Indian ExhaustNotes!

By Joe Berk

We were visiting the Planes of Fame last month when I spotted the US Army World War II motorcycle you see below…

At first, I thought it was a Harley WLA 45, but nope, a nice young fellow named Paul was working on the motorcycle and he told me it was an Indian.  Wow, you don’t see too many WWII US Army Indians.  I was a bit embarrassed (after all, I wrote a book about police and military motorcycles), but the beauty of this motorcycle soon made me forget that.   Check out these photos, folks…

When I returned home, I had to look up what I had written two decades ago about the Indian 741 in The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles

INDIAN WORLD WAR II MOTORCYCLES

During the war, Indian produced about 40,000 motorcycles and essentially devoted its entire operation to military production. It produced few civilian motorcycles (the company did not even bother to print a catalog in 1942), although it maintained a small amount of its production capacity for police motorcycles. It sold its military motorcycles to the U.S. Army and to several other Allied nations, most notably England. Indian offered several models during World War II. These included the Model 741, the Chief, the Model 640B, the M1, and the Model 841.

The Model 741

The Model 741 was Indian’s main military motorcycle. It was the machine Indian had developed in response to the U.S. Army’s ill-advised initial requirement for a 500-cc military motorcycle. The Model 741’s engine actually displaced 30.5 cubic inches (or 500 cc), and for this reason it became known as the “30-50.”

The Model 741 was based on Indian’s Junior Scout. Its 500-cc, V-twin engine was the Junior Scout engine detuned for increased durability. It only produced about 15 horsepower. The Model 741 had a hand shift and a foot clutch like the Harley-Davidson WLA, but the Indian motorcycle put the shifter on the right side of the gas tank instead of on the left side as Harley-Davidson had done. The motorcycle’s throttle was in the left handgrip, in accordance with the army’s initial specification. As Harley-Davidson had done, Indian extended the front forks to give greater ground clearance. Indian also extended the rear frame for the same purpose. The Model 741 also used the much larger Indian Chief’s transmission for increased reliability. The Model 741 had a rifle scabbard on the right front fender and an ammunition container on the left front fender.

The Indian Model 741, like the Harley- Davidson WLA, was not a high-performance motorcycle. Both machines weighed over 500 pounds. Both machines had top speeds of approximately 65 mph. The army was more interested in durability than in top speed.

The U.S. Army used the Indian Model 741 during World War II, as did the armies of Great Britain, Canada, Poland, Australia, and Russia. Indian also sold Model 741s to the British Royal Air Force.

Here’s the best part of this story…The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles is still in print, it’s just $12.95, and all you need to do to order it is click on the link you see here.

Oh, and one more thing.  If you live for the sound of exotic ExhaustNotes, I saved the best for last…


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An awesome exhaust note…

Last year, Sue and I were in the Columbia River Gorge gathering info for a Motorcycle Classics story (you can read it here).   We flew up because I had a tight schedule and we rented a car from one of those places where you walk into the parking lot and pick whatever car you want.  I saw this cool little yellow Hyundai Veloster and it got the nod….

A cool vehicle for exploring the Columbia River Gorge!

I’ve always liked the looks of that car…sporty, low, and kind of in your face.  And, it had a small engine, which I find more appealing these days.  I wasn’t disappointed…I loved that car.

I see another Veloster near my dentist’s office every time I have to make that trek…a custom blue number that is a visually arresting automobile.   Yesterday I walked into the vape shop next door and asked who owned it.  The guys inside looked alarmed…I guess because I’m a mature dude with short hair and they’re all young, they assumed something bad was brewing.  But that wasn’t the case at all.  I explained that I really liked the Veloster and I wanted to get some photos of it.   And I did.

Folks, meet my new good buddy Jon…

Jon’s car is a 2012 Veloster and I like what he’s done to it.   Lots of trim pieces, flared wheel wells, a carbon fiber hood, custom wheels, and more.   Check this out…

Jon’s custom Veloster sounds great, too.   I guess you could say it sort of defines our website with, well, you know…an awesome ExhaustNote.  Take a listen…

Baja, 150cc at a time: Part III….

So we’re back on the story about our trek to Cabo San Lucas on reborn Mustangs, the little CG clone 150cc hardtails.   We’re doing this story in installments.  This is the third, and if you are new the ExNotes blog, you might not have seen Part I and Part II.   My advice?   Take a few minutes and read them before continuing with Part III (this part of our ongoing 150cc adventure ride)…

Part I:  Baja, 150cc at a time…

Part II:  Baja, 150cc at a time…

And with that, I’ll pick up where I left off at the end of our Part II Colonet coffee stop.  After our coffee stop, we rolled on for another hour and stopped for breakfast. Here we were, in this little Baja restaurant, and they had wireless Internet access. That’s where I posted the first CSC blog entry on our Baja trip (and we wanted to keep moving, so it was short).

Check this out…Simon Gandolfi checking his email on my laptop!

What is the world coming to, though? Wireless Internet access in Baja.  I was surprised.   That trip was the first time I had Internet access in Baja.  I knew the peninsula was changing.

Breakfast was good, and after that, it was a short hop down to El Rosario to top off the tanks before climbing into the Valle de los Cirios. Our bikes climbed, and so did the temperature. I’ll bet we had a 60-degree temperature swing that day. It was right at about 100 degrees in the desert. September is the hottest month of the year in Baja.  Why make it easy?  We stopped several times to peel off our layered riding gear as the temperatures continued to climb.

Arlene, dropping layers and trying to stay cool.

When Catavina came into view, we decided to call it a day. We might have pushed on to Guerrero Negro, but there is literally nothing between Catavina and Guerrero Negro, and it’s another 140 miles or so down the road. Too hot, too far, and we didn’t want to ride after dark.

We had a lot of fun with Simon, and we quickly dubbed him “the world’s most interesting man.” Do you remember those Dos Equis commercials? You know…the ones where a guy holding a Dos Equis beer is proclaimed the world’s most interesting man…with descriptors like “he never uses lip balm” and “his mother has a tattoo that says ‘Son.’”  We really enjoyed getting to know Simon, and he most definitely is the world’s most interesting man. Before I left, someone gave me a list of “world’s most interesting man” descriptions he grabbed off the Internet, and I dribbled them out to our group as we journeyed through Baja. The one that got the best laugh was “Simon Gandolfi is the world’s most interesting man…he once called a psychic…to warn her.”

I grabbed this shot of Simon with his California Scooter in the Valle de los Cirios south of El Rosario. It’s one of my all time favorites.

Simon was also keeping a blog for his readers. Here’s an entry from Simon’s blog…

The bikes are small and pretty, surely an unusual description of a bike. Best of all they make people smile, not with scorn but with pleasure – as does watching your children play out in the yard.

The bikes were performing well. We had two current production bikes (mine and Arlene’s), and two preproduction bikes (Simon’s and John’s). During development Steve and the boys found a few improvement opportunities on the preproduction bikes, and these resulted in upgrades on the production bikes. Simon’s and John’s preproduction bikes have had some of the problems we found earlier, but the production bikes performed flawlessly.

We didn’t coddle the little Mustangs. We ran on some pretty rough roads, and the speed bumps (topes) in every little town we pass through were brutal. The Mexicans don’t just use one speed bump. They use about 20 of the things in a row, maybe 30 feet apart, one after the other. When they tell you to slow down, they mean it. We’d slow down for the speed bumps when we saw them in time (which didn’t always happen), and then we’d speed up after the topes. As I said earlier, the bikes liked running around 45 mph. We occasionally cranked them up to over 60 mph, but then we’d settle into a relaxed putt to enjoy the scenery and the ride. It’s a sweet way to see Baja.

Here’s another cool entry from Simon’s blog…

The desert here is a vast up-and-down jumble of immense gray boulders, candelabra cactus, Judas trees and skinny scrub. To the south and west lie mountains scrubbed to their stone core by a few million years of wind and occasional rain. To the east a long roll of cloud or fog lies low over the ocean. The dawn light washes the mountains a pale chalky blue. The cloud bank is touched with pink.

I have ridden on ahead. I haven’t met another car or truck in twenty minutes. Cut the engine and the silence is total. Two buzzard glide overhead. Nothing else moves. I am absorbed into the stillness and the quiet and the beauty and find myself shivering, not with cold, but with that exultation that comes sometimes when, tired yet wonderfully content, you get into a bed spread with Egyptian cotton sheets stiff from the laundry and wriggle in minor ecstasy as you clutch yourself in your own arms. Never done that? Never slept between Egyptian cotton sheets? How sad…

And if you have never visited Baja California, start planning. Right now this is about as close as you can get to heaven without a one-way ticket.

We rode into the Catavina boulder fields, one of the prettiest parts of Baja.  It’s a surreal region with huge white boulder and enormous Cardon cactus.

Headed toward Catavina.
You’ve seen this photo before. It’s another one of my favorites. I shot it from the saddle with my old D200 Nikon and 24-120 lens as we rolled through the Catavina boulder fields.
The Catavina gas station. No kidding.

Our destination that night was Catavina, where we would spend the night in the Desert Inn. It was a grand day and a great place to call it a night. I’d stayed there many times before on prior Baja adventures, and I knew it was good. The Desert Inn is nice. It’s 100 miles from anywhere.

The courtyard in Catavina’s Desert Inn Hotel.
Our bikes parked in front of the Catavina Desert Inn.

They turn the generators off from 12:00 to 4:00 at the Desert Inn, so there’s no electricity in the afternoon.  The desolation and the surrounding landscape just make it a cool place to be, even if was 100 degrees (as it was when we stopped that day). We ate in the Desert Inn’s restaurant, we sampled their Tequilas (hey, our riding was over that day), and then we hung out in the pool. Wow, that sure felt good.

To be continued…stay tuned for Part IV!


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

Dream Bike: 1969 Kawasaki 500cc Triple

The 1969 Kawasaki 500cc Triple.

The ’69 Kawasaki Mach III 500cc two-stroke triple:  Wow!  It was a watershed wunderbike back in the days when the Big Four had serious engineering, the kind that went way beyond Bold New Graphics.  They were trying all kinds of mechanically wild and wonderful things then.  It was a magnificent time to start a motorcycle riding career.

Nicknamed the Widowmaker for its tendency to wobble and wheelie,  the Mach III was the fastest motorcycle of its era, its MSRP was under $1000, and it would whomp a Honda CB750 in a drag race.  I know because I was there.  I had a Honda 750 and my college compadre Keith had the Kawi triple.  I had a 50% displacement advantage and that extra cylinder, but it was to no avail. Keith cleaned my clock at every light.

Good buddy Gobi Gresh is all gaga on these bikes, so I guess that’s what induced my heightened sensitivity to the topic of all things two-stroke triple.  Yesterday morning a note arrived in my email from Motorcycle Classics (the gold standard of motorcycle magazines, in my opinion), and it mentioned an article on a Mach III restoration by Anders Carlson.  I sent it on to Arjiu knowing his perverted puttster predilections, he told me the story was really good, and I read it.  I agree.  I’ve never met Mr. Carlson, but let me tell you, the man can write.

Truth be told, I never wanted a Kawasaki Triple back then in any of the four flavors (I believe that as the line grew, they offered a 250, a 350, the original 500, and a 750 version).  Now, maybe having one would be cool.  I’d be a better man, I think, if I owned one.

I did my first international motorcycle ride ever with good buddy Keith back in the early ’70s.  Keith rode his ferociously fast 500 triple and I rode my Honda 4 from central Jersey to Montreal.  We were in high spirits, as might be expected.   We were two young guys riding our bikes to Canada.  Canada!  It would almost be like going to another country!  We were in engineering school back then, both of us were in Army ROTC, and it was a fun ride.  We joked that folks might think we were draft dodgers, heading to Canada and all.

We swapped bikes for a while somewhere in Vermont and I thought the Kawasaki was downright painful.  That bike could have been an enhanced interrogation tool before the term was invented. It felt like sitting a two-by-four plank.  The 500 triple was fast in a digital sort of way (full on, or full off) and I didn’t care for it.  My CB750 was a much more comfortable bike and it sounded the way I thought a motorcycle ought to.   You know, like an Offenhauser.  The Kawi sounded like a chain saw.

My buddy Peter had one of the Kawasaki 750 triples.  I didn’t know him then, but he told me a story about that bike going into a high speed wobble coming down California’s Cajon Pass (the result being one pitched Peter with a broken shoulder that bothers him to this day).   “I can’t tell you how many times I ran out of gas on that thing,” was his only other comment.  I guess it liked fuel.

Still, the Kawi two-stroke triples are iconic bikes, and the Carlson article I mentioned above is a great read.  If I was going to have a Kawi triple, it would be a white one with blue stripes (the original colors), just like Keith’s and the one you see in the photo above.

Required Baja Paperwork

We’re often asked: What kind of documentation will I need to ride a motorcycle or drive a car in Baja?  Here’s the list of what documents are required for a trip into Baja:

1.  You’ll need your US passport, or a passport card. I’ve always used my passport; I’ve never had the passport card (the passport card is issued by the US State Department).  Either one will work.

2.  You’ll need a Mexican tourist visa. This is something you get immediately after you enter Mexico, not before.  If you enter through Tijuana or Tecate (my typical points of entry), there are Mexican immigration offices off to the right as soon as you enter.  That’s where the tourist visas are issued. You might be tempted to just blow this off because you can drive by and continue your trip into Baja, but if you’re stopped further inland and you don’t have the tourist visa, you’ll have to go back to the border to get one (don’t ask me how I know this). The good news is that if you’re planning a stay of less than 7 days, the tourist visa is free. If you staying longer, it’s $20.

3.  You’ll need your US driver’s license.

4.  You’ll need your vehicle registration.

5.  You’ll need Mexican insurance for your motor vehicle (your US insurance is not adequate).  We use BajaBound insurance exclusively, and we did a post about that great company here on the ExNotes blog a short time ago.

 

You can contact BajaBound directly at this link or by clicking on the photo above.  If you get stopped in Mexico and you can’t show proof of Mexican insurance, you’ll have a real problem (like we said above, your regular US insurance won’t cover you in Mexico). You’ll need to print a copy of your policy (which you can do online after you purchase it from BajaBound) and bring that with you.

And that’s it, folks.


Want to know more about riding in Baja?   Check out our Baja page!

Dr. Dave!

Dr. Dave and his Yamaha!

Dave Reiss is another one of our good riding buddies and blogging friends who recently told us about a ride on his Yamaha Seca, proving yet again that you don’t have to sell the farm to have a grand motorcycle adventure.   Dave’s post is right here.  You’ll enjoy reading it.  We sure did!

Wild Conjecture II: The KLR 650

The Kawasaki 1M-BC.

One Million Years BC. Raquel Welch. Who was John Richardson?

I was laughing so hard reading Gresh’s piece on the KLR 650 it took me a few minutes to get that “One Million BC” designator, and then I started laughing even harder. For reasons reaching back to my teenage years, I had visions of Raquel Welch scantily clad in strategically-draped animal skins atop a KLR 650.  Yeah, that could work.

Ah, the KLR. Nearly all of us have owned one at one time or another. I wanted a KLR for a long time and I waited too long to buy one (mostly because none of the dealers allowed test rides), but I finally pulled the trigger on a new one in 2006.  The bike was $5250 out the door (I know, you did better on yours).  That price included an obscenely-inflated-but-successfully-negotiated-lower dealer setup fee.  The windshield fell off on the 4-mile ride home.

I loved my KLR and I kept it for 10 years. I’d heard, off and on, that it was Kawasaki’s best-selling motorcycle.  It was a sensibly priced and simple motorcycle. Top heavy, yeah. Heavy, yeah. Well supported with tech days and a great online community, yeah. Fun to ride, yeah. Easy to maintain, yeah. A great adventure touring bike, absolutely yeah.

My KLR 650 near the salt fields of Guerrero Negro, B.C.S.  I had a lot of fun on that motorcycle.

Even though I started on small bikes (I was one of those nicest people you met on a Honda; I only became mean later in life) the KLR was the first bike of my adult life that made me realize I’d been brainwashed: I did not need a big bike. I also owned a Harley Softail with an S&S 96-inch motor at the same time I owned the KLR, and one day after inadvertent back-to-back rides, I realized the KLR was faster, more comfortable, and handled better. I’d spent more for just the S&S motor than the entire KLR cost new. The Softail went on CycleTrader that same day and was gone by the weekend.

My Harley Heritage Softail in Baja. This is a good example of how not to pack for a motorcycle trip.

The US motorcycle market is in the crapper for a lot of different reasons (none of which current industry leadership has been able to address). Sales dropped by 50% with the onset of the Great Recession of 2008, and today (10 years later), sales are still essentially at that same 50% level. It’s a double or triple or quadruple (or more) whammy…banks aren’t giving 6th mortgages on homes to buy a Harley, millennials are more interested in iPhones and Instagram than motorcycles, folks who were buying motorcycles are increasingly interested in adult diapers, motorcycles are too big and too expensive, and more than a few dealers are still price gouging with fraudulent and flatulent setup and freight fees. And there hasn’t been a good motorcycle movie (think The Great Escape or Easy Rider) in years. The answer is obvious to all but those heavily-invested in heavy, large, overpriced motorcycles (i.e., the same current industry leadership mentioned at the beginning of this paragaph): Smaller, lighter, way less expensive bikes. And maybe a good movie or two would help prime the pump.

So what do I think will be the follow on to the iconic KLR 650?

I see two options, and maybe a third…

Option 1 is for Kawasaki not to do anything because they already have a KLR 650 replacement. That bike is the Versys 300. The Good Times people may have pulled a fast one on us, and introduced a replacement without telling us it was a replacement. Hell, the Versys basically costs the same as a KLR 650.  From a price point perspective, it is the replacement.

Option 2 would be an entirely new Kawasaki. If the Big K goes this way, my guess is it will be something around 450cc, it will be a single, it will be too tall, it will be fuel injected, and it will be too expensive. It will not be manufactured in Japan; my guess is Thailand (where the KLR 650 has been manufactured for decades). Or maybe China. I think Kawasaki is mulling this one very carefully. Such a bike would have to go head to head with the new RX4 and RX3S to be offered by Zongshen (and in the US, CSC), the Royal Enfield 400cc Himalayan, and maybe others.  That would be a tough competition.  My guess is the Zongs will be a good $2,000 (probably more) less expensive than anything the Good Times People bring to us as a KLR 650 successor, and the Big 4 dealers will exacerbate the price problem by tacking on their ingrained and irrational $1500 freight and setup fees. Maybe Kawasaki realizes this, and if so, that makes a good argument for them to just pick up their marbles and go home (which they may have already done; see Option No. 1 above).

The Zongshen RX3S on display at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou. It’s hard to imagine how any KLR replacement can compete with this or the Zongshen RX4, given Kawasaki’s traditional path to market and dealer fees.

There is, of course, a third option, and that’s to just keep building the KLR 650.  The tooling was paid for years ago and there’s no real expense in continuing the line.  This makes a lot of sense, unless the bikes are just not selling, and that may be the case. As mentioned earlier, the US market is flat and outside the US, bikes over 250cc are viewed as freakishly huge.  I don’t buy the argument that because the KLR 650 is carbureted it won’t meet emissions requirements; the bike has been carbureted its entire life and new carbureted bikes are being approved in the US all the time.  If my last name was Kawasaki, I’d keep the KLR 650 on the market, drop the price dramatically, find a way to limit the dealer larceny that passes as freight and setup fees, and sell the hell out of that bike.

We’ll see. This will be interesting.


Check out our other Dream Bikes!

Named, noted, and quoted…

A comparo…Slick and Zero. It was fun doing this one.

Hey, this is cool.  Our story on the CSC City Slicker and Zero electric motorcycles was picked up (and quoted extensively) by a website called Electrek, an Internet magazine focused on electric vehicles.   Imagine that…being quoted in a magazine.   That’s cool…other people quoting me.  I’m working on learning how to write gud (spelling and grammar mistakes intended, folks) because when I grow up I want to write as well as Arjiu (and that would be my good buddy and literary hero, Joe Gresh).

Okay, enough on that.   I said I would someday explain the Dajiu and Arjiu business, and this is that day.

Dajiu and Arjiu in China. Yeah, we like gladiator movies…

So I’m Dajiu (which means big uncle, I’m told) and Joe Gresh is Arjiu (which means little uncle).  Our Chinese buddies gave us those names on the Western America Adventure Ride (you can read about that in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM).   Joe and I were leading a ride around the western US with a group of guys from China, and they were having difficulty with both of us having the same first name.  It’s funny…most of the Chinese guys had adopted English names (Hugo, Leonard, Kyle, etc.) to make it easier for us, but they were having trouble with us having the same English name (Joe and Joe).  On the second day of that ride, Hugo (Zongshen’s factory guy) fixed it by giving us new names, Dajiu and Arjiu.  Hugo called us all together to make a formal announcement, and he handled it in a very solemn manner.   I imagine the ceremony was similar to becoming a made man in the Mafia, or maybe a Bar Mitzvah.  The Chinese guys thought it was marvelous.

The pronunciation is “Dah Geo” and “Ar Jeo” and our new Chinese names stuck.  Whenever we’re with the Chinese guys, they simply refer to us as Dajiu and Arjiu, as if those were our given names.  That’s how we’re introduced to others in China.  It’s pretty cool.  You can call us that, too, if you wish.

The Atlantic Highlands…

New Jersey may not be a place you would ordinarily think of for a motorcycle ride, but I grew up back there and I’m here to tell you that you can have a good time on a motorcycle in the Garden State.   One of the rides I particularly like is along the Jersey shore from Pt. Pleasant to the Atlantic Highlands.  Once you’re in Pt. Pleasant, aim your front wheel north and do your best to hug the coastline.  It’s Highway 36 for much of that run (it’s called a highway, but it’s really a nice non-highway ride all the way up).   Your destination might be (as mine usually is) the Atlantic Highlands, Sandy Hook, and the Gateway National Recreation Area.

I have several recent photos from this area (I was there this past June), and rather than a long narrative, I thought I might simply share the captioned photos…

The view from Mt. Mitchill in the Atlantic Highlands, the highest point on the US east coast south of Maine. That’s the Manhattan skyline at the far horizon. The land across the bay is the actual “Sandy Hook.”
The 9/11 memorial atop Mt. Mitchill. The eagle is carrying an actual piece of I-beam from the Twin Towers. Everyone who lives around here knew people who died on that day.
Names of just a few who died in the Towers on the base of the 9/11 monument.
Another view of Sandy Hook Bay from Mt. Mitchell.
Sandy Hook Light, the oldest operating lighthouse in America. It was built in 1764, 12 years before American independence.
A Nike Ajax along Hartshorne Road, the entrance to the Gateway National Recreation Area, on the way into Fort Hancock.
The Nike Hercules air defense missile, directly across the street from the Nike Ajax shown above. These were a later missile, and they could be configured to carry a nuclear warhead.
Before Fort Hancock provided air defense for New York City, it used coastal artillery to protect the region from seaborne invaders. Some of these guns go back to the early 1800s.
Battery Potter, with steam-powered retractable hidden cannons. Sandy Hook was an early Army proving ground, and the advanced coastal artillery pieces hidden underground behind these walls were tested here. Boom boom!
Two young ladies checking out a hidden mortar base on Fort Hancock. The photo ops here are amazing.
An old Army building on Fort Hancock. Ah, the stories these places could tell…

And there you have it.   I like visiting New Jersey, and I never miss an opportunity to ride the Jersey shore.   I’m thinking it might make sense to keep a motorcycle back there.

Hmmmm…


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Motorcycles and milsurps…

Zombies. No matter how many times you hit them, they won’t go down…goofy targets, to be sure, but lots of fun.

No motorcycle rides today…just a fun day at the range with some of my motorcycle and shooting buddies, and the milsurp rifles.

We get together every month or so to do this, and sometimes we let a few too many months slide by.  That was the case this time; it had probably been 3 or 4 months since we last had one of our informal matches.   We ordinarily have around 10 shooters show up.  This one was on short notice but we still had 5 of us get together.  It’s grand fun and we always have a great Mexican lunch following the match.   There’s something about having a rifle match (informal or otherwise) with firearms that are 70 to 110 years old.  It’s cool.

About this match business…it’s relaxed as hell, as you can probably tell from the targets, and it really isn’t a competition.  It’s just a bunch of guys with a common interest getting together to have fun.   Most of the time we don’t even bother to score the targets.   The company and the conversation are the best parts; we really don’t care about declaring a winner.   We have some interesting firearms, too.

Duane and his German K98 Mauser. Duane rides an RX3 and an Indian. The rifle is a Nazi-proof-marked World War II weapon, which makes it about 70 years old.
Willie and his US M1 Carbine. Willie also brought along a German Mauser (it’s to his right). Willie rides an RX3 and a TT250. The M1 is a World War II weapon.
My Russian Mosin-Nagant. The Mosin-Nagant was designed in the early 1890s. This particular one was built in 1942, and most likely saw service in World War II. It’s very accurate.

Here’s a short video of Duane firing his World War II K98 Mauser…

You might wonder…why a gun article on a motorcycle blog?

Well, there are a couple of reasons.   The first is that I’m always amazed at how many riders are also into shooting.   The two interests seem to go hand in hand.  And then there’s another aspect:   The companies that manufactured both firearms and motorcycles.  There are more than a few manufacturers who have done that.

You guys and gals into vintage bikes certainly know of BSA.   The BSA initials stand for Birmingham Small Arms, and if you look closely at the emblem on older BSAs, you’ll see it’s a set of three stacked rifles…

A 1939 BSA M20. Note the stacked rifle logo on the engine.

Royal Enfield is another company with a military lineage.   Enfield was originally a British company (their motorcycles are manufactured in India today).  Take another look at Rick’s Lee Enfield rifle up above.  Yep, there’s a connection.

Hey, how about Benelli?  That was an Italian motorcycle company (Benelli motorcycles are now made in China), but they also have a line of shotguns.  Benelli made pistols for a while, too.  I have a Benelli 9mm handgun.

Iver Johnson is yet another company with a dual lineage.  They made motorcycles a century ago, and they are still manufacturing firearms.

I don’t know that Harley ever made guns, but they manufactured munitions components until very recently.  I know about that because I used to work for a company in that industry.

I’m sure there are more companies than just the few I’ve listed here, and I’m going to research this a bit more.   I don’t think it’s just coincidence that more than a few manufacturers decided to make both bikes and guns.   Motorcycles and firearms are two products with something in common:  They have a special feel to them, an appeal that reaches into our souls.  They are more than just mashed-up machined metal mechanisms.  There’s a commonality, a similarity, and maybe a sympatico between motorcycles and firearms, one that attracts both manufacturers and riders.  We see it right here on the ExhaustNotes blog (every time we post a firearms-related piece, our hits go through the roof).  I’ll post a more in-depth blog on this motorcycle/firearm connection down the road.  It’s a fascinating topic.  Maybe there’s a book in it!


Want to read more Tales of the Gun?  Just click here!