July 2018 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Tastes like chicken…

Just over 45 years ago when I was getting out of the Army, I interviewed for a job with US Gypsum in Sweetwater, Texas. I was mustering out from Fort Bliss (near El Paso), and I wanted to stay in the Lone Star State. US Gypsum seemed like a nice outfit and the people who interviewed me were great, but I wasn’t too sure about living in Sweetwater (a town I had never heard of before my interview). I had a good interview, the US Gypsum folks took me to lunch and peppered me with more questions, and they offered me a job. I asked about what it was like living in Sweetwater, and what people did around there when they weren’t working.

It was the right question to ask. Up to this point it had been kind of a standard tell-me-your-strengths/tell-me-your-weaknesses interview. But when I asked that question, everyone started talking about the Rattlesnake Roundup, becoming more and more excited as they spoke. The Roundup, they explained, is kind of like a bass-fishing contest. “The boy who won the Roundup last year brought in nearly 3500 pounds of rattlers…” one of my hosts told me.

I was stunned. In four years of crashing around the Texas desert in armored personnel carriers and jeeps, I had seen exactly three rattlesnakes, and they weren’t very big ones. 3500 lbs? That’s a lot of snakes, I thought.

“How can you find 3500 pounds of snakes in a day?” I asked.

“We strip mine the gypsum,” one of the USG guys told me. “Our boys just bulldoze up the earth. Every once in a while, these old boys will turn up a snake den,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “They look around to make sure no one else has seen them, they mark the location, they cover it up, and then when the Roundup rolls around, they know exactly where to go…”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had no idea such things existed. Snake dens? For real?

Suddenly, all the rattlesnake kitsch I had seen (but not really noticed) at the airport, the hotel, the US Gypsum plant, and even at the restaurant’s cash register (belts, belt buckles, bolo ties, hats…all based on rattlesnake skins, rattlesnake heads, and rattlesnake fangs) started to make sense.

Snake dens? Seriously?

I experienced three revelations simultaneously: Sweetwater was not a town for a nice Jewish boy from New Jersey (that would be me), these people were seriously into rattlesnakes, and at some point in my life I had to get back to Sweetwater to see the Rattlesnake Roundup.

That interview with US Gypsum was in 1977. I told the above story three decades later when we had a couple of friends, Marty and Liesel, over for dinner. Marty listened intently. Marty is paid to be a good listener (and he is), but I could see my story was getting more than his usual intense focus. Marty was mesmerized.

After dinner my wife and I took Marty and his wife home. By the time we returned to our home, I had an email from Marty. He had found the Rattlesnake Roundup on the Internet, it was still going strong, and he thought it would make for a good motorcycle ride.

Hey, why not?

Sweetwater is about 200 miles west of Fort Worth, which means it’s about 1200 miles east of Los Angeles. That’s two days by motorcycle…two long, boring days of droning along I-10 for 1000 miles, and then I-20 for the last 200 miles. Like I said, why not?

Sweetwater originally started the Roundup because the town had a serious rattlesnake infestation. As one of the locals explained it, the snakes would slither right into town. The Sweetwaterians (is that a word?) were experiencing five or six snakebite cases a month. The idea was to thin the herd. Hence the Rattlesnake Roundup. When Marty and I went there in 2006, they had already been doing this for nearly 50 years. As the photo below shows, though, there are a lot of rattlesnakes still out there.

Fascinating, no? Western Diamondbacks at the Sweetwater Annual Rattlesnake Roundup.

The Sweetwater Annual Rattlesnake Roundup was a big show. Those pens you see above? There were dozens of them inside Sweetwater’s Nolan Coliseum. There were all kinds of exhibits and zillions of snakes. Zillions, I tell you. Snake handling. Rattlesnake milking. You could touch a snake if you wanted to (while the handler held it, of course…I took a pass on that one). Grand fun.

Wanna touch? The handlers were impressive. They took the live snakes around to the spectators. You could touch them. You could. Not me.

There were a couple of pens where the snakes were being milked for their venom. The handlers put the snakes’ fangs over a funnel, and then squeezed the venom glands. About an ounce of amber-colored fluid (almost like thin honey) came out of each snake. It was impressive. The photo ops were amazing.

One of the spectators asked a snake handler the inevitable question: “How many times have you been bit?”

“Never,” they said. I imagine they were telling the truth. I think in that profession, one mistake is all it takes to get into a new line of work.

Another spectator asked how long it took the snakes to replace their venom.

“About two weeks,” the handlers answered, “but these boys ain’t got two weeks…”

We would soon see what they meant.

The look on this young lady’s face says it all. This was one hell of a show.

Good times. Good photo 0ps. Everyone there was building up a good bank of stories.

David Sager, master story teller, doing his thing. The largest Western Diamondback ever brought in to the Roundup was 81 inches long! That’s just under 7 feet! Bad dreams to follow…

David Sager put on quite a demonstration. He’s a good old boy, with a Texas twang, a flair for the dramatic, and a sense of humor.

Sager told a story about road runners and rattlesnakes. The former eats the latter. The roadrunner flaps its wings and entices the snake to strike at it futilely and repeatedly. The road runner is faster than the rattlesnake’s strike, and that’s saying something. We saw the handlers induce the snakes to strike several times. The snakes are faster than the eye can follow (more on that in a bit).

A road runner will tease the snake to strike repeatedly, and ultimately, the snake will tire and simply coil up. When it does this, the road runner then hops on top and pecks at the snake’s head until the snake puts its head under its coils. The snake becomes docile, and the roadrunner pecks at the snake’s head to kill it (and ultimately, to eat it). The snake keeps its head low in its coils, trying to hide from the roadrunner. Beep beep, Dude. Time’s up.

Mr. Sager played roadrunner for us. He put a rattler on a table and started lightly pecking at its head with a snake-handling rod. The rattler immediately coiled up, entered a trance-like state, and hid its head under its coiled body. If you think that’s something, read on…

Sager then swept the snake off the table with his right hand, and caught it in his left. Yep, he picked up a rather large, very much alive rattlesnake in his bare hand! That’s the snake’s head peeking out on the right side of this photo.

Is the roadrunner gone? The phrase “not for all the tea in China” comes to mind.

Mr. Sager explained that rattlesnakes sense heat, and he proved his point by irritating the snake with a long orange balloon. The snake dodged and weaved, trying to get away from the balloon.

Dodging, weaving, and trying to stay away from the balloon. Quit bugging me!

Sager then pulled the balloon away from the snake, rubbed his hand on the balloon’s end to warm it up just a scosh, and started to move the balloon back toward the snake. The rattlesnake struck instantly. It happened in the blink of an eye. Less than the blink of an eye. Their strike is very fast, faster than you can see. The balloon exploded with an amplified bang. Grown men screamed. I was one of them. That, my friends, was a rattlesnake strike!

Look at those fangs! They are about an inch long. Check out the rear-slanting teeth, too! It would be hard to break free of that grip, and that’s the idea. A desert rat, a small rabbit, whatever. It ain’t breaking free.

The Roundup even has a beauty pageant, and yep, there was a Miss Snake Charmer 2006. This was a major event in west Texas. I thought it was great.

It was a 1200-mile motorcycle ride to get to Sweetwater, and it was worth it. A tiara, a banner, and camo slacks. Where else are you going to find this?

Back in 2006, I was using a Nikon D70, one of Nikon’s first digital cameras. I was getting great shots and I was having a blast. Motorcycles. Rattlesnakes. Pretty girls. Texas. Life just doesn’t get any better.

Note the pit just behind the snake’s nostrils. That’s how it senses heat. It also senses vibration with millions of nerve endings in its belly. And sight. And smell, of a sort. When a rattler flicks its tongue out, it’s gathering molecules in the air that it then flicks against the roof of its mouth. The Jacob’s organ (hey, I can’t make this up) “smells” the molecules. It’s called sensor fusion (sight, vibration, smell, and heat), and it’s how the rattler decides if it’s going to strike. Sensor fusion is a concept we used in the smart munitions business, but that’s a story for another day.

I held my camera directly over this bucket of snakes, snapping away like the happy photographer I was, until one of the handlers told me the snakes could reach me from there.

The Roundup ran like a production line. The snakes came in, they were weighed, they were milked for their venom, they were slaughtered, they were butchered, and then the skins and the meat went their separate ways.
All of this was done right in front of us. It was definitely not a place for the squeamish, but we were in Texas. Ain’t no snowflakes in Texas.

The end of the line for the stars of the show…ye old chopping block. You thought you were having a rough day?

The world needs belts, boots, bolo ties, and hat bands. And food.

Even the heads are used…there’s a lot of belt buckles and bolo ties in that bucket.

The Roundup had a long line of people waiting to buy fried rattlesnake for lunch. I looked at Marty. He looked at me. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Marty tried one bite and spit it out. That was enough of a testimonial for me. I didn’t try it. Marty’s reaction and the rancid odor were enough.

The Roundup was fun, but a half day was plenty. The weather in Sweetwater was balmy…a sunny and humid 80 degrees. Marty and I decided to head back home. We had a 1200-mile freeway drone in front of us.

We hit I-20 and just kept going. We wanted to make New Mexico to get a jump on the ride for the next day. We cruised through El Paso at around 8:00 p.m., and stopped in Las Cruces for a quick dinner. Lordsburg, New Mexico, was our target that night. It was dusty, dark, very cold, and the wind was awful, with gusts in excess of 60 miles per hour. We were leaning our bikes at 30 degrees just to maintain a straight line.

We finally made Lordsburg, only to find that the Days Inn where we thought we would stay had no vacancies. You know the drill…you see the sign outside that says “No Vacancy,” but you have to go inside and ask anyway. “Everything is sold out,” the lady behind the counter said. “There isn’t an empty room in town, what with all this wind.” All the truckers were getting off the road due to the high winds.

We had passed an older motel on the east end of Lordsburg on the way in. Willcox, Arizona, was the next town up the road, but it was 80 miles west and I knew I couldn’t ride another 80 miles in this wind. We doubled back and tried the older hotel. We got lucky. We nailed the last room they had.

It snowed that night. We had a good breakfast the next morning and waited a couple of hours until the snow turned to sleet, and then we were off. We pushed through a combination of snow, sleet, and cold rain for the next 60 miles. We made Arizona (where the sun came out), and then rode another several hundred miles through sunny (but cold) weather.

The Roundup was a bit of a shocker. Lots of venomous snakes and the butchering was kind of brutal, but it was fun. And, no matter what anyone says, the myth that rattlesnake tastes like chicken just ain’t so. Sometimes I wonder…what if I had taken that job in Sweetwater? Would I be out there, rounding up rattlesnakes, instead of writing the blog?

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The 1911

I’m a huge fan of the 1911, going all the way back to 1973. That’s when I graduated college and headed off to the Army. I went to college on an ROTC scholarship, and I had the same spot in the Corps of Cadets as Colin D. MacManus did when he graduated a few years before me in 1965. Captain MacManus was killed in action in Vietnam, and every year after that, his family awarded a Colt 1911 to the graduating senior who held his position. I was that guy in 1973, and that was my first .45 auto.

Back then, times were different. I had to get a permit to own the .45, but it was more a formality than anything else. We could shoot in our backyard, we often did, and my father and I couldn’t wait to put the .45 through its paces. Like I said, we couldn’t wait, but that was only one thing we couldn’t do. The other was hit the target. We set up a target 30 feet away (a soda can), and trying as best we could, the only thing we hit was the ground halfway between us and that soda can. A lot of dirt flew. There’s a lot of lead buried in what used to be our backyard. Don’t tell the EPA.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I got lucky. The Army sent me to graduate school, and the ROTC detachment got a new Sergeant Major, one Emory L. Hickman. Sergeant Major Hickman had spent most of his career in Vietnam and the Army Marksmanship Training Unit, where the finest pistoleros in the world live. He was the real deal: A warrior and an expert pistol shot. I told him of my plight (the evasive can of pop) and he laughed. The Sergeant Major schooled me on the fundamentals of handling the 1911, he coached me on the pistol range, and he taught me how to put those big old 230-grain FMJ bullets pretty much exactly where I wanted them to go. Thank you, Sergeant Major Hickman.

Fast forward several decades and dozens of 1911s later, and that brings us to this morning at the West End Gun Club, where I and my Rock Island Compact 1911 did, once again, what the old Sergeant Major taught me to do.

And about that Rock Island 1911…it’s a short little thing, and it’s a blast to shoot. Around here in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia, Rock Island 1911s go for $500 brand new (that’s a tremendous value). They are inexpensive, but they are not cheap. The Rock Island 1911 is a real handgun with its Parkerized finish, all steel construction, wood grips, and GI sights (none of that black plastic silliness here). It reminds me a lot of the 1911s I carried in the Army. I love shooting my Rock Island Compact, it hits well, and I can still put my shots where I want to. Sergeant Major Hickman would be 92 years old today if he was still around (I’m guessing he’s not); wherever he is, he’d be proud. He taught me well.

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Getting my kicks, on Route 66…

This is Phase II of our CSC City Slicker range testing. Phase I examined how the bike performed in the Eco mode. In this phase, today I tested the bike’s range in the Power mode.

Bottom line first: The bike went further then Zongshen said it would. Zongshen claimed the bike would go 37 miles at 37 mph. I managed to go 40.7 miles when starting with a 100%-charged battery. I attribute that to the fact that part of the course I ran today had a gradual downhill slope.

The next big thing…the newest bike in America on the grandest road in America: The CSC City Slicker on Route 66!

There’s a lot more to this test than what I did in the Eco mode testing. I should start out by telling you that this was not a test run on a perfectly flat, uninterrupted test track (I’m pretty sure if I did that I would have managed to get even a few more miles out of Slick). Nope, this was real world testing on American roads. In fact, I’d say it was real world testing on what is arguably the most famous road in America: Route 66. (Cue in the theme music from the ‘60s TV show, Route 66). It was that cool. Call me Todd. Arjiu can be Buzz. All we’d need is the Corvette. But I digress…back to the main attraction.

Power mode, Amigo! It’s like kicking in the afterburners!

So, I live a little over 16 miles east of CSC at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. My home is at 1700 feet above sea level. CSC, from my home, is headed toward the ocean, and that means a gentle downhill slope all the way. CSC sits about 610 feet above sea level. You might wonder why all the topological details, and here’s the reason: I found during my Eco mode testing that Slick uses less energy going downhill than it does going uphill. The bike covered about a mile for each 1% of battery charge going downhill, and about 0.4 miles for each 1% of battery charge going uphill. One of the things I wanted to find out in today’s Power mode testing is how the bike would perform from an energy consumption perspective in the Power mode, going downhill and then uphill.

I guess I ought to point out that I had a difficult time staying at 37 mph during this test, which is the speed for which Zongshen provided the range statistic. Every time I wasn’t really paying attention, I found myself going 42 or 43 mph (and those higher speeds use more energy). It was a challenge watching the road, watching the battery charge indicator, watching the mileage, and recording the data on my high-tech data logging system.

The ExhaustNotes.us high-tech data logger…

The bottom line here is I probably penalized the bike a little because I spent more time than I thought I would above 37 mph.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what’s magical about 37 mph, I’m only hanging on that number because that’s the data point Zongshen gave us for range and speed in the Power mode: 37 miles at 37 mph. And in case you’re wondering why Zongshen picked the number 37, they really weren’t being cute about it. Zongshen’s real magic number was 60. 37 miles at 37 mph is 60 km at 60 kph. They’re on the metric system.

To cut the chase, here are the results…

Lots of good info. The top line with the yellow dots was the ride out. The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.

I know that’s a complicated chart, but hey, I’m an engineer, and there’s a lot going on here. Let me explain it a bit.

I only recorded the data with each 5% decrease in battery charge for this test. I was moving a lot faster than I was in the Eco mode test, and I didn’t want to try to capture data points with every 1% decrease in battery charge.

The top line (the one with the yellow data points) was my ride out to CSC and beyond. It was downhill for the first 16.4 miles (from my home to the CSC plant). Starting with a 100% battery charge, my ride to the CSC plant took me down to 65% charge remaining. Stated differently, I used 35% of the battery charge to get from my place to CSC. I was impressed. If I was still a working stiff this would be a cool commuter bike.

I wanted to run the battery all the way down until the bike quit, and that meant I kept riding back and forth between Azusa, through Duarte, and into Monrovia. Those are the yellow data points on the upper line after reaching the CSC plant. I kept doing that until the battery hit 30% charge remaining (at which point the red plug to the left of the charge indicator started flashing, just as it had in the Eco mode test).

The dashboard battery charge indicator. The red plug lights when the bike is being charged by the external charger. It will start flashing when the charge level gets down to 30% while you are riding the motorcycle. It also lights up during regenerative braking.

When I got down to 15%, the bike went into its “limp home” mode again, just as it had in the Eco mode. When this happens, it accelerates much more gradually (that’s a gentle way of saying Slick is getting tired), and the bike tops out at about 20 mph.

I kept going in the CSC parking lot, riding in circles until the bike hit 6% charge remaining. I rode for another 0.4 miles at 6% charge when Slick called it a day. I watched to see if it would indicate 5% just before giving up the ghost, but I didn’t see that on the dash. I think when the bike drops from 6% to 5%, you don’t get to see it indicate 5%, but that’s where it quits.

To my surprise, I blew right through Zongshen’s claimed 37 mile range. I made it to 40.7 miles. And, as I mentioned in the Eco mode test, the odometer is about 5% pessimistic, so the indicated 40.7 miles is actually 42.7 miles. This is good, folks. Again, though, the fact that I went more than 37 miles is at least partly due to the fact that this leg of the test was slightly downhill.

I mentioned in the specs that the bike has regenerative braking. When that occurs, the red plug to the left of the battery charge bar illuminates. I never actually got it to cause the indicated charge percentage to increase, though. If it was at, say, 67% and it went into a regenerative braking mode, there wasn’t enough regeneration going on to bump it back up to 68%. The bike is obviously consuming less energy and it is charging, but not enough to register on the numerical percentage indicator. You do see the charge bar go up sharply (it swings to the right) while the red charging plug flickers on during deceleration. It’s cool. You feel like you’re giving something back.

The other thing I could not discern is how the algorithm operates the regeneration function. It seemed to me that the regeneration light came on while I was decelerating as my speeds dropped below about 10 mph and I was braking. I don’t know if that’s because there’s a lag between when the regeneration actually starts and when it is displayed on the dash, or if Zongshen has programmed something into the bike to prevent too much regeneration. I’m emailing them to find out, and I’ll let you know.

My big disappointment today? There was only one: When I got to CSC, all the burritos were gone. Saturday is burrito day at CSC. But I’m still young, and I’ve been working on handling disappointment.

Steve had a freshly charged battery waiting for me, and I wanted to do a video of the battery removal. One of the guys following the ExhaustNotes blog asked for that, so here you go…

Guys, when you see the video, be gentle. I’m not Cecil B. DeMille. I know that. You need to know that I know that. If you want to be a video critic, start a blog or something.

With a new battery in place, it was time for my ride home. I was very curious to see how this would go, because now instead of descending from 1700 feet to 610 feet, I’d be climbing that same 16.4-mile grade. I’ll post the graph here again so it’s easier to put the words and the music together…

The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.

The bottom data line (the one with the green data points) shows energy consumption as a function of miles on the uphill ride home. You can see that the bike uses more energy going uphill than it does going downhill (again, duh, but the data shown in the above graph makes it clear). Some folks are confused by x-y plots (hell, some folks are confused by, well…never mind). Don’t look at this graph and think that the shorter lower line with the green dots means the bike will only go 16.4 miles. I still had 50% of the battery charge left at that point. I was home. I parked the bike, went inside, and opened a can of Tecate (which I’m nursing as I write this blog).

So, here’s the take-away from today’s testing:

The bike goes further in the Power mode than Zongshen said it would. This is good, but temper my results with the course I rode (part of it was slightly downhill).
I used 35% of the battery’s energy going from my home to CSC (a gradual descent) and I used 50% of the battery’s energy going from CSC to my home (a gradual climb).
This motorcycle is a lot of fun and it gets a ton of attention. Every time somebody stopped alongside me at a light, the questions and compliments started. I don’t mind admitting I enjoyed that.
I think these guys (that is, CSC) aren’t charging enough for the bike, but hey, what do I know?

And there you have it. Slick’s on the charger now. I’m going to the rifle range tomorrow to send some lead downrange. On Monday or maybe a little later in the week, me and Slick are going to do some climbing up in the San Gabriels to see how the steeper grades affect range. As always, if you have questions, post them in the Comments section, and I’ll do my best to get answers for you.

Going Nowhere, Slowly

A gentle rain of cinders descends upon passengers in the open-air cattle car. Shifting side to side, now a hard lurch, has you reaching, drunk-walking to the beat. People sway in time to the rails and the rails play a tune older than wax-cylinder recordings. Engine Number Four-Sixty-Three chuffs black, riot-grade smoke as the tracks gradually rise into the tailings of the Rocky Mountains in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

Fire is the driving force behind the Cumbres & Toltec line. The tender hitched to Four-Sixty-Three glistens with dark, crumbling coal trailing a peat-tane scent. This is the good stuff, before coal became clean and beautiful. The tracks steepen; Four-Sixty-Three’s breathing becomes labored. The chuffs are farther apart in time but not distance. The fireman shovels more coal into the boiler. Steam pressure rises, pile it on man, let’s get this iron horse moving.

We climb higher, waxy shrubs and rabbits give way to deer and pines. The air cools and each sigh from Four-Sixty-Three’s smokestack hangs in the air marking the exact spot it escaped the inferno. The little train spews water vapor from several ports. It drools water near the drive wheels, jowly and unpettable. Geysers of high pressure water shoot out the side of the engine at random, but no doubt necessary, intervals.

We left Antonito, Colorado three hours, twenty-five miles, and thousands of gallons of water ago. The scenery is aboriginal: landslides, mountain streams, hard cuts through solid rock and lonely cabins pressed to the ground. We are burning our way across eons of metamorphic western land.

The Cumbres & Toltec stops for lunch midway between Antonito and Chama. Of the two options, I pick meatloaf because turkey is for Thanksgiving. It’s an assembly line operation but the food is tasty, old style and all you can eat. Fitting for a vintage steam train ride.

Water pours out onto the ground. Between the elbow of the tower and the chute there’s a 6-inch gap. Four-Sixty-Three guzzles the water as fast as it can flow into the boiler. The steam whistle blows twice and steam-torque pulls us away from the feed bag higher into the mountains where the spruce trees are dying from beetles and fungus.

The line into Chama is bumpy and downhill. In places Highway 17 parallels the railroad track. Old men stop their cars to photograph Four-Sixty-Three comin’ round the bend. The whistle blows and camera shutters release to freeze a moment from the past today. Four-Sixty-Three pulls into Chama a half-hour late. Missing the schedule is death to a train man. They apologize and ask forgiveness.

For people not staying in Chama a modern motor coach whisks passengers back to Antonio in one hour. The same voyage that took us nine hours by train. I feel sorry for those poor people, they’ll never get that hour back.

Slick specs…

I’ve been helping CSC in the last few days compile specifications for the new City Slicker electric motorcycle, and the bike is looking better and better the more I learn about it. Here’s what’s going up on the CSC site in the near future…

Any questions? Post them in the comments section, and I’ll see if I can get answers.

The Green Island!

We’re Los Angeles Times subscribers. I tell you that not to imply I’m a well-read person who keeps up with things, and I’m certainly not bragging about the paper (in fact, I don’t think the LA Times is a very good newspaper). But this morning’s issue had an advertising supplement from China, and it got my attention. It’s one of those supplements where the advertiser tries to make it look like another section of the paper, except the whole thing was a big ad. What caught my eye this morning was the faux International Daily’s headline about Qingdao’s international beer festival.

I’ve been to Qingdao. I like the place. The story in the Times this morning immediately brought me back to the Arjiu and Dajiu China ride (that would be Joe Gresh and yours truly), a ride that was the grandest adventure of my life. It’s what Riding China is all about.

I’ve thought about this a lot, and you should buy Riding China (you can do so by clicking here or on the cover photo to the right).

Then I thought about it a bit more, and you know what? I’m going to share Riding China’s last chapter with you, right here on the ExhaustNotes blog. I think you’ll like the story on Qingdao, and I can tell you that the rest of Riding China (the other 26 chapters) is just as good. Like I said…you should buy a copy.

Enjoy, my friends….

Chapter 27: Qingdao, Our Final Destination

Qingdao (pronounced “ching dow”) means “green island” in Chinese. It’s on the eastern edge of China on the Yellow Sea, and it sure is green. It is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen, and it’s one with a storied past. Beaches, seafood, and more, the city has had more owners and rulers than you can shake a stick at. Like a lot of places on the east coast of China, it was controlled by the Germans in the late 1800s (you can see the German influence in the city’s architecture). The Japanese took over after World War I, it reverted back to Chinese control shortly after that, and then the Japanese took it over again during second World War, and then, well…it’s in Chinese hands now. But I’m getting ahead of myself yet again. Back to the ride.

The changing of the guard in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius.

We started our morning in Qufu with a visit to a fort that is evidently a significant Chinese attraction. I didn’t understand too much about the place at the time we visited, but it made for some great photo ops. There was a changing of the guard similar to what might be seen at Buckingham Palace or Arlington National Cemetery, and it was exciting. I enjoyed watching the Chinese tourists take it all in even more. This is their country, and I could tell that what we were all seeing was of great significance to them.

A Chinese woman, standing on the pegs of Sergeant Zuo’s motorcycle, photographing the changing of the guard in Qufu.

After the ceremony, it was back to the freeway for the quick 200 kilometer ride to Qingdao. I was very excited about seeing Qingdao for several reasons. It marked the end of our ride. This had been a motorcycle ride like no other, and Qingdao was our final destination. For that reason alone, it was significant.

Qingdao is a city with a rich history, as I mentioned at the start of this chapter. Situated on China’s eastern coast, I was hoping that the temperatures in Qingdao would be a little cooler. On a personal level, Qingdao had a special meaning for me. It was situated directly on the Yellow Sea’s western shore. More than 40 years ago I had been a US Army lieutenant on the eastern shore of the Yellow Sea, in Korea, on a HAWK missile site. Our primary target line (the direction in which our missiles and radars were pointed; the direction from which we anticipated an attack) was not aimed at North Korea. It was instead pointed west, directly across the Yellow Sea, toward the People’s Republic of China. Yes, the spot I would be riding into this fine day was the very spot my US Army missiles pointed to more than four decades ago!

Our freeway ride to Qingdao that morning was largely uneventful except for one thing: Ling’s RX1 ran out of gas. To me, it was amazing that this was the first time any of us had run dry. We routinely rode 50 or more miles after our fuel bingo lights starting blinking. Gresh and I never quite understand our approach for determining when to get fuel, or who called the shots on that topic. We didn’t know if it was Zuo on the lead bike, or Tracy in his car, of Qi and Ma in the chase truck. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Zuo.

Up until the point when Ling’s bike ran out, I thought the RX1 had more range than the RX3, because Zuo (who rode an RX1 on this trip), kept going long after I would have refueled my RX3. But Ling, on an RX1, was the guy whose bike ran dry that morning. Gresh was riding with Ling when it happened. Joe stopped and luckily he found a rope by side of the road, so he towed Ling along until the next gas station.

When the chase truck caught up with us at the gas station, Ma evidently said something to Sergeant Zuo in Chinese about waiting too long to refuel, and Zuo didn’t care for it. Sometimes we weren’t sure if the Chinese were upset with each other (we couldn’t tell from the conversation), but there was no doubt in my mind this time that Zuo was not taking what Ma said very well. A little bit of gasoline later (or oil, as the Chinese refer to it in English) and all was well.

As we approached Qingdao, Zuo was working his magic on his smartphone’s GPS, and we found our way through thickening Chinese traffic to the bay. A ferry ride across the bay was in our plans. This was good. Any motorcycle adventure always goes better with a ferry ride. It adds to the magic.

We took a ferry ride across the bay to downtown Qingdao.

We rode the bikes onto the ferry, parked them, headed topside, and were underway in minutes. I was surprised that we didn’t need to tie the bikes down, but they were still upright when we arrived in downtown Qingdao. Everybody was in high spirits. We were arriving at our destination, the city we had been riding to for the last five weeks. It signified the end of our epic journey. The cameras were out and we were all snapping photos. I took a photo of a Chinese man and his young son, and then the son asked me if his father could take a photo of me with him. He did so with his cell phone, and then I handed him my Nikon and he took the same photo with it. As Americans, Gresh and I were unusual sights on that ferry.

Qingdao has a population of 9 million people. Once again, I thought about how amazing being in this place was. I was the unusual American; I had heard of Qingdao before this ride. I only knew of it because of my Army days 40 years ago. Most Americans have never heard of Qingdao, yet we have only one city (and that’s New York) that has a population comparable to Qingdao.

Joe Gresh, somewhere on Qingdao Bay, as seen through Deng’s Canon.

We hit downtown Qingdao at rush hour, but the traffic wasn’t too bad on the elevated freeway that ran over the city. It was a Sunday afternoon, and that helped. Once we were into the city, though, it was the usual tuck and roll routine we always did when we blitzed through Chinese urban areas. That meant lots of weaving and bobbing, giving the horns a thorough workout, and a bit of profanity thrown in for good measure, directed at folks who most likely had no idea what we were yelling about.

Riding on an elevated freeway above downtown Qingdao. That’s Gresh and Zuo in front of me.

I realized I had become accustomed to Chinese urban traffic. As I worked more motorcycle miracles keeping up with Zuo and Lu, I thought about what it would be like to ride back in the United States again when I returned to California. I knew I’d have to dial it down substantially. No more missing cars by centimeters passing on the right and the left, no more assuming people will move over when we pass into oncoming traffic, no more passing on blind corners, and much less risk. I wondered if it would be boring. When our Chinese and Colombian friends rode with us last year on the Western America Adventure Ride, they told us the riding in America was less intense than what they were used to in their home countries. It’s only scenery in America, they said. Riding a motorcycle in the United States required no aggressive maneuvering with cars, trucks, buses, other motorcycles, and scooters. They said that the courtesy of American drivers made the riding less exciting. Riding in China, on the other hand (and Colombia, too) required absolute and intense concentration. It was stressful, exhausting, and exhilarating.

The dinner that evening was extravagant and exciting, as you might imagine it would be for a group that had just arrived at their destination after an 8,800-kilometer motorcycle ride across China. When the restaurant realized how many of us they had to feed (and they heard the story of how we made it all the way across China to Qingdao on our motorcycles), they wisely opted to move the tables to the parking lot in front of the restaurant and let us cut loose outside.

It was a grand dinner. The beer flowed freely. Where before our Chinese brothers drank beer from little juice glasses, tonight it was all pitchers of draft beer and mugs. And folks, these Chinese guys can put away the suds. Everybody was in high spirits. Ma and Zuo were good buddies again (they had forgotten all about Ling running out of gas earlier in the day). There was more beer and more toasts. Lu was spilling been all over himself as he chugged mug after mug. Tracy was telling Sean that he should shave off his goatee to be more popular with the ladies (bear in mind that Sean is Tracy’s boss). More beer. More toasts. Did I mention we drank a lot of beer that night?

Lu enjoying a beer, with a bit of help from Dong.

We stayed late and closed the place. It was one of the best dinners I have ever had anywhere. The food was outstanding (as it always was during the entire China adventure ride), but that wasn’t what made it all so grand. We had arrived. We would do a little more riding in and around Qingdao, and then we would all be heading home. Everyone realized that as the evening ended, and there was a palpable note of somberness as we called it a night. Everyone wanted to get back to their families and their normal lives, but no one wanted the ride to end.

That night ended well, and the next morning we were off for a publicity ride to Qingdao’s coastline. We met at the Qingdao Zongshen dealer where five or six guys on other bikes were waiting for us. One was on a Shineray 400cc single that looked more like an original Triumph Bonneville than do the current Triumph Bonnevilles. The company was one I had heard of but didn’t know much about. We say “Shine Ray” because that’s the way it’s spelled; the Chinese pronounce it “shin you way.” There were a couple of 250cc Suzukis and a couple of all-out dirt bikes (with no lights or plates) that used the Zongshen NC250 RX3 engine. The Zongshen dealer rode his 650cc CFMoto street bike (it’s a very large motorcycle that looks a lot like a Honda ST1300). Interesting motorcycles, to be sure.

It was to be one of the best rides of our entire China adventure. We were on the edge of Qingdao headed across the peninsula and there was very little traffic. As we rode, I saw a concrete ribbon off in the distance that snaked over a mountain, and sure enough, that was our road. It was a great ride. Zuo set a sensible pace, we crested the mountain, and then we descended to sea level. Soon we were riding the Qingdao coastline. It was a magnificent road. The road and the location reminded me of Italy’s Amalfi Road below Naples. We stopped for photos in several locations. It was definitely a tourist spot for the Chinese; there were lots of busses and more than a few cars with families. But it was not touristy. It was just fun.

At one of the stops I commented to Gresh that this was a great ride and I was enjoying the more relaxed pace. Joe laughed and said, “You’ve gotten too used to riding in China. We’ve been passing busses on blind corners and doing all the things these guys do. If you think this is a relaxed ride, you’ve become a maniac, too.”

I guess maybe I had, but unlike the other times, it wasn’t bothering me that morning. I guess you can get used to anything. I really enjoyed that ride.

Riding along the Yellow Sea coast in Qingdao. It reminded me of Italy’s Amalfi Road.

As we road along the coast, Lu saw an opening on the left that led directly onto the beach. He took it and we all followed. The beach was great, it wasn’t too hot, and it felt wonderful to be there. I parked my RX3 in a spot where there were rocks and the sidestand found decent support. Gresh was in soft sand and his sidestand was just sinking into it; there was no way it would support the bike. Dong was next to Gresh on an RX1 and he said, “No, Arjiu, like this,” and with that, he revved the engine, popped the clutch, and spun the rear wheel. The back of his motorcycle dropped several inches as the rear wheel excavated a hole, and when it was resting on the frame, Dong stopped, killed the engine, and stepped off. The bike remained vertical, held in place by the sand on either side of the rear wheel. Gresh did the same.

I walked up to the edge of the ocean and shot a few photos. Gresh was walking toward the water in a bright green floral pattern bathing suit. It looked brand new. “Where did you get that?” I asked.

“There’s a guy selling them over there,” Joe said, pointing to a shack, “and he’s got a place where you can change.” That was all I needed to know. I wasted no time in buying my own a bathing suit. I had been hot and sweaty for over a month. A swim in the ocean sounded like it was just what the doctor ordered.

It was wonderful. I was swimming in the Yellow Sea, along with Zuo, Ma, Qi, Gresh, and Dong. The water was warm for the first few inches near the surface and cold below that. The chill felt wonderful. It was lowering my core temperature, and I basked in the wonder of it all. It was the first time I felt that good in quite a while. We cavorted in that water for a good hour. I didn’t want to leave.

Dong demonstrates how to park a motorcycle on the beach.

The Yellow Sea. I thought about where we were, what we were doing, and what we had done. We had ridden across the Tibetan Plateau. We rode in the Gobi Desert. We followed the Silk Road and China’s Great Wall. We rode our Zongshen motorcycles in sweltering heat and in torrential rains. We had been terribly cold at altitudes as high as 14,000 feet. And now we were at sea level, swimming in the Yellow Sea.

This was not my first time being at the edge of the Yellow Sea, but it was the first time I swam in it. As I mentioned at the start of this chapter, four decades earlier as a young US Army lieutenant, I had stood roughly 700 miles due east of this spot on the other side of the Yellow Sea, ready to shoot down any Red Chinese aircraft that violated Korean airspace. Fast forward more than 40 years, and now I’m a senior citizen on a motorcycle adventure ride playing in the water with a bunch of Chinese tourists on the other side of that same body of water. Times change, I guess. In this case, for the better.

After our swim, we all rode the bikes into a line at the water’s edge so the video guys could do their thing. Our videographer, He, was running the drone and Deng was working his magic with the Canon digital camera. In the maybe 10 minutes we were there on the beach, I watched the tide move the water line up a good 10 feet. We had to keep moving the bikes to not let the water surround us.

The Yellow Sea is an interesting body of water. It was originally more yellow in color due to mineral sediments carried downstream by the rivers that feed it, but it lost its yellowish tinge (according to the experts) due to pollution. To me, the water looked about the same as any other place I’d ever seen the ocean. The most interesting thing about the Yellow Sea, though, is its extreme tidal variation. It has one of the highest tidal movements in the world. When I was in Korea, I was told the water level moved up and down vertically 30 feet every day (I later read it is actually 26 feet). Whether it’s 26 feet or 30 feet, that’s a huge tidal swing. I remember being in Korea and looking at the Yellow Sea when the tide was out. It was stunning. Where before there had been ocean, there were now miles and miles of mud, with the occasional fish flopping on what had been the sea floor an hour or so ago.

On the way back to the hotel on that next-to-last riding day, we were caught in a severe downpour. We were soaked, but nobody cared. We were China-riding veterans. It rains, you get wet. No big deal.

The next day, we all saddled up and rode to the freight forwarder who would ship the bikes back to Chongqing. It was a short ride, and we were in and out of the freight yard in less than 30 minutes. Gresh and I wanted to buy jewelry for our wives, and the Zongshen dealer’s wife accompanied us to downtown Qingdao’s jewelry district. She helped us score great jade necklaces and both Joe’s wife and my Sue loved what we brought back for them. We said goodbye to the Chinese riders at the freight yard, thinking that we would see them at dinner that evening.

When we returned to the hotel late that afternoon, we learned that the goodbyes we said to the other guys at the freight forwarder had really been our final goodbyes. While we were shopping, the Chinese guys left by air to return to their homes. King Kong was still there (he had gone shopping with us); we would drop Kong off at the Qingdao train station the next day. Joe and I flew home after we dropped Kong off. It was a long flight, but it was great to be headed home.

I had mixed emotions about not being able to say a proper goodbye to the other Chinese riders, but I was glad it worked out the way it did. I wanted to say goodbye for real, but I really didn’t want to say goodbye at all. A few days after I arrived home, I received a nice email from Zuo. He told me that he and the other riders had left while we were shopping because they, too, did not want to risk becoming emotional during our goodbyes.

I knew exactly how they felt.

******************

So there you have it. The last chapter in Riding China. Want to read more about a 6,000-mile ride across this magnificent land? Hey, click here and buy Riding China!

A draining experience…

I wrote a City Slicker press release for CSC Motorcycles last week and it lit up the Internet (you can read it here). The word is out and a lot of people are asking a lot of good questions. One is: How far will this thing go on a battery charge?

I had a lot of fun this morning getting the answer to that question. I was able to play engineer again. More on that in a bit.

Zongshen quotes two figures for the City Slicker’s range: One is a claimed 62 miles in the Eco mode at 20 mph, and the other is a claimed 37 miles at 37 mph in the Power mode. In the ebike world, range drops dramatically as speed increases. Go faster, don’t go as far. Go slower, go further. Hence the two figures.

Today was Phase I of my testing, and it focused on the City Slicker’s Eco mode.

Eco vs Power mode is controlled from a right-handlebar switch.

Bottom line first: In the Eco mode, I was able to get 55 miles out of the battery, with the dashboard charge indicator showing 6% charge remaining when the bike shut itself off. I think that’s pretty damn good, even though it didn’t meet the Zongshen claim of 62 miles. I’ll explain why in a bit, but first let me tell you how I ran the test, and before I get to that, let me tell you a bit about charging this puppy.

The bike comes with a charger. It’s a big dude, it plugs into a standard 110 VAC outlet, and it takes about 6 to 8 hours to fully charge the battery.

You can plug the charger into the bike on the bike’s battery access cover…

Or, you can open the access cover and plug the charger directly into the battery.

I guess at this point I should tell you that 6 to 8 hours is the right number for a full battery charge. There are folks quoting some clown who said it only took 4 hours to charge the battery (uh, that clown would be me, when I stupidly accepted what someone told me without verifying it myself). My bike’s been on the charger for a little over 3 1/2 hours since I ran the battery all the way down earlier today, and it’s only up to 63%. 6 to 8 hours is the correct answer to this question, folks.

The City Slicker charger has a couple of LEDs on it. One tells you it’s charging and the other tells you the state of the battery charge. If the battery’s not fully charged, that second LED stays red. When it’s fully charged, it turns green.

The green LED means the bike is fully charged.

When you disconnect the charger when the full charge LED light turns green, the bike will indicate a 100% charge on the dash, and it stays that way for a day or two before it starts to drop (if you don’t use the bike). If you leave the charger connected after the LED turns green, it shuts off but it doesn’t keep the battery at 100% until the charger turns itself on again. I think the thing allows the battery to drop to something below 99% before it starts charging again.

I had planned to start my test with a 100% fully charged battery, but it was at 99% on the dash indicator this morning. It was already getting hot here in So Cal and I didn’t want to wait for the battery to get back up to 100%. I started riding with the battery at 99%. Like we used to say in the bomb business: Close enough for government work.

The dashboard battery charge indicator. The red plug is lit when the bike is being charged by the external charger. It will start flashing when the charge level gets down to 30% while you are riding the motorcycle.

On to the test: I recorded miles traveled at each 1% decrease on the battery charge dash indicator. I wanted to simulate a real world City Slicker scenario, and the course I ran was a 2.8 mile loop around my home. Part of it is slightly downhill, parts of it are steep climbs, and there are 6 stop signs. It’s uphill and downhill, with lots of stop and go in the process. I tried to stick to 20 mph the entire time. It was a good city riding simulation, I think.

My fancy data logging system, scotch-taped to the top of the City Slicker luggage compartment. I dropped my pen twice during my 3-hour ride this morning.

When I finished the run (it took a good 3 hours in 100-degree weather), I then plotted the data. Here’s what it looks like:

City Slicker range test results. Slick, huh?

My observations and comments follow.

Power consumption as a function of distance traveled was very repeatable. On the uphill portions of the test course, the bike got about 0.4 miles for each 1% of battery charge; on the downhill portions it got about 0.9 to 1.0 miles for each 1% of battery charge. This was very consistent; after a few laps I could predict when the bike would drop a percent on the charge indicator by house number.

I tried to hold my speed at 20 mph, consistent with the Zongshen prediction for the City Slicker’s range in the Eco mode (62 miles at 20 mph). I had a tendency to speed, though, and I was above 20 mph more than I wanted to be.

When the battery charge indicator (on the bike’s dash) hit 30%, the charge plug indicator (on the dash) started flashing red. The concept is similar to the low fuel light on an internal combustion engine motorcycle. It’s telling you that it’s time to start thinking about topping off.

The bike felt like it had normal power levels until the battery charge indicator hit 20%. Below that point, the bike felt like it needed more “throttle” to maintain 20 mph.

At 16% battery charge, things changed. Responsiveness diminished perceptibly. It was in a “limp home” mode, and it would not go much above 15 mph.

The bike became more efficient in the limp home mode. It was going a little further with each 1% battery charge decrease than it had before. Thinking about it now, that’s not surprising, but it surprised me when it occurred.

At 6% indicated charge, the motorcycle had traveled 52.3 miles. It then traveled another 2.7 miles to reach a total of 55.0 miles, where the bike shut down completely. The battery charge indicator was still showing a 6% charge level prior to shutdown. I was thinking maybe I’d get to use that last 6%, but somewhere in that 6% indicated charge level range, it was lights out. Zip. Nada. Nothing left.

My earlier GPS speedometer accuracy testing showed that Slick’s speedometer is about 7% to 10% optimistic (the bike’s speedometer shows the speed to be higher than the GPS showed, which is something I’ve also observed on Zongshen’s internal-combustion-engined motorcycles).

I found the opposite to be true for the odometer. I have a measured mile by my house, and when I covered that distance on the City Slicker, the odometer showed 0.9 miles. I traveled approximately another 250 feet after the end of that measured mile before the odo clicked over to 1.0 miles, so I’m estimating the odometer reading to be about 5% low.

Based on all of the above, I was impressed with the City Slicker’s performance. Zongshen claims a 62 mile range in the Eco mode; I was able to ride 55.0 miles before the battery called it a day. There were several reasons I was slightly under the Zongshen estimated range:

I started with a 99% charge. If I had been at 100%, I would have picked up another 0.4 to 1.0 miles.

As explained above, the odometer registers less than actual mileage. Applying a 5% correction factor, I actually traveled 57.75 miles.

My course had 6 stop signs every 2.8 miles, and I stopped at every one. Accelerating to 20 mph from a dead stop uses more energy than simply riding a constant 20 mph. I stopped and accelerated from 0 to 20 mph 117 times during this test. If the stops signs hadn’t been there, I would have gone further.

My course was uphill and downhill. I’m guessing that this adversely affected power consumption. If I was on a perfectly flat course, I would have gone further.

I’m a full-figured 198 lbs. With my motorcycle gear on, I’m probably pushing 210 to 215. I’ve been to the Mount (that’s Zongshen, in Chongqing) and I’ve seen the Zongshen test riders; they weigh maybe 130 lbs soaking wet. Fat guys soak up the go juice more quickly. With a lighter rider, Slick would have a longer range.

On the other hand, I didn’t have the bike’s lights on. When we get our US-configuration Slickers, the LED running lights on either side of the headlight will be on all the time. That will drop the range a bit. How much is TBD, but when I find out, I’ll let you know.

My next test will be in the Power mode. I guess I’ll be a Power Commander. Stay tuned.

I’m having fun and I’m learning a lot more about electric bikes. You might think riding in circles for three hours would be kind of boring, but I enjoyed it. Folks who saw the bike knew it was something different, which is what I’m getting a lot of every time I ride the City Slicker. The silent riding experience is kind of cool, too. It’s a different kind of riding, and it’s fun. I like the bike. A lot.

If you have questions about the City Slicker, please post them in the Comments section here on the ExhaustNotes blog. I’ll do my best to get answers for you.

Pit Noir

The Start, preceded by a lot of action. I helped.

It’s March in central Florida, cool and clear. I get the call from Ed in the late afternoon. A couple of his California friends are racing motorcycles in the 600cc class. He wants me to help them out. The sun is setting low over Lake Schimmerhorn, the sky a blood-orange deepening to cobalt blue high overhead. White, high-persistence contrails cross the sky in an Atlanta-Orlando direction. The scene outside the Love Shack looks like a flag from The Republic of Kodachrome. “Yeah” I say, gently pulling the wrapper of a grape Jolly Rancher. The candy rotates clockwise between my fingers. “I’ll go.”

“Cool, you met Jeff and Beaver at the retirement party held after the anniversary party,” Ed said. “Remember Torrance?” In the background I hear a machine scraping metal: another of Ed’s big-block Moto-Guzzis. The man can’t leave motorcycles alone.

“Torrance? Yeah, I remember, my wife said Jeff seemed kind of depressed. Happily married, good corporate job; didn’t he give up racing?”

“He did, then he didn’t,” said Ed. “Look for the Baby Appleseed pits. Get there early tomorrow, I told them you’re coming.”

It’s 38 degrees in the morning. My Italian-era Husqvarna 510 stumbles and stalls, then lights off on the fourth push of the button. I rev the engine and slip the clutch on the Husky’s tall first gear. A sloppy, brapp-brapp snarls out of the pipe and ricochets from aluminum singlewide trailers to sway-backed modular homes. I turn right onto Highway 40. Open the throttle and the Husky’s tachometer rips past 9000 rpm, front wheel climbing on the surge. Two, three, four, five, six, shift as fast as you can, man.

I’ve got to keep the front down. It’s dark. Highway 40 is damp with morning dew. The headlamp flickers intermittently between low beam and parking light, low beam and parking light. It’s a random problem and one I can’t solve. Oncoming cars dip their headlights, thinking I’m flashing them. I wish I could stop and explain Italian motorcycle electrical systems but there’s no time. It’s cold. My hands hurt.

At the very end of Pit Row the black, the white and red Baby Appleseed logo is splashed across two huge gazebo tents. I guess with Ed involved I expected one rusty Craftsman toolbox and a mid-eighties Moto-Guzzi Alfresco. I’d find Jeff and Beaver slumped over, gently sobbing. Beaver’s greasy jeans would have holes in both knees.

“What’s the problem, boys?” My confident tone would instantly buck them up. “The bike has a high rpm miss, Gresh, we’ve been trouble shooting the damn thing for days.” I’d get in there and clean the fuel filter, maybe straighten a bent metering needle and the bike would run perfect, you know, save the day.

Baby Appleseed’s pit has two mechanics, electric tire warmers and a second rider, Neils, owner of the high-end baby furniture company sponsoring the team. There’re computers to track lap times, 120 volt AC generators and air compressors.

Both Appleseed motorcycles are decked out in Baby Appleseed racing colors. Back in the dry pits there’s a motorhome with a full-body Baby Appleseed wrap parked in front of a dual-axle Baby Appleseed trailer stocked with Baby Appleseed race parts. The mechanics wear Baby Appleseed logoed race shirts. Jeff has qualified in the front row for race one. To the untrained observer it appears they’re doing ok without me.

“My wife was worried about you.” I tell Jeff, “At that party in Torrance she said you seemed unhappy, settling for security.”

Jeff looks at me, grins, “I’m down to 140 pounds, I’ve been training every day, running. You’ve got to be light to keep up with these kids.”

“She’s sort of an Empath.” I explain, “Like Deanna Troy on Star Trek. When I told her you were racing again she got a little teary-eyed.” Jeff nods, unsure of the protocol. I better close it out. “Anyway, people tell her everything, man. I mean, people she’s never met spill their life story within two minutes.”

“Um,” Jeff says, “Tell her I’m ok. Tell her I’m happy.”

We’re watching the race feed one of the pit monitors. Jeff’s dicing for the lead, the crew is wound up tight. Two laps in, the front tire pushes and Jeff wads the Baby Appleseed bike, a hundred mile per hour get-off. Mostly we see a cloud of dust as the bike tumbles through the infield. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the monitor. There’s Jeff walking away. Collective relief: “That’s all right then, we can fix the bike.” I think that was Neils’ dad.

By the time I get to the dry pits the bodywork on Jeff’s bike is already gone. Every part that sticks out is either broken, bent, or ground off. One mechanic is removing forks, the other removes the mangled sub-frame then goes back to pit row. Neils is still racing. Jeff surveys the damaged bike, “Damn. We don’t need this extra work.” The bike has to be fixed by 7 PM, when the dry pits close. I better help sort things out.

The bike is down to the frame and motor. “Can I do anything to help?”

The mechanic stops wrenching on the triple clamps, thinks three beats. “Uh, yeah, drain the gas from the wrecked tank.” I grab the tank, “What do you want me to put it into?”

The mechanic looks up again, “What?”

I hold the tank up, “The gas. Where you want it?”

He looks around the pits, “ Um, I don’t know, see if you can find an empty can in the trailer.” He goes back to the triple clamps. Jeff is sweeping the work area, picking up small bits of motorcycle. The mechanics dodge around us to work on the bike.

The trailer is locked. I go back to the pits. “Sorry to bug you again, man, the trailer is locked. Do you have a key?” Water runs from a radiator hose into a plastic, 5 gallon bucket.

“The key? It’s locked?” Hands dripping, “Lemme see if it’s in here.” He searches the top tray of his rollaway toolbox. “Damn, it was here.” He scans the pit area, “I don’t know where it went. Listen, I got to get this radiator off.”

I find Neils, still in his leathers. He just pulled in after a solid race, finishing 20-something out of 60 bikes. I ask him if he has a key to the trailer.

“What?” Sweat runs down his face, “Find my dad, I think he has one.” I wander past the trailer. The door is open. Beaver is inside. There’s an assortment of cans.

“Which can should I use to drain the gas from the smashed tank?” I ask.

“What?” Beaver replies, putting down two replacement wheels.

“I need to drain the gas from the old tank.”

“Oh, um…take this one.” Beaver hands me a can.

“You got a funnel?” The other mechanic is back. He’s sliding a new fork leg into new a new set of triple clamps.

“What?” He stops sliding the leg.

“A funnel, to pour the gas into this can.” I hold up the can Beaver gave me.

“Don’t use that can. Use the one under that pile of bodywork. I don’t want it mixed up.” I move a broken plastic tailpiece and there’s a can underneath. The fill opening is one inch wide.

“Man, I hate to bug you, I need a funnel.”

The mechanic stops working on the forks and gives a hunted look around the pit area, “Jeff, find this guy a funnel.”

“Look in that box on the rolling tray.” Jeff says. I find three big, red funnels. I fit the funnel and begin to pour the gas from the bent tank into the can.

“Hey! Put a sock on that funnel!” The first mechanic yells at me, putting down the handle bar he was about to install.

“A sock?” I have no idea what he is talking about. Jeff hands me a cloth filter with a sewn-in elastic edge to stretch over the wide end of the funnel. I fit the filter and pour the gas.

“Watch what you’re doing!” There’s a puddle of gas on the floor. I’m so intent on not missing the funnel mouth I don’t notice that the tank’s internal vent tube is pissing gas. It’s a like a frigging geyser, man. Tipping the tank upright increases the flow, broadcasting a liberal dose of high-octane race fuel around the pit area. Both mechanics drop their tools and run over with rags. They start mopping up the spill.

“We got to clean this up! If the AMA guys see this they’ll freak out, you can’t have pools of gas laying around in here!”

Beaver appears beside me and guides me by the elbow away from the spill. “Can you give me a hand moving the gear from pit row?” We walk out to the Baby Appleseed tents on pit row, a distance of some 300 yards. Beaver hands me two cartons of water, I walk back to the trailer. Next trip Beaver hands me three tires to carry, I take them back to the trailer, then a big stack of sprockets.

There’s one of those folding carts parked at the tents. Beaver hands me the portable generator. The damn thing is heavy. “Can I use that cart?”

“No.” Beaver says, “It’s easier to carry the stuff.” I move gear back and forth from pit row to the trailer. Late in the afternoon I glance over at the pits, Jeff’s bike is rebuilt and has passed tech inspection.

The next day Jeff’s rebuilt bike runs near the front all day long and in a photo finish misses the podium by inches. I call my wife with the results. She’s happy, she tells me Jeff is doing what he’s supposed to be doing. The sky turns blood-orange deepening into cobalt-blue high overhead. The Baby Appleseed team is upbeat, they’ve got an entire racing season ahead of them. I only hope they can do as well when I’m not around.

Baja Cuisine: Rosarito to Ensenada

One of the best parts of the Baja riding experience is the cuisine. Yep, there are great roads, the scenery is breathtaking, there’s whale watching like no place else in the world, the ancient missions and cave paintings are amazing, and the people are wonderful. But what might be the best-kept Baja secret is the cuisine. In fact, if you need an excuse to head south (not that anyone ever needs an excuse for a motorcycle ride), you might want to ride Baja just to sample the food. It’s that good.

One of the things Baja has going for it is that no matter where you are, you’ll never be more than a few miles from the sea. That means great seafood, and lots of it. Fish tacos are a Baja staple, but there’s more. Lots more. We thought it might be fun to share with you a few of our favorite Baja restaurants in a series of blogs organized by area. This first one will be the Rosarito Beach-Ensenada corridor. With that as an intro, here we go…

Rosarito Beach

Located about 35 miles or so south of the border, Rosarito Beach is a tourist town, but that doesn’t mean it’s all refrigerator magnets and velour Elvis portraits. There are two spots in this town that we love: The Rosarito Beach Hotel, and Susanna’s.

You can spot the Rosarito Beach Hotel from the cuota (the toll road heading to Ensenada). It’s one of the tallest buildings to your right.

Not your typical tourist trap, the Rosarito Beach Hotel has a great restaurant.

The Rosarito Beach Hotel’s stained glass lobby window.

A typical breakfast at the Rosarito Beach Hotel.

If you’re thinking that hotel restaurants are both overpriced and mediocre, you’d be correct most of the time, but the Rosarito Beach Hotel is the exception. If you stay at the Rosarito Beach Hotel you get one meal free (they’re smart, you may not want to go anywhere else after that first one) and if you’re there on a Sunday, you don’t want to miss the brunch. It’s awesome. If you stop on the way south just for a meal, there’s ample protected parking and the hotel is biker-friendly.

Another best kept secret in Rosarito Beach is Susanna’s. It’s literally a 5-star restaurant tucked away in a small group of boutique shops at 4356 Benito Juarez Boulevard. Folks, trust me on this: Susanna’s is one of the best high end restaurants in the world. I’ve been all over the world. I know what I’m talking about here.

Ah, Susanna’s…the dining is as elegant as the owner!

I always make it a point to have at least one dinner at Susanna’s whenever I’m passing through Rosarito Beach, and there have been more than a few times when I made Rosarito Beach a stop just to eat here. It’s that good, and Susanna is an absolutely gracious proprietor.

Shrimp, steak, and more. You cannot have a bad dining experience at Susanna’s.

Ensenada

As one of Baja’s larger cities, Ensenada has many dining choices. My favorites are any of the street taco stands (I love Baja street tacos), Los Veleros for breakfast, and a family-style place I just learned about called Birrieria La Guadalajara for either lunch or dinner (it’s on Macheros Street a little off the edge of the tourist area).

Los Veleros Restaurante is next to the Hotel Corona on Lázaro Cárdenas (it’s on the right as you head south, just a few blocks past where the cruise ships dock). Los Veleros has the best breakfasts in town, confirmed by the local business folks who regularly dine there. Breakfasts start with a plate of pastries that, all by themselves, are worth the trip to Baja (I’ll say that a lot about my favorite dining spots in Baja, and I’ll mean it every time).

Pastries at Los Veleros, the start of every breakfast. They taste as good as they look, maybe even better!

An awesome Los Veleros spinach and mushroom omelet.

Chilequiles, a wonderful Mexican specialty.

My preference for street tacos in Ensenada is any taco stand along the waterfront. Even though many folks who have never been to Mexico might be hesitant to try these, I haven’t found a bad one yet. Head toward the embarcadero if you’re in the tourist area, and take your choice. You can’t go wrong.

Street tacos near the docks in Ensenada. They sell the sizzle and the steak!

Fish tacos, a Baja specialty, in Ensenada. Watch for our upcoming Baja dining blogs; we’ll have a lot to say on this magnificent Baja treat!

For either lunch or dinner, there are many choices in Ensenada. I’ve tried many of them and they are all good. Here’s the hot ticket: The family-style dining at Birrieria La Guadalajara.

A veritable feast at Birrieria La Guadalajara in Ensenada. Tim, I owe you for taking me to this wonderful restaurant!

A meal at the Birrieria La Guadalajara is a treat not to be missed. I’m embarrassed to admit I only found out about this magnificent restaurant on my most recent trip to Baja (and I have my good friend Tim to thank for that). Bring your group and bring an appetite, make your own tacos or burritos, and try the goat (you can thank me later). It’s the best meal in Ensenada!

That’s it for our first installment on Baja’s gastronomical delights. If you know of a great place to eat in the Rosarito-to-Ensenada corridor that we haven’t mentioned, by all means please leave a comment and let us know about it. And watch the Exhaust Notes blog; we’ll be adding to this series with a focus on each Baja area of interest. So what’s up next? Hey, our next set of dining delights will be in the stretch south of Ensenada all the way to El Rosario!

Slick, two up…

A mid-summer night’s dream, as the saying goes…

So what’s it like riding the new City Slicker?

For starters, you can’t be shy. The bike is a conversation starter. Even people who aren’t into motorcycles recognize it’s something different. Stop at a light and people crossing the street look, then they look again, and then they realize: It’s silent.

“Is that electric?” is always the next question, followed by my affirmative answer, followed by their response:

“Cool!”

Sue and I took the bike out for a ride around the neighborhood. Surprisingly, even at its welterweight 216 lbs, Slick rides well two up. I think the battery life might be marginally shortened a bit two up (the bike is hauling more weight), but I haven’t done anything quantitative yet to confirm that.

Another surprise from our after-hours ride: The headlight does a good job. In fact, I think it does a better job than my RX3. I switched it on and off, accelerating under both scenarios, to see if I could feel a difference in the bike’s response, and I couldn’t.

I’m finding the riding experience is different. The handling is considerably crisper, a natural result of the City Slicker’s light weight and its crisper 12-inch wheels (I’ll write more about the 12-inch wheels and the resulting crisper handling in a future blog). I found I had to concentrate when stopping. The brakes are great, but there’s no brake pedal for the rear wheel (the rear brake is activated by the left handlebar lever). At more than a few stops, I found my right foot dabbing into thin air, and I chirped the rear tire twice attempting to pull in the “clutch” when rolling to a stop sign. And I found my left foot similarly dabbing up and down at stop signs, trying to find neutral, and then I would remember: There is no neutral, because there is no gearbox. You simply use the brakes to stop, and the “throttle” to go. Scooter lovers will feel right at home on a City Slicker because the controls are identical.

And then there’s this: I found myself frequently looking at the tripmeter and the battery charge indicator, thinking about how much of the charge we had used, how many miles we covered, and then doing the mental math to project the range. There’s more to follow on that, too, folks.

One more nice touch…our dinner stop even had reserved parking.

Stay tuned.

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