Don’t Ask: Rick Sieman Answers Your Dirt Bike Questions

Go ahead, but if your question is stupid, you’ve been warned…

If you choose to email a question to this forum, then you must conduct yourself accordingly. Therefore, the following rules are in order:

1. Do not write your email to me IN CAPS. If you do so, I will print out your question and do terrible things to it.

2. Do not request a personal e-mail response. Since I get thousands of questions each month, trying to answer them all would cut deeply into my leisure time, which I value more than your current state of confusion.

3. Try to spell at least in a semi-correct fashion. If you choose to mangle the English language, expect no mercy from this quarter. You might be mocked severely.

4. Do not ask for me to send you copies of my many manuals and literature. I am not in the library business, nor do I want to spend the bulk of my day at the copy machine just because you’re too lazy to ask your dealer, or look around a bit.

5. Don’t bother me with truly stupid questions, like how to get 50 more horsepower for a buck and a half

As mentioned, the Champion motor was based on the 250 enduro of that year, right down to the motor internals, outside cases, and oil-injection. Painted black, with a sinuous low expansion chamber, alloy rims, and a spiffy “works” paint job, the bike looked the part of a serious motocrosser, but looks aren’t everything, especially once you fired it up and took it out for a few laps.

In 1972 the Champion was known as “the race bike you wanted to race if you didn’t want to race it”, and with good reason. A soft power hit, along with less than stellar suspension components made the stocker more of a play bike than serious motocross machine.

Before the Honda Elsinore came out in 1973, the Suzuki Champion was the Japanese MX bike to have, and Suzuki sold boat loads of ‘em. It seemed everybody had one, with the aftermarket folks selling everything from whole frames to motor kits, along with tuners roto-rootering the motors into high horsepower hand grenades, since the enduro based lower ends and transmissions couldn’t handle all that power.

Many a used 250 Champion sat on the pages of Cycle News to be bought for a song after the Elsinore came out. The bike stayed pretty much the same, and in 1973, the clutch actuation got changed from the enduro motor, and a newly designed top end with a single ring piston was fitted for more power. Different foot pegs, and gear ratios made their way into the later TMs too.

The bike stayed about the same through 1975, when in 1976 the stellar RM250 came out and Suzuki finally started seeing the winner’s circle.

THE PUNTA BANDA HOME NIGHTMARE
About 300 Americans living in Punta Banda (a beachside community just south of Ensenada) were having huge problems. They were being evicted from their homes, and are screaming long and loud for justice. When I first heard about the situation, it sounded bad. Further investigation revealed some alarming facts.

First off, for those who don’t know, I lived in Baja for over 15 years. I have purchased three homes and sold them with no problems whatsoever. The reason my purchases (and sales) were no problem, is that I found out what was required (by Mexican law) to acquire property without a hassle. Before I even looked for a home in Baja, I spent an hour with an American who was a Mexican lawyer. The cost was $100. I then spent an hour with a good Mexican attorney, who verified what I had been told by the first attorney. The cost was $20. All told, time and money well spent.

THE FEDERAL ZONE
You’ve heard that no Americans can own beachfront property in Mexico. Guess what? No one–including Mexican citizens–can own land in the Federal Zone. The Zone is the land that is 20 meters from mean-average high tide; about 66 feet. In other words, if you drew a line in the sand where the average high tide was, and then took another measurement 20 meters back from that, all that land cannot be owned by anyone, period. You can, however, use the land for a guaranteed period of time with a Federal Zone Concession. It will cost you an application and processing fee, a monthly fee, and a renewal fee whenever the term for the Concession has expired. The average fee will be between $3500 and $5000 and will depend on the amount of land. The average monthly fee will be about $70 every two months. The reason I know about Federal Zone Concessions is that part of my first house was right on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and allegedly in the Federal Zone. Allegedly? Well, in 1994 (could be wrong on the year?) a little known law was passed that exempted property from the Federal Zone if the land was on an angle–or cliff–more than about 30 degrees. The reasoning was that you could not reasonably be expected to utilize land on a steep cliff. This ruling had no effect whatsoever on people whose land was on a normal flat beach. In fact, many homes in Baja are split on both normal land and Federal Zone land.

LAND OWNERSHIP AND BANK TRUSTS
No foreigner can own land in Mexico (corporations excepted) that’s within approximately 30 miles from the border, or the coastline. To get around this barrier, Mexico has come up with a Bank Trust. Here’s how it works:

-You select the property you want and contact a Mexican bank.
-They do all the paper work (with the help of a notary publico) and make sure the title to the property is free and clear, with no leins or encumberances.
-They charge you a one-time fee for the trust, which varies, depending on the value of the property. Figure about $4000 to $10,000 for a nice house.
-There’s a yearly fee of about $250 to $300 to maintain the trust.
-You get a title called a Fidecomiso that is a legal binding document.
-The bank is the registered owner and you are the beneficiary of the property. You can live in it, or sell it, or even rent it out if you want.
-You get all the benefits.
-The Trust is good for 50 years, and is easily renewable for another 50, and another after that.
-You can leave the house to your kids (or anybody else) if you die.
-You are protected with a bank trust and people do not lose their homes when they have a bank trust.
-In effect, the responsibility for a clean hassle-free title (trust) is with the bank. It’s up to them and that’s what they charge you for.
-This is the way to acquire property in Baja.

NOW, THE WRONG WAY!
-The worst way to acquire property in Baja is to rent it.
-The next worst way is to lease it.
-The longest a lease is legal in Mexico is one day less than ten years.
-Any lease longer than ten years is illegal and does not have to be honored.
-All the stuff you’ve heard over the years about 33-year and 99-year leases is simply not valid. Sure, people have made deals over the years with Mexican landowners for ultra-long leases and have had no problems. It’s because they were dealing with an honorable person who lived up to the lease. However, you must be aware that the long-term leases are no more binding than a hand-shake.
-If you rent or buy land in Mexico, you must have some sort of a resident permit, normally an FM-3.
-Therefore, even if you bought land and then let your FM-3 expire, you lose your right to that land until you renew it.

SO WHAT HAPPENED IN PUNTA BANDA?
The people who bought (?) the land in Punta Banda violated nearly every rule I just pointed out. Not one of them acquired a Bank Trust! In addition, they did the following:
-Many of them rented land, then built homes on that land.
-Many of them signed long-term leases.
-It was common knowledge that the land they “acquired” was in dispute, and had been in dispute for a very long time. One family had a legal claim to the land, yet the land had been give to an “ejido” (workers cooperative) group.
-Why anyone would build a home on leased or rented land, knowing that the courts were fighting over the ownership, puzzles me greatly.
-In fact, one former US attorney, retired, rented a lot in Punta Banda, built a home on the lot, and is now complaining that the real land owners want him to leave the rented lot so they can sell it. The court recently decided on the rightful owners.
-These people “acquired” the land at a really low cost. That’s how they got sucked in on the deal. The price was just too good to turn down.
-Some of them put a fortune into building a home on rented lots with illegal leases.

INSURANCE FACTS
There’s been a huge amount of controversy regarding Mexican insurance lately, with the headline-gathering accident of a few years ago. Rumors are everywhere, and no one seems to know just what your insurance covers, and what it does not cover.

THE FACTS
-If you purchase Mexican insurance here, or on the US side, chances are your “normal” liability policy covers only your car against third parties. This means that if you hit someone and it’s your fault, the other party will be covered for damages to their vehicle and for medical.
-If you have full coverage, the third party will be covered, as will your vehicle and your occupants.
-When you use a toll road in Baja, you are issued a receipt. Keep this, as it gives you third party property damage protection and medical coverage for you and those in your vehicle.
-Please note that this toll receipt does not guarantee you legal council, or post a bond for you, in case of a felony accident.
-In the highly publicized Kraft accident, Mr. Kraft did not have Mexican insurance when he had the serious accident. He only had the toll receipt, which protected him, his occupants and the third party with medical insurance.
-Under Mexican law, if any person in the accident (either party) receives a major injury (one that would not be healed in two weeks), the accident then becomes a felony.
-When a felony accident is committed, a bond must be posted before the person who caused the accident can be set free. Since Mr. Kraft clearly caused the accident by crossing over the center divider of the freeway to go from south to north, and caused not only serious injuries to himself, but to an occupant in the other vehicle as well, there were two felonies involved.
-The amount of the bond is set by the local District Attorney. In the case of the Kraft accident, the family wanted Mr. Kraft moved immediately to a hospital in the US, but did not have sufficient funds to post a bond. About 18 hours later, the bond was reduced to $2700 and the Kraft family paid over $4000 for a helicopter to airlift Mr. Kraft out. Unfortunately, Mr. Kraft died about a week after the accident. US doctors noted that his paralysis and eventual death had nothing to do with the time lag in being moved to the US facility.

Right now, people are paranoid about going to Baja. But this need not be the case. You simply must take the proper precautions, which include: