crafter Rich Phillips created this trophy with his bare hands, and he will be in Ensenada on April 20 to present it to its deserving recipient. The Huevos Grande award is for the toughest motherscratcher on the EDR. Toughness comes in many forms, and we've awarded all kinds of riders at prior EDR's for their commitment to the event. Rich's fantastic trophy is a fitting tribute to the tough-as-nails mentality the Huevos Grande award was designed to celebrate.

Thanks for all your support, Rich, and good luck to anyone who throws his hat into this fiery ring...

What kind of beer do you like?

If you're like Dennis Hopper, you need to be at the El Diablo Run pre-party at Biltwell HQ in Temecula 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 16. That's when the ladies at Hard Hats will be slinging chili dogs and beer for hungry Diablo Runners. Chris and McGoo will be handing out wristbands in the Biltwell warehouse from noon till 4:00, and while supplies last all the chili dogs and PBR at Hard Hats will be free. The bar will remain open after the free stuff runs out, so plan to finish your evening at Hard Hats with all our friends and neighbors the night before the ride.

Ruben's Campo

Me on the left and my friend Matt who will be driving the Biltwell Inc. chase truck, circa 1984 after about ten days prerunning in baja with our mentor, Ron Brant. We were 16. His grandma always said I was a bad influence on him. Some things never change...



If you've been having a hard time getting through to Ruben's Campo in San Felipe, don't sweat it. The whole place is ours, most palapas are already spoken for, but the beach is wide open. I heard from Aaron just yesterday and he said the going rate to camp on the beach, or in a palapa is $70 for two nights, up to four people. He's not going to run along the beach and pester you for money and give you an armband or something official. It'll be up to you to track him down, or one of the EDR staff who can point you to him so you can pay him. Less than $10 a night is impossible to bitch about. Do yourself a favor and use the showers next door at his cousin's joint- Kiki's. If you want a spot reserved, try Kiki's next door. He's great at returning emails. kikimr.baja@hotmail.com is his address. Last we checked with him, all hotel rooms at Kiki's were full but he still had a good amount of palapas open. You can trust this guy.


Aaron, Ruben and Billdozer. I was stoked to show up and find a legend like Ruben rocking an EDR shirt. Yes, that's a dog-choking wad of dollars in his left hand.

A little history lesson on Ruben's Campo. Arron's dad (Ruben) started the camp in 1964. His family has run it ever since. The place has been an icon in off-road racing long before the first time I went there in 1983. That was back in the days when you might rub elbows with Ivan Stewart there at night or have a friendly conversation about suspension and the feed business with Robbie Gordon's dad, Bob. Lot's of lore from those golden years is left on the walls of the bar, and is completely unnoticed by the retarded college girls on a binge drinking trip. The signature drink at Ruben's is a Coco Loco, and rumor has it that three or four is the most anyone has ever finished and survived. The stump the coconuts have been carved on for at least twenty years is the same one we all watched Chris Moeller hack saw his broken cocktail shaker muffler on last year.

What's my point? Well, like most vintage icons, money and progress are it's enemy. Seriously, the town of San Felipe seems like the only change in the past 25 years or so have all occurred in the last three. I liked it way better before the old Gringos from Canada and everywhere else found the climate mild and the real estate prices welcoming. That influx of snowbirds and their pesos is probably good for the local economy, but it sucks some of the soul out of it for me. The key is to just keep heading south to find real baja anyway, but that's hard to do on choppers, at least on this side of the peninsula. Progress in this case comes in the form of an 18-story resort hotel directly behind the camp. Might not be that big of a deal, but the camp is between the beach and the front of the hotel. Generally things move pretty slow in baja, and half-finished construction sites are about as common as three-legged dogs. Not in this case. When we were down there in January there were modern pieces of heavy equipment carving shit up and making a nice flat spot to start the resort construction. Damn. So, of course Ruben's is for sale. It's a great opportunity for the family to make some real money and I don't expect them to turn their back on that just because me and a few hundred other crusty old bastards have great memories of hard drinking in the place. The price? Asking 2.5 million US dollars. I wish someone rich and cool like Jesse James would come along and buy it and tell the new resort to find another way to access the beach, but I doubt that'll happen.




The inside of the cantina, littered with years of off road racing fodder and a few scars left from two EDRs. Scotty Halseth from Sacto can dig it.


What does this mean to EDR riders? Should be no impact on us this year other than just seeing the construction site. Aaron swears nothing will happen before the EDR. How 'bout 2009? I wouldn't count on it. We're already scouting locations on the south side of town and there are a couple little spots that are really promising. We'll keep you updated and in the meantime if anyone has a rich uncle who wants to own the biggest palapa in San Felipe, I could probably help broker a deal...

-Billdozer


This place just looks good with bikes everywhere.


Hard to beat sunrise over the Sea of Cortez, especially for us left-coast guys.

Maps to the stars, Holmes…

The concept of self-sufficiency almost precludes us from doing so, but discretion got the better of us, so we've decided to print maps and itineraries for this year's Run. I know we'll hate ourselves for doing it...

It's the same map and schedule of events detailed on this website, but compressed into an easy 6' x 9" postcard size.

We'll be handing out the EDR maps at three locations the week of the ride:

BILTWELL PRE-PARTY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16

DENNY'S PARKING LOT, 7 a.m. APRIL 17

PIZZA HUT PARKING LOT, lunch time APRIL 17

All remaining EDR maps will be available at Ruben's Camp on day one and day two. We've printed 1,000 copies, so there will be plenty to go around.

This service was made possible thanks to the generosity of our great EDR sponsors.

Dice Magazine EDR BIke Show Prizes!

Matt and Dean from DicE magazine are outdoing themselves again for EDR3. What you see above is Mr. Davis' sweet ass in a pair of exotic Euro-spec galactic wash Levi jeans. Holding up said pair of dungarees is the third-place prize for the 2008 EDR Bike Show: a lovely hand-tooled and bejeweled leather belt. Dean and Matt tell us the second-place prize for this year's EDR bike show will be a custom-painted skateboard, and that the winner will receive a stunning custom gas tank. Stay tuned to this blog for more news and photos as they become available.

From Bill, Chris and myself, thanks to Deano and Matt for so generously supporting this year's EDR.

A word about chase trucks

There has been some chatter on the innerwebs about chase trucks.

Here's the deal: We have ONE.

We'll have a van and a flat bed trailer and extra gas, just like we have the last two years. We are not your official tow truck service, and you should not depend on us to be your personal Mexico hospitality rig. We won't leave anyone behind, but there is no way we can try to provide chase to so many riders. The first year we had 40 riders or so. 2007 there were over 200 bikes that we counted personally. We saw about 5% of those bikes in trucks and on trailers by Ensenada. We are expecting more this year, and if the percentage of crippled roaches remains constant you can see that our one rig will be overwhelmed quickly.

Enter self-reliance. Remember the big lectures on other pages of this website about having your shit together and all that? That requirement has not changed. We'll have gas and tools in the van, but we'll give you about 10 minutes to sort your shit out or top off and then we are out of there, otherwise this trip will take 100 hours if we have to stop and wipe each guy's ass along the way.

This hasn't been a problem in the past, everyone just works together. If you see some one broke down on the side. Stop asshole, stop. Help a brother out, see what he needs. If it's terminal, try to help him hitch a ride with your girlfriend in the truck or whatever. If you do have a support truck following you, please instruct your people to stop and lend a helping hand, and bring extra gas for sure.

Anyone who hasn't been on the run and wants to talk shit about pussies needing chase trucks can eat a bag of dicks. The roads are bad and distances between things are long and desolate, and it happens to be a hard place to get out of if you are alone and broken down on the side of the highway somewhere. To me, this is a big part of what makes it fun and challenging. I've done it alone on a 40 year old bike, and stood on the side of the highway out of gas in the middle of nowhere. It's actually kind of entertaining, but it makes one seriously consider having a friend in truck somewhere off in the distance...

-Billdozer

More bikes in progress...

Does anyone own complete and running motorcycle? Ha, ha! This run has kind of become the official shake down ride for newly cobbled-together machines...

Just a little more work to do

Here's a couple bikes submitted last night... Almost done, eh?

Who's in?

Hey, send us some pics of what you are riding this year and we'll post 'em up here for all to see. Who's got their bike ready to rock and who's still sitting on a basket case in the shed making vroom-vroom noises??? You can send an email to bill@revcreative.net with a small attachment photo of your bike/project. Here's what mine looks like so far, I'm making progress but not as much as I'd like.

Shirts from Warren's Cycle

Proud EDR sponsor Warren's Cycle whipped up some event shirts that are pretty cool. They are $20 shipped in the lower 48 and you get them by contacting Warren Jr. at chprs4life@hotmail.com

Warren has a posse and they'll all be running hard again this year. Check out his bad ass shovel from 07. He's made some changes to it this since then but you'll have to wait and see the latest incarnation in Mexico...

Fillin' Up

Rooms are filling up fast in Ensenada. The Hotel Santa Isabella is booked solid. Every room is someone on the EDR. Juan Carlos there can still help out - he's got a line on another 30 rooms or so in a neighboring hotel. His contact info is:

Email: misionsantaisabel@yahoo.com
Phone: (011-52-) 646-178-3345

Or you can always dig something else up. Check out the Bahia, Cortez, Corona or more by following the links at the bottom of the Where page.

San Felipe is a little easier, if you don't have a palapa reserved with Ruben's or Kiki's you can always just camp on the beach, or again, follow a link or use google to find a room if you have to sleep indoors.

If you are staying in Temecula before the start, the Best Western on Jefferson is your best bet. It's walking distance to the pre-party and bar. The town is not big, so anywhere you pick will be close to the start point.

We are getting close fellas, so get your shit together and don't expect us to tuck you in. Use your phone or google and get set up!