A scene from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument boonies. The cactus on the left is the star of this show.
The latest Motorcycle Classics issue has a great story in it on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the National Park that’s tucked in along the Mexican border, south of Ajo and Why in southern Arizona. It was a fun visit for us, but wow, was it ever hot and desolate out there! The two closest towns, Ajo and Why, are remote. As in extremely remote.
Arizona has towns with unusual names. Ajo means garlic in Spanish (I didn’t see a single garlic when I was there). Why is name that makes you wonder, well, why anyone would put a town in that location (it’s not much more than two or three buildings out in the middle of nowhere). The good folks in Arizona wanted to simply call the place Y, as it was built at a fork in the road (you know, like the letter Y). But Arizona requires their towns to have at least three letters in their names (don’t ask me Why).
So, another day, another Destinations piece in Motorcycle Classics, one of the world’s great magazines. Other motorcycle magazines are dropping like flies, but MC keeps on keeping on with the best stories and photography in print. I’ve been writing for Motorcycle Classics for over 10 years now, to the tune of something like 64 articles. You can get to all of them online, or you can order your very own copy of Destinations, the book with all of the travel pieces I’ve done for MC (we have both black and white and color options). They make great gifts. You should buy several..buy two or more and shipping is free!
And speaking of stats, we’ve been publishing ExhaustNotes for a little over a year now. In that time, we’ve posted 512 blog posts, and we’ve had 2100 comments. We love your comments, so please, keep them coming. Do you have anything special you want us to write about? Hey, let us know. Post a comment!
Regarding blog topics, one of the things we’ve tried to do is steer clear of politics. Joe went there a little bit with the title of his recent blog (something about never getting a free gun when Obama was president). The problem with discussing anything related to politics is nobody listens to understand; they only listen to respond. That’s true no matter which side of the divide you live on (in my opinion, which of course is always the right one on all political issues). Do you want us to go there? There’s just so much to write about, but the deal is that no matter what position we take, we’ll infuriate half our readers. But wow, the topics are so tempting, and they’ll excite so much discussion. Get this: Illinois just imposed a tax on trade ins (they tax you on the car you’re buying, and they tax you on the car you’re trading in). I could have fun writing about that. But, it’s politics. And it’s Illinois (you know, Chicago, the place where stringent gun control laws are working so well). Should we go there?
Ah, let’s see, what else is going on?
Well, lots. I received my .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 back from the repair center with a new stock, and we’ll be posting photos of it along with a range report in the near future. I’ve got some good inputs on good loads from my good buddy Mississippi Dave, and we’ll put them to the test.
And things are going great guns with Gear’d (how’s that for alliteration?).
My Gear’d ZX2-1116. I am loving this watch!
I’m wearing my Gear’d watch as I write this, and the more I wear it, the more I like it. I’ve been checking its accuracy, and it is spot on. I’ll have an update on my Gear’d in the near future, and so will good buddy Joe Gresh. Joe’s watch is on its way to him, and he’s got a torture test in mind similar to the one I posted recently. Joe tells me it has something to do with concrete.
You know, we’ve done a lot of product reviews here on ExNotes, and as promised, we’re adding a Product Reviews page on the site to provide an index to all of them. Stay tuned, and we’ll post a link in the next few days. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this, but we recently updated our Tales of the Gun page. Take a look. It’s better organized, and we’re all caught up with adding each of the gun blogs to this page.
And that’s a wrap for today, folks. As always, there’s lots more coming your way right here on the ExNotes blog. Keep your comments coming; we love hearing from you.
Good buddy Tuan asked me for a suggested 4-day itinerary for Baja, and I referred him to our Baja page and its included suggested Baja rides. Here’s another 4-day ride that would make for a great 4-day Baja visit: Tecate, Ensenada, San Quintin, and home again.
Tecate is one of the better best-kept secrets in Baja, and it’s one of my favorite towns. It’s about 150 miles south of the Los Angeles area and getting there is an easy ride. I like to stay at the El Dorado Hotel, have dinner at the Amores restaurant, and then breakfast at Malinalli’s, which is right next door to the El Dorado.
Jonathan and Pablo at Amores. It’s world class dining in downtown Tecate, and it is amazing.Maria, one of the friendly folks who took care of us in the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant in Tecate.
After breakfast, it’s an easy run through Tecate to Ensenada along the Ruta Del Vino, maybe with a stop at El Naranjo’s for lunch. It’s about an 80-mile ride and it’s quite scenic. Ensenada is touristy, but I like the place. You can get fish tacos at any of several taco spots along the embarcadero and have breakfast at Velero’s (world-class dining; it’s where knowledgeable Ensenada business folks take their morning meal). I’d stay in the Best Western and have dinner at Birrieria La Guadalajara. It’s a family style place my good buddy Tim introduced me to, and it’s great.
Breakfast at Velero’s. The place is amazing.A veritable feast at Birrieria La Guadalajara in Ensenada. Bring an appetite!
From Ensenada, it’s another easy run through northern Baja’s wine country and the agricultural region down to San Quintin. There are two great hotels in San Quintin. One is the more modern Mision Santa Maria. The other is the Old Mill Hotel right on Bahia San Quintin, which is the one I prefer. The Old Mill has a new restaurant called Eucalypto’s, and it’s world class.
The good folks at the Old Mill give you a beer when you check in. Here’s Uncle Joe, hard at work after a long day’s ride.Watch for the sign pointing to the Old Mill Hotel in San Quintin. It’s a classic Baja stop.Seared Tuna at the Eucalypto. Man, was it ever delicious!
After San Quintin, it’s about a 300-mile run home to get back to the Los Angeles area. It’s a long stretch, but it’s doable in a day, and it would nicely wrap up a great 4-day run.
If you do a ride like the one I describe, or any other, don’t forget to pick up your Mexican insurance, and for that, BajaBound is the best there is.
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Snacks at an engineering seminar in Singapore. Those are hard-boiled quail eggs and they were good!
I’m back after a 3-day hop over to Singapore, and it’s good to be home. I thought I’d do sort of a catchall blog to mention a bunch of things. For starters, Singapore was fun (it always is), but that 15-hour time change is a bear. I was over there to teach a class, something I do two or three times a year. They treat me well in Singapore and I love traveling to Asia. I think I’m back on California time already, thanks to keeping an altered sleep schedule while I was in Asia and a good sleeping pill that let me sleep through the night last night. If you’ve never been to Singapore, you might want to add it to your bucket list. It’s one of the world’s great places.
I kept up (as many of you did) with Joe Gresh’s Endurofest fun in Flagstaff, and it looks like the only downside to that adventure was his good buddy Hunter crashed and cracked a bunch of ribs. Hunter, we’re thinking of you. Get well soon.
At the spot where Joe’s buddy Hunter crashed. He got through it with six broken ribs. Ouch!
And speaking of cracking things, you’ll remember the story on my .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 cracking its Circassian walnut stock and me shipping it back to the factory. I called Ruger, but I still don’t have an update on the fix. They were supposed to get back to me later today, but it’s already later today so I expect I won’t hear anything until tomorrow or Monday. I’ve got a bunch of .257 Weatherby brass polished and primed, and I’ve got the Barnes monolithic copper bullets my good buddy Mississippi Dave recommended. I’m eager to get that rifle back and continue the load development for it.
A 200th year Ruger 77 in 7×57. You’d think with all those 7s I’d get lucky, but I haven’t found a way to get tight groups yet. I’m working the problem.
In the meantime, I’ve been playing with a beautiful 43-year-old Ruger Model 77. It’s a 200th year Ruger in a very classy chambering, the 7×57, which is the old Spanish Mauser cartridge. I bought it used in 1977 and it is in pristine condition, and I think I know why the previous owner sold it. It doesn’t group worth a damn. But that makes it more fun (half the fun with these things is searching for a good load). Stay tuned, because if I ever find a decent load, you can be sure there will be a blog on this one.
The carb on my TT250 is gummed up and it won’t idle. That’s not the bike’s fault. It’s mine. I sometimes go months between rides on that bike, and that’s what happened here. I’ll take the carb apart to clean out the passageways, and when I do, I’ll photodocument the approach so you can see how I go about it. I’ll have to re-read the tutorial I did for CSC Motorcycles on the TT250 carb first. These bikes are super easy to maintain, and they have to be one of the best deals ever on a new motorcycle.
Hey, another cool motorcycle deal…my good buddy Ben recently published a book titled 21 Tips For Your First Ride South Of The Border (and it’s free). You can download it here.
Let’s see…what else? Oh yeah, we have a bunch of stuff in the blog pipeline for you. There’s the Yoo-Hoo product review (we haven’t forgotten about that one). There’s a very cool watch company (Gear’d Hardware) that follows the ExNotes blog, and they recently sent two watches to us for review. The review will appear here in the near future. That’s good; we’ve been meaning to start a watch review series and this will get the ball rolling.
A Gear’d Hardware watch, one of two Gresh and I will review for you here on the ExhaustNotes blog.
More good stuff: I’ve been playing with another Ruger No. 1 chambered in yet another Weatherby cartridge (the mighty .300 Weatherby), and I’ll be posting a blog about that soon. Another product review that’s coming up is one on turmeric, the dietary supplement that’s supposed to work wonders for arthritis. I don’t have arthritis, but that crash I had on my Speed Triple 10 years ago has bothered me mightily for the last decade, and taking turmeric is getting it done for me. I don’t normally believe in these supplement wonder pills, but folks, it’s working. Watch for the blog on this stuff. And we haven’t forgotten about a near-term ride up the Pacific Coast Highway (good buddy TK and I have been talking about that one).
California’s Pacific Coast Highway: It doesn’t get any better than this.
Stay tuned; there’s always good stuff coming your way here on the ExNotes blog!
The weather is turning nice here in southern California, the oppressive heat seems to be behind us, and I’ve got the urge to get on my motorcycle. That would probably be a good thing for the ExhaustNotes blog…you know, to generate some motorcycle-related content. But first, I’ve got to share a bit of shooting success with you (we get so many calls for more stuff on guns and shooting). I was on the range this morning with the .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1, shooting the 100-grain Sierra bullets, and I scored a couple of groups that were quite satisfying:
Sub-minute-of-angle shooting with a rifle and cartridge combo that has been challenging. The Ruger No. 1 shot a 0.840-inch group and followed it up with a 0.763-inch group this morning, both with the Sierra 100-grain jacketed softpoint bullets.
I’ll do another blog or two on the .257 Ruger No. 1 in the near future. It’s fun.
An Upcoming RX3 Run!
So back to the motorcycle stuff. Both my motorcycles had dead batteries a couple of days ago, so I hooked up my trusty trickle-me-Elmo charger. I did the RX3 first and it’s showing green on the charger now, and I’ll get out on it a little later today. The TT250 is next, but I know I have to clean the carb again. I go too long between rides on that bike and I’m too lazy to add fuel stabilizer. If I get a few more motorcycles that don’t run, I’ll be just like Joe Gresh.
Anyway, I’ve been corresponding with a couple of my RX3 buddies and we’re in the early stages of talking about a 250cc ride in the next month or so. I’m thinking maybe an easy run up the Pacific Coast Highway. That’s always a fun one. Or maybe Baja. We’ll see, and you’ll hear about it right here on the ExNotes blog.
The China RX3 Ride
Speaking of fun rides, I’ve been seeing a series of Zongshen videos on how their bikes are built, and that got me to thinking about our ride across China two or three years ago. Gresh and I were the only gringos on that ride (is it okay to say that?), and every once in a while I’ll watch the two China ride videos just because I like doing that. The first is the official Zongshen video; the second is the one Joe Gresh put together. They’re both great, but I think I like Gresh’s video better. Your mileage may vary.
The trek across China sure was an amazing ride. So here’s the commercial…if you’d like to get the complete story, treat yourself and buy a copy of Riding China.
What’s that? You’d like a copy of Riding China but you don’t want to spring for the cash? Hey, that sounds like a call for a contest. Link this particular blog entry to your friends and as many different groups as you can on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever social media you use, show us the proof (a set of screen captures or whatever; mail it to info@exhaustnotes.us), and whoever posts the most links within the next 48 hours wins. We’ll send you an autographed free copy of Riding China.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about the Indiana Jones aspects of riding a motorcycle across China, and in that blog, I told you about the Roman Legions that had settled in Liqian two thousand years ago. I mentioned that there were other Indiana Jones experiences to be had in China and I said I would write about them. It’s time to keep that promise. This blog is about the abandoned Mo Gao Buddhist grottos in the Gobi Desert. It’s an excerpt from Riding China, and if you want to get the whole story, well, hey, buy the book!
Dun Huang
The day was to be a short one for riding (only a hundred kilometers), but it would be rich with sightseeing in and around Dun Huang. It started with a short ride to Dun Huang’s vendor stalls with all kinds of brightly-colored trinkets, lots of Chinese tourists, and around it all, huge sand dunes. We had arrived at what might possibly be the least known and most inaccessible tourist attraction in the world: The Gobi Desert, up close and personal.
The Lake of the Crescent Moon in the Gobi Desert.
The signs pointed to the Lake of the Crescent Moon (and if that doesn’t sound like an Indiana Jones movie title, I don’t know what does). It was a small bright green crescent lake surrounded by the Gobi’s massive pale white dunes. The city planners in Dun Huang were making good use of it as a tourist attraction. It was amazing. The lake was a bright green arc of still water perhaps 300 meters long, forming a natural arc in the dunes, surrounded by bright green vegetation. I can only imagine how a camel caravan would have felt coming upon this place a thousand or more years ago, slowly drifting through the oven that is the Gobi, long before Dun Huang built its five-star tourist hotels. They must have viewed it as a miracle. A true oasis in the desert. It seemed to be a miracle to me and I had it easy; I had ridden here on my RX3.
Gobi Camel Riding
What really interested me were the camels. I was still feeling smug about seeing camels in the desert the day before, and I had wondered what it would be like to ride one. This was to be my day. There was a large camel riding operation set up specifically for tourists, and I realized I might never have an opportunity like this again. I needed to ride a camel. Yep, I became Joe Tourist, and I’m glad I did. It was fun. The camels took us to the top of one of the dunes, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve heard camels described as ships of the desert, and I realized as I rode along on mine that it was an appropriate description. A camel kind of rocks back and forth as it walks, the same way a ship does as it sails the ocean. The sand dunes, devoid of any vegetation, could be rolling waves. It’s all very calming. The camel behind mine came closer, and closer, and closer until its face was literally right alongside me. Its nose was just an inch from my arm. I could feel its warm dry breath on my arm and my face. It sounds a bit on the strange side, I know, but it was all somehow very soothing, riding along in the hot dry air, gently rocking left and right, with a camel breathing in my ear.
Camels in the Gobi.Quite a sight. I enjoyed Dun Huang enormously. You may have seen this photo before. It’s the cover photo for the ExhaustNotes home page, and it as a two-page spread in RoadRUNNER magazine.The view from the camel cockpit.
We spent the entire morning riding camels, taking photos, and being tourists. As much as I like riding my motorcycle, it was good to be off it for a day. We were all feeling great, even though it as incredibly hot. But it was dry, and that made it bearable.
A very attractive young woman who allowed a photo on our camel caravan. I told her I walked a mile for my camel. She smiled politely. I don’t think she spoke English.
The Mo Gao Grottos
That afternoon, we parked the bikes and rode in air-conditioned buses to the Mo Gao Buddhist grottos. This was more Indiana Jones stuff. It’s another incredible story, and it is one I had never heard until this trip. Listen to this: Ancient Buddhists created a massive temple complex in the grottos along a riverbed canyon wall in a location called Mo Gao. It’s in the desert outside of what is now Dun Huang. It was a thriving Buddhist center a thousand years ago, and then the people living there left. No one really knows why. Time and history forgot about the place. It was only recently rediscovered, and a few years after that, it opened to the public. The place was stunning. I can see it possibly being named the 9th Wonder of the Ancient World, just as Xi’an’s Terra Cotta soldiers (which I’ll describe in a later chapter) became the 8th Wonder of the Ancient World. It’s that wondrous.
The Mo Gao caves consisted of many smaller grottos that were apartments for ancient monks, and larger ones that held majestic statues and ornate decorations. I can only imagine what it must of have been like for the archeologists who uncovered these things. Today, it is all closely managed and Chinese police were there to enforce a photography prohibition.
A small portion of the Mo Gao Buddhist grotto.A forbidden photo inside one the Mo Gao grottos. Once again, the Nikon D810’s low light level capabilities came through for me!The sights and photo ops at Mo Gao were well worth the trip. There were many, many more, but I called it quits after grabbing these photos.
There are two reasons for a photography prohibition in these kinds of places. The first is that flash photography could degrade the statues and artwork. A natural light photo (one shot without flash) would prevent that kind of degradation, but most people wouldn’t understand the distinction and a “natural light only” photo policy would be too hard to enforce. The other reason is that the owner of the place (I assume it would be the Chinese government) probably wants to sell its photos. Allowing people to grab their own pictures would interfere.
The bottom line to all of the above is that the no photography policy only slowed me a little. I waited until somebody else took a photo and the picture police started yelling at them, and then I would discreetly do my natural light thing. I got some good shots, too.
Let me go tangential here for a moment and tell you a quick story about Joe Gresh. He is a great guy to travel with and I’d go anywhere with him. We both have a twisted, extremely wry, and very corny sense of humor. He cringed every time I said something I thought was clever, and I did the same with him. I enjoyed being with him on this trip immensely. The guy just has a way with words, which is readily apparent in his columns for Motorcyclist magazine. Anyway, as we walked along one of the landscaped Mo Gao pathways, I noticed a ground-mounted speaker that was in a plastic case designed to look like one of the naturally-occurring rocks. It blended in well with other real rocks along the path. I pointed to it and said to Joe, “Look at that…even a thousand years ago, these Buddhist monks had electric speakers…”
Gresh, without missing a beat, responded with, “Yeah, they loved their grotto blasters…”
I slept well that night in our unusually upscale hotel. I probably had dreams along the lines of an Indiana Jones movie plot, but I didn’t remember any of them. I was tired when I called it a night and I felt refreshed the next morning. This was the trip of a lifetime, and I was enjoying the hell out of it.
So there you have it. The Mo Gao Grottos. Lost in time nearly a thousand years, only to be discovered again a few years ago. And we were there. Indiana Jones? You bet! And if you want to read the earlier Indy in China blog about the Romans, it’s right here!
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Yep, just like that song, we’re back in the saddle again. We’ve got the email thing on the road to being fully squared away, and we’ve had a bunch of new folks sign up in the last day. Things are looking good.
Automatic Email Notifications
If you haven’t heard the word already, we’re having a limited time contest for folks who sign up for our automatic email notifications. Just add your email to the list, and for every 50 folks who sign up (even if you are already signed up), we’re going to give away a free copy of Destinations. You can sign up here:
The CSC RX4
I’m stopping by CSC Motorcycles tomorrow to get a photo of the RX4 I’ll be riding in the SCMA Three Flags Classic. Good buddy Steve asked how I wanted the bike configured and I told him what he already knew: Spotlights, the big Tourfella luggage, a phone mount, and I’m good to go. This is going to be one hell of a ride. Mexico to Canada on a CSC RX4. I’ll be the first to do this. More good times. I’m pumped and I’m eager to get on the road.
It’s going to be hot on the southern part of the ride, as the temps will be above 110 degrees. But as they say, it’s a dry heat. I’ve ridden in that kind of heat before, and I have a few strategies for dealing with it. I’ll be blogging the entire ride, so be sure to follow us right here on ExhaustNotes! And hey, if there are questions you want me to answer or things you want my opinion on related to the RX4, please post your questions here in the blog’s comments section.
The Triple Deuce
Nope, it’s not a car and it’s not a US Army truck. I’m talking about my .222 Remington Savage 340, a used rifle I picked up on the consignment gun rack at a local store 2 1/2 years ago for the whopping sum of $180. The Triple Deuce (as the .222 Remington cartridge is known) is one of those inherently accurate cartridges that just groups great without a lot of work (three others are the .308 Winchester, the .375 H&H, and the relatively new 6.5 Creedmoor). These are rounds that are just flat accurate. My .222 certainly groups way better than any $180 rifle has a right to do. I’m having a lot of fun with it.
I had the Savage out this past Sunday and it was shooting sub-minute-of-angle at 100 yards, and that’s close enough for government work. The stock has a few surface finish scratches (but no gouges that reach into the wood) and I’m going to refinish it. Before any of you get your shorts in a knot, the rifle is not an uber-collectible piece (so I’m not destroying its value with a refinish). I’m going to do my TruOil-to-perfection number on it. I may add a little stain to darken the walnut a bit. Or not. We’ll see. All the metal work on this rifle is perfect and I want the lumber to match. I’ll be posting the step-by-step project here on the ExhaustNotes blog, and you’ll be able to follow along as this labor of love progresses. And hey, if you want to read our other gun stories, take a look at our Tales of the Gun page!
Wow, was I ever surprised when a young guy in a pickup truck held up this note as we rode south on Highway 101!
The photo you see above popped up in my Facebook feed this morning letting me know it was 4 years ago that I posted it, and that meant it was four years ago that we finished the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride. Here’s what I originally posted on the CSC blog about that “Hi Joe” sign:
We are in Santa Maria tonight. It was an easy roll once we got past San Jose, but the traffic on the 101 leaving San Francisco and all the way down past San Jose was rough this morning. After that, we basically put the bikes on cruise control and ran 75 mph all the way down.
Here’s a cool thing…on the 101, just past San Luis Obispo, a couple of guys in a gray pickup truck pulled up alongside our convoy and starting beeping and waving at us. When they were alongside me, one held up a sign that said “Hi, Joe!” Cool stuff. I have no idea who those guys were, but it’s a safe bet they’ll read this. Guys, when you do, shoot me an email. It made my day seeing you today. I had a good laugh over it.
I mentioned the above in the CSC blog, and later that same day I received this email from my good buddy San Marino Bill:
Joe:
My son just called me (3 pm) from the Paso Robles area and wanted to know where the CSC group was riding today. He is up there picking up his son. He was following a group of good looking bikes (10 or 12). I told him to make a sign that said HI JOE and show it to the leader. I hope it was you.
Bill
That was a pretty cool experience, and it kind of wrapped up how well the ride was received and how much good it did for the RX3 motorcycle and our efforts to show the world it is a great motorcycle. You can read more about that in 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM, the book about bringing the RX3 to America and the Western America Adventure Ride.
My 4-year-old RX3, with its Western America Adventure Ride decal. I still own the bike. It’s in my garage right now, just a few feet from where I sit typing this blog.
We sure had a blast on that ride, and people were following it on the CSC blog all over the world. I remember Pioneer Day in Idaho on that ride, where we literally rode in a parade and people lined the streets awaiting our arrival on the CSC motorcycles. I’ll post that story in another day or two.
Another grand adventure is a little less than a month away. I’ll be riding the new RX4 from Mexico to Canada in the Southern California Motorcycle Association’s 2019 Three Flags Classic. I last did that ride in 2005 (you can read the story about that here), and I’m looking forward to doing it again on the RX4. I’ll be blogging the ride daily, I have a commission for two magazine articles on it, and I’m toying with the idea of a short book on the ride, the RX4 bike, the SCMA, CSC, and Zongshen. That’s going to be good for CSC, Zongshen, the SCMA, and the Three Flags Classic event. It will be another grand adventure. Stay tuned, because I’ll be posting much more here on the ExNotes blog.
That was my reaction when the photos you see below popped up on my Facebook feed, telling me it had been four years since I posted them. Yep, it was in July of 2015 that yours truly, Joe Gresh, and riders from China and Colombia descended on CSC Motorcycles to christen the RX3 with a ride through the great American West. So Cal to Sturgis, due west to Washington and Oregon, and then a run down the coast home, hitting every National Park and site worth seeing along the way. It was an amazing adventure, and truth be told, I was shocked that it has been four years already. That meant it was about four years ago that CSC brought the RX3 to America, it was four years ago that I first met Joe Gresh in person (a living legend, in my mind), and it was four years ago that we took a ride that made the entire motorcycle world sit up and take notice. A dozen guys, a dozen 250cc motorcycles fresh off the boat from China, 5000 miles, and not a single breakdown. Tell me again about Chinese motorcycles are no good? Nah, don’t waste your breath. I know better.
It was a hell of a ride, and good buddy John Welker did a hell of a job as our very own Ferdinand Magellan, defining the route, making all of the hotel reservations, keeping us entertained with great stories, and more. These are the same photos (I took them all) that popped up on Facebook. They represent only a small portion of the ride, but they give you an idea of what it was like. It was grand.
Somewhere along Highway 89 in Arizona. The guy in the foreground is our very own Baja John Welker. That’s Joe Gresh way at the other end of this row of motorcycles.Same location, with Hugo out front. Hugo is the Zongshen factory rep. He’s a great guy who kept us constantly entertained.Mr. Tso, posing for me in Zion National Park. This guy makes for a great photograph. He rode with us in China, too!We stayed in Panguitch, Utah, the night before we visited Bryce Canyon National Park. Dinner that evening was at the Cowboy’s Smoke House. I liked it so much I later returned with my wife just to have dinner there.Tony and his mascot inside Cowboy’s. Great times.Bryce Canyon National Park. Everyone was captivated by this place. It was awesome.Kyle, one of the Chinese riders, and Big John, our chase vehicle driver. Good guys both.Tony and Kyle, posing at Bryce.The crew when we returned to So Cal. From left to right, it’s Juan from Colombia, Joe Gresh, Tony from China, Mr. Tso from China, John Welker, Lester from China, Kong from China, Big John Gallardo, Hugo Liu, Gabriel from Colombia, and Kyle from China.The obligatory photo at Roy’s in Amboy, somewhere in the Mojave Desert. God Almighty it was hot that day.The guys at the Grand Canyon…Lester, Kong, Tso, and Hugo.In Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, at an impromptu photo stop.I grabbed this photo of Joe Gresh along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It looks like he’s Photoshopped into the picture, but he’s not.Same spot, different guys: Gabriel and Juan from Colombia. Juan later invited me to ride with him in Colombia, and I went. That, too, was an incredible ride.
So there you have it, or at least snippets of what was one of the greatest rides I’ve ever done. I’m hoping Facebook has more of these anniversary photos pop up for me, as the ride lasted 19 days and I know I posted more on that ride. Good times. Great riders. Superior camaraderie.
As always, there’s more good stuff coming your way. Stay tuned!
Hey, the whole story of that ride is here. You can get the whole nine yards by buying your own copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM. There’s a lot more good information in there, too, like CSC’s no-dealer approach to market, how we dealt with the Internet trolls who tried to hurt the company, the first CSC Baja trip, the RX3’s strengths and weaknesses, and much, much more!
Yes, it really was like that. Somewhere along the Silk Road (the actual Silk Road) in China. I parked my RX3 when I saw the double rainbow, thinking someday I might use the shot in a blog about this adventure.
Almost 40 years ago, I saw my first Indiana Jones movie and it affected me profoundly. I started traveling the world stumbling upon lost empires. Things that have been swallowed by time, as they say. My motorcycle ride through Colombia had some of that. The Baja adventures have a bit of it, too. But none of the rides had more of an Indiana Jones flavor than did the ride across China. That ride was three years ago this month, and I still think about it every day. There were several things we saw in China that would have been right at home in an Indiana Jones movie. One was Liqian. I can best tell you about it with an excerpt from Riding China, the story of the ride with Joe Gresh across the Ancient Kingdom.
Gobi Gresh, aka Arjiu, stopping to smell the sunflowers in China.
The ride in the morning was just like yesterday. We rode the Silk Road at high speed, making great time in magnificent weather. I knew we were going to Wuwei (you could have a lot of fun with that name; it’s pronounced “woo wee”), but that was really all I knew about that day as we started out that morning. Boy, would this day ever be an interesting one!
It was to be a very full day, and Wuwei would be another one of those cities of several million people that seem to pop up in China every 50 to 100 miles. It was a huge city I had never heard of. China is an amazing place, and I was going to learn today it is more amazing than I could have imagined, and for a reason I would have never guessed. I’ve mentioned Indiana Jones movies a lot in this book. Today, we came upon something that could easily be…well, read on. This is going to be good.
After riding for a couple of hours, we left the freeway and entered a city called Yongchang. It seemed to be pretty much a regular Chinese city until we stopped. I needed to find a bathroom and Wong helped me. Wong is a big, imposing guy. He’s a corrections officer supervisor in Xi’an. He has a friendly look, but he can turn that off in a New York minute and become an extremely imposing figure. I saw him do that once on this trip, and I’ll tell you about that episode when we get to it.
Corrections Officer Supervisor Wong. He looks like a mischievous guy. This guy’s command presence was amazing. I saw him stop a car just by looking at it. Here, he’s enjoying the attention in Yongchang.
Anyway, I followed Wong through a couple of alleys and businesses until we came to an empty restaurant (it was mid-morning, and it had no customers). Wong spoke to the lady there, she nodded her head and smiled at me, and pointed to the bathroom. When I rejoined the guys back on the street, several women at a tailor shop (we had coincidentally stopped in front of a tailor shop) were fussing over Wong. He needed a button sewn on his jacket and it was obvious they were flirting with him. Wong seemed to be enjoying it. Like I said, Wong is a big guy, and I guess you could say he’s good looking. I think the women who were sewing his button on were thinking the same thing.
Beautiful young Chinese ladies. Mostly Chinese, anyway. The one on the left is entering my phone number in her contacts list.
Three teenage girls approached us and wanted to know about our bikes. Like many young Chinese, they spoke English (in China, you learn English as a second language in grade school; it is a strong advantage in Chinese society if you can speak English well). They wanted to practice with us. It was the routine stuff (“how are you?” “hello,” and things like that) until one of the teenaged girls looked directly at me and asked, “Can I have your phone number?” Gresh and I both had a good laugh over that. I actually gave her my phone number and she carefully entered it into her phone (and no, she hasn’t called me yet).
I was enjoying all of this immensely, taking photos of the girls, the seamstresses flirting with Wong, and the rest of China all around me. There was something different about one of those teenage girls. I couldn’t quite recognize what it was, but to me she definitely looked, well, different.
Yongchang statues. They don’t look as Chinese as you might think they should. There’s a reason for that.
It was at about that time that Sean approached me and said, “Dajiu, do you see those three statues over there?” He pointed to three tall statues that faced us, perhaps 300 yards away. I nodded yes. “If you look at their faces, you will see that they have Roman features.” Truth be told, I couldn’t really see it in the statues because they were too far away, but I grabbed a photo and later, on my computer, I could see something different. But before I looked at the photo, it all clicked for me. That’s what had my attention with that girl. We were literally in the middle of China and she didn’t look as Chinese as her two friends. She looked different.
All right, my friends, I need to go tangential here for a minute or two and share this story with you. Hang on, because this is real Indiana Jones stuff. No, scratch that. I’ve never seen an Indiana Jones movie with a story line this good (and I’ve seen all of them).
More than 2,000 years ago, before the birth of Christ, the two most powerful empires on the planet were the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. These two superpowers of their time enjoyed a brisk trade relationship along the Silk Road. Yep, the very same trail we had been riding for the last few days. Between them (in what became Iran and its surrounding regions) lay a smaller empire called Parthia. For reasons only the Romans understood, Rome thought it would be a good idea to attack Parthia. They sent several Roman Legions to war (and to put this in perspective, a Roman Legion consisted of about 5,000 men). To everyone’s surprise (including, I would imagine, the Romans), the Parthians kicked Rome’s butt.
Wow, imagine that. Rome, defeated on the field of battle by the much smaller Parthian Empire. To put it mildly, things did not quite go the way the Romans thought they would.
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All of this severely disrupted trade between the Han Dynasty and the Romans, and nobody liked that. “Why the hell did you do that?” the Han Dynasty asked Rome. “We had a good thing going and you screwed it up.” At least that’s what I’m guessing the conversation went like. You get the idea.
Cooler minds prevailed and the Romans realized, yeah, that was a dumb move. The Romans told the Parthians, hey, it’s over, let’s be friends again. The war ended, the Chinese were happy, the Romans were happy, the Parthians were happy, and trade resumed. All’s well that ends well.
Well, sort of. There was still that matter of those pesky Roman legions that had invaded Parthia. They didn’t come back from that war, and for two thousand years, no one knew what happened to them. The Romans probably assumed their Legionnaires had all been slaughtered. No one knew until an Australian dude and a Chinese guy, both University archeologist types (starting to sound a little like Indiana Jones yet?) put a theory together in 1957. Hmmm, maybe those Romans had not been killed after all.
The Parthians, being bright enough to defeat the Romans, were not about to let the Legionnaires go home and perhaps attack them again in some future war. They didn’t want to kill the Romans, either. I guess they were kinder, gentler Parthians. Here’s where those two Aussie and Chinese archeologists enter the picture. They hypothesized that the Parthians told the errant Legionnaires, “Look, we don’t want to kill all you guys, but there’s no way we’re going to let you go back to Rome. And there’s no room for you here, either. Your only option is to keep heading east. Go to China. Maybe you crazy warmongering Italians will find nice Chinese girls and settle down.” With that, and as one might imagine, a hearty arrivederci, the Romans continued their eastward march straight into the middle of China.
And folks, the prevailing wisdom today is that is exactly what happened (although the prevailing wisdom evidently hasn’t prevailed very far, as I had never heard the story until that morning in Yongchang). In fact, prior to this theory surfacing, folks wondered why the Chinese referred to the area around Yongchang as Liqian. That’s not a Chinese word, and it’s unlike the name of any other Chinese town. The folks who know about these things tell me it is an unusual word in the Chinese language.
Liqian is pronounced “Lee Chee On.”
Get it yet?
Lee Chee On? Liqian?
Doesn’t it sound like “legion?” As in Roman legion?
A Chinese man in Liqian. This guy could be the Marlboro Man for a Chinese cigarette company!
I found all of this fascinating. I saw more than a few people around the Liqian area that had a distinct western appearance, and they all consented to my taking their photos when I asked. They recognize just how special their story is. The Chinese government is taking note of this area, too. They are developing a large theme park just outside of Yongchang with a Roman motif. We visited that theme park, and while we were there, Sergeant Zuo gave a book to me (printed in both English and Chinese) about the place. It is one of the two books I brought back from China, and that book is now one of my most prized possessions.
Imagine that: Roman legions, resettled in the middle of China, in a town called Liqian. And I rode there. On an RX3.
Watch for our next Indiana Jones episode in China. It’s about the lost Buddhist grottos at Mo Gao in the Gobi Desert. There’s more good stuff coming your way. Stay tuned!
Want to read more about the ride across China? Pick up a copy of Riding China!
This post wraps up our tutorial on reloading .45 ACP ammunition, although from time to time we’ll be posting favored .45 loads as we continue to add Tales of the Gun blog posts featuring this fine old cartridge. If you’d like to catch up by reading the first three parts of this series, here they are:
We’re in the home stretch now, folks, with the last steps in creating our custom-crafted .45 ACP ammunition. The tools and components we’ll use in these remaining reloading steps are the propellant, the powder dispenser, our previously prepped-and-primed .45 ACP brass cases, bullets, the third reloading die, a reloading scale, a caliper to measure cartridge overall length, and boxes and labels to hold and identify the ammo we’ve created.
That’s the powder dispenser on the left, and Unique propellant on the right. I use an RCBS dispenser. Several reloading equipment companies offer these.
My preferred propellants for .45 ACP ammo are Unique or Bullseye, and of the two, I prefer Unique. Some folks prefer Bullseye. Others may use different propellants. One of the more enjoyable aspects of the reloading process is you can try different recommended propellants (and different charges of these propellants) to find the secret sauce that works best for you.
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What does that mean? For a revolver, it usually means the load that is the most accurate. For a semi-automatic handgun (like the 1911), accuracy is not the only requirement. You also need to have a load with enough energy to cycle the action. Usually, the loads shown in a reloading manual are powerful enough to cycle the action. You should never go above the maximum propellant charge listed in any reloading manual, and you should only approach that by testing loads at the lower end first, and then working up to a higher level if you feel a need to for accuracy or functionality reasons (but never go above the max load).
Adding Unique propellant to the powder dispenser.
Here’s another important point: Whichever powder you choose to use, never have any propellant other than the one you are using on your reloading bench. You don’t want to get the propellants mixed up, or mistake one for another.
After you’ve added propellant to the powder dispenser, tap the dispensing handle against the lower stop several times to settle the powder. What we’re going to do next is to adjust the throw weight (the weight of powder dispensed) by adjusting the dispenser with the threaded adjustor shown in the photo below.
The dispenser’s adjustor. You can screw it in to dispense less powder, or out to dispense more powder. Once it dispenses the correct amount, lock it in place with the locknut.
What we do at this point is get our reloading scale, set it to zero grains, and make sure the indicator (the balance arm) is in a neutral position (as indicated on the left side of the balance arm against the graduations on the scale markings on the left of the scale. Once the scale is zeroed, use the sliding and turning adjustors for the weight of propellant you wish to use. After years of accuracy testing and shooting, I’ve settled on 5.8 grains of Unique as the load I use with a 230-grain cast roundnose bullet.
My RCBS reloading scale set to 5.8 grains.
Note in the photo above that the sliding weight is at zero grains, and further note in the photo below that the rotating adjustor wheel is set to 5.8 grains. For anything under 10 grains, you leave the sliding weight at zero and set the weight with the rotating barrel as shown below. For most .45 ACP loads, we use the rotating barrel only.
The rotating barrel adjusting wheel is set to 5.8 grains.
After adjusting the powder dispenser’s adjustor and checking the weight with the scale, we now have the dispenser releasing 5.8 grains of Unique propellant every time the dispenser is actuated. I’ll throw several charges to make sure the dispenser is dispensing consistently, and once I’m satisfied it is, we’re now ready to dispense 5.8 grains of propellant in each of the prepped and primed cases we prepared in Part III of of our .45 ACP reloading series.
There are 5.8 grains of Unique in each primed case. Note that the propellant levels are approximately equal in all cases, and no cases have been missed.
When you dispense powder, it’s important to be consistent. I don’t like to stop until I’ve done the entire tray of prepped and primed cases, and I don’t like to be interrupted while I’m doing this. After you’ve dispensed the propellant in each cartridge case, visually inspect the tray to make sure every case is charged with propellant, and all propellant heights are approximately equal. We’re looking for missed cases here (if that happens, the primer will push the bullet into the barrel just a bit, which requires disassembling the firearm to hammer the bullet back out with a rod, and that’s basically the end of your shooting session that day). We’re also looking for any cases that are double-charged (i.e., cases that have two charges of powder in a single case). A double charge is real serious and dangerous business, as it will most likely blow up the gun, injure you, or worse. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing here. Like I just said, this is serious business.
So, after we’ve charged the cases with propellant, we now ready to move on to the next step, which is seating the bullets.
.45 ACP 230-grain cast roundnose bullets. I like this bullet design and weight. It’s accurate, and it feeds reliably in just about any .45 auto.
We’ll now use the seating die, the last of the three dies in our die set. This part of the operation requires a bit of adjusting and a bit of finessing on our part. We’re actually doing two things with this third and final die. We’re seating the bullet to the correct depth in the cartridge case (to meet the cartridge overall length requirement, which is found in your reloading manual), and we’re removing the cartridge case bellmouth that allowed the bullet to enter the case.
The business end of the seating die. The red arrow points to the part of the die that interfaces with and pushes the bullet into the case.
In order to make both adjustments, we’ll work with how far we thread the entire die into the reloading press (this affects both bullet seating depth and crimp), and we’ll also work with the bullet seating adjustor. These two parts of the die are shown by the red arrows in the photo below.
The bullet seating die in the reloading press. The upper threaded adjustor (denoted by the upper red arrow) adjusts bullet seating depth. The crimp or bellmouth removal adjustment is made by how far the entire die is threaded into the press (denoted by the lower red arrow), Once the crimp (or bellmouth removal for the .45 ACP cartridge) is set and the cartridge meets the desired overall length, lock both the die and the bullet seating adjustor in place with the two locknuts.
Here’s how I do this. I first screw the bullet seating adjustment all the way into the die, and then I’ll use this to seat the bullet to the right depth by threading the entire die into the reloading press, a little at a time. With each adjustment, I’ll run the charged case (with a bullet on top) into the die with the press. I keep doing this until the cartridge overall length is where I want it to be. For a 230-grain roundnose bullet, I adjust the seating depth such that the cartridge overall length is 1.250 inches, as specified by my reloading manual. That cartridge overall length is good, as it allows the cartridge to feed into the chamber, and it allows the cartridge to fit into the magazine.
Once I have the bullet seated to a depth that provides the correct cartridge overall length, I then back the bullet seating adjustor all the way out. Then I’ll start the crimping adjustment process by threading the entire die deeper into the press, a little bit at a time, running the cartridge into the press with each incremental downward die adjustment. The reason I ran the bullet seating adjust all the way out is that I don’t want it to push the bullet in any further while I adjust the crimp.
Here’s what going on here. Remember that I said the seating die does two things: It seats the bullet to the correct depth, and it crimps the cartridge. In the case of the .45 ACP, we’re not really crimping the bullet into the case. We just want to remove the brass case bellmouth that we previously added to allow the bullet to start into the case. The inside of the seating die has a reduced circumference step. Our purpose in making this adjustment is to thread the die into the press just enough to have the case make contact with the inner die step. That will remove the bellmouth. We’re not crimping here; we’re just removing the bellmouth so that the brass case becomes a straightwall case around the bullet.
Once I have adjusted the die body by screwing it into the press enough to remove the case bellmouth (and with the press ram raised to position the cartridge all the way up in the die), I then run the bullet seating adjustor all the way down, such that it contacts the top of the bullet. This will position the die such that it removes the case bellmouth, and simultaneously seat the bullet to the correct cartridge overall length. At this point, I can lock everything in position with the two locknuts (one for the die body in the press, the other for the bullet seating adjustor in the die) while the ram is in the raised position with a cartridge in the die. At this point, I’m ready to finish the rest of the cartridges.
A case with the bellmouth removed, and the bullet seated to the correct depth. The cartridge overall length is 1.250 inches. Life is good. I can hit a gnat in the ass at 25 meters with this cartridge.
At this point, what I do is put a bullet on each charged case, and then I start running each cartridge, with a bullet on top, thr0ugh the reloading press.
Charged cases topped with bullets, ready for the bullet seating operation.
With each run up the press, I’ll create a reloaded cartridge. Here are three reloaded rounds…
Reloaded .45 ACP ammo. It’s good looking ammo, and I know it will provide superior accuracy and reliability in my 1911. It will perform way better than factory ammo, and that’s what this reloading game is all about.
As I produce each round, I place it in one of the plastic boxes I use for my ammo.
Once the above steps are done, I then take the propellent remaining in the powder dispenser and return it to the propellant container (in this case, the Unique bottle). That’s one of the reasons it’s important to only have one bottle of propellant on the reloading bench. You don’t want to dump the leftover powder into the wrong propellant container. If that happens, you can’t use the container of propellant you just emptied the leftover powder into because now it contains a mix of two different propellants. The only thing you can do is throw it away. It’s just to risky to use it. And yeah, I’ve had to do that before.
Reloaded .45 ACP ammo, ready for the range. It looks good, doesn’t it?
There’s one more step, and that’s labeling each box of reloaded ammo with cartridge, bullet weight and type, cartridge overall length, propellant type and charge, primer type, brass type, brass trim length, and the date I manufactured the ammo.
At this point, I’m good to go. It’s off to the range…
So there you have it. Reloaded .45 ACP ammo, as good as or better than what you can buy anywhere. I just returned from the range a few minutes ago, where I shot some of the ammo you see in the photo above, and yeah, it functioned flawlessly and hit the target every time.
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The CSC RX4
It’s going to be hot on the southern part of the ride, as the temps will be above 110 degrees. But as they say, it’s a dry heat. I’ve ridden in that kind of heat before, and I have a few strategies for dealing with it. I’ll be blogging the entire ride, so be sure to follow us right here on ExhaustNotes! And hey, if there are questions you want me to answer or things you want my opinion on related to the RX4, please post your questions here in the blog’s comments section.
I had the Savage out this past Sunday and it was shooting sub-minute-of-angle at 100 yards, and that’s close enough for government work. The stock has a few surface finish scratches (but no gouges that reach into the wood) and I’m going to refinish it. Before any of you get your shorts in a knot, the rifle is not an uber-collectible piece (so I’m not destroying its value with a refinish). I’m going to do my TruOil-to-perfection number on it. I may add a little stain to darken the walnut a bit. Or not. We’ll see. All the metal work on this rifle is perfect and I want the lumber to match. I’ll be posting the step-by-step project here on the ExhaustNotes blog, and you’ll be able to follow along as this labor of love progresses. And hey, if you want to read our other gun stories, take a look at our 
