Category: Amazon

Baja Spares

When you’re out here, you can’t call Triple A.  Rural Baja is the great equalizer among motorcycle marques. You’ll see the same number of Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, BMW, Harley, Ducati, and CSC dealers:  That number is zero.  You need to be able to take care of your motorcycle.

One question I hear a lot from when I’m organizing a tour in Baja is: What spare parts should I bring?  It can get desolate down there, and it makes sense to be prepared.

Well, that’s a great question. The idea is to bring enough things you might need so you don’t get stranded, but to also travel light. You don’t want to get weighed down carrying too much stuff, but you want to have the items you might need.  The simple fact is that most motorcycles today are extremely reliable, so the likelihood of needing a spare part is remote. That said, there are a few things that I always bring.

I used to say getting a flat tire on a motorcycle trip is a relatively rare event.  Unless you’re Joe Gresh. The first time I met Gresh, which was on the CSC Western America Adventure Ride, he told me that he’s “that guy” who usually gets a flat tire.  I kind of blew off that thought when Joe said it, and it slipped further from my mind for most of our Western America adventure.  We had covered roughly 4500 miles of a 5000-mile ride with nary a single flat, but sure enough, Joe got one just north of San Francisco on the way back to So Cal. We limped into an independent cycle shop, with me realizing that Gresh was right.  He was “that guy.”   Won’t happen to me, I thought.  Then I got a flat on the ride across China. Hey, it happens.

So, the deal is this…if you’re running tubeless tires, you’ll need a patch kit and something to put air back in the tire. If you’re running tube tires it gets a bit more complicated: You’ll need an approach for getting the bike off the ground and you’ll need tools to get the deflated wheel and tire off the bike, and then you’ll need tire spoons to get the tire off the wheel. Since both of my current bikes run tube tires, I carry spare tubes and a tire pump. I have a small electric pump that runs off my bike’s battery (you need to start and run the engine while you’re pumping the tire up, or you’ll kill the battery). Since most of us ride bikes that have different front and rear wheels, when I’m traveling with others I’ll usually take the front tube, and one of my friends will take the rear tube.

A small tire pump that attaches to your motorcycle’s battery. You can get these at a lot of places; CSC Motorcycles sells them online and their customer service is the best in the business.

Next up…the spark plug. I’ve never replaced one on a trip, but I always carry a spare. They’re small. It makes me feel good.

I always carry a throttle cable and a clutch cable. Same deal…I’ve never needed to replace these on the road, but they don’t take up much space.

I bring chain lube with me, but if I forget to bring it, it’s not a big deal. Someone has always just put a quart of oil in their car at every gas station I’ve ever been in, and I can always find an “empty” quart container. Usually there’s enough residual oil in it that I can hold it upside down and get some oil on my chain. But it’s better just to bring along a spray can of chain lube, and you won’t get the back of your bike sprayed with motor oil if you rely on residual oil from someone’s empty oil can.

If I’m going to be out in the boonies (like on a trip through Baja), I’ll bring a spare quart of oil with me, especially if I’m on my TT250.  CG clone motors use a little oil, especially if you push them hard. KLRs have a reputation for being oilers. You know your bike. If it uses oil, better to bring some along rather than having to go look for it.  And on that topic, I check my oil every night when I’m on a long ride. You’d be surprised how many bikes come into dealers with seized engines and no oil in the crankcase.

I bring a spare headlight bulb and a spare taillight bulb. Baja and its topes usually induce a bulb failure about every third trip I make down there.

I bring Sea Foam with me. If my bike starts running rough after I put gas in it, a capful of Sea Foam is just what the doctor ordered. It takes care of any water that might have found its way from the gas pump into your tank.

If I’m riding my RX3, I bring along a spare countershaft sprocket nut. On my first ride in Baja with a bunch of other guys on RX3s, good buddy Justin lost his, and after screwing around for a day or two we ended up having to pay a machine shop to make a custom nut.  If your bike has a part that it occasionally loses, bring a spare. You know your bike better than I do, so do your homework and decide what makes sense to bring along.

Adapt, overcome, improvise. That steel wire served as a countershaft sprocket nut for 70 miles until we found a replacement. Go Justin!

A spare master link is a good idea. I’ve never needed one, but I feel better knowing I have one with me.  They take up almost no space.

I always bring an assortment of the small nuts, bolts, and screws that my bike uses. You never know what’s going to vibrate off.   It happens on all bikes.

A tool kit with real tools is a good idea. Putting one together will help you get to know your bike.

I always bring a tool kit, but it’s never the tool kit that comes with the bike (if, indeed, your bike even has one). The tools that come with a bike are almost always cheaply made and they often don’t work well. Whenever I get a bike, I’ll put together a collection of sockets, a ratchet, the two or three box end wrenches the bike needs (including those for the axle nut and bolt), a screwdriver with Phillips and blade tips, a small crescent wrench, and whatever Allen wrenches the bike needs. Throw in a set of pliers, a small pair of vise-grips (which can be used as a shift lever in a pinch), a bit of steel wire, and I’m good to go.

Hey, there’s lots of good stuff coming up, folks. Our next Baja ride, how to pack for Baja, what kind of camera gear to bring with you on a Baja ride, and more.  Lots more.  We’ll continue to include links to our Baja stuff on our ExNotes Baja page, and you don’t want to miss any of it.  Sign up for our automatic email updates every time we post a new blog, and you won’t miss a thing!

The Fix Is In

In an oddly satisfying way, climate change activists and good old fashioned mechanics have found an issue they can both agree on. The BBC News recently published a story on the Right to Repair.

Manufacturers, in an effort to comply with government rules and plain old greed, have been locking out consumers’ ability to repair the trinkets of modern life. Using proprietary software, draconian warranty rules that prohibit anyone else from opening their widgets, and glue, builders have stifled our repair and reuse ethos. Throwing the damn thing out has become easier than fixing the damn thing.

I’ve been gravitating to older motorcycles mostly because they are so fixable. There’s nothing sealed or secret on a 1975 Kawasaki. Performance wise, if you ride anywhere near the legal limits any old Japanese bike from the 1970s and 1980s will exceed your riding skills. Not many modern cars can run with a 1000cc 4-cylinder bike and you’ll never have to go to the dealer again because they don’t work on your bike or stock parts to fit it.

YouTube has been on the forefront of cracking open the cradle-to-grave marketing machine. The video giant’s users have filled its files with how-to instructional vids on locked-out products. Recently, I replaced the battery in my iPhone for $6 and then replaced the front-facing camera I broke replacing the battery for $7. With new phones running $600 I’ll be nursing this old iPhone for as long as I can. It’s rare I do anything without checking YouTube for a how-to video. Even If I know how to do a job I like to see other people’s ideas.  They may have a better way.

Here’s hoping the environmentalists and the wrench-spinners can convince the powers-that-be we need the Right to Repair. Yeah, it could be looked at as more Nanny-State intervention in business but once you buy a product why does the builder have any say in what happens to their widget? Who gets to say what you can do with it?   You, or the manufacturer?

Dream Garage

If I had all the money, I’d be one of those crazy collector types, like Jay Leno or Anthony Hopkins, the Silence Of The Lambs guy. You know, the kind that has 177 motorcycles, their Great Paw-Paw’s washing machine motor and 42 washed-up old cars stored in three aircraft hangers. All of my bikes would be in neat rows, I’d have every color of every year of each model and they would all sit in my gigantic storage shed and slowly seize up. And when I die there’d be an auction where the stuff would sell for pennies on the dollar to a bunch of soulless flippers intent on making old motorcycles as expensive and annoying as the collector car scene is today.

Maybe I’d organize both cars and bikes by engine type. There would be a Kawasaki 750 triple, a Saab 93 triple, a Suzuki 750 triple next to a crisp, modern Honda NS400. Flathead Row would have a Melroe Bobcat with the air-cooled Wisconsin V-4, and all three Harley flatties: The 45- incher, the Sportster KH and that big block they made (74-inch?). You’d have to have an 80-inch Indian and the Scout along with most of the mini bikes built in the 1970s.

I love a disc-valve two stroke but I’ve never owned one. First bikes in that section will be a bunch of Kawasaki twins (350cc and 250cc). I’d have a CanAm because with their carb tucked behind the cylinder instead of jutting out the side they don’t look like disc bikes should. A Bridgestone 350 twin without an air filter element would be parked next to a ferocious Suzuki 125cc square-four road racer, year to be determined.

Besides the two-stroke Saab I’d have a two-stroke Suzuki LJ 360cc 4X4 with the generator that turns into the starter motor like an old Yamaha AT1-125. I’d need a metalflake orange Myers Manx dune buggy. It would be that real thick kind of metalflake that looks like some kind of novelty candy served only on Easter or found in table centerpieces at wedding receptions. A few Chevy trucks from the 1960’s would make it into the collection also. A mid-60’s Chevy van, the swoopy one, would be a must-have to go with one of those giant steam tractors, the ones with the steel wheels and the chain wrapped around the steering shaft and then to the center pivot front axle to make the beast turn hard.

To complement the Bobcat I’d have a gas-engined backhoe, something from the 1950’s with all new hoses and tires. I’ll paint it yellow with a roller and then hand paint “The Jewel” in red on both sides of the hood with the tiny artist’s brush from a child’s watercolor set. The backhoe would be a smooth running liquid-cooled flathead with an updraft carburetor and it would reek of unburnt fuel whenever you lifted a heavy load in the front bucket.

No one would be as into my junk as me, so I’d have to hire a guy to feign interest in the stuff. I think $10 an hour should get me a sidekick who would always be amazed at what I had found. We’d both marvel at how little work or parts the item would need to get it running and then we’d push it into an empty space. After a cold beer from a refrigerator plastered with Klotz decals he’d run his card through the time clock with a resounding clunk, leaving me and the shop cat sitting in my beat-up brown vinyl recliner to stare at my collection and wonder if I really had all the money.

California Speed and Sport Shop

Gresh’s post yesterday reminded me of a gig I had when I was a youngster back on the East Coast.   This is a blog I did for CSC about 10 years ago, and it seemed like a good follow-on to the Mr. Bray story.  Here you go, folks…

I’m a workaholic. I’ve been that way ever since I was a teenager. It all started with one of the two best jobs I’ve ever had and a traffic citation (more on that in a minute), and somehow, even though I grew up in New Jersey, California already had its tentacles into me (more on that in a minute, too).

Let’s get this story started with a dynamite photo I found of Joe Barzda on the Internet a short bit ago…

Joe Barzda, my boss at the California Speed and Sport Shop…RIP, Joe, and thanks for all you’ve done for me!

So who’s Joe Barzda?

Joe Barzda and his brother Eddie were two of the coolest dudes I’ve ever known, and they both were strong positive influences in my life. The Barzdas ran the California Speed and Sport Shop in New Brunswick, New Jersey. This place was Mecca, the promised land, the holy of holies for teenagers like me back in those days. It was the premier speed shop in the northeastern United States. They were the east coast distributors for all of the big performance brands, and it was cool. Way cool.

You have to picture the times…the late 1960s. For many of us, those were our formative years. The muscle car craze in those days was in full tilt. GTOs. Chevelles. The Oldsmobile 442. Roadrunners. The GTX. It was a glorious era, a real hey day for Detroit, back when American automobiles were at the top of the food chain. The muscle car craze was the logical continuation of a hot rod boom that started after World War II, and all of it seemed to emanate from southern California. Anything that had wheels was magical, and anything having to do with California even more so. In my circle of friends from a half century ago (many of whom I still stay in touch with…guys like Pauly Berkuta, Richie Ernst, Bobby Beckley, Ernie Singer, Mike Beltranena, Ralph Voorhees, and more), it all revolved around cars.

Our lives revolved around cars even before we had cars. We grew up listening to AM radio, with groups like the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Ronny and the Daytonas, and others singing about little old ladies from Pasadena, Cobras, GTOs, and little deuce coupes. I’ll bet many of you did, too. Watch American Graffiti again. That was us. I feel sorry for kids growing up today…with what passes for music, the lowbrow nature of what’s on TV and in the movies, the abysmal jobs the public school systems are doing, the unhealthy fixation on cell phones and texting…we really had it good when we were kids. But I digress…back to the story…

The California Speed and Sport Shop in New Brunswick

So, one day, I stopped in the California Speed and Sport Shop. The place was beyond cool…mag wheels, big dual pumper Holley carbs, headers and aluminum manifolds, and cams…all with exotic names like Weiand, Iskenderian, Edelbrock, Hedman, Cragar…you get the idea. I’m not sure what got into me, but when one of the crusty old dudes behind the counter asked what I wanted, I asked if they had any openings. I had a dinky little job as a stockboy at W.T. Grant (a department store), and it was boring. I would have worked for free in a place like the California Speed and Sport Shop. The guy who asked if I needed help at the California Speed and Sport Shop? Well, I didn’t know I was talking to royalty, but that guy was none other than Joe Barzda. I filled out an application and left. And I forgot about it. I had no relevant experience, and I couldn’t imagine a place that cool wanting to hire a stockboy like me from a five-and-dime store.

A 1965 Pontiac GTO…Richie’s was the same color!

Okay, more background information and let me back up another three years….Paul Berkuta was my next door neighbor in those days. He’s a cool guy. You know the routine…we were always getting into some kind of trouble or another. It was a grand time and a great place to grow up. Pauly’s cousin Richie lived in New Brunswick, and he was way cooler than either of us. One day, Richie rolled up in a 1965 Pontiac GTO. GTOs were beyond cool back then (and now, too, in my opinion). The GTO was the original muscle car. Literally. When John DeLorean shoved a big block Pontiac motor into a Tempest back in 1964, he single-handedly started the muscle car era. The GTO was the original. It was awesome.

I was 14, and Richie’s GTO was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He gave me a ride, and when he floored that thing, he floored me, too. I was hooked. If there was one thing I knew with certainty at the age of 14, it was that someday I was going to own a GTO.

For the next three years, I saved. I scrimped. I found every nickel I could. I spent nothing. I had a little less than half of what I needed when I was old enough to drive to buy a GTO, but that didn’t slow me down. I went to work on my parents, and being the persuasive and annoying little dude I was (some folks would say I still am), I talked my old man into springing for the rest. I bought a GTO. I had reached Nirvana.

Hmmm. 17 years old. A GTO. You can probably guess where this story is going…

So, late one night I ran my car through the gears on Route 130. I saw a set of headlights way in the background, but they were so far back I ignored them. For a while. A short while. Then I noticed the lights were bearing down on me. Hmmm…the guy probably wants to run me, I thought. No way he’s gonna beat my GTO. Then he pulled up alongside me and turned on his interior lights. A NJ State Trooper. Yikes. A speeding ticket. My first. Oh, man, I was in trouble. That ticket was tough to explain to my folks, but a 17-year-old kid in a GTO…what would you expect? To say my parents were upset would be an understatement. You’ve probably been through this…lots of promises…I’ll be a good boy…I’ll never speed again…

Right.

Exactly one week later, I was stopped at a light on Route 1. Late at night. A guy pulled up next to me in an SS 396 Chevelle. Oh boy. It’s funny how circumstances can focus the mind. I literally forgot everything else. The light changed and we were off. I was smoking that Chevelle, too, feeling like the 17-year-old badass I knew I was, right up until the moment I spotted the cop. He saw us about the same time we saw him. Uh, oh. Racing on the highway. That was a big one…an 8-point ticket with a mandatory court appearance. My folks were about as angry as I’d ever seen them. And right in the middle of one of the worst “counseling sessions” I’d ever experienced from my old man, the phone rang. It was Joe Barzda at the California Speed and Sport Shop, wanting to know when I could start.

Now, you gotta picture this. Here I am, one step away from a life of crime, holding a traffic ticket for racing on the highway. My folks were mad as hornets, giving me hell for what was an admittedly boneheaded move. I’m wondering if I should run away or maybe join the Army (which I eventually did a few years later, but that’s another story). My parents were upset with the whole hot rod/muscle car thing, they were mad at me, and at that precise moment, the phone rings with a job offer to work at a place that’s smack dab in the middle of the whole car craze and performance movement.

The man himself…

I took that job, and it was one of the best breaks I ever had in my life, even though it turned me into a workaholic. I routinely worked 70 hours a week. At first, I put in those hours mostly because I was afraid to go home (my folks stayed mad for a long time about that racing ticket), but I loved the work and the California Speed and Sport Shop experience. It was the coolest place. It was one of the main places in the country for anything having to do with high performance automobiles. One day I looked up and my boss was talking to a guy with an Italian accent who looked vaguely familiar. When I asked Joe who it was, he told me: Mario Andretti. It was just that kind of place.

All of my friends knew I fell into clover working at the California Speed and Sport Shop. I worked there all through college, and for many years I stopped in to visit whenever I was back in NJ. The Barzdas I worked for are all gone now, but the shop is still there. A very cool place and a very cool job. It was just one of those lucky breaks, and I’ll be the first to admit I’ve had way more than my fair share of those in my life.

So there you have it.  Gresh wants us to do a series of stories on past jobs, and he keeps hitting me up for stories about the aerospace industry (that’s where I spent most of my working life).  Interested?  If so, let us know, and we’ll push ahead.

Mr. Bray

I didn’t start out working for Mr. Bray. He was a deep red construction foreman who had been baking in the Florida sun all his life. His nose looked like Bob Hope’s except God had pressed his thumb into Mr. Bray’s right nostril and kind of smooshed the thing to the side. Mr. Bray ran projects all around Miami. I was a laborer helping my dad who was an equipment operator. The main job of labor for an equipment operator is to never let the operator get off the machine. Anything that needed to be done in order to keep him in his seat was my responsibility.

Mr. Bray had hired my dad to do the earthwork on a shopping center he was building in North Miami. I was a hard worker because I wanted to make some seed money and go back to California. I was taking growth hormones and steroids at the time. It was all I could do not to tear the footings out of the ground with my bare hands. The meds were prescription: Starting with a 5-foot tall, 98-pound body the pills added 6 inches in height and 27 pounds in acne over 3 years. I had abundance of energy, man. I tore around the construction site like a banshee. Mr. Bray liked a hard worker, drug-induced or not, so he hired me away from my dad just by offering twice the money.

The job was Union, which meant I had to join one. Mr. Bray had connections at the carpenter’s local so he arraigned for my union card. This was a big deal because normally you’d have to wait in line to join and then you’d have to wait in line until the Union sent you out on a job. It might take several years to clear the backlog. I was a First Period Apprentice without missing a paycheck.

When I got that paycheck it was a disappointment. The Union dues sapped a lot, then the federal and state deductions sapped some more. My dad paid cash, you know? I ended up making less money than before. Mr. Bray had pulled strings to get me in but I showed him my pay stub anyway. “That’s not so good, is it?” Mr. Bray said. I told him that it wasn’t but that I would carry on. I mean I had taken the deal; I felt obligated. “Lemme see what I can do about it,” Mr. Bray told me.

The next paycheck I received my rating was Third Period Apprentice (equivalent to 1-1/2 years of experience and passing several written tests) and I was making 8 dollars an hour. This was more money than I had ever made in my lifetime. From then on my loyalties were clear. I was Mr. Bray’s boy. If he needed a body buried on the site I would do faster it and better than anyone else.

Mr. Bray’s crew consisted of a journeyman carpenter, a mid-level carpenter, a laborer and me. In practice, we weren’t tied to a trade. I might have to do a little wiring, relocate pipe or dig a foundation. We formed all the foundations, then the steel workers would tie the steel and we would pour the concrete. These were non-cosmetic jobs. For slabs we hired a crew of finishers.

It didn’t set well with the other guys when Mr. Bray made me the foreman the few times he had to go off site. I only had like two months of construction experience but had absorbed a lot more knowledge just by being around my dad. The journeyman carpenter got sulky taking orders from a third period apprentice.

I have never been a leader of men. My approach to management is to tell everyone to stay the hell out of my way and I’ll do it myself. Surprisingly it worked in this instance because these guys still had remnants of a conscience. We usually got more done when Mr. Bray was gone.

Mr. Bray used my size to motivate the crew. Whenever there was something heavy to move the guys would bitch and want a crane. “Gresh, put that plank on the roof.”  That was all I needed to hear. I was a greyhound shot out of a gate. I’d shoulder the 10-inch wide, 20-footer, run full tilt at the building, spear the end of the board into the ground like a pole vaulter and walk the board vertical onto the wall. While the rest of the crew shook their heads in pity I’d run up the ladder and grab the board, hand-over-handing the thing until I could rest it onto my shoulder. Putting the wood onto the roof took about 45 seconds.

The whole thing had a creepy, Cool-Hand-Luke-when-he-was-acting-broken vibe but I wasn’t acting. It was more an act of unreasonable anger. I wanted to get stuff done. It was all that mattered to me. Mr. Bray would turn to the guys and say “Look at Gresh, he did it easy. You don’t need a crane. Now put the rest of those damn boards up there.” Picturing the guys pole-vaulting the boards up one by one I’ll never understand why they didn’t beat the crap out of me when Mr. Bray turned his back.

Another Union trade on a construction job are the bricklayers. They would put up walls on the foundations we poured.  The floors were left dirt to allow new tenants to choose the interior layout.  After they put up the walls we would tie the steel and form the gaps between sections of wall then pour them full of concrete. The poured columns made a sturdy wall. Unfortunately, being only 8 inches wide, the wall is very fragile until the concrete columns are in.

Mr. Bray was always looking for ways to save the company money and as my dad’s equipment was still on site he would have me do small operator jobs rather than have my dad drive to the site and charge him. We needed a trench for something, I can’t remember what but since we only had a 14-inch bucket it didn’t matter. I was digging inches away from a wall with the backhoe at 45 degrees to allow the bucket to dump the spoil. I could only put one outrigger down because the wall was too close. The whole setup was wobbly and when a return swing ran a bit wide the boom tapped the wall. Not hard, it didn’t even chip the blocks.

It happened so slowly. The wall teetered. I pulled the boom away. I was wishing it to settle down. The wall tottered. More thoughts and prayers were directed at the wall. Slowly the wall went over and smashed into pieces. After checking to see that I didn’t kill anyone I went to Mr. Bray. “Um…we have a problem, Mr. Bray.”

He was marking stuff on his critical path chart. “What is it, Gresh?”

“You better come take a look.”

We walked over to the crushed wall. I explained everything like I just did. Mr. Bray was fighting some inner demons for sure. Finally his face relaxed and he said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll tell the bricklayers the wind blew it over.” Man, I loved that guy.

From my dad I learned a perfectionism that I have rarely been able to equal. From Mr. Bray I learned that perfection is a great goal but the job needs to get done because another trade is waiting on you. Mr. Bray would let a lot of things slide that my dad would obsess over. Working for Mr. Bray was much less stressful and customers inside the finished shoe store could not tell the difference.

The shopping center was nearly done. I had worked for Mr. Bray 6 months. I had a couple thousand dollars saved and told him I was going back to California. “Why don’t you stay on? I’ll train you in construction management, you’ll be a journeyman carpenter in 5 years and you’ll be running jobs like this.”

Mr. Bray was offering me his most valuable gift. He was offering me everything he had: To pass his lifetime of knowledge on to me. I had to go back to California though and I left feeling like I had let Mr. Bray down in the end. And even today I’m not settled. I’m still trying to finish the damn job.

BajaBound videos!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again:  If you’re headed to Baja, you have to have insurance for your auto or motorcycle, and there’s none better than BajaBound.   Check out these awesome videos highlighting Baja from our good buddies at BajaBound!

BajaBound has several more videos on YouTube. Like the company and the insurance they offer, they’re great!

44 Special Loads

The .44 Special: It’s a classic cartridge, one that suggests sixguns, the Old West, and Dirty Harry. Elmer Keith, Remington, and Smith and Wesson created the .44 Magnum, but Clint Eastwood is the guy who put it on the map. Before Dirty Harry, gun dealers had to discount Model 29 Smith and Wessons to get them to move; after the movie, Model 29s were selling for three times MSRP. It was as good an example of product placement as ever existed, and it occurred before the concept of product placement was even created.

A Ruger Super Blackhawk up top, and a vintage, hard-to-find Smith and Wesson Model 24.

But this really isn’t a story on the .44 Magnum. Nope, this is about the cartridge that preceded the .44 Magnum, and that’s the .44 Special. If you were paying attention during the Dirty Harry series, that’s the cartridge ol’ Harry Callahan said he used in his .44 Magnum Model 29 Smith and Wesson. He explained to his sidekick (a wayward, perpetually-confused female detective) that the .44 Special had  less recoil than the .44 Magnum (duh). To me, that was the best line in Dead Pool, arguably the worst of the Dirty Harry franchise.  I think the producers tried to squeeze too much milk out of the Dirty Harry cow; they should have stopped at Magnum Force and called it a win.

The .44 story is a complicated one. There’s the .44 Russian (predecessor to and shorter yet than the .44 Special), the .44 Special (the topic here today), the .44 Magnum, and the old .44-40. To make matters even more confusing, the bullet is not really a .44 in any of these cartridges; it’s actually 0.429 inches in diameter.   But cowboy songs about a .429 wouldn’t have the same ring as the ol’ .44 (think Marty Robbins and his Arizona Ranger ballad), so .44 it is.

The .44 Special and its big brother, the .44 Magnum, have a relationship similar to the .38 Special and the .357 Magnum. The .44 Mag is a longer version of the .44 Special (it has a longer brass cartridge case), just as the .357 Mag is a longer version of the .38 Special (it’s the same deal; the .357 has a longer case). The idea is the longer case holds more propellant, more propellant equals more pressure, and more pressure means more projectile velocity. Like Harry pointed out, you get a lot more recoil with a magnum cartridge (f still equals ma, as we are fond of saying in the engineering world), but real men ought to be able to handle it. Or so the thinking goes. Truth be told, the .44 Magnum is a bit much for me.  I greatly prefer shooting the .44 Special (as did the fictional Harry Callahan). But I digress…let’s get back to the topic of this blog.

So Saturday was to be another day and another quest for a “secret sauce” recipe (this time for the .44 Special cartridge). The drill was to get out to the range before it started raining so I could test four different .44 Special loads in two different handguns: A 200th Year Super Blackhawk in .44 Magnum, and a Model 24 Smith and Wesson in .44 Special. I loaded 50 .44 Special rounds for this test; I just wanted to get a quick look near the top and bottom of the load range for two propellants (and those were Bullseye and Unique). The bullet du jour was a 240-grain cast Keith-type semi-wadcutter. I’ve been playing with .44s of one flavor or another since Dirty Harry first graced the silver screen, and the 240-grain cast Keith is as good as it gets.  I have a bunch of them on my reloading bench.

I expected the Smith and Wesson Model 24 to do better than the Ruger, and it did. The Ruger can handle both .44 Special and .44 Magnum cartridges, as it is chambered for .44 Magnum. When you shoot .44 Specials (which are shorter than .44 Magnum cartridges) in a gun chambered for the .44 Magnum, the bullet has to jump another tenth of an inch or so to get to the rifling. The Smith Model 24 is chambered in .44 Special, so the barrel’s rifling starts closer to the cartridge than it would in a gun chambered for the longer .44 Magnum cartridge.  But the Ruger is a .44 Magnum, and the .44 Special in the Ruger has to make that jump.  It’s already smoking right along when it hits the rifling and it’s unsupported during that first bit of its flight. That induces some smearing and distortion when the bullet smacks into the rifling, and that hurts accuracy. The same thing occurs when shooting .38 Specials in a .357 Magnum revolver. It’s why I’ve never been a fan of .45 Colt handguns with the extra .45 ACP cylinder, or .357 Magnum handguns with the extra 9mm cylinder. Those auto cartridge bullets have an even bigger jump to the rifling, and I’ve never seen good accuracy in the shorter auto cartridges in these revolvers.

Anyway, to get back to the main attraction, as explained above I only loaded 50 cartridges for this test, so I couldn’t shoot three groups with each load. This was to be just a quick look, because I had another 250 .44 Special cases primed, flared, and ready to reload back at the ranch. I just needed to know how to load them.

Based on my testing, the near-max load of Bullseye is the cat’s meow. 4.7 grains of Bullseye with the 240-grain bullet was consistent and accurate in both handguns, and it was awesomely accurate in the Smith and Wesson. Here are my results. So you know, all groups were shot at 50 feet, and all were 3-shot groups.

Accuracy testing of the .44 Special in the Ruger and the Smith and Wesson. 4.7 grains of Bullseye is the secret sauce!

Like I said above, the Bullseye load (again, that’s 4.7 grains with the 240-grain SWC bullet) is great in the Model 24 Smith, and it’s good enough in the Ruger. I mostly shoot .44 Magnum in the Ruger, and I will get better accuracy in that gun firing magnum cartridges than I would with the .44 Special rounds for the reasons explained above. I’ve already got a few great .44 Magnum loads; at some point I’ll develop lighter magnum loads for the Ruger. But that’s a project for another day.

Both the Ruger and the Smith are fine firearms, built in an era when attention to detail mattered to the manufacturers. The Model 24 Smith and Wesson is a real honey of a handgun. I’ve owned it since Mr. Reagan was in the White House, but until this weekend I had not shot it in years.  It’s nice to know I can still make it sing. And I love my Ruger, too. It’s a 200th year Ruger made in 1976, the 200th year of American liberty (and all Rugers manufactured in 1976 carry that inscription). I bought the Super Blackhawk Ruger when I was in the Army. Understandably but regrettably, my battery commander wouldn’t let me carry the Ruger in Korea (I had to carry a .45 ACP 1911, but that was a good deal, too).

I’ll have the Ruger out next weekend for our Motorcycles and Milsurps match (watch for the story here on the ExNotes blog).  I have a good load for it now, and I should do well.  We’ll see.

Want to see more Tales of the Gun stories?  You can do so here!

Don’t pay exorbitant range fees for your targets…get them delivered to your door here!

I use RCBS reloading gear.  This link will get you in the game!

Whale Watching!

The very title conjures excitement. Whales! Big, giant monsters…the creatures of legend. Visions of Moby Dick. Herman Melville. Call me Ishmael, and all that…

Yep, this is a topic I’ve covered before, back in September, but I like whale watching in Baja so much I thought we’d cover it again.  And yeah, Danny boy, you’re right…we’re inviting you to ride with us in March if you want to go.  You have to pass the personality test (which basically means if you’re a jerk we’ll take a pass) and you’ll have to convince us you have a significant social media presence (we want you to help us spread the ExNotes word).   Oh, yeah…one more thing…you’ll have to show up with a copy of Moto Baja!  We’ll sign it for you, and we want you to read the book so you know a bit more about riding in Baja before we head out.  We’ll be putting out more details on our March Baja ride in the near future, so keep an eye on the blog.

The best book on the best riding on the planet!

I’m convinced that the only reason the towns of Guerrero Negro and San Ignacio are not absolutely overrun with visitors during the months of January through March is that most folks just don’t know about the whale watching in Baja. To get to the point: It is the best in the world. That’s no idle overreach or hyperbole on my part. It is the best. It is the only place on the planet where you can get up close to the California grays and, in many cases, actually touch them. Go whale watching here in California and there will be maybe a hundred or more people on a large boat, and the closest you’ll get to a whale is maybe a hundred yards out in the open ocean. You might see one or more spout in the distance and it’s “mission accomplished.”

Not in Baja. It’s way better in Baja.  You’ll get on a little boat carrying maybe 8 or 10 people, you’ll go out in Scammon’s Lagoon or San Ignacio Lagoon, and you’ll be in the middle of a pod of whales.  Up close and personal. One will spout, then another, and then, suddenly, it’s like being caught in a lawn when the sprinklers go off. You’re surrounded, and they’re all close.

Mama and baby and me makes three. Baja whale watching. It’s the best in the world.

That’s when the fun starts. A whale or two, maybe twice the length of the little boat you’re bobbing around in, come right up to your boat. As in touching your boat. Then they exhale, or spout, and you’re covered in what you hope is sea water and not whale snot. Everybody laughs, including the whales.  You realize there are literally thousands of whales in your lagoon. And then you see two whales, and you realize the larger one is the mom. She’s literally pushing the little one closer to your boat, training her calf not to be afraid of people.

Ewwwww!

You’re excited about seeing the whales. They’re excited about seeing the people.  That’s when you feel it. There’s some kind of extra-sensory-perception thing happening between you and the whales. No one who ever does this goes away feeling the same. I’ve done it maybe 20 times now, and I can’t wait to get down there to do it again.

The story goes like this: More than a century ago, whalers wondered where the whales were going. You see, the California grays spend their lives on the longest migration of any mammal. They winter in Baja and summer in Alaska (which probably makes them smarter than us). But when the whalers were hunting them, the bad guys didn’t know this. They harvested (read: slaughtered) the whales they could catch out in the open ocean heading south in the months before that January-March window, or headed north after those three months, always wondering where they were headed. Then, in the 1800s, a whaling captain named Scammon discovered the lagoon that carries his name today and the word got out: These whales are all holed up in Scammon’s Lagoon. It was a blood bath and the herd of approximately 20,000 California gray whales nearly went extinct.

That’s when the Mexican government stepped in and protected the herd. It’s taken a while, but they’re back up to a population of 20,000 whales, which is what the ocean will support.

A few years ago when I was on one of my whale-watching Baja trips, there were half a dozen Mexican Navy gun boats out in the lagoon, something I had never seen before. I asked our boat captain about it, and he told me that none other than Vincente Fox, President of Mexico, was going whale watching that day. He had plans to develop the Guerrero Negro area into an industrial center, a home for manufacturers, a move opposed by Mexican environmentalists because they feared it might affect the whales, the ospreys, the sea lions, and the other protected critters in this corridor. They implored Mr. Fox to see the whales, knowing that ESP thing would kick in. The day I was there he was doing that. After his excursion, folks asked the President if he would pursue his vision of an industrial zone. “Leave it as is,” Mr. Fox answered. He knew.

Getting there takes a day or two, and taking two days is the better approach. Simply head south from California. Cross in Tijuana, stop to pick up a free Tourist Visa, and head south. I’ve made Guerrero Negro in a single day, but that required getting up at 4:00 a.m. here in Los Angeles and riding hard for the next 700 miles, much of it in the Valle de los Cirios twisties. No, it’s better to take an easy lope down, spend the evening in San Quintin, El Rosario, or Catavina, and then continue the trek south the next morning. Hotels abound in all locations, and the ride south is best savored like a fine wine. Make sure you have Mexican insurance (go with BajaBound; we always do), and bring your passport. You won’t need it to get into Mexico, but you will need it to get back into the US.

The options are to stay in Guerrero Negro and grab a whale watching tour there, or continue south for another 70 miles to San Ignacio. In my opinion, Guerrero Negro is the better option because the ride to the Scammon’s Lagoon takes only a few minutes. If you stay in San Ignacio (a beautiful little town in the center of the peninsula) getting to San Ignacio Lagoon is an hour ride on a rough dirt (read: soft sand) road.

Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro is a wonderful place to stay, but the other hotels in Guerrero Negro are also great.

There are hotel choices in both places. I like Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro, but they’re all good. Malarimmo’s is the original place for Baja whale watching, but there are others and they are all good. You may be able to call ahead and get reservations, but it helps if you speak Spanish. If it just me and one or two of my friends, we just go. If I’m bringing a group down, I call ahead for reservations.

The whale watching tours are $50 (that’s US dollars), but trust me on this: It’s the best $50 you’ll ever spend.

You can go out in the morning or the afternoon (I usually pick the morning tour), and like I said above, the whales are in town from January through March. I like March, because the weather is milder, and I think the whales are friendlier (they’ve had three months to get used to interacting with people).   You’ll see whales, you’ll see baby whales, and you might even get to see whales mating.   Actually, if that’s going on, all you’ll see is a lot of turbulence on the surface, but they tell me there’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on down there.

Whale watching in Baja: It’s a hoot…and it’s still one of the best-kept secrets on the planet. You need to get down there and see it before the rest of the world finds out.  You can thank me later.

A nice note from Sergeant Zuo…

I had a nice surprise this morning…a nice note (complete with great photos) from Sergeant Zuo, our ride leader on the 2016 RX3 adventure ride across China.  Zuo and I became friends immediately on that trip.  He’s a retired Chinese Army senior NCO, and I was a lieutenant many years ago in the US Army.    Here’s the note from Zuo…

大舅：
请原谅我给您迟到的问候：新年快乐！
去年12月31日我们甘肃赛科龙俱乐部搞年会比较忙，没有及时想您新年的祝福，实在抱歉。
看您和二舅搞的论坛是我最大的一个乐趣，能从您的文章里看到你是我最高兴的事情。我可以借助翻译软件读懂您的文章。
您在中国的那段时间我们建立起来的感情不会因为山高路远而削弱，那些点点滴滴是我一辈子值得珍惜的。好几次在梦里都回到了我们在一起骑行的日子，这也许就是人们常说的“神交”吧。
2018年5月份我和俱乐部的几个车友参加了宗申在新疆搞的“龙行环塔活动”——宗申车队参加中国环塔拉力赛邀请我们RX3车主去做亲友团，之后就一直上班，在没有大的骑行活动。
最后祝您和爱人身体健康。
送您几张今年骑行的照片。
—— 左振义 2019年1月3日于中国兰州

In first photo above, Zuo is the guy on the left.   What’s that?  You don’t speak Chinese?   Okay, here you go…

Dajiu:
Please forgive me for your late greetings: Happy New Year!
On December 31 last year, our Gansu Secco Club was busy with the annual meeting. I didn’t send your New Year’s greetings in time. I am really sorry.
It is my greatest pleasure to see the forums you and that the two of you are engaged in it. It is my happiest thing to see you from your article. I can read your article with translation software.
The feelings we built up during the time in China will not be weakened by the high mountains and high roads. Those bits and pieces are worth cherishing for my whole life. On several occasions, I returned to the days when we were riding together in our dreams. This may be what people often say about “God Exchange.”
In May 2018, I and several club riders of the club participated in the “Dragon Line Ring Tower” held by Zongshen in Xinjiang. Zongshen Racing Team participated in the China Ring Rally and invited our RX3 owners and their  friends and relatives. It is a big cycling activity.
Finally, I wish you and your friend good health.
Send you a few photos of this year’s ride.
—— Zuo Zhenyi January 3, 2019 in Lanzhou, China

For those of you who don’t know, Dajiu is my Chinese name, bestowed upon me by the Chinese riders during our 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride.  It means Big Uncle.  Gresh and I were both on that ride; his similarly-bestowed Chinese name is Arjiu, or Little Uncle.  You can read all about that, and more, in Riding China.  (You should buy several copies.  They make great gifts.)

Zuo, my friend, it’s always great to hear from you.  Ride safe.   When you’re ready to visit the US, we’ll have a cold beer and a warm welcome waiting for you!

Three Flags Classic: Day 2

The second day of the 2005 Three Flags Classic motorcycle rally would take us from Gallup, New Mexico (where we stayed the first night of the tour) to Grand Junction, Colorado.  You can catch up on the ride by reading our prior blog posts here:

The 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally:  the Intro!

The Three Flags Classic:  Day 1

And with that, let’s get to Day 2!

Day 2 of the 2005 Three Flags Rally. Good times. Great roads. Gorgeous scenery. A grand ride in every respect!

To continue the adventure, we were up early and we rolled out of Gallup, New Mexico on a beautiful day.  The bikes were running great and Marty and I were in high spirits.  It’s hard to put into words what it feels like to be on these kinds of rides.  You’re out in the world, on a powerful motorcycle, seeing things worth seeing.   It’s a great experience and a great feeling.  Everything just seems better to me when I’m on a motorcycle ride.  I sleep better, the food has better flavors, the people are friendlier, the bikes feel stronger, and on and on it goes.  You need to experience it to really understand it.  You folks who ride the big rides know what I’m talking about.

We spent very little time on the freeways on the Three Flags Rally. Most of our riding was on magnificent roads like the ones you see in the photos below.  The folks at the Southern California Motorcycle Association who planned the ride did a fantastic job.

Another cool shot on the road in New Mexico. That’s Marty and his K1200RS BMW, with my Daytona in the background. Marty still owns the K1200RS. It has 144,000 miles on the clock.
Another Daytona shot in New Mexico. That’s Shiprock in the background.

If it seems like there are a lot of pictures of my Daytona here, well, I guess there are. I loved owning the Daytona, and the more I rode it, the more I liked it. For a cool story on how I came to own this bike, check out this blog entry I wrote a few months ago.

A few miles up the road from this location, we crossed into Colorado. This was my first time in Colorado, other than passing through the airport in Denver a few time on business trips.  But those stops don’t really count…a layover in any airport could be a layover in, well, any other airport.

Mesa Verde, Colorado. Wow…this was a great ride!

Marty wanted to stop in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.  I had never heard of the place (I don’t get out enough, I guess), but I was up for it.  Marty was a very easy guy to travel with and he didn’t have many preferences.  He was a judge (that is to say, he’s the real deal…a Superior Court judge), and he told me that he didn’t want to make any decisions on this ride.  Where we stayed, where we stopped to eat, and all the rest were up to me.  I think that’s because Marty was paid to make decisions all day long.   Making decisions was his job, and he wanted a break.    So when he asked to hit Mesa Verde, it was about the only time he expressed a preference on where to go, and I was all for that.  It was a good move.   Mesa Verde National Park is an impressive place.

The ride up to the top of Mesa Verde (it literally means “green table” in Spanish) was awesome.  It’s a multi-mile climb to about 8500 feet, and the vistas are incredible.  You can see clear into New Mexico from the top.

All of the above, as you can see from the photos, was grand.  But the main attractions at Mesa Verde National Park are the ancestral Pueblo Native American ruins.   That part of the Park is almost beyond belief.  It’s real Indiana Jones stuff.

Ancient Indian cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde. If you’ve never been to Mesa Verde National Park, trust me on this: You need to make the trip. Watch for the next issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine…it’s got all the good info on where to stay, where to eat, and more.

Mesa Verde is a very interesting National Park.   I liked it so much that Sue and I took a road trip there last summer to explore the area in more detail.  I’d been thinking about it in the 14 years that have elapsed since the 2005 Three Flags Classic.  I wanted to see it again and bring my wife so she could see it.   The Native American cliff dwellings are amazing and the scenery is magnificent.  I have a story coming out on Mesa Verde in the next issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine.  It really is a special place.  Marty made the right call on this one.   Hey, he’s a judge.  The guy makes good decisions!

After Mesa Verde, we rode through heavy rains along the Dolores River and stopped in Telluride, Colorado.  The sun came out just as we entered town.   The ride along the Dolores River in Colorado was beautiful even in the rain.   We were having a grand time.

Downtown Telluride, washed clean by a torrential Colorado rain.

We had a checkpoint in Rangely, Colorado. It was a great experience.  I had a conversation with a guy named Pat (a BMW GS rider), and it turned out he lives one street over from where I live in California.   I mean, think about that: Here we were, probably 1300 miles from So Cal, two guys strike up a conversation, and it turns out we’re practically neighbors (but we had never met before this ride).   What are the odds?

Good buddy and GS rider Pat, a fellow Californio, at a checkpoint in Colorado.

We made Grand Junction, Colorado, where we would be spending the night, and we reconnected with our friends at the hotel.  Dinner was great, and then the rain started again.   I felt like taking more photos after dinner and I wanted to play with a couple of new toys.  I had just purchased an ultra-wide Sigma 17-35 lens and I wanted use it.  I had also purchased a Sunpak MiniPro Plus tripod for the trip.  It looked like it was going to be a good idea, but it was a bust. One of the legs broke off halfway through the ride, and I threw the thing away.  I almost never travel with a tripod any more.   They’re just too bulky, and I can usually find something to steady the camera for evening shots.

Our bikes, parked in the rain at the hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado. I used the 17-35 Sigma for this shot, and my uber-cheap tripod (before it broke).

That wrapped up Day 2 of our Three Flags Classic ride in 2005.   It was a great ride.   We were two days into it and we had already ridden halfway across the United States.   Out tally so far was two countries and four states.  We still had several more states and another whole country to go.  It was magnificent.

There’s more to come on this grand adventure, folks.  Stay tuned for Day 3!