I stopped by CSC Motorcycles last week to visit with my friend Steve and see the new TT250, San Gabriel, and RX3 colors. I and my camera will try to do justice to the new CSC paint themes, and hey, while we here, we’ll share a few videos.
The TT250 line has an entirely new set of colors, and I like the new look.
There’s a cool decal on the TT250 side panel, too, which i like a lot. It reminds me a bit of what new Triumphs had in the 1960s, when every one of their bikes had a “world’s fastest motorcycle” decal on the tank.
As you know, I have a TT250, and mine is from the very first shipment that came into CSC a few years ago. Mine is black with bold TT lettering on the tank and side panels. I like that bike, I’ve ridden it in Baja (the video below is taking it through the Rumarosa Grade in northern Baja), and I’m going to fire it up and ride it around a bit today.
Next up is a photo of the San Gabriels. The new colors on the SG250 work well, too.
You know, I did one of the very first San Gabriel videos when those bikes first came to America. It, too, was a hoot.
And here are a few photos of the CSC RX3, a bike that has generated lots of smiles and lots of miles since its introduction to the United States in 2015. The new colors are much more interesting and maybe a little more subtle than what we’ve seen on RX3 motorcycles in the past. There’s a gray and turquoise theme, and a silver and red alternative. They both look good.
I like the new RX3 paint themes, and I like the original ones, too. I ride an RX3. Mine’s a 2015 model and, like my TT250, it’s one from the very first shipment to the US. My RX3 is orange (the fastest color, as good buddy Orlando knows), and it’s one of the early ones that faded to a kind of subdued yellow (that’s before Zongshen started adding color stabilizers to the paint). I like that look and I’ve had a lot of great rides on RX3 motorcycles, starting with our initial CSC Baja run. That ride was a hoot and a half. Imagine that: A brand new shipment of RX3 motorcycles (the first in the US), and yours truly and 15 other intrepid CSC riders did 1700 miles in Baja on these bikes. Take a look:
Our next big RX3 ride was the Western America Adventure Ride…5000 miles across the Western US, from So Cal to Sturgis to Portland and then down the Pacific coast to home. I didn’t do a video on that ride, but good buddy Joe Gresh sure did!
We did several more CSC Baja rides, a bunch of rides in the US, and our absolutely amazing 6000-mile ride across the ancient kingdom on RX3 motorcycles:
Not enough? Hey, how about a ride through magical Colombia on RS3 motorcycles? The RS3 is the carbureted version of the RX3, and it, too, was an amazing adventure:
If you enjoy watching YouTube videos, we have quite a few more on our YouTubby page. Grab a cup of coffee, click on the YouTubby link, and have fun. I sure did.
I recently heard from good buddy Steve Seidner over at alma mater CSC Motorcycles that the new 2020 RX3 colors have arrived, and the colors are sharp! Take a look:
Steve told me that the new 2020 RX3 includes substantial refinements and that the bike has steadily improved since its 2015 introduction. I thought the 2015 version (the one I ride) was impressive; to hear that it has improved makes the RX3 even more desirable. The 2020 RX3 motorcycles are in stock now, and the price has dropped to $3995. That’s a hell of a deal.
The RX3 story makes for an interesting read and if you’d like to know more about these motorcycles, pick up a copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM.
Sergeant Zuo on our 2016 ride across China, somewhere along the Silk Road.
I recently wrote to my good buddy Sergeant Zuo, who led our 2016 ride across China. Zuo lives in Lanzhou, a huge refining center we visited on the China ride. He and I became great friends on that 38-day adventure. Zuo is a former Chinese Army senior NCO and in an earlier life I was a lowly lieutenant in the US Army. But hey, a lieutenant outranks even a senior noncommissioned officer, and every morning (even though we served in different armies), he’d snap to attention and salute me. And I would then return the salute. It was cool and it added to the good nature and relaxed camaraderie we all felt on the China adventure. Zuo is that rare natural leader you sometimes encounter when groups gather and he was perfect for the China ride. He made what could have a been a scary undertaking into a grand adventure. I would follow him anywhere, and I imagine the troops in the Army units he led felt the same way.
Sergeant Zuo along Qinghai Lake, one of the largest salt water lakes on the planet. We were about a third of the way into our ride when I took this photo.
Zuo owns an RX3 (he was one of the very first people to buy an RX3 in China) and it is his daily driver. He doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Chinese, but that had no impact on us. We spoke RX3 and riding, I guess, and we formed an immediate bond. A good motorcycle can do that, you know.
Sergeant Zuo on the ferry ride to Qingdao. Qingdao was our final destination on the China ride.
Our trip started in Chongqing, we rode to northwest China (the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert), then back to central China, and finally over to Beijing and then Qingdao. Qingdao was a name that stuck in my mind. Nearly 50 years ago I was on a US Army missile site in Korea and our primary target line pointed straight across the Yellow Sea at Qingdao. And now, here we were at the end of our China ride five decades later in that very same city.
Zuo, Gresh, I, and a dozen others rode our motorcycles right onto the beach at Qingdao, stripped down, and went swimming in the Yellow Sea’s cool waters. Damn, that felt good. After fighting the oppressive heat and humidity of a damp Chinese summer, I could have spent all day in that cool ocean water. Back in the day I was ready to launch missiles at bad guys coming from Qingdao; 50 years later I swam in the Yellow Sea with Zuo at that very same spot to wrap up the grandest adventure of my life.
Our route on the ride across China.
With that as a backdrop, here’s the note from my good buddy Zuo:
Yeah, I know, you don’t speak Chinese. That’s not a problem; we’ll just turn to Google’s translation site:
Joe (big uncle):
Thank you for your letter.
Seeing the spread of the new coronavirus (CV-19) in the United States from the Internet, this terrible guy has become a common enemy of humanity, but we should believe that it will be defeated! Although the epidemic situation here has been controlled and alleviated, the epidemic alert has not ended.
J, I’m fine, thank you.
Reading your and Erji’s blog is the biggest joy in my life, and it’s great to see you playing happily. Because you have always believed that there is a good friend who cares about you on the other side of the ocean, has you been paying attention to you.
When the epidemic is over, it will be my happiest waiting if I can travel with you.
I miss you so much–my mentor.
Say hello to your friend.
I wish you and Erji all the best.
—- Zuo Zhenyi in Lanzhou, China, March 20, 2020
About that “Erji” business…the Chinese quickly gave Gresh and me Chinese names. I was Dajiu (big uncle), and Joe was Erji (little uncle). After that initial christening, those were our names for the entire trip. It was cool.
You know, when this CV19 business is over, it would be grand to get Zuo over here for a US and Baja ride. It’s something to look forward to, and I promise you it’s going to happen.
Edit: Just in case you haven’t seen these videos, here you go. The first is Gresh’s China Ride video, the second is the one released by Zongshen. They’re both great.
Man, we are through the looking glass, living in what feels like a bad science fiction movie. The freeways and malls are empty, parking lots are empty, and we are sheltered in place. To top it all off, Susie and I are recovering from two of the worst colds we’ve ever had, and you can imagine what we’ve been imagining. And it may have all started because some dude in Wuhan wanted to eat a bat. A bat!
This current situation will bring out the worst in us, and it will bring out the best in us. We’re already seeing some of the worst, with the accusations flying back and forth about where the virus originated, who did what to who (or who failed to do what and when), and on and on it goes. But we’ll get through it, and we’ll come out on the other side better. We always do.
I have good friends in China, and I feel for them. I think I feel for us, too, with the COVID-19 virus emerging here. The market is way down, on paper we’ve lost a ton of wealth, and people are losing jobs. I had a gig in Singapore and I would have been heading over there. Nope. Not now.
All the above aside, I find myself thinking more and more about my friends in China, and the ride Joe Gresh and I took across China. And the food we ate (we ate a lot of strange stuff, and a lot of watermelon). And the pretty girls. And the roads and the people. This summer it will be four years since that ride. It was the grandest ride I’ve ever done and the greatest adventure I’ve ever had. With that as an introduction and without a lot of narrative, I’ve got a ton of photos to share with you from that epic road trip. Enjoy, my friends…
Riding China was a good ride. I’d like to do it again someday. In the meantime, keep the faith, folks. Things will get better.
I noticed my good buddy and Facebook friend John’s post about his decision to purchase the RX3 instead of the new RX4 on the Facebook CSC page and I thought it was well done. Both the RX3 and the RX4 are great motorcycles and I enjoyed reading John’s analysis, so I wrote to John and asked if I could post it here on ExNotes. John said yes (thanks much, Amigo), so here it is.
RX3 versus RX4
By John Franklin
I recently bought a new RX3, and yes the RX4 was available at the time. I have gotten more than one pm asking me why I didn’t go with the RX4. It’s a very valid question. My last ride was a 2016 KLR650, so the RX4 is much closer in power. While that is true, it’s only part of the picture. I paid $5700 for my KLR, the close to another $3500 for givi luggage, panniers, crash bars, skid plate, tires, USB power, heated grips, progressive front suspension, better seat, folding gearshift, handguards, GPS and on and on. Yes I rode it; I spent more time off road than on road. I did several two week long adventures. Then I had back surgery.
There’s good riding in John’s neck of the woods (photo by John Franklin).
In considering a new bike, post back surgery, I was really looking at what I could do without hurting myself, and what I really needed, as well as what I could spend. I was out of work for a year, and kinda tight on funds. My list was fairly firm on what I had to have. I wanted a lighter bike to start with. I needed luggage, hard panniers and a top box big enough for my helmet. Crash bars, skid plate, and real hand guards were also a non-negotiable must. Heated grips were also high up there.
A shot of John’s RX3 in it’s natural surroundings (photo by John Franklin).
With that firmly established, I started looking. I found used bikes and older bikes. A random link in a article I was reading led me to the RX3. I ignored it; then I began to see more and more mentions of the RX3. So I really dug in. The chinariders forum was a great resource. I have ridden bikes all over the world and ridden all kinds of makes, so I was not initially put off by the non USA mainstream brand.
Once I decided that it was a valid option and I started looking, here is how it broke down.
The 2019 RX3 with heated grips, handguards, taller top box, Wolfman tank bag, USB power outlet, led headlight upgrade and extra oil filters was $4602.95. That’s what I paid CSC. I had to pay SC sales tax, SC property tax and the registration fee. Grand total was $5100.63. That is what it cost me for everything. All fees, taxes and bribes.
A RX4 starts at $4995, add the $400 shipping fee, handguards $109, luggage $490, tank bag $90, heated grips $109, skid plate $160, crash bars not available for RX4 and oil filters $50 we are at $6403. SC sales tax, property tax and tag fee would put it right at $7200. A difference of $2100. And at the $7000 range I could find a good used BMW 650GS, on which I could get out of the sales tax and not being new, the property tax would be a joke. Plus I would have to create a set of crash bars (which was actually a plus, because I love fun stuff like that).
Go ahead…what’s the worst that could happen? (Photo by John Franklin.)
I admit, I have put more than a little into the RX3 after deciding I like it. Bar risers, better tires, better chain, 13T front sprocket, folding shift lever, GPS mount… You get the idea. But I would have done the same to anything I decided to keep and ride. It honestly came down to two things for me. Value of the purchase (not price in and of itself), and weight.
CSC has been great, and it is a wonderful company, even if the service guy hates replying to emails, but he reads them and will talk for hours on the phone. I don’t regret it. Hopefully in a couple of years I will be able to ride a larger, taller bike again, but this thing was a good purchase.
If you’d like to see more on the RX4, and comparisons of the RX4 to the RX3 and the KLR 650, please check out our ExNotes RX4 page! And if you’d like to know more about the RX3 and the RX4, mosey on over to the CSC Motorcycles page. Hey, one more thing…if you’d like to read about real world adventures on the RX3 (I’m talking good stuff here, folks, like riding across China, Colombia, the US, and Mexico), you should buy any or all of the books listed below!
This is going to be one of those rambling, topic-hopping blogs that flits like a butterfly in a bed of flowers. You know, touching lightly on a variety of topics and then flitting to the next one for a pollen fix.
First up: Do you have a favorite family restaurant? We’ve got two. One is Rancho Las Magueyes, a Mexican place right around the corner. I know everyone there by their first name, and they all know Susie and me. And my shooting buddies (we always have lunch there after a day on the range). The other is an Italian restaurant. It’s Di Pilla’s in Rosemead, and I’ve been going there for thirty years. Susie and I always get a small pizza and a pasta dish, we share some of both while we’re there, and we’ll bring the rest home (it’s good for another two meals for both of us). I was in Los Angeles last week to renew my passport and we stopped at Di Pilla’s for exactly what I described above (a small pizza with olives and mushrooms, and Dante’s angel hair pasta). It’s just wonderful…the closest you’ll ever get to Heaven without a one-way ticket. If you stop in there, tell Claudia Joe sent you.
Next topic…the Superbowl. I guess the game was okay. It used to be I would occasionally watch the Superbowl just for the halftime show and the commercials. I’m not much of a football fan (never have been), but the commercials and the halftime show used to make the 4-hour slog worthwhile. Not any more, though. At least not to me. I thought the halftime show was revolting, and if my kids were at home, I would have changed the channel. Is it me, or was it like going to a strip club? Maybe I’m just getting old. I don’t like twerking coming into my family room on a widescreen TV, and I didn’t understand a good 70% of the commercials. They weren’t clever or entertaining, and I wasn’t sure what most of them were advertising. The commercial would end and I’d wonder: What was the product? Ah, there’s no maybe about it…I am getting old. But hell, even old people still buy stuff. After four long hours of Superbowl LIV, there’s nothing I’m going to purchase as a result of watching any of those commercials. Color me cranky, but I thought the whole thing was a stupid waste of my time. That’s four hours I won’t get back. It won’t happen again.
I do buy stuff, though. Lots of it. In fact, my new goal as a senior citizen is to make sure my outgo equals my income (I keep telling the kids if there’s anything left after I’m gone, it’s strictly the result of an computational error). And to help me meet that goal, I think I’m buying a new motorcycle. One that has no fraud associated with freight and setup, as is typically encountered at most dealers. Maybe around the end of this month. Watch for more details. Before I do that, though, I want to get my TT250 running. I don’t ride as much as I should, and my TT250 carb gummed up from disuse. I’ll have to refer to my free CSC TT250 shop manual (why don’t all the manufacturers do that?) on how to clean the carburetor, but I’m not worried about the job. I hear the TT250 manual is pretty well written. I’m thinking I’ll get around to the TT250 this week or next.
More rambling, this time about Facebook and the endless supply of brainless memes that flow from its feed. I like Facebook and I like to keep up with my friends and my memories, like that photo above of good buddy Carl and me up on Glendora Ridge Road with the CSC 150 Baja Blaster I rode to Cabo and back. But the rest of the Facebook schtick…wow, it gets old fast. Is anyone else here tired of the mindless political ranting on Facebook? Look, who I vote for is a decision I’ll make without any help from CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, the Russians, or you. It’s my vote, and all the breathless exhortations by Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, and Sean Hannity will matter not one whit. It’s what happens in a free country. Mindlessly sharing memes on your Facebook feed (I know, there’s a lot of redundancy in that phrase) isn’t going to change a thing. Folks, get a life. Grow up. Vote, and then move on. It’s what we do in America.
On to a new topic…I’m afraid this coronavirus business is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I have good friends in China from my Chongqing and Riding China adventures. I recently wrote to one of them to see how things were going over there. In a word, it’s bad. Real bad. The streets are deserted in China, no one is going out, companies are shutting down, travel is severely restricted, and the market is plummeting. Their economy is tanking. Approximately 2000 people a day are getting infected (and that number is likely going to increase). I loved my time in China and I love the Chinese people. I respect their engineering and manufacturing prowess. I hope things get better for them soon.
A happier topic…I’ve been spending more time on the range. If you didn’t see the 9mm cast bullet comparo, you might want to take a look at it. I’m going to start shooting the 9mm jacketed bullet series in another week or two. Jacketed bullets are frequently more accurate than cast bullets, so I’m excited about how that’s going to go. I was tremendously impressed with the Sig Scorpion and how it handled cast bullets. We’ll see if it brings home the bacon with jacketed bullets.
One of my shooting buddies is a California Corrections Officer, and he told me about their qualification course with the Mini 14 (the California Department of Corrections uses the Ruger Mini 14, one of my favorite rifles, as an issue weapon). They qualify with the B-21 target, and when I was at the target manufacturing operation where I buy all my targets I asked if they stocked that one. The guy behind the counter was surprised, and he told me the only folks who ever want that target are CDC officers. But they had it, and then it was my turn to be surprised. The B-21 target is huge. I’m going to have to make a bigger target stand for it. I’m thinking maybe our next informal milsurp match will be with it. My objective is to shoot a higher score than my CDC buddy, and he’s real good.
And on that subject, we’re still toying with the idea of a postal match. You know, one where we specify the course of fire and the target design, you mail your targets to us, we score them, and there’s some kind of a prize for first, second, and third place. We’d make it for handguns only and spec the distance at 50 feet, and we’d make the prizes significant enough to bump up participation. Like maybe a Gear’d Hardware watch for first place, with a book and a T-shirt for second and third place. Let us know…if we did that, would you participate?
Last topic for today, folks: Baja. Yes, Baja beckons. I aim to get down there sometime soon and then again later this year. Maybe stop in to see Baja John in Bahia de Los Angeles. See the whales in Scammon’s Lagoon. I’ll be on my motorcycle, and of course, I’ll be insured with BajaBound. Gresh will be along, maybe even on Zed now that his Kawi 900 resurrection has resumed. Whaddaya think?
This has been a fun year, and a fun year to be a blogger. When we started ExhaustNotes 18 months ago, we had no idea we’d get the loyal following we have, the number of hits we’re getting, and the number of comments we would receive from you, our amazing readers. In the past 18 months, we’ve published 572 blog posts (this is Blog No. 572), we’ve had something north of 200,000 page visits, and we’ve received 2,481 approved blog comments. We actually had quite a few more comments, but the spam comments are filtered out and we’re not counting those. And you spammers out there, thanks for all the biblical excerpts, the website optimization offers, the hairstyle stuff (seriously, you think Gresh or I need hairstyle products?), and the offers to manufacture stuff in and buy chotchkas from China. You guys keep it coming, and our filters will keep bouncing it. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
Our most commented upon post last year? It was Joe Gresh’s blog on Bonnier and the demise of Motorcyclist magazine, which really raked in some zingers. Nobody makes the written word come alive like Joe does, and that includes his opening line in that blog: The distance from being read in the crapper and actually being in the crapper is a short one. According to Dealer News, Motorcyclist magazine crossed that span this week.
Other ExNotes blogs that drew comments big time are our blogs on what constitutes the perfect bike, what the motorcycle industry needs to do to grow the market, dream bikes, and of course, the gun stuff. Keep your thoughts coming, folks. It’s what we enjoy the most.
Our most frequently visited blog post last year? Far and away, it was our piece on Mini 14 Marksmanship. Somehow that post got picked up by a service that suggests sites to people when they open their cell phones, and we were getting in excess of 10,000 hits a day for a few days on that one. Go figure. There must be a lot of people out there who want to shoot their Mini 14 rifles better. Glad to be of help, folks.
We’ve stepped on a few toes along the way. Some folks got their noses bent out of shape because we do gun stuff. Hey, let us know if you want your money back. One guy went away all butthurt because Google ads popped up mentioning President Trump and mortgage deals that I guess our President helped along. Hey, whatever. We don’t control the popups, and the Internet’s artificial intelligence does funny things with what it reads on the blog…I mentioned using my Casio’s backlight to help find my way to the latrine at night, and since that blog I’ve been getting an unending stream (no pun intended) of prostate treatment popups. I may click on a few of them. When you get your artificially-inseminated Google-driven popups, we’d like you to click on them, too. It makes money flow. To us. It’s what keeps us on the air, you know.
We did a lot of travel this year, but not as many motorcycle trips as we wanted. The Royal Enfields we took through Baja were fun, and we had a great story on that ride published in Motorcycle Classics. I really enjoyed riding and writing about the Genuine G400c. Joe did a great series on his Yamaha EnduroFest adventure, and he’s had articles published in Motorcycle.com. Joe did another series on motorized bicycles and it was a hoot.
Joe and I both did shorter moto trips this past year, and we both want to get more riding in next year. Gresh and I are going to do a moto trip to Baja in 2020, and we may get to visit with Baja John in Bahia de Los Angeles (that dude likes Baja so much he moved there). On any of the Mexico trips, we for sure will be insured with BajaBound Insurance, the best insurance there is for travel in Mexico. More good travel stuff? We published Destinations, a compendium of the travel stories appearing in Motorcycle Classics magazine, and it’s doing very well (thank you).
More plans? Gresh will be pouring more concrete, and I’ll be spending more time at the West End Gun Club. Joe is planning to maybe pick up the Zed resurrection again, and I’m pretty sure he’ll get that bike on the road within the next 12 months. We’ve got the upcoming 9mm comparo I mentioned yesterday, and for sure more gun articles. Good buddy Gonzo asked us to ride in the 2020 Three Flags Classic, and I’d like to make a go of that one this coming year (I was disappointed in myself for not riding that great event in 2019, but the circumstances just weren’t right). I think I’m going to write Tales of the Gun as a book and offer it for sale here on ExNotes, and maybe Joe Gresh will do the same with his collection of moto articles (and when he does, you can bet I’ll buy the first copy). We’ll be doing more product reviews, including movie and book reviews. I’m going to get on my bicycle more, and we may have some info on electric bicycles, too. You’ll read all about it right here.
So it’s a wrap for 2019. Susie bought a bottle of Gentleman Jack for me, and I’m going to pour a shot and watch 2020 roll in later tonight. To all of you, our best wishes for a happy and healthy 2020. Ride safe, ride often, and keep your powder dry.
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I mentioned my Bulova Lunar Pilot watch (one we’ve done a blog on before) to one of my gun buddies, and he told me that he had the Omega version of that watch.
The Omega Speedmaster on the left, and my Bulova Lunar Pilot on the right. The Omega is a tiny bit smaller, which I prefer.A closer shot of the Omega. It has a curved crystal, which made photographing it without glare a bit of a challenge.The back of the Omega. It’s a classy watch.
Actually, it would be more appropriate to call mine the Bulova version of the Omega watch, as the Omega was the first in space and the Bulova came later almost accidentally. You can read that story here. Also, my Bulova is a reissued, modified design of the Accutron watch astronaut Dave Scott wore on his Apollo flight. My buddy’s Omega is a faithful duplicate of the original Speedmaster worn on the Moon. The Omega is a much more expensive mechanical watch, and it is a very classy item. The Omega Speedmaster sells for thousands of dollars; I paid $275 for my Bulova.
Ah, we’ve got a lot of good stuff coming up on the blog. Most significantly, Uncle Joe is thinking about getting back on the Zed resurrection. Send us your comments; we need to keep the pressure on Arjiu to make that happen.
More good blog stuff is in the works, too. Good buddy Don wrote and asked about the .257 Weatherby No. 1. I have that rifle back from Ruger. The boys in New Hampshire put a nice piece of Circassian walnut on it to replace the cracked stock, and it shoots great with a load good buddy Mississippi Dave recommended. Watch for that story soon. I’ve got more fun in front of me sorting the Garand’s habit of throwing the first shot of each clip low left, and I’ll write about it here. And a story requested by good buddy James on the XP100 Remington (I actually owned one of those in the 1970s chambered for the 30×223 cartridge). And here’s another gun-related topic: We’re thinking of a postal match…you know, a match where you shoot your target and mail it to us. If you’re interested in participating in something like that, let us know.
We’ve got a movie review coming about The Great Raid (spoiler alert…that movie was great), and a book review about A.J. Baime’s The Arsenal of Democracy (it’s the best book I’ve read this year). There’s the always moving to the right YooHoo review (hang in there, Fred; it’s coming). There’s more watch stuff coming, too. I love my Gear’d Hardware watch, and I’m becoming a real fan of the Casio G-Shock watches.
There’s more motorcycle stuff in the works, too. I’ve been dreaming about getting back to Baja again, either on one of my CSC bikes or perhaps something different. I want to look at the Triumphs again; I’ve always loved their motorcycles. I think I can talk CSC into letting me take a WIZ (whoa, that doesn’t sound right) for a ride. I won’t take a WIZ to Baja (it’s an electric scooter), but it looks like it would be a hoot to ride locally. The challenge is finding one; CSC sells them as soon as they get them in stock. It seems everyone wants to take a WIZ.
We keep talking about making a political comment or two, but hell, no matter what we say we’d upset half our readership. We had one guy actually bitch about one of the pop-up ads that appear on our site mentioning President Trump, and he had his shorts in a knot about that (off to your safe space, Snowflake, and that ain’t here). For the record, we don’t control the pop-up ads (the ads appear based on the site’s content, your location, your prior website visits, and other secret stuff that goes into a supersecret algorithm that only God and Google know about). It’s interesting but unknowable for us mere mortals, but in any event, if an ad appears talking about something that pisses you off, don’t blame us. And if you really get upset, hell, click on the ad. Then they have to pay. And do you know who they pay? It ain’t Trump!
Well, maybe all this is too controversial. I’ll go to a safe topic and not ruffle any feathers. Maybe something about Indian motorcycles and their lineage. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Berezina, by Sylvain Tesson. Save your money, folks. This one’s a snoozer.
Damn, it sounded good, and the book review I read last week in The Wall Street Journal (which I must have read too quickly) made it sound like an interesting read. And the cover looked good, too. It had to be good: Five guys riding from Russia to France in the dead of winter, retracing Napolean’s retreat from a military disaster, on three Ural motorcycles. I love motorcycle adventure books. How could it not be great?
Well, let me tell you how. Berezina is the name of a river Napolean crossed on the way back from Moscow in 1812, and in colloquial French it’s become a term for anything that’s a disaster. It’s an entirely appropriate title for this book. I was hoping for stories about riding in the cold, riding from Russia to France, the challenges in riding motorcycles not known for reliability…in general, a good adventure read. What I found was a lot of intellectual drivel laden with three-dollar words talking almost exclusively about Napolean and his retreat. Somehow, for the most part, the author managed to do this without describing the areas he rode through, and without hardly mentioning the bikes or the ride. He spent a lot of time imagining the misery experienced by Napolean, his army, and bizarrely, his horses. I would estimate that less than 5% of the book was about the riding. Getting through this story was a slog, even though the book was mercifully short.
I realized all of the above in the first few pages, but I kept reading and hoping it would get better. It didn’t. Berezina reminded me of another motorcycle adventure that was mostly about things other than motorcycle riding (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I also found to be a slog when I read it 50 years ago). Zen, however, at least spent some time on the bike and the riding. In Berezina there was precious little of that, and what little there was wasn’t nearly enough. Save your money, folks. The best thing about Berezina was that it was only $15.
There’s an old saying: You can’t tell a book by its cover. In this book’s case, never were truer words spoken.
If you want a great read about a real motorcycle adventure, buy a copy of Riding the Edge, Dave Barr’s epic story about his ride around the world on a constantly-failing Harley. If it has to be about riding Russia in the winter, try Riding the Ice, Barr’s sequel about a trip across Siberia in a sidecar-equipped Sportster. Either of those books is a great read. Better yet, buy both books. You can thank me later.
Photography is a big part of a motorcycle trip for me. I’ve been riding motorcycles on long rides for a long time, and capturing the memories adds immensely to the enjoyment. I relive and remember each of my adventures though the photos. The photo quality standards for online stuff are not that high (it’s all 72 dpi and small photos); the requirements for print publication are significantly more stringent (that’s all 300 dpi and big picture stuff). The gear I carry meets both standards well. From time to time people ask me about the camera gear I use on my motorcycle adventures, so I thought I would take a few minutes to describe the toys I bring along.
Motorcycle Travel Photography Gear
Here’s the photo gear I bring on a motorcycle trip:
Nikon D3300 digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera.
Nikon 18-55mm VR general duty lens.
Nikon 70-300mm VR telephoto lens.
Tokina 12-24mm wide angle lens.
Circular polarizers for all of the above lenses.
Extra camera battery.
Battery charger.
Extra SD card.
Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag.
I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s really not that much, it gives great capability on the road, and it all fits into my CSC RX3 motorcycle’s topcase.
My camera gear, including the Nikon D3300 DSLR, the 18-55mm lens (mounted on the camera in this photo), the 12-24mm Tokina wide-angle lens, the 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens, and polarizers for all three lenses. It all fits in the Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag.
I’m a Nikon guy, but any of the current crop of DSLR cameras has capabilities way beyond the abilities of most photographers (including me). Gresh prefers Canon. Here’s your shovel, take you pick. Six to one, half a dozen to the other. All the manufacturers offer good cameras. My D3300 is a 24-megapixel camera, which means I can crop the photo significantly and still have sufficient resolution. It’s a good size for a digital image.
DSLR Advantages
I use a DSLR camera because when I press the shutter button, I want the shutter to trip instantly. The point-and-shoot cameras usually have ½-second or so lag after depressing the shutter button, and that’s unnerving if you’re shooting anything other than landscapes. Maybe the technology has advanced to where that’s no longer a point-and-shoot issue, but I’ll still stick with my DSLR because a DSLR gives me creative control. I usually shoot in the Program Mode, but if I’m not happy with that, or I want greater depth of field, I can make the camera do pretty much anything I want it to.
One of the things that is so appealing to me about the D3300 is its light weight. I often ride with the camera hanging from my neck so I can snap shots from the saddle while on the move, and the D3300’s light weight makes this easy. Several of the photographs I’ve had published were taken while I was riding the motorcycle. It’s way better than the standard motorcycle-parked-by-the-side-of-the-road stuff you see most of the time. I think shots from the saddle bring readers into the ride. One thought I want to interject about this shooting-from-the-saddle business: When I take photos while riding my motorcycle, I never use the camera’s viewfinder or rear LCD screen. Trying to look at the camera (or worse, trying to look through the viewfinder) while riding is dangerous and I don’t do it. I use the camera’s 18-55mm lens and I leave it at about the 24mm mark. I’ll point the camera in the general direction of what I want to photograph, and I take a lot of photos knowing that one or more of them will be good. Digital film is cheap.
The last thing I’ll mention is the histogram. It’s the display you can see on the camera back that tells you instantly if the exposure is correct. All DSLRs have a histogram capability. This x-y plot lets you know if the photo is under or over exposed, allowing you to dial in exposure compensation to adjust for it.
The D3300’s histogram. The histogram, to me, is one of digital photography’s major advantages.
DSLR Cost
The D3300 used to be Nikon’s lowest-cost DSLR camera. I think they’re up to the D3500 now. I like the D3300 for the motorcycle and overseas trips because it’s light, it’s small, it’s capabilities are amazing, and it’s inexpensive. I think I paid $499 for my D3300 a few years ago; I’ve recently seen the current D3500 on sale for something like $399, including the 18-55mm lens. Sometimes Costco has a package deal on the camera, two lenses, a carrying case, the SD card, and more. It’s a phenomenal deal.
Making Movies
The D3300 also has a video mode. I thought that was kind of silly at first, but I changed my mind the first time I used the video feature. The video is superb, and Nikon’s vibration reduction (VR) feature makes the video rock steady. On our second day in Mexico on the first CSC Baja ride, I rode ahead of the group and filmed all of the riders as they came around a bend. When I viewed the video on my laptop later that night, I was blown away by how good it was. The video looked as if the camera had been tripod mounted. When I saw the video, I knew I had purchased the right camera.
Moto Photography Travel Lenses
Moving on to the lenses for the D3300, I travel with three. I use the camera’s 18-55mm lens for the majority of my photos, I use the Tokina 12-24mm lens for the wide-angle panoramic shots, and I use the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto for the long-distance stuff. The 18-55mm is my default lens, and it stays on the camera most of the time. It used to be that the standard low-cost zoom lenses that camera manufacturers provided with their low-end cameras were mediocre. That’s not the case with Nikon’s 18-55mm lens. It does an excellent job, returning high contrast and sharp images. The other thing I like about the 18-55mm Nikon lens is that it has Nikon’s VR feature. It works and I like it. It delivers significantly sharper hand-held photos.
Sometimes you see something that screams out for a wide angle lens, and on the Colombia trip I brought my Tokina 12-24mm lens with me for those occasions. I like that lens a lot because of its sharpness, high contrast, and overall construction quality. The photo magazines rated the Tokina 12-24mm as sharper than Nikon’s 12-24mm lens, which costs more than twice the Tokina lens. I’ve had a lot of photos published using this lens in the “Destinations” pieces I write for Motorcycle Classics.
Two RS3 motorcycles (the carbureted version of the CSC RX3) at the edge of a Colombian cliff. I used a manually-focused Tokina 12-24 lens, a circular polarizer, and the Nikon D3300 camera.
I shot the photo on the cover of Moto Colombia with the Tokina wide angle lens at the edge of a cliff in Barichara. It was great place and a great moment, and I preserved it with a great photo.
I brought my 70-300mm Nikon lens with me on the Colombia trip, too. It’s a big, heavy, and clunky lens and it goes against what I always tell people, and that is to travel light. I only used the 70-300mm on the camera twice while I was in Colombia, and on one of those two occasions, my subject got away before I could get a good photo. That was when I tried to photograph an iguana while having lunch in Magangué. On the other occasion, though, I was quicker (actually, my subjects were slower). That’s when I photographed the vultures outside of Guane. I captured some amazing shots of those big old Colombian vultures.
Hey, you talking to me? A shot of a Colombian vulture with the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto lens, handheld, showcasing Nikon’s vibration reduction technology.
I had circular polarizers with me for all three lenses. A circular polarizer filters out the white light and that makes the colors much more vibrant in outdoor shots. I left the polarizers on the lens, and I would remove them when I shot indoors, or at night, or when I used flash. They don’t take up much room, and they make a real difference on outdoor shots.
A Good Camera Bag
I carried all of the above in a Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag. The Tamrac bag has a sling that makes it easy to carry, but I didn’t carry the bag much. I’d just throw the whole enchilada (the Tamrac bag with the camera, the lenses, a spare battery, and the battery charger) in the topcase.
And folks, that’s it. If you have any thoughts on moto photography travel gear, we’d love to hear them. Just leave a comment below and share your thoughts with us.
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