Motorcycles, Scooters, Guns, Adventures, Opinions, and More
My buddy Paul sent this to me. In our unending quest to bring our readers the latest in motorcycle technology, we are sharing it here. Check out this video of a Russian dude and his steam-powered motorcycle….a motorcycle that kind of looks like something Joe Gresh would cook up in the La Luz skunkworks.
Enjoy, my friends.
Janus, the Roman God of Transitions, symbolizes looking to the past and the future. It is a fitting name for Janus Motorcycles, a company building ultra-high quality modern motorcycles with classic styling from the 1920s and 1930s.
You may remember a couple of years ago I rode northern Baja with the Janus guys. It was a great ride (any ride in Baja is) and the Janus is a great motorcycle…a gem of a bike handcrafted in Goshen, Indiana. I had a wonderful time and I loved riding the Janus Gryffin.
Well, those boys in Goshen don’t sit still. The bike I rode was powered by a 250cc CG Honda clone engine and it was a hoot, but the Goshen guys had bigger plans. Janus announced today that they are introducing a new Halcyon with a 450cc engine. I’ll let the press release below, the Janus videos, and the brochure do the talking. Watch both videos; you’ll enjoy them.
Janus Motorcycles Releases New Halcyon 450 Model
Goshen, Indiana (March 8, 2021) — After 18 months of confidential development, Janus Motorcycles of Goshen, Indiana is unveiling their newest model, the Halcyon 450. Building off the best of what they offered in their 250 line, the Halcyon 450 features a higher top speed, a rear suspension, performance brakes, and several new hand-crafted details.
“Our 250 series owners love the light weight, hand-built features, and classic lines of the 250 series. With the Halcyon 450, we’ve worked to refine those features while improving the top speed and ride comfort. We’re extremely proud of the result,” says General Manager Grant Longenbaugh.
The Halcyon 450 features an SWM 445cc single-cylinder four valve engine with EFI, Brembo brakes, Sargent seat, and a new proprietary cantilever rear suspension.
Production is slated to begin in early June, with several units completed weekly.
Co-founder Richard Worsham says, “Like the 250, the 450 is a manifestation of what we believe is the spirit of motorcycling: the connection between the rider, machine, and landscape.” “We’re very excited to share that spirit with more and more riders,” he continued.
Janus Motorcycles uses a network of craftsmen in the Northern Indiana area (many of whom are Amish) to manufacture nearly all of their body work including the frame, fuel tanks, leather storage, and stainless steel exhausts. They are made to order and can be personalized with various paint, pinstripe, and finish options.
Janus was recently featured on Jay Leno’s Garage and the New York Times.
The 2021 Halcyon 450 starts at $13,500, and customers may reserve their bike with a deposit.
There you have it, folks. I like this new Halcyon, and the spec that stands out for me is the weight: Just 360 lbs! Watch the ExNotes blog; we’ll have more info on Janus and the new 450 in future posts.
If you would like to read about our Janus Baja ride on the 250cc Gryffin and Halcyon motorcycles, you can do so here!
For more info on Janus Motorcycles, click here.
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Himalaya Calling is the best motorcycle adventure travel series I’ve ever seen. Yes, that’s a strong statement, but this is a grand four-part series that I thoroughly enjoyed watching. It’s about two German guys (Erik Peters and Alain Beger) who rode Yamaha Teneres from Germany to India. No support mechanics, no movie star nonsense, mud and snow on the highest mountain passes in the world, and absolutely super photography and riding.
You can watch Himalaya Calling on Amazon Prime TV, or buy the show through the Amazon website. Trust me on this: You’ll love it.
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The date is 18 April 2021 and the event is the Salton Sea 400, an endurance motor scooter event that circumnavigates southern California’s Salton Sea. The Motor Scooter International Land Speed Federation is the group that put the event together (they do this sort of thing regularly), and I can tell you from personal experience that Alan Spears and the MSILSF crew are a good bunch of people. I rode a 150cc California Scooter (along with good buddies TK and Arlene) in a similar event around Death Valley a few years ago and it was a hoot.
The contact info is in the poster above and here (and you should register to run in the event). If you have a scooter and you’d like to run it around the Salton Sea, you might consider participating.
This is a blog that is sure to be controversial and elicit a few comments. It attempts to answer a very specific question: Which motorcycles are best for Baja?
As a qualifier, let me mention a few things up front:
With that said, here goes:
CSC’s RX3
Say what you want about Chinese bikes, and say what you want about smallbore bikes, I’m convinced my 250cc CSC RX3 was the best bike ever for Baja.
The RX3 tops out at about 80 mph and that’s more than enough for Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway (the road that runs from the US border all the way down to Cabo San Lucas). The bike is comfortable and it gets 70 mpg. The fuel tank holds over 4 gallons. I could carry everything I needed (including a laptop, a big Nikon and a couple of lenses, and clothes) in the bike’s standard panniers and topcase. I also carried tools and spare parts, but I never needed them. It was superbly well suited for Baja exploration, as I and more than a few others know. One more thought…before you pummel me with the inevitable “Ah need at least a thousand cc” comments, take a look at our earlier blog, Why a 250?
Kawasaki’s KLR 650
I owned a 2006 KLR 650 Kawasaki for about 10 years. I bought it new and I loved the thing. I think it is one of the best bikes I’ve ever ridden in Baja. Yeah, it was a little tall, but once in the saddle I had no problem touching the ground.
The Kawi didn’t come with luggage, but I bought the cheap Kawasaki soft luggage panniers and a Nelson Rigg tankbag and I was good to go (I didn’t need the obligatory KLR milk crate). Although the KLR was heavy, it did surprisingly well off road (especially running at higher speeds over the rough stuff), and I did more offroad riding with the KLR than I have with any of the other motorcycles I brought into Baja. It averaged 56 mpg, and with its 6-gallon gas tank, I could make the trek between El Rosario and that first Pemex 200 miles further south without stopping for fuel.
CSC’s RX4
I’ve never owned an RX4, but I’ve ridden one a fair amount and I’ve done detailed comparisons between the RX4, the RX3, and the KLR.
I’ve never taken an RX4 into Baja, but I’ve ridden both (the RX4 and Baja) enough to know that it would do well down there. Think of the RX4 as an RX3 with more top end, more acceleration, and a bit more weight. It’s got the luggage and the ground clearance for extended travels with some offroad thrown in, and it also gets about the same fuel economy as the RX3. Fit and finish on the RX4 is superior (it’s almost too nice to take offroad). The RX4 is a lot of motorcycle for the money. The pandemic hit our shores not too long after the RX4 did, or I would have seen more of the RX4 south of the border.
Genuine’s G400c
I rode Genuine’s new G400c in San Francisco, courtesy of good buddy Barry Gwin’s San Francisco Scooter Center, and I liked it a lot. It’s compact, it has adequate power, it has an instrument layout I like, and it’s a fairly simple motorcycle.
I think with soft luggage, the Genuine G400c would make an ideal Baja blaster, and the price is right: It rings in right around $5K. With its Honda-clone 400cc motor (one also used in the Chinese Shineray line and others), it has enough power to get up to around 90 mph, and that’s plenty for Baja. I rode a different motorcycle with this powerplant in China and I was impressed. I think this would be an ideal bike for exploring Baja.
Royal Enfield’s 650 Interceptor
Yeah, I know, the new Enfield Interceptor is a street bike with no luggage. But with a Nelson Rigg tailpak and Wolf soft luggage, the Interceptor was surprisingly in its element in Baja. Gresh will back me up on this.
We had a whale of a time exploring Baja on a loaner 650 Enfield (thanks to Enfield North America and good buddy Bree), and I liked the bike so much I bought one as soon as I could find a dealer that didn’t bend me over a barrel on freight and setup. There’s one parked in my garage now. The bike is happy loping along at 65-70 mph, it’s comfortable (although I’ll be the first to admit it needs a sheepskin cover on that 2×4 of a seat), and it gets 70 miles per gallon. I wouldn’t take it off road (except maybe for that 10-mile stretch to go see the cave paintings in the Sierra San Francisco mountains), but like I said at the beginning of this conversation starter, I’m mostly a street rider.
Royal Enfield’s 400cc Himalayan
I’ve seen these but not ridden one yet. Good buddy Juan Carlos, a great guy with whom I rode in Colombia, has gone all over South America on Enfield’s new Himalayan and he loves it (that’s his photo below). Juan knows more about motorcycles than I ever will, and if Juan says it’s good, it’s good.
I like the look of the Himalayan and I like its single-cylinder simplicity (come to think of it, with the exception of the Enfield Intercepter, every bike on this list is a single). 400cc, I think, is about the right size for Baja. The price is right, too. Royal Enfield is making fine motorcycles that won’t break the bank. I think the Enfield Himalayan would be a solid choice for poking around the Baja peninsula, one that probably has the best off-road capabilities of any bike in this list.
I’m sure I’m ruffling a few feathers with this piece, and I’m doing that on purpose. I’ve been taking pot-stirring lessons from Gresh (that’s him in the photo at the top of this blog). We’d like to hear your comments if you disagree with any of the above. Do us a favor and leave them here on the ExNotes blog (don’t waste your time posting on Facebook as that stuff will scroll on by and be gone; ExNotes is forever).
All the above notwithstanding, I’ll add one more point: The best Baja motorcycle for each of us is the one we have. You can ride Baja on just about anything. I’ve been to Cabo San Lucas and back on everything from a 150cc California Scooter to a Harley Heritage Softail cruiser. They’re all good. Don’t put off a trip because you don’t think you have the perfect motorcycle for a Baja adventure. Baja is the best riding I’ve ever done.
I’ve done a lot of riding on a lot of different motorcycles in Baja. You can read all about that in Moto Baja!
Heading into Baja? Make sure you insure with BajaBound, our choice for the best motorcycle insurance in Mexico!
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Take a look at this: A Colt Trooper Mk III chambered in .22 Long Rifle, an interesting and extremely accurate revolver. I picked it up maybe 30 years ago in a local gun store. The revolver was in their display case on the lower shelf and I almost didn’t see it. I wasn’t in the market, but when I saw the Trooper it grabbed my attention. It was marked $225, I offered $200, the guy on the other side of the counter said okay, and the Trooper was mine.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the little Trooper is a phenomenally accurate handgun, maybe one of the most accurate I’ve ever shot. It groups as well as a Model 41 Smith and Wesson, a target handgun with maybe twice the sight radius.
The Trooper is based on a Colt that was originally a .38 Special, then it was chambered for the .357 Magnum, then it was redesigned as the Trooper Mk III, and then it was offered in .22. That was a thing back in the ’60s and ’70s, you know, offering full-sized revolvers but in .22, and it was a good thing. These are awesome target guns, relatively inexpensive to shoot, and just plain fun. And heavy. The Trooper kept the same external envelope (i.e., the exterior dimensions) as the far-more-powerful .357 Magnum Trooper, and that means there’s a lot more steel in the barrel and the cylinder.
I bought my Trooper used, but it is in as new condition. It came with the original lighter colored (and checkered) walnut grips, but I saw the grips you see the revolver wearing in these photos about 15 years ago and I had to have them. The smooth grips look good and the medallions imply the gun went throught the Colt Custom Shop (it did not), but truth be told, the original grips offer a better hold and they fit the revolver better.
One of these days I’ll get around to hogging out the interior of the custom grips and fitting them to the Trooper with AcraGlas, but that’s a project for the future. Or, I may put the original grips back on the gun (they’re around here somewhere).
The Troopers were available with a 4-inch barrel (like mine), a 6-inch barrel, or an 8-inch barrel, and they could be had with a high polish blue (like mine), a high-polish nickel, or a brushed nickel finish. If I knew then what I know now I would have purchased a matching blue steel Trooper Mk III in .357 Magnum. They were around $200 back in the day, and like my .22, the .357 would have been a sound investment. These guns go for five to eight times that amount today. You could argue that they make for a good investment, but that implies flipping the gun to realize the profit, and that’s not going to happen. I’ll keep this one forever.
You know, it’s hard to find new guns built to these same standards as regular service guns were 30 or more years ago. When I look at the deep bluing on my Trooper, that’s pretty obvious. The new Colt Python is one that rivals the Trooper for build quality, but it’s the exception.
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This press release from BajaBound came in recently and we want to share it with you:
BIG NEWS! Baja Bound is very excited to announce our new Baja Saver Mexican auto insurance policy! The Baja Saver is a heavily discounted policy for travel in Baja California, Baja California Sur and Sonora that is available for six month or annual coverage. The Baja Saver offers up to a 60% discount compared to full territory Mexican insurance policies! Check out all of the Baja Saver features here:
https://www.bajabound.com/bajasaver.php
Since the essential travel orders are still in place we are rolling this out as a great option for expats and folks commuting across the border for work. We look forward to getting back to everything we love about Baja and hope to see you south of the border soon!
¡Viva Baja!
We always use BajaBound Insurance whenever we visit Mexico, and we’ve found it to be the best.
I’ve spoken with several folks who are in Baja, and although there is an essential travel order in place, it’s not enforced. Folks tell me that they can easily cross the border in both directions. Baja John tells me that life is Baja is much the same as it is here in the US, with folks social distancing, restaurants offering outdoor dining and socially-distanced tables, and people wearing masks. John mentioned that on a couple of recent holidays, there were roadblocks north of San Felipe and Ensenada and if you couldn’t prove Baja residence, you would have to turn around, but the roadblocks were only present during the holidays.
Gresh and I have been talking about venturing into Baja in another two or three months. I am looking forward to it. In the meantime, if you want to vicariously relive a few of our adventures in beautiful Baja, check out our Baja and Epic Rides pages!
Sometimes people ask me about writing a book. It’s easier to get a book published than you might think. Basically, there are three approaches. You can go with a vanity publisher (not a good idea, in my opinion), you can go with one of the big publishing houses (tough to do, and I’ve found this doesn’t work very well for reasons I’ll explain below), or you can self-publish through Amazon.com or any of several other publishing outfits (this it not vanity publishing, and the self-publishing approach offers several advantages).
Vanity Publishing
The idea of a vanity publisher is that you pay a company to publish your book. You have to do all the marketing, and you have to print a minimum number of copies, so this gets expensive fast. I’ve never done this and everything I’ve heard about these outfits is strongly negative. My advice would be to not go this route. Yeah, doing so will allow you to say that you wrote a book and had it published, but that little bit of bragging rights will probably cost you $10,000 and it’s not likely you’ll ever recover it. I’ve never taken this approach, and I’ve heard from others that it doesn’t work out economically for the author. You will have a lot of copies of your book, most likely taking up space in your garage.
A Traditional Publishing House
You can market your concept to a publishing house and have them publish and market it and pay you a royalty on copies sold. This has been the traditional publishing route for more than a couple of centuries in the US. The first several books I wrote went this route.
The traditional publishing route is okay and if you play your cards right (which is to say, you are a skilled negotiator), you can secure a healthy advance against royalties. But it’s an approach with disadvantages that far outweigh the advantages:
I’ve written 15 books, and I went the traditional route with established publishing houses on the first 9. I’d never go this way again. My good buddy Simon Gandolfi put it best when I asked him about publishers and, in particular, using an agent to promote your work. “Most publishers are incompetent crooks,” he said, and then he added “and most literary agents are competent crooks.”
Self-Publishing
About 10 years ago I was on a press junket promoting Lake Tahoe as a motorcycle destination (good buddy J Brandon was one of the organizers). I rode up there on my KLR 650 Kawasaki. It was a good time and good riding (the roads in the Sierra Nevadas around Tahoe are some of the best in the world, and I got a couple of magazine stories out of the deal), but the thing that really made the trip worthwhile for me was meeting Carla King (that’s Carla in the photo at the top of this blog). Carla rode a KLR 650, so I knew she was a smart person. I had read Carla King’s book about her Ural ride around America (American Borders), and this was the first time I actually met her.
Our Tahoe group stopped for lunch on one of the organized rides at Walker Burger (it’s on Highway 395), and Carla and I talked shop. I told her the story about Wiley and how terrible their marketing department was, and she told me I was wasting my time if I wasn’t self-publishing.
I never heard of self-publishing until I met Carla, so I took one of her classes and I never looked back. My next seven books I self-published through Amazon using the tools Carla shared with me, and I made more money with them than I have on any of the other books I previously wrote.
Self-publishing has a lot of advantages:
Carla offers self-publishing training and has written extensively on the topic (see www.CarlaKing.com and www.selfpubbootcamp.com). I attended one of her seminars several years ago and it was a very worthwhile experience for me. If you have thoughts about writing a book, you might consider doing the same.
As I mentioned in a recent blog, good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) reworked the trigger on my Colt Python. The original single action trigger had a lot of creep, it was heavy, and what surprised me most of all was that it actually cocked the hammer another few degrees before it released. I was getting a little double action when firing single action.
That bothered me enough to call my contact at Colt Manufacturing, and I think he was surprised when heard about it, too. He checked with his engineering department, and the word came back: They had to do that to meet the California and Massachusetts drop test requirements. I checked the California regulation and it requires dropping a loaded, cocked revolver from a height of 1 meter six times on a concrete surface without the gun firing inadvertently. Think about that. Dropping a loaded and cocked revolver, a .357 Magnum, onto a concrete floor. Six times.
Me? I’m going with an alternative approach. I’m not going to drop my loaded, cocked, .357 Magnum revolver on a concrete surface even once. It’s kind of a common sense approach, one that the politicians in California and Massachusetts apparently think we can’t be trusted to take.
A loaded revolver. Cocked. Dropped. Six times. Onto a concrete floor. What were they thinking?
I’m not one to to argue Darwinism versus Divine Creation (we don’t do politics or religion here on ExNotes), but here’s a thought. Maybe someone who drops a cocked, loaded, .357 Magnum revolver on a concrete surface six times, well, maybe Darwin was on to something. Maybe that person needs to be culled from the gene pool. Before you get your shorts in a knot, though, remember my preface: It’s just a thought.
Anyway, back to the main attraction, and that’s the trigger job TJ did on the new Python. TJ took photos of the Python’s internals (the complete parts interface is shown above in the large photo). The photo below shows what was causing the trigger creep and the hammer movement during a single action trigger pull:
That’s the hammer on the left, and the trigger on the right. You’ll notice that the hammer’s sear area (denoted by the red arrows) is kind of rough and it contains a hooked ledge of sorts. That’s what was rotating the hammer back a few more degrees when the trigger was actuated in the single action mode.
TJ modified the sear to eliminate the hooked ledge and create the angles and surface finish the Python trigger-to-hammer interface deserves. That’s what you see below.
Before he improved the sear interface, the Python’s double action trigger pull was 9 1/2 lbs; it is now 9 lbs. The single action trigger pull was a very creepy 5 1/2 lbs; now there is no perceptible trigger or hammer movement before the hammer is released and the trigger breaks at a very clean 2 1/4 lbs. The upgrade completely changes the character of the new Python. I can’t imaging anyone buying a Python and not wanting to have the trigger cleaned up in this manner. TJ is the guy to do it.
The next big question is: Did the new trigger a make a difference in how the Python performed? Hey, you tell me. Here are two 5-shot groups shot at 50 feet with the improved trigger:
Those two groups were shot with my go-to .38 Special target load (a 148-grain wadcutter and 2.7 grains of Bullseye prepared on my Star reloader). The group on the left measures 0.680 inches; the one on the right measures 0.830 inches. Some of the .357 Magnum loads performed just as well. I’ll share all my Python load testing results in a near-term future blog. I didn’t adjust the sights during my load testing because I’d be moving them with each new load; I’ll zero the gun when I’ve selected the load I want for the Python. I am a happy camper; these are phenomenally good results.
You might be wondering about now why you’d need a trigger job on a $1500 handgun. Folks, this isn’t Colt’s fault. They’re doing what they have to in order to meet a requirement imposed by people who don’t understand what they are doing. Don’t get upset with Colt. Do the right thing and vote.
If you have a Python and you’re not happy with the trigger, take a look at TJ’s Custom Gunworks and drop TJ a note. Trust me on this: You’ll be glad you did.
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When I recently visited good buddy and custom gunsmith TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks to discuss a trigger job on my new Colt Python, I noticed a custom SIG P220 in .45 ACP in his shop. The SIG had a very unusual finish. The trigger work was incredible, with as crisp a single action trigger pull as any I have ever felt. I’m hoping the Python’s will be as good after TJ works his magic on it (jumping ahead, it is, and that will be in a future blog). I asked TJ about the SIG, and in particular, if I could share it with our blog readers. Here’s what TJ told me:
I haven’t taken photos of my urban camo P220 yet; I’ll do that over the weekend. Here are some photos of his little brother, the P239, in .40 S&W.
The camo finish is a 6-layer process. I did a full LEVEL 1 package on it, and since it was already DAO (Joe’s note: That’s double action only) I did a full bob on the hammer, slightly lifted the slide catch, melted the edges and corners, satin polished the barrel and extractor, applied orange DayGlo on the front sight, installed camo Duracoat on the Hogue rubber grips, and I fitted my TJ hex head grip screws. I can email you more details of what I did if you need it over the weekend.
These are the photos TJ sent. The first one is the 239 SIG as TJ acquired it, the next one is one of the steps in the camo application process, and the last two or three are the finished gun.
This TJ-customized SIG 239 sure is impressive. It’s in a powerful chambering, it’s compact, all of TJ’s customs are super reliable, and the gun just has a cool look. Whoever ends up owning it is going to have one hell of a handgun. TJ tells me he’s going to be listing the gun you see here on Gunbroker in the near future (at a price that seemed to me to be way too low).
If you’ve ever thought about having a custom handgun built to your specifications, TJ is the guy you want to talk to. One of the gun magazines described TJ’s work as “duty jewelry you can wear.” That sounds accurate. You don’t have to be here to use his services; most of TJ’s work is for folks in other states. Take a few minutes and check out the photos of prior TJ custom handguns on the TJ’s Custom Gunworks website.
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A quick note: The Python is back from TJ now and the trigger is superb. The double action went from 9 1/2 to 9 lbs and it is much smoother. The single action trigger went from 5 1/2 lbs (with a lot of creep) to a what I would call a breaking glass, creep-free 2 1/4 lbs. It feels better and I am seeing an immediate improvement on target. If you own a Colt Python, trust me on this: You need a TJ trigger job on yours. It completely changes the character of the revolver. Watch for an upcoming blog on the new Python with its improved trigger.
