MSTA, the Motorcycle Sport Touring Association (formally HSTA) has a number of regional rallies each year and one large national rally called STAR. In 2008 STAR was in the Texas Hill Country centered at Kerrville, TX. I had left for STAR08 from my home in NE Tennessee about 10 days (and 3.5K miles) before the seven days we spent in Mexico described below.
Following STAR08 in Kerrville, TX several rally attendees followed Tim and Teresa Vipond on an unstructured tour of the Chihuahua and Sonora states of Mexico. Tim and Teresa have done this before, although usually after the regional Texas Hill Country event, and since the big STAR rally was in Kerrville this year they extended the invitation to the larger MSTA audience at STAR. In the end it came down to 14 intrepid adventurers. Several had done this before but for most of us this was our first motorcycle trip into Mexico. This is a very unstructured tour. Tim and Teresa have a loose itinerary but no reservations or fixed overnights since things can change day-to-day. It's up to each individual to obtain his/her own passport, insurance, etc. and deal with the government entities on both sides of the border.
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We gathered up at this motel on the US side of the border in Presidio, TX. Ten of us spent the night here and we rendevous'd with 4 more at the lunch stop after we entered Mexico.
After crossing the border, we were instructed to park in this holding lot while our papers were processed and we purchased necessary temporary import licenses. The import license must be surrendered upon exiting the country. This is how the Mexican authorities attempt to control illegal importation of US vehicles. We waited here until a border official affixed a sticker to our windscreens designating the vehicle as a temporary import.
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We entered Mexico at Ojinaga. Our first stop was at a currency exchange where we converted some of our dinero into pesos and after that we set out westward on MX16. FWIW, in most places the Mexican merchants will happily accept US dollars as payment but you might lose a little bit on those exchanges. At the time of our visit one US$ was worth about ten pesos so conversions were pretty easy. One refreshing aspect of mercantile in Mexico is the concept of "close enough". Most small businesses are not yet tracking their transactions with computers so if you were off by a few cents one way or the other no one seemed particularly concerned. Even the government run PEMEX gas stations were lax about exact change. Our second stop was about 75 kilometers in-country at this monument and overlook. There was a big sign describing this monument and stating it was illegal to deface it. Apparently no one was overly concerned here about that last part.
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The Strom taking it's first rest in Mexico
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Dave thought these cacti looked a little dry.
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Although basically desert here, the terrain is beginning to become mountainous. Fun roads to come later!
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Looking south east from the monument. There's a river way down in the ravine.
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The other side had a little graffiti too ...
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Our lunch stop just outside Cuidad Chihuahua. Note the big fish - this was a seafood restaurant. Guess what? Mexican food is not all tacos and tamales. I was surprised at how much fish the natives eat in this part of Mexico.
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We had quite a cross-section of bikes. There were three V-Stroms, a couple of Gold Wings, several BMWs, a couple of metric cruisers, a ST1100, a FJR1300 and even one older GS1100 Suzuki. Although far from all being new, they were all well maintained and the only problems were related to tires.
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The tanks in the rear contain live black catfish. The process was to pick your fish and have the staff catch it (in a net) and prepare it for you. I picked my swimming lunch and ordered it grilled. However, it wasn't at all what I expected. The catfish and some spices and vegetables were all wrapped in foil before grilling so it was really more like steamed catfish. Not bad but definitely different from what you'll get in the US when you order "grilled" fish. No one here spoke much English and our ticket had "gringos" written in big letters across the top.
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Our first fuel stop. All gasoline in Mexico is sold at government run PEMEX stations. Fuel is sold in liters and the price was the same everywhere. However, not all stations had premium fuel so those bikes that required it ended up burning regular some of the time. My Strom ran flawlessly on the PEMEX regular. The equivalent price/gallon of petrol here was a little less than back home in Tejas.
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Problema grande! South of Chihuahua City but still about 90 klicks north of Hidalgo del Parral the GL1800's rear tire went flat in a remote area. They were two up on this bike with full luggage so it was carrying a lot of weight. Close examination did not find a puncture so we pumped it up and it seemed to be holding so we rode on a short distance before it when down again. Fortunately this time right in front of this desponchado which, I am told, translates literally into "de-puncturing" but bascilly means tire repair. Tires are a big problem down here and by necessity there are many desponchado shops ranging from little independent stands like this one to modern US-style tire stores.
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Inside the concrete building is a old Coates manual tire change machine, a cheap compressor, a handful of tools (mostly hammers and prybars) and few used tires in sizes that fit pickups and 1980s full sized American cars.
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Everyone on the tour had a little Spanish and most could order food, drink, ask for directions to the toilet and such but that was about it. Fortunately, Fred, the fellow wearing the black and yellow jacket, had lived in Costa Rica and had very good Spanish. Without him it would have been very difficult to transact this situation since there were problems getting the rear wheel off the Wing. Eventually we had to remove the left side muffler because the air wrench would not reach the lug nuts and they were too tight for hand tools. In the end we discovered that 90 degree metal valve stem on the Wing had stress cracked. The Mexican tire guy replaced the valve stem with a straight rubber one but the tire was ruined. When inflated, it had a big bulge in the sidewall and although it held air we were all concerned about making the rest of the way to Hidalgo del Parral. The very cooperative Mexican repairman quoted a fee of 20 pesos (about 2 dollars) for his efforts. We gave him 100 pesos which probably made his day.
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BUT, we all actually made it there even though it was well after dark by the time we all filtered in. After the "de-punchuring" of Gold Wing tire we separated into two groups with the first group going ahead to find lodging and the second riding much more slowly because of the damaged tire. This is the view from the Howard Johnsons (yes, they still have those in Mexico) Motel that overlooks Hidalgo del Parral. Like all our overnights, we had no reservations and the leading group just stopped here to see if they had rooms then sent a couple of bikes back down to the highway to wait on the stragglers.
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We all sat around here the night before and talked about the day's adventure while consuming mucha cerveza and tequila. Oh yeah, we ate something here too but I don't recall what that was ;-) Breakfast was just stellar. Lots of good strong cafe and huevas prepared however you wanted them. Again no English speakers in the house - not even the front desk clerk.
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This Howard Johnsons was the last US-style hotel we would stay in for the next several days.
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Except that no one spoke English, you couldn't drink the water and the cars in the parking lot had funny names we didn't recognize (although most were products of GM, Ford or Chrysler) and had no airbags this could have been anywhere in the southwest US.
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So here we are in downtown Parral looking for a tire for the Gold Wing. We quickly learned that there are simply no tires for big bikes to be found. Most bikes here are 250cc or less and the dealers can't afford to stock large tires that rarely sell.
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On a side note, I shot this picture of the brand new CB125 because my son had one almost exactly like it several years ago. Honda hasn't sold these in the states for maybe 25 years but they are still alive and well in Mexico (and probably most other parts of the world). This is a perfect motorcycle for economically challenged areas. Simple, light, reliable as an anvil, cheap to operate and with top speed of around 70mph or so, practical for most secondary roads.
We left Hidalgo del Parral a little after noon and here we are enroute to Guachochi (pronounced wah cho chee) on MX23. We stopped here after passing through our first military check point. The check points are looking for drugs, guns and such. As Americans we are not accustomed to this kind of military presence. The young soldiers are armed with automatic weapons and always have a turret-mounted machine gun at the roadside. We were stopped at check points 5 or 6 times. None of the soldiers ever spoke English and they would usually do a cursory inspection of our luggage but they were generally pretty nice to us. When they tried to make conversation in Spanglish it was usually about where we had been and where we were going. I don't think this was an interrogatory question but just curiosity on their part about the gringos on big motorcycles. Inside the little tienda on the left in the photo was an unlit room with maybe $300 worth of inventory in basic staples, soft drinks and beer and a little ole lady with a bunch of little ninos running around. This was pretty typical of the small roadside stores in remote areas. You can't see it but it was here we noticed that the Penske shock on Brick's ST1100 was leaking fluid. We had just come though a rough section of roadway and apparently the combination of repeated impacts and low atmospheric pressure (at maybe 5000 ft) had hammered some fluid out of it. Anyhow, it stopped leaking and he rode the rest of the trip without a problem.
We're still on MX23 here and the riding was beginning to get more interesting as we came up the eastern slope of the Sierras
The V-Strom once again resting. The roads were generally quite good so any street bike would have been fine although it was necessary to slow down and pick through pot holes in a few places. In those areas the Strom's compliant suspension came in handy.
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We stopped at the Restaurant Huvana for a late lunch. I don't recall precisely but looking at the map now I'd guess this is probably in San Pablo Balleza. Our caravan was quite a spectacle in the small towns we were passing through. The locals always stopped what they were doing to watch the gringos on the big bikes ride by.
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Notice that the prevalent sign in this picture (and in most of the others) is the Tecate billboard. I'm pretty convinced that if it weren't for Tecate and Corona there wouldn't be ANY signs in Mexico.
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We filled up the tables at the Huvana and they were happy to have us! I had Bar-B-Que tacos and a Coke. It was quite good. I don't normally drink soft drinks but because one never knows about the water in Mexico and Coke was available pretty much everywhere we went, I drank it for lunch most days. Dave preferred Coca-lite (Diet Coke). No English here either.
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Interesting scenery along MX23 of course, but what was maybe more interesting was the wall stretching out across the ridges. It was made of hand-stacked stone and there were a lot them. How long did that take to build?
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More stone walls and funny little trees.
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Part of the crew enjoying the great roads and great weather. The altitude here was around 6,000 ft and would be around 8,000 by the time we got to Guachochi.
We were all having a great time!
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Another lovely PEMEX station a couple of klicks north of Guachochi.. In case you're wondering the toilets in these places were pretty dismal. Sometimes with broken fixtures and almost always dirty by our standards.
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You may have noticed that most of the vehicles in the pictures are American pickups. They were by far the most common vehicles in remote areas. I was surprised at how few Japanese cars we saw - pretty much only in the big cities. Out here it was mostly pickups and old American sedans that the locals could repair without sophisicated electronic diagnostics.
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We stopped here first. Tim and Teresa had stayed in these cabins north of Guachochi on a previous visit but the place was no longer open for business.
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Instead we spent the night at the lovely (it really was!) Hotel Esmerelda in downtown Guachochi. It was all stone, tile, stucco and skylights - very Mexican. Cool! Well, not air conditioned cool but we were high enough (~8,000 ft) that the nighttime temperatures were quite pleasant. Somewhere in the hotel there was a party this night however and since all the windows were open we might as well have been there too. Although rustic in appearance this hotel had a nice business center with internet access. We sent emails to friends and family although Windows in Spanish and the Mexican keyboards were a bit of a challenge. Just down the street was an excellent cantina where we ate and drank this night. The young manager on duty had lived in the US for awhile and spoke excellent English. He was most happy to visit with the gringos!
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The Esmerelda had secure parking for the bikes in back.
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Uh oh. Another flat. This time with no desponchado in sight. Turns out we just plugged it and it held for the rest of the trip.
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I'm pretty sure OSHA has not inspected this site lately. This was the working dryer for the hotel's laundry. The exposed drive mechanics and unprotected sharp edged exhaust were facing the parking area. It would have been very easy to walk into this.
Here we're enroute to Creel somewhere on MX23. This PEMEX is a bit more rustic than some of the others. The old Mercury was very typical of vehicles in these remote locations. Pre-electronic fuel injection American cars are very popular because the people can fix them without the sophisticated diagnostic systems required for newer vehicles. There were many "yunk" yards along the roadsides where the owners could buy salvage parts.
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Pretty rural huh?
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Here's where we were - 330 kilometers to Chihuahua City by the most direct route and 74 to Creel.
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These little shrines were all along the highways. Sometimes formal ones like this and other times just a pile of rocks with a crucifix on top.
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Brick says Hi from the mountains of Mexico.
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One of the few pictures of me. The roads were just outstanding here. Smooth, well marked and with good signage. A word of advice - when the sign says "Peligro" it's best to heed the warning!
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The PEMEX station in downtown Creel. The native people leaning on the posts are Tarahumara Indians. They are the indiginous people of this part of Mexico and are thought to be descendents of the Aztecs. They are known for their incredible distance running capability and many still wear traditional dress. The men wear the skirt type garment you see here and the women wear very colorful top garments. Creel is at about 7,000 feet and we are only about 40 klicks from our night's lodging at El Divisidero. While I was filling my bike here, a couple of local guys came in riding 2-up on a battered old 250. While wearing a big grin the rider offered to swap bikes with me. We all had a good laugh!
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Horses as transportation were a common sight out here. Were it not for that plastic bottle in the cowboy's hand, you wouldn't know if this was 2008 or 1908.
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Like I said earlier, if it weren't for Tecate and Corona, there just wouldn't be any signs in Mexico!
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Apparently Creel had cellular phone service - note the telcel sign. My Verizon phone wouldn't work anywhere in Mexico but I bought a Telmex calling card which worked beautifully in phone booths everywhere I tried. Calls to the US cost about $1/minute with the Telmex card.
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We stopped for lunch just outside of Creel at this high-end hotel. The food was excellent and everything was pretty much first class however there were very few customers other than us. This nice hotel seemed a bit out of place here and we speculated where the money might have come from to build it.
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In addition to being a very nice facility this place was well-maintained. That is not typical of Mexico where apparently mantenimiento is pretty far down the list of priorities.
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My roomie at El Divisdero. Brick is standing on the balcony of our room. The restaurant is the building on the other side of the little canyon.
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The view from our balcony was breathtaking. That is Copper Canyon stretching out below - the destination of many adventure riders every year.
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This is sort of the Grand Canyon of Mexico and it's considerably larger than our US version but much more spread out.
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Awesome, huh?
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Our very nice room here was the most expensive of the trip at about US$150. Most nights the rooms were around $60.
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Another shot of the restaurant and office.
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Our wing was literally clinging to the edge of the canyon
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View of our rooms from the restaurant
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The hotel had a fenced in compound where we parked the bikes. That sand is softer and deeper than it looks. I dumped the V-strom (no harm done) when the front wheel dug in while pulling into this area.
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After watching me drop the Strom in the sand, some of the guys opted to park on the pavement
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Sunrise at El Divisadero
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More sunrise
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Likewise...
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Recall my comment about maintenance. This is the "safety" rail on our balcony.
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And this is where you end up if you fall off.
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The bikes from our wing. The stacked stone fence surrounded the entire compound.
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Russ' GS and the old sway-back horse provide a striking contrast of new and old. The horse roamed freely within the compound. From the look of him, he had earned his retirement!
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The "garden" in front of the main office.
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And the restaurant. This was the queue for breakfast. Since this was an expensive vacation spot, one would expect good food and service. It was. The Mexican National rail system comes out here so many people arrive by train.
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This is the bar/lounge area. Our room stay included a free Margarita so of course we all came over here to take advantage of the perk. The guitarist at the upper left played and sang both traditional Mexican and American pop music all evening. While we were sitting and drinking a large group of retirement aged Mexicans came in. They had arrived as a tour group on the train and apparently they came to El Divisadero to seriously party (which they did!)
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The lobby area. The stone, stucco and wood structure fits superbly with the natural surroundings.
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A local resident. He was very "laid back" and friendly but he didn't speak any English either.
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There was a foot path out to the west of the restaurant which provided some different views.
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Here, we're quite a ways out on the canyon edge - you can barely make out the hotel in the center of the picture.
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A closer view of the entire facility. It really is something to see.
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The hotel's air strip. Only brave pilots need apply - if you over-run the landing strip, you end up about a mile below in the canyon!
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The Strom insisted that I make this picture for its scrapbook.
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This unpaved road is the one that goes down into the canyon and eventually to Urique, Batopilas and Guguachique where the adventure riders like to go. We didn't go down there but it would be interesting to do so on a somewhat more dirt-oriented bike and with lots of water. Shortly after I made this picture we set out for our next destination - Basaseachic Falls.
Here we are at the falls. Basaseachic Falls is said to be the highest waterfall in Mexico. Obviously, the local, uh, artistas have set up shop here. The fellow in the flannel shirt was enthusiastically offering to guide us to the falls for a modest fee.
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The falls were only about a 1/2 day ride from El Divisadero so it was still pretty early in the day. Rather than staying on MX23, we took a state road up from San Jaunito that connected to MX16 near Cuidad Guerrero. Tim said the riding would be better that way. He was so right, it was another day of excellent mountain roads.
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Here are the falls... Well, it has been a little dry!
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Not exactly a 5-star location. But, I'm sure if there was a bit of water coming off the mountain it would be much more impressive.
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Just west of Basaseachic Falls we came upon the Alma Rosa - our home for the night. It was very rustic but in some ways it was one of the highlights of the trip.
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Note the cattle grate across the entrance. It was in serious disrepair (surprise, surprise) and bounced like a trampoline when crossed on a motorcycle. Interesting to say the least...
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The Alma Rosa was operated by a little lady in her 70s and her daughter (or maybe daughter-in-law). Our room was about US$45 for three beds. It was one of the more expensive rooms since it had heat. She advised it would get muy frio at night and I suppose that's true by Mexican standards but it was only down to around 50 degrees F the next morning and it warmed up quickly as the sun rose.
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We had a great afternoon and evening here and pretty quickly drank all the cerveza in the fridge. The proprietor called her son (in-law?) and had him bring more beer - that was a good thing. The gringo price for cerveza was 20 pesos - She probably sold 40 or 50 this evening so she had a good day.
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The view from our bathroom window - just like the Hilton, huh?
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The best thing about the Alma Rosa was the food. Shortly after we arrived our hostess asked us what we would like for dinner - chicken, pork or beef and based on each person's preference, she and her daughter prepared our meals in the home-style kitchen in the back. Everything was served family style. It was plentiful and excellent. Breakfast was the same kind of deal. Dinner cost us about US$10 each, breakfast about $5.
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If you're ever in Mexico and you see one of these big black tanks on top of the hotel be sure to take your shower before going to bed. That tank is a solar hot water heater and trust me, the water will be a lot warmer at the end of a sunny day than after a 50 degree night.
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The group split up the next morning. Several people (including our guides, Tim and Teresa AND our Spanish speaker, Fred) needed to get home so they headed back to Texas via MX16 east to reenter the US at either El Paso or Presidio depending on where home was for them
Six of us continued west on MX16 towards Hermasillo, Sonora. Shortly after entering Sonora we noticed two things: one - the road surfaces were in much poorer condition than in Chihuahua and two - we were dropping altitude fast and it was getting warmer. At altitude in Chihuahua we had been quite comfortable in full gear even wearing our liners some of the time - we had to start peeling off layers as we approached sea level.
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Near Hermosilla - flat, palm trees and 103 degrees F. At Hermosilla we again split. Three of the group headed back to the US via Nogales. One went south to pick up the ferry over to the Baja. He was to meet his wife in California several days later. Brick and I continued on our original course to the Gulf of California. I should note that neither Brick nor I speak fluent Spanish. Between the two of us we were able to communicate basic things like food/drink orders, room registrations and simple directions. We made a pretty good team but would have struggled individually.
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We arrive at Bahia de Kino on the Golfo de California.
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And we're damned glad to get here! Earlier in the day we had an brief encounter with the local policia in Hermosilla. I was in front. I didn't see the Zona de la Escuela sign. We WERE speeding (about 65k/h in a 45k/h school zone). The policeman DID clock us on radar. We settled up with the policeman on the spot - about US$50 each. He didn't write any thing down or even ask to see our driver's licenses. I'm quite sure he had a good weekend and we were extremly happy not to have to appear in front of a Mexican judge. Considering we were guilty as sin and he had the goods on us with the radar we were rather pleased to be on our way for only 50 bucks!
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The road ends. No more motorcycling from here I'm afraid.
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It was a lovely beach. The locals call the big rock Isle Alcatraz.
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This is a vacation / party town. On the downtown "square" is a pavilion with a jukebox, toilets and canopies in place for the bars to be set up. I'm guessing this place rocks on a weekend!
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However, there's not much else here. The hotel we stayed in (not pictured) was quite nice though. Relatively new with a nice swimming pool. Again almost no one spoke English, except...
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... when we pulled up in front of our hotel, two local guys on Dynamo motorcycles (Mexican brand) pulled in too. One of them spoke excellent English with almost no accent. When questioned he told us he learned English by watching American TV - hmmm, what kind of opinion do you suppose he has of this country? Well, anyhow, they were intensely interested in hearing about our trip and during the course of our conversation, we asked him were to go to buy some beer. His companion turned around and pulled a chilled liter of Budweiser out of the ice in his leather saddlebag and INSISTED that we take it. We did. Friendly people these Mexicans.
Back in Hermosilla the next day. This picture was made in front of the Yamaha/BMW dealership (more on that momentarily). This is NOT the policeman who apprehended us for speeding in the school zone the previous day. However, he saw our bikes and stopped to look them over. The police bike is a nice looking, partially fared, air-cooled 1100cc Yamaha with shaft drive we don't see in the USA. Looked like the kind of bike I might like.
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I left home about 4,500 miles prior with a brand new set of Metzler Tourance II tires mounted. I had run a Tourance I on the rear previously and had gotten about 10K miles from it. But, the Tourance II was toast at 4.5K and I was about 3K miles from home. I needed a tire. I could have probably made it up to Tucson but that wasn't really the way we wanted to go home. After our experience back in Parral with the Gold Wing tire I was not optimistic about finding a tire for the Strom in stock at a local shop. However, we stopped at a local Dynamo motorcycle shop when passing through Hermosilla on day 5 and they sent us over to the Yamaha/BMW dealer a few blocks away. There was a R1150GS sitting in the show room window so I began getting optimistic when we pulled in. We walked up to the stunning receptionist (like I said it must be a requisite there!) and asked Habla Ingles? To which the young salesman standing beside her replied, "Yes, I do." Hey, hey, hey, now we're in business! Long story made short, they had a Pirelli Scorpion tire in the correct size (same as the R1150GS). Got it mounted and balanced the next day for US$220. That's probably not much more than I would have paid at branded dealership in the states. Just as point of reference, that Scorpion lasted about 12K miles so keep that in mind if you're considering Metzler Tourance II tires. While they were working on my bike the salesman drove us to a local restaurant where we had a good lunch. It turns out he had an bachelors degree in engineering but was making great money at the bike dealership so he wasn't really interested in working as an engineer. He was really proud of his new VW and showed us pictures of his wife and toddler. When we got back to the shop my bike was ready to go. Friendly people these Mexicans.
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Brick and I are headed back towards the USA now. We stopped for a break at El Altar restaurant - it was just a little roadside cantina in the middle of nowhere. There was a very nice older gentleman making green salsa in a big pot on a hot plate when we walked in. We selected our sodas from the cooler and he came over and with a bowl of his fresh habanero salsa and chips and sat down at our table to make conversation in broken Spanglish. That salsa was potent stuff but quite tasty. And despite all those Coca-cola signs there wasn't any.
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Inside El Altar
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Ah yes - the topes. Topes are what we call speed bumps it the US. They are extremely common in rural Mexico since most small villages have no police and they use these to slow traffic. Some of them are HUGE! On more than one the Strom (which has more ground clearance that most street bikes) would high-center unless I put most of my weight on the rear wheel.
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It was here (wherever the heck "here" is) that we realized we had taken a wrong turn about 70 klicks previously. We were indeed heading norte, just not on MX17 as we had thought.
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Rather than backtrack to our missed turn onto MX17 we decided to press on, since according to the map we would eventually come out at more-or-less the same place.
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Uhhh, but there were some surprises on this route. I asked the hombres drinking beer in the back of the pickup how deep this stream was and they indicated about a foot. I rode right across on the V-Strom (but then I'm a old dirt rider). Brickner, not so much. He was a bit hesitant but eventually got up the nerve to ford the stream on the big ST1100.
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There were actually three water crossings. This is number three and by then Brick was becoming a veteran at dual-sporting on that 700lb bike.
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Our last night in-country. This was a very nice US-style hotel in Cananea. Even so we knew we were still in Mexico since despite all the niceties, there were a number of things that just didn't work. It was here that I tried what has now become my favorite beer - Negra Modelo.
This is an out-of-focus picture of my temporary vehicle importation permit. The Mexican border guard at Puerto Palomas removed this and signed off on our documents and stamped our passports. If you don't turn this back in the Federalis assume you sold the vehicle in Mexico and since they're actually keeping records now, you wouldn't ever be able to bring another one in. On he US side, we were sniffed all round by the drug dog and asked if we were US citizens but we didn't have to present our passports. The first business establishment on the US side of the border (near Columbus, NM) was a Dollar Store - go figure.
Okay, so how was this trip then? Just great! The riding was excellent, the adventure factor was way up there, the accommodations were all good and the companions were outstanding. Also, the natives were very friendly and I never felt in danger although this was early 2008 - things might be different now. I hope I get to go back some time.
Thinking about riding your bike into Mexico? Some things you will need are a passport (at most border crossings anyhow) and liability insurance on your vehicle. Your US motorcycle insurance policy might cover you; but, if you have a wreck, even a minor fender-bender, without liability insurance in Mexico they'll probably lock you up. In order to get the required temporary import permit, you will need your vehicle title in hand (no photocopies) or if there is a lien against it, a signed and sealed release from the lien-holder indicating you have their permission to take the vehicle into Mexico. You may also want supplemental health insurance - your current policy may work there but you should check on that. Also, some people buy evacuation insurance so that if they are badly hurt, they can be airlifted back to the US. You'll also want some good maps. My GPS was nearly useless (although it did provide altitude and speed in KPH) since I didn't buy the Mexico mapset for it (actually I'm not sure there was one available at the time). If you don't speak Spanish and assuming you're going to go places other than border towns and tourist attractions, you'll want some type of translation media. The little booklets are OK but I bought an inexpensive electronic translator made by Franklin that worked reasonably well. I also spent a day with a Spanish speaking friend before leaving - she gave me lots of tips on conversational Spanish and provided some great "cheat sheets" of common words and phrases. Learn to count in Spanish!
You should make sure your bike is in good repair. If it fails in Mexico you could be a long way from qualified service - particularly on a modern bike with lots of electronics. Take tools and a flashlight. Be sure your tires have enough tread to get you back to the US and be prepared for tire problems - they really are common down there.
Don't drink the tap water or any drinks with ice in them. It may be OK but I wouldn't count on it. Most likely any bottled products (water, soda, beer) are fine. I wouldn't worry too much about eating anything that's been cooked but be wary of uncooked fruits and vegatables. Salads are particularly problematic since they are uncooked and have been handled by the preparers. A good friend who has lived in Costa Rica suggested that I buy some GSE (grapefruit seed extract) at the health food store and sprinkle it on anything that was uncooked. It's a natural product that is apparently a very effective bactericide. I did that and never had any digestive problems on this trip.