Back in 1962, some folks at American Honda Motor Company decided to show the reliability of their brand-new CL72 Scramblers by crossing the length of Baja in Mexico. Bill Roberson Jr. and Dave Ekins (brother of Bud, the famous Steve McQueen’s stunt double who performed the iconic Great Escape motorcycle jump over the german barriers).
The pair braved 950 miles of sand, rocks and dirt, getting lost in the spring fog at night they had had to wait for dawn. They were followed by two journalists who caught them with a Cessna airplane, also used for refuel both men and tanks. Using the telegraph offices as time-stamped proofs, the first timed run by Ekins was clocked at 39 hours, 56 minutes. Robertson had a holed cylinder with 130 miles to go, due to a previous crash and arrived an hour and a half later. The pictures and story are taken from this article on CycleWorld.
