Author: Joe Berk

Death Valley 2011: Hell Froze Over

This is the next installment of our series on Death Valley, and it’s about the Hell’s Loop Rally organized by Alan Spears and the Motor Scooter International Land Speed Federation.   We rode it in November of 2011, and while it was sunny that day, it was plenty cold.  It was a scooter endurance run of 400 miles in a single day.  You might be thinking that’s not too many miles.  Try it on a 150cc scooter and tell me if you still feel the same way.

I was working with CSC Motorcycles at the time and the thought was we could ride the event with our 150cc Mustang replicas.   The team included good buddies TK, Arlene, and yours truly.  It was grand fun and CSC garnered good exposure from that event.   I had a blast, and for me, it nailed three birds with one stone:  A great motorcycle ride, another chance for a ride through Death Valley, and a chance to get more cool stuff to write about (and photograph) for the CSC blog.

With that as a backdrop, here’s the story.

A Cold Day In Hell

Arlene B (of Go Go Gear fame, and a California Scooter rider) and TK. TK and I both worked at CSC Motorcycles. That’s my red CSC 150 motorcycle.

Hell’s Loop, that is…the Motor Scooter International Land Speed Federation (MSILSF) and Alan Spears’ latest event. You’d think an event named after a place known for warmer temperatures would offer toasty riding, but it sure was cold!

The Death Valley Loop

This event was all about endurance riding, and Alan and the MSILSF team sure outdid themselves on this one. The route took a big round trip from Barstow, California, east on the 15, north on the 127 along the eastern edge of Death Valley (think Ronald Reagan, the old Death Valley Days television show, and 20-mule teams hauling borax), west on 190 through Death Valley, a long loop down through Death Valley’s center to a delightful little town called Trona (just kidding about that one, folks), back to the 395 south, and then Highway 58 back to Barstow.

The Hell’s Loop event was billed as an endurance rally, but in actuality it was a race. You and I both know you’re not supposed to race on public highways, but on scooters and small motorcycles, “racing” is not what it would be on bigger bikes.  We ran this event with our throttles wide open a good 95% of the time. No kidding. The twist grips were pegged. That doesn’t mean we were speeding, though. Sometimes a wide open throttle meant 65 miles per hour when we were on the flats with no headwinds, and sometimes it meant 35 mph when we were climbing a long grade. Another aside at this point…the bikes performed flawlessly. This was another event in which we beat the, uh, Hell’s Loop out of our California Scooters, and they ran great.

The guy who won the event, Tom Wheeler, won it on a 49cc Kymco motor scooter. Yep, you read that right. 49 cubic centimeters! We’re sure not in the business of publicizing other brands, but hey, we’re more than happy to give credit where credit is due. Tom drove out from Arkansas for this event and he finished first on his 49cc Kymco, beating machines with nearly 10 times the engine displacement.

The Ride

The weekend started with TK and I rolling into Barstow Friday afternoon for a great lunch at Del Taco. Those of you who know Del Taco might be tempted to laugh (it’s a fast food Mexican chain not usually known for their fine food), but the Del Taco restaurants in Barstow are different. Ed Hackbarth is the entrepreneur who started Del Taco, and he did so in Barstow. Ed sold the Del Taco chain to a conglomerate after building it up into a huge business, but he kept the original three Barstow restaurants. Here in southern California, we know that if you want good Mexican food, Barstow’s Del Tacos are unlike any others. Everything is fresh, everything is bigger, and it’s not unusual to see Ed himself working in the kitchen preparing your lunch. Trust me on this one, folks….if you’re ever passing through Barstow, you need to stop for a meal at Del Taco.

Our Motel 6 room…where old Tom Bodette left the light on for us…$35 a night, and it might have been the most expensive hotel in Barstow! It was raining and we didn’t want to leave the bikes out in the cold, wet weather. A lot of the Hell’s Loop riders slept with their bikes Friday night.

On Friday we had a bitter cold rain, but the forecast was for sunny warm weather on Saturday.  Well, they got half of it right. I once heard one of those radio political talking heads say that the reason economists exist is to make weather forecasters look good. I think that guy might have had it backwards. It was sunny, but wow, was it cold when we woke up on Saturday morning. I wasn’t too worried…I had my California Scooter motorcycle jacket, a pair of warm motorcycle pants, and my Haix Goretex boots (they’re made in Austria and they’re great), but it was still cold. Really cold.

After a great 6:00 a.m. breakfast at IHOP Saturday morning, we rolled out onto Interstate 15 on our California Scooters and headed north.  Wow, was it ever cold!
On California 127, headed into Death Valley.  We rode under beautiful blue skies along Highway 127…it was a glorious day to be out on a motorcycle!

It sure was cold Saturday morning.  As in maybe 40 degrees. Teeth chattering cold. I know all of our friends on the east coast would view this as something of a heat wave, but I gotta tell you, when you do 400 miles in one day through this kind of weather, it’s cold.

Before I get too much further, let me give you a warning about the photos. They’re not my best ever. We didn’t stop to smell the roses on this one, boys and girls, and most of these shots were from the saddle of my CSC motorcycle at high speed. That’s why a lot of the angles are off, and it’s why they might be a bit fuzzy. This ride was all about getting back to Barstow first. We stopped for fuel and restroom breaks, and that was it. We didn’t even eat. 400 miles on a motorcycle, in 40-degree weather, with no messing around. Riding…that’s what this run was all about. And in the cold weather, our CSC motorcycles were running strong. We thought we were gonna set the world on fire, until we heard about Tom Wheeler on that 49cc scooter. But I’ll come back to that.  So after rolling along on Interstate 15 for about 60 miles, we took a left at Baker and headed toward Death Valley. The skies were clear, the riding was glorious, and we froze our tootsies off.

A 60-mph shot from the saddle…riding through the Mojave Desert!

We weren’t too sure about where we’d be able to buy gas, so we each carried a spare gallon or two. Turns out we didn’t need the extra gas, but we stopped nearly every place we saw a gas station just to make sure.

When we rolled into Shoshone, I was blown away by the gas prices. Believe it or not, these were not the highest gas prices we saw on this trip! I was sure glad I was riding a 100mpg California Scooter when I saw those prices. Ah, the glory of price gouging.

Every time I see something like what the photo above shows, I want to confront the owner and ask him if his mother knows what he does for a living, but I know it would be a futile gesture. And another 100 miles up the road, we paid prices that made what the photo above shows seem cheap.

Barney Fife

While we were topping off in Shoshone, I saw a National Park Service HumVee that I thought was pretty cool. I had never seen one of these in use by a law enforcement agency, so I snapped a quick photo of it while I was on my California Scooter. I guess the NPS ranger who was in it didn’t like that. As I kid, I always had a mental image of park rangers as pretty cool guys who took care of the bears and stuff like that. This guy was decidedly unfriendly…there’s no nice way to say it. Maybe it was a slow day for him and he wanted to harass some rough-looking bikers like me, Arlene, and TK. He wanted to know about Alan, who rolled through Shoshone earlier on his two-stroke Kymco burning “exotic fuels.” A park ranger. I chalked it up to another instance of our tax dollars at work. Go figure.

A National Park Service Hummer.

Continuing the Ride

After the fuel stop in Shoshone, we were on the road again. Here are a few more shots from the saddle.

On the floor of Death Valley, about 100 feet below sea level.
After we climbed out of Death Valley’s floor, it was a fast downill run west…you can see the flare from shooting into the sun
Heading west to Panamint on the western edge of Death Valley. The bikes were running just great in the cold weather. Here’s a quick shot of my speedometer as we rolled through Death Valley. Smoking right along on the Baja Blaster!
Arlene’s California Scooter ticked over the 9,000-mile mark on this ride, and we stopped for a quick photo.

9000 miles, including great California Scooter rides up and down the California Coast, the Sierra Nevadas, the entire length of Baja, and Death Valley!  Arlene may well be our highest mileage California Scooter rider.

Our next stop was Panamint. There’s a gas station and a convenience store out there (but not much else). This place set a new record: $5.79 per gallon! It’s the most I’ve ever paid for gasoline in my life!

$5.79 a gallon….but what a cool photo op!

Wildrose Canyon Road and Trona

While we were stopped, I pulled out an extra T-shirt and added it to the several layers of clothing I already had on under my California Scooter motorcycle jacket. To my surprise, that one extra layer did the trick. I stayed relatively warm for the next 130 miles back to Barstow.  After our Panamint gas gouging, we turned the bikes east for a quick three miles back down the road to Wildrose Canyon. That was our route out of Death Valley, and here’s a shot looking east across the valley floor.

Death Valley’s floor, as seen from the saddle, looking east from Panamint

We negotiated Wildrose Canyon Road, fought the wind downhill, and then we rolled into Trona. Trona is a mining town (they mine potash or some other such chemical), and there isn’t too much else out there. And I gotta tell ya, when they built “no place” they must have centered it around Trona (because that town sure is in the middle of no place). It’s an interesting place, though…a collection of white chemicals, brown hills in the distance, blue skies, and industrial processing equipment.

A late-in-the-day, shot-from-the-saddle photo of Trona. Some day, I’d like to ride out to Trona just to take photos.

Returning to Barstow

After Trona, we cranked the bikes wide open for the run home. It was a burst out to the 395, a speed run down to Highway 58, and then a left turn for the last 32 miles back to Barstow. We pulled in to the Motel 6 parking lot just after dark. And it was even colder. Did I mention earlier that it was cold?

Alan Spears, his friend Kathleen, and Dennis did a great job organizing this event.

When we returned to the Motel 6 rally headquarters, the good folks from MSILSF had good food and drinks waiting, and that was a good thing. We hadn’t eaten all day, and I was hungry. And cold. It sure was nice to return to a warm welcome. And it sure was interesting to learn about the winning bike and rider…that would be Tom Wheeler from Arkansas.

Tom Wheeler, a Kymco dealer from Arkansas, accepting one of his trophies for the Hell’s Loop Endurance Rally.

The Winner:  A 49cc Kymco!

As I mentioned earlier, Tom won the event on a 49cc Kymco. Good Lord! A 49cc Kymco! My first thought was that the bike had to have had a couple of superchargers and maybe it was running on nitro, but no, that wasn’t it at all. Tom is obviously an experienced endurance rider, and he had the problem sorted. When I asked Tom about the top speed on his 49cc sizzler, he told me that it might see 45 mph on a flat road under ideal conditions. We sure didn’t have ideal conditions, and what that meant to me is that Tom ran a lot of the day’s 400 miles at something between 30 and 40 mph. The trick is to not have to stop. Tom had an auxiliary gas tank on his Kymco, and he only had to make one stop for gas.

Alan and crew sure did an outstanding job pulling this event together, which didn’t surprise me at all. MSILSF is the same outfit that organized the November 2009 Land Speed Record trials and last year’s Salton Sea Endurance Rally, and both of those events were wonderful.

I am more than a little intrigued by all of this, and by MSILSF. You might be, too, folks. Think about it. Motor competition. Real competition. Speed trials. Endurance rallies. All with scooters. You can get into it, real motor competition, for peanuts. And a California Scooter is a great way to do so.

Here’s a shot of Tom Wheeler’s winning 49cc scooter. 400 miles in one day on a 49cc motor scooter! Can you imagine!

So that was it, folks. 400 miles in one day, we won the 150cc class, and we had a great time.

We just returned from a trek through Death Valley a few days ago, which prompted our series of blogs about prior Death Valley trips.  You can read the first two Death Valley blog installments here.

Death Valley:  The Prelude
Death Valley 2008:  My First Visit

And, oddly enough, the Los Angeles Times ran a story in 2017 about a trip that almost exactly described the ride you see in this blog.  You can read that one here.

Read a few of our other great motorcycle rides here!

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The Colin D. MacManus Award

US Army Captain Colin D. MacManus, Rutgers University ’63.

Captain Colin D. MacManus, a US Army Infantry officer and an Airborne Ranger, graduated from Rutgers University in 1963.  He was killed in action in Vietnam in February 1967.  A synopsis of his Silver Star citation follows:

Captain (Infantry) Colin David MacManus, United States Army, was awarded the Silver Star (Posthumously) for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in connection with military operations against the enemy while serving with Company C, 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, in the Republic of Vietnam.

The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation assembled this tribute to Captain MacManus:

Colin D. MacManus was born on August 29, 1941 to Mrs. Barbara MacManus in Elizabeth, NJ. He lived in New York and Quincy, MA before moving to Newark, NJ. He graduated from South Side High School in 1959. He attended Rutgers University and graduated in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and an award as a distinguished military student. While he was an undergraduate, he was a member of the university’s track team, and Scabbard and Blade, an ROTC honor society.

Following graduation, the captain attended Paratroop and Ranger schools at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was then stationed with the 3rd Armored Division “Spearheaders” in Frankfurt, Germany. While there, his mother explained, Captain MacManus led the rifle team representing the United States at the 1965 Central Treaty Organization games in Istanbul, Turkey. The squad finished second in the contest and received special honors from the U.S. commander.

In a February 22, 1967 article from the Newark Evening News his brother, John, stated “Colin was always very proud of the work he was doing. When we tried to sway him from volunteering from combat duty, he simply said that he had the training necessary to do the job–the type of training ‘those young boys’ with fear written on their faces didn’t have.”

MacManus was planning to marry Linda Neeson, the secretary of his commanding officer in Germany. The couple postponed their plans when he received his orders to report to Vietnam.

He entered the US Army from Newark, NJ and attained the rank of Captain (CAPT).  MacManus was killed in action on February 16, 1967 at the age of 25. He was serving with C Company, 1st Battalion, 22 Infantry, 4th Infantry Division.

Captain McManus’s mother stated that her son wrote in his last letter that he was going out in the boondocks and had just reached his goal of being named a company commander, and that he would be unable to write for a while. His mother said that he never mentioned the fighting at all. He received a full military funeral.

There is a memorial at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ dedicated to the graduates who were killed or missing in action from the Vietnam War. MacManus’ name is listed among those killed in action.

To commemorate his life, each year the MacManus family awarded a Colt .45 Auto to the graduating senior who held his Rutgers Corps of Cadets assignment.  In 1973, that was me.  I never had the honor of meeting Captain MacManus (he graduated before I started my engineering studies at Rutgers), but I felt like I knew him through the Rutgers Reserve Officers Training Corps.  We all knew of Captain MacManus.  I met the MacManus family when I graduated in 1973, and his brother John (the same one mentioned above) presented the 1911 to me.  It was a Series 70 Government Model Colt (the US Army sidearm back then), and receiving that award was a very big deal.  It was a big deal to me in 1973, and it’s still a big deal to me today.

My first handgun: The Colin D. MacManus 1911 and a couple of 5-shot, 25-yard hand held groups I fired with it. I had it accurized in the 1970s, and it is still a tack driver.

That 1911 was the very first centerfire handgun I ever owned.  US Army Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman taught me how to shoot my .45 while I was a grad student at Rutgers (you can read about that here).  I had a gunsmith accurize the 1911 a few years later when I lived in Fort Worth, and I still shoot the MacManus .45 on a regular basis.  I most recently had my good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Guns) go through it to make sure everything is in good working order (and it is).  The MacManus 1911 and I go way back. It means a lot to me.

Somewhere along the way during the last 46 years, the MacManus Award fell by the wayside, and when I heard about that, it just felt wrong.   So I called the ROTC detachment at Rutgers and spoke to the Professor of Military Science (the commander there).  Colonel Cortez agreed: The MacManus Award is something that needs to continue.  I did a bit of sleuthing online, one thing led to another, and last night I had a nice conversation with a young man from the MacManus family (I spoke with Colin D. MacManus, who was named after his uncle).  We’re going to revive the Captain MacManus Award, and I’ll keep you posted on the status of our efforts right here on the Exhaust Notes blog.

Keep up with all the good stories!

Death Valley 2008: My first visit

A Trip To Death Valley!

Brown Motor Works in Pomona, California, hosted a chili cookoff in March 2008, which was immediately followed by a weekend trip to Death Valley.  At the time, I’d been a California boy for 30 years, but I’d never been to Death Valley. I always wanted to go. And, I love chili.  Free chili…lots of photo ops…good weather…and a motorcycle ride to a place I’d never been before.  It seemed like a no-brainer to me.  It was a ride I had to make.

Kawasaki’s KLR 650

I had purchased a 2006 KLR 650 a year or two earlier from my good buddy Art at the Montclair Kawasaki dealer, and something strange happened:  I found I was enjoying the little KLR more than the other big roadburners I owned.  At that time, I had gone way overboard in acquiring motorcycles.  I had a TL1000S Suzuki, a Harley Softail, a Honda CBX, a Triumph Daytona 1200, and a Triumph Tiger 955 (and I think I owned them all at the same time).   There was something about the KLR, though, that I liked, and I found myself riding it more often than not.  All the guys I rode with either had BMWs, Harleys, or Triumphs, and my KLR was the smallbore of the bunch.  I didn’t care.  I liked riding it.  To my surprise, I found that riding a smaller bike was more fun.

A lone KLR in a sea of BMWs. Nearly all of my friends rode BMW motorcycles in those days. I had a lot of fun with my KLR.

The Chili Cookoff

Good buddy Dennis, shown here immediately after taking top honors in the chili-eating contest. Dennis is an Iron Butt rider and he rides a BMW. The rules were different than what I expected. You weren’t allowed to lift the bowl off the table, so the serious competitors simply dove in. BMW riders are a particularly sophisticated bunch.

On To Mojave

The guys at Brown Motor Works planned to leave at the end of the day, but I didn’t want to hang around until then.  Immediately after grabbing a few photos from the chili contest, I was on the KLR headed east and then north into the Mojave Desert.

I took my KLR and found my way along Old Route 66 into the Mojave Desert.
I took I-40 over to Kelbaker Road and then headed into the Mojave National Preserve. The group planned to meet in Baker, and I figured if I timed it right I would get there right about nightfall.
I grabbed this photo along the Kelbaker Road. I didn’t know too much about motorcycle photography. This is the shot magazine editors always hate…the motorcycle by the side of the road.

Baker and The Mad Greek

Baker is a wide spot in the road along the I-15, and it’s a jumping off point for Death Valley.  It is a funky place with a couple of poorly-maintained and overpriced gas stations, the world’s tallest thermometer, and a cool restaurant called The Mad Greek.  The Mad Greek is a place that seems to always show up in any movie about a road trip to Vegas.  I have yet to find a Greek in the place, but the food is good and the staff is friendly.

We had dinner at the Mad Greek in Baker along the I-15. We spent the night in Baker, and then had breakfast at the Mad Greek the next morning, too.

Into the Valley of Death

After a breakfast at the Mad Greek the next morning, we road north toward Death Valley.  There’s nothing out there but great roads and the Mojave for the 80 miles or so to the park entrance, and the Beemer boys were riding at speeds well in excess of 100 mph so I couldn’t keep up.  The KLR might see 100 on a really good day, but I didn’t care.  I wanted to stop, smell the roses, and get good photos.  Riding by myself didn’t bother me at all.  I preferred it.

Entering Death Valley the next morning.
My reaction was simple upon entering Death Valley: Wow! It was what I hoped it would be.
Another shot of my KLR.
At some ruins in Death Valley.
My friend Eddie and his GS.

Artist’s Palette

One of the cool spots to stop in Death Valley is a hilly area called Artist’s Palette.  Each hill has a different dominant mineral (and a different color), and the result is something that looks like an artist’s palette.  It’s a very cool thing to see.

Artist’s Palette in Death Valley.
My friend Joseph and his Triumph Sprint.

High Prices and Photo Ops

Death Valley’s claim to fame is that it’s one of the lowest spots on the planet.   It’s also in one of the more remote places on the planet, which meant that fuel costs were unusually high.   All made for interesting photos.

This was a gas station in Furnace Creek. At the time (this was in 2008), the gasoline prices here were the highest I had ever seen.
An obligatory shot along the road in Death Valley.

Wildrose Road and the Charcoal Kilns

My friend Bob told me about Wildrose Road, a road that cut through some canyons on the way out of Death Valley.
It was a great ride. While I was on Wildrose Road, I saw signs for the Charcoal Kilns, so I took a short detour. On the way up to the Charcoal Kilns, I stopped to take the picture above. A guy and his wife were coming from the other direction and he asked if I wanted a picture of me with my KLR. Death Valley was cold. I had on every piece of clothing I brought with me.
The Charcoal kilns. These were built in the 1870s. They are 25 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter.
Wildrose Road. You could probably get through it on any motorcycle, but I was glad I had the KLR. Bob was right…Wildrose Road was a great ride.

The Gear

I had a Nikon D200 digital camera when I did this trip and the first-generation Nikon 24-120 lens with a polarizer, and it did a good job for me.  I think it was a 10 megapixel deal and that seemed like a lot in those days.  I kept the D200 for a long time and I had a lot of fun with it.  I used it for all of the photos you see here.  It was big and bulky, and as I recall, it took all of the space in one of the Kawasaki saddlebags I used with my KLR.  It was only a weekend trip, and the other saddlebag was enough for my other stuff.  I like to travel light and the arrangement worked fine for me.

Death Valley:  The Bottom Line

If you’ve ever thought about taking a ride to Death Valley, do it.  Take a camera, too. Trust me on this: You won’t be disappointed. As a rider and a photography enthusiast, I had a great time. The KLR 650 was more than enough motorcycle, I felt it was a good bike for a trip like this, and I concluded that Death Valley is doable on just about any motorcycle (especially if you mostly stick to Death Valley’s paved roads, as I did).  The photo ops in Death Valley are stunning.  If you live in southern California, it’s an easy weekend trip.

One day was not enough, though.  There was a lot of Death Valley left to see, and I knew I’d be back.

There’s more coming on Death Valley and a bunch of other great rides.  Sign up here and never miss an Exhaust Notes blog!

Death Valley: The Prelude

Leaving Death Valley headed to Shoshone, California.

I just returned from a road trip and our last day was in Death Valley, California.  I’m embarrassed to admit that I had lived in California for more than 30 years before I ever made the trek to Death Valley (that first trip was on my KLR 650).  I’ve been there five times now, traveling on different bikes and in different cars.  Death Valley is probably my favorite California destination.  I thought I would do a blog about this latest trip and then I realized:  Death Valley is a story that takes more than a single blog.  To get things started, here’s a link to a Destinations piece I did on Death Valley 11 years ago for Motorcycle Classics magazine.   There’s lots more coming, folks, so stay tuned.

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Movie Review: A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Okay, we’re not becoming a movie review site.  Gresh did that one on Ford vs. Ferrari, I offered The 24 Hour War, then I watched The Irishman and reviewed it, and good buddy Gonzo recommended the new Mr. Rogers movie with Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood.  We hit a lot of rain and snow on a recent trip, Susie suggested seeing the Tom Hanks flick, and off to the movies we went.  And this is a review of that movie.  But, like I said, we’re not a movie review site.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood was not what I was expecting, and it was way more than a movie about Fred Rogers’ life.  Hanks was superb in the role (that guy has never let me down in any movie, ever…he’s one of the best actors who ever lived, in my opinion).   A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood was intense and it was emotional.  But it was good.  Really good.  There’s a masterfully executed subway scene that I particularly enjoyed, and I’m pretty sure you will, too.

The downsides?  I thought a lot of the movie was out of focus (literally; the images were a bit on the blurry side).  Some of that was intentional for artistic effects, but the producers went too far with it.  Better to get things focused, I think.  I found the Esquire article that inspired the movie and, to be blunt, I didn’t think the article that started the ball rolling was very good.  That’s not intended to be a slam on the movie, though.  The movie was great.

See this one, folks.  You won’t be disappointed.

An elevated pucker factor…

We ducked into a candy store in Sonora while exploring a very wet Highway 49, and I thought of you, Fred. The YooHoo review is in the queue, my friend.

It was not intended to be an inclement weather Subie road test, but that’s what our Bay Area/Yosemite/Tahoe/Bishop trek has become.  Talk about weather…wow!  It’s either been rain or snow with only one day of sunshine, but it was sunshine below freezing at high altitudes on Highway 88 into Lake Tahoe.  The rules said I was supposed to have tire chains or 4WD with snow tires, but hell, I’ve never been too good with rules.  I’m talking slick roads with walls of snow taller than the top of my Subie Outback.  We rode the ice nearly all the way.   It was grand fun, and the Subaru hasn’t missed a beat.  Chains?  We don’t need no stinking chains!

We only ventured about 10 miles into Yosemite when discretion won out over valor.  The visibility was low and the snow was high, so we called it a day and turned around.  We stayed in Groveland at a grand old hotel and had dinner in the oldest bar in California (the Iron Door Grill).  It used to be a sporting palace back in the day (I asked, but all the sports ladies had long since retired).   The Gold Rush Highway the next day was grand even in the rain, but the ride up to Lake Tahoe was a bit on the scary side.  And then the ride down the Kingsbury Grade from Tahoe down to Highway 395 was just flat terrifying…it was 20 miles per hour all the way down in a heavy snowfall.   The 395 was daunting, too, with most of it in the snow.  But hey, we’re here in Bishop, we’re warm, and we’re ready to continue in the morning.

Tomorrow it’s Death Valley and then home.  The weather is supposed to be nice and that almost seems like a letdown after what we’ve driven through.  The Subie is a star in the snow and we’re loving it.

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Michigan State Police 2020 Motorcycle Test Results

Think you know how to ride?

If you’re into large touring bikes and you want to get a realistic assessment of what their capabilities are, there’s no better place to go than the annual Michigan State Police test report.  These folks can ride and you’ll see what Harley, BMW, and Yamaha motorcycles can do in capable hands.

Good buddy Mike is a retired police director who was right in the middle of this kind of stuff, and he sent the link for the latest MSP report to me.   There’s no advertising and it’s all presented clearly and in a way that’s easy to understand.  It’s fascinating reading and the results are presented in a no-nonsense engineering format.  Check out this table of results for the 0-100 mph acceleration tests:

The Michigan State Police report has similar displays for 0-60, 0-80, top speed, braking distances, fuel economy, lap times, and more.  I couldn’t put the report down.  In their best days (days that are way back in the rear view mirror), none of the motorcycle magazines did this kind of outstanding work.   And there’s more…they have all of the above and more for police cars, too.  Check out the stats on the Ford EcoBoost vehicles.

The best part?  The report is free, and you can get to it here.   You can thank me later.

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Tom Collins – The Southern Armoury

Our good buddy Art has another gun story for us, this time about owning a 1911 .45 auto in the UK.  The 1911 is one of my all time favorite firearms.  I enjoyed reading Art’s story and I’m sure you will, too.

On March 10th, 1984, 39 years after its manufacture, the Colt 1911A1 with serial number 2322134 became all mine, along with a mere 150 FMJ rounds and a bottle of Hoppe’s No. 9 (ah, that sweet aroma).  My new addition cost me the grand sum of £150 ($192) for the gun, the total bill being £183.65 ($236) for the ammo and cleaner.

The Southern Armoury at 171 New Kent Road in southeast London was a small, nondescript shop tucked in between others. Far from salubrious, the battered front door and dirty shutters belied the fact that its owner, Tom Collins, would stock some very obscure ammo and classic guns from the bellicose Victorian era right up to the latest in firearms. To keep it all low key and to prevent wannabees and Walter Mittys, his drudgey shop window would uninvitedly be filled with airguns, pellets, targets and old shotguns. This small, honest-to-God shop was always busy with a throng of two-or-three deep patiently waiting people.  Tom and his wife used to live upstairs from the shop which had an old clock outside that everyone used as a marker point. It held good time and was too high to be vandalized or stolen.

Whenever I used to ring up and ask for the price of something, Tom would think for a second and mumble “about £20.” I would then offer to send him a check for “about £20” which would have him scuttling away for the proper price. It never failed.

Tom had a penchant for the most obscure adverts via the shooting press. We’d all stand around discussing this at the shooting club and wonder what the hell had gotten into him for producing some seriously mercurial stuff, sometimes involving cartoon balloon texts, barrels of black powder, an old sailing vessel and a circus elephant.

The other aspect also open for frequent and frivolous discussion was Tom’s toupee, which seemed to have a life of its own. Ill-fitting would not even begin to describe it.  At first it looked like his head was nursing a few semi-comatose gray squirrels, such was the thing’s mobility when perched on top of his head. We swore that it would stay in one spot every time he turned his head, and we’d place silent bets where the parting would be from one day to the next. It was doubtful that Tom knew which was the front or rear.

The quality of Tom’s math was suspect and as he refused to use a calculator, quite a few clients walked out of his shop having been undercharged. Some of these actually bought from him again, hoping he’d make the same mistake.

One of my shooting club members, Bob Wade, gave me a handwritten note about the serial numbers range of all the contracted 1911A1 manufacturers. Mine was about 6000 away from the last Colt batch in 1945. My gun was nothing special, although the slide and frame numbers were matched, it seemed that most of the other parts weren’t. Not that it mattered much. The original grips were discarded for some Pachmayrs and my clunker shot well. I don’t think I ever bought more ammo for it. Another club member reloaded for me but the solid lead bullets he had were never supposed to be used in an auto and just wouldn’t cycle properly. The guy was also known for not taking a double load too seriously, so I never asked him again. When he later died in a scuba diving accident and the facts of his miscalculations became known to us, none of us were surprised.

My wife and I took a long weekend in Yorkshire and my .45 with two full mags came with me just in case there was an opportunity for some unofficial target shooting. This came in the shape of a little ensconced lay-by at the side of a quiet country road with 12′ high sloping chalk walls. As I was busy examining my shot placements on a small discarded gas canister, the crunching of gravel alerted me to see a very curious cyclist who arrived out of nowhere and was wondering where the hell those shots had come from. He took off when he saw me and so did we – in the opposite direction. My only visual memories exist in saving four distorted slugs out of the chalk.

In 1987 the Southern Armoury closed its doors for good. Tom and his wife were getting old and tired, and it would only be a few years later that Tom hung up his toupee for good, leaving behind a plethora of old memories that the old dogs like myself are only too fond of recollecting.  The old clock is no longer there and the last time I drove past there, the shop had sacrilegiously become a hairdresser.

Although I sold my Colt around 1990, the new owner must have been one of the 40,000 pistol shooters who had to say farewell to their belongings during the 1997 pistol ban. My old .45 is probably part of a manhole cover somewhere in China where its American spirit continues to be part of the old guard who will never retire or capitulate.

I think all of us with a few miles under our belt have a story or two about a favorite old gunstore, a favorite old gunstore proprietor, or a favorite old gun.   Mine cover places like Barney’s in El Paso, the Rutgers gun shop in Highland Park, Treptow’s in Milltown, Starkey’s (another El Paso shop), and more.  They’re mostly all gone today, but wow…the memories.

Do you have a favorite memory?  Hey, drop us a line in the Comments section, or maybe even write a guest blog for us (send it to us at info@ExhaustNotes.us).  We love hearing from our readers.  And Art, thanks for another great tale!

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Movie Review: The Irishman

A swing and a miss is the way I’d describe it. Formulaic. I know what the Italian quattro (Scorcese, Pacino, DeNiro, and Pesci) were thinking: Hey, it worked before; maybe it will work again.  The mob. The Kennedys and Castro. DeNiro as an Irish hit man. Hoffa. Music from the 1950s. Voiced-in explanations from the main characters giving the lowdown on each mob dude. Over-restored ‘50s and ‘60s cars. Let’s throw it all against the silver screen for 3½ hours and maybe something will stick (yeah, you read that right: 3½ hours). I know what they were thinking:  Goodfellas, The Godfather (and all of its Roman-numeraled follow-ons), and Casino.  Yeah, it worked before, so maybe it will work again. Except it doesn’t.  Those earlier mob flicks were great. The Irishman is not.

Guys, at some point you have to realize there’s not any milk left in the cow. Even with your digital filtering to make old guys look young, all you gave us were weird, slitty-eyed visions of a younger DeNiro with the body and gait of a senior citizen (where’s Fredo when you need him?).  And Pacino playing Hoffa? Another swing and a miss (you should have let the ump call a strike). Jack Nicholson will forever be Jimmy Hoffa; Pacino just wasn’t believable in this role.  If you can see it, then hey, I’m the Pope.  Al, go back to threatening Mr. Trump. You’re not believable in that role, either, but you apparently know what they say about bad publicity.

Save your money, folks, and hang on to that 3½ hours of your life I’ll never get back.  The Irishman is one that should sleep with the fish.