BIKEPACKING BAJA CALIFORNIA – BAJA DIVIDE – BIKEPACKING GEAR

You can read everywhere things like: “99% rideable,” “Climbing difficulty: 4 – Easy,” “Technical difficulty: 6 – Moderate.” I believe it’s urgent to provide more truthful information about this famous route… otherwise, someone might get hurt!

After sweating my way through the Divide myself, I’ve spent the last few years hosting travelers at my home through the Warmshowers website/app and the Baja Divide Facebook group, here in my little surfer village, San Juanico. It’s these cyclists—those who’ve slept under my roof and shared their daily lives with my family, recounting their adventures and mishaps—who inspired me to pick up my pen and write this article.

I love that time of year here in Baja California, when the sea calms down, the waves are gone and surf season approaches its end, the heat dissipates, and jackets start to come out of the closet. From the terrace of my house, I can spot the mountain peaks in the distance, rising above the desert plateau through the crispy, fresh, and pure air and the urge to get back on the bike after the scorching summer break makes my legs tingle. It’s also the time of year when cyclists stopping over at our place start knocking on the door.

“Honey!… A cyclist has arrived!” my wife calls out. Already smiling, I step outside to perform my usual welcoming ritual. Their faces are as red as tomatoes, their shirts half-unbuttoned and soaked, their hair sticking out awkwardly from the holes in their helmets, and their sunglasses slightly askew, revealing clear streaks of dust across their faces. The set of their shoulders and their overly polite posture reveal a level of exhaustion far beyond what they had anticipated, while the state of their lips and the calm tone of their voices plainly show dehydration and a clear lack of calories. Add to this a few bleeding injuries here and there, along with knots tied around bike parts that would otherwise have fallen off miles earlier, and it’s obvious I’m facing another victim of the superficial and poorly informed videos and articles that fail to properly depict the Baja Divide.

So, as we say here in Mexico, “¡Primero lo primero!” Let’s start from the beginning.

First off, IT’S ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT. Before even talking about the effort, the water, the tire pressure, the type of bike, or the panniers… the Baja Divide is simply a fascinating, must-do route, an unforgettable experience, and a challenging feat for bikepacking enthusiasts.

Deserts are notorious for being inhospitable yet spectacular landscapes, where the obsession with water can play tricks on you, but the stars at night leave you speechless. They are places where dust and thorns find their way into your morning coffee and evening soup, but the flora and fauna welcome travelers, posing for some of the most beautiful photos of their lives. Baja is all of this, and mucho màs!

We’re talking about a region where cowboy culture is alive and well, far removed from luxurious, contrived displays. There are still families in the valleys and mountains who have lived on the same ranch for generations, accessible only by mule. Here, you’ll still find elders who were born on these ranches and have never left them, never visiting a village or town. The land of coyotes, pumas, and rattlesnakes is, surprisingly, one of the safest Mexican states for traveling and camping freely. Here, the locals, isolated in their lifestyles but open in their hospitality, have deeply rooted traditions of mutual aid.

Add to this the Mexican people’s longstanding openness and generosity toward foreigners and what they bring, and you have the ideal context for undertaking one of the most intense bikepacking routes in the world for non-professional cyclists (in other words, almost everyone!).

That said, there’s an important recipe with four ingredients, and if a bikepacker chooses any of them, this adventure will shift from demanding yet rewarding to discouraging and doomed to fail. LIST OF INGREDIENTS :

1. Non-tubeless tires less than 2.4 inches wide.*

2. Gear ratios unsuitable for climbing ( heavier than: 50T rear x 32T front )

3. Carrying less than 6–8 liters of potable water.

4. Riding a bike weighing over 40 kg (including water, food, clothes, panniers, tools, etc.).

Choose one, and the difficulty level jumps to 9. Choose two, and your expertise will be seriously tested. Three, and you’re recklessly endangering your health. Four, and fortunately, Mamá Baja will force you to reconsider and take the paved road. It’s as simple as that!

* 2.4 inches is sufficient only if paired with the right rim width (35 mm) to fully utilize the tire’s square profile.

The difficulty of the Divide lies in the relentless repetition of challenging factors. In other words, there are very few easy, relaxing “breaks” (maybe only two?? – the 100 km of gravel and asphalt with a tailwind along the Gulf of California coastline before reaching La Paz, and the 60 km of gravel between Cd. Constitución and San Luis Gonzaga).

The low elevation profile compared to other Divides worldwide misleads almost everyone. Besides the nights below freezing in some areas, from start to finish you encounter varied sections: short, steep climbs littered with melon-sized rocks that prevent you from riding more than 6 ft without stopping (e.g., the first 40 km heading east out of Nueva Odisea); equally steep and highly technical descents that make you seriously rethink the state of maintenance of your brakes and racks (e.g., the descent into the fishing village of San Evaristo); exhausting, repetitive crossings of uneven, large cobblestone riverbeds with deep sandy inclines at the entrances and exits (e.g., the section from La Ballena ranch to the mountains before descending toward Mulegé); and long, straight, washboard-carpeted roads with unpleasant loose gravel—a paradise for gravel bikes on the map but a cyclist’s nightmare in real life (e.g., the stretch from El Dátil to La Ballena ranch/San Juanico ).

When it comes to water, it’s wise to assume that despite the map being dotted with ranch names that inspire confidence in frequent resupply, the safest precaution is to always carry enough for at least 1.5 to 2 days. Often, the next ranch on the list has been abandoned since spring, or the following one was recently swept away by a summer flood, or a closed road forces a long detour with no water sources. This leaves you battling dehydration during the hottest hours or after a grueling day of tough riding. That’s how Baja California works: it may not be the driest region, but it’s still a desert, and life here always depends on the whims of that precious water. Yours too!

Carrying 6–8 liters of water daily, of course, means adding significant weight to your gear. For travelers heading to South America who are already carrying extra gear to make their “home-away-from-home” as comfortable as possible, I highly recommend shipping any non-essential items in ahead to a destination like La Paz to pick up after completing the Divide. This ensures you start the journey with only the essentials, adequate water reserves, and a bike weight suited to the route.

In the end, with proper preparation, the Baja Divide will be neither a failure nor a bad memory but a wonderful experience you’ll be proud of. Use videos and online guides to get only a superficial idea of the landscape, but above all, ask questions in dedicated groups with several cyclists who’ve already ridden this route—ideally those whose travel style aligns with yours. Even better, email or message people on-site, honestly sharing your limitations, gear, experience, and doubts. That’s the key to success, because no, the Baja Divide is not just, as some might review here and there, “A simple gravel route with a bit of sand, passing touristy coastal areas and crossing some lovely desert hills.”

Find out more about the Divide here: The BAJA DIVIDE

….and make sure you check our BAJA-PROOF series where we review and recommend gear that we tested in Baja plus we give very useful tips to make you trip easier and safer.