New Hope, Pennsylvania, from the iron bridge over the Delaware River. George Washington crossed the Delaware just a few miles from here.
Motorcycle Classics published my latest Destinations piece, this time on New Hope, Pennsylvania. New Hope is a great destination in an historic place, and it’s a ride I used to do regularly back in the early ’70s on my CB750 Honda. Good times, those were. I recently made the trek again to write the story for MC, and the ride to New Hope through New Jersey’s rolling farmlands is as good as it ever was. It’s a good read, and Motorcycle Classics is a great magazine.
I’ve been writing for Motorcycle Classics for 10 years now, and if you’d like to see the complete collection, here you go! Joe Gresh, who is a much better writer than me, has been similarly widely published in Motorcyclist and other magazines, and if you would like to visit the grotto of great Gresh literature, here it is!
It sounds like Dave Dudley’s country western hit (I think that was 6 Days on the Road), but this isn’t about Freightliner fever or 18 wheelers. Nope, this is a suggested itinerary for an 8-day, 2000-mile ride from southern California through some of the best that Baja has to offer. It’s based on the multiple tours I’ve led for CSC Motorcycles, it’s best done sometime in the January/February/March time frame (that’s when the California gray whales are in Scammon’s Lagoon), and it uses Loreto as the turnaround point. Yeah, I know…you could go all the way to Cabo, but I’ve been there, done that, and there’s not much that’s interesting or pretty south of Loreto (unless you have a penchant for overpriced touristy hotels and refrigerator magnets).
To get to the point, here’s what a really great Baja adventure ride might look like…
A recommended 8-day Baja ride…it’s all explained further with the detailed itinerary and photos below.8 days and 2000 miles, taking in some of the best Baja has to offer, with only a couple of high mileage days.
One of the things you’ll want to make sure of before you start this ride is that you have Mexican insurance for your motorcycle (your regular insurance policy won’t cover you south of the border), and the best I’ve found is BajaBound. We’ll have another blog on BajaBound shortly, but you can trust me on this…I’ve tried several companies and BajaBound is the best. They are the only folks I use.
I can’t explain everything about the trip in one blog, so there are other articles on the ExhaustNotes Baja page about traveling in Baja. And if you have specific questions, please ask them here in the Comments section and I’ll do my best to get you answers. What I thought I might do here is add a few more photos, showing one or two from each day on a ride like this.
Day 1: Enchanted Ensenada
The first night in Ensenada. Doc Mike is checking out a new ride.
Day 2: The Long Haul to Guerrero Negro
A stop for fuel in Catavina.
Day 3: Whale Watching!
Whale watching in Scammon’s Lagoon. This is one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had. Everyone who does this says the same thing. Up close and personal with 45-ft California gray whales and their babies. It’s awesome.
Day 4: The Sierra San Francisco Cave Paintings, San Ignacio, Mulege, and More!
The 10,000-year-old cave paintings, left behind by an unknown civilization.The Sierra San Francisco church.The 300-year-old San Ignacio Mission, still in use as an active church.In the Las Casitas courtyard in Mulege, one of my all time favorite hotels.
Day 5: Bahia Concepcion, Loreto, and Santa Rosalia
Along Bahia Concepcion, just north of Loreto…the prettiest part of Baja!The all-wooden Frances Hotel in Santa Rosalia. It used to be a brothel.
Day 6: Santa Maria
The Transpeninsular Highway, headed north to Santa Maria…
Day 7: Tantalizing Tecate!
Street tacos in Tecate…good times and good food.
Day 8: The Short Haul Home
No photos here, folks…by Day 8 it’s a beeline home after a fabulous Baja ride! The last day is roughly 250 miles back to the LA area, and it’s an easy run.
I know if you’ve never ridden Baja you might have plenty of questions, so ask away!
Our series on Baja cuisine continues. Previous blogs covered the stretch from Rosarito through Ensenada, and then the stretch south of Ensenada down to El Rosario. In this blog, we’ll cover Catavina and Guerrero Negro.
Catavina
There’s not much in Catavina except rocks, a few structures, and the Desert Inn, but it’s a part of Baja I dearly love. My all time favorite Baja photo (the one that is the ExhaustNotes Baja page banner photo) is one I shot from the saddle of my CSC Mustang on a ride through this region, and it also adorns the cover of Moto Baja. The region has an other-worldly feel to it, with its vibrantly green and pale beige colors (as displayed by huge boulders and gigantic Cardon cactus) contrasting sharply with brilliant blue skies, all bisected by Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway. Amazingly, the boulders were formed by wind erosion (as my geologist buddies tell me). It’s a stark and beautiful land. I love it.
On Mexico Highway 1, headed south through Catavina. This is one of the prettiest parts of Baja.
So, back to the topic du jour, and that’s the cuisine in this part of the world. The Desert Inn is a hotel chain spanning nearly the entire length of Baja. The Desert Inns are a bit on the pricey side for Baja (which means they’re still inexpensive by US standards), but the food in these upscale-for-Baja hotels is always good. The restaurant at the Desert Inn in Catavina has a cool arched ceiling tiled with bricks. It’s a cool motif.
CSC Mustangs parked in front of the Catavina Desert Inn, headed south to Cabo San Lucas. We had a fine dinner that evening!
The trick is to get arrive before the tour buses do, but even if a crowd gets in before you do, the wait staff is pretty good about attending to your hunger pangs quickly. I’ve tried nearly everything on the Catavina Desert Inn’s menu; the good news is that it’s all good. That statement kind of invites the question: So what’s the bad news? More good news…there is no bad news. I like this place.
Guerrero Negro
It might be part of the Scholastic Aptitude Test: Diamonds are to Tiffany’s like fish tacos are to…well, there can only be one correct answer, and that’s Tony’s El Muelle food truck in Guerrero Negro. Baja is known for fish tacos, and to those in the know, there are none better than those whipped up by my good buddy Tony.
Tony, happily engaged in the production of the finest fish tacos on the planet. I’m not exaggerating.
Tony guy was killing it with a gourmet food truck before the gourmet food truck trend caught on in LA, and before that, he was selling fish tacos from a hand cart (I know, because I started enjoying them nearly 30 years ago…a story you can read about in Moto Baja). Just after you’ve crossed into BCS (Baja California Sur, about 500 miles south of the border), hang a right and follow the signs to Guerrero Negro. Tony’s El Muelle fish taco truck will be on the right as you enter town.
When you see Tony’s truck, you’ll know. You’ve arrived.Happy riders, after a fish taco lunch at Tony’s. This is the place to stop after you’ve gone whale watching!The stars of the show, and what Baja is all about…Tony’s fish tacos!
You can’t miss Tony’s. Just look for the people with knowing, anticipatory smiles standing in line. This is another one of those places that, all by itself, makes me want to hop on my motorcycle and head south.
Hey, there’s more. Tony is moving up in the world, and his new restaurant is under construction in Guerrero Negro.
Another favored dining stop and watering hole (especially if I’m spending the night in Guerrero Negro) is Malarimmo’s. Their restaurant is tops for breakfast, lunch, or dinner (everything is good), and they have an interesting bar. You’ll see a lot of cool objects hanging on the walls and from the ceiling in Malarimmo’s bar, all things swept south by the Pacific currents and picked up on the giant land hook around Bahia Tortuga. Buoys, driftwood, signs, parts of US Navy test aircraft…you name it, and it’s hanging in that bar. Taking it all in while enjoying any of Malarimmo’s dishes with a Tecate or a shot of Tequila (after the bikes are parked for the night, of course) is a most enjoyable experience.
My KLR in front of Malarimmo’s. The hotel, the restaurant, and the bar are all outstanding.A group of riders enjoying a fine dinner at Malarimmo’s.
There’s one more place I like a lot, and that’s the restaurant at the Hotel Don Gus in Guerrero Negro. It’s right across the street from Malarimmo’s, and I’ve stayed at the hotel and dined at the restaurant several times.
Rode hard and put away for the night at the Hotel Don Gus. We had just finshed a fine dinner when I took this photo.Good buddy Jim enjoying chile rellenos in the Hotel Don Gus restaurant.
The Don Gus restaurant has great food and it’s a little less expensive than Malarimmo’s, which means it’s very inexpensive. I like the place, and I’m betting you will, too.
4.2 inches of travel in front, 4.3 inches of rear suspension travel, and 12-inch wheels…this puppy can carve!
I thought I would add a few words today about the CSC City Slicker’s wheels and suspension.
First, the suspension. Slick’s front end has a conventional non-adjustable inverted front fork with 4.2 inches of travel, and the rear has a swingarm, pre-load-adjustable monoshock, arrangement with 4.3 inches of travel. Here are a couple of photos showing each:
The action up front…Slick’s rear monoshock. It’s adjustable for preload by loosening and moving the locknuts.
The City Slicker’s suspension felt good to me, and the handling was razor-sharp. On prior internal combustion bikes from Zongshen (the RX3 and the TT250), we realized a handling improvement changing the fork oil from whatever the bikes shipped with to a 10W oil. The City Slicker did not feel to me like it needed this change. The front suspension feels good right out of the box. The was no bottoming out, nor was there any topping out (when the forks fully extend). The rear suspension felt firmer to me than it needed to be, but I noticed the rear shock had been set with the spring preload adjustment in the middle of the monoshock’s adjustment range. There appears to be plenty of room for adjustment. This can be accomplished by using a spanner to unlock the locknuts and relax the spring a bit (this assumes the spring is already compressed a bit with the adjustment as delivered by the factory). I haven’t tried this yet, but I will the next time I have an opportunity to do so.
The Slicker’s cockpit view on Route 66.
The wheels on the City Slicker are 12 inches in diameter, which is the same as most scooters, the Honda Grom, the CSC Mustang replicas, and the original Mustang motorcycles. On one of the many recent forums discussing the new City Slicker, a poster commented that 12-inch wheels are dangerous…you know, you might hit a pothole in the rain and get thrown from the bike. I don’t think that should be a concern. The truth is this: 12-inch wheels are a common design on smaller bikes and they make for incredibly quick handling. When I was on my 150cc CSC Mustang replica, I rediscovered what Walt Fulton proved back in the 1950s (more on that in a second). My CSC 150 had 12-inch wheels (just like the original Mustangs) and it was awesome in the twisties.
Yours truly with my CSC-150 on Glendora Ridge Road. I rode that bike to Cabo San Lucas and back, but that’s a story for a future blog.
Glendora Ridge Road, up in the San Gabriel Mountains, is just few miles from my house. It’s a great road from many perspectives, not the least of which is a set of glorious twisties. It is my favorite ride, and I wrote a story about it for Motorcycle Classics magazine. The point that I’m getting to in my very roundabout way is this: When I was on Glendora Ridge Road on my 150cc Mustang, I could hang with any bike up there, and most other motorcycles of any displacement couldn’t catch me (other than on GRR’s very few short straights). In the corners, my little 150 was king. It was all about wheel diameter and handling. You might not believe me, but there are more than a few riders I’ve met up there who know. They’re not talking about it, but they know. They’ve been humbled.
Walt Fulton breaking 100 mph on a Mustang back in the day…all on 12-inch diameter wheels!
So, back to Walt Fulton. He was a famous factory racer back in the 1950s who had lost his factory ride with another manufacturer. This was just before the Catalina Grand Prix, and Fulton did not have a ride. At the last minute, the Mustang Motor Corporation offered Fulton a factory spot, he accepted, and he nearly won on his 320cc, 12-inch-wheeled Mustang. Fulton passed 145 other riders on machines with up to four times the displacement (and, of course, larger wheels).
Fulton’s engine failed just a few miles from the finish, but he was on a tack to win that event. To make a long story just a little less long, the other factories complained to the Catalina Grand Prix organizers and delivered an ultimatum: Find a way to outlaw that damned Mustang next year, or we’re picking up our marbles and going home. Whaddya know…there was a sudden change to the rules. As Forrest Gump might say, just like that no one could race with wheels smaller than 16 inches. Yup. It happens.
The bottom line here is this: Slick’s 12-inch wheels make for extremely crisp handling. If you’ve never ridden a bike with 12-inch wheels, you really need to try one. I’ve found the handling is sharper than anything I’ve ever experienced.
One of the guys on an ADVRider forum asked for more information on the City Slicker electric motorcycle, so I put together a list of Slick links on the ExhaustNotes blog. My idea was to include a single place that listed all of the links on the City Slicker covering the testing I’ve done on this bike.
Then I thought…hey, that might be a good thing to post on the blog, too! So, here you go…
A 1975 Z900 Kawi, a future Joe Gresh project that sort of came with Tinfiny Ranch…
One of the coolest parts of visiting Tinfiny Ranch was seeing Joe Gresh’s motorcycles. He sure has interesting toys and great project work lined up. My favorites are his 360 Yamaha and the Z900 Kawi. Joe tells the story better than I can, so here you go…
Photo ops abound in New Mexico. They have at least four different license plate themes. It’s cool.
Wow, we are enjoying our travels here in the Land of Enchantment. Every where we’ve been, the roads have been awesome and the photo ops have been amazing.
Yesterday we were up near the Colorado border in the little town of Aztec, New Mexico, and we came across a National Park Service Native American ruins site. I never heard of Aztec, I certainly never heard of the ruins there, and the roads were amazing. We stopped for a few photos, and then it was on to Colorado.
A kiva, a large multipurpose room. It was cool.A storm on the horizon…As we viewed the ruins, thunder boomed. It added to the mood. It was a great stop. Sometimes the unplanned ones are the best.The view through an ancient Native American door.
Mesa Verde is coming up next, but that’s a topic for another blog.
More cool stuff…it seems my friend Dan the K is planning a trip to the northwest territories on his 250cc RX3, I invited myself along, and Dan told me that’s great. It looks like Gresh may ride with us for at least part of the run, too. All adventure motorcycle tours are great; I believe the ones on 250cc bikes are even more so. We’ll include you in the planning for this ride, and you’ll be able to read all about it on the ExhaustNotes.us blog.
This is an interesting thing to do…a comparison of two electric motorcycles, the Zero SR and the CSC City Slicker. Some of you might think I’m nuts for even attempting it. After all, the Zero costs $16,990, and the Slicker is $2,495. And that’s before you put all of the fees, taxes, and other stuff on either bike. You might predict I’m going to say one is overpriced and the other is cheap Chinese junk, but I’m not. These motorcycles are different tools intended to meet different needs for different riders. The good news is they’re both fun. A lot of fun, actually.
$16,990, plus fees. Or $2,495 for the City Slicker. Decisions, decisions…
You might ask: Why just these two motorcycles? Aren’t there other e-bikes out there?
Well, yes and no. But that’s a subject for another blog and I’ll come back to that question later. I included only the City Slicker and the Zero because I had access to both. I have a relationship with CSC (I used to write the CSC blog and I’ve literally been all over the world on their bikes) and my good friend Art Guilfoil owns a Zero dealership (Douglas Motorcycles, in San Bernardino).
Zero has been around for a few years, and the SR is one of their latest models. It’s a refined design, and it is the state of the art in electric motorcycles. To cut to the chase, I was impressed (more on that in a bit).
Riding a Zero in San Bernardino…
The CSC City Slicker is new. I first rode one in China during a visit to Zongshen, and I recommended to CSC that they bring the City Slicker to North America. It’s working well; the City Slicker has received tremendous press here in the US and CSC sales of this new electric motorcycle are brisk.
On a City Slicker for the first time on the mean streets of Chongqing…
I’m going to compare Slick and Zero from performance, price, and product perspectives. There’s too much going on to cover it all these topics in a single blog entry, so this comparison will be presented in several blogs. This first one is on two aspects of performance: Acceleration and top speed. There are other performance parameters, including range, recharge time, braking, and handling. I’ll cover those in a future blogs.
Acceleration
For starters, if you’re looking for 0-60 or ¼-mile times, read no further. I didn’t do any of that. The City Slicker won’t go 60 mph, and I didn’t take either bike to Irwindale. My comments on acceleration are subjective. With that caveat, let’s dive in to this topic.
I rode the Zero at Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino and I was impressed. I like it when a motorcycle accelerates so hard it scares the hell out of me, and the Zero did that. I’ve owned fast bikes before (a Suzuki TL1000S, and a Triumph Daytona and a Speed Triple). Those bikes had a direct connection from their throttles to the gland that releases adrenalin. The Zero, however, is in another league altogether. In the Sport Mode, the SR has a punch in the pants that is downright terrifying. Bottom line: I thought that was very cool. I liked it. A lot.
The City Slicker? The first time you ride one, it has a tendency to feel like it’s going to squirt out from under you, but you get used to it quickly. That’s what happened to me in China. Slick’s acceleration is more manageable. Slick had no problem keeping up with city traffic when the light turned green. It was a little weird accelerating in total silence. I could hear every sound from the cars and other bikes around me. It was different.
They tell me the torque is instantaneous off zero rpm with electric bikes. What that translates into is a punch the instant you twist the throttle. On the City Slicker, it’s there, but it’s not intimidating. It’s maybe a notch into the “wow” range the first time you ride the bike, and then it just becomes part of the experience. On the Zero, it’s simultaneously awesome, exciting, and terrifying. Folks, the Zero is one hard-accelerating motorcycle.
I mentioned the Sport mode on the Zero, so let me get into that now. Both bikes have rider-selectable operating modes. I’m an older guy and I always thought the idea of a “mode” was a silly thing when it first appeared on internal combustion bikes. In fact, a kid at one of the motorcycle shows once visited the CSC booth after spending time with the Ducati people and he wanted to know how many modes the CSC 250cc bikes had. At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then I got it.
“Two,” I said. “On, and Off.”
That was then, and this is now. On electric bikes, these modes are good ideas. You need them to maximize range (the subject of a future blog), and in the case of the Zero, to keep the bike from getting away from you.
Zero has three modes: Eco, Sport, and Custom. The Eco mode dials down the bike’s acceleration and maximizes range. The Custom mode lets you use your smartphone to manage the bike’s power output, and you can dial in whatever you want between the bike’s Eco and Sport settings. The Sport mode is for balls out, no holds barred, raw power. It’s wicked.
Zero advertises that their bike will out-accelerate a Porsche 911. I didn’t have a chance to check that out, but I’ll take their word for it. I tried the Sport mode when I rode the Zero, and it is seriously fast. I was scared I would lose control of the rear wheel (the Zero has ABS but not traction control; they tell me that may change next year). Not much scares me; accelerating on a Zero in the Sport mode did. I like being scared. You probably will, too.
The City Slicker has two modes: Eco and Power. The Eco mode limits the bike’s top end to 36 mph, and it gives the bike a longer range. The Power mode removes the output limit, and lets the bike accelerate up to an indicated 46-47 mph. What’s cool is you can switch between modes on the move. If you’re rolling along at 35 mph in the Eco mode and you flip the right handlebar switch to the Power mode, it’s like kicking in the afterburners. You get an immediate burst of acceleration up to a new top speed of 46.6 mph. It’s cool. It’s not exhilarating or frightening like the Zero, but it’s still cool.
I can tell you that I spent a lot of time riding the City Slicker around town, in the Eco mode, and I never felt like I needed more acceleration or top end. Even with the Eco mode’s 36-mph limit, I had enough for mixing it up in town. And I still had Slick’s Power mode afterburners in reserve.
Top Speed
Zero states that their SR’s top speed is just north of 100 mph (they also say that top speed is a function of riding style and motorcycle configuration, which I took as hedging their bets a little). I didn’t attempt to run the Zero to its top speed; all of my riding on that bike was in urban San Bernardino. I can tell you this: The Zero is one seriously fast motorcycle, and if they say it will do 102 mph, I have no reason to doubt that number.
CSC says the City Slicker will hit 46.6 mph. It will, but it’s an indicated 46-47 mph on the bike’s digital dash, and my testing shows that the speedo is about 10% optimistic. That means the City Slicker’s real top speed is more like 42-43 mph.
The bottom line: From the perspectives of top speed and acceleration, the Zero is the clear winner. The real question, though, is this: Do you need or want that much top end?
You and I already know the answer to the “want” part of the question, so let’s turn to the “need.” Hey, what you think you need is your call. The City Slicker wasn’t engineered to be a drag racer, nor was it designed to run on the freeways. The City Slicker, as the name states, is an urban commuter. The Zero can run on the freeways, the City Slicker cannot. The Zero is faster. If you’re looking to argue that point, you need to look elsewhere.
But the performance the Zero delivers comes with a price. Let me go back to what I mentioned at the start of this blog. The Zero costs $16,990 plus fees and the City Slicker costs $2495 plus fees (and Slick’s fees will be a lot less than the Zero’s). Stated differently, you could buy seven or eight City Slickers for the cost of one Zero. Yeah, the Zero is faster. But wow, the price differential…
And don’t delude yourself into thinking you can see the price differential in the build quality of the two bikes. They are both well made. Fit and finish on both bikes is world class. If you want to argue that the City Slicker is a cheap Chinese piece of junk, you have my permission to demonstrate your ignorance on an Internet forum or in the Disqus comments on any of the many articles recently written on the City Slicker. There are a lot of stupid and uninhibited people posting nonsense on the Internet, and if you want to join them, go for it. But you’d be dead wrong.
What would I buy? It depends on what I was trying to do, and how much money I wanted to spend. If I wanted to be green and I had a commute at city speeds, I’d be all over the City Slicker. If I wanted a cool bike to add to my collection and I didn’t need it to ride cross country, score one for the City Slicker. If I wanted a bike that could run with IC bikes (for shorter distances, anyway; neither of these bikes are all day rides), I’d go for the Zero. But I’d only do that if I had $20K laying around I didn’t need (that’s about what the Zero’s purchase price would be after tax, licensing, registration, and all the rest that goes with buying a bike). The bottom line here? It’s your money and your call. In my opinion, both bikes are a lot of fun. You wouldn’t be making a mistake with either one.
