Another day, another Bill’s Old Bike Barn story. Wandering through the collection (I should say collections, but that’s a topic we’ll cover in the next Bill blog), I had to wonder: With all the absolutely stunning vintage motorcycles in his collection, which is Bill’s favorite? Which is the one he prefers above all others?
So I asked the question. I expected to hear something along the bar-and-shield line, as many of the machines in the barn are drop-dead-gorgeous vintage Harleys. Or maybe an Indian. You know, the V-twin thing. ‘Merica, and all that. Bill served in the US Army and he’s a patriot. Bill’s favorite motorcycle would most likely be a big V-twin from either Springfield or Milwaukee, I thought.
Nope. I was wrong. Think Nuremberg. As in Germany.
Right about now, you’re probably thinking BMW. But you’d be wrong, too. Bill’s personal favorite ride is a 1952 KS601 Zündapp. Take a look:
Bill and his 600cc KS601 1952 Zündapp.
Bill’s answer to my favorite moto question surprised me, both by his selection and his immediate ease in offering it up. “It’s my Zündapp,” he said, leading me over to the bike you see in these photos. “When I bought it, it only had 2,600 kilometers. It’s in original condition and it is the smoothest motorcycle I’ve ever owned.”
Check out the odometer on Bill’s Zündapp!A fuel tank that looks like a fuel tank. Bill’s Zündapp is a classy motorcycle.
A Zündapp!
So, who exactly is Zündapp and what’s their story? Glad you asked.
Zündapp started in 1917 as a bomb company. That’s right. Bombs. Munitions. Things that solve big problems quickly. The Zündapp name comes from combining the German words zünder and apparatebau (igniter and apparatus), which are the two things you need for a munition (the detonator and the secondary, or main, explosive). The detonator gets the explosion started and the secondary explosive does the heavy lifting. In 1919, after World War I ended, Germany was prohibited from things like making bombs (the Treaty of Versailles and all that). Zündapp had a choice: Go out of business or start making something other than bombs. They went with Door No. 2, and Door No. 2 led to motorcycles.
Zündapp first made two-strokes with engines from another manufacturer; they started making their own two-stroke engines in 1924. By the 1933 Berlin Motor Show, Zündapp was making four-stroke boxer twins along with their line of two-stroke machines. The four-strokes were called K models in a nod to their shaft drive (kardan means shaft in German). Just before World War II, Zündapp introduced the KS600 flathead boxer twin, with shaft drive, a pressed steel frame, and four-speed transmission. 1951 saw the introduction of the KS601 (the model you see in today’s blog). It featured a tubular steel frame, telescopic front suspension, and Zündapp’s 592cc overhead valve boxer twin engine. It looks a lot like a BMW motor (I supposed to the Germans, a Harley probably looks a lot like an Indian).
The Zündapp is a very interesting motorcycle. One of the Zündapp’s more interesting features is its interchangeable front and rear wheels (they were designed to allow easy tire rotation). When introduced, the KS601 was Germany’s fastest road bike. The Zündapp KS601 also enjoyed a reputation for excellent reliability. Zündapp built fewer than a thousand KS601 motorcycles through 1958, and what you see in this blog is one of them. Production ended in 1958 when Bosch acquired Zündapp.
I could have spent more time examining Bill’s Zündapp. It has not been restored. It is 100% original. It is one year younger than I am. It’s the first Zündapp KS601 I’ve ever seen. It exudes a magnificent patina, and it does so elegantly. I’m going to guess that wherever Bill rides it, he has the only one. It’s easy to see why it is Bill’s favorite.
Catch up with our earlier Bill’s stories! Bill Morris is the real deal, and Bill’s Old Bike Barn is one of the most interesting motorcycle museums I’ve ever visited. We’re doing on a series on the man and the museum; this is our fourth installment.
Miss our first blog on Bill’s Old Bike Barn? Hey, here it is:
My grandparents on my mother’s side owned a cabin in Cashiers, North Carolina. Built on the side of a steep hill you had to hand carry everything up to the cabin. Maybe if we had a 4-wheel drive we could have made it to the cabin, but my grandparents owned a Volkswagen van. The VW would start spinning its wheels halfway up. Mr. Price, who also lived in Cashiers, built the cabin. It was a slow process as The Grands paid as they went, never going into debt for the place. Mr. Price was easy going and worked on the place whenever he was sent money.
After about ten years of walking to the cabin my Grandfather, Grandmother, Billy Mac and me poured a concrete driveway to the cabin. It was about ten feet wide. The concrete trucks couldn’t make it all the way to the top so we manhandled buckets and buggies to pour that section. Further down we could just dump it out of the truck into the forms.
The job was easier than it sounds because we only had to strike off the top and finish the edges. The driveway had a concave shape to funnel water down the middle like a big sluice. We left the driveway as poured to provide a high traction, rough surface. At intervals we troweled an expansion groove. All in, the driveway was probably 300 feet long. After the driveway was built a car could make it to the cabin and it was real luxury not having to carry stuff up the steep, muddy driveway.
The road to the cabin was dirt, winding past two small lakes that were full of fish. Several roads split off the main road and at the last split before Gran & Gramp’s cabin there was a house with a purple-pink, GT750 Suzuki parked out front. The GT had three, flat black expansion chambers fighting for position underneath the crankcase.
I had read about the Suzuki triple cylinder in Popular Mechanics magazine but this was the first time I saw one in real life. Popular Mechanics did a road test on the bike and loved the big Suzuki. It got fairly good fuel mileage and Suzuki’s complex CCI oiling system was stingy with the injector oil. The Suzuki 750 was regarded as a touring bike, not at all like Kawasaki’s mad, mad three-cylinder H2 750.
The air in the mountain valleys carried sound in mysterious ways and when the owner of the Suzuki started the bike those expansion chambers cackled in on me from all directions at once. Was he above me, below me? Heading away or towards me? It was surround sound of the very best kind. I had a Honda Mini Trail and would ride over to the Suzuki house just to look at the bike. Polished aluminum cases, a color-coordinated radiator, big tachometer and speedo with a water temperature gauge: it didn’t seem like a touring bike to me. It seemed like something from another planet.
In the USA GT750s haven’t reached silly H2 prices yet. Their slightly boring reputation keeps the price low-ish. The engines last quite a long time and a GT750 turning 50,000 miles without a rebuild would not be unusual. A quick Google search brings up runners from $3500 to $8000 and that’s not bad compared to the overly complex modern stuff we are faced with at the local Mega Brand Dealer.
Probably the later GT750s are better motorcycles than the early ones. Suzuki improved the front brake and bumped up the power slightly towards the end of production. The first GTs had a Buck Rodgers look that you either loved or hated. I loved it. Really, I’d be fine with any year. The double-sided, twin leading shoe front brake on the first one was a thing of beauty and I’m guessing stopped good enough.
Of all the three-cylinder Suzukis I think the 750 is best. The 380 was a dog, the 550 was almost unnoticeable on the bike scene in those days. The big, water-cooled GT 750 made a huge splash (ha) and still ranks as one of my one-day, must-have dream motorcycles.
The Suzuki GT 750 is a sensible classic that you can ride everyday and cross the country on if the mood hits you. That’s not why I want one. I want one because of the sound it made in the mountains of North Carolina. I can hear it as I type this sentence, a cross between the whining of a tornado and the keys of a mechanical typewriter slapping onto the page.
Paso Robles’ Estrella Warbird Museum is way more than just warbirds. There are military vehicles, a munitions display, classic cars, race cars, vintage motorcycles, small arms, and more. And then it’s in Paso Robles, a worthy destination all on its own. We’ll touch on each of these in this blog.
First, the warbirds. There are a bunch on display, and there are two I feel most connected with personally…one is the F4 Phantom, and the other is the F-16 Air Combat Fighter.
That’s an F4 at the top of this blog. It’s what the USAF was flying when I was stationed at Kunsan AFB back in the mid-1970s, and it is an impressive airplane. I was on a HAWK air defense site just off Kunsan, high up on a mountain top overlooking Kunsan. We could pick up the F4s as they started their takeoff roll on Kunsan’s runway. When our high-powered illuminators locked on, the pilots knew it in the cockpit. They’d take off on full afterburner (a sensory and sensual delight for anyone who witnessed it), execute a quick 180, and then fly directly at my missile site coming in at just under Mach 1 below the top of our mountain. They were trying to break the lock my scope dopes had on them. Then, at the last minute, they’d climb just enough to clear the tops of the HIPIR’s Mickey Mouse ears. The radars would flip around 180 degrees in two axes with such force that one side of the radar’s support legs would clear the ground by 6 inches. Ah, those were grand and glorious days. At night, in the Kunsan AFB Officers Club, the Air Force jet jocks would ask me about the radars. My answer was always the same: Sorry, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. They’d laugh. They thought I was joking.
When I left the Army, my first job was on General Dynamic’s F-16 engineering team, and just about every defense industry job I’ve had since was somehow associated with something on that airplane. Munitions, 20mm Gatlings, fuel tanks, aerial refueling systems, ejection seats…it all seemed to come back to the F-16. I loved being around that airplane.
Well, okay…maybe one more airplane, and that’s the F-86. Yeah, it’s been obsolete for decades. But when I was at Kunsan AFB in the mid-1970s, the ROK Air Force (as in Republic of Korea) still flew the F-86. It’s a svelte little bit of a fighter, and it was on display at the Estrella Warbirds Museum.
As soon as you enter the Estrella Museum, there’s a small arms display. Hey, I love that sort of thing, and this display grabbed my attention.
I caught something the Estrella curators missed. See those red arrows in the photo above? That rifle was labeled as a Mosin-Nagant. I know my Mosins, and this wasn’t one of them. It was maybe a Mauser, but most definitely not a Mosin. I told one of the docents. She thanked me, but I don’t think she understood what I was telling her.
The Estrella Museum had a munitions display, too. It was cool. I like bombs and bullets. And mines. A mine is a terrible thing to waste, you know.
The Museum also houses the Woodland Automobile Display, which includes classic cars and race cars with an emphasis on dirt track oval racers. The collection was extensive, interesting, and photogenic.
There were military vehicles and motorcycles, too. I’ll get to those in a second, but first, take a look at this. How about a water-cooled Harley Knucklehead engine used in midget racing? That’s what you see in the photo below.
The engine you see above is a Drake-modified Harley V-twin, and it was way ahead of its time. The Drake/Harley was called a “popper” because it vibrated so much. These engines produced close to 100 horsepower, and that was way back in the 1940s. 100 horsepower. Water cooled. Harley, how could you have ignored this back then?
The Estrella Warbird Museum also has a few interesting military motorcycles, including a World War II US Army WL Harley, an M20 BSA single (used by the British in World War II), and real oddity…a 98cc World War II Welbike used by British paratroopers.
For me, a big part of the Estrella Warbirds Museum was its location. I love the Paso Robles area. Getting there is easy. If you’re coming from the North, pick up the El Camino Real (Highway 101) south. If you’re coming from the south, it’s the 101 north. Take California State Route 46 east, Airport Road north, and watch for the signs.
The best kept secrets in this area? The obvious ones are not secrets at all: The riding in and around San Luis Obispo County is awesome. Paso Robles is a wine producing region, and there are plenty of vineyards. You can ride west on State Route 46 to get to the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the premier motorcycle roads in the world (it intersects the PCH near Cambria and Hearst Castle; both are worthy destinations). For a world-class dinner, ride just a few miles south to McPhee’s Grill in Templeton (make reservations, though…you won’t get in without a reservation). There are great missions all along the 101 attesting to the region’s early Spanish influence (they followed the El Camino Real in developing the missions, you know), including the nearby San Luis Obispo and San Miguel Missions. Paso Robles is a California destination, and the riding is good year round. If you’re going in the winter months, dress accordingly. If you’re riding in the summer, stay hydrated.
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Any story about Bill’s Old Bike Barn has to feature Bill Morris, the man who created it all. The museum and its contents are amazing. The man is even more so.
Bill grew up right where I met him: Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, the site of Bill’s Old Bike Barn. Bill started working at age 11 on the farm, and he never stopped. Bill is 83 now, something I found hard to believe (he doesn’t look or act like it), and his energy level tops most young folks I know. Let’s start with a Reader’s Digest biosketch. Bill joined the US Army (Corps of Engineers) from 1957 to 1960, and then went to work for Chrysler building Plymouths and Dodges in Newark, Delaware. After two years with Chrysler it was back to Bloomsburg and a job with the local Harley-Davidson dealer.
Parts is parts. Keep what you like, sell the rest. That’s a gold-plated Knucklehead engine on the right. As in real gold. “Never could sell it,” Bill said. There was no regret in that observation.
Harley and Bloomsburg Harley were a good deal; Bill went to Harley-Davidson’s motorcycle technician school in 1966. Yep, he’s a factory-certified motorcycle tech. He worked for Bloomsburg Harley from 1966 to 1969.
Ah, 1969. Let’s see…Hollywood was going ga ga over The Wild Angels, Easy Riders, and other miscellaneous motorcycle movie mayhem. The chopper craze was sweeping through America and the rest of the developed world. Bill wanted a chopper, and a builder in Westminster, California advertised that if you had five old hogs to trade, they would build a California custom for you at no charge. Bill asked if he sent 18 old hogs, would they build him a California chopper and return some cash? The answer, of course, was yes, so Bill shipped 18 old Harleys to California and waited. And waited. And waited. He finally went to California to see what was happening and found a rundown chopper shop big on dreams but short on ability.
Bill hung around California for 60 days, bought a pickup truck, and took a partially crafted California chopper back to Pennsylvania. “I figured if those clowns could make custom motorcycles, I could, too,” Bill explained. And he did. The bike Bill hauled back to Bloomsburg needed wiring, wheels, and more, but that was simple stuff. Bill was, after all, a factory-trained motorcycle tech.
Indeed, a Silent Gray Fellow. It’s one of many Holy Grail bikes in Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
Bill’s Custom Cycles emerged, and Bill’s talent (as a custom motorcycle builder, a collector, and a businessman) took center stage. Bill purchased his first collectible motorcycle for $20, a 1928 single-cylinder Harley-Davidson, but he quickly realized the best way to acquire collectibles and saleable parts was to buy out other motorcycle businesses and that’s what he did. When Harley Davidson entered troubled times in the early 1970s, Bill purchased the assets of 28 Harley dealerships in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and in an international reach, the Netherlands, Belgium, and South Africa. Bill tells of a recurring theme: A dealer would ask $600,000 for their inventory, Bill would offer a quarter of that amount, the dealer would decline the offer, and then came the call a few months later asking if Bill’s $150,000 offer was still good. It was, of course. Bill knew his business.
Bill loves sidecars. At one point, he bought a European dealer’s entire stock of 60 sidecars and brought them back to Pennsylvania. He sold them all quickly.Wow. Just wow. Get used to that word. You’ll use it a lot at Bill’s Old Bike Barn.Would you pay $200 for a used Panhead back in the day? Bill did. I was going to offer him what he paid, but thought better of it.
Bill’s business model was to sell the parts and complete motorcycles from his constantly growing and profitable inventory. He sold via mail order and became one of the largest sources of Harley parts and Harleyana in the world. All the while, he kept the collectible motorcycles and parts that caught his interest, and he built custom bikes.
Bill has a way with the ladies. On this road trip, we hit Gettysburg, Hershey, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, the Jersey shore, and more. But all the girls wanted to talk about was Bill.
While acquiring the inventories of motorcycle shops and dealers going under, Bill built a massive collection of Harley signs. That lead to a lawsuit with Harley as the plaintiff and Bill in their crosshairs…Harley didn’t want anyone displaying “authorized Harley-Davidson dealer” signs if they weren’t, you know, an authorized Harley dealer. Bill eventually settled the suit by opening a second building (the origin of Bill’s Old Bike Barn) where he could display the signs but not sell Harley products. “That made the lawyers happy,” Bill explained. It was only a short walk up the hill behind Bill’s Custom Cycles, but it satisfied Harley’s legal beagles.
Bill loves motorcycle signs, so much so that Harley sued him for displaying them a few decades ago. The lawsuit was a good thing: It was the catalyst for Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
Around the same time, Bill became a Moto Guzzi dealer (one of the very first in the United States) and he still has a love for the Italian motorcycles. Moto Guzzi was just entering the United States and they approached Bill. He rented a gas station and just like that, voilà, Bill was a Moto Guzzi dealer (he held the franchise from 1970 to 1975). As Bill explains it, it was a match made in Heaven: He had no money and Moto Guzzi had almost no bikes. The bikes would come in via air one at a time to Teterboro, New Jersey (a two and a half hour road trip from Bloomsburg).
A beautiful Guzzi Ambassador. These things sound more like a Harley than a Harley did. They are beautiful motorcycles. I always wanted one.
Like many people, Bill loved the look and the sound of those early 1970s Guzzis (they sounded a lot like Harley-Davidsons, with a wonderful lopey potato potato exhaust note).
California chopper chic meets Mandello del Laurio.Paint themes that were all the rage back in the day. Think Dennis Hopper Does Italy.
As a custom bike builder Bill knew a blank palette when he saw one, and he rebuilt an early Guzzi police bike as a 1970s chopper. It’s on display in Bill’s Old Bike Barn. In fact, Bill has an entire room he calls Guzziland, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Guzziland will be the focus of a near-term future ExNotes blog.
Stay tuned, my friends. Bill’s Old Bike Barn is a fun story. I’m having a lot of fun writing it.
Miss our first installment on Bill’s Old Bike Barn? Hey, here it is:
Stop what you’re doing. Get off the Internet (and for sure, get off Facebook and the other moronic “social media” time wasters). Start planning a trip to Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. You need to see Bill’s Old Bike Barn. The riding is fabulous in rural Pennsylvania and with Bill’s as a destination, the ride is even better. You can thank me now or you can thank me later, but you will thank me.
Any motorcycle museum that includes in its directions “turn where you see the dinosaurs” should grab your attention. In the case of Bill’s Old Bike Barn, your undivided attention is warranted. To say I was blown away would be an understatement of immense proportions. To cut to the chase, I’ve never seen anything like Bill’s, and I know for damn sure I’ve never met a man like Bill. That’s Bill artistically framed by Milwaukee iron in the photo above, and yeah, I shot that picture. I’m proud of it. It hints at the dimensions of the man and what he’s created out there in Pennsylvania.
During our interview I asked Bill his last name and he told me: Morris, just like the cigarettes. I didn’t get it until later, and then I couldn’t stop laughing. If you don’t get it immediately, you will. Bill has that kind of slingshot wit. I love the guy and his collection. You will, too.
Above all else, Bill is two things: A collector, and a people person. The extent if his collection…well, I can’t describe it. You need to see it. You’ll get just a hint here in the ExNotes series of blogs we’re doing. When you visit the place, you’ll feel like you owe me. When you meet Bill, you’ll know you’ve made a friend. A most interesting friend.
Up above, that’s the building that houses Bill’s collection. You can’t really see it from the highway. You have to look for the dinosaurs (just like the directions say), turn, and then head uphill. You’ll go by the bison, some other cool items, and more. The building looks deceptively small from the outside. Inside…you could spend weeks and not see all of what’s in there.
You can learn about Bill’s Old Bike Barn on his website, but we’re going to give you more here on ExNotes. We’re going to do it over the span of several blogs over the next few weeks, and in an upcoming article in a major moto mag. Ever watched and enjoyed American Pickers? Trust me on this (and trust me on everything else, for that matter): Bill Morris puts American Pickers to shame. You and I have never seen anything like what’s in Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
I’m excited about what I’ve seen and what I’m going to be sharing with you. I’ll do my best to bring it to life in print and in the photos, but it won’t be enough. You really need to visit Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
You’ve read here on the ExNotes blog about good buddy Mike and me having an adventure or two. I’ve known Mike since junior high school, which means he’s pretty old. So am I, now that I think about it. Anyway, Mike and I still talk every week or so (it’s a bicoastal relationship), and he most recently told me about the NY Auto Show. I suggested a guest blog, and what you see here is the result. It’s well done and well photographed. Enjoy, my friends.
After a two-year absence due to the pandemic, the New York International Auto Show returned to the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan. The NY Auto Show has been in existence since 1900. I can remember attending the show during the ’60s with my father at the New York Coliseum off Columbus Circle. In 1988 it was moved to the Jacob Javits Center.
The NY Auto Show always featured the latest models of all makes as well as the experimental prototypes designed by the best auto designers in the world. If you wanted to see the latest and greatest, this was the show to attend in the Northeast. A highlight of all the shows has always been the beautiful models on stage with the cars.
Probably the most memorable show, for me, was in 1979 when a close friend of mine decided to sell his 1978 Corvette Indy Pace Car at the show. We had the car transported to the show on a flatbed and after numerous inspections and paperwork we had it on display. Besides the excitement of showing a car at this prestigious event, the most exciting part was having my then girlfriend (and now wife) Carol model the car. Needless to say, the display drew a lot of attention, not because of the car but because of her presence. She wore a black jumpsuit and silver blouse. Great attention, but no sale.
I always attend on the first day of the show and this year was no exception. Upon entering, I was greeted by Ford’s full display. The centerpiece was an original Ford GT and the newest Ford GT.
After going through the various displays (including Mopar, Chevrolet, Nissan, and more), I soon realized the focus was on electric vehicles. Performance was there (with the new Z06 Corvette and convertible), but the primary focus was electric. In my opinion, it was very boring and a waste of my time.
The international marques were also present, including Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, Volvo, and Alfa Romeo, along with the usual Japanese. The largest displays were by Toyota and Subaru. Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Ferrari, and not even Cadillac were present. What a disappointment! I recently ordered a 2022 Cadillac CT5 and was looking forward to a close examination of that car. After walking for miles up and down the center I finally found an information booth where I learned Cadillac was not attending. Unbelievable, but true.
The 2022 NY International Auto Show was a waste of my time. No prototypes, no customs, no major performance cars, along with the inability to see all the cars made and speak with the representatives, this may be last for me. Did I mention, no beautiful models either? Nope, none. The highlight of the day was having a hot dog, pretzel, and a beer.
Awesome, Mike, and thanks very much. You have a way with a keyboard, and we appreciate hearing about the legendary NY Auto Show.
Hey, anybody else out there have a topic you want to cover? Imagine the prestige in telling your amigos you’ve been published. It can happen, and it can happen right here. Let us know!
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I’ve ridden motorcycles through Baja probably 30 times or more over the last 30 years, and it’s unquestionably the best place to ride a motorcycle I’ve ever experienced. Many people are afraid to venture into the peninsula for fear of a breakdown. Hey, it happens, but it’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t happen often. They don’t call it adventure riding because it’s like calling for an Uber.
Not all “breakdowns” result in your motorcycle being nonoperational. Some are just mere annoyances and you truck on. A few breakdowns result in the bike not running, but there are usually ways to get around that. When it happens, you improvise, adapt, and overcome. Here are a few of mine.
Heritage Indeed
The first time I had a motorcycle act up was on my beloved ’92 Harley Softail. It started clanging and banging and bucking and snorting somewhere around Ensenada. I was headed south with my good buddy Paul from New Jersey. It was obvious something wasn’t right and we turned around to head back to the US. The Harley got me home, but I could tell: Something major had happened. The bike was making quite a bit of noise. I had put about 300 miles on it by the time I rode it back from Mexico.
A roller lifter that converted to a solid lifter.
One of the Harley’s roller lifters stopped rolling, and that turned it into a solid lifter. And when that happened, the little wheel that was supposed to rotate along the cam profile started wearing a path through the cam. And when that happened, the metal filings migrated their way to the oil pump. And when that happened….well, you get the idea. My 80-cubic-inch V-Twin Evo motor decided to call it quits after roughly 53,000 miles. It happens I guess. Nothing lasts forever.
Potato, potato, potato.
Here’s where it started to get really interesting. My local Harley dealer wouldn’t touch the bike. See, this was around 2005 or so, and it seems my Harley was over 10 years old. Bet you didn’t know this: Many Harley dealers (maybe most of them) won’t work on a bike over 10 years old. The service manager at my dealer explained this to me and I was dumbfounded. “What about all the history and heritage and nostalgia baloney you guys peddle?” I asked. The answer was a weak smile. “I remember an ad with a baby in Harley T-shirt and the caption When did it start for you?” I said. Another weak smile.
An S&S engine in my ’92 Softail. It let me ride a slow bike fast.
I was getting nowhere fast. I tried calling a couple of other Harley dealers and it was the same story. Over 10 years old, dealers won’t touch it. I was flabbergasted. I tried as hard as I could, but there was no getting around it…the Harley dealer would not work on my engine. It was over 10 years old. That’s that; rules is rules. For a company that based their entire advertising program on longevity and heritage, I thought it was outrageous. A friend suggested I go to an independent shop. “It’s why they exist,” he said. So I did.
So, I went with Plan B. I took the Harley to a local independent shop, and they were more than happy to work on my bike. I could have the Harley engine completely rebuilt (which it needed, because those metal bits had migrated everywhere), or I could have it rebuilt with an S&S motor. I went with the S&S motor (the cost was the same as rebuilding the Harley engine), doubling the horsepower, halving the rear tire life, and cutting my fuel economy from 42 to 33 mpg.
Justin’s Countershaft Sprocket
On the very first CSC Baja trip, I was nervous as hell. The CSC bikes had received a lot of press and the word was out: CSC was importing the real deal, a genuine adventure touring motorcycle for about one sixth of what a GS 1200 BMW sold for in those days. The naysayers and keyboard commandos were out in force, badmouthing the Chinese RX3 in ways that demonstrated unbridled ignorance and no small amount of bias. And here we were, taking 14 or 15 guys (and one gal) who had bought new RX3 motorcycles that had literally arrived in the US just a few days before our departure. There was one thought in my mind as we headed south from Azusa that morning: What was I thinking? If the bikes started falling out on this first trip, it would probably kill the RX3 in America.
Hey, it worked. Adapt, overcome, improvise. The adventure doesn’t start until something goes wrong.
I need not have worried. None of the engines failed. We had a few headlights go out, but that’s not really a breakdown. And then, when we were about halfway down the Baja peninsula, I took a smaller group of riders to see the cave paintings at Sierra San Francisco. That trip involved a 140-mile round trip from Guerrero Negro into the boonies, with maybe 20 miles of that on a very gnarly dirt road. As we were returning, good buddy Justin’s RX3 lost its countershaft sprocket. We found it and Justin did a good enough MacGuyver job securing it to the transmission output shaft to get us back to Guerrero Negro, but finding a replacement was a challenge. We finally paid a machinist at the Mitsubishi salt mining company to make a custom nut, and that got us home.
On every Baja trip after that, I took a spare countershaft sprocket nut, but I never needed any of them after that one incident on Justin’s bike. Good buddy Duane had a similar failure, but that was on a local ride and it was easily rectified.
Jim’s Gearbox
Four or five Baja trips later, after we had ridden all the way down to Mulege and back up to the border, good buddy Jim’s transmission wouldn’t shift.
Good buddy Jim in the Mulege mission.
That’s the only breakdown I ever experienced anywhere on an RX3 that wouldn’t get us home, and that includes multiple multi-bike Baja trips, the multi-bike 5000-mile Western America adventure ride, the multi-bike 6000-mile ride across China, the 3000-mile circumnavigation around the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and quite a few CSC local company rides. One of the guys on that Baja ride lived in the San Diego area and he owned a pickup truck, so he took the bike back up to Azusa for us.
Biting the Bullet
A couple of years ago Joe Gresh and I did a Baja road test with Royal Enfield press bikes. One was the new 650 Interceptor twin (a bike I liked so much I bought one when I got home); the other was a 500 Bullet. The Bullet was a disaster, but it really wasn’t the bike’s fault. The dealer who maintained the press fleet for Royal Enfield (I won’t mention them by name, but they’re in Glendale and they’re known for their Italian bikes) did a half-assed job maintaining the bike. Actually, that’s not fair to people who do half-assed work (and Lord knows there a lot of them). No, the maintenance on this bike was about one-tenth-assed. It was very low on oil, it had almost no gas in it, the chain was loose and rusty, and on and on the writeup could go. The bike kept stalling and missing, and it finally gave up the ghost for good at the Pemex station just north of Guerrero Negro.
Joe Gresh, inflight missile mechanic extraordinaire, getting intimate with the Bullet in Baja. “The Bullet needs me,” he said.
Fortunately for me, Gresh had one of those portable battery thingamabobbers (you know, the deals that are good for about 10 battery jumps) and it allowed us to start the bike. We bought a new battery that didn’t quite fit the bike in Guerrero Negro (big hammers solve a lot of problems), but the entire episode left a bad taste in my mouth for the Bullet and for the Glendale Ducatimeister.
Big hammers fix all kinds of problems.
That bike had other problems as well. The kickstand run switch failed on the ride home, and Gresh did an inflight missile mechanic bypass on it. Then, just before we made it back to my house in So Cal, the rear sprocket stripped. Literally. All the teeth were gone. That was another one I had never experienced before. The Bullet was sort of a fun bike, but this particular one was a disaster. We joked about it. The Bullet needs me, Gresh said.
John’s Silver Wing Leak
Ah this is another motofailure that tried but didn’t stop the show. On one of my earlier Baja forays, Baja John had a Honda Silver Wing. That’s a bike that was also known as the baby Gold Wing (it had all the touring goodies the Gold Wing had). It was only a 500 or a 650 (I can’t remember which) and it had no problem keeping up with the Harleys (but then, it doesn’t take much to keep up with a Harley).
Baja John and the mighty Silver Wing, somewhere well south of the border.
The Silver Wing was a pretty slick motorcycle…it had a transversely-aligned v-twin like a Moto Guzzi and it had plenty of power. Unlike the Guzzi, the Silver Wing was water cooled and that’s where our problem occurred. John’s bike developed a coolant leak. I was a little nervous about that. We were more than halfway down the peninsula and headed further south when the bike started drooling, but John had the right attitude (which was not to worry and simply ignore the problem). The little Silver Wing was like a Timex…it took the licking and kept on ticking, and to my great surprise, it simply stopped leaking after another hundred miles or so. I guess it doesn’t really count as a breakdown.
John’s KLR 650 OPEC Bike
Baja John had another bike, a KLR 650, that developed a fuel petcock leak on another one of our Baja trips. As I recall, it started leaking on the return run somewhere around El Rosario. I get nervous around fuel leaks for the obvious reasons, but John stuck to his policy: Don’t worry, be happy.
Baja John: The man, the legend.
We stayed in a hotel in Ensenada that night. The hotel had an attached enclosed parking structure, which immediately started to smell like the inside of a gas tank. Not that I’ve ever been inside a gas tank, but that parking garage pretty much had the aroma I imagine exists in such places.
John’s luck continued to hold, and we made it home without John becoming a human torch.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is you basically need four things when headed into Baja:
A tool kit.
A good attitude that includes a sense of adventure.
A well maintained motorcycle.
Maybe some spare parts.
So there you have it. If you’d like to know more about riding in Baja, please visit our Baja page and maybe pickup a copy of Moto Baja.
If you’re headed into Baja, don’t leave home without BajaBound Insurance. They are the best there is. If you are nice, they might even fix you up with a cool BajaBound coffee mug!
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One of the things that always got a laugh when I worked in the motorcycle business were comments you’d hear from looky-loos who you knew weren’t going to buy (but they liked to act as if they were). These folks wanted to wax eloquent and sound like they knew what they were talking about. “If only they would (insert motorcycle feature here), I’d buy one in a heartbeat.” If only, indeed. They never did. My disdain for the above notwithstanding, I thought I’d play. You know: If only they would…and this time I’ll fill in the blanks. And with that as a starting point, here’s my specification for the perfect motorcycle.
1. Tank You Very Much
For me it would have to have a teardrop gas tank that actually is a gas tank (no underseat gas tank silliness on the perfect motorcycle). Something like the Bonneville or maybe the Enfield 650. Guzzi had the right idea, and maybe the new CSC 400 twin is righteous, too. Here a few perfect gas tanks:
Wow.Wow again.Wow selfified.
2. Wire Wheels, Please
I like wire wheels. I know that cast wheels have advantages, but I don’t care. I like spokes. Wire wheels are what my perfect motorcycle needs.
It’s the spokes, folks. Nothing else works for me.Can you picture this ivory classic BMW with cast wheels? Yeah, me neither. Notice the seat height, too. We’ll get to that shortly (pardon that pun).
3. Show Me The Motor!
I know fairings have advantages and I’ve owned a lot of motorcycles with fairings, but you need to be able to see the motor on a motorcycle. There’s something blatantly weird about faired motorcycles when you take the fairings off: They look like washing machines. I want to see the engine and I want to see fins. Lots of fins. And cables and chrome, too. If you want a sterile, all-the-ugly-stuff-hidden vehicle, buy a Prius.
The ancestor of all Facebook posters…get it? The Knucklehead?Fins. Tubes. Polished metal. It all works.Early excess…a Honda straight six CBX. I owned one of these for awhile. It was glorious. In a stroke of marketing genius, Honda didn’t hide the motor.Jay Leno’s 1936 Henderson. He bought it from a 92-year-old who was getting a divorce and needed to raise cash, or at least that’s what he told me.Perfection.
And while we’re talking about motors, let’s move on to the elephant in the perfect motorcycle conversation: Displacement.
4. Displacement: Less is More
114 cubic inches? 2300 cubic centimeters? That’s automobile territory and then some. As you-know-who would say in one of his rare lucid moments: C’mon, man.
BMW? Harley? KTM? Honda?
If you need something to give expression to your masculinity, buy a pickup truck or a Model 29. Or maybe a 458 Win Mag. For me, something up to maybe 650cc is good. Less would be better, provided it can meet all the other things in this dreamsheet spec.
5. The Paint
The paint has to be world class. Harley gets that right. Triumph had it right back in the day. Chome and paint works. So does pinstriping. Thank God that silly flat black fad passed. Nope, I like paint that looks good. Ever seen a jellybean Ducati?
Nobody will ever outstyle the Italians. This one is in the Doffo collection.
6. We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ LCDs or TFTs!
I don’t need to sit behind a NORAD computer display. I like two big analog dials; one for the speedometer and the other for the tach. The ’65 Triumph Bonneville had the right idea; the 750 Honda enlarged both and that was even better. Seeing those two big cans sitting just ahead of the handlebars works for me.
Speed and RPM: Is anything else really necessary?
7. Getting Gassed
I’d like a 250-mile range. I stop more frequently, but I’d like the bike to be able to go that far without the fuel light coming on, which I guess means the range needs to be even more than 250 miles. It drives me nuts when the fuel light starts blinking at just over 100 miles and I know there’s still another 50 miles or so left in the tank.
You meet fun people in Baja Pemex stops.
8. Southern Comfort
A comfortable seat is a must, but truth be told, if you spend all day, day after day on a motorcycle, I’ve never found any that are what I would call comfortable. If a motorcycle seat can just make the “not uncomfortable” threshold, I’m good. And although I almost never take a passenger on my bike, I’d like to have a bike that seats two.
Casual elegance in Xi’an 35 years ago. The right spot at the right time…what photography is all about.
9. Down and Dirty
You know, I don’t need a GS to go offroad. Neither do you. They’re too big, too heavy, and too tall. They look good at a Starbuck’s, but I’m not going to spend $5 for a cup of coffee. I remember back in the day (for me, that would be the 1960s) when we took Hondas and Triumphs and BSAs off road all the time and thought nothing of it. We didn’t call it “adventure” riding, either…we just called it riding. We didn’t need a marketing guy and a decal to make our bikes off road capable. I’ve even gone off road with a Harley Softail, although maybe that was taking things a bit far. I guess what I’m saying is I’d like a bike to be light enough and the seat height to be reasonable, and I’m good to go for any off road requirements that bubble up in my travels.
The FLH-AS in the salt fields of Guerrero Negro, B.C.S. “AS” stands for Adventure Scrambler.
10. Just Say No To Stratospheric Seat Heights
The seat height should not be higher than about 30 inches. An inch or two lower would be even better. I understand that mucho suspension travel is muey macho for some, but a lot of motorcycles have gone crazy. I don’t know anyone with a 37-inch inseam. I don’t know if there are enough basketball players to justify a motorcycle that most of us would need a step ladder to mount.
It’s on the AutoCad screens somewhere in Bavaria, you know.
11. Fat City
Weight should be under 400 pounds. It’s doable, guys. Some of today’s bikes are approaching a thousand pounds. That’s nuts. Under 400 pounds works for me; less would be ever better. If my motorcycle drops, I want to be able to pick it up by myself. The 1966 Triumph Bonneville my Dad rode weighed 363 pounds. If you’ve gotta have the Gold Wing, why not just go for the RV?
Yup.
12. Freeway Capable
We live in the age of the Interstate. Two-lane country roads are nice and they make for good advertising photography, but it’s not the 1950s anymore. Yeah, I try to enjoy back roads, but like everybody else, I get on the freeway when I want to cover big miles. A bike that can cruise comfortably at 75 or 80 mph has to be part of the spec. The funny thing is, you don’t need a monster bike to do that. Gresh and I rode across China on CSC 250cc motorcycles, and about a third of that was freeway driving.
Riding the freeways across the Gobi Desert. Note the two-abreast Chinese car carriers.Gobi Gresh on a Chinese interstate (or should that be interprovince?) highway.
13. What’s In A Name?
I’d be okay with some kind of alphanumeric quasi-military designation or a cool sounding noun, like Bonneville or Electra-Glide or MT06. The weird noun “INT” adorns my Enfield only because the Mumbai boys didn’t want to take on Honda (they should; Royal Enfield had an Interceptor way before Honda did). I’m okay with a Chinese motorcycle, but it would have to have a good name (Cool Boy won’t cut it here). The first RX3s in America had a tank panel emblazoned with Speed (hey, I can’t make this stuff up); I caught some online flak about that. I countered it by telling the keyboard commandos we wanted Methamphetamine, but the font became too small when we tried to fit it on the tank. BSA used to have great names, like Spitfire and Thunderbolt. Those could work. Here are a few others I thought you might like to see.
Nah. That won’t work.Nah, that won’t work, either.Yeah, maybe…The Docker. You could buy matching slacks. You know. Dockers.Like the candy bar. Sweet!Zarang me, Zarang me, they ought to take a rope and hang me…
14. Pipe Up!
A motorcycle has to be visually and aurally balanced. To me, that includes chrome exhaust pipes on both sides of the motorcycle (like you see on that gorgeous Norton in the big photo above, and in the Beezer below). Low pipes or high, either are okay by me. Back in the 1960s Yamaha had the Big Bear (now there’s a great name) with upswept chrome exhausts on either side of the bike and I thought that was perfect. Any of the ’60s British street twins were perfect, especially Triumphs and BSAs. Flat black stamped steel with flanged welds on only one side of the bike (like my KLR 650) are an abomination.
British chrome symmetry. We could learn a thing or two from that era.
And, of course, the ExhaustNote: The perfect motorcycle has to sound like the perfect motorcycle. That means a low rumble, but not something so lopey it sounds like a Harley, and certainly not something that sounds like a sewing machine or (worse yet) a small car. Think mid-60’s Triumph Bonneville. That is a motorcycle that sounds like a motorcycle.
So there you have it. Got comments? Let’s hear them. Post them here on the blog, and you’ll have a friend for life. And do a friend a favor: Click on the ads in this blog!
We watched Lonely Hearts on Netflix a few nights ago, and it was surprisingly good. It would be hard to go wrong, I think, with any film that had John Travolta and the late James Gandolfini in it, but this one was even better than expected.
Lonely Hearts (made in 2006) is based on the true story of serial spree killers Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck. Fernandez was a weasely con man who preyed on lonely women (he found them through their lonely hearts ads). Beck was one of his intended victims, but she saw through his game immediately and, weirdly, they became partners in perpetuating similar crimes, ultimately progressing to several murders to silence their victims, witnesses, and others who crossed their paths (including a police officer). Both Fernandez and Beck died in the electric chair in 1951.
The story was dark and moody, but the movie was well done. It’s worth a watch.
There’s cool, and then there’s really cool. When I was kid back in New Jersey, Richie Haluska was really cool. He lived in New Brunswick and he was my next door neighbor Pauly’s cousin. Richie was a few years older than us and he was always way ahead of the curve when it came to cool. Pauly and I weren’t old enough to drive, but Richie was, and in line with his coolness he showed up at Pauly’s one day driving a 1965 GTO. Alpine blue with a black vinyl top and a black interior, three deuces and a four-speed, and a 389 (remember that last phrase; you’ll hear it again shortly). Did I mention this guy was cool?
I’d never seen anything as beautiful as that GTO. The looks, the wheels, the wide oval redline tires, and, you know, the exhaust notes. I could (and did) look at that car for hours, from every angle, dreaming of one day owning my own GTO. John De Lorean was the guy who pioneered the muscle car concept and Pontiac was the first to drop a big block motor into a mid-size car. Pretty soon all the manufacturers were doing it, but Pontiac was the first and it was the GTO. De Lorean later went on to fame making snowmobiles (the Back to the Future car), but we didn’t know any of that in the mid-1960s. We just knew that the GTO was so cool a rock group sang a song about it. And Richie had a GTO. Like I said, this guy was cool.
One day I was playing hookey (I can’t remember why, but in those days I didn’t need much of a reason) and later in the day I decided I needed to get to school. Richie offered to take me. A ride in GTO! I had never been in one. I think I was maybe 14 years old.
The car was magnificent, but the best was just seconds away. We reached the road to my school and after making that sharp right, Richie put his foot in it. Up to that point I had not felt a muscle car as the Lord intended muscle cars to be felt, but that character flaw disappeared in an instant. Pushed into the seat and hearing the deep ExhaustNotes growl, seeing that big hood scoop loom large, I remember what I thought: I have got to get me one of these!
The other day Susie and I were in Costco. They had a bunch of die cast metal car models, and they were blowing them out for just $14.95. They were all awesome, but the one that instantly arrested my attention was the 1965 GTO. It’s as if the Maisto maestros had Richie in mind when they created it. It was exactly like Richie’s. Alpine blue. Black interior. Black vinyl roof. White pinstripes. It was perfect. And it’s mine now.
Richie has gone on to his reward (he passed a year or two ago). I hadn’t seen Richie since I was a teenager. But I remember Richie and I remember that ride to school like it was yesterday. That’s Richie and his wife Dina in the photo above, and the photo captures his personality perfectly. He was a cool guy.
Rest in peace, Richie.
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Military motorcycle half-tracks? You bet!
