Month: November 2023

Brazil Moto Chase

Here’s  a chase scene that’s billed as the wildest motorcycle chase ever.  I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate, but it is an entertaining few minutes.

The presumption here is that the chase is real, and some dude and his pillion dudette were in a heap of trouble down there in Brazil when they were finally caught.  You’ve got to be pretty nuts to attempt outrunning a police officer on anything, but I guess more than a few crazies do so even here in California.  About 25 years ago I was in the carpool lane on my TL1000S Suzuki honking along at about 95 mph when I suddenly sensed something on my 5:00 position.  I looked in the mirror and there was a CHP cruiser not 5 feet off my rear wheel, just a little bit to my right rear.   I hit my turn signal, slowed slowly (I didn’t want that CHP car giving me a proctological examination), wove my way through traffic, and got off at the next exit.  I was expecting the indignant, outraged lecture, but to my surprise the CHP officer was an attractive young female who politely asked for my license, insurance, and registration.  “I’m surprised you pulled over,” she added.

“Really?” I asked.  “You actually get people try to outrun you?”

“All the time,” she said.  “If they get away, we can’t go by their tags and arrest them.   They’ll just say it wasn’t them, and because of the helmet, it stands up in court.”   Hmmmh.   You could have knocked me over with a feather.  “That’s if they get away,” she added.  “Most of the time they get wadded up somewhere down the road.  We just follow the ambulance to the hospital and issue the summons there.”

On this topic of motorcycle chases:  They are a staple of more than a few motion pictures.   I think the classic chase scene (and the best one) is Steve McQueen in The Great Escape (Bud Ekins did the jump in this scene, for which he was paid an unheard of $1000 when the movie was made).  There are many great movie chase scenes.  Let’s hear from you:  What’s your favorite motorcycle chase scene?

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Two Browning 6.5 Creedmoor Loads

By Joe Berk

The creek is dry and getting to the West End Gun Club is a lot easier these days, so I reloaded some 6.5 Creedmoor ammo in the brass good buddy Johnnie G sent to me.  I wanted to try a couple of new loads in my maple-stocked X-Bolt.

A right side view of the Browning 6.5 Creedmoor rifle.  Note the muzzle brake on the end of the barrel.

I bought the X-bolt when I saw the wood, and it had a cross-country ride and a half to get to me.  I saw it in a shop in Lamar, Colorado, and I knew I had to own the Browning as soon as I saw it.   You don’t see many rifles with wood of this caliber.

There was a problem, though.  The Colorado shop owner wouldn’t ship it to California.  There’s an extra hoop or two a dealer has to jump through to ship a gun to California and I guess folks in Colorado aren’t basketball players.  Here’s where capitalism came to the rescue.  There’s a guy in Virginia who makes a living off of these kinds of situations, so I had the Colorado dealer ship it to the Virginia dealer, who then shipped it to my dealer in California.  None of these dealers did so for free (going to Colorado-to-Virginia-to-California route wrapped the Browning in another $100 bill, and you can guess who had to pay up).  But that’s okay.  I wanted the rifle and now I have it.  It really is an exquisite firearm.  And it is exquisitely accurate.  I’ll get to that in a minute.

I mounted a 4×12 Vortex scope on the Browning 6.5 Creedmoor.  Check out the roll engraving on the receiver.
Another view of the 6.5 Creedmoor Vortex scope. The scope includes a parallax adjustment on the objective lens.
A macro shot of the receiver’s roll engraving. It’s a nice touch.
The stock has a darker wood fore end tip. It’s a classy rifle.  The action is glass bedded from the factory.
The X-Bolt has a muzzle brake. The bluing is fine; that’s powder residue you see on it.  I can feel a light puff a fraction of a second after the bullet leaves the barrel.

I used the Hornady 140-grain full metal jacket boat tail bullet for two loads I wanted to test; one with IMR 4350 propellant and the other with XBR 8208 propellant.

Reloaded 6.5 Creedmoor ammo with Winchester brass and the 140-grain jacketed hollow point boat tail bullet. It’s good looking ammo.
The business end of the 140-grain Hornady bullets.

The loads showed no signs of excess pressure after firing.  The bolt opened easily and the primers were not flattened.

Winchester brass, and unflattened Winchester large rifle primers.

I full length resized the 6.5 Creedmoor brass because I have two rifles chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor (see our earlier story, A Tale of Two Creedmoors).   The alternative approach is to neck size the brass only (which can theoretically offer improved accuracy), but when you neck size the brass the reloaded ammo will only fit into the rifle in which the brass was previously fired.  I didn’t want to try to keep my ammo segregated by rifle, and as it turns out, I don’t need to.  The full length resized 6.5 Creedmoor brass provided great 100-yard results in the Browning X-Bolt rifle with both the XBR 8208 and IMR 4350 loads.

The first shot of the day at the upper left target was low and to the left, which is a common occurrence when shooting from a clean and lightly oiled barrel.  The next three grouped tightly into the orange target (I could see the bullet holes with the rifle’s 12X scope).  I let the barrel cool for a few minutes, and then I fired another three rounds at the upper right target.  I was pleased; the load returned an even tighter three shot group in about the same spot as the first group.  Both groups, when measured later, were a satisfyingly tight half minute of angle.

I let the barrel cool again, and then I moved on to the IMR 4350 loads.  Wow, talk about consistent.  Both shot to the same part of the target, and both were exactly the same group size:  0.829 inches.

Two great 6.5 Creedmoor powders: IMR 4350 and XBR 8208.
My old RCBS powder trickler still works well.

I had read that IMR 4350 was a “go to” powder for 6.5 Creedmoor accuracy, and my results confirmed that.  I had not found much information about XBR 8208 accuracy in this chambering, but it sure seemed to get the job done for me.   As the above target shows, the XBR 8208 performed even better than the IMR 4350 loads.  Here’s a bit more on info on these two loads:

    • Both had the Hornady 140-grain bullets seated to an overall cartridge length of 2.800 inches.
    • I did not crimp the bullets in place.
    • I did not trim the brass for either load.
    • The powder charges for both loads were weighed for every cartridge.  I used my powder dispenser to drop a little bit lower charge, and then trickled in the last few grains.
    • I used 31.5 grains of XBR 8208.
    • I used 39.0 grains of IMR 4350.
    • I used Winchester brass with Winchester large rifle primers.

So there you have it:  Two great 6.5 Creedmoor loads for the Browning maple Medallion.

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Getting Your Kicks: ExNotes Motorcycle Mods

By Joe Gresh

I bought the 2008 Husqvarna SMR510 in 2009. I forget the exact mileage on the bike but it was around 800-ish, I think. The Husky was essentially a new motorcycle and the bike sat very tall for a guy with stubby legs.  The seat height wasn’t my biggest problem though, the real issue was the diabolical kickstand the manufacturer cursed the Husky with.

The stand was both too short and angled wrong so that when deployed its contact point was only a few inches left of the centerline of the motorcycle. On the stand, the bike would lean way over, unloading the rear suspension to the point the rear wheel was nearly off the ground. This meant the bike fell over a lot. The slightest breeze would pivot the bike onto the stand and knock the Husky onto its left side.

That’s not all that was wrong with the Husky’s kickstand. The foot of the stand was only a millimeter or two wider than the 7/8-inch steel tube the stand was made from. Parking the Husqvarna on anything other than solid concrete was an iffy proposition. If the bike was on sand or dirt the stand would punch through the ground and the bike would fall over. I learned that in the dirt you had to lean the thing against a tree if you wanted to park.

One of the first things I did to the bike was add a gigantic chunk of steel to the bottom of the stand in order to spread the load a bit on soft terrain. I angled the new foot outboard, effectively moving the contact point an inch further from the centerline. The new foot also moved the contact point forward a bit to help even out the fore-aft balance. It kind of worked. The bike fell over less but it still fell over.

The SMR510’s high seat was a pain to climb onto so I decided to raise the rear shock bolt about ½-inch which lowered the back of the bike a full inch. Now I could reach both feet to the ground on tippy-toes or one foot flat. The lowering also improved the kickstand angle and stability although it caused trickle-down issues.

The Husky is blessed with an ultra plush rear suspension. The bike is a Cadillac on rough dirt trails. With the shortened ride height the bike leaned less on the stand in fact it was almost too vertical. Now when I got on the bike the rear would sag pushing against the stand causing the bike to lean hard right. To get the stand folded up I had to lean the bike much further to the right like a 45-degree angle so that the arc of the stand-swing would clear the ground. Even if I wasn’t sitting on the Husky to fold the stand up I had to hold the bike well over center. I dropped it a few more times.

Things stayed like this for many years. My method of mounting the SMR510 was to first fold the stand up then swing my leg over the back of the seat, scratching the rear fender with my boot and settle down into the saddle as the suspension sagged and my feet hit the ground. It was an ok system when I was younger and more flexible.

Unfortunately frailty creeps up on all of us over time. The last few years it became harder to swing my leg high up over the rear of the Husky. The pack I keep strapped to the rear fender made the situation worse. I had to change my methodology and begin a more right-angle frontal assault, high-kicking my leg over the seat like a hurdler or John Cleese at the Ministry of Funny Walks.

You can guess how well that worked: to get on the Husky I had to flip the stand up, hold the bars with one hand, step back far enough to give my leg clearance and kick as high as I could while stepping forward into the bike. Most of the time it worked but if you didn’t get your foot high enough it would smack into the seat and push the bike over. The Husky falls well and all, but still. Getting off the bike was no easy feat either. In fact, I dropped the Husky more dismounting the motorcycle than mounting, although it was a close run thing, percentage-wise.

It got to where I didn’t want to ride the Husqvarna because I dreaded getting on or off of the bike. It all came to a head a few weeks ago when the Mud Chuckers and I did a 140-mile pavement loop with a 40-mile dirt section in the middle. We pulled into the café at Mayhill for a lunch stop but the place looked closed. Neither of us actually checked the door because we didn’t want to go through the trouble of climbing off our bikes.

The parking lot at the Mayhill Café has a slight slope to it and I rolled the bike backwards to leave. The Husky wouldn’t start. Nothing. No clicking. The instrument panel and fuel pump energized so I figured something was wrong with the starter motor circuit. I made the fatal error of positioning the kickstand side downhill. I slid my butt off the seat and started to drag my tired leg over the top of the seat Normally not a big problem. The added distance created by the parking lot falling away meant my leg needed to go even higher to clear the seat and the bike began to topple over onto me. I was bunny hopping with the one leg on the ground and the other leg still not clear of the seat. Events rapidly overtook my hop-speed and the bike fell over. Luckily I was still wearing my helmet because when I fell backwards I smacked my new helmet on the asphalt pretty hard. I think I would have cracked my head open otherwise.

As I was lying on the ground with the Husky on my leg I cursed a torrent of bad words, some of them even I didn’t know the meaning of. It was like I was speaking in foul-tongues except the Holy Spirit was not the one doing the talking. We got the bike off of me and picked it up. I told Mike, “I’m not riding that @#@ing motorcycle again until I fix that #$@@-%ing kickstand.”  We push started the bike and I rode home. So I guess I did ride it again after all.

The starting problem turned out to be a loose connection at the start relay but to be sure I took all the bodywork off and disconnected all the multi-pin plugs on the wiring harness and gave them each a shot of silicone. I relocated the horn to gain a bit more wiring room behind the headlight and changed the old, crumbling air filter for a new one. The Husqvarna was running fine. Except for that diabolical kickstand.

The main problem with the kickstand is that when deployed it is too close to the centerline of the wheels. The reason for this is the kickstand-mounting lug on the frame is angled wrong. Instead of the stand swinging out it sort of swings down. All of the Husky’s kickstand issues stem from this one critical design flaw.

I don’t want to mess with the Husky’s frame so I decided to hacksaw a wedge out of the stand (below the return spring mount) and closed the wedge so that the stand would project about 4 inches further outboard.  I welded the join as best I could not being able to see the weld or the seam.

Moving the foot outboard made the bike lean over too far so I borrowed a few inches of tubing from an old Yamaha handlebar to extend the length of the stand.

I made a plug to insert into the tubing where the old stand and the handlebar piece join, a couple holes drilled into the tubing allowed me to butt-weld the insert and weld the thin tubing together without burning through.

I made a new, lighter foot and cut a new angle on the end of the stand to suit

And it is wonderful. Parking the bike is so easy when it doesn’t fall over from the slightest breeze. My new mounting technique (with the stand in the down position) is to put my left foot on the peg, grab the bars, stand on the foot peg, swing my leg easily over the rear pack, settle down into the seat and with my left foot, swing the stand up. Easy-Peasy. It sounds like I should have been able to do this all along but the geometry just didn’t work that way.

Putting up with the old kickstand for 14 years shows how a bad idea can keep loyal followers. It took that hard fall In Mayhill to jar me into action. There is no free lunch, however. The new stand angle awkwardly juts out from the side of the bike and will most likely break when I crash on that side. I’m hoping my shoddy welding will be like a fuse and it will break at the join before something important breaks.

The kickstand mod has made me fall in love with the Husqvarna again. It’s such a light, powerful bike you feel like there’s not much you can’t do with it. Now that I can easily get on and off the bike those feelings of dread are distant memories.

I’ll see you on the trails.

More motoliterature from Dos Joes?   You bet!

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Physical Security

By Mike Huber

Okay, so having served in the United States Army I am always aware of my surroundings, my gear, and most importantly physical security of these items.  This is even more true nowadays as a fulltime traveler on my motorcycle.  This involves not leaving sensitive items on the motorcycle overnight and parking it near me (usually line of sight) or in a garage.  These habits have kept my gear safe over the past six years of traveling, not just in the United States but across the globe.

Upon waking up in Baltimore on November 2nd and looking out the window from my bedside I instantly was shocked to see that my BMW GS1250 was not in the parking spot where I had left it the day prior.  My heart sank.  Not only was the bike gone but so was a lot of my gear.  Non-sensitive items thankfully were inside my friend’s house where I was staying.  I combed the parking spot to see if I could find any pieces from the bike or any type of clue as to what happened.  There was nothing.  The bike was just gone.

I was devastated to say the least.  The GS1250 still had its temporary tags on it; that’s how new it was. What hurt me even more was the panniers with dozens of stickers identifying where I had traveled.  They were gone along with some sentimental items from the Army that were kept locked in them.

Within five minutes of calling the Baltimore police, three officers showed up, took the report, and fully understood my pain.  They issued an alert for the missing motorcycle, which was my home.

It only took two hours and my phone rang.   They had found the BMW two blocks away. I quickly ran down to meet the officer and was anxious to view what was left of the bike (if anything) and my gear.  The bike had a few thousand dollars in damage, mostly from whoever took it snapping the steering lock to push it into this dark alley. Amazingly, most of my gear was intact, but the panniers were destroyed from the thieves prying them open with a crowbar (I’m assuming).  Some of the gear was still hanging off the panniers and some of it was thrown all over the alley.  Fortunately, my losses only included my raingear, air mattress, tool kit, and my fishing pole. I asked the officer to alert the Coast Guard as obviously the thieves were going to blow up the air mattress and go fishing in Chesapeake Bay.  Even in times of darkness I find humor to lighten the mood, if for nothing else but my own sanity.

So the police found my bike, but it wouldn’t start due to the steering lock being destroyed.  That began a painful day of finding a local BMW dealer, calling a tow truck, and beginning the paperwork for the insurance claim. I was still extremely distraught and depressed over the whole incident, and rightfully so. Over the years my mindset has changed from the “woe is me” negative thinking to a more positive one of “maybe this is meant to be and had the bike not been taken I possibly could have been injured or killed in a wreck that day.”  It sounds cheesy, but I do believe this. Having a positive outlook helps take a bit of the pain away, even if momentarily.

Luckily for me I have incredible friends pretty much all over the world.  The decision to rent a car was a no brainer.  It would be a fun way to kill a couple of weeks and Kia Kamp while the bike was being repaired.  I could continue the “Mike Huber friends and family tour.”  This would not only occupy my time but reassure me that even though I was going through a difficult time, being surrounded by beautiful friends would provide the inspiration and confidence to move forward.  This is not to say that a few times a day I don’t feel an emptiness in my gut.  Having traveled so much of the world and especially doing so by motorcycle where I am so exposed has provided much more good than bad throughout the years.  If you get off your couch and go live sometimes bad things happen, but more often than not you meet wonderful people and build relationships with new friends for life.

Lessons Learned

Sadly, this isn’t the first time I had a motorcycle stolen.  I had a brand new Suzuki GSXR750 stolen when I was in college at Boston University.  That moto was never recovered, but I immediately bought a caliper lock for my next motorcycle.  This provided comfort, but it would not stop three or four big guys from simply picking the bike up and throwing it in the back of a truck. I stopped using the caliper lock when I bought my first BMW GS (in hindsight, this was not a good move).  I didn’t think stolen BMWs were in as much demand as the Japanese motos.

There are motion alarms, airtags, and a ton of other security devices out there that I am sure I will be writing about in the near future.  For now the bike is back and the panniers have a clean canvas to start over and begin adding new stickers.  My travels will continue after a brief hiatus as we await BMW parts from the Motherland.

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Filoli, Xi, Biden, and Moto Diplomacy

By Joe Berk

You probably know about the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping last week.  What you might not know about is Woodside, California, and the Filoli estate where they met.  As always, we want our ExNotes readers to be knowledgeable and up to date, and that’s the focus of this article.  I’ve actually been to and photographed the Filoli estate and mansion, and I’ve written a bit about Woodside before.

The Filoli mansion was built in 1917 for William Bourn II, who by any measure was a wealthy guy.  He owned one of California’s richest gold mines and was president of the Spring Valley Water Company that served San Francisco and its surrounding areas.  If you are wondering about the name, it’s formed by the first two letters of each word from of Bourn’s motto: Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life.

The Filoli mansion and its gardens occupy 16 acres; the entire estate covers 654 acres and extends to the Crystal Springs Reservoir (which still provides water to San Francisco).  If you drive south on the 280 freeway from San Francisco (it follows the San Cruz Mountain range), you can see the reservoir on the right.

Big mansions are expensive to maintain and hard to keep up.  That’s why a lot of the big ones have been donated by the families that owned them to the state or other organizations and opened to the public for tours.  It’s what the Hearst family did with Hearst Castle further south, and it is what happened to the Filoli mansion.  The Filoli mansion and surrounding grounds are now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  For a modest fee you can visit and walk through the same rooms and gardens as Xi and Biden.  It’s cool.  I did it in 2019 and here are a few Filoli photos from that visit.

A bit more about the town of Woodside:  Woodside is one of the wealthiest places in America.  A partial list of the big names who live or have lived in Woodside include Charles Schwab (yes, that Charles Schwab), Steve Jobs, Michelle Pfeiffer (the classiest actress ever), Joan Baez, Nolan Bushnell (the founder of Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain), Scott Cook (the founder of Intuit), Carl Djerassi (a novelist and the guy who developed the birth control pill), Larry Ellison (the CEO of Oracle Corporation), James Folger (as in need a cup of coffee?), Kazuo Hirai (the CEO of Sony), Mike Markkula (the second Apple CEO), Gordon E. Moore (Intel’s co-founder and originator of Moore’s Law), Prince Vasili Alexandrovich (the nephew of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia), Shirley Temple, John Thompson (Symantec’s CEO), and Nick Woodman (founder and CEO of GoPro).  Woodside is within commuting distance of Silicon Valley, so it’s understandable, I guess, why so many high-rolling Silicon Valley types call it home.

This is an interesting and beautiful area.   The Pacific Ocean is just on the other side of the San Cruz range, and a circumnavigation of these mountains makes for a hell of a motorcycle ride (see our earlier blog and the article I wrote for Motorcycle Classics magazine).

I don’t know if Xi and Biden accomplished much during their meeting.  If I had organized their visit, I would have left all the entourage folks behind and given Uncles Joe and Xi a map and a couple of RX3 motorcycles.  They would have had a better time and probably emerged with a better agreement.  A good motorcycle ride will do that for you.

You know, we don’t do politics on ExNotes, but I have to get in a comment here.  There ought to be a win-win solution to our current disagreements with China.  I think if I could be king of the U.S. for about six months (not President, but King) and good buddy Sergeant Zuo from our ride across China could be King of China for the same time period, we could go for another ride and figure it all out.  I’d bring Gresh along to keep it interesting and I’d get another book out of it, too.  That’s my idea, anyway.

If you’d like to read more about Joe Gresh’s and my ride across China with Sergeant Zuo, you should pick up a copy of Riding China.

And if you’d like to read about Gresh and me riding across America with the Chinese, you need a copy of 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM.

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Season of Change: Part 2

By Mike Huber

I was about to consume ayahuasca for the 11th time in my life.

The twelve of us gathered in the yurt around 19:30. Having previously participated in ten ceremonies, the process felt natural and comfortable. That’s not to say that I wasn’t scared, but I was familiar with this beautiful plant.  Most importantly I trusted the plant and the people overseeing my consumption of it.

In the past, the first night for me was not that painful and was more of a “getting to know you” feeling. Normally it was a very pleasant experience. I would see a lot of colors and just the entire universe would unfold in front of me. The second night is when the effects of this medicine would become serious and step up intensely.

This would not be the case tonight. Within 30 minutes of setting my intentions, consuming the brew, and the singing of beautiful icaros (native Peruvian songs) by the facilitators, I began to feel the effects. About this time is when the hallucinations began along with an uneasiness in my stomach. One of the side effects of drinking this medicine is that purging, or vomiting, is a frequent occurrence.

What I am about to describe is my ayahuasca journey.  Full disclosure: A lot of it won’t make any sense, but it is the outcome that I want to highlight. The hallucinations first came as a beautiful black panther crawling up my mat to sit in front of me. It was so close and real that I could feel the vibrations of it purring as we sat face to face for some time just staring at each other. I thought this was a new form of an introduction. The muscular black panther disappeared after a short time and at the instance of his departure I was instantly thrust into a hellish scene with a red sky and fire everywhere. The only structures visible were totem poles made of fire, and they were screaming at me.  I then began to violently throw up into a bucket (which I had placed exactly where I could find it in the dark). This went on for…well, until I was finished reliving every mistake I had ever made in my life.  Every time I’d been rude to someone.  Every time I had put someone down. Every time I had doubted myself.  Every time.  Once that was over, I felt like one does when awakening from a bad dream, still having that feeling the dream was real.  It was that feeling, but it was multiplied a thousand times.

After the ceremony the host came by and checked in with us all. I was still pretty shaken.  I was putting the evening back together to try to ground myself.

Upon formal closure of the ceremony a group of us went inside the house to have tea and discuss our individual experiences.  I sat quietly in the corner of the room listening to everyone’s stories.  They were all beautiful and gentle. I was still reliving the hell I was shown.  It would be a night of very little sleep for me.

The next day I was DONE. I was ready to leave and not stay for another ceremony. The day began with me crying inside my tent and really not much else. I talked with my friend who ran the retreat sharing my feelings about leaving.  For me, even thinking I would quit is unheard of. I am a paratrooper and we do not quit! But that first night was so painful it was hard to imagine another two evenings like it.  My friend shook it off as part of the growing experience. I knew he wasn’t wrong.

The next night not only did I attend ceremony, but I requested a 20% higher dose. As I drank it I said aloud “Run towards the sounds of guns” and tapped one of the practitioners and said “Hey, please look out for me I may need some help tonight.”  He promptly replied, “I’ve got you!”

I returned to my mat to set my intentions for that evening and waited to see what this next ceremony would bring.

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ExNotes Product Review: Continental Twinduro TKC-80 Motorcycle Tire

By Joe Gresh

I’m probably the worst person to review a motorcycle tire. Round and black are my two major criteria for tire performance. If the tire meets those benchmarks it’s okay by me. I’m not sensitive enough and I don’t ride fast enough to push any tire to its limits and I couldn’t tell you if brand A is better than brand B on the street if my life depended on it. Which is why the Continental TKC-80 is such a revelation on the Husqvarna SMR510.

It’s not easy to find a decent 17-inch front tire for the dirt. The front tires I had been running on the SMR510 were those hokey, 70%-street/30%-dirt or 80%-street/20%-dirt tires that are all really just street tires with a few extra adventure-grooves cut into the tread pattern. The street-based tires worked well on the street (see my criteria above) but were horrible on the dirt. The Husky’s front end would push through corners completely devoid of grip or feedback.  I had to sort of square off turns: enter straight, come to a near stop, change direction and exit under throttle.

I don’t need the Husky for street duty now that the Kawasaki ZRX1100 is running.  Long time ExhaustNotes readers may recall my failed efforts to convert the Husky’s tiny, 17-inch front wheel to a more dirt appropriate 21-inch size. That was a real debacle that cost me hundreds of dollars resulting in the 17-inch wheel going back on the front of the motorcycle.

Having wasted so much blood and treasure on the front wheel conversion and coming up empty I decided to try the tire everyone told me to get in the first place: Continental’s mostly off-road TKC-80. Originally made for giant, 600-pound ADV bikes I figured the TKC-80 should hold up well on the lightweight Husqvarna.

The improvement is so dramatic even I can tell something good happened between the Husqvarna’s handle grips and the ground. The Husky actually steers in the dirt now. It goes in the general direction you point the handlebars. I can take a corner in the dirt leaning the bike over like I’m on pavement and the front end feels planted. It’s like I have a whole ‘nother end of the motorcycle to work where there was nothing but push before. Soft sand is no problem, graded roads with a thin layer of dust and pebbles feel almost grippy. I haven’t been in the mud yet but the 80 has to be better than the slick tires I was running.

Needless to say I’m sold on the TKC-80, so naturally there is some confusion (on my part) about the future availability of the 80 series. Apparently, there was a recall on a bunch of Continental tires including the 80 series due to tread cracking. The best I can sort out from the Internet is that TKC tires built between January 2019 and April 2022 are affected by the recall. I’m not even going to look at the date code on my tire because I’m not taking it off. One of my moto-insider buddies says Continental is discontinuing the TKC-80 series. I haven’t found confirmation on that but as of today you can still buy them. I have noticed that TKC-80s online have gone up quite a bit since I bought mine at $120 a copy.

If you own one of the Super Motard type bikes with 17-inch rims and want to play around in the dirt without having to convert your front wheel to 21-inch, the TKC-80 is your tire. There is no cheaper or easier way to improve the front end of your motorcycle. I can’t speak to the TKC- 80’s longevity as I only have around 500 miles on mine and it shows little wear. If the thing lasts 2000-3000 miles it’s well worth it for the offroad performance. Hopefully I’ll be able to buy another one in the future because it’s about the only option for a 17-inch knobby that will fit the Husky’s wide rims.

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SIG’s M18 versus the S&W Shield

I had a chance to fire the new SIG M18 9mm handgun, which was recently added to the California Department of Justice roster of approved handguns here in the People’s Republik.   I was impressed with the M18’s accuracy, grouping, comfort level, feel, and sights.  I love the desert tan colors.  I was not impressed with the trigger (more on that in a bit).

It was a good day on my local indoor pistol range, and as I was leaving, my good buddy Shannon asked where I’ve been (I hadn’t been there in a few weeks).  “Overseas,” I told her.  She then pointed to the new M18 SIGs they had in the display case and asked if I’d like to try one.  That reminded me of the old joke about the guy with the wooden eye.  I responded with an affirmative and rhetorical, “Would I?”

The venerable 1911. It’s chambered in .45 ACP.  All steel and with a Parkerized finish, as God intended. In my opinion, you can’t improve on perfection, but the Army had other ideas.

A bit of background:  The US Army and I have something in common:  We change handguns on a regular basis.  The Army had been using the venerable .45 ACP 1911 since about, well, 1911.   It served the Army well (and still serves well in certain special ops units), but the Army decided it wanted something better.  That led to adoption of the 9mm Beretta 92 (designated as the M9 for the military) in 1985.  I never cared for the Beretta, so I’ve never owned one and I can’t tell you anything about how it shoots or feels. The M9 had pushed out my beloved 1911, so I didn’t like it.  Period.  No handling or testing required.

The Army wanted a smaller pistol cartridge, and it settled on the Beretta M9. The M9 has an aluminum frame.  Bob likes it.

The Army quickly decided it didn’t much like the Beretta, either.  But the Army is big and it moves slowly when it’s not lobbying for more funding from Congress, and it wasn’t until 2017 that they decided to go with a militarized version of the 9mm SIG P320.  There are two versions of the new military handgun:  The M17, which has a 4.7-inch barrel, and the M18, with a 3.9-inch barrel.  Both are full sized handguns with magazines carrying a gazillion rounds, and until recently, neither was available to lowly and untrustworthy civilians here in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia.  Nah, scratch that.  Lowly or not, trustworthy or not, no California civilians could purchase either of the new SIGS, although weirdly, we could purchase the civilian gun from which it was derived, the SIG P320.  Go figure.

The SIG P320, the gun the M17 and M18 handguns are based on.  All three guns (the P320, the M17, and the M18) have a polymer gripframe.  You can tell they’re swell (I’m not going to explain that comment; you have to be old enough to get it).
The 9mm SIG M17. Note the longer barrel length.
The gun I fired: The SIG M18.

The SIG M18 recently appeared on the California Department of Justice approved handguns roster.   That’s just a bit on the weird side, too, because the M18 is the version with the shorter (i.e., slightly more concealable) barrel.   You’d think in their wholesome attempts to keep us pure our legislators would have approved the longer-barreled M17.  Maybe they will in the future.

The Rock Island Compact 1911. This is a short barreled, shorter grip frame 1911 chambered in .45 ACP.
My Smith and Wesson Shield. It has a very short barrel compared to either the SIG M17 or M18, which makes my shooting with it a bit less accurate.

I had fun on the range.  I shot a box of .45 ammo in my Compact 1911, and then two boxes of ammo in my Smith and Wesson Shield.  I was doing pretty good with both, too.  It’s a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.  As I was leaving the range, Shannon told me about the new M18s they had in stock and offered a trial run, so I put a box of 50 rounds through one of them.

I used a 6:00 hold on the orange bullseye on both targets, and I fired 50 rounds at each. The Shield target is on the left; the SIG target is on the right. Both guns are good enough; the M18 is surprisingly accurate.

As I said above, I didn’t care for the M18 trigger (the M18 is a striker-fired handgun; give me a hammer-fired gun any day).  But the thing was accurate, even with the Joe Biden trigger (it was clumsy and creepy).  I put nearly all 50 rounds through a single jagged hole at my point of aim 10 yards downrange, and then I started hitting low with the last few rounds.   The few that dropped a bit below the orange bullseye were entirely due to me being tired and shaky (it wasn’t the gun; I was coming up on 200 rounds in that range session and I’m an old man).  The bottom line:  I like the new M18.  A lot.  I may buy one somewhere down the road, unless the M17 gets approved in California first.

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The Motorado Vintage Motorcycle Meet, Santa Fe, New Mexico

By Joe Gresh

We were flying low and slow, like vatos do, heading north from Mountainair, New Mexico. The Mud Chuckers, one on a Buell 1000, one on a Kawasaki Vulcan 750 and me on the 1974 Yamaha RD350. It had been a few years since the last Motorado event and we decided to ride up as a group. Covid and inertia combined to equal a 4-year gap since the last Motorado event. Last year in 2022 we held an unofficial Motorado rump-meet at the traditional location. About 15 old bikes showed up and no one drank beer because the pub was closed. There was a swap meet going on and we drew some interested lookie-loos. It was better than nothing for sure and I was prepared to go do it again this year but the real Motorado got on the pipe.

Saturday’s weather was warm and sunny and none of us felt in the mood to go very fast so we burbled along at 50 miles per hour enjoying the beautiful, two-lane New Mexico scenery. Traffic was typically light.  Three cars passed us. At this stately pace the old two-cycle, twin cylinder Yamaha RD350 progressed 58 miles for each gallon of gas. That number would be a lot more impressive except the ancient, 1950’s era Sportster motor powering Mike’s Buell did 68 miles per gallon. Long stoke, four stroke, no poke, no joke.

A Vulcan 750, an RD350, and a Buell.

The unofficial, official motel for Motorado 2023 was the Sunset Motel in Moriarity, New Mexico. The Sunset is laid back and low slung just like us. You don’t get breakfast at the Sunset but you do get a monster homemade muffin, which is almost the same thing. After getting settled in our rooms we rode off to get dinner at Shorty’s BBQ joint.

Shorty’s has the best BBQ brisket in Moriarity but the place is always in kind of an identity crisis. The first time I ate at Shorty’s the walls were covered with Jesus stuff, bible quotes and crosses.  A few years later I stopped by and the entire restaurant was a shrine to Donald Trump. The Mud Chucker’s are about as far from liberal as you can get, but are also not too fond of The Donald so I feared the worse going in, but the décor had changed again. Now the place was Jesus-lite® without a single reference to our 45th President and a marked reduction in Christian symbolism. You get to experience Shorty’s political and spiritual evolution through the walls of his establishment and eat a great brisket sandwich to boot.

Late September in New Mexico is prime motorcycle riding season. The mornings are cool, gradually warming to hot afternoons. Elevation changes and drifting clouds create a seesawing temperature landscape. The Mud Chuckers were moving slowly on Sunday morning and I’m of that certain age where I no longer care whether I arrive anywhere at any particular time, so we managed to pull out of the motel around 11 a.m. From the Sunset, it’s a straightish shot up Highway 41, through Galisteo to Highway 285 and then north a few miles to the Motorado.

There was a good crowd at the 2023 Motorado. It looked to me as though they had not lost any attendance despite the 4-year layoff. All brands of old bikes were represented and several shops had booths selling whatever it is they sold. I hit the Motorado T-shirt booth first but they weren’t set up to take credit cards and I had a limited amount of cash on hand.  Once again it was no T-shirt for me. This whole T-shirt thing is out of control.

One of my dream bikes, a Kawasaki Avenger 350. These disc valve two strokes were pretty fast back then and still fast today.
High pipes on a Norton P-11.  This is pre-isolastic mounting so you get to feel every vibration the parallel twin puts out.
Every Motorado I see a bike I never knew existed. Here’s a Taurus diesel that looks a lot like Royal Enfield running gear strapped to a diesel engine.
This over restored but still beautiful Ariel Square Four was a stunner. I hung around to hear it run but got tired of waiting.
The oldest bike at the event, a 1906 Fairy opposed twin. Not sure of the horsepower but they made 2-1/2 to 8 horsepower models. I bet the 8 was a real screamer.
This bike is the great grand-daddy to the RD350. Two generations behind the RD it’s still a sweet looking bike.

After a few passes we had seen pretty much all the bikes in the show and the swap meet. The Chuckers and I took the long way home on the Turquoise Trail through Madrid, New Mexico and got back to the Sunset motel at Sunset. Moriarity rolls up the sidewalks on Sunday night and all the regular places were closed so we retreated to a 24-7 truck stop that had the worse spaghetti ever made, and then we called it a night. It’s tough eating night-spaghetti.

The morning ride from Moriarity was brisk bordering on cold and our rag-tag group made the 200-mile rode low and at our now standard slowpoke speed. I’m very happy the Motorado is back in business and barring another world-stopping pandemic I hope they stage many more years of vintage shows. As long they hold the meet I’ll be riding an old bike up to Santa Fe to check out the hardware. I’ll see you there next year. Swing by the Sunset Motel and we can ride the last 50 miles together.

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Second Time Around: Cast Bullets in the 7mm Remington Magnum

By Joe Berk

I had a good morning at the West End Gun Club recently.  I shot the 6.5 Creedmoor rifles, a .223 Browning Micro Medallion, and Jim Gardner’s powder-coated cast bullets in a 7mm Remington Magnum Ruger No. 1.  I might get around to writing about the other rifles, but for today, the focus is on the 7mm Magnum No. 1 and powder-coated cast bullets.  I’ve written about shooting 7mm cast bullets in the No. 1 before; those results were mediocre and the barrel leaded enough after five rounds that accuracy went to hell (I had to clean the bore with a bristle brush after ever group).  The powder coating Jim applies makes a difference.  The Gardner powder-coated bullets did not lead the barrel (at all) and the results were good.  I think I’ve finally found a decent cast bullet load for this rifle.

I have had a lot of difficulty making this rifle perform with the powder-coated cast bullets.  It was apparent they weren’t leading like my other cast bullets had, but they weren’t very accurate.  Neck sizing only, which often improves accuracy, compounded the felony.  It didn’t work well at all, mostly because I couldn’t chamber most of the rounds (even though they had been fired in the same 7mm Magnum Ruger No. 1 rifle).  I also tried seating the bullets further out, but one got stuck when I chambered a round and when I removed it, the bullet came out of the case and Trail Boss propellant spilled all over the guts of the rifle.  That led to it not extracting, so I had to disassemble the action and clean everything.  I also tried crimping, but those rounds weren’t any better.

This morning’s batch were full length resized, not trimmed, and not crimped.  I flared the case mouth just a tiny bit to let the Gardner powder -coated bullets enter without shaving any of the powder coating or the lead, and I seated them a little deeper so that they did not contact the rifling.  When I seated the bullets this time, they expanded the case mouth just enough to eliminate the flare.  This batch chambered easily.

I had one round left over from a previous batch, and I fired it first (all shots are and groups discussed here were 50 yards from a rest).  That one round was left over because it wouldn’t chamber the previous time I had the rifle out because the case had deformed slightly when I overcrimped it.  I had to run that round through the full length resizer (bullet and all, with the decapping pin removed) so it would chamber.  It was my first shot of the day and it shot a little to the right (as you can see above).  That first group was the biggest group of the morning.

I then shot four more groups, and all the rest grouped nicely.

At 50 yards, these aren’t what I would call amazing groups, but they are getting better and that one half-inch group shows promise.  I bought a thousand of the Gardner powder coated bullets, so it’s nice to know I can get then to work.  The powder charge was 18 grains of Trail Boss, dispensed (not individually measured).  I may go out to a hundred yards on the next outing to see how they perform.  But where they are, I’d feel comfortable chasing rabbits with them.

The tricks to this load were full length resizing, no crimp, very slight case mouth flare, 18.0 grains of Trail Boss, Winchester large rifle primers, Remington brass, and a cartridge overall length of 3.127 inches.  I’m going to try this load again.  The brass is in the tumbler now.

I’m pleased with the Gardner powder-coated bullets, and if you’re interested in purchasing some, you might take a look at Jim’s website.

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