Enrico and Doogie are both great photographers, so their posts all have cool photos. I’m about as proficient with a camera as I am with a jackhammer (I can get the job done, but it won’t be pretty and the cleanup will take far too long to be worth it), so instead of photos I’m just going to tell you my favorite stories.

My first crash was pretty amazing. I’ve been riding for about 6 years and I’ve only had one big crash…that’s pretty good, right? Well, plus I’m a wuss (I admit it), so I usually don’t get too out of control on quads. But then there was Baja. What the hell was I doing in Baja? That’s a good question. I’m still asking that.

When we first started this magazine in 2005 we had a staff of four people. Yeah, four. In case you’re not good at math, that’s not a lot of people. So as we were gearing up to launch our first issue, we needed stories to actually print in that issue. That’s how I ended up in the some of the most back-breaking, rear end-kicking terrain known to man. Baja has taken down riders 68 times more skilled than me, so it’s no surprise my first crash happened there.

I went on the trip with Keith Mulligan (Quad’s original photographer) and Glenn Milligan (our videographer), both of whom had been on a quad about twice before this trip. And the trip was designed to take us about 100 miles a day…through Baja…on stock quads. Yeah, see, this wasn’t a good idea from the very start. I was riding a Yamaha Warrior 350. Glenn was riding a Honda Rincon. Keith was riding a Kawasaki KFX400. Completely bone stock with riders who had no business riding 100 miles a day through the rough Baja terrain. Sounds like a recipe for a good story.

Day 1 of our trip just about killed my spirit. The guys who were leading our “tour” were riding Bombardier Baja X quads with full suspensions and engine mods. So…basically they were flying over the desert terrain like it was nothing, and I was feeling every…single…rock…rut…and bump in Mexico. By the time we made it Mike’s Sky Ranch I was ready to drink a Corona and then go out into the wilderness and find enough lumber to build a plane and fly back to California. My back was so jacked up from riding and my thumb was just dangling by a thread of muscle. But we had to go to bed early so we could get up in the morning and start all over again! Woooooo!

The next morning, I dragged my sorry behind out of bed and into my riding gear. We were planning a 50-some-mile loop for the day around Mike’s Sky Ranch. At about mile 12 of the day I had a run-in with gravity. I lost.

We were heading down a rocky, rain-rutted trail. Around a sharp right turn there was a small incline and then a steeper descent. As I rode up the hill, I was pushing the limits of my riding ability. I was cruising to keep up with the fast dudes. I am not a fast dude, so I shouldn’t have been riding like that. Just as I crested the hill and was about to start the descent, I hit a deep rain rut in the trail. It took my right front tire and yanked the quad out from under me. Suddenly, I felt weird. There was no rumble of the engine below me, there were no handlebars in my hands. There was a lot of sky and trees buzzing past my eyes. Hmmm…I must be flying! Yes, that’s it! I was flying through the air, without a quad beneath me. It was a nice little break from riding, but then I realized I was about to hit the ground.

Ooof. I hit the trail right in the middle of a nice little patch of rocks. Delightful! I landed on my right hip and elbow, which felt less than awesome. In fact, it hurt so much that I couldn’t even process all the pain at once. Just as I landed, I realized my quad was probably going to land in about the same spot. Bam! Right behind me (thankfully) my ride landed, upside down, and then pushed me (while the wheels were still spinning against my helmet) down the trail a little ways. I just wanted to take a nap for a few minutes…

Our tour guide came running at me and tried to pick me up off the trail. I swatted at him. I didn’t want him to help me up. I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to take a nap with my upside down quad. But he insisted that I needed to sit up so they could survey the damage done to my wimpy little body. Well, I jacked up my hip and elbow, ripped the hip pads in my pants from the landing, and my helmet was scrapped up. They determined I would live. So, they righted my quad and said, “Let’s go!” Ha! They were funny, thinking I was going to get back on and ride all day. I was convinced that I shattered at least half of the bones in my body and my ears were ringing. I wasn’t riding anywhere but back to the ranch, where there was a soft-ish bed and…well, a dead rat in the pool. But that’s fine, I was in no shape to swim.

The next day we rode another 100 miles, and then 100 more the next. Everyone on our staff crashed, so that made me feel a little bit better. Plus, the tour guides said my crash was spectacular. I launched myself a good 8 feet off the ground and then fell even further down the hill. At least I’m graceful mid-air