Joe Berk

Hershey, Pennsylvania

There’s an old saying: The difference between success and failure is this: A failure is a person who stays down. A success is a person who refuses to stay down. By that measure, Milton Hershey certainly was a success. His first two attempts at candy companies did not end well. Hershey made it big on the third attempt, though, and his company became an American icon. This blog is a story about the town that bears his name and a great Pennsylvania destination: Hershey, Pennsylvania.

The man and the legend: Milton Hershey. This is a mural as you take the ride into the chocolate “factory.”

I’m not a chocoholic, but I love Hershey, Pennsylvania and the story of the Hershey company. One man had an idea about a new candy, and he worked tirelessly to build the candy company that bears his name. As he was doing so, he built a town designed to be a better place for his employees. I’d say he succeeded on all counts.

Signs lining the highway into Hershey. Note the iconic street lights.

I first visited Hershey back in the 1960s. My Dad was a world-class trap shooter and our traveling was nearly always related to a shoot someplace in the northeastern United States. Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Ohio, New Hampshire, and more. Mom, my sister, and I would visit nearby attractions, and the town of Hershey was one of them. Two things stood out in my mind: The streetlights were styled like Hershey’s kisses, and the entire town smelled like chocolate.

The streetlights hadn’t changed (they were still the same Hershey’s kisses), but I was surprised when we arrived: I couldn’t smell the chocolate I remembered. My aunt lives near Hershey and she told me that changes daily. It’s a function of what the Hershey plant is doing that day, the wind, and maybe a few other factors. We missed the chocoholic aroma (which was the bad news), but it still occurs sometimes (that’s the good news). I’m guessing tighter emissions requirements might be playing a role here, too.

There are several things to see and do in Hershey, but the factory tour I remembered as a kid is no more (more on that in a second). There are things to do in Hershey, starting with just walking around the town and taking in its beauty. There are also Hershey attractions, including the Hershey Museum and the current Hershey factory tour. We hit the Hershey Museum first.

Inside the Hershey Museum. It’s a real museum (unlike the factory tour, which I’ll get to in a minute), with equipment from the early days of Milton Hershey’s work and excellent exhibits.

One of the exhibit areas inside the Hershey Museum.

I had seen the large Hershey smokestacks on the way into town and I wanted to get a photo. While my wife and sister were taking in the Hershey Museum, I left a bit early and walked up the street to get a better photo of the smokestacks.

One of the better photos, I think, from our Hershey visit. The weather was perfect.

Next up was the factory tour. I thought I remembered the factory tour from my visit in the 1960s, but I either remembered it wrong or I was projecting what I wanted into a memory that had dropped a few digits over the decades. I thought we would see the actual Hershey factory. That’s what I wanted. I’m a manufacturing guy, and I’ll never pass on any opportunity to get into a manufacturing facility. But the factory tour I remembered as a kid had been replaced by a theme park ride. The Hershey factory tour involved getting into little cars that were pulled along a track and going through a dumbed-down Disney-like version of what the real factory looks like. I suppose Hershey has to protect its proprietary process technology, but still, I was hoping for an engineering text and what I got was a Saturday morning cartoon.

Upon entering the factory tour building, you have to first go through what has to be the world’s largest candy store. And yeah, we bought some candy. It’s not like we needed it. But we were there. When in Rome…you know the rest.

If you have a sweet tooth, Hershey’s candy store is the place you want to be.

At the entrance to the Hershey factory tour.

You go through the Hershey factory tour on an amusement park like ride in these little cars. It was fun.

Modern manufacturing methods, dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Still, it was fun.

Not surprisingly, after you exit the factory tour little cars, you go through the candy store again. Wow, there sure was a lot of candy. I saw varieties of currently-available Hershey’s candies I’d never seen before. It was not a total bust: I had my Nikon and the displays were more than colorful.

It all looks good. I was mentally converting each treat to time on the treadmill.

Hershey’s owns Reese’s. Reese was a guy who worked for Hershey, and then started his own company. Then Hershey’s bought Reese’s. There are Reeses peanut butter cups with peanut butter. There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and potato chips. There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and pretzels. There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and marshmallows. There are Reese’s peanut butter cups with peanut butter and, well, you get the idea.

And more. More calories. More mandatory time on the treadmill.

You might be surprised to hear this, but I gained a few pounds on this trip. As soon as I finish this blog, I’m headed to the gym where I’ll spend quality time on the treadmill. I need it.

The best kept secret in Hershey? For starters, there are Pennsylvania’s back roads. If you get off the freeways, just about any country road makes for a magnificent ride. I rode many of these roads more than 50 years ago when I was stationed at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, which is not too far away from Hershey. I rode a 750 Honda Four in those days, and the roads are as magnificent today as they were then. Folks, let me tell you: Pennsylvania is a motorcycling paradise.

Here’s another hidden gem: If you want a world-class dinner (I’m talking fine dining raised to an exponent), there’s a restaurant called “What If” tucked away in Hershey. It’s in the basement of a Howard Johnson motel, and if you don’t look for it, you won’t see it. Trust me, it’s awesome. I didn’t grab any food photos and that’s okay: It’s my excuse for making plans to return some day. But that’s in the future. For now, it’s more time on the treadmill, and lots of it.

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Bill’s Old Bike Barn…a first peek

Stop what you’re doing. Get off the Internet (and for sure, get off Facebook and the other moronic “social media” time wasters). Start planning a trip to Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. You need to see Bill’s Old Bike Barn. The riding is fabulous in rural Pennsylvania and with Bill’s as a destination, the ride is even better. You can thank me now or you can thank me later, but you will thank me.

Any motorcycle museum that includes in its directions “turn where you see the dinosaurs” should grab your attention. In the case of Bill’s Old Bike Barn, your undivided attention is warranted. To say I was blown away would be an understatement of immense proportions. To cut to the chase, I’ve never seen anything like Bill’s, and I know for damn sure I’ve never met a man like Bill. That’s Bill artistically framed by Milwaukee iron in the photo above, and yeah, I shot that picture. I’m proud of it. It hints at the dimensions of the man and what he’s created out there in Pennsylvania.

During our interview I asked Bill his last name and he told me: Morris, just like the cigarettes. I didn’t get it until later, and then I couldn’t stop laughing. If you don’t get it immediately, you will. Bill has that kind of slingshot wit. I love the guy and his collection. You will, too.

Above all else, Bill is two things: A collector, and a people person. The extent if his collection…well, I can’t describe it. You need to see it. You’ll get just a hint here in the ExNotes series of blogs we’re doing. When you visit the place, you’ll feel like you owe me. When you meet Bill, you’ll know you’ve made a friend. A most interesting friend.

Up above, that’s the building that houses Bill’s collection. You can’t really see it from the highway. You have to look for the dinosaurs (just like the directions say), turn, and then head uphill. You’ll go by the bison, some other cool items, and more. The building looks deceptively small from the outside. Inside…you could spend weeks and not see all of what’s in there.

You can learn about Bill’s Old Bike Barn on his website, but we’re going to give you more here on ExNotes. We’re going to do it over the span of several blogs over the next few weeks, and in an upcoming article in a major moto mag. Ever watched and enjoyed American Pickers? Trust me on this (and trust me on everything else, for that matter): Bill Morris puts American Pickers to shame. You and I have never seen anything like what’s in Bill’s Old Bike Barn.

I’m excited about what I’ve seen and what I’m going to be sharing with you. I’ll do my best to bring it to life in print and in the photos, but it won’t be enough. You really need to visit Bill’s Old Bike Barn.

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A Model 60 Hand Job

You know, you can have a lot of fun dreaming up titles for blogs. When I told good buddy Mike about this one, he’s the guy who suggested the above. Yeah, it’s racy, but it’s not what you think. This blog is about timing. Life, success, good comedy, and a host of other things are all about timing.

Take revolvers, for instance. Timing is critically important. For a revolver, timing refers to having the chamber precisely aligned with the barrel when the hammer drops. If it’s not, the barrel becomes a salami slicer, which is good if you’re a mohel but bad if you’re a shooter (or another shooter on the firing line).

Take a look at that lead shaving in the photo above. It’s what squeaked out of my Model 60 and went sideways at high velocity between the cylinder and the barrel. It did that because the revolver went out of time. Primers can be another indication of incorrect revolver timing, as shown in the photo below. When the firing pin’s primer indentations are offset like you see here it means you’ve got trouble in River City (or anyplace else you’re firing the revolver).

This blog explains how to correct an incorrectly timed revolver. We’ll start, as always, by making damn sure the gun is unloaded. Once we’re satisfied it is unloaded, the next steps are to remove the revolver’s grips and sideplate. The grips detach with a single screw. Three screws secure the sideplate, and each of them is different. The one at the rear of the sideplate is easy to distinguish because it has a flathead to fit under grips. The other two have domed heads, but they are not identical. The screw at the front of the sideplate is dimensioned such that it locks the yoke in position fore and aft, but it allows it to rotate. If you switch the two domed screws when you reassemble the revolver, the cylinder will not swing out of the frame freely.

Once the grips and sideplate screws are out, don’t try to pry the sideplate off the revolver frame. Hold the revolver over your workbench with the sideplate facing down, and give the left side of the grip frame a few sharp whacks with a plastic mallet or a screwdriver handle. The sideplate will drop out, and the transfer bar will drop with it.

After the grips and the sideplate are off, here’s what the guts of a Model 60 look like. The transfer bar is the piece denoted by the left arrow. It will probably have already fallen off the gun when you removed the sideplate. Our focus in this blog will be on the hand, which is the piece noted by the red arrow on the right in the photo below. The hand will pivot counterclockwise in the photo below. Rotate the hand counterclockwise and you can lift it out.

The hand is what moves upward as you pull the trigger or cock the hammer. It fits through a slot in the revolver’s frame to engage the little nubs on the cylinder’s ejector.

Here’s what the hand looks like after you have taken it out of the revolver. The hand on the left (in the photo below) is the one that was in the revolver and Model 60 to go out of time; the one on the right is a brand new one.

You can see there’s a big difference in length between the old and the new hands. I bought my new hand from MidwayUSA.com. It was about $25.

The next steps involve removing most of the revolver’s internal pieces. You don’t have to do this to get the hand out of the gun, but you will have to remove and reinstall several internal components several times to properly fit the hand. This involves checking both single and double action function testing, disassembling, removing very small amounts of material from the upper part of the hand, reassembling, and repeating the process several times until the revolver is functioning satisfactorily.

We’re going to remove the hammer spring and yoke using the same paper clip custom tool we used for installing the lighter hammer spring (denoted by the left arrow). Those other two arrows denote where the hand’s two bottom pins fit into the trigger. We’ll come back to that later.

This next two photos show the hand’s bottom pins. The third pin is a stop. We’ll come back to that later, too.

At this point, push the revolver’s cylinder release forward, lower the cylinder out of the frame, and slide the yoke and the cylinder off the revolver.

We’ll next remove the revolver’s hammer. It lifts out to the right. Then we get to the trigger spring and rebound slide. It’s tricky. It’s the piece just below the hammer in the photo below. Note that it has a spring acting against a post at the rear. After you have removed the hand and the hammer, you can pry the rebound slide away from the revolver’s frame, but make sure you cover that spring. If you don’t, it will go flying. Don’t ask me how I know.

Here’s the trigger spring and rebound slide after removal from the revolver.

At this point, you can lift the trigger out of the revolver.

This is where things get even more tricky. We’ll fit the new hand to the revolver. Doing so will require installing it as delivered to get a rough feel for how much material we need to remove from the hand, reassembling the revolver to check functionality, disassembling again to remove the hand, stoning the upper surface down a little, reassembling, and repeating the process. It took me three assembly/disassembly/reassembly cycles to get it where it needed to be. Slow and gentle is the approach here. You can take material off the hand; you can’t put it back on. Take too much off, and you’ll ruin the new hand.

The first thing we need to do during the reassembly step is install the new hand in the trigger, and that’s tricky, too. There’s a tiny torsion spring in the trigger, and its purpose is to keep the hand pressed forward against the extractor. You can see the red arrows pointing to the spring in the photo below.

That little spring needs to be on top of the hand’s smaller lower post, and in order to get it there, the easiest way is to push it up from beneath the trigger before you attempt to install the hand, rest the spring on the side of the trigger, install the hand, and then push the spring back into the trigger. Here’s what it looks like with the spring pushed on the side of the trigger.

After you have inserted the hand into the trigger (as you see above), you can then push the spring back into the trigger’s slot.

We are now ready to start the fitting process. Put everything back together again except the transfer bar, the sideplate, and the grips. When you reinstall the rebound bar, make sure the little shaft that extends from the rear of the trigger engages the cavity in the front of the rebound bar. You can see that cavity in the photo below.

When you look at the revolver from the rear, you’ll see the hand inside the revolver frame slot, and how it moves up and down when the hammer is cocked (if you are firing single action) or when the trigger is pulled all the way to the rear (if you are firing double action). The hand acts against the little nubs on the extractor to rotate the cylinder. You can see one of the extractor nubs in the photo below.

On a new hand, the hand will most likely be too long. The revolver may or may not rotate the cylinder when you actuate the trigger in a double action mode, and the hand probably will not actuate the cylinder when you cock the hammer as if you were firing in the single action mode. That is because the hand is so long it slides along the rear of the extractor nubs without dropping in between them, which it needs to do to ratchet the cylinder so the next round comes into battery. In the photo above, you can see a little bright witness mark at the bottom of the upper red arrowhead where this occurred.

We next disassemble the revolver’s guts as described above to fit the hand to the revolver. We’ll remove a bit of hand material from its top portion using a stone. I angled the top edge of the hand. Here’s what that looks like.

The lower arrow in the photo immediately above shows where I removed hand material. The upper arrow shows the hand’s angled surface that completes the cylinder’s advance. Leave this area alone.

The photo above presents another look at the same angled portion of the hand as it is delivered. The red arrow points to the area where I removed material to fit the hand to the revolver. The larger angled area is how the hand came from the factory. It looks rough as hell, like it is begging to be polished, but I left that part alone and my revolver is silky smooth.

After we’ve done the above assemble/check/disassemble/remove hand material a few times, you’ll get to where the revolver looks the cylinder in place right where it is supposed to be (you’ll need to reinstall the cylinder and yoke to do this). What we want to do is put your finger on the cylinder so that it has a little drag while cocking the hammer. When the hammer is fully to the rear, the bolt at the bottom of the cylinder should click into place. Then we want to do the same thing (put your finger on the cylinder to impart a little drag) and pull the trigger to the rear double action style. The bolt should snick into the cylinder just before the hammer falls.

When you think you’re there based on the above checks, it’s time to fully reassemble the revolver. Lay the revolver on its left side and place the transfer bar on top of the hammer as you see in the photo below. You have to have the transfer bar all the way up so the pin in engages is at the bottom of the transfer bar slot. If you don’t have it positioned as you see below, the sideplate will not fit back on the revolver.

After doing the above, good buddy Paul suggests loading dummy rounds in your Model 60 to make sure it cycles correctly. Before you go to the range after doing this kind of work, it’s a good idea to take some fired cases and cycle them through the gun in both single action and double action modes. If you have some with the primer indentations off center (as shown in the photo at the start of this blog), check to make sure that the new indentations are now more centered (they were on my Model 60). DO NOT put live primers in an otherwise empty case for this test; they can back out of the cartridge case and lock the gun. You also want to make sure that there’s no interference between the new hand and the case rims. I haven’t encountered this on a Smith and Wesson revolver; Paul has on a Taurus revolver.

I used the fired empty cases you see in the photo near the top of this blog (the ones with the off-center primer strikes) and cycled five through single action, and another five through double action. The gun cycled flawlessly, and the previously fired cases now had primer indentations in the center of the primers. Things were looking good, but the real test would be on the range.

I set up a police qualification target at 7 yards and pumped a box of ammo (5o rounds) through the Model 60 shooting double action rapid fire. Wow, was I pleased with the on-target results.

After the first few cylinders of ammo, I looked at the forcing cone around the frame. Unlike earlier, when there was a heavy lead spatter pattern on the right side of the frame only, the spatter was now evenly distributed around the forcing cone. That’s another indication that the cylinder was centered in the forcing cone (i.e., aligned with the barrel). Things were looking good.

I then examined the primer indentations in fired cases. They were smack dab in the center of the primer, right where they should be.

And folks, that’s it. This revolver is between 50 and 60 years old, and it’s now as good as new. It’s a favored handgun and it does good work, as that target above attests.

Watch the blog, as the Model 60 will continue to appear here. It’s just too good and too much fun to relegate to the safe.

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The NY Auto Show

You’ve read here on the ExNotes blog about good buddy Mike and me having an adventure or two. I’ve known Mike since junior high school, which means he’s pretty old. So am I, now that I think about it. Anyway, Mike and I still talk every week or so (it’s a bicoastal relationship), and he most recently told me about the NY Auto Show. I suggested a guest blog, and what you see here is the result. It’s well done and well photographed. Enjoy, my friends.

After a two-year absence due to the pandemic, the New York International Auto Show returned to the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan. The NY Auto Show has been in existence since 1900. I can remember attending the show during the ’60s with my father at the New York Coliseum off Columbus Circle. In 1988 it was moved to the Jacob Javits Center.

The NY Auto Show always featured the latest models of all makes as well as the experimental prototypes designed by the best auto designers in the world. If you wanted to see the latest and greatest, this was the show to attend in the Northeast. A highlight of all the shows has always been the beautiful models on stage with the cars.

Probably the most memorable show, for me, was in 1979 when a close friend of mine decided to sell his 1978 Corvette Indy Pace Car at the show. We had the car transported to the show on a flatbed and after numerous inspections and paperwork we had it on display. Besides the excitement of showing a car at this prestigious event, the most exciting part was having my then girlfriend (and now wife) Carol model the car. Needless to say, the display drew a lot of attention, not because of the car but because of her presence. She wore a black jumpsuit and silver blouse. Great attention, but no sale.

I always attend on the first day of the show and this year was no exception. Upon entering, I was greeted by Ford’s full display. The centerpiece was an original Ford GT and the newest Ford GT.

After going through the various displays (including Mopar, Chevrolet, Nissan, and more), I soon realized the focus was on electric vehicles. Performance was there (with the new Z06 Corvette and convertible), but the primary focus was electric. In my opinion, it was very boring and a waste of my time.

The international marques were also present, including Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, Volvo, and Alfa Romeo, along with the usual Japanese. The largest displays were by Toyota and Subaru. Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Ferrari, and not even Cadillac were present. What a disappointment! I recently ordered a 2022 Cadillac CT5 and was looking forward to a close examination of that car. After walking for miles up and down the center I finally found an information booth where I learned Cadillac was not attending. Unbelievable, but true.

The 2022 NY International Auto Show was a waste of my time. No prototypes, no customs, no major performance cars, along with the inability to see all the cars made and speak with the representatives, this may be last for me. Did I mention, no beautiful models either? Nope, none. The highlight of the day was having a hot dog, pretzel, and a beer.

Awesome, Mike, and thanks very much. You have a way with a keyboard, and we appreciate hearing about the legendary NY Auto Show.

Hey, anybody else out there have a topic you want to cover? Imagine the prestige in telling your amigos you’ve been published. It can happen, and it can happen right here. Let us know!

And don’t forget…click on those annoying popup ads! The popper-upper people pay us every time you do so!

Coming up…more good stuff!

We’ve got a bunch of cool stuff coming your way in the next few weeks.

I’m working on a detailed tutorial on how to time a revolver…it’s my beloved Model 60. It seems the more things go south on that old war horse, the more I love it. This time, the revolver went out of time (that means it’s firing with the chambers misaligned with the barrel), and the way to correct that is by fitting a new hand. That’s the piece you see in the big photo above, showing the well-worn 60-year-old original hand on the left and a new one on the right (the hand is the part that advances the cylinder for each shot). Good times. Did I mention I love that gun?

I’ll be on a bunch of secret missions in the next few months. I’m visiting Janus Motorcycles in the next few weeks and I’m going to ride their new Halcyon 450. You may remember I rode with the Janus guys in Baja three years ago (wow, those three years went by quickly). The Janus trip was a hoot and I was blown away by the quality of these small motorcycles.

I’ll be in Gettysburg soon…four score and seven years ago, and you know the rest. Gettysburg was the turning point, and the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. I’m looking forward to the photo ops, and you’ll see the Nikon’s output right here.

And another: Hershey, Pennsylvania…an entire town blanketed in the aroma of good chocolate, streetlights that look like Hershey kisses, calories galore, and tasty treats. That will be a sweet ride!

Folks love listicles. There are a dozen or so reasons why a Timex is as good as a Rolex. That one will generate a few comments, and we’ll be bringing them to you here.

How about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway? You’ll see it right here on ExNotes. Good stuff. Yep, we’ll be there, too.

Bill’s Bike Barn…yet another vintage moto museum. Never heard of it? Well, you will!

More gun stuff? Absolutely. Fine walnut and blue steel. I’ve got a cool story about the most beautiful stock I’ve ever seen on an absolutely incredible .257 Weatherby Magnum Ruger No. 1.

Look for a follow up on the Shoei helmet Gresh wears these days…it’s in the mix, too.

A road trip to New Mexico, and that means a visit with Joe 1 (or is he Joe 2?) and another video or two. Gresh has a bunch of motorcycles. Maybe I’ll borrow one and he and I will go for a ride. Who knows?

And more rides on my effervescent and exciting Enfield, one of the best bargains in biking (we’ll have a listicle coming up bargain bikes, too). Now that the left-leaning evil time suck (i.e., Facebook) is in the rear view mirror, I have lots more time. I’m doing what the Good Lord intended, and that’s riding my motorcycle and writing about it.

Stay tuned.

Chongqing!

Other than good buddy Arjiu (that would be Joe Gresh), I’m guessing most of you have never been to Chongqing. Chongqing is home to China’s motorcycle industry and it was the starting point for your two blogmeisters’ putt across the Ancient Kingdom. I enjoyed that ride enormously. Gresh and I had some fantastic times.

I first visited Chongqing and Zongshen as a consultant to CSC when we used Zongshen’s 250cc engine in our Mustang replicas. One thing led to another, and before too long CSC was Zongshen’s exclusive North American importer, and CSC introduced the RX3 to the US. I was blown away by Chongqing, the people, the size of the city, the photo ops, the cuisine, and more. I’ve been there many times and I’d go back again in a heartbeat.

Good buddy Fan shared this video a few days ago, and I knew I had to share it on the blog. Pro tip: Hit the little button on the bottom right of the video (after you start it) to view it full screen. It’s impressive.

You can be a China hater all you want. I know more than a few people over there I call my friends. Yeah, the world is going through some shaky times right now, but that’s not the Chinese people and it’s for sure not the guys I know. I like the place.

If you want to know more about our trip across China, pick up a copy of Riding China. There’s a link here on the blog. And take a look at our Epic Rides page, where we have links to posts about that ride.

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10 Reasons I quit Facebook

I deleted my Facebook account this morning. It feels good. These are the reasons why:

1. Facebook told me one my recent posts about a handgun violated their community standards (it’s the blog immediately below this one). What a patronizing, insulting, idiotic thing to do. Folks, “Facebook community standards” is an oxymoronic expression.
2. I didn’t like the constant stream of moronic comments and arguments.
3. I’d post a link to one of our blog articles and I’d get questions on Facebook that were answered in the blog. Facebook members were too lazy or too stupid to realize the link would provide the information.
4. Too many people add comments to Facebook that are just plain wrong.
5. There are persistent Facebook comments that are racist. I realize there are a lot of racists out there. I don’t need to see it.
6. Facebook’s so-called “fact checkers” routinely post “This statement is partially false” when it wasn’t. In fact, that ridiculous comment essentially agreed that it was true. Who are these “fact checkers,” anyway? My inference is that they are 22-year-old Bernie-Sanders-supporting Silicon-Valley software types making $200K/year who routinely confuse their income with their intelligence.
7. I grew tired of the anti-gun crowd on Facebook. If you don’t like guns, don’t own one. Do you really think your views are going to alter mine? Do you really think your insipid comments on Facebook are going to change my views?
8. What is Facebook, really? It’s not a product. It adds nothing of value to the human experience. It’s nothing, really.
9. I don’t like Mark Zuckerberg. I know someone who knows him, and the feedback isn’t good.
10. I was spending too much time on Facebook. Life is short. I’m not wasting another second of it glued to my laptop or my cell phone reading stupid stuff on Facebook.

Old Zuckerhead doesn’t make quitting Facebook easy. It took me about half an hour to finally find a way to do it. I’m pretty sure that’s not accidental. If it was such a good thing, you’d think they’d make it difficult to join, not difficult to quit.

It’s Sunday. I think I’m either going to the gym, or a motorcycle ride, or the range. Maybe I’ll do all three. I feel good.

The CZ 2075 9mm Rami

As concealed carry powerhouses go, it doesn’t get much better than the CZ 25 Rami. One of my good buddies owns one and I had an opportunity to play with it. I was impressed. On the plus side, it is an all-metal gun with a flat black finish, a hammer (greatly preferred by yours truly over a striker-fired pistol), great sights, and a marvelous trigger. My bud had a trigger job on his, and it was awesome (light and crisp, with zero creep, just like it should be).

The three-dot sights on the CZ are crisp and non-gimmicky. There’s no glow-in-the-dark nonsense and they stand out. In the photo below, the sight picture is just the opposite of what it’s supposed to be (you want the front sight to be in sharp focus, and the rear sight to be a bit fuzzy, but I couldn’t get my iPhone camera to cooperate when I shot these photos).

I liked the feel of the CZ. I didn’t get to fire it, but I think I might have an opportunity at some point. The one you see here is chambered in 9mm. The Rami was also available in .40 S&W, which I think might be a bit much for a gun this small.

The Rami was discontinued in 202o with the introduction of newer CZ models. I haven’t seen the new handguns, but I can’t see how they can be any better than the CZ 2075. This pistol just feels right.

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Baja Breakdowns

I’ve ridden motorcycles through Baja probably 30 times or more over the last 30 years, and it’s unquestionably the best place to ride a motorcycle I’ve ever experienced. Many people are afraid to venture into the peninsula for fear of a breakdown. Hey, it happens, but it’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t happen often. They don’t call it adventure riding because it’s like calling for an Uber.

Not all “breakdowns” result in your motorcycle being nonoperational. Some are just mere annoyances and you truck on. A few breakdowns result in the bike not running, but there are usually ways to get around that. When it happens, you improvise, adapt, and overcome. Here are a few of mine.

Heritage Indeed

The first time I had a motorcycle act up was on my beloved ’92 Harley Softail. It started clanging and banging and bucking and snorting somewhere around Ensenada. I was headed south with my good buddy Paul from New Jersey. It was obvious something wasn’t right and we turned around to head back to the US. The Harley got me home, but I could tell: Something major had happened. The bike was making quite a bit of noise. I had put about 300 miles on it by the time I rode it back from Mexico.

A roller lifter that converted to a solid lifter.

One of the Harley’s roller lifters stopped rolling, and that turned it into a solid lifter. And when that happened, the little wheel that was supposed to rotate along the cam profile started wearing a path through the cam. And when that happened, the metal filings migrated their way to the oil pump. And when that happened….well, you get the idea. My 80-cubic-inch V-Twin Evo motor decided to call it quits after roughly 53,000 miles. It happens I guess. Nothing lasts forever.

Here’s where it started to get really interesting. My local Harley dealer wouldn’t touch the bike. See, this was around 2005 or so, and it seems my Harley was over 10 years old. Bet you didn’t know this: Many Harley dealers (maybe most of them) won’t work on a bike over 10 years old. The service manager at my dealer explained this to me and I was dumbfounded. “What about all the history and heritage and nostalgia baloney you guys peddle?” I asked. The answer was a weak smile. “I remember an ad with a baby in Harley T-shirt and the caption When did it start for you?” I said. Another weak smile.

An S&S engine in my ’92 Softail. It let me ride a slow bike fast.

I was getting nowhere fast. I tried calling a couple of other Harley dealers and it was the same story. Over 10 years old, dealers won’t touch it. I was flabbergasted. I tried as hard as I could, but there was no getting around it…the Harley dealer would not work on my engine. It was over 10 years old. That’s that; rules is rules. For a company that based their entire advertising program on longevity and heritage, I thought it was outrageous. A friend suggested I go to an independent shop. “It’s why they exist,” he said. So I did.

So, I went with Plan B. I took the Harley to a local independent shop, and they were more than happy to work on my bike. I could have the Harley engine completely rebuilt (which it needed, because those metal bits had migrated everywhere), or I could have it rebuilt with an S&S motor. I went with the S&S motor (the cost was the same as rebuilding the Harley engine), doubling the horsepower, halving the rear tire life, and cutting my fuel economy from 42 to 33 mpg.

Justin’s Countershaft Sprocket

On the very first CSC Baja trip, I was nervous as hell. The CSC bikes had received a lot of press and the word was out: CSC was importing the real deal, a genuine adventure touring motorcycle for about one sixth of what a GS 1200 BMW sold for in those days. The naysayers and keyboard commandos were out in force, badmouthing the Chinese RX3 in ways that demonstrated unbridled ignorance and no small amount of bias. And here we were, taking 14 or 15 guys (and one gal) who had bought new RX3 motorcycles that had literally arrived in the US just a few days before our departure. There was one thought in my mind as we headed south from Azusa that morning: What was I thinking? If the bikes started falling out on this first trip, it would probably kill the RX3 in America.

Hey, it worked. Adapt, overcome, improvise. The adventure doesn’t start until something goes wrong.

I need not have worried. None of the engines failed. We had a few headlights go out, but that’s not really a breakdown. And then, when we were about halfway down the Baja peninsula, I took a smaller group of riders to see the cave paintings at Sierra San Francisco. That trip involved a 140-mile round trip from Guerrero Negro into the boonies, with maybe 20 miles of that on a very gnarly dirt road. As we were returning, good buddy Justin’s RX3 lost its countershaft sprocket. We found it and Justin did a good enough MacGuyver job securing it to the transmission output shaft to get us back to Guerrero Negro, but finding a replacement was a challenge. We finally paid a machinist at the Mitsubishi salt mining company to make a custom nut, and that got us home.

On every Baja trip after that, I took a spare countershaft sprocket nut, but I never needed any of them after that one incident on Justin’s bike. Good buddy Duane had a similar failure, but that was on a local ride and it was easily rectified.

Jim’s Gearbox

Four or five Baja trips later, after we had ridden all the way down to Mulege and back up to the border, good buddy Jim’s transmission wouldn’t shift.

That’s the only breakdown I ever experienced anywhere on an RX3 that wouldn’t get us home, and that includes multiple multi-bike Baja trips, the multi-bike 5000-mile Western America adventure ride, the multi-bike 6000-mile ride across China, the 3000-mile circumnavigation around the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and quite a few CSC local company rides. One of the guys on that Baja ride lived in the San Diego area and he owned a pickup truck, so he took the bike back up to Azusa for us.

Biting the Bullet

A couple of years ago Joe Gresh and I did a Baja road test with Royal Enfield press bikes. One was the new 650 Interceptor twin (a bike I liked so much I bought one when I got home); the other was a 500 Bullet. The Bullet was a disaster, but it really wasn’t the bike’s fault. The dealer who maintained the press fleet for Royal Enfield (I won’t mention them by name, but they’re in Glendale and they’re known for their Italian bikes) did a half-assed job maintaining the bike. Actually, that’s not fair to people who do half-assed work (and Lord knows there a lot of them). No, the maintenance on this bike was about one-tenth-assed. It was very low on oil, it had almost no gas in it, the chain was loose and rusty, and on and on the writeup could go. The bike kept stalling and missing, and it finally gave up the ghost for good at the Pemex station just north of Guerrero Negro.

Joe Gresh, inflight missile mechanic extraordinaire, getting intimate with the Bullet in Baja. “The Bullet needs me,” he said.

Fortunately for me, Gresh had one of those portable battery thingamabobbers (you know, the deals that are good for about 10 battery jumps) and it allowed us to start the bike. We bought a new battery that didn’t quite fit the bike in Guerrero Negro (big hammers solve a lot of problems), but the entire episode left a bad taste in my mouth for the Bullet and for the Glendale Ducatimeister.

That bike had other problems as well. The kickstand run switch failed on the ride home, and Gresh did an inflight missile mechanic bypass on it. Then, just before we made it back to my house in So Cal, the rear sprocket stripped. Literally. All the teeth were gone. That was another one I had never experienced before. The Bullet was sort of a fun bike, but this particular one was a disaster. We joked about it. The Bullet needs me, Gresh said.

John’s Silver Wing Leak

Ah this is another motofailure that tried but didn’t stop the show. On one of my earlier Baja forays, Baja John had a Honda Silver Wing. That’s a bike that was also known as the baby Gold Wing (it had all the touring goodies the Gold Wing had). It was only a 500 or a 650 (I can’t remember which) and it had no problem keeping up with the Harleys (but then, it doesn’t take much to keep up with a Harley).

Baja John and the mighty Silver Wing, somewhere well south of the border.

The Silver Wing was a pretty slick motorcycle…it had a transversely-aligned v-twin like a Moto Guzzi and it had plenty of power. Unlike the Guzzi, the Silver Wing was water cooled and that’s where our problem occurred. John’s bike developed a coolant leak. I was a little nervous about that. We were more than halfway down the peninsula and headed further south when the bike started drooling, but John had the right attitude (which was not to worry and simply ignore the problem). The little Silver Wing was like a Timex…it took the licking and kept on ticking, and to my great surprise, it simply stopped leaking after another hundred miles or so. I guess it doesn’t really count as a breakdown.

John’s KLR 650 OPEC Bike

Baja John had another bike, a KLR 650, that developed a fuel petcock leak on another one of our Baja trips. As I recall, it started leaking on the return run somewhere around El Rosario. I get nervous around fuel leaks for the obvious reasons, but John stuck to his policy: Don’t worry, be happy.

We stayed in a hotel in Ensenada that night. The hotel had an attached enclosed parking structure, which immediately started to smell like the inside of a gas tank. Not that I’ve ever been inside a gas tank, but that parking garage pretty much had the aroma I imagine exists in such places.

John’s luck continued to hold, and we made it home without John becoming a human torch.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is you basically need four things when headed into Baja:

- - A tool kit.
  - A good attitude that includes a sense of adventure.
  - A well maintained motorcycle.
  - Maybe some spare parts.

So there you have it. If you’d like to know more about riding in Baja, please visit our Baja page and maybe pickup a copy of Moto Baja.

If you’re headed into Baja, don’t leave home without BajaBound Insurance. They are the best there is. If you are nice, they might even fix you up with a cool BajaBound coffee mug!

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Product Review: Casio GD400 G-Shock Watch

I own a bunch of watches. They’re not rich man watches; they are the indulgence of a guy with practical tastes and a flair for useful and inexpensive tools. My all-time favorite watch, hands down, is the Casio G-Shock GD400 series, with a personal preference for the olive green one. I’ll get to that in a second (hahahaha…a time pun).

I first bought a similar Casio in turquoise and orange, almost as an impulse buy. I had purchased a set of shoes from Nike or Adidas or somebody in turquoise and orange, and then (probably because I had searched for them online) I started seeing pop up ads for the Casio.

I know it’s weird. I mean, what kind of a motorcycle guy buys a watch to match his shoes? (You don’t need to answer that.) The watch arrived a few days later and I liked it. I was in and out of CSC a lot when I bought the watch and the shoes (we were getting ready for a CSC Baja ride), and I caught a bit of flack for being a fashion plate. That’s how it goes sometimes when you’re a famous and well-dressed blogger.

I liked the watch, and I loved its phenomenal accuracy. I went to www.Time.gov (that’s the official US government time), and the Casio was running exactly even with the government website over the span of a month. That’s really good.

The Casio has a bunch of features I never really use and some I use a lot. It’s got a stopwatch, a timer, and an alarm. It’s got a calendar and it shows the day of the week. You can have it show regular time or military time. You can set it so that if you flick your wrist, the backlight comes on. And you can press the G button and the thing lights up. I use the Casio as a flashlight three or four times every night…you older guys will know what that’s all about. And by pressing the buttons mounted on the case side you can find the time in just about any time zone in the world. That comes in handy on many of my overseas secret missions.

I wore the watch for several years, and then on another CSC Baja trip the battery went south on me. The battery had the good manners to do this in Guerrero Negro, where there are a few stores. I asked the guy who took us to see the whales on that trip which store would have a battery and he pointed one out on our way to the docks. After seeing the whales and having a couple of fish tacos at Tony’s, I rode my RX3 to the place the guide had mentioned. Nope, they didn’t sell watch batteries, but the farmacia two doors down did. Okay, so I went to the farmacia two doors down. Nope, they didn’t have watch batteries, but another farmacia two doors on the other side of the first store did.

Then things got interesting. They had the battery, but the lady behind the counter told me I had to open the watch and change the battery myself. The watch has these tiny little screws and I was wearing my contact lenses, which gives me great far field vision but lousy near field vision. She gave me a little box of tiny screwdrivers, but I couldn’t see the screws very well and I tried to explain my predicament to the very nice lady, but she didn’t speak English. So, I took my right contact out (they’re one-day disposables, so it wasn’t a big deal) and I basically did a roadside repair.

The watch lit up as soon as the battery went in, but the rear cover is orientation sensitive and I got it wrong. The watch crystal fogged within an hour, and by the end of the day, the watch called time out (hahahaha …another time pun). The time out, unfortunately, was permanent. When I returned to So Cal, I took it to the guy who normally sells (and installs) watch batteries for me, but it was too late. The watch was toast.

I missed having that watch on my wrist, and I tried to buy it again. But it turns out that Casio changes the colors frequently on this particular model. Not only had the turquoise and orange version been discontinued, but now it was collectible. I had paid $72 for mine, but by this time used ones were going for close to $400 on Ebay.

A week or two later, another secret mission, and I found myself killing time (wow, a third time pun!) in a mall in New Jersey, and I saw the OD green version of the GD400 Casio. The sales guy and I went back and forth a little, and $92 later (tax included), the watch you see in the big photo at the top of this blog left with me. Like I said, it’s just about the perfect watch and I wear it nearly all the time.

More good news? I liked that turquoise and orange G-Shock watch, too, so I called Casio’s US importer and asked them if they could repair it. I had to spend another $60, but that’s okay. There’s only one thing that’s better than one Casio GD-400 G-Shock, and that’s two of them. The GD400 model comes in a variety of other colors, too, and they typically go for around $100 on the Internet. Trust me on this…if you want a good watch for every day bouncing around, you can’t go wrong with a G-Shock Casio.

More watches? You bet. Looky here!

More on Baja and the CSC Baja expeditions? Absolutely!

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