Month: August 2022

An Electrifying Development: CSC’s RX1E Motorcycle

Imagine an electric motorcycle that doesn’t look dorky, one that looks like a an ADV bike, with a fit and finish rivaling anything in the world.  Before you go all “Ahm a real ‘Murican and yer not” on me, I’m here to tell you this:  You don’t have to imagine this motorcycle.  It’s real and I rode it.  It’s quick and it feels light, and the thing handles.  And yes, it’s from China.  If that gets your shorts in a knot, move along…there’s nothing for you here.

The bike is the new RX1E from CSC Motorcycles in Azusa, and it’s manufactured by Zongshen.  That’s Zongshen, as in million-motorcycles-annually Zongshen.  I’ve ridden Zongshen motorcycles all over Colombia, all over China, all over Baja, and all over America, and I’ve been in their factories many times.  You may know a guy who’s cousin worked for a guy who thinks Chinese bikes are no good; my knowledge is more of a first-hand-actual-experience sort of thing.

The RX1E looks a lot like an RX3.  It’s got the ADV style.  I think it is an exceptionally attractive motorcycle.  Some folks may wonder why the bike is styled like an ADV bike.  Hey, it has to be styled like something.  The ADV style has good ergos and good carrying capacity, so why not use that as the styling theme?   Just to check, I parked it in front of Starbuck’s, you know, like the big kids do with their BMWs, and it worked just fine.

The motorcycle has an 8 kilowatt motor (with 18.5 kilowatt at peak power), but the kilowatt thing for an electric motorcycle is misleading.  This motorcycle is quick.  I opened it up getting on the freeway and the bike blew through 70 mph before I realized it.  It had more left, but I ran out of space.  It’s silent, and you hit speeds you don’t mean to because there’s no noise to go with the acceleration.  Think of it as the opposite of a Harley:   No noise at all, and lots of acceleration.

It’s not going to be inexpensive, but it’s inexpensive compared to other electric motorcycles.  CSC is going to sell a lot of these.

The time for a full recharge, per the CSC folks, is 6 hours.  CSC opted for a more powerful charger to get the recharge time down.

It comes with a full set of luggage, crashbars, a windshield, and a cool dash.  You can fit a full face helmet in the tail pack.

The RX1E is water cooled.   Yep, you read that right.   The Zongshen wizards use water cooling with a radiator to keep motor temps down.

The dash is cool, and you can change the color theme.  I liked it.  It was a little difficult to read in sunlight, but CSC tells me that will be corrected by the time the bikes are released for sale in a few months (I rode the first one to arrive in America).

The bike has three modes:  Eco, Comfort, and Sport.  Eco saves energy, Comfort is kind of in the middle, and Sport gives snappier acceleration.  Think of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Switchology is superior, in my opinion.  Here’s a peek at the left and right sides.  Yep, there’s cruise control, reverse, mode setting, high beam and low beam, the horn, turn signals, a park position, and a kill switch.  It’s a logical, well thought out, and quality presentation.

The bike doesn’t have that squirt out from under you feeling that other electric bikes have off a dead stop.  CSC’s City Slicker had a little bit of that.  The Zero I rode a couple years ago had way too much of it…so much so I found the Zero difficult to ride.  The RX1E is much more rider friendly.

The bike has disk brakes front and back and ABS.  There are cast aluminum wheels.  The final drive is via belt.  There’s no messy chain, nothing to oil, and it’s quiet.  I like it.

The fit and finish are awesome.  It’s as good as anything I’ve seen on any motorcycle anwhere in the world.  The one I rode was red (it’s the one you see in the pictures here).  I saw a Harley chopper and stopped to ask the owner if I could shoot a photo of the the RX1E next to it.  He was good to go, and I grabbed the shot you see below.

The RX1E ergonomics felt perfect to me.   The seat is comfortable, the reach to the bars was perfect, and I could put both feet flat on the ground.

CSC shows the bike’s weight to be 469 pounds, but it felt way lighter to me.  That might be because the weight is down low on this bike.  Or maybe I’m just used to my Enfield, which feels way heavier.  Whatever it is, the bike feels light.  The RX1E has high flickability.

The lack of any noise takes some getting used to.   It was unnerving at intersections.  On an internal combustion engine motorcycle, the noise makes you at least think other people can hear you.   The silence of an electric motorcycle makes you wonder if they see you.  Maybe that’s a good thing; it made me even more of a defensive rider than I normally am.

There’s no shifting, and because of that there’s no clutch and no shift lever.  Oddly, the lack of any need to shift felt perfectly natural.  Not having a clutch lever on the left handlebar when coming to a stop takes a little getting used to.

The bike has a reverse.  It doesn’t need one.  It felt so light and the seat is so low that backing up the old-fashioned way is easy…you know, sitting on the bike and using your legs to back it up a hill.  Yep, I did it.

The turning radius is delightfully tight.  I don’t have a spec for this, but I can tell you that u-turns in one-lane alleys are easy.  I know because I did it.

CSC tells me the range is about 80 miles, although the spec below says 112 miles.  I haven’t tested the bike for range like I did on the City Slicker because I only played around in town for an hour or so.  Good Buddy TK, the sales dude at CSC (who may be the world’s only sales guy who never stretches the truth), has been commuting back and forth to work on the bike and he tells me the 80-mile range is real.

The RX1E impressed me greatly.  If reading this blog gives you the impresssion that I really like the RX1E, I’ve done my job as a writer.  CSC and Zongshen have hit a home run here.  Zongshen’s engineering talent and CSC’s ability to see what the US market wants is impressive.

Spoiler alert:  Knowing people in high places has its advantages. I used to be a consultant for CSC, and CSC advertises on the ExNotes site.  But that hasn’t influenced what you’re reading here.   My friendship with the CSC owners got me an early ride on the RX1E (a scoop, so to speak) and a chance to see the specs before anyone else, which we’re sharing here.  They’ll be on the CSC website today or tomorrow.

CSC RX1E Specifications

Motor:  Liquid-cooled permanent-magnet
Peak Power:  24 hp (18.5kW)
Torque:  61.2 lb-ft (83Nm)
Battery:  Lithium-ion 96-volt, 64Ah
Battery Capacity: 6.16kWh
Charger: 110-volt
Input Current: 15A
Range: 112 miles based on New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)
Frame: Tubular steel
Rake & Trail: 27°, 74mm
Wheelbase: 55.5 inches (1400mm)
Front Suspension: 37mm inverted telescopic fork, 4.7 inches travel, adjustable for rebound damping
Rear Suspension: Monoshock, 4.3 inches travel, adjustable spring preload and rebound damping
Front Brake: Two-piston caliper, 265mm disc
Rear Brake: Single-piston caliper, 240mm disc
Wheels: 17-inch aluminum
Tires: 100/80-17 front; 120/80-17 rear
Length: 82.2 inches (2090mm)
Width: 34.0 inches (865mm)
Height: 47.4 inches (1205mm)
Seat Height: 30.9 inches (780mm)
Ground Clearance: 6.0 inches (150mm)
Curb Weight: 436.5 pounds (198kg); 469 lb with luggage and crash bars
Max Load: 331 lb (150kg)
Top Speed: 75+ mph
Colors: Crimson Red Metallic, Honolulu Blue Metallic and Silver Moon Metallic
Price: $8,495 (plus $410 dealer prep, documentation, and road testing fees) and if you order the bike now, CSC is offering $500 off with delivery in Spring 2023

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Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site

I was in Hawaii when I wrote this blog, and we were on the Big Island (the actual island of Hawaii).  It’s much less densely populated than Oahu and quite a bit less touristy.  My daughter found a cool spot where the unification of the Hawaiian Islands originated, and that’s the Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site.

King Kamehameha, the guy who was in charge of the island of Hawaii (which is one of eight Hawaiian islands) consulted with a Hawaiian priest about how to unify all eight islands.   The priest was called a kahuna, and because King Kamehameha was the guy was asking the questions, I suppose the priest would have been the Big Kahuna.  The Big Kahuna advised  King Kamehameha to build a temple and sacrifice an ally there.

The Pu’ukohola Heiau temple is what you see in the photo at the top of this blog.  It kind of looks like a whale, and you can see whales occasionally when you are in Hawaii.  The temple was built in just one year with stones mined 27 miles away (and this occurred on an island where there were no horses or mules).  King Kamehameha picked an ally for the sacrificial offering; it was his cousin Keōua, except they weren’t really allies.  As the story was told to us, Keōua realized it was his destiny to be sacrified, so even though he knew the invitation was for a party that would not end well, he went.  There are other aspects to the story that are more disturbing.  Cousin Keōua mutilated himself before he arrived (he thought that would make him an imperfect sacrifice), but it didn’t work.  Yep, King Kamehameha killed the guy.  But evidently the Big Kahuna had been right.  King Kamehameha succeeded in unifying the Hawaiian Islands.

Pu’ukohola Heiau is where all this happened, at the edge of the Pacific, and the area and the temple King Kamehameha built are now a National Historic Site.

The Pu’ukohola Heiau temple is what you see in the large photo at the top of this blog.  It is impressive.    There’s a sort of a tower in front of it, and that’s what you see below.

This Pacific Ocean inlet is at the base of the temple.  There are contemporary signs warning that the waters are shark infested, and they advise people not to swim or even wade there.  The sharks will attack, the signs warn.

In the old days, or so the story goes, the Hawaiians used to make human sacrifices in this bay.  The rock you see below is where the chief would sit to watch the sharks attack whoever was being sacrificed.

Surprisingly, there’s a public beach less than a quarter mile away along the same shoreline.  Needless to say, I stayed out of the water.

Another thing we saw there (and all over the Big Island) were mongooses.  Mongooses are an invasive species in Hawaii (they came from India), and they have become an apex predator as they have no natural enemies on the Big Island.  We didn’t know they were mongooses initially.  We thought they were rats, but the tails were way too big and thick for rats.  They behaved liked squirrels and they are about the same size.  The mongooses scurried about and would come right up to you (they were not afraid to beg for food).  I gave a mongoose something to eat, even though youi’re not supposed to.  I didn’t want to disappoint an animal unafraid to go head-to-head with a cobra.  I suppose you could introduce cobras to Hawaii to counter the mongoose invasion, but that would create other problems.

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Poppy’s Watch

You probably didn’t know I was almost Italian.  I’ll get to that in a second, and a little further along in this blog, I’ll get to that over-100-year-old beautiful Waltham pocket watch you see above.

Samuel Berkowitz, my father’s father, came to the United States through Ellis Island around 1911.  Over two-thirds of the people in the US can trace their origins to an ancestor who entered the US through Ellis Island.  That’s going to change at some point in the near future, I think, as the number of folks who come here across our southern border continues to grow, and that’s okay in my book.  I’m a staunch conservative and I lean right, but I go against the grain of my Fox News compadres on immigration.  I’m all for immigration and welcoming more people into the US (that’s a topic for another time).  The message in this paragraph is Poppy (and I’ll get to that name in a second) processed in through Ellis Island.  If you’ve never visited Ellis Island, you need to.  It is a national treasure.  The Ellis Island tour is something I will never forget.

Ellis Island. Two thirds of the US population can trace their ancestry to this one patch of real estate.

When Poppy came to the US, the person who processed him into America  was a recent Italian immigrant.   They did that at Ellis…they couldn’t find enough people to do all the work that needed doing (sound familiar?) and they used immigrants to fill the gaps.  Grandpa Berk came from Rumania to escape the pogroms there and for the opportunity here.  The Italian-now-American administrator asked his name and Grandpa told him:  Samuel Berkowitz.   “Berkowitz?” the man said.  “I don’t know from Berkowitz…from now on, you Bercovici.  Sam Bercovici.”  And that’s how his name was entered into the logbook as he entered America.  I know. I’ve seen it.  Like I said, I was almost an Italian.

Bercovici, Berkowitz…it was all too confusing and it was all too European.  Poppy changed it, probably informally, to just plain old Sam Berk.   And that’s how we became Berks. People sometimes ask me what Berk is short for.  I always tell them, “Berque…my grandfather changed it because he didn’t want people thinking we were French.”

Now, about the “Poppy” business.   My Dad always called his father Pop.  When we were little kids, for us he was Poppy.  Grandma was always Grandma, but Grandpa was always Poppy.  At least until I was 6.   That’s when Poppy died.  I was a wee one then, but I remember Poppy well.   He was a good guy.

Last week, I was back in New Jersey on a secret mission, and while I was there I visited with my sister.  We were chatting it up at her place and I was expounding on wristwatch accuracy when she suddenly asked:  “Would you like Grandpa’s watch?”

The question caught me off guard.   I didn’t even know Poppy had a watch.  I for sure didn’t know he had one and it somehow ended up in my sister’s possession.  But I didn’t need to think about it.  “Yes,” I said.  I was shocked when I saw it.  It’s beautiful, it’s engraved, and it has my grandfather’s initials on the back.   I think it’s white gold (if it was silver, it would be tarnished).  I wound it just a little and it started right up.  Tik tik tik tik tik tik tik…it was cool.  I listened to the same ticking Poppy heard a hundred years ago.

Poppy’s initials (SB) on the flip side of this centenarian Waltham.

Looking at the dial and its patina, my first thought was that the little black erratic lines I saw on it were mold.  I had a polarizer go south on me on the motorcycle ride across China and the marks on it were eerily similar; the camera store guy told me the lines on that polarizer were mold.  But in researching who to send the watch to for servicing, I found the place I am going to use up in Portland.  It is WatchRepair.cc.  The man there is Terry Nelson, who responded quickly when I sent an email and a photo (and this was on a Sunday).  I asked if I was dealing with a mold problem, and Terry’s prompt reply was:

Its dial shows normal blemishing from a century of use and exposure to the environment and ultra-violet light. It was originally painted with a mixture of paint and finely powered silver and then coated with an early “clear coat.” The clear coat has slowly flaked away in certain areas allowing the underlying silver to tarnish, which may appear like mold. My in-house dial cleaning will assist in making the dial more uniform yet – be ready for only a moderate improvement.

I was impressed and pleased.  No mold, a quick response from a craftsman who obviously knows his business, and no extravagant claims.  Terry told me if I wanted a full restoration he could bring the dial back to its original condition, but I don’t.  I want a little patina.  Maybe I’ve been watching American Pickers too long.  Like Mike Wolf always says, it’s only going to be original once.  My watch is headed to Portland for Terry to work his magic next month, and it will be back the following month.  I can’t wait.

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Let Them Eat Cake

Here in La Luz, New Mexico we have a really nice dump. It’s open 6 days a week and free to use for residents of La Luz. The perimeter wall of the dump is made from compressed tires held together with steel bands to form a square block about 4-feet across. Once stacked into place the tires were covered with steel mesh wire and shot with a gunite-type, sprayed concrete. Brown concrete color was mixed in with the gunite and it gives the impression that the dump is surrounded by one, unbroken dog turd.

Inside the dump there are bins for plastics, aluminum and paper recycling. Large, black, roto-cast drums for used motor oil sit under a corrugated steel awning. In the back part of the dump, near the great open pit for inorganic material like broken concrete or unwanted fill, there are a couple of piles for old steel and garden waste. I pick through the steel pile often, you can find some good material in there if you don’t mind losing a finger retrieving the metal.

Recently the dump has added a weigh station for commercial users and a large, two-story building that allows users to back into the building and toss their trash directly into 40-yard dumpsters located on the floor below. The whole place is clean and tidy. The dump crew runs a tight ship and since we don’t have garbage collection out in the sticks I make frequent visits. I’m such a regular that they know me by name and have my tag number memorized.

Last Saturday I told my wife, CT that I was making a dump run and since I was halfway to town I might as well go to the grocery store to pick up a few items and did she want any thing from the store? “Pick up an interesting loaf of fresh baked bread from the bakery.” I had an uneasy feeling. “And get them to slice it into thick pieces,” she finished. I told her that there was no way they were going to slice the bread for me but she said to try anyway.

You know how some people have a command presence, like CT has command presence? People fall all over themselves helping CT. She can get her bread sliced anyway she wants. I have what is called Servile Presence. When I walk up to a counter the clerk gives me a look that says, “Who do you think you are, buddy?”

I never can get my bread sliced or my prescription filled. I can’t return items for store credit without a Spanish Inquisition. CT can return an item bought at a hardware store to a flower shop and the clerk is glad to be of assistance. Anything to do with banking or the department of motor vehicles CT has to do because I’ve never succeeded in getting satisfaction from either place. The lowest of the beaten down, minimum wage workers need someone to kick and I am that guy.

I’ve found that asserting myself or getting mad and yelling only results in the manager escorting me out of the store. I probably bring a lot of it on myself. I’m usually dressed in dirty clothes and need a shave but that’s only because whatever I am doing I get dirty doing it and who likes to shave? Let’s face it: I look pretty suspicious and a bit homeless and meth-heady when out shopping.  At least the crew at the dump treats me well.

There were five loaves of sturdy looking bread inside the bakery’s counter case. These were not foo-foo bread; they had a sprinkling of finely chopped grain baked into the crown. My mouth watered thinking of those thick slices of toast sopping up the dregs of a big bowl of onion soup.

The lady working behind the bakery counter was either a young-looking 110 years old or 85 years old. She had blond hair done in an up-do and a too big apron around her dress. We were 3-feet apart. “Excuse me, I’d like a loaf of this bread cut into 3/4-inch slices.” I waved my finger in the direction of the grain-topped bread.

“It’ll be a few minutes,” she said, “I’m busy.”

Then she picked up one of the loaves, put it inside a plastic bag and tied a yellow bag-tie around the open end. She put the wrapped loaf on a grey metal rolling cart behind her. There was no one else working at the bakery section and no other customers. I made like I was looking at the other offering with interest. She picked up another loaf of the grain bread and put it inside a plastic bag and tied it closed with a yellow bag-tie. I looked at some bagels with cheddar cheese melted over the top. They looked good but I’d have better chances winning the lottery.

I walked back to where she was tying the third loaf into a bag and took up a position directly in front of her.  We were not more than two feet apart now. I leaned onto the counter, crowding in on her as I’ve seem CT use that tactic before. The bakery biddy glared at me and said nothing, picking up another loaf of bread to package. As much as it was possible to do so, she slid the loaf into the plastic bag defiantly, never taking her eyes off mine.

The long minutes dragged by with the two of us in a mortal battle. I wanted that bread and she was not going to give it to me. The rest of the store noises faded away and a kind of tunnel vision came over me as she put the final loaf of bread into a plastic bag. It happened in slow motion. Our eyes were locked and in my peripheral vision below I saw her gnarled hands tying the yellow bag tie around the end of the plastic bag. She put the last bagged loaf onto a cart with the other five loaves then turned and smiled the phoniest ever smile at me.

The bakery display case had a gaping hole where the grain bread had been. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of telling me there was no more. I gave one last look into those eyes that had seen so much in such a long life. She seemed genuinely happy in a “Now then, how can I help you?” sort of way. I turned to my shopping cart and pushed it away towards the pre-packaged factory-baked bread isle. I’m hoping neither of us truly got what they wanted out of the 15-minute mini drama but I strongly suspect that since I never got the loaf of bread that I was the biggest loser.

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The Janus Halcyon 450 and Motorcycle Classics Magazine

Joe Gresh’s recent blog on the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club and their magazine is, like all of Gresh’s writing, outstanding.  So much so that, as he suggested, I became a VJMC magazine subscriber.

I’d like to suggest another magazine, and as you have no doubt guessed from the title of this blog, it’s Motorcycle Classics.  I think it’s one of the best motorcycle magazines in existence.  Part of that is due to MC‘s quality…glossy paper, a great page count, great photos, and great writing.  And part of it is I get to see my work in MC‘s pages on a regular basis.  Most recently, it’s my story on the new Janus Halcyon 450.  Sue and I had a great time visiting with the Janus team in Goshen, Indiana, and the Halcyon 450 motorcycle is a winner.  Pick up a copy of Motorcycle Classics magazine and read the Halcyon 450 article.  Better yet, subscribe to Motorcycle Classics.

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Want to read more about Janus motorcycles in action?  Check out the Baja ride we did with Janus!

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Ruger’s .357 Magnum Blackhawk

If I had to select one handgun above all others, my choice would be easy.  It’s Ruger’s .357 Magnum Blackhawk.  I don’t have one, but that’s something I aim to fix in the near term.  I’m watching two .357 Blackhawks on the auction block right now.  One is that drop dead gorgeous brass frame Old Model you see in the big photo above.  That one is not just any Blackhawk, either.  It was previously owned by Hank Williams, Junior.

The Hank Williams Blackhawk has a lot going for it.   It’s the Old Model Blackhawk, which has a feel when cocked similar to a Colt Single Action Army. There’s the provenance (this one has a letter attesting to its prior ownership and its factory brass grip frame).  And, there’s that rare (and highly desirable) brass grip frame.  Ruger only made a few of those.

Winning the auction for the Hank Williams Blackhawk is a long shot.  My backup is to buy a new Blackhawk, and I have my eye on the one shown in the photo below.

A new New Model Ruger .357 Blackhawk with a 6 1/2-inch barrel.

I guess I need to go tangential for a minute and explain this business about Old Model and New Model Blackhawks.  The basic difference between the Old Model and the New Model is that the Old Model can fire if you drop it on a hard surface.  The New Model incorporates a transfer bar to prevent that from happening.  You should carry an Old Model with the hammer resting on an empty chamber; you can safely carry a New Model with all six chambers loaded.  Naturally, geezers like me prefer the look and feel of the Old Model (and we tend not to drop our guns), but the new Model Model is every bit as good and every bit as accurate.  Geezers just like old stuff.

I found a used 200th year stainless steel one on Gunbroker about a dozen years ago, I won the auction for it, and I ran the equivalent of a lead mine’s annual output down the bore (including some ultra-heavy 200-grain loads).  I am the only guy I know who wore out a .357 Blackhawk.  The loading latch wouldn’t stay open, and when I returned it for repair to Ruger, they were as amazed as I was that I wore it out.  It was beyond repair, they told me, but as a good will gesture they paid me what I paid for it.  Nobody, but nobody, has better customer service than Ruger.

A 25-yard group with the .357 Blackhawk.  The Blackhawk will do this all day long.

Part of the reason the .357 Blackhawk I describe above went south, I think, is that it was stainless steel.  I have it in my mind that stainless steel is softer than blued carbon steel, and I think they just don’t hold up as well under a steady diet of heavy loads.  That’s why my next .357 Blackhawk will be blue steel.

To me, the Blackhawk is a “do anything” .357 Magnum.  It’s a good buy in today’s inflated world, it’s a solid defense round, you can hunt with it, and it is accurate.  I like the longer barrel for the sight radius.   You can believe this or not, but I can easily hit targets at 100 yards with a .357 Blackhawk and the right load.

Typical .357 Blackhawk groups.

It’s been at least a couple of years now that I’ve been without a .357 Blackhawk, and like I said, I aim to fix that problem.  I’ll let you know which of the above two guns (a brand new blue steel Blackhawk, or the Hank Williams Old Model) I pick up.  Most likely it won’t be the Hank Williams revolver (competition and bidding will be intense on that one and it will probably be too rich for my blood), but the New Model will make me just as happy. Good times lie ahead.  Stay tuned.

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More Tales of the Gun!

A Harley Submarine?

Everybody who’s ever thrown a leg over a motorcycle has a story about when they crashed.  This guy (who’s name I do not know) has us all beat.  Last Thursday night, our unnamed hero was riding his Harley-Davidson across the Oakland Bay Bridge (the other big bridge connecting San Francisco to the mainland) when some dweeb in a Mini Cooper merged into his lane.  A crash ensued, the rider came off the bike and suffered minor injuries, but the Harley kept going.  And going.  And going.  Until it hit the rail and (you guessed it) went over the side.

The Oakland Bay Bridge is 190 feet above the Bay.

This fellow sounds like one tough (and lucky) dude.  According to the news reports, he transported himself to the hospital, where he was treated and released.  Also according to the news reports, no citations were issued to either our would-be U-boat commander or the Mini pilot.

The CHP and the Fire Department say they know exactly where the bike is.  (So do I.  It’s in San Francisco Bay.)  The emergency responders will attempt to recover the motorcycle at a later date (the water under the bridge is about 100 feet deep).  They are worried about it leaking gas and oil into the Bay.  There’s a joke in there somewhere.   Harleys are known to leak both, you know.  I know Harley is moving to liquid cooling, but this is ridiculous.  There’s got to be more.  Let’s hear ’em.

As motorcycle crash stories go, this has to be one for the ages.  I’m glad our hero (whoever he is) came through it with only minor injuries.  Ah, the stories he’ll be able to tell.

So, here’s an invitation.  Recognizing it’s not likely any of us will ever be able to top this story, what’s yours?  Got a good crash story?  We’d love to hear it.

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RD350 Yamaha Update

The 1974 RD350 has been faultlessly buzzing around south-central New Mexico these last few months without any attention. The old girl was dribbling oil and banging around on her front suspension and the tires that came on the bike were old and cracked. In addition, the rear 4.00×18 tire was too large and rubbed the fender over bumps. The bike kind of bobbed in turns and I didn’t want to take a long ride on those rotten tires. I needed to give the old bike some love.

What held me back was the Harbor Freight tire changer. I was in the middle of modifying the tire machine and I just lost interest. The monsoon rains have precluded any concrete work so I decided to finish the tire machine.

One of the issues with the HF tire machine is that the center shaft is too big for older motorcycles. The center shaft is a pivot point for your duck bar or tire levers. Most new bikes come with big axles and the stock part will work fine on those. I cut a piece of ½” rod 12-inches long and turned out a spacer to go between the factory center bar and the new ½-inch piece. My welding is atrocious but you have to cut me some slack as I can’t see the puddle and weld by sound. Now I can center-post smaller diameter axles without anyone crying about it.

The HF tire machine has three rim-grabber things. Two of the grabbers are pinned into place and one is screw driven. When it works right it really locks the wheel in place, essentially giving you a second set of hands. The grabbers were a sloppy fit on their square-tube arms and it’s hard enough getting all the fingers lined up at one time without stuff moving around. Shimming the grabbers with thin aluminum tightened up the machine and made fitting the rim to the grabbers easier.

While not required for the skinny RD350 tires, I made a duck-bar to assist with bead removal. The duck is a plastic piece that fits over the rim. You use a lever to pull the bead up over the duck’s head and then slide the duck along the rim with the duck bar. The plastic helps prevent scarring your nice chrome or aluminum rims. Needless to say, use lots of tire lube as the first ¼-way around the rim is a hard pull. The duck is actually a part from commercial tire changing machines and it works great on wider rims like you’d find on a sport bike or cars.

I made a steel piece to fit the bolt holes of the duck and welded a 4-foot long, 1” square tube to the duck mount. It’s also an ugly weld but thanks to the miracle of grinders and thick paint it doesn’t look so bad. I messed up by welding the bar to the duck foot square, or at 90 degrees to the bolt axis if that makes any sense to you. This meant that it didn’t sit flush to the curve of the rim when using the center pivot. The pivot point was right where the bar wanted to be.

A quick bending session tweaked the duck-bar enough to be functional. I’ll get it right next time. The duck-bar worked well on the back wheel of the RD350 but the front rim was too skinny. There wasn’t enough room for the duck so I did it the old fashioned way with tire levers.

I bought two Shinko SR712P tires for the RD350, a 3.00×18 for the front and a 3.50×18 for the rear. These are the stock sizes and they don’t rub the fender. The rear looks pretty skinny, I’d like to get a 3.75×18 but I can’t find one. I’ll need new brake shoes for the rear drum but that will have to wait for another maintenance session.

The fork seal replacement was pretty straightforward and so I managed to screw it up. The RD350 has a chrome cover over the brake hose manifold. This cover makes loosening the lower triple clamp pinch bolts impossible unless you remove the top triple clamp and the headlight fork ears. Then the chrome cover can slide up allowing access to the pinch bolts. That was way too much work for me so I decided to pull the sliders off and leave the rest of the fork on the motorcycle.

The RD350 fork slider has a very thin seal retaining area and when I gave the seal a gentle exploratory pry a tiny piece of the damn fork tube cracked by the snap ring groove. I was so upset I didn’t take a photo. Anyway, I worked the cracked piece off and filed the area smooth to make it look like it was made that way. I was temped to do the other side to make them match.

I ended up clamping a big, galvanized carriage bolt into the vice; the head fit behind the seal nicely. Then I cut a piece of PVC pipe that fit over the thin area and contacted the solid part of the fork tube where the dust cover stops. After that a rubber hammer knocked the seal out. It was clear sailing from then on; I reassembled the fork sliders onto the tubes and dumped 5 ounces of 10/30 synthetic motor oil into each fork leg.

For the little amount of work I did the difference was amazing. The RD350 falls into turns with the greatest of ease and holds the line like a supermarket customer getting cash back from a personal check. It feels like power steering. The bounciness is gone and the bike feels much calmer. Now that I can push the bike a little harder those cheap, aftermarket rear shocks are showing a lack of damping. I didn’t notice it before because the front was bouncing so much. The tires are skinny but feel like they grip well. I don’t road race on the street but if I did I could hustle the purple RD350 through the mountains pretty fast.

There’s more to do on the RD350 but I like riding the bike so much I don’t want to disable the thing. I have to fix a leaking oil tank sight glass, re-grease the steering head bearings, replace the rear brake shoes, clean the carbs, and on and on. All that can wait because the sun is out (in the morning before the monsoon rains) and I’ve got to ride this bike.

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A Tale of Two Old Army Black Powder Rugers

Good buddy Paul is a black powder enthusiast.  I am, too, except I’m completely inexperienced as a shooter in the blackpowder world.  I owned an 1858 Remington reproduction (it was a Pietta, I think, and it was beautiful).  Good buddy Duane wanted one and I sold mine, new in the box, to him without ever firing it.  I’ve seen it fired, as Duane is a range regular and he’s had it out a few times.  And I have a beautiful reproduction Colt Walker (made by Uberti; you can read that story here), but I haven’t fired that yet, either.

But I digress; this story is about the Ruger Old Army.  Two of them, in fact.  The name notwithstanding, the Ruger Old Army is a completely modern gun, with the exception of it’s being a cap and ball revolver.  Ruger made a few variations of this fine weapon, with the variations being barrel length (the ones Paul owns are both 7 1/2-inch barreled guns; Ruger also made 5 1/2-inch barreled versions), blue steel or stainless steel construction (the ones you see here are samples of each), satin or highly-polished stainless steel, and fixed or adjustable sights.  Ruger also offered a brass grip frame on the blue steel version (those are beautiful handguns).  Ruger also offered the Old Army with simulated ivory grips for a while.

Paul added custom grips to his Old Army revolvers, and in both cases, the grips add considerably to the revolvers’ appearance.

Big bore percussion revolvers have simultaneously been called either .44 caliber or .45 caliber.  They are not a .44, though.  They are all .45s, and you can fire either a .457 lead ball, or a .454 conical lead bullet.

Ruger introduced the Old Army in 1972 and discontinued it in 2008 as sales slowed.  From what I’ve read, Ruger Old Army revolvers can be extremely accurate.  I can’t tell you that from personal experience, however.  As I said above I have absolutely zero range time with the Old Army or any other black powder firearm.  Caps are difficult-to-impossible to find these days with the pandemic-induced components shortages (I haven’t fired my Walker yet for that reason).

Paul’s two Old Army Rugers are beautiful.  One of these days, when components are flowing freely again, we’ll have to get them and my yet-to-be fired Colt Walker on the range.

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ExNotes Product Review: The VJMC Magazine

The 1970s were the golden years of motorcycling. New and exciting motorcycles poured out of Japan at dizzying speed, so many new models that it was all the moto-magazines of the era could do to review them all. The surge of new motorcycles changed the focus and content of motorcycle magazines for decades to come. It was all motorcycle reviews all the time. Multi-bike shootouts became necessary as there weren’t enough pages or time to give each new bike a thorough review.

Expanding on the motorcycle-review theme, the magazine industry began to review more and more motorcycle accessories and motorcycle related products. You’d get a new moto-mag issue in the mailbox and the entire thing seemed like one big sales pitch: You must buy this! The hard sell made sense for an advertising-based income stream. Besides, who didn’t like reading about the latest and greatest motorcycles? I sure liked it.

We review a lot of junk here on ExhaustNotes; it’s an easy way to fill empty space with empty words that don’t require much creativity. The Internet has taken over written and video reviews for all topics, motorcycle or not. Those old style, review-heavy magazines failed and became unreadable Internet product shilling sites. It’s telling that two of the largest remaining paper motorcycle magazines, RoadRunner and Rider, focus more of their content mix on the experience of riding and owning a motorcycle.

Testing and reviewing motorcycle stuff is still a worthwhile occupation but as Revzilla-type, retail/editorial web sites become the new normal you have to wonder how unbiased a review can be when the publisher makes the lion’s share of their income from selling you the item they are reviewing. In a lesser way, ExhaustNotes makes a few pennies when you buy a reviewed product from that Amazon link we include in a story. Now, a few pennies won’t make us biased but what if it was thousands of dollars?

Which brings us to the VJMC magazine. The VJMC is a really well done club magazine that harkens back to moto-mags from the 1940s. Editorially, the VJMC mag sells nothing. The content mix is vintage event reports, how-to articles and nostalgic look-backs into those heady, Japanese motorcycle invasion years. In other words exactly the stuff I like.

The VJMC magazine uses premium glossy paper that is thick enough for gasket making. How-to stories are extremely detailed and if you’re not into that sort of stuff you may find them tedious and boring. I’m into that sort of stuff. Event stories have plenty of photos and lists of winners (typical club magazine stuff).

A big surprise for me was how many vintage Japanese motorcycle parts and service providers advertise in the magazine. Most of them were news to me and I spend a lot of time looking for parts. I’ll have to try out some of these guys that I’ve never heard of before.

Let’s face it, you don’t buy motorcycle magazines looking to read Hemingway and you’re not going to get Hemingway in the VJMC mag. You will get workmanlike prose that conveys the intention of the author. I’m guessing VJMC mag doesn’t pay their authors much, if anything. It’s more a labor of love. Still, the magazine works.

It’s been years since I’ve had a motorcycle magazine show up in my mailbox. It was quite a thrill when I opened the box and saw the VJMC mag inside. Kind of like the old days when Motorcyclist or Cycle Guide would show up. The paper motorcycle magazine is all a part of the vintage motorcycle experience and really sets the tone for a quick spin on the RD350 or RT1-B. To get the VJMC magazine you have to join the VJMC motorcycle (club? gGroup?) and you’ll get 6 issues a year for your $35 entry fee. It’s worth it to me, so you must buy it!

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