Good buddy Marty (with whom I’ve been riding for a long time) sent this email and photo yesterday…
Joe,
That is me, about 1954, on a 1953 Triumph T100C. It had a 500cc alloy engine, and (fanfare) twin carburetors (thus earning the C for competition). I loved this bike, it handled well, and for its time, was a road-burner. I ran it so hard that I collapsed a valve, and instead of fixing it, traded it on a 1957 Triumph Tiger 110 (which wasn’t as fast!). Good times, good memories.
Marty
Very cool, Marty, and thanks very much.
Marty and I have traveled a lot of miles together, including trips through the US, Baja, and the Three Flags Classic covered here on the ExNotes blog. This is a more recent photo of Marty and his BMW…
Our good buddy Carl Mungenast was in town yesterday and Susie and I had dinner with him and his grandson, Jason. It was awesome.
I know what you’re thinking, and no, we don’t use the same barber!
I’ve known Carl for about 10 years now, and it all started about the time I hooked up with CSC Motorcycles. Carl had an interest in the original Mustangs and he quickly signed on as an advisor to CSC. I mentioned him several times in CSC blog, and one of the best things ever was the Baja trip Carl, his charming wife Mary, and I did in the Starship Subaru. The company, the conversation, the scenery, and the whale watching were fantastic.
Carl and Mary, who officially became Bajaenos in 2012.
Good times and good company, and it was grand seeing Carl again last night.
Hey, I just got off an A380 after 17 hours in the air, so it’s just a short blog tonight (or should that be today?). Later, my friends.
A scan of a photo of a photo. I handled the original while researching the Gatling gun in the Colt archives at the Connecticut State Library and Museum in Hartford.
Yeah, I know…a Gatling gun is not a machine gun. It was a hand-cranked weapon back in the day, but it’s still a fascinating a bit of machinery and this Civil War weapon concept is the principle behind modern high-rate-of-fire systems on combat aircraft, helicopters, naval vessels, and more. I was so captivated by the Gatling design and how it extended from the Civil War to modern gun systems that I wrote a book about it (The Gatling Gun). You may have already known that.
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The Gatling gun and its transition from the 1860s to today’s modern combat applications is fascinating. To get that full story, you might want to pick up a copy of The Gatling Gun.
So how did it come to be that modern high-rate-of-fire gun systems use the Gatling principle?
Here’s the deal: Around the end of World War II, jet aircraft entered service, and the old .50-caliber M2 Browning simply didn’t fire fast enough. With the new jets, aircraft closing speeds in a dogfight might exceed 1000 mph (two jets coming at each other over 500 mph), and what was needed was a shot pattern rather than a steady stream of bullets. In searching for higher firing rates, the Army discovered that Dr. Gatling and the U.S. Navy had both experimented with Gatling guns powered by electric motors, and way back in 1898 they attained firing rates over 1000 shots per minute. In 1898, a firing rate that high was a solution looking for a problem that did not yet exist. So, the concept was shelved for the next half century. But after World War II, it was the answer to the Army Air Corps’ jet fighter gunnery dilemma. The U.S. military dusted off the concept of an electrically-driven Gatling, gave a contract to General Electric, and the modern Vulcan was born.
Like I said earlier, the Gatling gun and its variants are used on many different combat systems. One of the earlier ones was immortalized by Puff, the Magic Dragon, in The Green Berets.The Green Berets is one of my all time favorite movies and the scene I’m describing shows up at around 1:20:
The first Vietnam-era gunship used old World War II C-47s (that’s what you see in the video above). Then the Air Force went to the C-130, a much larger aircraft, because it could carry more cannon. Then, because they couldn’t get C-130s fast enough, they turned to old C-119s. When the Air Force did a range firing demo to convince the folks who needed convincing at Eglin AFB, the gunship Gatlings fired continuously until they had no more ammo, and I’m told it was so impressive the project managers secured an immediate okay to proceed. The bigwigs viewing the demo firing thought the sustained burst was all part of the plan; what they didn’t know is the control system malfunctioned and the aircrew couldn’t turn the Gatlings off. Hey, sometimes things happen for a reason.
I know a fascination with Gatlings is unusual, and you might wonder how it came to be. It goes like this: When I was in the Army, my first assignment was to a Vulcan unit in Korea. To ready me for that, I had orders to the US Army Air Defense School’s Vulcan course in Fort Bliss, Texas. Vulcans were the Army’s 20mm anti-aircraft guns, and on the first day of class, the sergeant explained to us that the Vulcan gun system was based on the old Gatlings. Whaddaya know, I thought. The Gatling gun.
Then things got better. After a few weeks of classroom instruction, we went to Dona Ana Range in New Mexico to fire the Vulcan. I thought the Vulcan would sound like a machine gun…you know, ratatat-tat and all that. Nope. Not even close. When I first heard a Vulcan fire I was shocked. If you’ve ever been to a drag race and heard a AA fuelie, that’s exactly what a Vulcan sounds like. I heard one short BAAAAAARRRKKK as the first Vulcan fired a 100-round burst at 3,000 shots per minute. Jiminy! The effect was electrifying. We were a bunch of kids yammering away, and then the Vulcan spoke. Everyone fell silent. We were in awe.
At the Dona Ana range, the effect was even more dramatic…there was the soul-searing bark of the actual firing, and then an echo as the Vulcan’s report bounced off the distant Dona Ana mountains. Then another as the next gun fired, and another echo. And another. Cool doesn’t begin to describe it.
A Vulcan firing at night. Think that shot pattern is impressive? Hey, you’re only seeing every 7th round (the combat mix was one tracer every 7 rounds). This is a US Army photo included in The Gatling Gun (along with many others).
After I left the Army, my next job was on the F-16 Air Combat Fighter, and it used the same 20mm Gatling as did the Vulcan. After that it was General Dynamics in Pomona, where I worked on the Phalanx (a 20mm shipborne Vulcan). Then it was on to Aerojet, where we made 30mm ammo for the A-10 Warthog’s GAU-8/A Gatling. It seemed that every job I had was somehow tied to a Gatling gun variant, and that was fine by me. I loved working with these systems.
And there you have it. If you’d like to more about the different systems using Gatlings today and the early history of the Gatling gun, you can purchase The Gatling Gunhere.
The Harley Electra-Glide Classic, as seen in Harley’s 1979 sales brochure.
It was beautiful, it was something I always dreamed about owning, and I couldn’t ride a hundred miles on it without something breaking. I paid more for it than anything I had ever purchased, I sold it in disgust two years later for half that amount, and today it’s worth maybe five times the original purchase price. I wish I still had it. I’m talking about my 1979 Harley-Davidson Electra-Glide, of course. That’s the tan-and-cream motorcycle you see in the photo above, scanned from my original 1979 Harley brochure. The motorcycle is long gone. I had the foresight to hang on to the brochure.
All of the photos in this blog are from that brochure. I wasn’t into photography in those days, but I wish now that I had been. The Harley’s inability to go a hundred miles without a breakdown notwithstanding, I hit a lot of scenic spots in the Great State of Texas back in 1979. The Harley’s colors would have photographed well. The only photo I can remember now is one of me working on the Harley with the cylinder heads off. It seems that’s how the Harley liked to be seen. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The 1979 Harley brochure cover.
So the year was 1979, I was young and single, and I was an engineer on the F-16 at General Dynamics in Fort Worth doing the things that well-compensated, single young guys did in those days: Drinking, riding (not at the same time), chasing young women, and dreaming about motorcycles. If you had mentioned gender-neutral bathrooms, man bun hairstyles, a universal basic income, democratic socialism, sanctuary cities, the Internet, or something called email in those days (especially in Texas), no one would have had any idea what you were talking about, and if you took the time to explain such things, you would have been run out of town after being shot a few times. Texas in 1979 was a good time and a good place.
I stopped often at the Fort Worth Harley dealer, and Harley was just starting to get into the nostalgia thing. I had sold my ’78 Bonneville and I had the urge to ride again. Harley had a bike called the Café Racer and I liked it a lot, but I took a pass on that one. Then they introduced the Low Rider and I loved it, but when sitting on the showroom Low Rider I turned the handlebars and one of the handlebar risers fractured (Harleys had a few quality issues in those days). Nope, it wouldn’t be a Low Rider. Then they introduced the Electra-Glide Classic, that stunning bike you see in the photos here. It was a dagger that went straight to my heart. I was stricken.
The Electra-Glide Classic was Harley’s first big push into the nostalgia shtick and it stuck. At least for me it did. My first memory of ever being stopped dead in my tracks by a visually-arresting motorcycle was with a Harley Duo-Glide full dresser when I was a kid (it was blue and white), and the Classic brought that memory home for me. The Classic’s two-tone tan-and-cream pastels were evocative of the ‘50s, maybe a Chevy Bel Air (even though those were turquoise and white, a color Harley later adopted in the early ‘90s with its Heritage Softails). The whole thing just worked for me. I had to have it.
I sat on the Classic and it was all over for me. I fell in love. I knew at that instant that I was meant to be a Harley man. I turned the handlebars and nothing broke. There was a cool old sales guy there named Marvin, and I asked what the bike would cost out the door. He already knew the answer: $5,998.30.
A two-page spread featuring the bike I bought.
Hmmm. $5,998.30. That was a lot of money. I was riding around in a new CB-equipped Ford F-150 that had cost less than that amount (hey, it was Texas; Breaker One Nine and all that). My internal struggle (extreme want versus $5,998.30) was apparent to old Marvin.
“You know you want it,” Marvin said, smiling an oily, used-car-salesman, Brylcreem smile (these guys all went to the same clothing stores and barbers, I think). “What’s holding you back?”
“I’m trying to get my head wrapped around spending $6,000 for a motorcycle,” I said.
Marvin knew the drill. He was good at what he did. He probably made a lot more money than I did.
“Are you single?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Working?”
“Yep.”
“Got any debt?”
“Nope.”
“So what’s your problem?”
“It’s like I said, Marvin,” I answered. “I’m trying to justify spending six grand on a motorcycle.”
“You’re single, right?”
“Yep.”
“Well, who do you need to justify it to?”
And, as Tom Hanks would say 30 years later in Forrest Gump, just like that I became a Harley rider.
Another two-page spread in the ’79 brochure, showing the entire Harley line. They were beautiful motorcycles.
Yeah, the bike had a lot of quality issues, the most bothersome being a well-known (after you bought one, that is) tendency for the new 80-cubic-inch Shovelhead valves to stick. I first stuck a valve at around 4,000 miles (all of a sudden my Classic was a 40-cubic-inch single, and Harley fixed it on the warranty). I asked Marvin about that, and the answer was, “Yeah, this unleaded gas thing don’t work too good with the new motors. Put a little Marvel Mystery Oil in each of the tanks, or maybe a dime’s worth of diesel, and you’ll be okay…”
Seriously? Marvel Mystery Oil? Diesel fuel?
But I wanted to be good guy, and I did as directed. It wasn’t enough. A valve stuck again at 8,000 miles, Marvel Mystery Oil and that dime’s worth of diesel notwithstanding. Another trip to the dealer, and another valve job. I could see where this was going. The bike had a 12,000 mile warranty.
“So, Marvin,” I began, “what happens the next time a valve hangs up?”
Marvin smiled a knowing smile. “It all depends which side of that 12,000 miles you’re on.” Somehow, Marvin’s Texas accent made it not hurt as much.
Sure enough, at 12,473 miles, a valve stuck for a third time. This one was on me. I pulled the heads, brought them to the dealer, and paid for that valve job. You know, you can just about fix anything on a Harley with a 9/16 wrench and a screwdriver. It was easy to work on. But it wasn’t just the valves sticking. The rear disk brake had problems. The primary cover leaked incessantly. And a bunch of other little things. I’m not kidding. The mean time between failures on that bike was about a hundred miles, and I’d had enough. I called the bike my Optical Illusion. It looked like a motorcycle.
One other thing about the Harley sticks out. I took it with me when I moved to California, and at one of the dealers one of the many times when it was in for service, the dealer’s mascot did what I suddenly realized I had wanted to do. That mascot was a huge, slobbering St. Bernard. It sauntered over to my bike and took a leak on the rear wheel. “Oooh, better hose that down,” the service manager said. “That will eat up the aluminum wheel.” I had to laugh (hell, everyone else was) as the guy sprayed water from a garden hose all over the bike. That dog had beat me to it. He did what I had felt like doing the entire time I owned the bike. The kicker is that even though the service manager sprayed the bejesus out of the bike in a vain attempt to remove all traces of the St. Bernard’s territorial claims, it was all for naught. From that day on wherever I went if there was a dog within a hundred yards, it did the same thing. My Harley was a two-tone tan-and-cream traveling fire hydrant.
Good Lord, though, that Harley was beautiful. Park it anywhere and it would draw a crowd. Half the people who saw it wanted a ride, and if they were female I was happy to oblige. It was big and heavy and it didn’t handle worth a damn, but it sure was pretty. The only time I almost crashed I was riding through a strip mall parking lot admiring my reflection in the store windows. That’s how good-looking it was. I wish I kept it.
This is a hot rifle with a cool story. Folks, check out this left hand 7mm Weatherby Mark V…
A 7mm Mk V Weatherby. Note the left hand bolt and the exquisite walnut.
It’s one of the great ones, and the story behind it goes like this. About 35 years ago I was an engineer working for Aerojet (we manufactured cluster bombs and artillery ammunition) and the Weatherby plant was just up the road from us in Southgate, California. Weatherby had a retail sales outlet there, too. It was awesome. Hunting trophies (including an enormous full body mount of a standing polar bear that must have been 10 feet tall), all kinds of shooting gear, beautiful Weatherby rifles…you get the idea.
I stopped in one day and mentioned to Pat, the sales guy I had come to know, that I wanted to buy a Weatherby in 7mm Weatherby Magnum for my Dad. I told him it had to be a left handed action (Dad was a southpaw), and I wanted a rifle with exceptional walnut. “If you see one that has particularly nice wood, let me know,” I said.
Pat’s answer was immediate: “Let’s go in the back and pick one out now,” he said. In those days, they would take you into the Weatherby warehouse deep in the facility to select the rifle you wanted.
It was awesome. Imagine being in an Army armory, you know, the ones with the plain wood racks and zillions of rifles stacked in them. Now imagine those same plain wood racks filled with Weatherby Mk V rifles. That’s what it was like. I could have spent a year in that room, but after an hour I got it down to two rifles and I told Pat it would be cool if I could tell Dad that Roy Weatherby helped me select the rifle.
“Let’s go,” he said, and that’s exactly what happened. In two minutes I was in Roy Weatherby’s office and there he was. I remembered my father and I studying the Weatherby catalogs when I was a kid. They all had this photo of Roy Weatherby in his office, surrounded by animal skins, his personal gun collection, and hunting trophies. Suddenly, Pat and I were in that photo. And there was Mr. Weatherby.
Roy Weatherby, in his office. I was there. Photo from the Weatherby catalog.
Roy Weatherby was one hell of a man. He spoke to me like we had known each other for years, and I guess in a sense we had. He knew his customer base, and I had read about Mr. Weatherby growing up. He wanted to know about the velocities of the 25mm ammo we manufactured at Aerojet, he wanted to know about me, and he wanted to know about my father. Dad was a world-class trapshooter, and Roy wanted to know all about that, too. The entire time we chatted (maybe 30 minutes), Pat and I were holding the two Weatherby rifles I had selected.
Finally, Mr. Weatherby said to me, “Joe, I understand you’re buying a Weatherby for your Dad and you need help selecting the rifle.” We hadn’t told Mr. Weatherby that yet, but he knew. Then he said to Pat, “Pat, let’s put those two rifles up here on my desk,” and we did.
“You know, from this side I like that one best,” old Roy said. “Let’s turn them over.” We did, and then he said, “Oh, I see the problem. From this side, I like this one best,” pointing to the other rifle.
Then he looked at me and said, “Joe, which one do you like best?”
“I like this one,” I said, pointing to the rifle in the photo on top of this blog.
“That’s the one I would have selected,” Roy said, with a knowing smile.
Mr. Weatherby obviously had done this before. He had helped in the selection, but it was my choice. This was a wise man. In a different time, I could imagine him suggesting slicing the baby in half like old King Solomon. Just being in his presence was an amazing experience. Like I said, he was one hell of a man. It was easy to understand why he was successful. My guess is everyone who met Roy Weatherby loved the guy.
“Do you think your Dad would like a Weatherby catalog?” Roy asked. Would he ever, I thought. I still have memories of Dad reading those Weatherby catalogs when I was a kid. They were big, glossy, full color affairs showing Weatherby custom rifles, famous people who hunted with Weatherby rifles, and more. Roy pulled open a desk drawer, took a catalog from it, and inscribed the inside cover with a big Roy Weatherby signature. It was a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life. The he gave me a Weatherby hat and a Weatherby belt buckle, and he said, “Give these to your Dad, too.” It was an incredible day.
I was a Weatherby fan when I went in; when I left I was even more so. On the way out, I bought a Weatherby scope and a Weatherby rifle case. Pat, the sales guy, told me they had other cases and other scopes that cost less, but I knew that wouldn’t do for me. It had to be a Weatherby product. If they had a guy there offering Weatherby tattoos, I would have opted for one of those, too.
I gave the rifle to Dad and he loved it. We spent several days on the range shooting the Weatherby, and then shortly after that, Dad’s number came up and he was gone. Dad had heart disease, and it was his time. That was a tough pill to swallow, but life goes on. It was one of the lowest and saddest times of my life, but I will forever be grateful that I was able to give Dad the Weatherby and see him enjoy owning and shooting it.
The Weatherby had not been out of my safe since then, other than to run a patch through the bore and to keep it oiled. I didn’t shoot it because it’s left handed (I’m a righty), and then one day recently I was thinking about that. My Dad was left handed and he shot right hand bolt action rifles, so I reasoned that as a righty I could shoot a left hand rifle. And last year, I did.
Me, with Dad’s Weatherby. Dark striped walnut runs the length of the stock on both sides.
That 7mm Weatherby Magnum cartridge is a real powerhouse. It’s hotter than the 7mm Remington Magnum by about 200 feet per second and the bark is ferocious. The recoil is significant, but truth be told, when I’m hunting I never feel the recoil and I never hear the shot. That’s because my concentration is elsewhere.
My reloaded 7mm Weatherby Magnum ammunition. Weatherby cartridges have a unique double radius shoulder. The theory is it provides higher projectile velocities.
I’m working on different loads trying to zero in on the secret sauce that will provide the tightest groups in his magnificent old rifle. And I’m having a lot of fun doing it. Every time I head to the range with the 7mm Weatherby Magnum, I’m thinking of Dad and that day with Roy Weatherby.
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Good buddy TK sent this to me a day or two ago (thanks, TK). I didn’t know the Honda Cub was the best-selling vehicle on the planet or that Honda had produced a cool 100 million of the things, and I think that number is all the more significant because several manufacturers make copies of the Cub not included in the total described in the video above. One of the other manufacturers producing a Cub variant is Zongshen. I saw several of Zongshen’s production lines during my many visits to Chongqing.
On the Zongshen production line.Another shot of Zongshen’s modern Cub production line. Folks who criticize Chinese motorcycles are doing little other than displaying their ignorance.
I owned a 50cc Cub back in the day. I was a teenager and a guy down the street had one he picked up in a trade of some sort. He just wanted to get rid of it and $50 later it was mine. It was fun, and it was incredibly well built. I wish I still had it.
Hey, on another note, I have a new article in print this month. It’s in the June 2019 issue of RoadRUNNER magazine, and it’s on the Chinese motorcycle industry. I know a bit about that world, and yeah, I’m an unabashed fan of the Chinese. I’ve been in Chinese factories and I’ve ridden their motorcycles. The Chinese motorcycle industry’s process control and production capabilities are as good as or better than any in the world, and folks who recoil at the idea of a Chinese motorcycle are simply displaying antiquated prejudices and ignorance. I expect I’ll get a few emails and maybe a few comments on that last statement, and we welcome them. The June ’19 issue will be on the newsstands in a few more days, and for those of you who subscribe to RoadRUNNER, you are receiving your copies now. My copy arrived in the mail yesterday, and I am enjoying it enormously. The travel and other stories (and the accompanying photography) are just outstanding. If you’re not already subscribing to RoadRUNNER, you should be, and you can sign on here.
Good buddy Bob, who won our moto book drawing last quarter, sent this nice note to us a couple of days ago and we wanted to share it with you…
Hey, Joe, just wanted to drop you a quick line to thank you for the Destinations book. I can see it’s a compilation of your articles from Motorcycle Classics (one of my favorite motorcycle periodicals, the other being Motorcycles for Sport and Leisure, from the UK). You’ve done a lot of two-wheel travel, a lot more than I have, as I re-entered riding about 12 years ago after being off two wheels for several decades. I enjoyed your writeups on some of the places I’ve been on two wheels and other places I haven’t ridden, but have driven on family trips. I’m in NorCal and, as you know, there are many, many fantastic places to ride up here.
Thank you for your promotion of motorcycling on machines which don’t weigh 900 pounds. The smaller bikes are very capable and I say that although I am by no means a small dude. I think your development of the CSC bikes is great and I also have interests in the REs, Janus, Genuine 400 and the Yamaha SR400. Maybe it’s just a retro frame of mind, I don’t know, but I like proper motorcycles like those.
Thanks once again for the book and best wishes in your endeavors. Here are a few photos from my moto expeditions in the area, just for fun:
Bob, that’s awesome. We’re glad you’re enjoying Destinations, and thanks for the kind note and the great photos. Ride safe, good buddy!
If you’d like to order your own copy of Destinations, you can do so here.
And don’t forget to sign up for our quarterly motobook giveaway. All you need to do is enter your email address to receive automatic email updates, and you’re entered into our contest. The next drawing will be at the end of June, and we’d like to see you win!
A couple of folks wrote to me asking about the loads I used for the recent blog about the Model 375 H&H Model 700. Say what you will, but most folks are fascinated by these big bore rifles (including me), and I figure if a couple of guys took the time to write, there are probably a bunch more out there with the same question.
When I shot the 375 H&H Model 700 last weekend, I wanted to work up some loads for it but I ran out of time. I grabbed what I had in the ammo locker, but I couldn’t find a record of having developed specific loads for this rifle earlier. Maybe I did and the loads were ones I had tested already (you’ll see from the dates on the load labels that I preppred this ammo a few years ago), or maybe I loaded them and just never got around to trying them. In any event, these were the loads that went to the range with me last weekend.
I did all my shooting off the bench at 50 yards, and here are the results…
I used a 6:00 hold on all the targets. All of the loads were accurate. The recoil on the Trail Boss loads was light, about like shooting a .223. The full power loads (the ones with 66.0 grains of IMR 4320 propellant) was accurate, but recoil was significant. It’s probably okay as a hunting load (no one notices recoil when hunting), but shooting off the bench with this load didn’t quite move the needle into the fun range. The 33.0 grains of SR4759 was potent, but recoil was manageable, and it was very accurate. It’s the one I’m going to use.
These .375 H&H rifles are normally big ticket items, but Weatherby recently introduced their synthetic-stocked Vanguards (with iron sights) in a .375 H&H chambering. You can pick these up for around $600, and that’s a phenomenal deal.
Yours truly and the Genuine G400c, patrolling the mean streets of San Francisco!
This is one of those blogs for which I could have used any of several titles. The Real Deal got the nod, as this is indeed the real deal…a genuine (pardon the pun) motorcycle. Another contender was The Streets of San Francisco, like that Karl Malden and Michael Douglas show 30 years ago. And yet another was We Are Living In Interesting Times (read on, and you’ll see what I mean).
Anyway, enough of the trip down memory lane and alternative blog titles. I made a few memories of my own yesterday, riding around downtown San Francisco around good buddy Lunchbox’s San Francisco Scooter Centre. Barry is the guy who owns and runs the dealership, but Lunchbox is the guy in charge. He’s about a year old now (I’ve known him since he was a pup), and he’s a cool 82 lbs. After checking in with Lunchbox, I visited with Barry for a bit. I always like coming up here. I like Lunchbox, I like the city, I like the San Francisco Scooter Centre, and I like Barry.
Lunchbox, the man in charge. He’s cool. He lets Barry think he’s the guy running the San Francisco Scooter Centre, but Lunchbox is the one really calling the shots.Good buddy Barry and the Genuine G400c motorcycle.
Barry and I had a great taco lunch downtown, we talked about the motorcycle market, and we swapped stories about a couple of our other common interests. Then it was time to get on the G400c. Barry tossed me the keys and the bike’s registration, and told me to have fun. Being a guy who aims to please, I did as I was told. It was easy on the Genuine.
So let me tell you about the Genuine G400c. The first thing I noticed was that it’s a motorcycle. A real motorcycle. Tear drop gas tank (where the gas actually goes), a tach and speedo that look like a tach and speedo should, and a long, low, flat seat (good for moving around on when necessary, carrying a passenger, and strapping on soft luggage for longer trips). Wire wheels. Chrome fenders. Chrome handlebars that put the controls in comfortable reach. It all came together the way it should. Yessiree, this is a motorcycle that is visually appealing. None of that Ricky Racer, low bar face on the tank, angry Ninja insect, or giraffesque ADV wannabe silliness or styling. This is a motorcycle that looks like a motorcycle should.
The next thing I noticed was that the G400c was easy to throw a leg over. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a bike where I could say that. I’ll say more on this in a bit.
And another thing I noticed was that the bike sounds like a motorcycle. A real motorcycle. A Genuine motorcycle. I like that, too. I had my big Nikon with me (the D810) and I grabbed a video of the startup sequence…
This bike sounds good. It has a nice, deep, throaty rumble. The skyscrapers I darted between in downtown San Francisco amplified the exhaust note, and the reverberations were intoxicating. There’s something undeniably cool about riding a nimble, throaty motorcycle in a city. It would have been cool to grab more video of myself riding around San Francisco, but I’m not as talented as Joe Gresh in that regard and besides, I was having too much fun. You can have a great ride or you can make a great video. Unless you’re Joe Gresh, you can’t do both at the same time.
So back to that nimble thing. You’re reading something written by a guy who thinks that somewhere in the 1970s and the 1980s the wheels came off the wagon here in the US with regard to motorcycle size and complexity, and until very recently, things have continued to get nuttier as the years have gone by and advertising guys (who are supposed to be creative people) kept defaulting to bigger has to be better. My thoughts are in synch with most of the rest of the motorcycle world (not the aforementioned advertising gurus) in that I think a 250cc is the perfect size. A 400cc single is even better, especially if it comes in a 250cc-sized package, and that’s what the G400c is.
I don’t know the Genuine’s weight. I could find it in a few seconds with a Google search, but I don’t need to. I know what I need to know from my ride, and that’s this: The G400c is light and it’s nimble, and that’s all the spec I need. Hell, you can’t trust what most of the manufacturers tell you about their bikes’ weights, anyway. And even if you could believe their numbers, what really matters is where a bike’s center of gravity is located. Make it too high, and a motorcycle will feel unwieldy regardless of its weight. Make it low, though, and a bike becomes flickable, agile, nimble, and just plain fun to ride. That’s what this machine is. I had fun splitting lanes and braaapping around downtown San Francisco. The G400c is perfect for that, but that’s not the only arena in which I see it excelling. I think the G400c would be a great bike for a Baja ride, too. Someday. We’ll see.
Next up: Seat height. It’s the same story here, folks. Like I said earlier, I could throw my leg over the seat without having to take a yoga class or do any stretching exercises, and you know what? That’s a good feeling. The saddle is low enough to make getting on and off the bike easy, and that’s decidedly not the case for a lot of motorcycles these days.
You might ask about suspension travel. When I was younger and dumber, I used to pour over the spec sheets you’d see in the motorcycle magazines, and then I realized that unless you plan to ride motocross, the only thing a ton of suspension travel does for a street bike is make thing way too tall. The G400c seat height was just where I needed it to be. And on that suspension travel topic, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Even though our taxes in California (and San Francisco in particular) are among the highest in the world, we still have lousy streets with lots of potholes and rough sections. The G400c was fine being flung around in the city, sloppy streets and road surfaces notwithstanding. It soaked it all up without a whimper. I’d like to buttonhole our politicians someday and ask them: Exactly where does all that tax money go? In the meantime, though, I know the suspension on the G400c gets the job done.
Mean streets? Bring ’em on. The G400c was just plain fun riding around San Francisco. It’s a comfortable, right-sized motorcycle.
I didn’t take the G400c on the freeway, although Barry invited me to do so. Nope, the freeways are typically a mess in San Francisco, and I figured (correctly, as I experienced on the drive out of San Francisco later in the day) I could actually get more miles in and reach higher top speeds on the city streets. And I did. Until this guy you see in the photo caught up with me, lit me up, and started casting dirty looks my way. Then he got in front of me. Point taken, Officer. I rode a bit more like a normal person after that.
Another view from the cockpit. I like the instrument layout. It’s what a motorcycle is supposed to look like.
Okay, let’s not ignore the 800-lb gorilla in the room: The G400c is manufactured in China. As many of you know, I know a little bit about Chinese motorcycles and I played a tangential role in making the case for Chinese quality when CSC Motorcycles started importing the Zongshen RX3 back in 2015. You might have trepidations about buying a Chinese motorcycle, and it’s almost a certainty you know people who badmouth Chinese products. My advice when you hear the inevitable anti-China mush is to remember that God loves stupid people (because He sure made a lot of them). Yeah, they’ve got their stories about their buddy who worked at a dealer 10 years ago and he told them…well, you get the idea. Folks, these people just don’t know.
I know a little bit about this topic, I think. Maybe more than most of the weenies posting opinions on Facebook and the motorcycle forums.
My advice is to blow these weenies off, get yourself to a dealer, and see for yourself. I know a little bit about quality and manufacturing, I’ve been in several Chinese manufacturing plants, and I’m here to tell you that Chinese motorcycle quality is as good as or better than anything that’s out there. Consider this: Automobile and motorcycle companies like BMW, Vespa, Honda, Suzuki, and many others have components, major subassemblies, engines, and complete motorcycles manufactured in China. These world-class companies wouldn’t be doing that if the quality was low.
You might have a concern about the G400c being a new bike, that is to say, one that doesn’t have a track record. Actually, that’s not the case. This motorcycle has been rolling around China for a good three years now (I saw them when I rode across China on the RX3 a few years ago). The G400c is manufactured for Genuine by Shineray (it’s pronounced Shin-yu-way), and in China, they have been selling two versions of the bike for several years (a street version and an adventure-touring-styled version). The riding in China is way tougher than it is here. We tend to use our motorcycles as toys. In China, motorcycles are work horses. They are ridden hard and put away wet.
Another thing that’s nice about the G400c motor is that it’s a Honda clone. The concept (but not the engine) here is the same as the Honda CG clone motors that power the CSC and Janus bikes…an engine based on a Honda design built for an environment where folks don’t take care of their bikes. It’s a different Honda motor design, but it’s a proven design. It’s a strong, torquey, fuel injected single.
The G400c’s braking is good. It’s a single disk in front, and a drum in the rear. A lot of folks will be grasping their chest and convulsing at the thought of a drum brake in back, but it works, and it works for me. Again, don’t let some kid writing a magazine article (or worse, someone posting an opinion on Facebook) tell you that you have to have a disk brake in back. Drum brakes have worked fine for decades. It’s one of the things keeping the cost down on this bike, and it’s a reasonable tradeoff. Like it said, it works for me.
What I don’t know yet is the parts availability question, nor do I know about the availability of a shop manual. Those are fair questions to ask a dealer. I didn’t, mostly because I was focused on the riding.
Genuine states the top speed is over 80 mph. I’ve ridden bikes with the same engine in China and I saw indicated speeds on city streets over 90 mph and the bike still had more left (and at that point I thought to myself “Whoa, Bucko…what am I doing here?”). I think the top end is more than adequate for any real world needs. And on that note, this is another area in which you hear the keyboard commandos espouse things like “Ah need a bike made in ‘Merica that can do at least a hunnert twenty miles per hour or I’ll get run over…” You do, huh? Hey, I rode across China, I’ve been up and down Baja a bunch of times, I circumnavigated the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and I’ve ridden all over the US. And I did all of this on 250cc motorcycles. Motorcycles made in China, to be specific. But what do I know?
You might ask: Are there any negatives? I guess to play magazine road test writer I have to find something, and on the G400c it might be that some of the details could be more finely finished. Maybe the handlebar switchgear castings could be polished a little more, things like that. Barry told me the bike I rode is one of the very earliest ones to arrive in America, and that Genuine is sweating the cosmetic details like this. But these are minor points. The next question would be: Would I recommend buying this bike? To that question, the answer is yes. They retail at about $4600, and with all the fees they go out the door at a notch above $5700. Barry is one of the few honest dealers I know in that he doesn’t treat setup and freight as a major profit center. Here’s how he has the bikes priced…
The G400c pricing sheet at the San Francisco Scooter Centre. Freight and setup are honest numbers here, which isn’t the case at many other dealers.
We are living in interesting times. Just a few years ago the small motorcycle landscape in the US was pretty barren, and what few bikes were out there carried stupid-high prices and obscene dealer freight and setup fees. Our choices in recent decades have been outrageously tall, fat, and heavy motorcycles with prices in the stratosphere. Today, the moto menu before us is interesting and intriguing, and it’s rooted in the real world. There’s the CSC Motorcycles line with several 250cc selections and soon, the 450cc RX4. There the Janus line of magnificently-handcrafted contemporary classics. There’s Royal Enfield, with their 400cc Himalayan, 500cc Classic, and soon-to-be-released 650cc Interceptor (at an incredible $5795). I’ve ridden nearly all of these motorcycles (I haven’t caught a ride on the Himalayan yet, but that’s coming up), and I’ve ridden many of them through Baja (you can read about our Enfield Baja trip, the Janus Baja trip, and any of several CSC Baja trips). And now, there’s another great bike in the mix: The Genuine 400c. For the first time in a long time, we have choices. Good choices that won’t break the bank. Life is good, folks.
Check out our related Genuine G400c and San Francisco Scooter Centre posts!
After a couple of months of not being able to shoot because the creek was too high, good buddy Greg and I were finally able to get out to the range this weekend. It was sorely-needed range time, and I brought along two rifles. One was the .375 H&H Safari Grade Remington you read about a few blogs down; the other was a very nice Weatherby Mk V you haven’t heard about yet. It’s the one you see in the photo above.
This particular rifle is a bit unusual. It’s a Mk V Weatherby (Weatherby’s top of the line bolt action rifle), but it’s not chambered in a Weatherby magnum cartridge. This is one of the very few rifles Weatherby has offered over the years in a standard chambering, and in this instance, it’s the mighty .30 06 Springfield. You’ve read about the .30 06 on these pages in earlier Tales of the Gun blogs. It’s one of the all-time great cartridges and it’s my personal all-time favorite.
So, back to the Weatherby. There were four things that made this rifle particularly attractive to me when I first spotted it on the rack in a local Turner’s gun store: The stock was finished in their satin oil finish (not the typical Weatherby high gloss urethane finish), the rifle had an original 3×9 Weatherby scope, the .30 06 chambering, and the price. It checked all the boxes for me. Those early Weatherby scopes are collectible in their own right. I like an oil finished stock. And the price…wow.
The Weatherby was something I knew I had to have the instant I saw it, and (get this) it was priced at only $750. This is a rig that today, new, would sell for somewhere around $2500.
The shop had this Weatherby on consignment at $750. It would have been a steal at that price; I got it for $650.Pretty walnut on both sides. Weatherby builds a fine rifle.
Back in 2008, when the Great Recession was going full tilt and still gaining steam, there were fabulous firearms deals to be had if you knew what you wanted and you weren’t addicted to black plastic guns. Nope, none of that black plastic silliness here. For me, it’s all about elegant walnut and blue steel. I carried a black plastic rifle for a living a few decades ago. Been there, done that, don’t need any more of it.
When I spotted the Weatherby I asked the store manager about it. She told me it was a consignment gun, and when I asked if there was any room in the price (it’s a habit; I would have paid what they were asking), she asked me to make an offer. So I did. $650 had a nice ring to it, I thought.
“Let me call the owner,” the manager said. She disappeared and returned a few minutes later. “$650 is good.” Wow. I couldn’t believe I scored like this. I felt a bit guilty and asked her if I was taking advantage of the guy who had put it on consignment, and she told me not to worry. He needed the money, I needed the rifle, and the price was good for both of us.
The Weatherby had a few minor dings in the stock and the finish was a bit worn in a few places, but the metal was perfect. Because it was an oil finished stock, it was a simple matter to steel wool it down and add a few coats of TruOil, and the Weatherby was a brand new rifle again.
TruOil and fine walnut…a marriage made in Heaven. TruOil really brings out the grain. You can leave it glossy, or knock it down to a luxurious subdued satin finish with 0000 steel wool (which is what I did on this rifle).
I’ve shot this rifle quite a bit over the last 10 years and I knew it shot well, but I hadn’t recorded which load shot best. I had several loads I’ve developed for other .30 06 rifles over the last few decades (like I said above, it’s my favorite), and I grabbed three that have worked well in other rifles. The good news is the Weatherby isn’t fussy. It shot all three well. The bad news is…well, there isn’t any bad news. It’s all good.
A few favorite 30 06 loads developed for other rifles. They all worked well in the Weatherby, too, as you can see below.The Weatherby did well with all three loads. All were fired at 100 yards. If you’re going to develop loads for your rifle, start lower than these and work up. These loads worked well in my rifle; you need to roll your own to learn what works well in your rifle.
The first load is one with a lighter bullet that has worked well on Texas jackrabbits in a single-shot Ruger No. 1. I found that load back in the 1970s when I spent entirely too much time chasing rabbits in the desert east of El Paso. It’s the 130 grain jacketed soft point Hornady with a max load (52.0 grains) of IMR 4320 powder. Yeah, the first two groups were larger than I would have liked, but don’t forget that I had not been on the rifle range for a couple of months. Folks think that shooting off a rest eliminates the human element, but it does not. I was getting my sea legs back with those first two groups. It’s the third group that tells the story here, and that one was a tiny 0.680 inches. If I worked on this load a bit and shot a bit more, this is a sub-minute-of-angle rifle.
The next load is the hog load I used in a Winchester Model 70 on our Arizona boar hunt last year. That one uses a 150 grain Hornady jacketed soft point with 48.0 grains of IMR 4320 powder. It shot well in the Model 70 and it shoots well in the Weatherby, too. The Weatherby averaged 1.401 inches at 100 yards with this load. The point of impact was about 3 inches lower than the 130 grain load described above.
The third and final load I tried this weekend was with a heavier 180 grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet. I had originally developed this as the accuracy load for an older Browning B-78 single shot rifle (I’ll have to do a blog on that one of these days; it, too, has stunning wood). This is a near max load (48.0 grains of IMR 4064 propellant) and with those heavier 180 grain bullets, recoil was attention-getting. But it was still tolerable, and the average group size hung right in there with the 150 gr load. It averaged 1.456 3-shot groups at 100 yards. Like they say, that’s close enough for government work. Another cool thing…the 180 grain load point of impact was the same height above point of aim as the 130 grain load, but the group centers were about three inches to the left of center.
There’s one last thing I wanted to share with you before signing off today. Good buddy Greg is an accuracy chaser like me. He was out there with his rifles this weekend trying a few of his loads. When I measure group size, I always use a caliper. Greg has an app on his iPhone (it’s called SubMOA and it’s free) that allows him to simply take a photo of the target and it computes group size and a bunch of other good data. I always wondered if the results from Greg’s iPhone app were as good as the real thing, so I asked him to take photos of two of my targets and tell me what the iPhone app felt the group sizes were. He did.
I measured this group size with a caliper and found it to be 0.680 inches; the SubMOA iPhone app clocked it at 0.640 inches. That’s a 0.04 inch difference, or 5.8%. That’s pretty close, I think.I measured this group size to be 1.245 inches; SubMOA found it to be 1.200 inches. That’s a 0.045 inch difference, or 3.6%. In both cases, the SubMOA program found the group size to be smaller than my measurements.
So there you have it. If you’d like to read more of our Tales of the Gun Stories, you will find them here.
Joe,
Bob, that’s awesome. We’re glad you’re enjoying 
, and the Weatherby was a brand new rifle again.
from Amazon.