Lessons from Baja: Riding in the desert does bad things to your body, and worse things to your motorcycle. Here's how to prepare for an offroad adventure. Protect Your Bike The Kawasaki KLR650 can handle difficult trails right out of the box, but prudence dictates that you make a few modifications before heading into deeper wilderness. One is to add nerf bars. These look like a steel rib cage for your engine and protect the radiator from getting banged up in a fall. The bars we used, from Happy Trails Motorcycle Products (800-444-8770; happy-trail.com), mounted an extra set of foot pegs that saved our butts, literally, by giving us a different position in which to hold our legs on the long ride. Another necessity: aftermarket skid plates. Also from Happy Trails, these are made from steel and replace the stock skid plate, which is made of plastic. We also added a fork brace, a set of reinforced hand guards from Moose Racing, and aluminum panniers to protect our gear. Protect Your Body A dual-sport motorcycle gives you freedom to explore terrain you'd never consider traveling through in anything short of an M-1 tank. But riding offroad means that you will crash. To keep safe, bring protective gear. We wore motocross boots, gloves, and helmets all the time, and should have worn the protective jackets and pants we brought more often than we did (it was just too damn hot). Find what you need at Tucker Rocky Online (602-369-1143; powersportrider.com). If you want more information on long-distance riding, read Riding the World by Gregory Fraser, available from Whitehorse Press (whitehorsepress.com).-N.M.