Baja & Overland Expo

May 24, 2016

I’m posting from my camper, parked on the side of the road in central Nevada, returning from Overland Expo, and concluding a three week road trip. After spending the last two months at home I gotta say: it feels great to be back on the road.

Two weeks ago, Lee and I drove from White Salmon to San Diego with a trailer full of bikes. There, we met up with our crew of riding buddies (including Andrew) who flew into San Diego for a week of moto exploring in northern Baja.

We crossed at Tecate and looped dirt roads & tracks down to Punta San Carlos on the pacific side of the peninsula, camping about half the nights and staying at ranches the others. We had all the various Mosko bag systems represented on several different types of bikes. Andrew rode with the new Nomad tank bag prototype, and I rode with an old prototype of the hatch. Lots of thoughts and input on gear as a result of the trip that we’re still sorting through and processing.

A Reckless 80 minus the drybags works great for firewood.

Rob has had a set of the original Scouts on his 690 for 2+ years now. They’ve been ridden hard, crashed plenty, and they’re still in great shape. Scuffs but no punctures.

The SoloSports camp at Punta San Carlos was our southernmost point. They sure know how to make moto visitors feel welcome at SoloSports: tequila on tap and a round of Baja Fogs on the house.

Next time you ride baja, you might notice a few Mosko stickers.

After Baja Andrew & Lee flew back to White Salmon and I shuttled the trailer to Flagstaff, for Overland Expo. On the way, I stopped in Borrego Springs for a couple nights, and did some exploring on the bike and by foot.

Also stopped at the Salton Sea, a modern-day ghost town.

This was by far my favorite Overland Expo yet. The weather was perfect, attendance was up, our booth was super busy, and the evenings were a blast. Ninkasi Brewingsponsored afternoon happy hours at our booth, and Hood River Distillery sent us down with a few bottles of Trail’s End Bourbon to sip and share.

This year, because we are low on inventory and because the trailer was full of bikes from Baja, we did not take inventory with us to sell. That was actually kind of nice because it set a relaxed tone for the event, and enabled us to simply connect and share without the pressure of writing orders. We met lots of awesome people and had a total blast.

OX is an important annual milestone for us, because it’s the first place we showed our bags when we started Mosko, and it’s the first place we ever took an in-person order. It’s neat to go back now for our third year, see Mosko gear on so many bikes, and reconnect with some of our earliest supporters. Thank you!!!

A few highlights from this year:

• Meeting Erin Sills from Hunter Sills Racing, who just returned from breaking three world speed records at El Mirage, and having the opportunity to set up her bike with a Backcountry 30 Duffle.

• Nick Calderone from the TV show Right This Minute stopping by with his pink bike, which was the result of a prank by coworkers right before OX.

• Hanging out with the guys from Aether Apparel, checking out gear, drinking scotch and Irish whiskey, and BSing in their awesome Airstream.

• Ashley and I running into Ted Simon at a campfire on sunday night. He’s the author of Jupiter’s Travels and an early pioneer of international moto travel. In 1973 he rode 64,000 miles through 45 countries on a 500cc triumph. His book was a huge inspiration to me personally, and to many others as well, to explore the world on two wheels. The smiles say it all.

In other news: our spring production order is currently in transit, en route to our warehouse in Portland. The containers should start arriving in the next few weeks. We’ll send an email to everyone as soon as we have more clarity on dates. Things may get a little hectic when the product first arrives, but we will be processing and shipping orders as fast as we can. Thank you for all the support!

Now I’m getting back on the road, and driving toward one of my favorite places in the world: the Alvord Desert.