Month: January 2019

The Rimfire Series: First Person Shooter

The odds are infinitesimally small that I will ever be called upon to overthrow a tyrant. I’m much more likely to be part of the brainwashed mob chasing down the righteous and the truth-tellers. I haven’t bought any guns lately because I don’t want to fit out my broken moral compass with the tools to get the job done. I get the public’s fascination with guns, though, the solid, no rattle feel, the precision machine work, and the black menace that radiates from a well-oiled rod. With a slight nudge to the right I could have become one of those guys that owns 43 guns. Who needs so many guns you say? I would have.

I bought my first gun when I was 20 years old. It was a Ruger bull-barrel .22 caliber target pistol. The thing was a load of fun out on San Diego’s Kitchen Creek road where a self-policed gun range glistened with glass shards in the late 1970s. You could buy milk cartons full of ammunition for the Ruger at department stores or sporting goods retailers. Nine dollars equaled 500 rounds and it made for a cheap, fun day blowing up bottles and cans.

The Ruger would rust if you didn’t keep it clean and the bottles weren’t shattering enough to suit me so the next gun I bought was a stainless steel Smith and Wesson .357 revolver with a 4-inch barrel. When you pulled the trigger you could see the drum turn, the hammer draw back and flames shoot out the sides of the weapon. It was like a miniature cannon. You got dirty shooting the thing. The whole process of firing the S&W revolver satisfied me on so many levels that at this point I was perilously close to becoming a gun nut.

For some reason, maybe it was God’s Hand, I didn’t become a gun nut. The trips out to Kitchen Creek became fewer. The ammunition got more expensive and the two pistols were packed away. It was only a few years ago that I dug the guns out. The Ruger was a mess. Rust had scarred its smooth gun-black finish and the mechanism was stuck. It took hours to get the thing cleaned up and the rest of the day to figure out how the various parts fit back into the handgrip. Being stainless, The Smith was fine, only needing a bit of oil to loosen things up.

My wife, CT, and I took the guns out to our local range to relearn how they operated. It was kind of fun and it really helped CT to see the difference between an automatic and a revolver. Like me, she prefers the revolver because the works are out in the open. Just by looking you can see the status of a revolver. With an automatic it’s anyone’s guess if the thing is ready to go off or it’s empty.

This Christmas CT gave me one of those heavy steel spinner targets, the kind with a large round target on the bottom and a smaller one on the top. When you manage to hit the thing the target spins around like a kinetic lawn ornament. I guess CT enjoyed our day at the range more than I did. Now she wants a Mosberg pump shotgun and one of those scary looking assault style rifles. You know, for home protection. It seems like we might end up with a gun nut in the family after all.

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Baja Gasolina!

The Catavina gas station (photo by Baja John).

A question I sometimes hear about traveling in Baja is:  What about gasoline?

Getting fuel in Mexico is pretty much about the same as getting fuel in the US.  There are a few things you should know, but concerns about fuel shouldn’t hinder your plans to ride south of the border.  Let’s take a look at what folks planning a Baja expedition might worry about.

Availability

Baja has gas stations distributed about like we do here in the US. There are lots of them in and around the cities, one or two in each of the smaller towns, and they are farther apart in the deserts (all similar to the situation here in America).

A typical Pemex in Baja.

The only stretch where it can be concern is the long stretch through the Valle de Los Cirios between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro, where it’s a cool 200 miles (that’s miles, not kilometers) between Pemex stations. That’s beyond the range of many motorcycles’ fuel tanks, but don’t worry about it. In Catavina, which is very roughly at the midway point between these two spots, you’ll a bunch of enterprising Mexicans selling fuel in plastic jugs or pumping it out of a 55-gallon drum.  Capitalism rules, folks!

Refueling in Catavina. It’s all part of the adventure!

There’s another plus to stopping for fuel in Catavina and buying gasolina from the guys selling it out of bottles: It makes for a great photograph!

Price

I live in California, the land of exorbitant taxation and left-wing loonies run amuck. What that means is that our gasoline prices are usually about 50% higher than what people in the more-sensibly-governed parts of the US pay. The advantage here, for me, is that the fuel prices in Baja are about the same as what I pay for gas in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. As of this writing, we pay somewhere around $3.25/gallon for regular, and something closer to $4.00/gallon for high test.  Another thing to consider here is that you don’t buy fuel by the gallon in Baja; you buy it in liters. And the price is not in dollars; it’s in pesos. Today, it’s about 17 pesos per liter, which is about $3.39 (US) per gallon. See what I mean?  The prices are roughly equivalent to California.

One more minor point:  Mexico uses the dollar sign for pesos, so when you see a fuel price of, say, $17.85, that’s 17.85 pesos per liter.  Use of the dollar sign for pesos is a little unnerving at first, but you’ll soon get used to it.

Paying for Fuel

Most places in the US require that you pump your own gas, and most of us pay with credit cards at the pump. You can forget about that in Baja. The way it works in Mexico is that every gas station has attendants, and they’ll do the pumping for you. They all seem to know that you’ll want to handle the nozzle when you’re on a motorcycle, but they’ll take the nozzle out of the pump, hand it to you, and then you can do the pumping.

You pay the attendants directly, too, so then the question becomes: Do you pay in dollars or pesos? I always have enough pesos that I pay directly in their currency. I’d go nuts trying to the convert the pesos to dollars in my head, and I don’t like to try screwing around with a calculator when I’m filling up, so I just pay directly in pesos. The attendants will take the cash from you and run up to the cashier if you have change coming; you don’t pay the cashiers directly.

Roselda, the prettiest pump attendant in Baja!

I’ve never used a credit card at a Baja gas station. Some of them may take credit cards, but I don’t like the idea of giving my credit to somebody who’s going to run into an office to use it. I always pay in cash.

One more thing: Tipping is a good idea. Yeah, you’ll probably never see the attendant again, but it’s peanuts to us and a livelihood to them. Do the right thing, and give a few extra pesos to the person who helped you.

Fuel Brands

Until relatively recently, the government-run Pemex brand was the only fuel station in Mexico (other than the guys selling it out of bottles in places like Catavina). The story was that the government subsidized the price of fuel but did no exploration, so ultimately their fields played out. That’s when the Mexican government realized that Margaret Thatcher was right: Socialism works until you run out of other people’s money. Within the last year, Mexico started allowing Arco, Mobil, British Petroleum, and others to sell gas in Mexico, with the understanding that they had access to larger reserves and these companies would pour a portion of the profits back into exploration.

Regular or Premium?

Some stations will offer both regular and premium fuel; in the more remote parts of Baja it’s regular fuel only. I always run regular, and I’ve done so even on bikes that required premium. I’ve never had a problem doing this.

Fuel Quality

We’ve all heard the stories about bad gas in Baja. Folks, it’s all Internet rubbish. I’ve never had a problem with fuel quality in Mexico, even when buying it from the guys selling out of bottles. That said, I do sometimes carry a small container of Sea Foam just in case I get fuel with water in it, but it’s never happened. I think the last time I used the Sea Foam was when I rode my Triumph Tiger in Baja. It started running a little rough somewhere north of Santa Rosalia, so I put a little Sea Foam in the fuel tank and maybe the roughness went away. Or maybe I imagined it. The bottom line here is you can forget about fuel quality issues in Baja. It just doesn’t happen.

Restroom Availability and Cleanliness

We often stop at gas stations to use the restrooms. You might have visions of filthy, disease-laden banos, but that’s another thing that just isn’t true. Most bathrooms in Baja fuel stops are relatively clean, about the equivalent of what you might see at any gas station in the US. What is different, though, is toilet paper. There’s usually none in a Mexican gas station rest room, so it’s a good idea to bring toilet paper with you. You may or may not see a sign asking that you not flush toilet paper, but to instead deposit it in a waste basket in the stall. I guess the deal is that the sewage systems are not set up to process toilet paper. It’s counter to our custom, but it’s what they do.

So there you have it.  Fuel is not an issue in Baja, and it’s certainly not a reason for being apprehensive about an adventure ride in an area that arguably offers the best riding on the planet.   The cost is reasonable, it’s available about like it is in the US, the quality is good, and the photo ops are awesome.

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Gun stuff is da bomb!

Or so sayeth Joe Gresh, soothsayer, philosopher, and observer of the human condition extraordinaire. Say what you wish, every time we post a gun blog here on ExNotes, the hits (no gun puns intended) go through the roof. We’re primarily a motorcycle site, with an emphasis on vintage bikes, restorations, destinations, Baja, and adventure riding. But our readers love gun stories. What to do?

I guess we’ve got to find a way to merge the two topics: Guns and motorcycles. Somebody did it with roses. We’ve got to be smart enough to find a way to do it with motorcycles.  Here are my thoughts…

Maybe armed motorcycles. Hmmm, that might work. I’m thinking a .45 ACP Gatling mounted centerline on a big V-twin, maybe with the bike being designated the FLH-GG. Centerline mounting would prevent recoil-induced torque steer (just as was done on the A-10 Warthog), and the .45 ACP chambering would allow for increased ammo storage and shorter barrel length (plus, the .45 ACP is an incalculably cool cartridge). I’m thinking a firing rate of 1000 rounds per minute would do nicely.

I’d go with a single Gatling mounted in the headlight, chambered in .45 ACP. You get the idea.  If you need to know more about Gatling guns, take a look here.

That Gatling thing could work.   When I was in the Army, we called our 20mm Gatlings Vulcans, and Kawasaki made a motorcycle called the Vulcan.  There are branding possibilities here, folks.

Or maybe we look for bikes that have already been built. Ural had a sidecar model with a machine gun mount a few years ago. Yeah, that could work.

Ural’s Gear Up model, complete with machine gun mount. Machine gun sold separately. From The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles, by You Know Who.

We could focus on police and military motorcycles. Hmmm, I know a pretty good book on that topic, and Lord knows there’s enough models of police and military bikes to support a string of blog features. But hey, we’re already planning to do that.  And it will be cool.  I guarantee it.

A Harley WLA, complete with a Thompson submachine gun scabbard. Thompson submachine gun sold separately.  This is another photo from Police and Military Motorcycles.

Maybe a feature or two on how to carry a gun on a motorcycle, both out in the open and maybe a concealed carry feature. The Army had some cool ideas on open carry back in the 1940s (see the above photo). For concealed carry, I’m thinking maybe something that’s integrated into the clutch lever, or a tankbag holster that looks like a map case. Or maybe a cell phone mount with a Derringer designed to look like a cell phone.  Yeah, we could have a lot of fun with this one.

When I was at CSC, we sometimes ran a postal match. You know, where folks shoot at a target, send the target to us, and we’d score them to find a winner. That was a lot of fun.

Drive By Bike GIF from Driveby GIFs

While we were running the postal match, somebody actually wrote to me suggesting we have a match in which you have to shoot from a rolling motorcycle (no kidding, folks…I can’t make up stuff this good). It would be kind of like polo, I suppose, but with bikes and bullets instead of horses and mallets (or whatever they call those things they whack the ball with). Liability coverage might be tough, but it could be made to work.

We could design a gun that transforms itself into a motorcycle. You know, you carry the thing in a holster, say a few well-chosen words, and it converts itself into a motorcycle to allow for a convenient and quick exit. We could maybe call it something catchy, like the Transformer. We ‘d probably sell a few just because it sounds like an electric thingamabog (you know, it would sell to folks wanting to show they’re green). Nah, I don’t think he technology has caught up to the EPA challenges yet. But it’s fun to think about.

The Transformer, a motorcycle that changes into a gun. We’d sell a lot of T-shirts.

I’ve done a blog or two on motorcycle companies that started as firearms manufacturers.  You know, BSA (which actually stands for Birmingham Small Arms), Royal Enfield (of Lee Enfield rifle fame), and well, you get the idea.  That would involve a lot of research, so it may not fit in with our ExNotes labor minimization strategies.  But it might be worth considering.

All of the above is food for thought, but I’m rapidly approaching a state in which I’ve been thinking so hard I may not be able to think for the next several days. Help me out here, folks. What are your ideas?

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Such a deal!

Every once in a while we see deals that are noteworthy enough to get the word out to our ExNotes blog readers, and right now, the word is this: CSC is offering big savings on the TT250 (a $200 price drop to $1995) and the RX3 (a whopping $700 price drop to $3495).  Both are great bikes.  I know because I rode the TT250 through Baja, and I rode the RX3 across America, Baja, Colombia, and China.  If you’ve been on the fence, folks, these are deals you’ll want to jump on.  But hey, don’t take my word…watch Joe Gresh’s video on the RX3, and Each Adventure’s video on the TT250…

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Pigs and Poison Oak

A stunning, Turnbull color case hardened Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 Magnum.
Another beautiful .44 Magnum…this one is a 1970s Marlin Model 1894 with a Williams aperture rear sight.

Friday was a good day, as is any day spent on the range, and for me, Friday last week meant a visit to the West End Gun Club.  Hey, I’m retired.   Ride the motorcycle, or head to the range?  Life is good either way.  This past Friday, the range got the nod.

I took two guns with me.  One was a new Ruger Turnbull Super Blackhawk I recently picked up from a Gunbroker auction at a decent price.  The other was Marlin 1894 lever action rifle that I’ve owned too long and shot too little.  Both are chambered in .44 Magnum.   The idea here is that you have two guns both chambered for the same cartridge, and it makes for a good combination to carry afield.  Mind you, I’m  not too sure where “afield” is actually located, but I kind of get the idea…it’s a place that frequently appears in gun ads and Western novels, a place where manly men hang out. The thought is that you only have to carry one cartridge, so you can save your manliness for other endeavors.

My take on the concept?  I think it’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.  I had opportunities to carry both a rifle and a handgun at the same time when I was in the Army, but I thought doing so was just dumb.  I didn’t want the added weight, so I always went for either an M-16 or a 1911 (but never both) depending on what I was doing that day.   On a hunting trip, I think it’s an absolute bust.  When I was a lot younger, one time chasing hogs I carried a 9mm handgun and a .300 H&H Mag custom Weatherby rifle (I know, .300 H&H was massive overkill for hogs).   The first day of that adventure was enough to convince me that carrying both a handgun and a rifle was silly, and I left the handgun home after that (I spent that entire first day walking through the woods trying to not scratch the rifle on the handgun).  And in case you were wondering, the only thing I came home with on that trip was the worst case of poison oak I ever had.

That said, the idea of a lever gun and a sixgun both chambered for the same cartridge maybe made sense when the .44-40 was winning the West.  In those days, you could get a Colt six-shooter and a Winchester lever gun that both used the .44-40 cartridge.  Or maybe I’ve just been reading too many Zane Grey novels.  But the idea has had a following stimulated by rifle and handgun marketing types for years.  Like I said, unless you are transported back in time and you get around on a horse, I think carrying a rifle and a handgun is wacky.   But I own a rifle and a handgun that shoot the same cartridge (the two firearms you see in the above photos), and just for grins I wanted to see if I could find a load that is superbly accurate in both.

To cut to the chase, the answer so far is no.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’ve been shooting .44 Mag since shortly after Dirty Harry adorned the silver screen, and I’ve been reloading the round for about that long, too.   I haven’t shot .44 Mag in a handgun much in the last few years (the recoil can only be described as brutal and Lord knows I’m no spring chicken), and I had not shot the .44 Mag Marlin rifle hardly at all.   It was time to address both character deficiencies, I thought, and last Friday was as good a day as any to do so.

I’m a sucker for lever actions with pretty wood, and the Marlin checked all the boxes for me.
See what I mean? It’s not bad. Not exceptional, but above average, and the price was right.
The Williams aftermarket aperture sight on the 1894 Marlin. The theory is that an aperture sight is more accurate than a simple notch rear sight. I prefer the plain notch sight.

I bought the Marlin when Reagan was in the White House.  I’m not sure why.  It was one of those guns you buy and then just never shoot much.  I felt guilty about that.   And the Turnbull was one I wanted to use.  Yeah, it’s almost too pretty to shoot.  Almost.  Like I said, I hit the Gunbroker “bid again”  button a sufficient number of times to take it home.  It’s beautiful, and like you’ve read on these pages before, I am a big fan of Turnbull-finished firearms.

Turnbull color case hardening.  Gresh talked about what constitutes art in his most recent blog. To me, this is it.
The starboard side of the Turnbull Ruger.  Pretty, huh?

Even though I had not shot much .44 Magnum in recent years, I had a half-dozen different loads in .44 Mag squirreled away in my ammo locker:  One box of factory ammo that’s been there for a decade or more (I can’t remember where I picked it up, one I reloaded with Hornady jacketed bullets, and the rest I had reloaded with various cast or swaged lead bullets.  My intent was to find the magic load that shot well in both the Marlin 1894 rifle and the Ruger revolver.  There was nothing scientific in any of this; I just had a bunch of different loads and I thought I would try them all.

So, back to the range.  It was a beautiful day, but it was windy as hell out at the West End Gun Club last Friday and I’m sure that affected my results.  But, sometimes it’s windy.  What are you going to do?  I shoot when I can.  And I just wanted to get an idea what my six different loads would do in the rifle and the handgun.

So, here’s the bottom line…

Revolver and rifle load testing results with the Ruger Super Blackhawk and the Marlin 1894.  These are my loads only; you should start lower and develop your own to make sure any load is safe in your gun.

None of my cast or swaged loads had acceptable accuracy in the rifle.  That’s probably because of the Marlin microgroove bore and the diameter to which my cast bullets had been sized.  I don’t think Marlin uses microgroove rifling any more in their .44 Magnum lever guns.  Microgroove rifling is a very shallow rifling technique; current Marlins use more conventional (and deeper) Ballard-type rifling.  I’d read online that to get a .44 Magnum cast bullet to shoot in the Marlin microgroove barrel, you had to size the bullets to 0.433 inch. All of my cast stuff is sized smaller than that around the standard 0.429 or 0.430 inch (yep, that’s right, a .44 Mag is actually not 0.44 inch in diameter; it’s only 0.429 inch…not that it would matter to anything struck by one of these monstrous high velocity slugs).   Oh, and that factory ammo?  My box of old HSM factory .44 Magnum was terrible in the Marlin.

It wasn’t all bad news with the Marlin, though.   The load with Hornady jacketed flatpoint bullets and Winchester’s 296 propellant shot well in the rifle, as you can see in the chart above.  That’s good to know.  Interestingly, those bullets are 0.429 inch in diameter.  But they shot well.  Go figure.

With the Turnbull revolver results varied, but they were generally way better than with the Marlin rifle.  All of my cast loads shot reasonably well, although the recoil was horrendous with all of them (except for the one light Bullseye load).  The Hornady jacketed bullet load with 296 powder shot well.   I’ve always had good luck with 296 powder in both the .357 and .44 Magnum.   The HSM factory load?   It shot the same in the Ruger as it did in the Marlin, which is to say it was terrible.

Chasing a load that shoots well in both a rifle and a handgun may be a fool’s errand (like I said ealier, I may be reading too much Zane Grey), but it was something I wanted to play around with.  The Marlin liked those Hornady jacketed bullets with 296 and they did well in the Ruger, too, so I think the next round of testing will involve using just those bullets with different levels of 296.   It may be I need a different loads for the Marlin and the Ruger, but that’s okay.  The next time I go “afield” I’ll only be carrying one gun, and you can bet I’ll be keeping a sharp eye out for pigs and poison oak.

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Is Digital Photography Art?

I log into several online groups as a way of avoiding doing something constructive. One of the groups features photos of New Mexico. Some of the photos are spectacular, some are way over-processed. One guy started labeling his photos as “No Filter New Mexico.” This means the photo has not been doctored beyond the camera’s initial setting. A long-winded argument ensued pitting photographers (the guys who watermark their embarrassing, Willie-Wonka-colored Martin-landscape shots in an attempt to retain rights) and snap-shooters.

If I shoot a scene and then push the photo edit sliders to their limits did I create art or am I just working within an algorithm provided by the software manufacturer? Is the coder who designed the software the real artist? If I successfully dial a number on my cell phone is that art? No way! Now say I invite 500 people to a theater and I go on stage and successfully dial a phone number on that exact same phone. Is that art?

Maybe art is made when its creator declares it as art. Even bad art like those over-processed photos are art if Slider-Man says so. The watermark guys proclaim their saturated images as art, who am I to deny them their petition?

My biased opinion is that everything we do in life is art. Of course there are differing degrees of artiness. Photo shop doctoring is art on the level of a child playing with the classic stick-on toy Colorform. With Colorform you apply provided objects and characters onto a smooth vinyl background scene. The sticky bits are reusable so you can change the image to suit your taste. Colorform is a lot like Photoshop in that rearranging premade objects becomes an act of art.

In the days of film, and before that when oil painting was the best way to record a scene, a modest-to-hard level of difficulty was involved. Cameras have become so good that nearly anyone can take a technically decent photo. Selecting the best angle and framing the photo are artistic things but they pale in comparison to carving a block of marble or tossing feces onto a canvas.

Each artwork has its own built-in level of difficulty and because art is defined by one man’s opinion the whole world blasts open to artistic endeavors. Eating lunch, mindful of our ways, becomes art. Driving to work with an emphasis on the driving is much harder than pushing a shutter release so it too becomes art. My Facebook buddy Ren has turned coffee making into art because he cares so much about the process and the resulting drink.

So click that shutter my fellow Da Vinci’s, slide that saturation bar to the max and marvel at the purple skies you have created. Use the render bar to mimic that hyper-realistic, Steam-punk thing used in tough-guy motorcycle advertisements. We are artists with a lower case “a!”

The Three Flags Classic: Day 3

The third day of the 2005 Three Flags Classic motorcycle rally would take us from Grand Junction, Colorado (where we stayed the second night of the tour) to Driggs, Idaho.   Wowee, we were covering some miles!  You can catch up on the ride by reading our prior blog posts here:

The 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally:  the Intro!

The Three Flags Classic:  Day 1

The Three Flags Classic:  Day 2

And with that, let’s get to Day 3!

Day 3 of the 2005 Three Flags Rally.  Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho…it was magnificent.

As you’ll recall, it had rained big time during parts of Day 2, and it had continued to rain that evening.  The next morning, though, was a bright, crisp, Colorado day, and after a great breakfast, we pointed the bikes north and crossed over into Utah.

The Gold Wing (shown here in Utah) was the most popular bike on this trip. They sure looked comfortable compared to my Daytona!

Utah was amazing. I continue to believe it is the most scenic of our 50 states.   Although I had been to Zion and Bryce on previous trips, the Three Flags Classic was taking us to places I had never seen.  We had a checkpoint in Vernal, a most interesting place in the heart of Utah’s dinosaur country.

Check out the way this guy has his Harley packed at the Vernal checkpoint. Think he might be dragging a bit in the corners? Harleys and Gold Wings were the most popular bikes in the 2005 Three Flags Classic.

We rode north, up to and around Flaming Gorge Reservoir.  These were all magnificent destinations.  The folks who planned the tour route did an amazing job.

Looking down into Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Utah.   The colors, the brightness, it was all amazing.  All of these photos were on film, captured with a Nikon N70 camera.
Marty and his Beemer, with Utah as a backdrop. Marty is the guy who invited me on this ride. He’s another serious long-distance rider, having put nearly 100,000 miles on this BMW. The machine looks as if it is brand new. Today in 2019, it’s still parked in his garage.
With Marty near Flaming Gorge.
Marty and the motorcycles, with Flaming Gorge Reservoir in the background. The photo ops on this ride were amazing.

After leaving Utah, we entered Wyoming for a brief period, and then we were into Idaho. Idaho is a beautiful state. We saw quite a few dead animals on the road, and in particular, a lot of dead skunks. We also saw a few larger roadkill carcasses that I didn’t immediately recognize. I later learned they were wolves!

My friend Dave on his BMW in Driggs. This is a beautiful R1150GS. Check out the custom lighting (just below the turn signals) and the custom wheels. Dave’s bike was always spotless. He cleaned it every night.

We would our night in Driggs, Idaho, at the end of Day 3.   It was an interesting night, with forest fires raging around us.   We had a great dinner, more great conversation, and I was getting to know the guys better.  Marty, as always, was an easy guy to travel with.  I got to know good buddy Dave, shown in the above photo, a lot better on this trip, too.  Dave was an absolute fanatic about keeping his bike clean, which was a hell of a challenge considering all of the rain we had ridden through the prior day.  We had a bit of rain that night after dinner, too, and I remember talking to Dave as he was wiping down his GS, in the rain, cleaning it as the rain fell on the bike.  I told him he was going to have a hard time, washing a bike in the rain, and we had a good laugh about that.

Looking due west after dinner in Driggs, Idaho. Smoke filled the skies from fires raging all around us.

And that, my friends, wraps up Day 3 of the 2005 Three Flags Classic.  The following day would take us way up north to Whitefish, Montana, just south of the Canadian border.  It had been an amazing three days so far, and we still had a long way to go.  But that’s coming in future blogs.

Stay tuned!

Dream Bike: Ducati 860GT

There are only a couple Ducatis that make my Dream Bike fantasy garage and the numero uno, top dog, ultimate Ducati is the springer 860. Unlike most Ducatis, this square-case, 90-degree, V-twin motorcycle eliminates the positive-closing desmodromic valve actuation system and in its place uses a conventional spring-return valve train. To some posers this change negates the whole reason for owning a Ducati. Not in my view: The ability to set valve lash with only a potato peeler on a motorcycle axle deep in cow manure plus the fact that I rarely run any motorcycle at valve floating RPMs means Desmo Ducks hold no advantage for me.

Is it wrong to love a motorcycle solely for its looks?  Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Jetson-cartoon styling speaks of optimism and a bold stepping-forth into the future. It looks fabulous and slabby and never ages in my eyes. This is one of those motorcycles you can stare at for hours. Why stop there? I’ve never ridden an 860GT so I’m just extrapolating from Ducati’s past performance but I’m sure the thing will handle street riding without issue.

The bikes were available with electric start for the kicking-impaired and after 1975 Ducati exchanged the perfect angular styling for the more traditional, rounded Desmo GT look. It was an error that I may never forgive them for. The springer 860 stayed in production a few more years but Ducati decided to go all in with desmodromic to give their advertising department some thing to boast about.

These 860GT Ducati’s are for riders. The seating position is humane, the gas tank big enough and I’ve read of some pretty astronomical miles racked up on the springer engine. A few years ago at an auction in Daytona I missed out on a beautiful red 860GT. The thing looked like new and sold for $5000. Damn cheap for such a rare (built only 2 years) and cool motorcycle.

Marking Time

The real deal: Apollo 15 Astronaut Dave Scott’s Bulova, which sold for a cool $1.625 million at auction.

I’ve always been a watch guy. It probably started when my parents surprised me with a Timex when I was a kid. The thought of having my own wristwatch was heady stuff for a boy back on the east coast (or anywhere else, I imagine). To make a long story short, I’ve been a watch collector ever since. I don’t specialize, and many times I won’t keep a watch forever. If I like the way a watch looks and it’s not crazy expensive, I’ll wear it for a while, with the duration of “a while” usually determined by the time it takes for the next interesting thing to catch my eye.

I make no excuses: I like watches, and I always wonder about guys who don’t wear them. Not wearing a watch is a common thing with young guys today. When I taught in Cal Poly’s College of Engineering, one of my topics focused on how to do well in an interview. My guidance was simple. Dress sharply, be early, look the interviewer right in the eye, speak up, don’t use the word “like” incessantly when you speak, and wear a watch. A lot of kids today don’t wear watches. If they have any interest in knowing what time it is, they look at their iPhone. That’s a no go, I’d tell my students. If you don’t wear a watch, the person interviewing you will conclude you have no sense of time-based urgency. It’s what I always concluded when someone showed up not wearing a watch.

Anyway, to get to the subject of this blog, I want to tell you about the Bulova moon watch. It’s a cool piece with an interesting story that goes like this: With the advent of the Apollo lunar exploration program (the NASA endeavor to put men on the moon), the US government decided we needed an official space watch. Omega won the competition with their Speedmaster watch, and for the next 14 missions, that’s what astronauts wore.

Here’s where it gets complicated and where the story gets Internet-fuzzy. Depending on which source you believe, Astronaut Dave Scott wore a Bulova watch on the Apollo 15 mission for one of the following reasons:

He wore the Bulova watch because his Omega broke.
He wore the Bulova watch because he felt like it.
He wore the Bulova watch because Bulova was trying to replace Omega as the official NASA watch.
He wore the watch because the US government, Bulova, or other parties wanted the official watch to be something made in America.

Whatever the reason (and you can find stories supporting each of the above floating around in that most authoritative of all sources, the Internet), Dave Scott wore the Bulova on the Apollo 15 mission, and Omega went from being “the only watch worn on the moon” to “the first watch worn on the moon.” It could not have gone over well at the Omega factory.

Dave Scott’s original Bulova, the one he wore on the moon, sold at auction a few years ago. The predicted auction price was $50,000. As predictions go, it wasn’t a very good one. When the gavel came down and the dust cleared, Scott’s Bulova sold for a cool $1.3 million. Throw in the auction commission and other fees, and you’re talking about a $1.625-million wristwatch. Wowee!

Bulova, today no longer an American watch company (they were bought by Citizen a few years ago) recognized a marketing opportunity when it fell into their laps, and they re-issued an internally updated version of Scott’s watch as the Bulova Moonwatch, complete with a 262 kHz Accutron movement. I have no idea what a 262 kHz movement is, except that the Bulova marketing hype tells me it means it’s super accurate.

The not-so-real deal, but a hell of a deal nonetheless: The Bulova replica Moonwatch, purchased for just under $300.  Yep, as I type this, I’m wearing my Bulova.

The increased accuracy really didn’t matter to me when I saw the watch (I’m retired now and I seldom need 262 kHz accuracy when I decide I feel like going somewhere), so that’s not what prompted me to pull the trigger. I just like the way it looks, I like the swirl of stories around the original Bulova moon watch, and my Dad wore a Bulova when I was a kid.

Oh, one other thing helped…a trick that has prompted me to pull the trigger on other discretionary purposes.  You know how the Internet spies on us, right?  I mean, folks complain all the time about looking at something on Amazon or whatever and then it starts showing up in their Facebook feed.   That’s not always a bad thing.  When I first looked at the Bulova Moonwatch it was a $600 bauble.   I wasn’t going to pay that kind of money, and I guess the spymasters/Internet marketeers figured that one out.  They and I knew it was a waiting game to see who would blink first.  Because I had looked for the watch on Amazon, I started getting emails from different retailers to buy the watch for less, and I let those roll in.  Delete, delete, delete, and then one day, an offer floated into my inbox for $299.  Hmmm.  Delete.  And sure enough, a day or two later and that $299 offer came with a coupon for $20 off and free shipping on my first order.  Ka ching!

Sausage Making

The China tour story I wrote took a long, winding road to publication. I like to pre-sell any feature-ish story and since we had recently done another big CSC story at That Other Magazine I pitched the China ride to Editor in Chief, Marc Cook. He liked the idea and suggested making the story less about the CSC motorcycle and more about the ride.

All went swimmingly on the tour but while I was in China That Other Magazine was going through upheaval on every level. I returned to a smoking, charred magazine landscape of fewer, thinner issues and a frequently changing vision for That Other Magazine. I ran the China story past each new editor (in quick succession) they all liked it but the reformatted book had many must-print stories and little space for a long feature on China.

That Other Magazine went through another major restyle opting for a spare, photo-heavy layout, a cut back to 6 issues a year and hired a platoon of fresh, new writers. I re-re-re-pitched the thing, refusing to believe it was over but like any failed love affair the day came when I realized my blue passion for That Other Magazine had faded to grey.

Whenever I do a free-riding junket for a motorcycle manufacturer there are no preconditions. I may love or hate their motorcycle but I will write honestly about it. The only thing I can offer in return for their hard-earned money is publicity. My job was to write a story and get it published: I had failed myself, CSC, Joe Berk, my fellow China Riders and Zongshen.

At this point I pretty much gave up on the China tour and shoved the thing into a dark, dusty corner of my hard drive. I couldn’t stand looking at the story, so much effort that came to naught. Newer challenges awaited writing and I wasn’t going to let the China story drag me down. I moved on.

Enter this blog and its demanding publishing schedule. While I’m no fountain of content I’ve never written as many words a month as I have since we started ExhaustNotes. The hectic pace and all-consuming need for content has changed my opinion of writing from an art form into a trade. I make stories like I pour concrete. Instead of a failure, the China tour became just another slab. I pitched the thing to Motorcycle.com and thankfully they bit. I rewrote the story to reflect the new realities regarding That Other Magazine and the result can be found here: Kung Fu Riding.  Sorry it took so long.