Author: Joe Gresh

No One Goes Hungry on a Berk Baja Boondoggle

Most of our time riding Royal Enfield motorcycles through Baja is spent eating. We have breakfast then ride a while. Any time between 10am and 2 pm is lunch time followed by a rolling dinner that lasts several hundred miles.

My T-shirts have stopped buckling and my pants no longer fit over my head. It’s a mess. Take today, we had Chorizo with eggs then cheesecake then chips and guacamole then tuna. Wash it all down with a nice, cold Mexican Negra Modelo beer and call it a moveable feast.

We eat so much so often that our awesome bellies have crushed the Royal Enfields down to Well-Respected Enfields. It’s a shame.

Between meals we managed to knock out a few hundred miles. The Bullet is averaging about 1000 calories per mile while the thirstier 650 twin Royal Enfield is showing signs of early onset diabetes. Pass me another Moon Pie will ya?

I spent the entire day riding the Bullet and it is much improved. Not exactly like it should be but running about 75% better than the last time I tried it. Berk will explain all in his blog.

We are slowly eating our way back to California and if our hearts and livers can hold out, should be home tomorrow.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Baja Peninsula

When we started off on this trip I hated the Bullet. It was too old fashioned, too slow and it ran terribly. The Royal Enfield 650 in comparison was flawless. The twin ran smoothly and never stumbled. It was plenty fast and I couldn’t imagine anyone buying the Bullet over the Enfield.

The Bullet has broken down repeatedly on our Baja ride. When I’m aboard the 500cc single I never know if I’m going to make it around the next curve. I never know which thump will be the last thump.

And therein lies the Bullet’s appeal: The Bullet needs me. The Bullet needs an experienced rider with an ability to adapt to ever-changing situations. Anyone can ride the new 650 twin.

As this trip has progressed I’ve become more enamored of the Bullet. The Bullet appreciates my attention. It never got any before. I get the feeling that if I died the Bullet would lay atop my gravesite and mourn, not taking gasoline or succor from any others. The bike would lay there and waste away, broken-hearted. Much like how we found it when we rescued the old motorcycle from the dealership that had it chained to a post outside.

We’ve bonded; me and the Bullet are a team. Sure, the Bullet is the weakest member of the team but that just makes me feel like a star player.

And that’s another Bullet attraction: The motorcycle is never better than you are. You don’t feel outclassed or suspect you are leaving untapped performance on the table. What you see is what you get with the Bullet and the more time we spend struggling across the Mexican desert the more I like what I see.

Whales: They’re Not Just a Hole in The Ground You Draw Water From

Did I ever tell you I’ve been on two boats that sunk? No? Ah well, It’s a story for another blog another day. Bounding out into Guerrero Negro’s bay our low-gunneled pongas were kicking up rainbow waves and a light, salty mist settled over the occupants.

Sensing my worry, Berk assured me that this whale watching tourist business was settled science and I had nothing to worry about. “They must know what they’re doing” he told me.

At first the whales were far in the distance. I was so excited I zoomed my camera way out and started reeling off hundreds of shots. It went that way for a few hours but slowly the whales started to get closer to our boat. Somewhat cautious, then bolder, they came in closer. My zoom lens slowly retracted into its housing.

Still they approached, checking us out like like census workers. I no longer bothered with distant whales as we had plenty within 100 yards of the boat.

Late in the day the whales began to swim under the boat and kept getting bolder until they popped their heads up next to the low gunnel and spouted a fine mist all over the passengers. This we enjoyed way more than you’d think people that had just been sneezed on should enjoy.

The whales started rolling next to the boat, showing a fin here or a tail there. They pushed each other aside trying to receive lovey-dovey petting from passengers. Yes, we petted the whales like they were puppies.

Jaded by so many fantastic photo ops, I wouldn’t bother to lift the camera unless a whale specifically asked for a selfie with me. By name. They were crazy friendly, getting their noses (or where a nose should be) scratched and blowing salt water onto my camera and then feigning surprise, as if it was all a simple mistake.

It was an amazing time to be a whale as they don’t often get to meet two Royal Enfield riders in the same boat. Finally we ceded our private pod to another, less fortunate group of tourists.

The Bullet made it through the day without problems and now that it seems to be fixed Berk and I will swap bikes for the return ride. Wish me luck!

The Plucky Bullet

Berk was feeling pretty frisky about the Bullet. We had cleaned up a corroded spark plug cap and the big 500cc single was running well.

“You stay on the 650, I like this Bullet and want to try it now that it’s running right.” It took no arm twisting to get me back in the Royal Enfield 650 twin’s seat. I feel supremely comfortable on that bike and you will too if your spine has also recently collapsed from lifting 36,000 pounds of concrete last month. The thing suits my wee, 5-foot 6-inch frame perfectly. Bigger guys may fit the 650 also but I have no way of knowing that sort of shin surgery.

Meanwhile, Berk was was like Lawrence of Suburbia burbling along Baja’s Highway 1 with his Eton tie fluttering in the Bullet’s considerable draft. The guy was having way too much fun racing rag-winged biplanes and organizing Gurkhas. The big 500 single was in top form, pulling steadily and hitting every beat right on time. It got to the point that I thought I was missing out on something good. Like Tom Sawyer painting that picket fence.

And then the battery died. Flat dead, like nowheresville, man.

I recently bought a bunch of those lithium engine starter batteries, the ones about the size of a pack of cigarettes that will jump start an aircraft carrier. I whipped the thing out and Berk was impressed at how the Bullet jumped. Wait…that doesn’t sound right…

Anyway, once running the Bullet stayed running and we made it to Guerrero Negro where we located a slightly-used-but-still-holding-a-charge battery. The poles on the used battery were reversed and the case was a little bigger than the stock battery so we had to do a bit of ham-fisted metal rearranging to get the battery to fit inside the Bullet’s box. It’s not pretty but the bike starts fine now. The stock battery side cover won’t fit over the larger battery and we debated tossing it into the weeds but decided Royal Enfield wouldn’t find it so funny. We buried that part in our luggage.

With wires dangling and the larger battery hanging out the left side of the frame our Bullet is looking more like a BMW adventure bike everyday. If we wrapped 75 feet of 3/4 inch electrical conduit around the Bullet you’d swear it was a GS1200. Despite the troubles the thing is growing on us. Really, none of the faults are due to Royal Enfield assemblies.

In fact, each time we get the Bullet back on the road I like the thing better. It’s plucky, it’s a never-say-die-motorcycle in a British stiff upper lip, we keep our side of Gibraltar’s door knob polished, way. You know what I mean?

That’s it for now. Tomorrow we are going to see the whales, which in Spanish translates to “I’m going to ruin another expensive camera on a rickety boat out in the ocean.”

Royal Enfield 650cc Twin: First Real Ride

I finally spent some quality time on the Royal Enfield 650 today. We rode from Tecate to San Quintin, Mexico through the Ruta del Vin0 and Ensenada. My initial impressions have been reinforced. Royal Enfield nailed it with the 650 twin.

The bike scoots along feeling fresh and light all day. In top gear 4000-ish RPM moved the bike along at 60 miles per hour, 4600-ish was 70 miles per hour and 80 miles per hour saw the steady tach needle planted at 5000 RPM give or take a few.

I don’t know what RE claims for horse power but sitting bolt upright and letting the thing rip led to a 7500 rev-limited RPM @ 115 miles per hour (indicated) in 5th gear while 6th gear topped out around 110 MPH at lower revs (7000? I was too busy to get the exact number).

Unlike an old, torsion-bar Honda 450 twin that would rev high but never seemed to enjoy it, the Royal Enfield 650 twin loves to rev and it feels like the 7500 RPM rev limit could easily be exceeded by another 1500-2000 rpm before any self induced porting restrictions came into play. There must be a wire that needs cutting somewhere.

All in, this bike is plenty fast for me as I don’t plan to do street racing anymore. I’m too mature for that crap.

The Meteor (I’m trying to get RE to rename the bike) ) 650’s transmission shifted crisply all day long and in heavy stop and go traffic it didn’t get crotchety. 5th and 6th gear are close enough that I found myself sometimes running a gear down at cruising speed. The engine is so smooth and quiet it’s best to give the lever an additional tug, you may have another gear to go.

Pulling in the clutch started to feel a little sticky, kind of segmented, so I gave the pivot to cable connection a squirt of lube and the lever was smooth again.

The bike has ABS brakes and the front lever needs a strong pull to get maximum stoppage. There’s only one disc but for me it stopped well enough. If you’re the kind of rider that enjoys standing a bike in its nose you may want a bit more front brake. The rear brake must be ok because I never noticed it.

After a full day of riding the Royal Enfield 650 twin has done nothing to diminish my initial enthusiasm. It looks so good and really runs great. It’s shocking that the same company that builds the retro Bullet made such a sweet machine. This is a cool bike, make no mistake.

Snapshot!

So far I’m not meshing well with the 500cc Royal Enfield Bullet. I keep stalling the thing at stops and unless its pulling under load it hits and misses like a two stroke. Other times it runs flawlessly. Berk has ridden the thing and says it’s fine and that I don’t know how to ride a heavy flywheel, old fashioned motorcycle. Being the senior member of the Royal Enfield tour team he should know. Although, in my defense he stalled it twice. Berk is going to ride the 500cc single all day tomorrow and we will see if it’s me or the motorcycle.

The Bullet runs great on the highway, though, loping along at an easy 70 miles per hour. There is a bit of vibration but it seems like the faster you go the smoother it gets. I wound it up to 80-85 and it was remarkably smooth for an engine designed back when fuel was sold in one gallon tin cans at hardware stores.

Actually, that’s not true. This 500cc single is quite a bit different from the old 1950s Enfields. It’s unit construction for one. (Transmission and engine all in one case.)  It’s fuel injected and starts at the push of a button. Still, the Bullet wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if it was sent back in time to the Eisenhower era.

The Bullet gets astronomical gas mileage. Our freeway run from Los Angeles to San Diego netted 75 miles per gallon and I wasn’t sparing the throttle. On long uphill grades I’d whack her open in 5th gear and the Bullet would slowly gain speed, passing semi trucks like they were semi trucks.

I’ve only ridden the new 650cc twin around Tecate but what a sweet machine. It revs in a peppy, mouth-full-of-pop-rocks sort of way, the transmission is slick as a Yamaha’s and the steering is light. It lifts off the side stand easily and comes with a center stand. Mechanically, this motorcycle works.

I love the thing. I haven’t stared at it too long but I don’t see any glaring faults in the fit or finish. It fires up so fast and runs so smooth. The seat is long and seems comfortable, it’s almost like a Brat Bike seat except good-looking. The cropped front and rear fenders are adorable yet tough. How is that possible? Clutch pull is light and the action is perfect. Foot pegs are slightly back, the bars place you in a slight forward lean. The Royal Enfield 650 is a shiny orange piece of Moto-confection. If I wasn’t such a cheapskate I’d run out and buy one of the things.

Whoa…what am I saying? Buy a new motorcycle? I’m getting way over my head with this 650, let’s burn a few thousand miles into the odometer and see if I’m still madly in love with the Royal Enfield twin.

We’re off 2

We’re about to head off to Baja and if you would have asked me what new motorcycle I’d most like to ride I’da told you the new Royal Enfield 650cc twin.

A 650 twin is the perfect size motorcycle for any type riding you care to do. You can tour, scramble or bop around town like you own the joint.

Royal Enfield has nailed the styling on their (Interceptor?) and styling is 90% of a motor cycle for me. The other 52% is performance and we will see about that.

Berk has pulled rank and gets the first stint in the 650 relegating me to the 500cc Bullet single. Hey, that’s not a problem since I like singles more than twins.

Now, where can I strap that extra gas can in the Bullet?

Daytona’s Flat Track Gets Stranger

The Bike Week flat track has another, even stranger configuration this year. Before I get onto that a brief history is in order. The Bike Week AMA points-paying races were held at Memorial Stadium on 11th Street for many, many years. It’s a good venue with lots of seating, parking and being a real stadium it’s perfect for flat track.

About 7 years ago (I’m too lazy to Google it) the races were moved behind Home Depot at the west end of the Daytona Speedway parking lot. It was a small track with funky stands and the first year was very slippery. Over the next few years the surface improved until it was an ok place to hold a race but the big V-twin bikes were useless on the tiny circuit.

Recently, the races have been held on a TT track that is located directly under the Supercross track on the front straight of the Speedway infield. The Super cross jumps are removed and an odd, tight cornered TT course emerges a day or two later. This track proved too point and shoot so the turns were widened a bit last year but it was still not flat track as we know it.

This year the track has been reconfigured yet again into a Superbikers type course using the paved section near the start-finish line combined with a dirt section. It goes like this: The start is on dirt and turn one is dirt, mid corner it transitions to pavement and the back stretch is paved, turn three transitions from pavement back to dirt.

It should make for some dramatic grip changes as turn two dirt spills out onto the paved section. Look for a few highsides as the rear tire hooks up onto the grippy pavement. Also chattering may be a problem as the riders dive into turn three. The track at Daytona has been an odd duck for a while now so I guess we should be used to it. The place is so strange results here will have little bearing on the rest of the season’s races held on real flat tracks.

All this weirdness may change if the promoters decide to slather some dirt on the back straight so we will have to wait and see.

Tractor Supply

It seems like I’m always working a pick and a shovel at Tinfiny Ranch. Situated at 6000 feet in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains the place is steep with many elevation changes. An arroyo runs past the house so that when it rains (and it rains a lot in New Mexico) my driveway becomes a short-lived trout stream.

Water, being the universal solvent, plays havoc with Tinfiny Ranch and most of my time is spent trying to bend it to my will. Armed with hand tools and 50-pound bags of concrete I’ve managed to carve out a dry spot to sleep. The landforms here are fleeting, changing and slowly make their way 1500 feet down to the Tularosa Valley where huge dust storms blow the accumulated material back up onto the mountain sides. You don’t own real estate here: you trap it.

When Hunter called me to tell me he had found a Kubota tractor for me my first thoughts were about water. Like a slightly soft football a front loader tractor would give me a leg up on erosion. I was on my way to Stillwater a few days later.

Hunter is my riding buddy. We both like crappy old two-strokes and we’ve run them clear across country following the Trans-America Trail. We’ve passed some impassable routes and had bikes lay down on us in the middle of the desert. I know him as Vinnie The Snake from the dirt and only the dirt but it turns out there’s more to Hunter than a beat up old DT400 Yamaha.

We had a day to kill before I picked up the tractor so we went to Hunter’s Skybox at OSU and watched the OSU women’s basketball team dismantle a team from Kansas. The governor of Oklahoma has a suite two doors down and there was unlimited free food along with all the ice cream you could eat. The suite had a commanding view of both the football field and the indoor arena.

When we walked in the coach shook Hunter’s hand and then he shook my hand like I might also be somebody important. Then the TV and radio guys chatted up Hunter including me in the conversation. It was weird: nobody ever cares about what I have to say but my proximity to Hunter earned a listen. Everyone knew and loved Hunter and they loved me too. Nobody called him The Snake. It’s like there are two Hunters, one that lives in a world unlike any I’ve seen. I’ll remember that other, respectable Hunter when he’s tipped over in a mud hole cussing his two stroke.

The Tractor was a beauty with tires so new they still had rubber bar codes visible. Kubota’s have earned a good name in the heavy equipment arena and this L2850 sported a diesel engine that fired right up.

Underneath the driven front end you’ll find a portal-type axle to give the tractor plenty of ground clearance. Everything is leaking a bit but oil is cheap and Tinfiny can use a little dust control. The steering felt tight and Woody, the guy I bought the tractor from takes good care of his stuff.

When I worked construction in Miami it was rare to see a dashboard unbroken. Vandalism was a constant problem. Lights, tires and hoses were routinely damaged by bored kids. The L580 dash was clean and everything works except the tach needle fell off.

At the rear of the Kubota has a two-speed PTO drive that I will be using as soon as CT buys me a backhoe attachment. Amazon has some cool 3-point hoes costing around $3600. You don’t want to do a lot of side digging with a 3-point hoe because the hitch wasn’t meant for big side loads but as long as you are crabbing in a straight line they will work well.

The transmission has high and low range with low range, first gear being super slow. Top end of the tractor in high range-high gear is around 12 miles per hour. With zero suspension 12 MPH is plenty over Tinfiny’s rough grounds.

This lever engages the front wheels. This is pretty important because the front end loader combined with nothing attached to the hitch means the big rear wheels have little traction.

The Kubota’s grille was bent a bit but Woody had a new grille that he hadn’t gotten around to installing. The rest of the tractor is pretty straight. The side lights need new lenses and the back lights could use some love but all in all I’m thrilled with the tractor. How could I not be? Every boy loves a tractor.

Swag

I didn’t start out in the typing business looking for swag. I was more interested in seeing my byline on a real, printed object. Being published meant at least one person in the world thought my stuff wasn’t terrible. No, it was like more swag found me. Slowly at first, then faster as the typing game became less and less lucrative, swag has grown ever larger in importance.

Today all I write for is swag. I pay the electric company with logoed T-shirts and swap brake manufacturer stickers for groceries. Swag has completely replaced the United States Dollar in my financial transactions. My wallet looks like an overstuffed armoire and I fill those Leave-a-Penny convenience store change holders with plumbing company plastic key fobs.

More than money, swag fills the void: I insulate walls with swag and burn it to make a fine garden fertilizer. When cooking, I substitute swag in all recipes that call for newt. I mark time by measuring the half-life of a rubber USB drive shaped like a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I have over 1000 tiny jars of lemon sage Best Western hair conditioner that I plan on converting into diesel fuel someday.

CSC sent me a flat-brimmed swag cap. They didn’t need to: I love those guys and how their business plan is a fantastic experiment in mail order motorcycling. I like that the customer needs to be a bit more self sufficient to operate their motorcycles. And I like the hat. With most products becoming sealed off to us regulars, CSC bikes actually require you to dig in. Since I own mostly weird motorcycles that have no dealer support I relate to the pride a CSC owner feels when he sets his own valves or replaces the chain and sprockets on his motorcycle.

Swag works. The preceding paragraph should be all the proof you need. Swag turns customers into advocates and a scuba suit beer cooler celebrating Pandya’s 50th birthday will always come in handy. Come to think of it, Exhaustnotes.us has no swag that I’m aware of. I’ll have to get to work on that.