Joe Berk

Managing Expectations

Alta, a manufacturer of electric dirt bikes, very recently announced they are closing their doors. Here’s the article I read on it: Alta Motors Ceases Operations. This is interesting on several levels. Alta previously announced a strategic partnership with Harley-Davidson. I thought this would figure into Harley’s Livewire project and help both companies enormously, but I guess that isn’t the case. Last year, Alta lowered their prices substantially. I thought this would increase their sales, even though their prices were still high. Alta had the electric dirt bike niche all to themselves, and this niche seemed to be more suited to an electric motorcycle’s range limitations. Basically, motocross racing doesn’t require extended range, making Alta’s focus appear to be a well-thought-out strategy. And finally, Alta had sold a large number of bikes, and they had orders for several hundred more (see the link above).

I guess, in the final analysis, it all comes down to profitability and cash reserves, and if you don’t have enough of either, you can’t keep going. This makes Alta the second big US e-bike effort to flop (the first being the Brammo).

We are living in interesting times, and that is especially true with respect to the e-bike world. The e-bike industry is simultaneously emerging and going through a shakeout.

I have been to the mountain. In this case, I did it on Slick. Slick isn’t the last e-bike that will emerge from Chongqing’s inner chambers; he’s only the first of many.

The CSC City Slicker, the newest player in this arena, is already playing a significant role. The three big things Slick has going for it are its price, its quality (it’s world-class; see our earlier blog posts) and CSC’s well-earned reputation for customer service. The biggest challenges for CSC and the City Slicker, I think, will be overcoming the US aversion to Chinese products, the ongoing uncertainties in the US/China trade relationship, and redefining customer expectations.

Overcoming US aversion to Chinese products is the least of these issues, and personally, I wouldn’t waste a single second attempting to do so. I think CSC and Zongshen put that issue to bed with the RX3 (it’s a world-class machine, with quality as good as or better than any motorcycle produced anywhere in the world). To be blunt, anybody still singing songs about Chinese slave labor and low Chinese quality is too stupid and too ignorant to waste time listening to. They won’t change their minds, so expending any effort attempting to convince them otherwise is an exercise in futility. Hey, there are still people who think the earth is flat and that we faked the moon landing. Best to forget about them, thank your lucky stars you aren’t that stupid, and move on.

I think the current uncertainties in the US/China trade relationship will sort themselves out within the next several months. I think the tariff issue will either go away or have relatively insignificant effects, and I think much of what is going on now is posturing and positioning for a serious set of negotiations between our leaders. Our trading relationship with China is, to borrow a phrase, too big to fail.

So we’re down to that last issue, redefining expectations, and that will be the biggest challenge for CSC and the electric motorcycle market. There’s no question that CSC has a pricing advantage that is insurmountable, and I think when CSC announced the City Slicker it set a new reality in the US e-bike industry. I think Alta realized that and that it might have played a role in their throwing in the towel. I have to think that the folks at Zero are similarly eyeing the situation and ingesting huge amounts of Pepto-Bismol (and that’s using as charitable a phrase as I can think of). You might argue that Alta and Zero have (or had) bigger motorcycles with different missions, but that would be as shortsighted and wrong as arguing that all Chinese goods are low quality or the earth is flat. Yes, Zero motorcycles are bigger and have more capability, but that’s the world as it exists this instant. The world does not stand still, my friends. Do you think, even for one second, that the City Slicker is the only sensibly-priced e-bike that will emerge from Chongqing? Do you think that future e-bikes from China will be small and have the same limitations as do today’s e-bikes? I have been to the mountain, folks. The answer is no.

A street scene in Beijing. You might see 50 e-bikes for every gas-powered scooter over there. It’s a tsunami, and it’s coming this way, folks.

But I digress: Back to this expectations thing. The City Slicker is not a bike that you can hop on and ride 2000 miles through Baja with a few stops for gas (or topping off the battery). The range is limited to something like 40 to 60 miles today, depending on how fast you want to go. The challenge here is to reach customers willing to use their City Slickers like their iPhones…something you plug in and top off whenever you have a chance. That’s a different market than folks who buy internal combustion bikes. But it’s potentially a huge market, as I saw firsthand in China where zillions of e-bikes were tethered to extension cords in front of every business on every city street. More on this expectations thing: CSC recently announced the price for a replacement Slick battery, and I think it’s about $1100. Some of the keyboard commandos were choking on that number. Hey, go price a replacement Zero battery. You could buy three brand new City Slickers for what a Zero battery costs. Like I said earlier, the challenge is going to be redefining expectations. Are we up for it and will CSC market the City Slicker (and the Chinese e-bikes that will inevitably follow) in a manner that emphasizes this new reality?

Time will tell, but I know where I’d put my money.

The Route 66 MSILSF Endurance Run!

You’re going to like this. It’s an endurance event, but not the kind you might be thinking of. No BMW GS ADV monsters, no Gold Wings, no Harleys, in fact, no motorcycles. It’s scooter time, folks!

Alan Spears, MSILSF honcho and motor scooter madman…my kind of guy!

First, let’s wind back the clock about 8 years. Let’s see, that would put us at about 2011, and that would be the Hell’s Loop scooter run, organized by the Motor Scooter International Land Speed Federation, and in particular, my good buddy Alan Spears. Alan, you see, is a bit different than the rest of the children. He’s an attorney by day, but at night he becomes a superhero dedicated to fighting villains and standing for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Well, sort of. Alan, you see, organizes motor scooter endurance events. I know this because the one I entered was the aforementioned Hell’s Loop, and it was a hoot.

‘Twas a dark and stormy night…nah, not really. The sun was shining but it was freezing as the three of us rode our California Scooters into Death Valley back in 2011 during the Hell’s Loop event. That’s good buddies TK and Arlene out in front of me.

There were three of us, and we were on California Scooters. Those were the little 150cc Mustang replicas you’ve been reading about on the ExhaustNotes blog, the very same ones we rode to Cabo and back. The event was a hoot, and we might have won it, but one of our group forgot their gloves and then we got lost, and then…well, you get the idea. But we did finish, and we did 400 miles in a single day on our 150cc Mustangs. We froze our butts off, too, but what’s an adventure ride without a little loss of creature comforts? You say you want proof? It didn’t happen if there are no pictures? Hey, there’s that one above and here are a couple more…

Flat out on my 150 somewhere in Death Valley. Note the Baja decal on the windshield.

Filling up in Panamint, at $5.19 a gallon. Those little bikes got nearly 100 mpg, so I didn’t care.

All right, so where am I going with this story?

You can’t keep a good man down, and Alan is a good man. His next adventure is the Route 66 X-Treme Endurance 400-Mile run. It’s going to be the 21st of April in 2019, it’s going to be in Arizona, and you know what? I’m working real hard to scare me up a scooter. I want to play in this one, folks. Alan, you be my witness…I’m casting about to find a scoot. Contingent on that, Amigo, count me in.

The Route 66 MSILSF route, scheduled for April 2019. I have got to find a ride…because I want to play in this game!

Part of the Route 66 itinerary for the April endurance event. I’m guessing this is somewhere near Oatman, Arizona.

If you would like more information, you can contact Alan directly at msilsf@yahoo.com. Hopefully, I’ll see you in Arizona next April!

A Dream Bikes page!

Yep, we’ve added another index page, this time for our Dream Bikes blogs…

The Dream Bikes page is a concept started by Arjiu, and it’s one of my favorites. It’s all about bikes we wished we had bought back in the day, bikes we’d still like to own, bikes we have owned and miss, and more. It’s a favorite, and now you can get to any of them quickly.

The lead photo above is one of the best bikes I’ve ever owned, my old 1995 Triumph Daytona 1200. It was an awesome ride. That bug-spattered headlight shot? It was the result of a sustained 120 mph run across central California on Highway 58…a ride I was on with my good buddy Marty. Good times on a dream bike…something we call can relate to.

Baja, 150cc at time: Part V

The trek south on our 150cc California Scooter Mustang replicas continues. On the off chance you haven’t followed this ride, here are the first four installments of this grand adventure. I almost called it a mini-adventure, but only the bikes were “mini.” Everything else about this ride was a full-bore adventure. So, to bring you up to speed…

Part I: Baja, 150cc at a time…

Part II: Baja, 150cc at a time…

Part III: Baja, 150cc at a time…

Part IV: Baja, 150cc at a time…

And with that, we’re back on the road, with our little 150cc Mustang CG clones, built by CSC Motorcycles, thumping their way south yet again…

Here’s a shot of our bikes parked in front of the Las Casitas Hotel in Mulege (it’s pronounced Mool-a-hay). The Tropic of Cancer was just a few miles down the road.

After a great stay at the Las Casitas Hotel in Mulege (one of my favorite places in Baja), we were on the road again, headed south to Ciudad Constitucion, our stop for the next evening. The regions we passed through were amazing, but the riding was beyond brutal. September is one of the hottest months of the year in Baja, and we were riding in 100-degree weather.

We soaked our clothes several times that day. J had a bunch of water in 5-gallon jerry cans on his big Dodge Power Wagon, and we used a trick I learned in the Army a long time ago…we soaked ourselves and then put our jackets on. The jacket keeps the water from evaporating too quickly, and in this kind of weather, you can stay cool for about an hour before you need another soaking. It really works.

My riding gear. Joe Rocket gloves. They work. Don’t ask me how I know. My new Bell helmet. Lightweight, comfortable, and very, very cool. Everybody loved it. My Olympia riding jacket. Visible, and I’m still wearing it.

After Mulege, we continued south out of Mulege, and we soon found ourselves along what I believe to be the most beautiful part of Baja…and that would be Bahia Concepcion. I’ll let the photos do my talking here.

John’s California Scooter parked in front of Bahia de Concepcion on the Sea of Cortez.

The Sea of Cortez along the Transpeninsular Highway. The water really is that color.

South of Bahia Concepcion, we stopped in Loreto. It’s a nice town but it is a touristy spot. John and J got nailed for a couple of traffic infracciones, paid their fines, and we bolted.

We stayed the night in Ciudad Constitucion on the way down and on the way back. It’s a pretty interesting town, but it is not a tourist spot (which is why I find it interesting).

This local motor officer on a 250cc Suzuki stopped us as soon as he saw our bikes. He knew they were new and different. I tossed him my keys and asked for the keys to his police motor. We both had a good laugh about that!

Ciudad Constitucion was celebrating the Mexican Bicentennial, as Santa Rosalia had been the day before, and they had an awesome fireworks display. It was impressive.

We had dinner at a sidewalk restaurant in Ciudad Constitucion, and we ate at a plastic table with plastic chairs right on the sidewalk. It was a cool evening, the town was festive, and it was great. The green things in the photo are nopales, or boiled cactus (very tasty). The tacos were delicious, too.

Yours truly flirting with the waitresses. Dos senoritas.

We were up early the next morning, and we continued our southward quest. We knew the next major town was La Paz, but we didn’t want to get into it. La Paz meant heavy traffic and more heat.

You might be wondering…what were these little 150cc Mustang replicas, and what were the original Mustangs? Hey, if you want to know more about that, you can read that story right here…

Original Mustang motorcycles. Click on the image to get to the story!

CSC Motorcycles no longer manufactures new Mustangs, but more often than not they’ll have a nearly new trade-in on the showroom floor. If you have an interest in these born-again Mustangs, here’s a link to the CSC website.

To be continued…

Want to learn more about riding in Baja? Check out the ExhaustNotes Baja page!

Brown Motor Works in Pomona, CA

One of many vintage BMWs displayed at Brown BMW.

Brown Motor Works in Pomona, California, is a family-run BMW dealership that has been in business since the 1960s. I first visited the place when I moved to California in 1979, and that’s when I met Bob Brown. I liked Bob and the dealership immediately. Brown BMW felt like a motorcycle shop. Bikes, riding gear, cool used stuff, and none of the antiseptic featurelessness you typically find today at most new motorcycle dealers. Nope, Brown’s is the real deal…a real motorcycle shop.

A new BMW in the Brown Motor Works showroom. These are stunning motorcycles.

Fast forward another 20 years, and my good buddy Marty kept telling me about the First Church of Bob. He was referring to the Saturday get-togethers at Brown’s, where riders congregated for an hour or so of talk about, well, anything and everything, followed by lunch. I was a little hesitant at first because I didn’t ride a BMW, but Marty told me lots of guys at these weekly events didn’t ride Beemers. So I went, and I’m glad I did. I’ve made lots of friends there and I’ve gone on many rides as a result (the Three Flags Rally, Baja adventures, and more). I’ve been a relatively faithful First Church of Bob disciple for close to 20 years now. And hey, it’s Saturday. I’m going there today.

Dave Brown, who runs the show at Brown BMW, along with his sister Julie.

Bob Brown is the guy who started Brown Motor Works. Bob is as real as it gets, and to overuse a phrase, the guy is a living legend. He raced the big races, including the storied Catalina Grand Prix, Baja, and more. Bob rode the thousand-mile length of Baja when it was only paved for the first 200 miles. And Bob rode what might have been the first GS ever to Alaska and back (and when I say the first GS ever, I mean it…he took a standard BMW boxer, chopped the fenders, put on knobbies, and pointed the front wheel north). Bob designed handlebars, kickstands, and many other BMW accessories that ultimately found their way into the production motorcycles.

Bob Brown, in Baja, teaching yours truly the finer points on how to ride safely, quickly.

And wow, can Bob ride. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen him absolutely smoke youngsters on Gixxers, Ducatis, and other high-performance machines. Bob would be on a black-and-white police boxer trade-in (one of his favorite mounts, a bike weighing a good 200 lbs more than the hypersports) and he’d pass Ricky Racers in the twisties on the Crest who thought they were quick. Sometimes he’d do it standing on the pegs, just to make a point.

Brown BMW is one of our ExhaustNotes sponsors (that’s their ad you see on all of our pages), and I’m here to tell you it’s a place you want to visit. Dave Brown and his sister Julie run the show today, with help from great folks like Tom in Sales, Eddie and Gerry in Service, and others. While you’re there, you can take a look at Bob’s collection of vintage BMW motorcycles, have a cup of coffee, and maybe even say hello to Bob. It’s a fun place to visit and everything they do is top notch. Folks, trust me on this: Brown Motor Works is the real deal.

Singapore and more!

Inside the Nethercutt, as explained in Motorcycle Classics magazine.

Wow, it sure has been a whirlwind five days. Hop on a airplane, fly to Singapore (20+ hours to get there), two days of business, and fly back (another 20+ hours of travel). Getting through LAX Customs late last night was terrible (tons of people and massive midnight confusion…not a good combo, I think). Okay, enough bitching. On the plus side, life is good. ExhaustNotes.us readership continues to climb, Motorcycle Classics published my article on the Nethercutt (complete with a link to ExhaustNotes), Motorcycle.com gave us a link to Joe Gresh’s Zed’s Not Dead Z1 resurrection story, and I’m back here in Sweet Home California.

Zed’s Not Dead, even though she’s suffering from advanced atherosclerosis.

So, Singapore….they didn’t call that movie Crazy Rich Asians for nothing. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m going to. People always ask what Singapore is like. Well, it’s like Rodeo Drive without the poor people, I guess. Orchard Road is nonstop high end shopping and every other store sells Rolexes, Omegas, Breitlings, and Patek Phillippes. I’m a watch guy, but Casio and Seiko are more my speed. But I like to look.

Diving into Singapore, a tiny but incredibly wealthy country. Shipping, finance, oil refining, and tourism are its four major industries.

Along Orchard Road…embassies, art, and shopping.

1 in every 34 Singaporeans is a millionaire, they say. I believe it.

I like visiting Singapore, but I like visiting Tinfiny more. It’s more my speed. There are no Z1 Kawasaki motorcycles being resurrected in Singapore.

Hey, if you haven’t already done so, please add your name to the email notification widget on the right side of this page. We’ve got good stuff coming up, including our plans for the December Baja run, more on the Z1 resurrection, the continuing 150cc Cabo scooter story, and more gun features. You won’t want to miss any of it!

A tale of three Garands…

This is a tale of three Garand-style rifles, told from my laptop while waiting to make a connection in Taipei. Yep, I have time on my hands (5 ½ hours, to be precise). I had this Garand tale from an earlier writeup, so I thought I would polish it up a bit and post a gun story on the ExhaustNotes blog.

The M1, the M1A, and the Mini 14

The three Garand rifles? They’re all based on John C. Garand’s brilliant rifle known as the M1, so I guess I’ll start with a description of that firearm first. The M1 Garand is a gas-operated, semi-automatic rifle, described by General George S. Patton as the greatest battlefield implement ever invented. In a period when all other armies were using bolt-action rifles, our ability to deliver serious semi-automatic firepower without having to turn a bolt was a major advantage.

The Garand design operates by porting a bit of the combustion gas to a cylinder that drives an operating rod, and then the operating rod unlocks and cycles the bolt. Garand’s genius is evident in the mechanical interactions between the bolt, the operating rod, and the rifle’s receiver. The angles and camming surfaces are such that when the operating rod pushes the bolt rearward, the bolt first rotates and unlocks before it extracts and ejects the spent cartridge case. After it has done that, the rifle’s main spring drives the operating rod forward again, the bolt picks up and chambers a new round, and everything locks into place. It’s very clever. There is no software and there are no electrons carrying any signals. It’s all driven by good old-fashioned, straightforward mechanical stuff.

Several armories and companies manufactured Garands, and serious collectors look for Garand rifles based on their manufacturing pedigree. My M1 Garand is nothing fancy or collectible. It’s a mutt, a hodgepodge of components with an Israeli-manufactured receiver, an Italian Beretta trigger group, and other parts of mixed origin. But it shoots well and I love shooting it, and the Garand is a rifle with a soul. It’s like taming a living beast when you shoot it. It roars, it kicks, it makes mechanical noise, and it sends things flying.

Check out the spent cartridge case just ejected…it’s in the lower center of this photo! My daughter took this photo with her cell phone.

M1 Rifles Standing Guard

I was surprised to see Garands still on guard duty a few years ago when I was on a secret mission in Turkey. I grabbed some cool photos of Turkish sailors and soldiers (young Turks, you could call them) guarding Ataturk’s tomb in Ankara…

Standing guard in Ankara, Turkey, with an M1 Garand.

Garand originally designed the M1 to fire a cartridge with a 0.27-inch diameter projectile, but when it was fielded, the Army opted to chamber it in .30 06. We already had machine guns and the Springfield 03A3 chambered in .30 06, and sticking with the same round made sense. The M1 Garand soldiered on during World War II and the Korean War for us, and it’s still soldiering on in ceremonial units (like those Young Turks you see above).

The M14 and M1A

After the Korean War, the US Army developed the M14 rifle to replace the Garand. The M14 is essentially a shortened M1 Garand with a magazine (you insert the ammo into the bottom of the rifle). The basic Garand operating concept is the same. The M14 switched from the mighty .30 06 round to the 7.62 NATO round (the .308 Winchester cartridge). The M14 shoots the same bullet, but the 7.62 brass cartridge case is a little bit shorter and the bullet is about 100 feet per second slower than it would be if it was fired from a .30 06. The shorter cartridge case allows the 7.62 NATO round to operate in a machine gun with a higher cyclic rate of fire, and that was one of the reasons we went with it.

The M14 started development in the 1950s and it officially replaced the Garand as the US Army infantry rifle in 1961. I first trained with the M14 when I joined the Army, and I loved it. It was a full-sized rifle with real sights and a real walnut stock (no black plastic silliness in those days), and it fired a serious cartridge. Unlike the Garand, the M14 had a selector switch that allowed it to fire full auto. With those features, what’s not to like?

In addition to being a great service rifle, the M14 was one hell of a target rifle. The M14’s .308 Winchester cartridge is inherently more accurate than the M1 Garand’s .30 06 round (heresy to some, I know, but I’ll stand by that statement). Civilian competitive shooters wanted the M14, but it wasn’t going to happen. So private industry did what America does best: It engineered a solution. The company was the Springfield Armory (not to be confused with the U.S. government’s Springfield Arsenal), and they created and sold semi-auto-only versions of the M14 to the public. Springfield Armory called the new rifle the M1A (not to be confused with the M1 Garand). I know, there’s a lot of “not to be confused” stuff here. It’s complicated.

I always wanted an M1A, and when I spotted one in our local gun shop with nice horizontal figure in the walnut stock, I pulled the trigger (pardon the pun). The finish on a standard Springfield Armory M1A is crude (it’s a single coat of boiled linseed oil on a not-very-smoothly-finished stock). The figure in my rifle’s stock indicated the wood had potential, so I went to work applying multiple coats of TruOil (one hand-rubbed coat each night, just like we used to do in the Army). It turned out well and it shot well, but I reasoned it could do better, so I sent it back to Springfield to have it glass-bedded and I added National Match sights. The glass-bedding stabilizes the action in the stock (it’s a technique for making a rifle more accurate), and the National Match sights have a smaller aperture at the rear and a thinner front sight (that makes it easier to shoot tighter groups). It worked for me; those two changes dropped my M1A’s 50-yard groups from 1.5 inches to 0.5 inches.

A modern Springfield Armory M1A, the civilian version of the M14, which was the successor to the M1 Garand.

10 coats of hand-rubbed TruOil and the M1A’s horizontal stripes stand out.

The thing about both of the above rifles is they shoot big cartridges. The Garand’s .30 06 and the M14’s 7.62 NATO rounds have serious recoil and muzzle blast. Again, American inventiveness to the rescue: Enter another mechanical genius and business leader extraordinaire, Bill Ruger. Ruger developed what is essentially a scaled-down version of the M14 chambered for the 5.56 NATO cartridge (which is essentially the .223 Remington round). That’s the same cartridge used in the M16. It fires a much smaller bullet than either the M14 or the M1, and the recoil and muzzle blast are substantially lower.

A Favorite: The Mini 14

Ruger called his Garand-based rifle the Mini 14 (it was a smaller version of the M14). It came on the market in the early 1970s and it was an instant hit. I’ve owned several Mini 14s (and fired several more) over the last 5 decades, and I love the things. They are not known for their accuracy, but they are accurate enough and they are a lot fun to shoot.

A Ruger Mini 14 with a muzzle brake and a Circassian walnut stock. This one is from a limited run Ruger made with Circassian walnut about 10 years ago. It’s very collectible and it always gets compliments at the range.

Not the world’s most accurate rifle, but accurate enough.

The Mini 14 never made it into the US military in a major way (it’s rumored that some special forces units were armed with Mini 14s), but it is used by many US police agencies (including the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, one of the best there is), the French military, and the militaries of a few other countries. I believe that if Ruger had come to market with the Mini 14 a few years earlier, it might have become the US Army’s standard rifle instead of the M16 (and that would have been fine by me). That last statement is bound to raise a few eyebrows, but hey, this is the Internet. If you disagree, that’s why we have a Comments section.

I’ve fired thousands and thousands of rounds through my Mini 14, and it is the cartridge I reload the most frequently. The small .223 bullets are inexpensive and reloading is as much fun as shooting. My Mini 14 is the rifle I shoot most and one of these days I suppose I’ll wear out the barrel, but I’m not worried. I’ll just have a new one fitted and shoot another zillion rounds.

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Baja, 150cc at a time: Part IV…

The trek south on our 150cc California Scooter Mustang replicas continues…

If you are coming into this adventure in the middle of the movie, you might want to take a minute or two and get caught up with our first three installments…

Part I: Baja, 150cc at a time…

Part II: Baja, 150cc at a time…

Part III: Baja, 150cc at a time…

Back to the main attraction…

After the spending the night at the Desert Inn in Catavina, fueling the bikes and checking that everything was tight the next morning, we were ready to continue south. We had agreed that if the group separated (which happens on these trips), our next rally point would be Chapala. Sure enough, that’s what happened, and Arlene and I waited for John and Simon to catch up to us near Chapala. We had a soft drink and after waiting a bit, we pushed on. We’d catch John and Simon later.

Arlene and I at the only loncheria in Chapala…

We had left early that morning and the weather was tolerable, but it soon became a brutally hot. September is the hottest month of the year in Baja, and we were feeling it.

When we hooked up with Simon and John, they were eating a morning snack…a salad with 1000 Island dressing. We continued down Mexico’s Transpeninsular Highway, and I grabbed this shot of Simon and Arlene headed toward Guerrero Negro…

On the road, on 150cc bikes, headed south in Baja.

Guerrero Negro means “Black Warrior” in Spanish. It is the name of a ship that sank near there in the 1800s. Guerrero Negro is right on Parallelo 28 (the 28th Parallel), which separates the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur. The town is also a good spot in the winter months for whale-watching tours. There’s a Mexican Army compound on the highway, and they have this cool whale skeleton right next to the highway.

From Guerrero Negro, the highway cuts southeasterly across the Baja peninsula, and we moved from the Pacific side to the Sea of Cortez side of Baja.

Going across the Baja peninsula was a fun ride, especially the last few miles into Santa Rosalia. It’s a 2,000-foot descent in just a few miles, and it’s wild. The name of this stretch is La Cuesta del Infierno. There are no guard rails and nightmarish drops if you let things get away from you. I didn’t grab any photos on the way down. When we arrived on eastern shore of the peninsula, we stopped for a few photos.

Arlene Battishill, Go Go Gear riding apparel, a custom California Scooter, and the Sea of Cortez.

Arlene’s CSC 150 had a custom paint job with the Go Go logo. John Esposito, who was with CSC at the time, did the painting. He is easily the most gifted custom painter I’ve ever known.

The crew, and one of my favorite photos from this trip. From left to right, it’s Simon Gandolfi, Arlene Battishill, J Brandon, John Welker, and Joe Berk.

We ate in Santa Rosalia, and by now, the temperature and humidity were beyond oppressive. That didn’t kill our spirits, but it came close. We were in heavy traffic, we were fully suited up, and it was a steam bath. We were close to the Tropic of Cancer, and it was about as miserable a set of riding conditions as I’ve ever experienced. Something was going on but I didn’t know what, and then traffic stopped altogether. As we sat in our riding gear and sweltered, a heavily-armed military parade marched by, music and all. Right in front of us. Had a revolution started? We didn’t know it yet, but we soon found out that Mexico was celebrating the bicentennial of the Mexican Revolution! John and I looked at each other and starting laughing. This was perfect!

John and I have been exploring Baja on motorcycles for close to 20 years now. He’s an easy guy to travel with, and he always laughs at my jokes (so I naturally like the guy). We’ve done the cruiser thing, we’ve both owned KLR 650 Kawasakis, and we’ve both owned CSC RX3 motorcycles. John was a great guy on this (and many other) trips…he’s a guy that just doesn’t let the small stuff bother him. A flat tire in the middle of the jungle? Hey, no problemo! That’s John in a nutshell, and it’s why I like traveling with him.

You may recall that part of the reason we making this trek was to road test the CSC 150 Mustang replicas under harsh conditions. Our intent on this trip was to beat the heck out of our California Scooters and find issues offering improvement opportunities. Baja is a proving ground…there’s no question about that. When I was a kid, American Motors came out with a new car that they entered in the Baja 1000 (I think it was their AMX model). Their commercials had a race car driver explaining to a Bajaeno that they were entering the car in the Baja race. The Bajaeno responded with “You’re going to enter theese hunk of tin in the Baja? Ha ha!” It was an image that stuck in my mind. Our direction from Steve Seidner, the CSC CEO, was to try to break the bikes, and Baja would be the place to do it.

And try we did…the trip would be 2200 miles through Baja. Simon commented that what we were doing with these bikes was probably something no other owner would ever do with their California Scooters, and time proved him right. It’s been nearly 10 years, and no one repeated what we did. Rough asphalt. Dirt roads. Hundreds of miles a day with wide open throttles. 100+ degree temperatures. High humidity. Up and down mountain passes. Long straights through the desert. You get the idea.

So, what broke?

I expected to have lots of light bulb failures, as I’ve had those on virtually any motorcycle I’d ever taken through Baja. I bought a bunch of 1157s for the tail lights, and a half dozen headlight bulbs. As it turned out, that was massive overkill. We had one headlight failure (Arlene’s conked out just before we reached Cabo San Lucas), and I had two tail light failures on my bike. Part of what caused my tail light failures might have been my defective rear tire…it was unbalanced due to the rip I put in it (I’ll get to that later in this saga) and that made the rear end on my bike vibrate a lot. Nobody else needed a bulb replacement, and I was surprised at how few bulb failures we had.

I guess I should point out that we had two preproduction bikes and two production bikes on this trip. Part of the test was to gage CSC’s success with improvements made when the company went from the preproduction to the production configuration. We wanted to see the same failures on the preproduction bikes as we had seen earlier, and we didn’t want to see those failures on the production bikes.

One of the problems CSC had experienced on the preproduction bikes was an occasional failure of the welded frame tab to which the muffler attaches. CSC strengthened that tab and its weld joint on the production bikes. Both tabs failed on the preproduction bikes within the first two days of riding in Baja; neither of the production bike muffler mounting tabs failed during the entire trip. I found a welder somewhere south of Guerrero Negro (my new buddy Umberto). I asked Umberto to fabricate new tabs identical to those on the production bikes, and to weld the new tabs on the preproduction bikes using the same weld pattern as the production bikes. Umberto did so, and the welds on the preproduction bike held for the remainder of the trip.

My new buddy Umberto upgrading a preproduction muffler tab to the production configuration, while simultaneously demonstrating proper personal protective equipment use. Welker is pulling fire guard duty.

We had two battery failures on the entire trip, and both occurred on the preproduction bikes. Neither of the production bikes had any battery problems. There was nothing different between the preproduction bikes’ batteries or charging systems and those on the production bikes, and at first, I was a little nervous about having a similar problem on the production bikes. Then, as the miles rolled by, I realized that the preprod bikes had old batteries. The batteries in both preprod bikes had been in those bikes for at least a year and a half, and who knows how old the batteries were before that. When we got back to the CSC plant, the boys put new batteries in both preproduction bikes, and they fired right up. The lesson here: Don’t leave on a long trip through Baja with an old battery. Duh.

The weather conditions – high heat and humidity – were tough on batteries…even J’s big Dodge Power Wagon (our chase vehicle) had a dead battery one morning. One thing about this battery business that was interesting was that Simon’s preproduction bike battery failed and his bike wouldn’t start at all. John’s preproduction bike battery failed and his bike could be kick started. John rode that preproduction bike for 9 days and 2200 miles, kick starting it all the way.

I tore up a tire on the way back from Cabo (I’ll tell you more about that in a subsequent installment). I noticed one afternoon that the tire was bald in just one spot, almost as if the rear wheel had been skidded for a long distance. I know I didn’t do that; maybe someone who rode my bike did (we swapped bikes a lot on this trip). Or maybe I hit something in the road that damaged it. Whatever the cause, I opted not to change the tire until later that day, and sometime in the next 150 miles, the tread split down to the cord in that bald spot. This caused a lot of vibration, but I took a chance on reaching San Ignacio before replacing it and it worked out okay. One thing about 12-inch tires…they were out quickly. It’s a common issue on scooters of all kinds. Well, maybe not an issue. You just need to know about it. A smaller diameter tire rotates a lot more than a bigger diameter tire, and the natural result is that the tires wear faster.

We also learned which nuts and bolts you have to keep an eye on our bikes. Nothing new there…I’ve gone through this with every motorcycle I’ve ever owned. On my KLR 650 it was the lower fairing bolts, the muffler heat shield, the muffler mounts, and the steering stem. On my Triumph Tiger it was the right foot peg and the saddlebag acorn nuts. On my Harley Softail it was nearly everything. On the California Scooter I soon learned it was the two 10mm exhaust clamp bolts at the cylinder head, and the 12mm elongated bolt at the bottom of the muffler. It became part of our ritual to check these bolts on our California Scooters each morning.

And the engine? Well, as far as I’m concerned, that old CG design was bulletproof. We flogged the bikes (we ran wide open for the last 500 miles), and we didn’t have a single engine problem. The CG engines are good, solid, reliable motors.

So, I digressed a little bit to tell you about the tech issues on the bikes. Now, it’s back to the main attraction…our ride. So where were we? Oh, yeah…I left off in Santa Rosalia. After having lunch and celebrating the Mexican Revolution in that fair city, we continued south. Mulege, a city about 40 miles south of Santa Rosalia, was to be our destination that evening.

To be continued…

Want to learn more about riding in Baja? Check out the ExhaustNotes Baja page!

Dream bike: 2020 Suzuki Katana

Wow, this is a departure for ExhaustNotes. So far, all the dream bikes we’ve listed have been blasts from the past.

This one is and it isn’t.

I’m over here in Singapore this week on yet another secret mission, and this story floats in: Suzuki is resurrecting the Katana! Whoa!

The 2020 Suzuki Katana. 1000cc, just like the original, but with a Gixxer engine.

This is a story that has my attention. I’ve always liked Suzuki motorcycles, and I think Suzuki engineering is as good as it gets. But that’s not what attracted me to this latest development. I actually owned one of the very first Katanas, way back when they first came out in 1982…

A skinny guy with hair, a leather jacket, and a new ’82 Katana. Life was very, very good.

I still dream about that 1982 Katana. I paid over MSRP because they were so hard to find (I’ll never do that again, but the fact that I did says just how much I wanted that bike). It was fast beyond belief, and the colors just flat worked for me. It had a Joan Claybrook speedometer (remember her?) that only registered 85 mph, as if that would somehow counteract my willingness to do stupid stuff. 85 mph, my ass…that bike lived half its life with the needle buried. The instruments were cool, too…the tach and the speedometer were pivoted in a way that made them look like they were unwinding when accelerating. I hope Suzuki does something tricky like that with the new one. My ’82 Katana was so ahead of its time that I actually got pulled over twice by cops who just wanted to see the thing. And you know what? I never got a ticket on that bike. Not once. Lord knows it wasn’t because I was a good boy.

I don’t need 150 horsepower and I don’t need 1000cc. But there’s a big difference between need and want, and I want this new Katana. This just might be the dream that comes true.

Hey, there’s more!

Dream Bike: The ’66 Triumph TT Special

So, some of this is from a blog I did for CSC several years ago, and some of it is new. It’s all centered on one of my all-time dream bikes, the Triumph ’66 TT Special.

A ’66 Triumph TT Special. Love those colors!

Some background: In the mid-60s, the ultimate street bike was a Triumph TT Special. The regular Bonneville was a pretty hot number back then, but it came with mufflers, lights, a horn, and all the stuff it needed to be street legal. Those bikes were pegged at 52 horsepower, and although that sounds almost laughable now (as does thinking of a 650 as a big bike), I can tell you from personal experience it was muey rapido. I don’t believe there were any vehicles on the street in those days (on two wheels or four) that were faster than a Triumph Bonneville. And there was especially nothing that was faster than the Triumph TT Special. It took the hot rod twin-carb Bonneville and made it even faster. And cooler looking. The Triumph TT Special will always hold a special place in my heart.

I had a spare hour a couple of years ago (yeah, that’s about how it happens), and that’s when I stopped in Bert’s. My good buddy Ron had a Triumph TT Special on display. I wondered what most folks thought when they saw the TT Special in Ron’s showroom. Bert’s sells to a mostly younger crowd (you know the type…kids who just got a licenses and go for 170-mph sports bikes), and my guess is they didn’t really “get” the TT Special. I sure did. Like I said, back in the mid-60s the Triumph Bonneville ruled the streets, and the TT Special would absolutely smoke a standard Bonneville.

Back in those days the Triumph factory rated the TT Special at 54 horsepower (as opposed to the standard Bonneville’s 52), but let me tell you there was way more than just 2 horsepower separating these machines. The TT Special was essentially the starting point for a desert racer or flat tracker. They were racing motorcycles. The TT Special was never intended to be a street bike, but some of them ended up on the street. If you rode a TT Special…well, you just couldn’t get any cooler than that.

A ’65 Bonneville TT Special, in the blue and silver colors of that year. This is a beautiful motorcyle on display in the Owens Collection in Diamond Bar, California.

I only knew one guy back then who owned a TT Special (Jimmy something-or-other), and he did what guys did when they owned a TT Special. He made it street legal, and that effort consisted of a small Bates headlamp, a tail light, and a single rear view mirror.

The first time Jimmy was pulled over in New Jersey the reason was obvious: He was a young guy on a Triumph TT Special. Back in those days, that constituted probable cause. After the officer checked the bike carefully, he gave Jimmy a ticket for not having a horn. It was what we called a “fix it” ticket, because all you had to do was correct the infraction and the ticket was dismissed. Jimmy didn’t want to spend the money (and add the weight) that went with wiring, a switch, and an electronic horn, so he bought a bicycle bulb horn. You know, the kind that attached to the handlebars and had a black bulb on one end and a little trumpet on the other. It honked when you squeezed the bulb. Ol’ Jimmy (old now, I guess, if he is even still around) went to the police station, honked his horn, and the police officer dismissed the citation. With a good laugh. It was a good story 50+ years ago and it’s still a good story today. Simpler times, I guess.

I love the ’66 white and orange color combo, too. My Dad had a ’66 T120R Bonneville back then (that’s the standard street version of the Bonneville), and it was a dream come true for me. Those colors (white, with an orange competition stripe framed by gold pinstripes) really worked. 1966 was the first year Triumph went to their smaller fuel tank, and it somehow made the Bonneville even cooler.

My father, an upholsterer by trade, reupholstered his Bonneville with a matching white Naugahyde seat. Dad put a set of longitudinal pleats on the seat in orange to match those on the tank, and each was bordered by gold piping. The overall effect was amazing. It looked like the bike ran under a set of white, gold, and orange paint sprayers. The effect was electric. That bike really stood out in 1966, and it continues to stand out in my mind. In fact, while I was at CSC, that color combo (with Steve Seidner’s concurrence) found its way into one of the new San Gabriel color combos. Some dreams do come true, I guess!