Good buddy Paul recently told me about a custom crafted flintlock rifle he bought from rifle maker Tom Caster at a steep discount because the stock had been broken. A stock break sounds like a major defect, but actually it is not that uncommon and repairing the broken stock, if done correctly, makes the stock stronger than new. Paul is a serious black powder shooter and he builds custom rifles, so he knows what he is doing here. Both Paul and Tom gave me permission to share this story.
Here’s what Paul wrote to me about this rifle:
When I first saw it I had the same reaction as you. It ticked off all my boxes for a rifle of this style and caliber as I did not have a .40 caliber muzzle loading rifle. They are supposedly an accurate target rifle. He sent me a target that he shot at 25 yards and seven of the ten shots were around a 2-1/2″ cluster which is not bad for the first time the rifle was shot.
I asked Paul about the accuracy. Here’s what he said:
That flintlock target is good for the first outing of the rifle. From there you will test out different powder amounts, different patch thickness and ball diameters if you want better groupings. The .40 caliber is mostly a 50-to-75-yard gun so you would be hunting squirrels or small game up to small deer. A lot of states only allow .45 caliber and bigger for deer hunting, so the .40 caliber is used for varmints and target work.
Here’s the story on this rifle from Tom Caster:
I finished up this pretty little .40 cal Armstrong rifle last week and was putting a coat of wax on the stock when it slipped off my table and broke in two at the wrist!
Scrapping was never really considered (too much work into it) because I have always been about fixing things that happen on the job or in the shop. It was a pretty clean break, so I set it up in my two vices and glued it back together with Tite-Bond II. After that set up, I drilled a 3/8″ hole from the breech down thru the wrist 8″ deep and glued in a 3/8″ hickory RR in place. After drilling out the holes in the rod for lock screws and the sear area, I sealed the inside up with epoxy.
The crack barely shows now but it is there when you look close. The stock should be fine to use now.
Some guys would use a steel threaded rod instead of wood dowel, but I didn’t want to add any more weight to a 7.6 lb. rifle.
I plan to sell it after the first of the year at a discounted price if anyone is interested.
After another inquiry about the rifle, Tom added the following:
As far as the wood choice goes, I purchased this “in the white” from the estate of my old friend Fred Schelter. He purchased the Getz barrel and had Fred Miller (I believe) inlet it and pre-shape the stock in 2000-2001. Whether it was his wood or Miller’s, I don’t know. He had two Armstrong stocks done this way at the same time, one was a .50 cal (sold) and this .40 cal, rifle. Fred S. did the carving and inlay of the patchbox, butt, toe plate, nose cap, and trigger and guard. He had made the forend escutcheons for the barrel keys but didn’t inlay them.
Both stocks were inletted and drilled for a large Dlx. Siler Flintlock, but only one lock existed and it was curiously interchangeable. So I had to buy a second lock to complete this one. I fashioned a new trigger for a lighter pull and made a patchbox release, side plate and sights. Then I did the engraving and finish work.
…so, now you know…the rest of the story!
Tom Caster
In his email to me, Paul included several photos from Tom. As the photos show, the detail and workmanship on this rifle are stunning. Take a look:
It will be interesting to see if Paul shoots this one. I’m going to visit with him again (hopefully in the not too distant future) for a trip to the range. I’ve never fired my Colt Walker (it is a black powder revolver) and I know very little about shooting these weapons. Paul knows a lot, and I hope to get educated.
As I mentioned at the start of this blog, repaired stocks are not that big a deal. I had an experience where a seller did a poor job packaging a Ruger No. 3 he sent to me. I had the repair accomplished and the stock refinished by a competent shop, the rifle looks better than new, and it is now one of my favorites. It is exceptionally accurate, too. You can read that story here.
This is a follow up to the recent post on my recently reacquired Nikon N70 film camera.
In the prior blog, I mentioned the N70’s rear door gooification issue and that I had read on an Internet forum it was a common issue. My camera’s rear door was like fly paper, with all kinds of debris stuck to it. I used the approach the forum commenter mentioned: A shop rag and alcohol, a little elbow grease, and the goo came off. The plastic underneath has a nice glossy black finish that matches the camera’s other exterior surfaces. It looks good. Here’s a pair of before and after photos:
Good buddy Greg spotted me three rolls of ISO 400 35mm film. He told me the film was 6 or 8 years old, but he thought it still might be good. I loaded a roll in the N70.
I don’t like UV filters and that’s what the Tamron 28-105 lens had on it when I took it home from New Jersey. I prefer a polarizer unless I’m shooting at night or using the flash. At one point I probably had a 62mm polarizer, but I tossed a bunch of camera debris and detritus a few months ago and if I ever had a 62mm polarizer (which is what the Tamron takes), it went out with that batch. No problem; I found a 62mm polarizer and a 62mm lens cap on Amazon. I ordered both, along with three rolls of ISO 200 35mm film. I figured if the film Greg gave didn’t work out, this film would because it was brand new. Even if Greg’s film was good, I’d need more eventually.
You know, it’s not easy to find 35mm film in stores like it used to be. Costco used to have a big area stocked with all kinds of 35mm from Fuji and Kodak, ranging from ISO 100 to ISO 1600 (with everything in between). They also had a huge section for processing film and making enlargements. The Costco film developing and printing services were inexpensive, they did a great job, and they turned it around in under an hour. It’s all gone now. Wiped clean from the face of the earth, as they say. Sometimes I feel like turning around, walking out, and shouting at the clouds. I’m an old man, so I can do it. But I don’t.
Anyway, to get back to the Nikon story, I shot up that first roll of expired ISO 400 film. Just silly stuff…pictures of the house (which immediately caused my neighbor to come over and ask if we were listing the house), my office area, and a couple of motorcycles. The roll of film provided just 24 exposures and it went quickly. When I shoot digital, I might take a hundred shots in a single stop. Shooting film, though, is like shooting a single-shot rifle. You think more. You have to make each shot count.
A quick Google search on film developers near me showed that there weren’t too many, but there was a guy across the street from Costco. I had used him once before to get some older negatives scanned for a magazine article, so I knew he was good. I rolled over there and to my surprise, I had to stand in line. What do you know? There are other people who still shoot film. As I patiently waited my turn, I thought that this guy probably doesn’t mind Costco exiting the film business.
When I was my turn, David (the guy behind the counter) remembered me. He asked if I wanted the negatives and the prints. At first I said yes, but then I remembered I have gobs of old prints and negatives stuffed away all over the house. So I said no, I just want the scanned images. David’s shop scans in either of two resolutions (medium or high); he didn’t know what the DPI (dots per inch) for either. My digital Nikon shoots at 300 DPI, but I have to knock the images down to 72 DPI in PhotoShop for the ExNotes blog (everything you’ve ever seen on the blog is 72 DPI). David told me the digital images (scanned from my negatives) would be in my Dropbox account the next day (he actually delivered them that same night). The medium resolution images were at 256 DPI.
When I opened the scanned images, at first I thought that the expired film may have, in fact, expired. The images were faded, and because I was shooting ISO 400 film, they were also somewhat grainy. Okay, so the film guys were serious about that use by date. I played with one, though, to see if I could bring it to life. Here’s what it looked like initially:
Here’s what it looked like after I worked on it a bit in PhotoShop:
The next step was to try the new ISO 200 film. Sue and I spent a couple of days in Death Valley, and I tossed the N70 into my overnight bag for that trip.
I don’t think it’s possible to have a bad stay in Death Valley, although I understand that the folks who named the place might have thought otherwise. I love it there. This time, we explored the surrounding areas, including Tecopa Springs a few miles away. Tecopa Springs sounds a lot more exotic than it really is. There’s a bar and pizza place so I ordered one of their craft beers and a pizza. I took a photo of it before we dug in and when I received the scan after I returned home, it was depressingly bland. Here’s what it looked like:
The scan with this roll of new 35mm ISO 200 Fuji film, as delivered, looked about the same as the stuff I had shot with the expired film. Maybe the developer didn’t automatically tweak it to highlight the colors. I opened the scan in PhotoShop, cropped it, adjusted the levels and curves, cranked in a little vibrance, deleted the distractions in the upper left corner, and hit it with the shadows feature to brighten the image’s upper half. That brought it to life a little better.
Here’s another set of before and after images in Death Valley’s Artist’s Palette area. This is the photo on the road heading there before any PhotoShop trickery:
Here’s that image with its levels and curves adjusted:
In the photo above, the mountains and the road look exactly as I remember them. The sky is a bit too vibrant, but that’s the polarizer earning its keep.
This is another pair of images at Artist’s Palette. The first is the scan as I received it from the developer:
This is the image above with its curves and levels adjusted:
Again, the sky is too deep, but the rest of the image is true to how I remember it. The guy in the image is using his iPhone, which probably returned the bright colors you see in the PhotoShop-tweaked photos without him doing anything. That’s because the iPhone does all the mods automatically.
So what’s the bottom line? Digital, my brothers. Film photography is fun, but for me it’s a huge step back. I’ll take my Nikon D3300 or D810 over film any time I’m out. The N70 is interesting, but it’s digital all the way for me. With two or three exceptions, and those are the other film cameras I brought back from New Jersey, including a very nice Honeywell Pentax ES (if I can find the right size battery for it). Stay tuned.
From time to time, Gresh and I have posted movie reviews here on ExNotes. Working from an admittedly flaky memory, I think all our reviews have generally been positive. I remember the review on Operation Mincemeat, for example. That movie was one of the best I’ve ever seen (I liked it so much I watched it a third time this weekend). But not everything is golden. Susie and I watched two movies on MAX (one of our subscription services) this weekend and they were two of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I thought maybe it was a guy thing, but Sue had the same opinion. The miscreant motion pictures are The Zone of Interest and The Assistant.
Both The Assistant and The Zone of Interest were terrible for the same reasons: They had no plot, no beginning, and no ending. Did you ever start to watch a movie and switch it off because nothing was happening in the first 15 minutes or so? In these movies, that continued for the duration of the entire show. Both were train wrecks, not in the sense that they had lots of action, but because we didn’t stop looking at them. We could have, but we hung in there waiting to see if anything would happen. There was this feeling that something has to happen soon, but it never did in either movie.
The Zone of Interest is a story about a Nazi concentration camp commandant and his family living the good life in a nice home just outside the camp walls. I suppose the contrast between how well they lived and what was going on inside the camp was supposed to heighten the dramatic effect, but you never saw what was happening on the other side. The cinematography (if that’s the right word) was off, too. The imagery mostly looked overexposed, and in a few instances, the film makers switch to images of people being portrayed as white empty spaces, almost as if they had just discovered the select-and-delete feature in their video editing software. It didn’t work for either Sue or me. The critics loved this movie (if you believe the advertisements), but take it from me, they’re lying. When the credits flashed on the screen at the end, we were both surprised. “That’s it?” Sue asked. Yep. There was no ending. It just stopped and the credits popped up. This porker of a motion picture would put the Hoover vacuum cleaner company to shame: It sucked big time.
The Assistant suffered from the same ills: No plot, no action, no ending, and bad exposure control. I think it was a cheap and hurried effort to cash in on the #Me, too movement, sort of depicting a young female assistant (played by Julia Garner) being humiliatingly treated by a Harvey Weinstein-like boss (who you never saw in the movie). It’s a pity, really. I wanted to like this movie when I saw that Julia Garner was in it. She was brilliant in Ozark and the Inventing Anna series. Garner’s acting was good in this one, too, but the lack of a beginning, an end, and any semblance of a plot were deficiencies even her considerable acting skills couldn’t overcome.
Unlike the exposure control failures in Zone of Interest, The Assistant erred in the other direction: Everything was underexposed. I’m guessing that was to emphasize the dark nature of the movie, but it didn’t work for me. Give us a good story line, a plot, and proper exposure. We’ll figure it out. I knew you people in movieland can afford a lightmeter or two.
There was one good scene in The Assistant. Matthew Macfadyen, who also starred in Operation Mincemeat and the Succession series, played a human resources executive. In this scene, Julia Garner attempted to complain about her invisible man boss (invisible at least to us viewers) and Macfadyen played a two-faced, deceptive HR executive perfectly. I thought his portrayal was brilliant. In more than 40 years of working in industry, I found all human resources executives to be two faced and deceptive (with one notable exception at Sargent-Fletcher Company). Macfadyen nailed it, but that one scene does not justify the time I wasted watching this dog of a movie.
We realized The Assistant had ended when the credits popped up. There was no other indication in the way the plot had been progressing, and that’s because there was no plot (as had been the case with The Zone of Interest). I give both movies two thumbs down, and that’s only because I only have two thumbs.
When most folks think of the .45 ACP cartridge, they think of the 1911 and other semi-auto handguns. The big .45 also makes an ideal wheelgun cartridge, especially in N-frame Smith and Wessons. I own four (the ones you see above) and I shoot them all.
The .45 ACP Revolver Story
Smith and Wesson forayed into the .45 ACP revolver business when Colt couldn’t keep up with the demand for its 1911 semi-auto in World War I. The Army asked both Smith and Colt to make .45 ACP versions of their large-frame double action handguns, both manufacturers did, and the Army designated both revolvers as the Model 1917.
After the World War I, the 1917 revolvers became available to civilians. Colt left the .45 ACP revolver business, but Smith and Wesson soldiered on, and to this day Smith still offers several different models.
Shooting .45 ACP ammo in a revolver requires a clip. You have to snap the rounds into the clip so they will fire and extract in a revolver. At one point, the 1917 revolvers were popular enough that Remington introduced the .45 AutoRim cartridge, which is a rimmed version of the .45 ACP that allows use of the cartridge in a revolver without the clip.
.45 ACP rounds in a star clip. I have a tool that makes it easy to insert cartridges in the clips and remove the empty cases after shooting. In World War I, clips held only three rounds (you needed two to load six rounds in a 1917 revolver).A .45 ACP round (left) and a .45 AutoRim cartridge (right). Note the difference in rim configuration at the base of each cartridge. I’ve experimented with both ACP and AutoRim brass in my .45 ACP revolvers; both deliver comparable accuracy.
Over the years Smith and Wesson has manufactured several .45 ACP revolver models. I’d like to own them all, but there’s only so much room in the safe and Susie’s willingness to indulge my gun collecting. The four this blog addresses are:
The Model of 1955
A Jovino snubnose
Smith’s reincarnated and Turnbull-finished Model 1917
The Performance Center Model 625.
Info on each follows.
The Model of 1955
Smith introduced the Model of 1955 as an alternative to the 1911 semi-auto for bullseye target competition. Mine was made in the 1970s. I bought it from Rutgers Guns in Highland Park, New Jersey shortly after I left the Army (Rutgers Guns had no connection to Rutgers University other than geography). I paid around $200 for it new.
A typical Model of 1955 three-shot 50-foot group. This gun shoots everything well.
The Model of 1955 has Smith and Wesson’s target trigger and target hammer, and it has target sights (with a Patridge style sight in front). It originally had checkered grips, but shortly after I bought it I put a set of smooth grips on it. I think the smooth grips both look and feel better. Back in the day, you could purchase those grips new for around $25. Today, a set from that era (like the ones you see above) would fetch $300 to $400. The Model of 1955 has the highly polished and deep blue finish that is the hallmark of earlier Smith and Wesson revolvers. It is a beautiful handgun.
I never tried a load in the Model of 1955 that didn’t do well; every powder and every bullet combination I loaded grouped well. In the nearly 50-years that I’ve owned this revolver, I’ve only seen one other guy on the range with the same gun. I asked him what load he used and he told me the gun likes everything; every load he ever tried shot well, too. That said, the load I use is typically 4.2 grains of Bullseye and a 200-grain semi-wadcutter bullet. I use Lee’s Deluxe 4-die set and I crimp the bullets with their factory taper crimp die to assure easy chambering and to prevent bullet pull under recoil (although recoil with this load is light).
The Jovino Snubbie
The Jovino snubnose revolver is a rare animal, one of 650 customized by New York City’s John Jovino Gun Shop (which no longer exists; when it closed, Jovino was the oldest gun shop in the country).
The Jovino snubnose .45 ACP revolver. It’s a real rarity.
Back in the 1980s, Jovino’s built custom guns. Their main clients were the NYPD and other police departments, so many of the Jovino customs tended to be duty-oriented carry weapons. Jovino bought 6 1/2-inch barreled Smiths like the one you see above and turned them into 2 1/2-inch snubnose revolvers. The conversion was not just a simple chop job, though. Here’s what Jovino did to these guns:
Shortened the factory barrel to 2 1/2 inches.
Installed a crane lock to replace the ejector rod lock.
Relocated the red ramp front sight.
Rounded the butt to the S&W K frame round butt configuration.
Tuned the double and single action trigger.
Radiused the hammer spur.
Polished the trigger face.
Fitted Pachmayr rubber grips.
Reblued the cut barrel (the new bluing is actually a bit darker and more polished than the stock bluing).
The original grips that came with the Jovino snubbie were rubber Pachmayrs, but I wanted the look of ivory grips. That’s when I found out that the Jovino guns did not have a standard N-frame rounded grip profile. It took a lot of patient sanding and polishing to get the fake ivory grips to fit. I like the look.
The grips look good. So does the revolver. One of the Jovino custom touches was to round the hammer spur profile. I like what they did.
The double action trigger on the Jovino is incredibly smooth. The slick trigger and the red ramp and white outline sights work together well, and the gun is very accurate. I’ve never seen another one of these guns on the range, so the exclusivity factor is there, too.
Smith and Wesson’s Reincarnated 1917
Smith’s resurrected Model 1917 .45 ACP revolver, shown here with AutoRim ammo.
About 20 years ago Smith and Wesson introduced a reissue of its World War I Model 1917 for a very short time, and as part of that deal, the new Smith included Turnbull color case hardening. I saw one of the Turnbull 1917 revolvers at a local Bass Pro and it sat in the display case for months. Bass Pro had it marked down to $695 and it still hadn’t moved. I asked the kid behind the counter what they would take for it; he read the price tag and told me $695. Would you consider less, I asked. I’d have to ask the manager, he said, looking at me and not moving. Why don’t you do that, I answered. He finally realized his job was to sell stuff and I was a real live customer, so he took off in search of the boss.
“We’ll take 30 off,” Junior said when he returned.
“Is that percent, or dollars?” I asked.
He smiled. “Dollars.” It was still a hell of a deal, so I pulled the trigger. Today if I wanted to sell this gun I could probably get $1500 for it. But I don’t want to sell it, and I never will.
Another view of the 1917, its glorious Turnbull color case hardening, and .45 ACP ammo loaded in clips.
I don’t shoot my Turnbull 1917 all that often; my preference is the Model 625 described below. The 1917 groups well, but its small checkered grips are punishing. This is another cool gun. I’ve never seen another one on the range.
Smith’s Performance Center Model 625
The Performance Center is Smith’s marketing shtick for guns that have been slicked up a bit, which is Smith and Wesson’s way of saying they build Performance Center guns with the attention to detail that used to be standard on all Smith and Wessons. This one has a good trigger, a different barrel contour, blended edges on the front of the cylinder, and probably a few other niceties I can’t remember right now.
This revolver originally had clown-like, awkward, red-white-and-blue grips. I quickly swapped the goofy factory grips for what were advertised as rosewood grips from a third-party vendor (they weren’t rosewood at all; they were instead fabricated of cheap laminated and dyed wood, as I found out when I refinished them). But my custom grips fit my hands much better, and this is an extremely accurate revolver. I also installed a red ramp front sight and a white outline rear site. The white outline rear sight Smith sells today has barely-visible gray lines and the red is not as bright as it used to be, but they are better than the gold dot front sight and plain black rear sight that came on the gun (I don’t like gold dot front sights).
Six rounds at 50 feet, standing, from the Performance Center .45 ACP Model 625. This revolver has grips I refinished and a red ramp and white outline set of sights. The target shown here was shot with the 200-grain semi-wadcutter bullet and 6.0 grains of Unique.
My usual accuracy load for the 625 is a cast 200-grain semiwadcutter bullet (sized to .452 inches) over 4.2 grains of Bullseye. Another load that works well is the same bullet with 6.0 grains of Unique (it’s the load I used on the target above).
After reading about the above Smith and Wesson .45 ACP revolvers, you might have two questions:
For me a motorcycle’s appearance, appeal, and personality are defined by its motor. I’m not a chopper guy, but I like the look of a chopper because the engine absolutely dominates the bike. I suppose to some people fully faired motorcycles are beautiful, but I’m not in that camp. The only somewhat fully faired bike I ever had was my 1995 Triumph Daytona 1200, but you could still see a lot of the engine on that machine. I once wrote a Destinations piece for Motorcycle Classics on the Solvang Vintage Motorcycle Museum and while doing so I called Virgil Elings, the wealthy entrepreneur who owned it. I asked Elings what drove his interest in collecting motorcycles. His answer? The motors. He spoke about the mechanical beauty of a motorcycle’s engine, and that prompted me to ask for his thoughts on fully faired bikes. “I suppose they’re beautiful to some,” he said, “but when you take the fairings off, they look like washing machines.” I had a good laugh. His observation was spot on.
A 1200cc Harley Panhead motor I photographed at the Rock Store in Malibu.
My earliest memory of drooling over a motorcycle occurred sometime in the 1950s when I was a little kid. My Mom was shopping with me somewhere in one of those unenclosed malls on Route 18 in New Jersey, and in those days, it was no big deal to let your kid wander off and explore while you shopped. I think it was some kind of a general store (I have no idea what Mom was looking for), and I wandered outside on the store’s sidewalk. There was a blue Harley Panhead parked out front, and it was the first time I ever had a close look at a motorcycle. It was beautiful, and the motor was especially beautiful. It had those early panhead corrugated exhaust headers, fins, cables, chrome, and more. I’ve always been fascinated by all things mechanical, and you just couldn’t find anything more mechanical than a Big Twin engine.
There have been a few Sportsters that do it for me, too, like Harley’s Cafe Racer from the late 1970s. That was a fine-looking machine dominated by its engine. I liked the Harley XR1000, too.
A 1000cc Harley Cafe Racer photographed at one of the Hansen Dam meets. When these were new, they sold for about $3,000.
I’ve previously mentioned my 7th grade fascination with Walt Skok’s Triumph Tiger. It had the same mesmerizing motorrific effect as the big twin Panhead described above. I could stare at that 500cc Triumph engine for hours (and I did). The 650 Triumphs were somehow even more appealing. The mid-’60s Triumphs are the most beautiful motorcycles in the world (you might think otherwise and that’s okay…you have my permission to be wrong).
A 1966 Triumph Bonneville and it’s 650cc twin-carb engine. My Dad rode a Bonneville just like this one.
BSA did a nice job with their engine design, too. Their 650 twins in the ’60s looked a lot like Triumph’s, and that’s a good thing. I see these bikes at the Hansen Dam Norton Owners Club meets. They photograph incredibly well, as do nearly all vintage British twins.
A late1960s BSA at Hansen Dam. These are beautiful motorcycles, too.
When we visited good buddy Andrew in New Jersey recently, he had several interesting machines, but the one that riveted my attention was his Norton P11. It’s 750cc air cooled engine is, well, just wonderful. If I owned that bike I’d probably stare at it for a few minutes every day. You know, just to keep my batteries charged.
Andrew Capone’s P-11 Norton. You can read about our visit with Andrew here.
You know, it’s kind of funny…back in the 1960s I thought Royal Enfield’s 750cc big twins were clunky looking. Then the new Royal Enfield 650 INT (aka the Interceptor to those of us unintimidated by liability issues) emerged. Its appearance was loosely based on those clunky old English Enfields, but the new twin’s Indian designers somehow made the engine look way better. It’s not clunky at all, and the boys from Mumbai made their interpretive copy of an old English twin look more British than the original. The new Enfield Interceptor is a unit construction engine, but the way the polished aluminum covers are designed it looks like a pre-unit construction engine. The guys from the subcontinent hit a home run with that one. I ought to know; after Gresh and I road tested one of these for Enfield North America on a Baja ride, I bought one.
The current iteration of Royal Enfield’s 650cc twin. I rode this bike through Baja and liked it so much I bought one when I returned from Mexico. Here’s more (a lot more) about that adventure.
Another motorcycle that let you see its glorious air-cooled magnificence was the CB750 Honda. It was awesome in every regard and presented well from any angle, including the rear (which is how most other riders saw it on the road). The engine was beyond impressive, and when it was introduced, I knew I would have one someday (I made that dream come true in 1971). I still can’t see one without taking my iPhone out to grab a photo.
A 1969 or 1970 Honda CB 750. This is the motorcycle that put the nail in the British motorcycle industry coffin. I had one just like it.
After Honda stunned the world with their 750 Four, the copycats piled on. Not to be outdone, Honda stunned the world again when they introduced their six-cylinder CBX. I had an ’82. It was awesome. It wasn’t the fastest motorcycle I ever owned, but it was one of the coolest (and what drove that coolness was its air-cooled straight six engine).
A Honda CBX engine photographed at the Del Mar fairgrounds near San Diego. The CBX was a motorcycle that added complexity where none was required. It was an impressive machine.
Like they did with the 750 Four, Kawasaki copied the Honda six cylinder, but the Kawasaki engine was water-cooled and from an aesthetics perspective, it was just a big lump. The Honda was a finely-finned work of art. I never wanted a Kawasaki Six; I still regret selling my Honda CBX. The CBX was an extremely good-looking motorcycle. It was all engine. What completed the look for me were the six chrome exhaust headers emerging from in front. I put 20,000 miles on mine and sold it for what it cost me, and now someone else is enjoying it. The CBX was stunning motorcycle, but you don’t need six cylinders to make a motorcycle beautiful. Some companies managed to do it with just two, and some with only one. Consider the engines mentioned at the start of this piece (Harley, Triumph, BSA, and Norton).
I shot this photo at Hansen Dam, too. I always wanted a mid-’60s Moto Guzzi. Never scratched that itch, though. They sound amazing. Imagine a refined Harley, and you’d have this.
Moto Guzzi’s air-cooled V-twins are in a class by themselves. I love the look and the sound of an air-cooled Guzzi V-twin. It’s classy. I like it.
Some motorcycle manufacturers made machines that were mesmerizing with but a single cylinder, so much so that they inspired modern reproductions, and then copies of those reproductions. Consider Honda’s GB500, and more than a few motorcycles from China and even here in the US that use variants of the GB500 engine.
The Honda GB500, Honda’s nod to earlier British singles. It’s another one I always wanted.
The GB500 is a water cooled bike, but Sochoiro’s boys did it right. The engine is perfect. Like I said above, variants of that engine are still made in China and Italy; one of those engines powers the new Janus 450 Halcyon.
The Janus 450 Halcyon I rode in Goshen. That resulted in a feature story in Motorcycle Classics. It’s engine is by SWM in Italy, which is a variant of the Chinese copy of the GB500 engine. I liked the Janus.
No discussion of mechanical magnificence would be complete without mentioning two of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made: The Brough Superior SS100 and the mighty Vincent. The Brits’ ability to design a visually arresting, aesthetically pleasing motorcycle engine must be a genetic trait. Take a look at these machines.
The Brough Superior SS100. Its engine had a constant loss lubrication system. This is the same motorcycle Lawrence of Arabia rode. One of my grandsons is named T.E. Lawrence.The mighty Vincent. This and the Brough Superior above were both photographed at Hansen Dam.
Two additional bits of moto exotica are the early inline and air-cooled four-cylinder Henderson, and the Thor, one of the very first V-twin engine designs. Both of these boast American ancestry.
Jay Leno’s 1931 Henderson. He told me he bought it off a 92-year-old guy in Vegas who was getting a divorce and needed to raise cash, and I fell for it.
The Henderson you see above belongs to Jay Leno, who let me photograph it at one of the Hansen Dam Norton gatherings. Incidentally, if there’s a nicer guy than Jay Leno out there, I haven’t met him. The man is a prince. He’s always gracious, and he’s never too busy to talk motorcycles, sign autographs, or pose for photos. You can read about some of the times I’ve bumped into Jay Leno at the Rock Store or the Hansen Dam event right here on ExNotes.
A Thor V-twin photographed at the Franklin Auto Museum in Tucson, Arizona. You almost need a four-year mechanical engineering degree to start one of these. Thor made the first engines for Indian.
Very early vintage motorcycles’ mechanical complexity is almost puzzle-like…they are the Gordian knots of motorcycle mechanical engineering design. I photographed a 1913 Thor for Motorcycle Classics (that story is here), and as I was optimizing the photos I found myself wondering how guys back in the 1910s started the things. I was able to crack the code, but I had to concentrate so hard it reminded me of dear departed mentor Bob Haskell talking about the Ph.Ds and other wizards in the advanced design group when I worked in the bomb business: “Sometimes those guys think so hard they can’t think for months afterward,” Bob told me (both Bob and I thought the wizards had confused their compensation with their capability).
There’s no question in my mind that water cooling a motorcycle engine is a better way to go from an engineering perspective. Water cooling adds weight, cost, and complexity, but the fuel efficiency and power advantages of water cooling just can’t be ignored. I don’t like when manufacturers attempt to make a water-cooled engine look like an air-cooled engine with the addition of fake fins (it somehow conveys design dishonesty). But some marques make water cooled engines look good (Virgil Elings’ comments notwithstanding). My Triumph Speed Triple had a water-cooled engine. I think the Brits got it right on that one.
My 2007 Triumph Speed Triple. Good buddy Marty told me some folks called these the Speed Cripple. In my case, that turned out to be true, but that’s another story for another blog.My 2015 CSC RX3. Before you go all nuts on me and start whining about Chinese motorcycle quality, I need to tell you I rode these across China, through the Andes Mountains in Colombia, up and down Baja a bunch of times, and all over the American west (you can read about those adventures here). It was one of the best and most comfortable bikes I ever owned.
Zongshen is another company that makes water-cooled engines look right. I thought my RX3 had a beautiful engine and I really loved that motorcycle. I sold it because I wasn’t riding it too much, but the tiny bump in my bank account that resulted from the sale, in retrospect, wasn’t worth it. I should have kept the RX3. When The Big Book Of Best Motorcycles In The History Of The World is written, I’m convinced there will be a chapter on the RX3.
The future of “motor” cycling? This is the CSC RX1E. I rode it and liked it. The silence takes some getting used to.
With the advent of electric motorcycles, I’ve ridden a few and they are okay, but I can’t see myself ever buying one. That’s because as I said at the beginning of this blog, for me a motorcycle is all about the motor. I realize that’s kind of weird, because on an electric motorcycle the power plant actually is a motor, not an internal combustion engine (like all the machines described above). What you mostly see on an electric motorcycle is the battery, which is the large featureless chingadera beneath the gas tank (which, now that I’m writing about it, isn’t a gas tank at all). I don’t like the silence of an electric motorcycle. They can be fast (the Zero I rode a few years ago accelerated so aggressively it scared the hell out of me), but I need some noise, I need to feel the power pulses and engine vibration, and I want other people to hear me. The other thing I don’t care for is that on an electric motorcycle, the power curve is upside down. They accelerate hardest off a dead stop and fade as the motor’s rpm increases; a motorcycle with an internal combustion engine accelerates harder as the revs come up.
Wow, this blog went on for longer than I thought it would. I had fun writing it and I had fun going through my photo library for the pics you see here. I hope you had fun reading it.
Did you know the original Gatling gun (the Model 1862) used a blackpowder and percussion cap firing system? And did you know that all modern Gatlings (the guns arming the F-15, the F-16, the A-10, the AC-130, and more) are based on the original Gatling gun design? This is a chapter from our book, The Gatling Gun, that addresses the first iteration of Dr. Gatling’s famous weapon. Many of you are blackpowder enthusiasts and I thought you might find the Gatling gun’s blackpowder lineage interesting. I sure did.
When most people think of loading a gun, they visualize it as a simple operation in which cartridges are inserted into the weapon (or a magazine). Most understand that the cartridges of modern weapons include both the bullet and the gunpowder. This simplicity of operation was not always the case. Earlier shooters had to use a much more complex percussion firing system. Unlike today’s guns (most of which use metallic cartridges), shooters with percussion firing guns could not simply load a cartridge into their guns and fire. Instead, percussion shooters had to load the primer, gun powder, and bullet into their guns separately for each shot.
Figure 2 shows the basic elements of a percussion firing system, which consists of a gun barrel and a nipple (the nipple is an extension with a channel).
Figure 2. Percussion firing system operation.
Loading began by placing a percussion primer on the nipple (as shown in the upper left portion of Figure 2). Black powder was then loaded into the barrel from the muzzle and tapped down prior to installing the bullet. The bullet (usually a round lead ball) was pressed into the barrel, again from the muzzle end (for this reason, percussion weapons are often referred to as “muzzleloaders”). Once the bullet was fully seated against the powder, the weapon was ready to fire.
A percussion weapon was fired by cocking the hammer and then releasing it to strike the percussion cap. The percussion cap contained a small quantity of an impact-sensitive material, which detonated when the hammer struck the cap. This detonation sent shock and heat waves through the channel in the nipple to the black powder. When the black powder ignited, it developed high pressure, which drove the bullet through the barrel with enough velocity upon exiting to continue its flight to the target. As the bullet moved down the barrel, it was engaged by spiral grooves machined into the barrel’s inner surface (these grooves are called “rifling”), which imparted a spin to the bullet. The spin stabilized the bullet, making it more accurate. Once the bullet had left the bore, the spent percussion cap could be removed and the loading and firing process could begin again.
Army Weapon Preferences
During the Civil War, percussion weapon systems were standard-issue items (even though completely self-contained metallic cartridges had already been invented, the Union army had not yet adopted the concept). A refinement of the percussion priming system that bridged the gap between percussion priming and metallic cartridges had been at least partially accepted by the Union army. It involved the use of integral paper-patched bullets and powder charges. Figure 3 shows the paper-patched bullet and powder concept. Paper-patched bullets and powder charges were loaded as a single unit into the muzzle of the gun (thereby eliminating the need to carry and load bullets and powder separately). When a gun loaded with these cartridges fired, the percussion primer gas jet perforated the paper bag attached to the bullet to ignite the powder. The gun then operated in the same manner described earlier.
Gatling recognized the futility of proposing a gun with metallic cartridges to the Union army and therefore opted to develop his first Gatling gun with paper-patched bullets and powder charges. He developed the first Gatling gun in 1862, accordingly designating it the Model 1862. It was to be the only variant of the Gatling gun that did not use the more modern metallic cartridges, and because of that, certain features of its operational sequence differ from later models. Nonetheless, its operation is worth studying, as it provides insight into the mechanical genius behind the weapon and a fundamental understanding of the operational concepts behind all future Gatling guns (including those used in many of today’s modern weapon systems).
Gatling Gun Operation
As the above description demonstrates, the loading and firing of percussion weapons was a slow and cumbersome operation that left the gunner essentially defenseless during the reloading operation. This disadvantage was primarily responsible for the advent of metallic cartridges. The complexity of the reloading process was also a major design challenge in developing a high-rate-of-fire weapon, as were the cocking, hammer release, and recocking actions. The elegance of the Gatling gun design is that the steps involved in loading and firing occur automatically. To understand how this occurs, one must first be familiar with another important mechanical concept, the principle of the cam.
Figure 3. Paper-patched bullets. The paper bullet patch engaged the rifling and also contained gunpowder to propel the bullet. When the gun fired, the primer burned through the paper to ignite the powder.
A cam is simply a device that translates motion in one direction into motion in another direction (see Figure 4). It involves the motion of an inclined surface, which is then used to drive a follower. If the inclined surface is wrapped around a rotating surface, the rotating element can be used to create a back-and-forth (or reciprocating) motion in the follower. This is the concept Dr. Gatling used to drive the mechanism of the Gatling gun.
The problem Dr. Gatling solved was generating the reciprocating motion required to step through the actions of firing a gun. This cam-driven concept is shown in Figure 5, wherein the position of the gun mechanism is shown at successive stages of the firing process. In the first position, the gun drive mechanism is near the most narrow portion of the inclined cam surface.
Note that there are two ways a cam can be used to create reciprocating motion: the cam can be driven to actuate the followers, or the followers can be driven while the cam is held stationary. Dr. Gatling chose the latter approach, for reasons that will soon become obvious. As the gun mechanism moves with respect to the cam, the hammer is pushed back, compressing a spring and cocking the gun. When the hammer is fully rearward (and its drive spring fully compressed), it encounters a sharp step on the cam profile. The cam step is a release, and it allows the drive spring to snap the hammer into the percussion cap. This fires the gun.
Figure 4. The concept of a cam. As the cam moves with respect to the cam follower, the cam follower will move in accordance with the profile of the cam.Figure 5. Gatling firing sequence. As the gun mechanism rotates, the bolts are driven back and forth by the elliptical cam path.Figure 6. Gatling cam-path-driven operation. As the gun mechanism rotates, the cam follower moves the bolt back and forth, accomplishing the Gatling gun firing sequence.
In our discussion above (and in Figure 5), we depicted a stationary cam surface, as well as a gun barrel and firing mechanism that moved with respect to the stationary cam. It involved a flat cam surface and a lateral motion of the gun along this surface. Let’s take this one step further. Suppose the entire gun mechanism (moving gun barrel and action and cam) is wrapped around a shaft parallel to the gun barrel (as shown in Figure 6). The barrel, hammer, and other elements of the gun’s action would then revolve around this central axis. Suppose further that the cam is wrapped around the interior of a stationary cylindrical housing at the rear of the gun. We’d then have a design in which the gun barrel and action spun around, and the action was driven through the firing steps by the stationary cylindrical cam inside the rear housing. While completing its journey around the inside of the housing, the cam would cock and release the hammer, just as described earlier.
Once the gun operation and rotary gun mechanism/stationary cam concepts are understood, the remaining theory of the operation of the Gatling gun is straightforward. All that’s involved are the additional actions required to load the gun prior to firing and eject the spent cartridge after firing.
The design need not be restricted to only one gun action and barrel. Other actions and barrels can also mount on the central axis, and these can make the circular journey around the stationary cam simultaneously. The number of additional actions and barrels is constrained only by size (how many will fit around the axis and the stationary cam) and weight (if the gun design is limited to a specified weight). The first Gatling gun (the Model 1862) had six barrels, but it could just as easily have had more or fewer.
To simplify our discussion, let’s follow the path of one barrel and action around the circular cam. The Model 1862 operated with five basic steps:
Each step occurred as the Gatling gun mechanism revolved inside the stationary, circular cam path. The mechanism was driven by the familiar small hand crank at the rear of the weapon. When the crank was turned, a small pinion gear on the end of it engaged a larger ring gear on the cluster of gun barrels and actions. This large ring gear was fixed to the main shaft of the gun. When the main shaft rotated, the entire barrel assembly and all of the other moving parts (each barrel’s actions, etc.) rotated counterclockwise (as viewed from the muzzle end). As these components moved, followers in each barrel’s action followed the circular cam path in the stationary rear housing.
Loading
At the beginning of this chapter, we described how a basic percussion-fired weapon operates and then progressed into an explanation of paper cartridges. As you will recall, the first steps required placing a percussion cap on the nipple and a paper cartridge and bullet in the barrel. Gatling recognized that these actions could not be easily accomplished while the gun mechanism he envisioned was spinning around a circular cam path. It would be difficult to ram paper cartridges into a spinning barrel and delicately place the percussion caps on moving seats. Gatling solved the problem by preloading steel chambers with paper cartridges, bullets, and percussion caps, and then loading these into the Gatling gun feed mechanism.
These preloaded steel chambers have been described as miniature guns. In a sense they were, but they could perhaps be more accurately described as predecessors to the metallic cartridge. They were self-contained units with a projectile, propellant, and primer, invented solely to simplify loading. Metallic cartridges were smaller and easier to load, but the concept was nearly identical.
The Model 1862 Gatling gun had a small hopper on top of the gun mechanism (near the rear). A quantity of the preloaded steel chambers was placed into the hopper, and as the gun mechanism turned, the chambers fell into grooves in the gun’s rotating mechanism. The gun had a grooved slot for each barrel. When each groove passed approximately through the two o’clock position, one of the preloaded chambers from the hopper dropped into place. The groove aligned the preloaded chamber with the bore of the gun barrel so that when the chamber fired, the bullet had a straight shot into the barrel. As the gun mechanism turned, each preloaded chamber traveled with its barrel, remaining in constant alignment with it.
Compression
As the gun mechanism continued to rotate, a protrusion on the hammer engaged the cam surface. At this point, the lock cylinder actuated. The lock cylinder consisted of a tube containing a hammer and a compression spring. A protrusion on the hammer extended through a groove in the lock cylinder tube to contact the circular cam path. As the gun mechanism continued to rotate, the hammer spring approached full compression (near the twelve o’clock position).
Locking and Firing
Just prior to reaching the twelve o’clock position, the rear of the lock cylinder contacted a small raised surface in the rear of the housing, formed by a hardened steel insert in the plate behind the gun mechanism. The insert was designed to force the lock cylinder forward, which in turn forced the preloaded chamber against the rear of its gun barrel. This caused the forward surface of the preloaded chamber to bear down against the barrel, “locking” it into position and forming a better seal. The concept was to effect a better seal, thereby minimizing the escape of propellant gases and providing for higher bullet velocity.
As soon as locking occurred, the hammer protrusion (in the locking cylinder) reached a sharp forward step on the cam surface, which released the hammer. The hammer spring drove it into the percussion cap, firing the preloaded chamber.
Unlocking
Once the barrel had fired, it had to be unloaded so it could be reloaded and fired again. Before this could be done, though, the locking action had to be unlocked. This was governed by the proper sizing and positioning of the small insert described above. Once the lock cylinder passed the insert (as the gun mechanism continued to turn) another spring on the outside of the cylinder pushed it slightly to the rear. This relieved some of the pressure holding the preloaded (and now fired) chamber against the barrel. The remaining force holding the chamber against the gun barrel came from the hammer spring, which now (in the fired position) held the hammer against the percussion cap and the chamber against the barrel. Dr. Gatling included another small raised surface on the cam path to back the hammer away from the steel chamber just enough to allow the chamber to float freely. This occurred as the gun progressed from the eleven o’clock position to the ten o’clock position.
Ejection
The chamber could be ejected once it had unlocked. This occurred as the rotating cluster of barrels and actions positioned the now-fired chamber near the bottom of the gun. The chamber simply fell free through an opening in the base of the mechanism, where it could be picked up for later cleaning and reloading. To prevent the chambers from getting hung up in the gun mechanism, a guide bar forced them out as the chamber groove passed through the six o’clock position.
Once the five steps described above were complete, the now-empty chamber groove (in the rotating cluster) continued its circular journey up to the hopper, where a new preloaded chamber fell into position and the load, compress, lock, fire, unlock, and eject process began again. As mentioned earlier, the Model 1862 Gatling gun had six sets of barrels, actions, and grooves. These spun as a set, with each of the steps described above occurring sequentially. The gun fired six times with each rotation of the barrel cluster.
The Model 1862 was the only Gatling gun to use the separate preloaded chambers. There were several problems inherent to this approach, which were corrected in subsequent versions of the gun. These problems and others (as well as the solutions and subsequent Gatling guns) are discussed in the next chapter. The use of metallic cartridges in the Model 1865 significantly changed the manner in which the Gatling gun operated. Though many of the detailed mechanical actions changed, all were actuated through the rotating-barrel-cluster and stationary-circular-cam approach. As will be seen in subsequent discussions on contemporary Gatling guns (starting with Chapter 6), all modern variants of the Gatling use this approach.
Want to learn more about the Gatling gun, both the early versions and the ones that arm today’s high performance military systems? Hey, for just $12.95, we can help you with that!
A few weeks ago I posted a blog about riding in the rain. With all the snow blanketing parts of the US this winter, I thought it fitting that I post a blog about getting caught in the snow. I’ve ridden in the snow four times and none of them were fun.
Crater Lake
On this ride, my buddy Marty and I were on our way home from Calgary to California after completing the 2005 Three Flags Classic rally. Marty was far more worldly than me and he knew all the good spots to stop. One was Crater Lake in Oregon. We rode in from the Oregon coast where the temperatures were cool but not unbearably so. We pointed our front wheels east and rode to Crater Lake. It was a brutally cold ride, and it grew even colder the further we climbed into the mountains.
We had an interesting encounter with a herd of elk on the way to Crater Lake. We had been seeing road signs warning of elk, but we hadn’t seen any until that day. A monstrous bull stepped out in front of my Triumph Daytona from the forest on the right side of the road. He stood broadside 50 yards in front of me, and he looked directly at me as if to say, “What’s your problem?” If he was attempting to intimidate me, it worked.
I stopped and Marty stopped on his BMW K1200RS behind me. My visor started to fog from my breath. It was just the three of us on that cold, cold morning: Me, Marty, and the Big Bull Elk. After what seemed like several minutes (during which I wondered how quickly I could execute a u-turn and accelerate away from those immense antlers), the elk turned his head and lazily sauntered across the road into the forest on the other side. Yeah, you’re bad, I thought.
I started to let out the clutch and moved forward a tiny bit when two more elk stepped out of the forest onto the highway. These were female elk following the alpha male who had successfully stared me down. So I pulled the clutch in again and waited. The ladies crossed the highway and I started to let the clutch out again. Then another lady elk appeared from the right. This went on for the next several minutes. Maybe as many as another 20 elk, all female, repeated the sequence, two or three at a time. I remember thinking the first one, that big bull, probably didn’t get much sleep with that harem to take care of. I wished I had grabbed a photo, but truth be told, I was too scared and shocked to react. I can still see it vividly in my mind, though.
The Daytona 1200 along Crater Lake in Oregon. A few miles earlier, we had a magical several minutes with a herd of elk.
After the elk episode, we continued our climb up to Crater Lake. The sun was getting higher, but we were climbing and instead of warming the temperatures continued to drop. There were bits of snow on both sides of the road, but the road was dry and we were doing okay. I used a Gerber electric vest in those days. It was a godsend.
Another view of Crater Lake. Note the snow in the foreground.
Crater Lake was interesting. I took a bunch of photos and checked that destination off my bucket list. Incidentally, on that trip I was still shooting with film. I had the N70 Nikon I blogged about earlier.
After taking in Crater Lake, Marty and I started our ride down off the mountain. The ride down was on the western side of the mountain, and the road was in the late morning shade. That section of the road had not warmed up. The snow was still there in two different forms…hard pack white snow in some places, and black ice where the snow had melted and frozen over. It was the first time I had ever ridden in such conditions on a big road bike, and I quickly realized my Daytona 1200 was way different than the Honda Super 90 I rode in the snow when I was a kid in New Jersey. Piloting that Triumph down off the mountain was an extremely demanding and mentally-draining 15-mph riding experience requiring intense concentration.
Fortunately, I remember thinking, Marty and I were the only two guys out there and I didn’t have to worry about anyone else on the road. Marty was in front and we both were taking things very easy. Then in my left peripheral vision I sensed a yellow vehicle starting to pass me. I was pissed and confused. Who the hell else is out here, I thought. Can’t they see I’m on a motorcycle, I’m on ice, and why the hell are they passing me?
Then I realized who it was. What I saw in my peripheral vision wasn’t another vehicle. It was my motorcycle in the rear view mirror. The big Triumph was sliding sideways. The yellow I had picked up peripherally was my rear tail light cowling. Damn, that was exciting! (And terrifying.)
Marty and I made it down off that mountain, but it was a religious experience for both of us.
The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup
This was a ride coming h0me from the Annual Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas (I wrote about the Roundup before and you can read that story here). We spent a half day at the Rattlesnake Roundup, another hour or so at the gun show in the hall next to the Rattlesnake Roundup, and then had a late afternoon departure headed home. The first portion of that ride was okay, but as the sun set the temperature dropped big time and the wind across Interstate 10 kicked up dramatically. We crossed into New Mexico and the wind was blowing so hard it felt like the bikes were leaned over 30 degrees just to keep going straight.
Very cool photo ops abounded at the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup. Check out the fangs; this is the stuff of nightmares.
We pulled off the highway in Lordsburg, New Mexico, around 10:00 p.m. and stopped at the first hotel we saw. It was one of those small old Route 66 type motels (you know the type…a cheap single-story structure still advertising they had color TV). One of us (I can’t remember if it was Marty or me) decided we wanted to look for something nicer. We continued on into town and found a nicer hotel, but the desk clerk told us they had no rooms left. “With this wind, every trucker is off the run and in a hotel,” he said. The next town was 50 miles further down the road. I looked at Marty, he looked at me, and I made the case for doubling back to the Route 66 special.
We entered the lobby and two other people looking for a room followed us in. We were lucky. We nailed the last room in Lordsburg (which, I know, sounds like the title of a bad country western song). The folks behind us were out of luck. I have no idea what they did.
Most of the snow was gone after we returned from breakfast.
When we woke up the next morning, the bikes were covered in snow. There was no way we were going to ride in that, so we walked across the parking lot to a diner and had a leisurely breakfast. By 10:00 a.m. there was still snow on the ground, but the roads were slushy (not icy) and we could ride. When we were back on Interstate 10 the slush had disappeared and the road was dry. It was cold. I again enjoyed my Gerber vest. We made it back to southern California late that night. It was pouring rain (that’s the bad news), but it wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been and there was no snow (and that’s the good news).
The Angeles Crest Highway
I met my buddy Bryan at a water treatment company. Someday I’ll write a story about that company and the guy who started it. He was a crook (the company founder, not Bryan) and I’m not exaggerating just because I didn’t like the guy. He actually was a crook who was later charged with financial fraud and convicted. I know, I’m digressing again. Back to Bryan, me, motorcycles, and riding in the snow.
Good buddy Bryan and his VFR at warmer times in warmer climes.
Bryan was fascinated by my motorcycles (I owned four or five at the time), and within a few weeks he had purchased a Honda VFR. That VFR was a nice motorcycle (one I never owned but always wanted), and Bryan and I started doing a lot of rides together. We both live in southern California at an elevation of around 1700 feet above sea level, and it is rare to see snow here. I think in the 40+ years I’ve been in So Cal I’ve seen snow twice at my home, and it both cases it didn’t stick.
Bryan and I often rode the Angeles Crest Highway. We would take the 210 freeway to Glendale to pick it up, ride over the mountains on the Crest (the Angeles Crest Highway), stop for gas and sometimes a meal in Wrightwood on the other side of the San Gabriels, and then head home through the Cajon Pass on Interstate 15. It’s one of the best rides in the country.
A typical weekend parking lot scene at Newcomb’s on the ACH. Those were glorious days.
One day in the winter months, it was comfortable So Cal winter weather when Bryan and I decided to ride the ACH, but in the opposite direction. We rode up the 15 to the 138, we rolled through Wrightwood, and then we picked up the Crest heading over the mountains to Glendale. It got cold fast, and by the time we were on the Crest it was brutal. Then it started to snow. It didn’t seem that bad at first and we pushed on. I was on my Daytona 1200 again, and I could feel the bike moving around beneath me. I’d already ridden the Daytona on icy roads in Oregon (see above), so I thought I’d be okay. But this was worse. I could feel the big Daytona sashaying around like an exotic dancer in a room full of big tippers.
Bryan and I stopped. “Think we should turn around?” one or the other of us asked. “Nah, it probably won’t get worse and it’s shorter to keep going than it would be to turn around,” one or the other of us answered. We had that same conversation telepathically three or four more times. The weather was worsening and we hadn’t seen another vehicle on the road since we started. No motorcycles and no cars. It was just us.
Finally, we made it to Newcomb’s, a legendary Angeles Crest roadhouse that is no more (a pity, really…you’d see all kinds of moto exotica and sometimes Jay Leno up there on the weekends). We stopped for a cup of coffee and a bowl of chili. The parking lot was empty, but the place was open. The bartender was shocked when we entered. “How did you get up here?” he asked.
“We rode,” one or the other of us said.
“How did you do that? The road’s been closed because of the snow and ice.”
Well, what do you know? We had our coffee and chili and we warmed up. When it was time to leave, we kept going toward Glendale. No sense going back, we thought. We already knew the Crest behind us was bad. But we soon learned the road ahead wasn’t any better. It was a white knuckle, 15mph ride all the way down, and man, was it ever cold. But it made for a hell of story. I’ve ridden the ACH many, many times…but only once on snow and ice when the road was closed.
The “Build Character” Ride
In my opinion (and I’m the guy writing this blog, so it’s the one that counts) riding in the snow and ice is dumb raised to an exponent. If you’re already on a trip and you get caught in it, it’s sort of understandable. Making a decision to intentionally ride into the snow, though (at least to me), is a really dumb move. But yeah, I did it. Once. Peer pressure is a bitch, let me tell you.
The story goes like this: A bunch of us guys used to meet every Saturday morning at the local BMW dealer to listen to and tell tall tales (said tall tales usually involving motorcycles, women, or both). We did a lot of rides together, this group did. Baja. The American Southwest. The Three Flags Classic. Weekend rides up the Pacific Coast Highway to Pismo Beach for a barbeque dinner in nearby Nipomo at Jocko’s. And more. We were not spring chickens, either. I was in my late 50s and I was the youngest guy in the group. Most of the other guys were real deal geezers in their 70s. One guy was in his 80s.
Geezer riding buddies in the Jocko’s parking lot after coming down out of the mountains. Trust me on this: None of these guys needed to build any more character.
One day at one of our Saturday gatherings one of the guys had this brilliant idea that instead of simply getting caught in the rain, it would be a grand idea to start a two-or-three day ride in the rain when rain would be forecast for the entire ride. You know, a tough guy ride into bad weather. We would do the two-day run up to Pismo, through the mountains and along the coast, and do it on a weekend when it would rain all weekend. “It will build character,” said the geezer whose idea this was. Mom had warned me about guys like that. I should have listened.
Everybody was in. Like I said, peer pressure is a bitch. I had ridden plenty in the rain, and if you are properly attired, it’s not that bad. But snow and ice? Nope, that’s positively not for me. That’s what happened on this ride. Remember I said along the coast and in the mountains? Well, it was that mountain part that did us in. It was in the winter, we were at higher elevations, and sonuvabitch, all of a sudden that rain wasn’t rain any more. It was snow. The roads never froze over, but it was plenty slushy.
Somewhere along our descent, the snow reverted to plain old rain again, and we made it to Pismo without anyone dropping their bike. I noticed on the way home, though, we rode the coast (where it was modestly warmer) all the way back. I guess each of us felt we had built enough character to have banked a sufficient amount.
There you have it…my thoughts on riding in the snow. The bottom line from my perspective is that motorcycles and snow don’t mix. Your mileage may vary. If you think otherwise, let us know.
Zongshen ended production of its iconic RX3 motorcycle and CSC sold the last of its RX3 inventory. I was tangentially involved in bringing the RX3 to America and I had a ton of fun on that motorcycle. Knowing that the RX3 is no longer in production is like hearing an old friend has passed away. In the end, the S-curve prevails for all of us, I guess. But it still hurts. The RX3 was and still is a great motorcycle.
An early clay mockup of what would become the RX3 in Zongshen’s Advanced Design center.
According to my sources in Chongqing, Zongshen first started thinking about a 250cc offroad and adventure touring motorcycle in 2010. Engineering development took about two years (excluding the engine). China’s initial and traditional 250cc was based on a Honda CG125 air-cooled engine, which evolved into 150cc, 200cc, and 250cc variants (the 250cc CG engine was actually 223cc; it is the engine that powers CSC’s current TT 250). The CG-based variants didn’t have the performance Zongshen wanted for its new adventure touring motorcycle, and that led Zongshen to develop a 250cc water-cooled, four-valve engine for Megelli in Italy. It went into the Zongshen NC250 motorcycle. This engine also went into the RX3.
Yours truly with former Sears president and CSC advisor Carl Mungenast on Glendora Ridge Road. I rode the CSC 150 Mustang replica in this photo to Cabo San Lucas and back.
For CSC, the Zongshen connection started with a search for a larger CSC 150 engine. The CSC 150 was the Mustang replica Steve Seidner designed and manufactured in 2009. I was already in China for another client, and it was only an hour flight from Guangzhou to Chonqging for the initial visit to Zongshen. To make a long story slightly less long, CSC started purchasing the Zongshen 250cc engines for the little Mustangs. I think most of the folks who bought those Mustangs really didn’t care if it was a 150 or a 250. Both were capable bikes; my friends and I rode the 150cc version to Cabo and back. It was the 250cc Mustang engine that established the relationship between CSC and Zongshen, though, and that was a good thing.
When CSC’s Steve Seidner noticed an illustration of the RX3 on the Zongshen website, he immediately recognized the RX3 sales potential in the United States. Steve ordered three bikes for evaluation and he started the U.S. certification process. Steve and I did a 350-mile ride on two of those bikes through the southern California desert and we both thought they were great.
Showing the Zongshen execs in Chongqing possibilities for a ride in America. The Chinese sponsored the Western America Adventure Ride as a result of that discussion. It was awesome and the bikes performed magnificently.
Zongshen was not targeting the U.S. market when they developed the RX3; they thought the U.S. market had different requirements and consumer preferences. The initial RX3 design did not meet U.S. Department of Transportation lighting and other requirements. It was back to China for me to help set up the specs for the CSC RX3 and the initial order.
On the Western America Adventure Ride, we rode from southern California to Mt. Rushmore, back to the Pacific across the top of America, and down the Pacific Coast to return to Azusa. Here King Kong, Leonard, Hugo, and Tso emulate the American presidents at Mt. Rushmore.
On that early visit, the Chinese told me they wanted to ride in America. They sent over a dozen bikes and as many riders, and we had an amazing 5,000-mile adventure we called the Western America Adventure Ride. Baja John planned the itinerary and mapped out the entire ride; we even had special decals with our route outlined made up for the bikes. We let the media know about it and it was on this ride that I first met Joe Gresh, who wrote the “Cranked” column for Motorcyclist magazine. I made a lot of good friends on that trip. After the trip through the American Southwest, Zongshen invited Gresh and me on a ride around China, and after that, I was invited by AKT on a ride through the Andes Mountains in Colombia.
In Medicine Bow, Wyoming, on the Western America Adventure Ride. Two Colombians also participated, which resulted in an invitation to ride in Colombia.On the road in the Andes Mountains. The sign says the elevation is 3950 meters (that’s 13,000 feet above sea level).Joe Gresh and I gladiating near Liqian, China. The China ride was the adventure of a lifetime.
At CSC, we had a lot of discussions on the initial marketing approach. We were looking at a $50,000 to $100,000 hit for an advertising campaign. Maureen Seidner, the chief marketing strategist for CSC and co-owner with Steve, had a better idea: Sell the bikes at a loss initially, get them out in the market, and let the word spread naturally. We knew the price would stabilize somewhere above $4K; Steve’s concept was to sell the bike for $2995. Maureen had an even better idea. $2995 sounded like we were just futzing the number to get it below $3K; Maureen said let’s make it $2895 for the first shipment instead. I wrote a CSC blog about the RX3 and CSC’s plans to import the bike. When I hit the Publish button on WordPress for that blog, the phone rang literally two minutes later and I took the first order from a guy in Alaska. Sales took off with CSC’s introductory “Don’t Miss The Boat” marketing program.
I wrote another CSC blog a week later saying that I was eager to get my RX3 and ride it through Baja. I thought then (and I still think now) that the RX3 is the perfect bike for Baja. The bike does 80mph, it gets 70mpg, it has a 4-gallon gas tank, and everything you needed on an ADV touring machine was already there: A skid plate, good range, good speeds, a six-speed gearbox, a comfortable ride, the ability to ride on dirt roads, panniers, a top case, and more. We started getting calls from folks wanting to ride with me in Baja, and the orders continued to pile in. That resulted in our doing an annual run through Baja for RX3 owners. We didn’t charge anything for the Baja trips. It was a hell of a deal that continued for the next four or five years. I had a lot of fun on those trips and we sold a lot of bikes as a result.
The Western America Adventure Riders in Arizona. This photo is prominently displayed in the Zongshen main office building lobby. That’s Baja John in front; he did nearly all the work organizing the ride.
CSC’s enthusiasm surrounding the RX3, the CSC company rides, and CSC’s online presence did a lot to promote the RX3 worldwide, and I know Zongshen recognized that. I visited the Zongshen campus in Chongqing several times. One of the best parts of any Zongshen visit for me was entering their headquarters, where a 10-foot-wide photo of the Western America Adventure Ride participants in Arizona’s red rock country dominated the lobby.
The RX3 was controversial for some. RX3 owners loved the bike. A few others found reasons to hate it, mostly centering around the engine size and the fact that the bike came from China. I spent a lot of time responding to negative Internet comments until I realized that the haters were broken people, there was no reasoning with them, and none were ever actually going to buy the motorcycle anyway. These were people who got their rocks off by throwing rocks at others.
When RX3 production ended recently, I contacted one of my friends at Zongshen and I thought you might enjoy some of what he told me. Zongshen sold 74,100 RX3 motorcycles (35,000 in China; the rest went to other countries including Mexico, Colombia, other South American countries, Singapore, Turkey, and the United States). Colombia alone purchased 6000 units in kit form and assembled their bikes in Medellin. I watched RX3 motorcycles being built in the Zongshen plant in Chongqing; I was also in the AKT factory in Colombia and I saw the RS3 (the carbureted version of the RX3) being built there. Ultimately, RX3 demand dropped off, but 74,100 motorcycles is not a number to sneeze at. The RX3 greatly exceeded Zongshen’s expectations and their initial marketing forecasts, especially in overseas markets. CSC had a lot to do with that success, and playing a minor role in that endeavor has been one of the high points of my life.
The CSC 650cc RX6 twin cylinder motorcycle. The Chinese motorcycle industry is moving to larger displacement bikes.
Chinese motorcycle companies today are emphasizing larger bikes. We’ve seen that here with the CSC RX4, the 400cc twins, and the 650cc RX6. I’ve ridden all those bikes and they are great. I like larger bikes, but I still think a 250cc motorcycle is the perfect size for real world adventure riding. I think the emphasis on larger bikes and the decision to drop the RX3 is a mistake, but I haven’t sold millions of motorcycles (and Zongshen, with CSC’s help, has).
That photo you see above at the top of this blog? It’s good buddy Orlando and his wife Velma riding their RX3 up to Dante’s View in Death Valley National Park. Orlando thinks blue is the fastest color, but I know orange is. Sue and I recently visited Death Valley again; watch for the ride reports here on the ExNotes blog.
We’ve had a string of cool days here in California (cool for us, anyway, with temperatures in the high 40s and low 50s) and when it gets cold, I really enjoy a bowl of chili. I suppose the easy thing to do would be to head over to a restaurant and order up a bowl, but with restaurant prices verging on the ridiculous lately, I only visit restaurants when I’m traveling. Sue and I usually prefer to cook at home. The cost is way less and the food is better.
One of my buddies mentioned a good pot of chili he ginned up and I asked for his recipe. A few days later when I was in Trader Joe’s, I saw the shaved beef my friend told me he used in his chili. I was about to put it in my cart when I thought I really didn’t want to put that in my body. Then an idea hit me: Vegetarian chili. I’ve had some good ones but I had never made vegetarian chili before. I quickly Googled vegetarian chili recipes on my cell phone, mentally merged the ingredients that appealed to me, and I picked those up instead.
I do a lot of my cooking in a crock pot. I like the idea of getting all the work out of the way in the morning and letting the brew simmer all day long. The aromas are always great, and my vegetarian chili was no exception. crock pots are cheap, too. They are an easy way to prepare a great meal.
Here’s my recipe for what turned out to be a great vegetarian chili:
1 chopped medium yellow onion
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 cup of shredded carrots
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 15.5 ounce can of can pinto beans
1 15.5 ounce can of black beans
1 15.5 ounce can of kidney beans
1 28 ounce can of fire roasted tomatoes
3 cups of low-sodium vegetable broth
2 tablespoons of chili powder
1 tablespoon of ground cumin
2 teaspoons of dried oregano
1 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil
I drain and rinse three different kinds of beans before adding them to the pot. After everything is in the pot, I mix it up a bit with a big wooden spoon and then put the pot on the low heat setting. Eight hours later, it’s ready.
The bottom line? It was delicious.
Pro tips:
I always use the San Marzano brand for any recipe calling for canned tomatoes (they have the best flavor).
All the vegetarian chili recipes called for adding salt. I don’t. There’s enough salt in the canned beans and fire roasted tomatoes.
When serving our chili, we add a scoop of sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese.
Most chili recipes call for a jalapeno pepper or red chili flakes. You might want to consider that if you like your chili spicy. The recipe included here makes a tasty dish and the flavors don’t compete with the heat from a jalapeno or red chili. The two tablespoons of chili seasoning alone are just about perfect for a modest amount of spiciness.
What I’ve found with any crock pot recipe is that the time doesn’t have to be exact, and 8 hours is a minimum time. If it goes another couple of hours, it’s no big deal.
The sizes on the ingredients listed above make for a full pot; Sue and I will get four or five meals (each) out of this recipe. I’ve found that chili makes for a good omelet, too.
Some time ago, I wrote a blog about panda watches. In it, I mentioned the Orient Panda. I’ve been wearing one for several months now and I thought I’d share my opinions.
From an accuracy perspective, it just doesn’t get much better than what this Orient provides. I set it to the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) official time site, and it is still spot on after several months (no gain, no loss; it is accurate to the second). The watch has a solar-powered quartz movement; you can’t realize that kind of accuracy with a mechanical watch.
I didn’t care for the Orient Panda’s stainless steel bracelet. The bracelet’s appearance is good and the construction appears to be of high quality, but it was uncomfortable. Maybe that was due to the bracelet’s relatively sharp edges. I played around with the adjustment by removing links and then putting them back in, and also by moving the pin to different positions on the clasp, but I couldn’t get it to fit my wrist comfortably. It was either too tight (which made it even more uncomfortable), or it would swim around on my wrist with the watch going from the top of my wrist to the opposite side (I hate it when a watch does that).
Orient and Breitling Pandas. The Orient is $160; the Breitling sells for $7,300. For me, it was an easy decision.
I addressed the fit and comfort issues by ordering an inexpensive alligator style leather band from Strapsco (it was less than $20). The band is black with white leather stitching, and when I put it on the Orient, the watch’s personality changed completely (and for the better). The band matches the watch perfectly and it is much more comfortable. I think it looks much richer (it’s very similar to the $7,300 Breitling Panda mentioned in my earlier blog). I think Orient may be missing the boat here; the Orient Panda should ship with both bands.
The Orient’s solar power feature doesn’t need the sun; interior lighting is good enough. I’ve left my Orient Panda unworn for weeks on a shelf in my office and my office light kept it going. I like the idea that the watch won’t die in the middle of an overseas adventure because the battery gives out. That’s happened to me before.
The Orient Panda can be had in three different colors. I like the one on the left best.
Although I love the panda concept and look, on the Orient Panda the contrast between the hands and the watch face doesn’t work for me. The hands should stand out so that the time is apparent at a glance. It is not on this watch. Maybe me being an old fart is aggravating the issue. I have to stare at the watch to see the hands against the watch face. The hands should be black, I think, as was the case on my 1970s-era Seiko Panda. Maybe the Orient colors will work for you. Orient offers this watch in three different colors, but I don’t care for the look of the other two. Interestingly, the Orient Panda with the gray face is only $135 on Amazon, undercutting the price on the other Orient Panda color options by $25.
The Orient Panda has bits of lume on the numbers and the hands. The lume is small, though, and like me, they are not terribly bright. I found the lume tough to see at night. It’s also tough to determine where 12:00 on the watch face is at night.
The Orient Panda has a date feature. I’ll chalk this observation up to being a geezer: I found the date to be so small it was useless. Plus, the date is set back from the watch face, which throws a shadow over the numerals (further obscuring the date).
The Orient Panda has three subdials, which I think is one too many. Like many over-subdialed watches, the 24-hour subdial is a dumb thing. I think I can tell the difference between night and day, I know when it’s a.m. and when it’s p.m., and I can do the mental math instantly to convert 2:00 p.m. is 14:00 hours (I don’t need a subdial for this). If Orient had made the subdial hours settable in hourly increments independent of the main dial’s hourly settings, that would be a cool GMT feature that would allow knowing the time in two different time zones. But like every other watchmaker that includes a 24-hour subdial, you can’t set the subdial separately, so to me all it does is add complexity where none is required.
With regard to the chronograph feature, there is a smaller subdial at the 6:00 position that tracks up to 60 minutes, and seconds are recorded with the watch’s main face second hand. That approach is okay, I suppose, but the second hand really disappears against the watch face due to the aforementioned lack of contrast, and the 0-60 minute subdial is too small. I think Orient would have a better product if they eliminated the 24-hour subdial at the 3:00 position and used that real estate for a larger subdial for the chronograph’s 0-60 minute feature. That would knock the Orient Panda down to two subdials, which I think is just right for a panda watch. It would look more like a panda. But hey, what do I know? Orient sells a lot of watches. I don’t sell any.
At an Amazon price of $160.84, the price on the Orient Panda is impressive, especially when viewed alongside the $7300 Breitling Panda. My complaints notwithstanding, the Orient Panda is a beautiful timepiece at an affordable price. It is both a nice piece of jewelry and a usable everyday watch.
Here’s that image with its levels and curves adjusted:
