We were visiting the Planes of Fame last month when I spotted the US Army World War II motorcycle you see below…
At first, I thought it was a Harley WLA 45, but nope, a nice young fellow named Paul was working on the motorcycle and he told me it was an Indian. Wow, you don’t see too many WWII US Army Indians. I was a bit embarrassed (after all, I wrote a book about police and military motorcycles), but the beauty of this motorcycle soon made me forget that. Check out these photos, folks…
During the war, Indian produced about 40,000 motorcycles and essentially devoted its entire operation to military production. It produced few civilian motorcycles (the company did not even bother to print a catalog in 1942), although it maintained a small amount of its production capacity for police motorcycles. It sold its military motorcycles to the U.S. Army and to several other Allied nations, most notably England. Indian offered several models during World War II. These included the Model 741, the Chief, the Model 640B, the M1, and the Model 841.
The Model 741
The Model 741 was Indian’s main military motorcycle. It was the machine Indian had developed in response to the U.S. Army’s ill-advised initial requirement for a 500-cc military motorcycle. The Model 741’s engine actually displaced 30.5 cubic inches (or 500 cc), and for this reason it became known as the “30-50.”
The Model 741 was based on Indian’s Junior Scout. Its 500-cc, V-twin engine was the Junior Scout engine detuned for increased durability. It only produced about 15 horsepower. The Model 741 had a hand shift and a foot clutch like the Harley-Davidson WLA, but the Indian motorcycle put the shifter on the right side of the gas tank instead of on the left side as Harley-Davidson had done. The motorcycle’s throttle was in the left handgrip, in accordance with the army’s initial specification. As Harley-Davidson had done, Indian extended the front forks to give greater ground clearance. Indian also extended the rear frame for the same purpose. The Model 741 also used the much larger Indian Chief’s transmission for increased reliability. The Model 741 had a rifle scabbard on the right front fender and an ammunition container on the left front fender.
The Indian Model 741, like the Harley- Davidson WLA, was not a high-performance motorcycle. Both machines weighed over 500 pounds. Both machines had top speeds of approximately 65 mph. The army was more interested in durability than in top speed.
The U.S. Army used the Indian Model 741 during World War II, as did the armies of Great Britain, Canada, Poland, Australia, and Russia. Indian also sold Model 741s to the British Royal Air Force.
A comparo…Slick and Zero. It was fun doing this one.
Hey, this is cool. Our story on the CSC City Slicker and Zero electric motorcycles was picked up (and quoted extensively) by a website called Electrek, an Internet magazine focused on electric vehicles. Imagine that…being quoted in a magazine. That’s cool…other people quoting me. I’m working on learning how to write gud (spelling and grammar mistakes intended, folks) because when I grow up I want to write as well as Arjiu (and that would be my good buddy and literary hero, Joe Gresh).
Okay, enough on that. I said I would someday explain the Dajiu and Arjiu business, and this is that day.
Dajiu and Arjiu in China. Yeah, we like gladiator movies…
So I’m Dajiu (which means big uncle, I’m told) and Joe Gresh is Arjiu (which means little uncle). Our Chinese buddies gave us those names on the Western America Adventure Ride (you can read about that in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM). Joe and I were leading a ride around the western US with a group of guys from China, and they were having difficulty with both of us having the same first name. It’s funny…most of the Chinese guys had adopted English names (Hugo, Leonard, Kyle, etc.) to make it easier for us, but they were having trouble with us having the same English name (Joe and Joe). On the second day of that ride, Hugo (Zongshen’s factory guy) fixed it by giving us new names, Dajiu and Arjiu. Hugo called us all together to make a formal announcement, and he handled it in a very solemn manner. I imagine the ceremony was similar to becoming a made man in the Mafia, or maybe a Bar Mitzvah. The Chinese guys thought it was marvelous.
The pronunciation is “Dah Geo” and “Ar Jeo” and our new Chinese names stuck. Whenever we’re with the Chinese guys, they simply refer to us as Dajiu and Arjiu, as if those were our given names. That’s how we’re introduced to others in China. It’s pretty cool. You can call us that, too, if you wish.
A week or so ago we posted a blog about my good buddy Baja John considering the purchase of a bike to keep at his home in Bahia de Los Angeles. We asked for your inputs and we received several (thanks very much). John pulled the trigger, and he wrote a guest blog to tell us about the rationale behind his decision. Here you go, folks…
***************************
As Joe mentioned in an earlier post, I have been considering a bike to keep at my house in Mexico. Although I’ve had the house for several years, I never kept a motorcycle there because I had no secure place to store it. Thus, my motorcycle riding in Mexico was limited to bikes that I could ride long distances at highway speeds from my home in the U.S. Both my KLR 650 and my CSC RX3 250 fit this bill, however, I recently built a garage at the house in Mexico, and now I can keep a motorcycle there. Since this motorcycle will only be ridden in Mexico, and primarily on the Baja Peninsula, I don’t necessarily need a bike that can do more than 60mph comfortably. I also want a bike that will probably see on and off road equally. So, I laid out the requirements, and set out to find a bike.
My requirements are a bike that is 1: reliable, 2: simple to work on in the field, 3: lightweight with a smooth power band, 4: comfortable for long distances, 5: a range of at least 150 miles on a tank of gas, 6: has enough ground clearance for the majority of off-road riding that I will do, and if I’m lucky, 7: has a kick starter that will fire the engine up in the event of a dead battery. That last requirement is tough to satisfy these days, so it became more of a desire. If I were going to ride in cold weather, I would also require enough wattage to power heated gear, but fortunately, the majority of my riding will be in temperate climates.
So, why the desire for the bike to start with a dead battery. For me it boils down to peace of mind. Many years ago, when I rode the 2,200 mile round trip to Cabo San Lucas on a small 150cc bike, the battery died before I was halfway through. No problem. I used the kick starter and rode that bike all the way back to the border with a dead battery. I thought that all motorcycles would start with a dead battery, as long as you could turn the engine over. I recently found out that this is not the case when I went to the movies on my RX3. I came out of the movie theater and started the bike. It cranked over as usual, and started. About 2 blocks down the street, I came to a stop sign. The engine died. I hit the starter, but nothing. I thought that I had inadvertently hit the kill switch. Nope. I pushed the bike to a nearby downgrade, rode it down, popped the clutch, the engine sputtered a little, but would not run. Put in a new battery and it was business as usual. I called Gerry, the mechanic at CSC at that time, and he explained that fuel injected motorcycles will not run without a good battery. Lesson learned. Thus, my strong desire to find a bike that won’t leave me stranded in the desert because the battery died.
My first thought was to use my KLR, but the riding height always bothered me even though I am 6’ tall. That’s OK though, because I can get some lowering links, but it is also a heavy bike with enough power to get me into trouble. I know that dirt bikers rely on a bike with a good power band to maintain control with the throttle when they need to, but I’m not a dirt bike rider, and I prefer not to throttle my way out of trouble. Buying another RX3 also crossed my mind. A gentleman near my home in AZ is selling one with 9K miles for $2,195 with a few extras already installed. I like the RX3 for the majority of off-road riding that I do in the U.S. I like the lower seat height so that I can plant both feet firmly on the ground when I need to. I like the smooth power band so that I don’t break the rear tire loose if I accidentally blip the throttle. No surprises with the RX3. I like the confidence that it instills in me to take roads that I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking on the KLR, however, I don’t want to have to carry a small alternate battery with me in Mexico with enough power for the EFI system, and then attempt to find a way to push start it in the desert. It is also a heavier bike than I prefer for the dirt, and as an adventure bike, it doesn’t have quite the ground clearance of a dual-sport bike.
So, how heavy is the RX3? The internet says 385lbs wet with the stock side bags and trunk. I decided to find out by taking my RX3 to the local scale. It weighed in at 420lbs with a half-tank of gas and my aluminum Tourfella trunk on the back with no side bags attached. The Tourfella just had a few tools, air pump, and some tie-down straps in it. The internet says that my KLR is 370lbs dry, so it shouldn’t be much heavier than the RX3 when wet, but I’m staying in Wisconsin for the summer, so I currently don’t have the KLR with me to take to the scales, but it feels like it’s quite a bit heavier than the RX3, and it definitely feels more top heavy. Based on the discrepancy between the RX3 advertised wet weight and the actual wet weight that I saw at the local scale, I’m going to guess that the KLR is close to 500lbs. Although neither of these bikes are too heavy to pick up by myself, I’m 65, and it appears that I’m never going to get any younger, no matter how much wishful thinking I do, so I prefer something lighter. Enter the Yamaha XT250.
The XT250 pretty much checks all of the boxes. I recently stopped by a dealership to see one. I wanted to sit on it and check out my riding position and standing position. Everything good so far. The tank is only 2.4 gal, but at the advertised 78mpg, it should meet the 150 mile range. It’s Yamaha reliable, easy to work on, and less than 300lbs wet with a very comfortable 32” seat height. I would still have to ride one to get some feel of the power band and comfort while riding, but at a price of $5,200, I decided that a new one was out of the question, so I didn’t bother with a test ride at the dealer. A little research told me that the 2008 to 2012 models were carbureted, so I searched Craigslist and Cycle trader to find a used one. The pre-2013 models were running a much more reasonable $2,500 to $3,200, but I couldn’t confirm whether there was a kickstarter kit available for them like there was for the Yamaha TW200. Yep, this bike is looking good, but I still prefer to find a bike with a kickstarter that is post-1980’s and not a pure dirt bike, so the search continued, however, I may still buy a used XT250 in addition to another motorcycle. After all, it’s always good to have a spare bike, especially in Mexico where my bike may be down for a couple of weeks waiting for someone to bring me a part from the U.S.
I remember seeing the CSC TT250 when I was visiting CSC a couple of years ago when I returned from one of the CSC sponsored rides, so I went online to review the specs. Wow, this bike had possibilities. Although it’s a Chinese bike, my RX3 has been very reliable, and probably the best motorcycle that I’ve ever owned, due to its reliability, versatility, and comfort. I take that bike with me wherever I go, either on the back of my motorhome or on a hitch carrier attached to my Jeep. Manufactured by Zongshen, the same company that builds the RX3, I was sure it would be well made and reliable. Plus the Honda CG clone engine has been known for its reliability for decades. So, let’s check the boxes.
I went online to the ADV and China Rider forums to see what TT250 owners had to say about the bike. 1: Reliable: Yes. 2: Simple to work on: Obviously, being a CG clone engine. Plus CSC provides a service manual and online service tutorials. 3: Lightweight with a smooth power band: Advertised at 309lbs it looks like it will be about 100lbs lighter than the RX3, and riders say it has a smooth power band. 4: Comfortable for long distances: Riders say that they like the wider seat, the riding position, and apparently there is not too much wind buffeting. 5: Range of 150 miles: At 65mpg, the 2.9 gallon tank should make 150 miles even if only 2.3 gallons is usable. 6: Good ground clearance: Yes. 7: Kickstarter that will fire up the engine even with a dead battery: Yes to the kickstarter, but I haven’t been able to verify whether it will start with a dead battery. I suspect that this is true since it’s a carbureted engine. Steve at CSC Motorcycles said that he believes that this is true as well. One other thing that I like about the TT250 is that CSC offers a seat that will reduce the seat height to 32” if I feel uncomfortable with the 34” stock seat height.
So, what did I decide to do? Looks like that answer would be obvious, but first I wanted to verify the price out the door for a CSC TT250. $2,195 seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? So many times we find that things cost much more than the advertised price by the time the dealer tacks on fees for everything that they can think of. So, I asked Steve what the price would be shipped to my home. He said that they only add $400 to the price of the bike for prep, documentation, and shipping, so the cost to my door would be $2,595. At this point I was close to ordering one, but I had one last thing to check; accessories. I wanted to see what kind of accessories CSC offered, as well as the prices. Turns out, CSC offers a number of accessories, although not as many as the RX3. That’s understandable due to the type of rider and riding that the TT250 is designed for. Also the accessories are much less expensive than those for the majority of motorcycles manufactured today, so I chose a power outlet kit, rear luggage rack, handguards, helmet lock, and a 47 tooth rear sprocket in case I want a little more speed and less torque than the OEM 50 tooth provides. I was still thinking about waiting a few weeks until I returned home to Arizona to order one, but Steve said that they could hold the bike for me and ship it when I arrived home in October if I wanted to buy it now. Steve also told me that the next shipment of bikes arriving in October might be more expensive due to the possibility of additional tariffs imposed on Chinese products. In addition, he said that CSC stocks all accessories and OEM parts that you need for the bike, and they will usually arrive at your home within 2 or 3 days of ordering them. At that point I said, “Sold”, and ordered the bike. Within 15 minutes I had received and approved the invoice from Sara. They will ship it to my home in Arizona shortly after I arrive during the 3rd week of October.
Now that I pulled the trigger, I’m very happy with my decision. During my lifetime, I’ve seen customer service slowly decline over the decades. It’s refreshing to deal with a company that has a strong customer service ethic. I’m anxious to get home, break the bike in, and change the oil before I take it to Mexico at the end of October. I’m also going to run the battery down and see if I can kickstart it with a nearly dead battery. It turns out that there was an added bonus to ordering the bike when I did, since I found out after the fact that I bought the last white one that CSC had in stock. “Hoorah!!!”
************************************
Awesome inputs, John, and thanks very much. We think you made a good decision. CSC is one of our advertisers, so we are glad to see that you bought the TT250. For those of you following the ExNotes blog installments about the CSC 150 Mustang ride to Cabo and back, John was one of the guys on that ride. And those of you who read Moto Baja! will know that John is the guy with whom I’ve ridden many, many miles in Mexico (he and I rode my first trip ever to that magical land).
With Baja John in Mexico many moons ago….
And for our other readers…do you have a story you’d like to share with us? Hey, let us know, and we’ll consider it for the ExNotes blog!
One of the things we’ve done to publicize the ExhaustNotes site has been to issue a press release, our very first, and you can see it here. When I was with CSC, one of the guys we talked to early in the game was a young fellow named Mike Satterfield. Mike’s a cool guy who has a clothing line and a couple of cool websites (we’ll be telling you more about those in a subsequent blog).
Anyway, Mike mentioned the power of press releases, and when I was at CSC I put one together. The effect was phenomenal, and CSC sales and media coverage took off sharply. We thought we might try it for the ExNotes blog, and son of a gun, the same thing happened again. Our pageviews and site visits jumped sharply. This press release business works!
The ExhaustNotes post today has two videos, and both are from Janus Motorcycles.
Janus checks all of the boxes for us: Small displacement, custom crafted, ultra-high quality, hand-built-in-America motorcycles. What I found especially intriguing is that one of the Janus founders, Richard Worsham, rode his 250cc motorcycle across the United States. That, my friends, is extremely cool (it’s downright inspirational, in my opinion). It grabbed my attention because long trips on small-displacement motorcycles to demonstrate reliability is one of the things we did when I was at CSC Motorcycles. It’s a brilliant strategy.
We’ll be telling you more about the Janus line in the future, but one of the things I’ll mention up front is that Janus uses an overhead valve CG-clone engine, which is probably the most-frequently-used engine on the planet. My experience with these engines has been that they are bulletproof, and I say that because I’ve put tons of miles on them. They’re easy to maintain, as they should be. That’s what Honda had in mind when they designed the CG engine.
So, enough yakking. Let’s get to the videos. First, the ride across the United States…
And here’s another one about the Janus culture, and the inspiration for their motorcycles…
This was a trip I did almost 10 years ago with a few good friends, and we were all on 150cc hardtail Mustang replicas. California Scooters, to be precise. Just as they were being introduced to the market. Yep, we rode to Cabo San Lucas and back on 150s.
Anybody can ride Baja on a big bike. We wanted to do something different. It was all a big publicity thing. Dog bites man, no big deal. Man bites dog, that’s a story. Ride to Cabo and back on a motorcycle? No big deal. Do it on a 150cc repop of a bike made 70 years ago? That’s something the media would pick up, I reckoned, and I was right.
But first, let me introduce the crew…
Simon, Arlene, J, Baja John, and me. And the star of this show, the CSC 150 Mustang Replica.
I invited folks on this ride who had to meet two criteria: They had to be able to help maximize CSC’s exposure in digital and print media, and they had to say yes.
Simon Gandolfi is a British novelist who rode a 125cc bike all the way to the southernmost tip of South America and back, and then he rode another 125cc bike across India. He had a blog and he posted a lot on ADVRider.com.
My good friend Arlene Battishill is president and CEO of Go Go Gear, a maker of high end women’s riding apparel. Arlene had a custom California Scooter, she’s a tweeter, and she’s all over that great American institution fortuitously founded before the #MeToo movement, Facebook.
I wanted my longtime Mexico riding partner Baja John Welker to ride with us. John and I have been all over Mexico on our motorcycles. He keeps me from doing really stupid things on our Baja trips. To hear him tell it, it’s a full time job.
My good buddy J Brandon (president of American Sahara), tagged along in his Dodge Power Wagon, carrying spare parts and water. I thought having a chase vehicle might be a good idea. It turned out that having the chase vehicle along was just okay. Having J along, though, was great.
You might be wondering…how did I hook up with CSC? I kind of fell into the CSC gig. I was initially hired to duel the digital dufi, the cretins badmouthing CSC on Internet forums (dufi is the plural of dufus). I knew the digital dufi supply was infinite, so I reckoned this new gig might be a job for life. Dealing and Dueling with the Dufi. It almost sounded like a TV show (you know, Dancing with the Stars). What intrigued me beyond that, though, was the CSC motorcycle. I liked it. A modern Mustang. That could be a hell of a thing.
As I was being clever and outwitting unarmed digital opponents in the Great Forum Wars of the New Millenia, I pitched the Baja idea to Steve Seidner, the guy who owns CSC. Steve was all for it. “Don’t be gentle,” he said. “Take the bikes down there and break them.” Seidner wanted to unearth the modern Mustang’s weaknesses, and Baja’s broad badlands would bubble those up.
So, what was it like? Okay, here ya go…
A sneak preview of the next 2200 miles….on 150cc California Scooters!
I’ll tell you about the ride, and I’ll tell you a bit about each of the riders on this trip, and in this first installment, Simon Gandolfi gets the spotlight. Like I mentioned above, he’s a British author. A famous one. And he’s a blogger, too. I started reading Simon’s blog during his travels through South America, and I was hooked. He wrote Old Man On A Bike about that adventure. This guy would be perfect for our ride, I thought. World traveler, small bikes, and he has a following. And then Simon met the most important criteria: He said yes when I invited him. Simon blogged our Baja adventure, and his words were mesmerizing. Here’s one of his descriptions…
Joe and Arlene ride production bikes. John and I ride pre-production bikes. These are small bikes, pretty babies to treasure. The average owner will ride down to the store on a Sunday or drop by a neighbour’s – say twenty minutes max. Steve wants the bikes tested to destruction. John is massive and I’m no light-weight. Steve wants destruction, we’re his men. Day one south from Tijuana is horrific coastal-strip development on the cheap side of cheap. Pass Ensenada and I begin to understand Baja’s magic: clarity of light, range upon range of mountains, immense spaces across which merely to travel is an adventure. Even Big John becomes little more than a moving microdot.
Baja John, a microdot somewhere up there…riding south of Ensenada, headed for Cabo San Lucas…
This will be maybe six or seven blogs in total, spread out over the next month or so. It’s a good story and I like telling it. This has been the first installment.
Good buddy Greg admiring my M1922 Springfield on the range this past weekend. This rifle is about as old as Greg is, but it looks like it left the factory last week. It’s super collectible.
So, what’s this all about? A tale of two Springfields? Well, the topic is Springfield rifles, and specifically, the 1903 Springfield and its variants. I own two, and I think they are two of the finest firearms ever made. One is a 1903A1 with a scant stock (more on that in a bit). It’s a recent acquisition of a century-old rifle, and mine is essentially in as-new condition. It was gunsmithed from selected components so it’s not an original rifle, but I don’t care. I bought it to shoot it, and that’s what I’m doing. My other Springfield is an M1922, a special number chambered in .22 Long Rifle. It’s a magnificent rifle, it’s one I inherited from my father, and it is an amazing firearm. It’s in pristine condition, and boy oh boy, can it shoot!
The challenge here is to keep this blog short. There’s just so much to tell when the topic is the 1903 Springfield rifle and its variants. I’ll do my best to keep it manageable.
The M1903A1 Springfield, chambered in the mighty .30 06 cartridge.The M1922 Springfield, which shoots the much smaller .22 Long Rifle cartridge.
The Reader’s Digest version of the story goes like this…although we won the Spanish American War (and its Battle of San Juan Hill probably put Teddy Roosevelt in the White House), we very nearly got our butts kicked by the Spaniards. We were armed with antiquated, big-bore, rainbow-trajectory, single-shot rifles. The Spaniards had modern 7mm Mauser bolt action rifles, which were flatter shooting, faster (both in terms of reloading time and bullet velocity), and far more accurate. It was a dicey victory for us, and shortly after, the US Army incorporated the 1898 Krag rifle. We had to keep up with the Spanish Joneses.
While the Krag was a bolt-action rifle, it was not without problems, and we quickly developed a new rifle based on a modernized Mauser action initially chambered in a round called the .30 03. It fired a .308-inch diameter bullet (which is where the .30 part of the .30 03 name came from) and it was adopted in 1903 (which is where the 03 came from). We then improved the cartridge a bit in 1906 and it became the .30 06, or simply, the ’06. The ’06 is one of the world’s premier hunting cartridges, and many folks think is the best all-around cartridge on the planet. I’m one of them, but I digress. One more photo, and then back to the story.
A modern Winchester Model 70, chambered in the 102-year-old .30 06 cartridge. That wild boar, late of Arizona, fed us for a year!
Like I said, the original Springfield rifle was cambered for the .30 03 and the rifle was designed as the Model 1903. The .30 03 only lasted a short time and all of the 1903 rifles chambered for it were recut for the improved .30 06, but the rifle’s name remained the Model 1903. These early ones were cool, with straight grip stocks and elegant (but complex) rear sights. Then the rifle got a pistol grip stock, which I think looked cooler, and they became the 1903A1 rifles. Then they were made with stocks that were supposed to be straight grip stocks, but the Army wanted the pistol grip and the arsenal’s walnut blanks did not have enough meat to allow for a full pistol grip. The solution was to get as close as possible to a pistol grip from a straight grip walnut blank, which resulted in a shallow pistol grip; these became the “scant” stocks (presumably so named because the wood was too scant to allow a full pistol grip).
The 1903A1 “scant” stock. Note the relaxed pistol grip aft of the trigger, and on this particular rifle, the crisp Springfield Armory cartouche stamped into the walnut.Check out the 1903’s early, complex, adjustable rear sight. There’s was a lot of machine time and money there. The Army needed something less expensive.Load development for the 1903A1. These were cast bullets loaded with IMR 3031 powder. This particular rifle prefers jacked bullets with IMR4320 powder.
Later, the Army realized that the 1903’s fancy rear sight and other features were overly-expensive for a standard-issue battle rifle, so the ’03 was “value engineered” to make it less costly to manufacture. These became the Model 1903A3 rifles, often referred to simply as the ‘03A3.
Somewhere while all this was going on, the Army introduced versions of this rifle chambered in .22 Long Rifle. They were intended to be trainers, but they proved to be exceptionally accurate and the Army’s shooting teams (and others) competed with them.
The .22 Long Rifle cartridge (fired in the M1922 rifle), and the .30 06 Springfield cartridge (fired in the Model 1903).
The M1922s are phenomenal rifles, they are rare, and they are expensive in those rare instances they come on the market. My Dad bought one released through the Civilian Marksmanship Program 60 years ago for $25. Today, when one changes hands, you can bet the price is somewhere around $3,000. They’re that rare, and they’re that good.
The starboard side of the M1922. It is an elegant rifle.Lyman competition aperture sights on the M1922.The M1922’s Lyman aperture front sight. This rifle has “peep-to-peep” sights; both the rear and the front sights have holes to allow “peeping” at the target. They work very, very well.
You might be wondering: How do these rifles shoot?
Very well, thank you.
The M1922’s results at 50 yards. On the first bullseye on the left, the lone shot out of the black (at the 12:30 position) was the first shot of the day, fired from a cold and wet barrel.Targets shot with the Model 1903A1. The one on the left was terrible; I shot it with cast bullets at velocities too high for the bullet (the lead smeared in the barrel and the bullets wouldn’t group). The remaining four were shot with one of my favorite .30 06 loads (a 130 grain Hornady jacketed soft point bullet and 52.0 grains of IMR 4320 powder).
So, what happened to the 1903 as a military rifle? It served in World War I (although we couldn’t make them fast enough, so another rifle, the Model 1917, accounted for more than half the US battle rifles during the Great War). By the 1930s, we were already hard at work developing the Garand (that rifle fired the same .30 06 cartridge, and it was a semi-auto). The Garand became the US Army’s standard rifle in World War II. Interestingly, the US Marines stuck with the 1903 going into World War II, but they, too, soon switched to the Garand. The 1903 evolved into a specialty item. It was still recognized as phenomenally accurate and it became our sniper rifle in World War II (with a telescopic sight, it became the 1903A4).
Like I said, all of the above is the Reader’s Digest version of the story behind the Model 1903 rifle. The definitive reference on the 1903-series Springfield rifles is Joe Poyer’s The Model 1903 Springfield Rifle and Its Variations, and if you have a deeper interest in these historic and fine rifles, it is a book you should own. You can find it on Amazon.
Help us bring more stories to you: Please click on the popup ads!
Wow, the comments to our blog are pouring in. We’ve only been doing this for a little over two months, and we have something close to 300 comments on the roughly 90 blog posts we’ve done so far. We love getting your comments, so please keep them coming.
Hey, see that space to the right where it asks for your email address? If you add your email to the blog, you’ll get a notification every time we post. You won’t get unwanted emails as a result of signing up here, as we won’t sell or give your email address to anyone else. All you need to do is add your email address, and as soon as a new blog goes up, you’ll get notified. It’s FREE!
Sue and I took a ride to the LA County Fire Museum in Bellflower yesterday. They have a cool collection of vintage and historic fire-fighting equipment, including the actual truck used by the Granite Mountain Hotshots team (you might have seen the movie, Only the Brave), and the fire engine from the old Emergency TV series. It was a cool place to visit. I had the 8mm lens along with my favorite 35mm prime, and it was awesome…take a look!
That’s it for now, with just one teaser photo from an upcoming blog.
Whenever we post anything gun-related, the hits on our blog go through the roof. Good buddy Gobi told me to get another gun blog up on the wire, so my friend Greg and I sent some lead downrange through the Springfield rifles earlier today. Here’s a teaser photo from an upcoming blog showing Greg admiring a real beauty…anybody know what it is? One hint…my Dad paid a whopping $25 for it back in the day.
Somewhere in New Mexico on the 2005 Three Flags Rally with my ’95 Daytona 1200, a bike I still dream about.
I guess a bike can still be a dream bike if you owned one and then sold it. Hell, I still dream about my Triumph 1200 Daytona, so I guess it qualifies. It was a fantastic bike. A real locomotive. Crude, strong, powerful, and fun. And fast. Wow, was it ever fast!
I first saw a 1200 Daytona at a CBX Honda meet (yeah, I had one of those, too). It was at a guy’s house somewhere in Hollywood, and this dude also had a black 1200 Daytona. Well, maybe that’s not quite right…I saw one at the Long Beach Show even before then, but I didn’t really appreciate what it was all about. This CBX guy was laughing and telling me about the Daytona’s design.
“What they did, har har har, was basically just hang an extra cylinder off the right side of the motor, har har har,” he said. “Here, har har har, take a look at this, har har har,” and with that, he walked behind the Daytona and pointed to the engine. Holy mackerel, I thought. It had been a 900cc triple. Now it was a 1200 four, and the added girth of that extra cylinder stuck out of the frame on the right. They didn’t even re-center the engine in the frame. Anything this crude, I thought, I had to have. Har har har, the CBX guy was right. This was a machine worth owning. I had to get me one.
I guess the feeling passed (they usually do), but that bike stuck in my mind. I had pretty much forgotten all about that Daytona until one day when I received an email, way back in ’02, from my riding buddy Marty. It seemed there was a brand-new 1995 Triumph Daytona on Ebay. 7 years old, never sold, and the dealer in Wisconsin was auctioning it off on Ebay. In 2002.
Jesus, I was still on dial up Internet in those days. I can still hear the squelching when I logged onto AOL to get to the Internet. This can’t be right, I thought, as I studied the Ebay listing. I called the dealer. He was a Ducati and Kawasaki guy now, somewhere in Wisconsin. Used to be a Triumph dealer. He got the Daytona when he was still selling Triumphs, he had put it on display (it was stunning), nobody bit, he was anxious to sell, he lost the Triumph franchise years ago, and he was finally getting around to unloading the Daytona. Yep, it’s brand new, he told me. Never registered. 0.6 miles on the clock. $12,995 back in ’95. I already knew that. It was beyond my reach back then.
I did the only thing I could think of. I put in a bid. Using dial up. On Ebay. My friend Marty was shocked. So was I.
Over the next several days, the price climbed. Then it was D-day. Then H-hour. Then M-minute. The bid was $7,195. For a 7-year old, brand new, originally $12,995 motorcycle. I waited until there were just a few seconds left and I put in a bid for $7,202. On dial up Internet. Nothing happened. That was dial up for you.
The auction ended, my dial up Ebay was flashing at me. I swore up a blue streak, cursing the genes that had made me a cheap SOB who wouldn’t pay extra for broadband. I used dial up to save a few bucks, and now it had cost me big time. I thought I had let that dream bike get away. Then Ebay announced the winner, and it was me.
Yahoo! (No, Ebay and AOL!) I won! Whoopee!
My dream come true, after arriving from Wisconsin by air. I had visions of flying to Wisconsin and riding back, but when I called, the dealer’s wife told me he was out front shoveling snow…I know. Stunning. Mine. A dream come true.Beauty like this can drive ya buggy. The aftermath of a CLASSIFIED high speed run across central California on Highway 58.
A few days later, I had the bike, and my dream came true. I put 20,000 miles on it, I rode the thing from Canada to Mexico on the 30th Anniversary Three Flags Rally with Marty (I was the only Triumph among the 400 bikes that rode the event that year), and then I sold it. A dream come true, and I sold it. I know, I know. What was I thinking?
I can still dream, I guess, and I often do, of that big yellow locomotive with one cylinder hanging off the right side…
Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota…the turnaround point on our 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, a wildly-publicized event to show the world that the Chinese RX3 is a reliable motorcycle (and it is; we rode the entire ride with a bunch of bikes without a single breakdown, I wrote a book about it, and the rest, as they say, is history). We cut a meandering beeline (I know…we’re running a special on oxymorons this week) on some of the best roads in the US, from So Cal to South Dakota, turned west and hit more great roads until we ran out of continent, and then turned left again to follow the Pacific Coast back to So Cal. It was an amazing ride (you can read about it in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM) and it was incredible fun.
My favorite moment? Hands down, it was a photo at Mt. Rushmore. Kyle, one of the Chinese riders, was grabbing a pic of King Kong, Leonard, Hugo, and Tso in front of the world-famous monument. Dumb-ass me…I thought Kyle just wanted a photo of the four with Mt. Rushmore in the background and I wondered why he was making it so complicated. Holding the camera with his right hand and barking orders in Chinese while motioning with his left, old Kyle seemed to be injecting complexity into a situation that required none. At each new Kyle edict, the four guys in the above photo moved this way or that, changed their gaze slightly, and generally responded instantly to their Chongqing taskmaster. It suddenly dawned on me (and the rest of the folks watching this show, who started laughing and cheering at about the same instant): Kyle and his men were creating a “Made in China” Mt. Rushmore!
We were visiting the Planes of Fame last month when I spotted the US Army World War II motorcycle you see below…
At first, I thought it was a Harley WLA 45, but nope, a nice young fellow named Paul was working on the motorcycle and he told me it was an Indian. Wow, you don’t see too many WWII US Army Indians. I was a bit embarrassed (after all, I wrote a book about police and military motorcycles), but the beauty of this motorcycle soon made me forget that. Check out these photos, folks…
When I returned home, I had to look up what I had written two decades ago about the Indian 741 in The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles…
That’s it for now, with just one teaser photo from an upcoming blog.
