I met Charlie Wilson a couple of times when I was an engineer in the munitions business, so Charlie Wilson’s War had a special attraction for me when it was first published. Charlie Wilson was a US Congressman from Texas, and to say he was larger than life would be a huge understatement. Tall, good-looking, a booming voice, a warm personality, and his trademark navy blue suits, white shirts, and suspenders made Mr. Wilson both awe-inspiring and approachable. Larger than life, as I’ve already said. Charlie Wilson was someone who was instantly likeable. I’ve never met anyone like him.
We made ammunition, mines, and cluster bombs in those days, and in the 1980s our business was (if you’ll pardon the pun) booming. My specialties were cluster bombs and mines; we had a sister division that designed and manufactured 30mm A-10 and 25mm Bushmaster ammo. Congressman Wilson’s interest in us was in the ammo side of the business, and as a relatively high-rolling young dude I was able to attend the meetings when he was in town. Charlie’s efforts were focused on arming the Afghan rebels trying to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan and back to the Motherland, and what they desparately needed was something that could knock down the Hind helicopter. That’s where we came in. The Hind was an armored helicopter (a flying tank, essentially), and we made 30mm ammo that could knock out Soviet tanks (which it did in droves during Operation Desert Storm, our war that would follow a decade later).
President Reagan didn’t want to give the Afghan rebels the shoulder-fired anti-aircraft Stinger missile, as he was concerned about those weapons falling into the wrong hands. But he was okay with providing purpose-built, shoulder-fired weapons that would use A-10 ammo. Now, I know what you are probably thinking: The A-10 30mm round has more muzzle energy than a World War II 75mm Howitzer round, and there’s no way anyone could fire one of those from the shoulder.
Well, hold that thought. The 30mm anti-Hind rifle was shoulder fired, but not in the sense we would ordinarily think of a shoulder-fired weapon. The deal was you backed up to a rock or a tree, put the butt of the rifle against it, and then sort of got underneath it. Like I said above, that’s where we came in. We provided the ammo.
Ultimately, the program outlined above was cancelled and President Reagan okayed selling Stingers to the Afghan rebels. Before the Russian chopper pilots could learn (but instantly and intrinsically came to understand) the words to Patsy Cline’s hit tune, Stingers were doing what they were designed to do. The Stingers were astonishingly effective, and within a few days of their arrival, the Soviets realized they were in Deep Geshitski (as they say back in Mother Russia). It wasn’t too long before they rolled back across the bridge to the Soviet Union. Come to think of it, not too long after that the entire Evil Empire collapsed. Charlie Wilson was one of the guys who made it happen.
I don’t mind telling you that I was in awe of Charlie Wilson, and when the book (Charlie Wilson’s War) came out, I bought and read it immediately. Then it was made into a movie with the same name (Charlie Wilson’s War), and we similarly saw it immediately. Tom Hanks (one of the all time greats, in my opinion) was good in the lead role, but as Lloyd Benson might say, he was no Charlie Wilson. Mr. Wilson could have played himself. He had the right kind of personality and magnetism for it.
The good news is that Charlie Wilson’s War is still in print (it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read), and the even better news is that if you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber, Charlie Wilson’s War is running on that platform right now. Trust me on this: It’s one you want to see.
Joe Gresh raised an interesting topic with his recent blog on motorcycle quantity. You know, how many motorcycles are too many? That blog got a lot of hits and tons of comments on Facebook. It seems like he struck a nerve.
The most motorcycles I ever owned at one time was five, which pales in comparison to Gresh’s shop full of motos and maybe the collections of a few other people I know. When my collection hit that peak, I had a Triumph Daytona 1200, a Harley Heritage Softail, a Suzuki TL1000S, a Honda CBX, and a KLR 650. That was about 20 years ago. There was no rhyme or reason to my collection and no central theme guiding the contents of my fleet. I just bought what I liked. In those days I had more money than brains, but don’t interpret that to mean I was rich. I just never had a lot of brains. Most folks who know me recognize that pretty quickly.
My Harley Softail in the muddy plains outside Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur. There’s a kitchen sink in there somewhere.The Triumph Tiger. Good, but tall and very heavy. It was essentially a sport bike with excess suspension travel and ADV cosmetics.Me with a buddy currently in the witness protection program, and my Honda CBX. It was a surprisingly competent touring motorcycle.The Triumph Speed Triple. One of my buddies nicknamed it the Speed Cripple, which became true for me.Ah, the yellow locomotive. My Triumph Daytona 1200. Delightfully crude and fast. I loved this bike and I rode the 2005 Three Flags Classic on it.Turning sportbikes into touring machines…my TL1000S somewhere in Baja. This was a seriously fast motorcycle.
I seemed to hover around that number (five, that is) for a while. Other bikes moved in to displace one or more of the above, most notably a Triumph Tiger and then a Triumph Speed Triple. Those were fun, but they’ve gone down the road, too.
One of my favorite former motorcycles for real world adventure riding…the Kawasaki KLR 650 in its natural surroundings (Valle de los Cirios in Baja).
Which one did I enjoy riding most? That’s easy. It was the KLR 650. The KLR 650 was the bike that led me on an arc toward smaller motorcycles, like the CSC RX3 and then a TT250. I was a bit player implementing Steve Seidner’s decision to bring those motorcycles to America. The 250s were a lot of fun. I sold off all the big bikes and only rode 250s for a few years, then I fell in love with the new Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor when it hit the market, and suddenly I was back up to three.
But three, for me, was too many. I haven’t been riding much in the last few years for a lot of reasons. The pandemic put a dent in any big travel plans (YMMV, and that’s okay), and constantly moving the battery tender around and cleaning the TT250’s jets was getting old. I couldn’t move anything in my garage because there was so much stuff crammed in there, and I had to park the TT250 under the rear porch awning. I don’t have a separate workshop area and I don’t pour concrete (I don’t have Mr. Gresh’s talents, but even if I did, it looks like too much work to me), so hanging on to a big motorcycle fleet was not in the cards.
My TT250. I’ve ridden it in Baja, too. It sold the day after I placed an ad for it a couple of weeks ago, and at the asking price. This bike held its value well.
Badmouthing Facebook has become trendy, but I’ll tell you that Facebook Marketplace came to the rescue. I already had a ton of photos of my motorcycles and whipping up ads for the TT250 and the RX3 literally took only seconds. I checked Kelly Blue Book values, picked prices only marginally below what a dealer would charge, and both bikes sold quickly. The TT250 sold the day after I listed it; the RX3 took one additional day.
All the China haterbator keyboard commandos said Chinese bikes had no resale value. Like everything else they posted, they were wrong. The haters said Chinese bikes were unreliable (they were wrong), the haters said you couldn’t get parts for them (they were wrong), the haters said they were built with slave labor (I’ve been in the factories, and they were wrong), and they said they had no resale value (and they were wrong about that, too). My 6-year-old RX3 with 20,000 miles on the clock went for 69% of its original MSRP, and my 5-year-old TT250 with 3,000 miles went for 74% of its original MSRP. That’s pretty good, I think. And both sold right away. Not that I was in a hurry to sell. I probably could have held out for more.
My current sole ride (or is that soul ride?), the Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 on Baja’s Highway 1 south of Ensenada. At this point in my life, one motorcycle is enough. Your mileage may vary.
So I’m down to one motorcycle, and that’s the Enfield. For me, at this point in my life, one motorcycle is the right number (your mileage may vary). I’m on to other “how many” questions now, like how many guns are too many, and how many bicycles are too many. The answer to both of those questions is something south of my current number, but those are topics for future blogs.
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There’s lots of Baja photos in this blog, and for good reason. Baja is one of the best places on the planet for poking around on a motorcyle. Check out our updated Baja page, and pick up your copy of Moto Baja!
I may seem like a cranky old man but I’m not that old. I admit I don’t like many of the useless widgets and features coming out on new motorcycles. As a rule they do nothing to enhance the feel of the wind or the joy of riding. Oh sure, they may make motorcycling safer and protect riders from themselves but the additional weight, more frequent breakdowns, and costly repairs (due to excessive complications) hardly seems worth it to me. I would go as far as to say a 1985 Japanese bike is more reliable than most any 2021 motorcycle.
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Listen, I’m a booster for motorcycling. I know manufacturers need to sell new bikes and new bikes need to appear improved over older models. I don’t want you to think of me as a negative person and a killjoy about your fancy-pants electronic-nanny bike. If you imagine you’ve found something you like and feel happy about I’m good with it. And there have been a few improvements to motorcycles since I started messing with them. Keep in mind that I’ve been riding since the late 1960’s so some of the things I think of as new are not actually all that new.
Modern disc brakes are the biggest improvement to motorcycles. I rode for many years on bikes that would not lock the front wheel no matter how hard you squeezed the lever. Not only were the old drum brakes weak, they faded so badly going downhill that often the rider was left with no brakes at all. The first mass produced disc brakes in the 1970’s were a huge leap but nothing like the new multi-piston, multi-disc brakes on modern bikes. Motorcycle brakes became so good manufacturers had to hobble them with anti-lock systems to keep riders from crashing in a panic situation. You really can flip over frontwards on some bikes. My Husky 510 has a dinner plate sized disc that is a miracle of stopping power and it doesn’t come with a safety net. In the dirt I use one, very light finger. On pavement two fingers will stand the bike on its nose. I like having that power even though I’ll probably wipe out using it.
Fuel injection is the second best idea but you have to make compromises with complexity. Carburetors are relatively easy to adjust and owners can screw them up with just a few simple tools. Fuel injection requires some type of reader or display to tune. Aftermarket companies sell all manner of work-around black boxes and mapping programs. I’d say tune-ability is a toss up between the two fuel/air mixing systems.
At a fixed altitude, humidity, temperature and barometric pressure a carbed bike can run just as well as any injected bike. My token modern bike, the Husky 510, has FI but the rest of my bikes have carburetors and I manage to get from Point A to Point B just fine. I accept FI’s extra complexity because fuel injection works great. Over extreme altitude variations fuel injected motorcycles run so much better than carbed bikes you could almost miss their biggest advantage: less clogging. In a perfect world, a world without alcohol blended in, our gasoline carburetors do an acceptable job. The problem is modern fuel has such a short shelf life that, left to absorb moisture and drop out of suspension alcohol fuel can clog up carbs in just a few months of storage. Draining the carbs before parking the bike more than a month is mandatory.
Once past the fuel pump a fuel injection system is sealed off from oxygen and the elements, drastically improving gasoline’s shelf life. Even if the fuel does goes off in the tank the high fuel pressures of fuel injection tend to pump the crud on through. It’s still possible to gum up a fuel-injected bike sitting long periods of time but much less likely.
O-ring chains are not really new but the most recent versions are incredibly good. My early experience with O-ring chains saw the little o-rings go missing and the chain ended up no better than a plain old chain. After that I stopped using them for 30 years. Skip forward a few decades and it’s not unusual to get 20,000 miles or more out of a brand name O-ring chain. Give an O-ring chain a shot of 90–weight oil every 400 miles or so and you’ll be riding carefree minus the heavy parts of a shaft-driven motorcycle. Belt-drives are good, too, but every time I’ve taken a belt driven bike scrambling the belt starts squeaking and it takes a thousand miles for the noise to go away. On small displacement motorcycles O-ring chains do add a bit of drag but don’t trouble yourself over those things.
Tubeless, spoke rims are a recent development and they are a great new idea. Besides looking cool as hell, tubeless, spoke rims combine the easy hole patching ability of tubeless tires with the light, strong construction of spokes. I don’t know what took so long but I’m all for it, brother. One place I see a potential problem is running low pressures off-road but that has nothing to do with the wheel. If you’re trail riding at 15psi I suggest you stick a tube in your tubeless spoke wheel. I like the looks of spoke rims on a motorcycle but I also like being able to stab a tire plug in a flat tire and be on my way in 5 minutes. Tubeless spoke rims are a win-win idea. One day maybe I’ll have a bike with them fitted.
Liquid cooling has been around since gasoline engines were invented but I still think of the application in motorcycles as modern and one of the best ideas. Besides a few odd bikes like Scott and Suzuki most bikes were air-cooled until the mid 1980’s, and 1980 seems like yesterday to me. The big advantage to liquid cooling is the ability to tune the bike with one less variable to worry about: you know within a few degrees what temperature the engine will be 98% of the time. There’s also a sound deadening benefit that has become more important as we move forward into an eerily silent, clean world.
I own two liquid-cooled motorcycles and the extra complexity of the cooling system has not caused a problem on either one. I forget they are liquid cooled. My old Yamaha V-Max developed a leaky water pump at 80,000 miles but once fixed it rolled on to 112,000 miles without a hitch. Unfortunately, that bike was sunk in one of the many hurricanes that struck the Florida Keys during my time there.
These advancements in motorcycling have made bikes safer, quieter and more reliable, but not any more fun. I enjoy riding my old air-cooled, drum braked, carbureted, tube-tired, non-O-ring chained, Yamaha two-stroke best of all. It goes to show that as we move into the silent, safe, modern world the biggest and best ideas in motorcycling are still inside your mind.
Recently Berk wrote a story on his five best motorcycle books. I figure I’ll copy him since nothing else moto-related is going on. Berk’s choices were all good choices but naturally not the ones I would have picked. Berk and I differ on a lot of topics (ok, most) but we don’t let that stop us from getting along well. Maybe it’s my deep-seated conviction that I am always right or maybe it’s because I actually am always right that smooths troubled waters. It’s hard to tell, really. Whatever it is it works so I’m not going to over-analyze the thing.
The thing is, I don’t read many motorcycle books, and five will be a stretch. Sure, I’ve read Berk’s travel books but only the ones with me in them. I have nothing against travel/adventure books but as a rule, it’s a topic that I would rather do than read about. I’m going to take a stab at the five-list anyway.
My top pick for all-time best motorcycle book is Floyd Clymer’s A Treasury of Motorcycles of the World. This huge hardcover was my bible growing up. I read and re-read the thing so many times I knew it by heart. The Treasury came out just slightly before the age of Japanese superbikes and reading it you get no sense of the dramatic changes that were about to sweep over motorcycling. The Treasury covered practically every brand that you could find in the USA: Harleys, Triumphs, Hondas and the rest. The more obscure brands were covered also. What seems obvious to us now was at that time still up in the air. The Japanese were making inroads but one look at the outsized 4-cylinder Munch and you suspected car-engined motorcycles were the future. In such a fast moving business, who knew which marques would be successful?
The Treasury covered more than just motorcycles. Included were descriptions of motorcycle culture and motorcycle events. A debate between Triumph and Suzuki on the merits of two-stroke vs. four-stroke stands out in my mind. I sided with Suzuki. If you were completely new to motorcycling this one book would bring you up to speed on the whole shebang.
Maybe I’m remembering theTreasury with rose-tinted neurons. I lost the book somewhere over the 53 years since I read it last and I can’t be bothered to buy another copy of The Best Motorcycle Book Ever. I’d rather keep the knowledge I gained from the book: the excitement and wonder from its pages and a life long infatuation with two-wheeled travel. I’ll not risk my entire life history to a few mis-firing neurons.
Next on my list of all-time greats is a book I’ve never read. Learn To Wheelie by Jack B. Watson was advertised in the back ads of the many, many motorcycle magazines I devoured as a youth. The book must have sold by the thousands because the ads ran at least 20 years. That alone should tell you how good Learn To Wheelie is. I wanted to buy a copy for all those 20 years but money was scarce and I ended up learning to wheelie by trial and error.
Trial and error was how most of us learned to wheelie and it was a hard won skill. One time I flipped over backwards on my Honda SL70 doing around 45 miles per hour. I landed on my back and the asphalt wore through at each of my vertebra leaving little, quarter-sized cherries to mark out each one in a zipper-like fashion.
The SL70 continued on for few yards longer and when the front wheel came down the bike started cartwheeling in the middle of the road. It bent the swing arm, the frame, the handlebars and broke any sticky-outtie parts clean off. It was like the SL70 had spent a few hours in a cement mixer. Things would have gone a whole lot different had I read Learn To Wheelie. A whole lot different.
If you asked me, and you didn’t, I’d say the book that had the most influence on my feverish teenaged brain was Cycletoons. Not that Cycletoons is exactly a book. It’s a comic book and that has the word “book” in it so in my book it qualifies. Cycletoons came out once a month for a few years and in that short time did permanent damage to my personality. The artwork and stories were fantastic, running from hardcore nuts and bolts stuff to fantasy pieces that mimicked drug induced psychosis.
Unlike Clymer’s Treasury, Cycletoons came out in the early 1970s right when motorcycling in the USA was coming on the pipe. Up to date in every way with cultural references ripped from the headlines, Cycletoons put all the traditional, stodgy motorcycle magazines on the trailer. Some of the humor (and it was all humor) was pretty lame but when it was good it was the best. The artists and writers of Cycletoons were mostly young guys that knew what was happening and they used the language of the day to tell their stories. Something you rarely saw back then.
Webley-Vickers, The Ol’ Poop, Cycle Chicks, the lonely hearts mail page, Pillow Trot and Elbow Juice, I loved all of it and haunted the local 7-11 store eating Lemon Heads and waiting for the next issue to come out. Cycletoons magazines are fairly expensive now. They go for 30 to 50 bucks a copy on Amazon so I won’t be buying them. I think I still have one issue saved. It’s the one with the cover art of all the Cycletoons characters along with Skip Van Leeuwen, Nixon, Romero and a few other famous racers powering into turn one on everything from a broken down chopper to a Vespa scooter. If you find a stack of Cycletoons at a garage sale snap them up. I guarantee you’ll love them.
If you are into old clunkers like I am Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is the one book you’ll need for whatever crappy old motorcycle lands in your garage. The thing is massive, weighing over 6 pounds, and covers in detail most 1950-ish to pre-1973 motorcycles. This book has saved me so many times I refuse to count that high. While not the same as a one-make-and-model shop manual Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual gives you enough information to fix most any old bike out there.
Beyond it’s practical applications, Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is enjoyable as pure entertainment. Looking over the repair procedures for a bike I will never own is a guilty pleasure. The book covers Z1s and H2s and has helped me make decisions about bikes on my wish list.
Structurally, Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is pretty flimsy. The hard covers are there to protect the super thin, magazine quality paper inside. I guess that was the only way fit in all the information and keep the beast to 6 pounds. Turn the pages carefully, my brothers. Oddly a used Chilton’s Motorcycle Repair Manual is not that expensive to buy. $35 is a cheap price to pay for the joyful information contained within.
Last but not least is another book I haven’t read but I do have it on order from Amazon. One Man Caravan by Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. One Man Caravan deserves it’s lofty spot simply because it’s The Mother of All Adventure Books. Nowadays everyone and their mother are riding motorcycles around the world and publishing a book about it. We’ve become complacent. Bored with the same old stories. Fulton did it way back, between the first horror of WW1 that was supposed to end all wars and the second, more complete horror of WW2. Fulton did it before it was a thing and he rode a (Douglas?) which makes him much, much cooler than anyone else. All the reviews I’ve read about the book are rave so I look forward to reading the thing when it shows up.
It’s a sad thing when your list of five best motorcycle books has two books you haven’t read but there is nothing I can do about it now. Let me know if I’ve missed any!
Like everyone else on the planet except the nefarious bastards of SMERSH and SPECTRE, we mourn the passing of Sean Connery, the great talent who defined and was the ultimate Bond. James Bond. Checking out at age 90, Sir Sean lived a long life. With that many years and many wonderful roles under his belt, he got his money’s worth, I think. So did we, speaking as one among hundreds of millions of people lucky enough to enjoy his work. Still, it was tough to hear of his passing.
That poster of Sean Connery above? A lot of gunsels may not know this, but the iconic early James Bond movie posters showed Sean Connery armed with…a pellet gun. A Walther LP53, to be specific. Take a good look, and then look at this photo of my Walther.
I’ve owned my Walther for a lot of years (I wrote an ExNotes blog on it a year or two ago that tells a more complete story of the Bond connection, with a bit of pellet pistol bragging rights thrown in for good measure).
Rest in peace, Mr. Connery, and thanks for the many good stories you brought to us.
I think CSC gets $3995 for a new RX3 these days, and that’s with all the goodies…skid plate, luggage, ABS, 300W alternator, auxiliary accessory switches, the 19-inch front wheel, and probably a few more things I don’t know about. That’s my RX3 in the photo above. I’ve been riding it for more than 5 years. For the Sinophobic haterbators out there, I’ve never found any fish oil in it, I’ve spent substantial time in the factories where they make the RX3 and there are no children chained to the manufacturing equipment, and the Zong techs are most definitely not slave labor. My RX3 has been and still is a good motorcycle.
Looking over the windshield, on the road in Baja.
I know you can buy a used Sportster for what a new RX3 costs if you shop around; the topic comes up nearly every time I mention the price of an RX3. It’s a silly thought, actually, because I’m still looking for that prospective buyer who is trying to decide between a used Sportster and a new RX3. I’ve been on that quest ever since I started writing about the RX3 six years ago, when the keyboard commandos first started pushing the used-Sportster-in-lieu-of-an-RX3 argument.
Here’s a hot flash: That person (the dude or dudette struggling with such a decision) doesn’t exist. You either want an ADV motorcycle, or you want a used bar-hopper with “much chrome” (as the Sportster ads often highlight). I have never met, or even heard of, somebody pondering whether they should buy a used Sportster or an RX3.
Behold: The financial equivalent of a new RX3.
I hear the same kind of keyboard drivel when Janus motorcycles are mentioned. They’re stunning motorcycles, and I’ve had good times riding them through northern Baja. Invariably, though, the used Sportster financial comparison will emerge. Janus is always polite in their responses. Me? I’m a noncombatant and I don’t respond to such Internet drivel. If you want a used Sportster, it’s a free country. Go for it.
To listen to the keyboard commandos, there must be a lot of folks out there dreaming about used Sportsters. Maybe that’s the answer to Harley’s problem. Even though motorcycle sales in general are up sharply since the pandemic started, Harley’s sales most definitely are not. In fact, to read The Wall Street Journal, Harley is circling the drain. Not to worry, though, because I think I have the answer: Rather than rewiring or hardwiring or screwing around with $30K electric motorcycles, or hiring high-priced executives with zero motorcycle experience (as they seem to love to do), Harley should simply stop production and only traffic in used Sportsters. There would be no need for a factory; that’s a huge savings right there. More savings? Harley wouldn’t need to spend anything on advertising; there’s a potful of worldwide web wannabe wizards pushing used Sportsters already doing that for free.
Used Sportsters. Who knew?
Back to my RX3: I’ve covered a lot of miles on it here and overseas. I had it out this Sunday charging through the smoke we call breathable air here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. I hadn’t ridden the RX3 in a couple of months, but it started right up (like it always does) and it’s still running strong (like it always has).
Good buddy Greg on the road to the cave paintings in Sierra San Francisco, Baja California Sur.
It’s kind of a funny story about how the RX3 came to America. I was in China on a consulting gig for another client when CSC asked me to poke around for a 250cc engine for its line of Mustang replicas. It’s funny in the sense that a lot of Internet people told us they’d buy the Mustang if only the bike had a 250cc engine (instead of its 150cc engine). I found a source for the 250cc engine (Zongshen; they weren’t very hard to find). CSC put the 250cc Zong engine in the Mustang and sales…well, they remained essentially the same. All those yahoos who said they’d buy one if the bike had a 250cc motor? They went MIA. I don’t know what they did after CSC introduced the 250cc engine, but they sure didn’t buy a new Mustang. Ah, I take that back…I do know what they did…they posted more comments on Facebook. It’s hard work being a keyboard commando, I guess, and it’s lonely down there in those basements. But they kept at it. Why buy a CSC Mustang, they said. You could buy a used Sportster for that kind of money, they said. Actually, most of the CSC Mustangs were optioned up by their customers so much that their cost approached and sometimes exceeded what a new Sportster would cost, but that’s neither here nor there.
A 250cc CSC Mustang, accessorized to the max.
The arrangement with the Big Z was a good one, and it led directly to things like the RX3, the RX4, the City Slicker, the TT250, the SG250, and more. It’s how I came to own my RX3, and like I said above, I am still riding and enjoying it. Even though I could have bought a used Sportster.
Good buddy Kyle from China, somewhere in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Don’t worry; he’s not armed (and if you’re wondering what that’s all about, you can read that story here).
I’ve been up and down Baja lots of times with lots of RX3 riders. I’ve been across China, including the Gobi Desert and the Tibetan Plateau, and I’ve ridden around the Andes Mountains in Colombia. I’ve ridden to Sturgis, then back across the top of the US, and down the Pacific Coast with a bunch of guys from China. Gresh rode with me on a lot of of those rides. I know, I know, he didn’t get invited on the Colombia adventure, but hey, he didn’t invite me on the Russia ride, either. But to stay on topic: It’s all been on the RX3.
Riding into the Gobi Desert with Joe Gresh as my wingman. Or was I his? In 6000 miles and 40 days of riding across China, we did not see a single Sportster, used or new.
Those early RX3 rides were marketing demos, basically, designed to show a few guys having the time of their life and demonstrating to everybody else that the RX3 had real chops as an ADV bike. But don’t think I wasn’t nervous. We took 14 guys and one gal on a 1700-mile ride through Baja literally the same week the first RX3s arrived in the US from China (I was sweating bullets on that one), and then we immediately took another 12 or 15 guys from China and Colombia (and one motojournalist from Motorcyclist) on a 5000-mile ride from southern California to Sturgis, back across the top of the US, and down the Pacific coast on what was arguably one of the most highly-publicized (in real time, too) motorcycle publicity stunts ever. I was scared the entire time, thinking something might break and generate a lot of bad press. I guess I didn’t realize how well things were going until the last night of the trip, 4700 miles into it, when Gresh told me to relax. “You won, man,” he said. He was right. But just think: I coulda had that used Sportster.
We recently blogged about the General Patton Memorial Museum at Chiriaco Summit, California, and in that blog, we mentioned the museum was closed due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Well, that’s changed…I had a nice conversation a couple of days ago with Margit Chiriaco Rusche (Co-Founder and President of the Museum) and she told me the Patton Museum is now open. I’m going to plan a ride out there as soon as the heat breaks (watch the ExNotes blog for more details), and if you’d like to go, let us know.
Margit asked me to mention the Patton Museum’s USO Room and theatre, the lecture series, and the library. These are important parts of the Museum and we’re happy to do so.
The Patton Museum’s theatre and USO room.
The Patton Museum has hosted two years of lecture series and Margit tells me they were well attended. Prior presenters have included the Superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park and a key speaker from the Metropolitan Water Department (refer to our earlier blog for the story about the Patton Museum’s Big Map, donated by the MWD), as well as several others. The lecture series was suspended during the pandemic, but it will resume in 2021. My good buddy Phil may be one of the speakers next year on his research and his new book, Letters from Uncle Dave. We’ll have an upcoming blog on Phil’s new book in the near future, too, so as always, keep an eye on the ExNotes blog.
Another shot inside the USO Room.
The USO Room presents the story of the United Service Organizations, a group focused on keeping military morale high. This exhibit features exhibits on Al Jolson and Bob Hope, two major forces in the USO’s entertainment world. The USO Room has the original juke box used at Camp Young’s entertainment center (Camp Young was the headquarters camp for the Desert Training Center, and it was located at Chiriaco Summit).
One of many exhibits at the Patton Museum.
The Patton Museum library contains a large book collection, along with notebooks chronicling the lives and activities of World War II veterans (the Museum currently has over a hundred of these, and more are being added). It includes tactical maps used by Patton during World War II, and a collection of rare books. The library is also a source of genealogy information.
If you would like to learn more about the General Patton Memorial Museum, Chiriaco Summit, and the Chiriaco family, in addition to our earlier blog on the Patton Museum you might want to pick up a copy of Chiriaco Summit, a book that tells the story well. You should buy a copy. It’s a great read.
Here at Exhaustnotes.us resurrection projects are leaps of faith. They feel good and inevitable, and promising. You know instinctively it’s the right thing to do and that everything will work out ok in the end. The Kawasaki Z1 was like that. I had no doubt that motorcycle would once again tear great, jagged, 8000 RPM holes through the atmosphere. It just had to, you know?
This 1974 MBG-GT is not that kind of resurrection. Nothing about this car feels inevitable, least of all my ambition to see it through to the end. I’m going into this project fully expecting to fail. “Life’s too short,” my buddy Burns said. “Make a hot tub or a planter out of the thing.” That’s sound advice spoken from the heart. The man is trying to save me from myself.
Anyone in the saving-souls business knows that people tend to bushwhack their own meandering path towards destruction. There’s not a lot well meaning friends can do to stop your sanity from hiking off into the woods. It’s a negative human trait offset by our ability to make music and microwave corndogs. And I still don’t know how to play the guitar.
Here’s the thing: I never wanted an easy life. My dreams are not of leisure. I don’t seek comfort. Fun is no fun to me. Put me on a beach towel in Tahiti and I’ll go stark raving mad. Instead, I choose to make a mess of things. I don’t want to hear the MGB-GT run. I have to hear it run. It’s laid fallow for 5 years that I know of and probably 10 more besides. The little British car parked next to the needle bush has mocked me long enough. I’ll have my revenge.
If you’re expecting a short series on the MGB-GT stop reading now. The car has serious rat infestation issues. Most of the interior is chewed up. There must be 50 pounds of rat guano inside the cabin and engine room. I’m going to take this slowly and spend the absolute minimum amount of cash at each stage.
There will be no grinders shooting sparks, no photogenic noir-arc welding and no artificial deadlines to create artificial tension in the story. This job will be stress free and I reserve the right to walk away any time I choose. The MGB will always take a back seat (get it?) to other projects.
The first thing I plan to do is to get rid of this spiny plant. The thing has incredibly sharp 2-inch long needles that will flatten a tire or stick into your leg bone. After that cleaning out the rat-poo engine room so that I can see what I’m up against. Cleaning rat poo in New Mexico is not as simple as hooking up a shop vac and sucking up the stuff.
Here in New Mexico we get several cases of Hantavirus every year. The virus can lay dormant in rat droppings and infect people when disturbed, so no vacuuming. Instead you spray the mounds of poo with a strong solution of bleach to kill the virus (if it can be considered alive). Next you don gloves and an N-100 mask and shovel the wet bleach-glop into a suitable container.
This part of resurrection is no walk in the park. If you manage to stay alive through this step another shot of bleach on the remaining rat droppings should make it fairly safe to use the shop vac. Follow up the final vacuuming with a pressure washer and engine cleaner. And then you can begin. I’ll start by disconnecting all the chewed electrical circuits and…and…well, you’ll see in the next installment of Resurrections: MGB-GT Part 2.
We own a lot of motorcycles and cars. There are two Jeeps, a Toyota truck, a 4×4 Suburban, an MGB GT, three Kawasakis, a golf cart, a Yamaha and a whole bunch of other motorcycles. I can’t afford to insure or repair all these vehicles so many of them sit around and collect dust. You may wonder why I keep all this junk. It’s optically distressing and hints at my unearned, depression-era, scarcity mind-set. But it’s not simple hoarding that litters my view. It goes deeper than that. I don’t want to own all these wrecks. The junk stacks up because of my twisted sense of fair play.
This misfit collection of vehicles didn’t happen accidentally or overnight. They were each bought and mostly used as directed but somewhere along the line their purpose became obsolete and other, more capable or more enjoyable vehicles took their stead. And that’s the spot where the free market fouled everything up.
We don’t really need the Toyota pickup truck. It has a couple hundred thousand miles on it but the thing still runs perfectly fine. It’s our go-to vehicle when we want to get somewhere fast. With a 4-liter V-6 pumping out 200 horsepower the lightweight Tundra will cruise at 90 miles per hour all day long. Its soft, car-like suspension coddles the driver and one passenger. And there’s the rub: The Tundra is a standard cab so two people are all you can realistically fit inside, out of the weather. On those long trips your luggage will be wrapped in garbage bags then tossed in the bed. The Tundra was fine when it was my work truck but it’s no longer optimal.
So why don’t we get rid of it? We tried once but it’s worth next to nothing on the free market. The 14-year-old truck has a few minor dings and a manual transmission. We tried to sell it for 3000 dollars but nobody wanted it. We had a few offers under 2000 dollars but I stomped my feet and said, No! I mean, where am I going to get a truck this good for under 2000 bucks? The Toyota stays because it’s not worth selling.
It’s the same with my Kawasaki ZRX1100 or as I like to call it, The Coat Rack. I let the bike sit for a year when we went to Australia. In that year everything hydraulic froze. The front brakes, the rear brakes and the clutch all need repair. The engine still runs ok but the carbs are clogged up from our crappy, alcohol-laden fuel. With only 23,000 miles the ZRX is overdue for a valve adjustment. It needs a new chain, sprockets, a throttle cable and I can never seem to find time for the bike because I’m having so much fun on the 1975 Z1 that I won’t sell.
So why don’t I dump the ZRX1100? I tried to get 2000 dollars for the bike once but no one wanted it. It’s worth even less now. The basic bike is solid but if you took the ZRX to a shop the cost of repairs would exceed the value of the motorcycle. That winnows the pool of eligible buyers down to people who know how to fix motorcycles. Those handy-types traditionally hold out for a super low selling price because they know how a few unknown problems can kill the budget on a project motorcycle. Besides, you can get a showroom condition ZRX1100 for 3500 bucks. Why bother with all the issues on my bike?
When I look at it in the garage, the perfect bodywork, the glossy green paint, and the totally original everything I say to myself, “That’s a great bike, I love the styling. A week’s work would have it running like a champ again. What would I do with 2000 dollars anyway? I’d rather have the non-running Kawasaki!”
And so it goes. The Suburban was bought for its engine and drivetrain but has proved so much better than the Toyota at hauling heavy loads it has taken the place of the pickup truck that I refuse to sell. If I did unload the Bomber it wouldn’t be worth 1000 dollars on the free market. Why bother?
The MGB GT could be worth a pretty penny if it were restored. I see nice GTs going for over 10,000 dollars but then again it would probably cost 9,999 dollars to restore it. At one time I offered it for 250 dollars but couldn’t get a single taker.
After walking past the little blue sports car for several years I’ve grown to love its classy British/Italian mash-up styling. I’ve spent a couple hundred dollars getting a clear title to the MGB. My buddy Lynn managed to get the hood open and everything looks intact in the engine room. I think I can get it running. Wait, I know I can get it running. You can bet I won’t be selling the MGB; its potential as a prop in my fantasy world far exceeds any real-life street value.
I’ve got a Kawasaki 250 that I only use once a year for Bike Week at Daytona. It’s paid for and in pieces at the moment. The KLR always starts first or second kick after sitting for a year. It’s not bad in the dirt, if a little underpowered. I bought it used with very low miles and the sunk cost has long been absorbed. I’d be lucky to get 700 bucks for it and 700 bucks won’t buy much of anything nowadays. The KLR250 stays at our shack in Florida so that I always have two-wheeled transportation whenever I visit. That feeling of moto-security is worth whatever small amount of money I could get for the bike.
You’re starting to get the picture by now. I don’t really want all this junk; it’s just that The Man and society places so little value on my treasures I keep them out of spite. I’ll go to my grave clutching my outdated ideas on what my things are worth and to whom. Sure, it’s a sick way of approaching life but I can think of much worse things, like accepting Market Value.
The thought came to me easily: The Patton Museum. We’d been housebound for weeks, sheltered in place against the virus, and like many others we were suffering from an advanced case of cabin fever. Where can we go that won’t require flying, is reasonably close, and won’t put us in contact with too many people? Hey, I write travel articles for the best motorcycle magazine on the planet (that’s Motorcycle Classics) and I know all the good destinations around here. The Patton Museum. That’s the ticket.
General George S. Patton, Jr., and his faithful companion, Willie, at the General Patton Memorial Museum in Chiriaco Summit, California.
I called the Patton Museum and they were closed. An answering machine. The Pandemic. Please leave a message. So I did. And a day later I had a response from a pleasant-sounding woman. She would let me know when they opened again and she hoped we would visit. So I called and left another message. Big time motojournalist here. We’d like to do a piece on the Museum. You know the drill. The Press. Throwing the weight of the not-so-mainstream media around. Gresh and I do it all the time.
Margit and I finally connected after playing telephone tag. Yes, the Patton Museum was closed, but I could drive out to Chiriaco Summit to get a few photos (it’s on I-10 a cool 120 miles from where I live, and 70 miles from the Arizona border). Margit gave me her email address, and Chiriaco was part of it (you pronounce it “shuhRAYco”).
Wait a second, I thought, and I asked the question: “Is your name Chiriaco, as in Chiriaco Summit, where the Museum is located?”
“Yes, Joe Chiriaco was my father.”
This was going to be good, I instantly knew. And it was.
The story goes like this: Dial back the calendar nearly a century. In the late 1920s, the path across the Colorado, Sonoran, and Mojave Deserts from Arizona through California was just a little dirt road. It’s hard to imagine, but our mighty Interstate 10 was once a dirt road. A young Joe Chiriaco used it when he and a friend hitchhiked from Alabama to see a football game in California’s Rose Bowl in 1927.
Chiriaco stayed in California and joined a team in the late 1920s surveying a route for the aqueduct that would carry precious agua from the mighty Colorado River to Los Angeles. Chiriaco surveyed, he found natural springs in addition to a path for the aqueduct, and he recognized opportunity. That dirt road (Highways 60 and 70 in those early days) would soon be carrying more people from points east to the promised land (the Los Angeles basin). Shaver Summit (the high point along the road in the area he was surveying, now known as Chiriaco Summit) would be a good place to sell gasoline and food. He and his soon-to-be wife Ruth bought land, started a business and a family, and did well. It was a classic case of the right people, the right time, the right place, and the right work ethic. Read on, my friends. This gets even better.
Fast forward a decade into the late 1930s, and we were a nation preparing for war. A visionary US Army leader, General George S. Patton, Jr., knew from his World War I combat experience that armored vehicle warfare would define the future. It would start in North Africa, General Patton needed a place to train his newly-formed tank units, and the desert regions Chiriaco had surveyed were just what the doctor ordered.
Picture this: Two men who could see the future clearly. Joe Chiriaco and George S. Patton. Chiriaco was at the counter eating his lunch when someone tapped his shoulder to ask where he could find a guy named Joe Chiriaco. Imagine a response along the lines of “Who wants to know?” and when Chiriaco turned around to find out, there stood General Patton. Two legends, one local and one national, eyeball to eyeball, meeting for the first time.
A Sherman tank, the one Patton’s men would go to war with in North Africa and Europe, on display at the General Patton Memorial Museum.
Patton knew that Chiriaco knew the desert and he needed his help. The result? Camp Young (where Chiriaco Summit stands today), and the 18,000-square-mile Desert Training Center – California Arizona Maneuver Area (DTC-CAMA, where over one million men would learn armored warfare). It formed the foundation for Patton defeating Rommel in North Africa, our winning World War II, and more. It would be where thousands of Italian prisoners of war spent most of their time during the war. It would become the largest military area in America.
General Patton and Joe Chiriaco became friends and they enjoyed a mutually-beneficial relationship: Patton needed Chiriaco’s help and Chiriaco’s business provided a welcome respite for Patton’s troops. Patton kept Chiriaco’s gas station and lunch counter accessible to the troops, Chiriaco sold beer with Patton’s blessing, and as you can guess….well, you don’t have to guess: We won World War II.
World War II ended, the Desert Training Center closed, and then, during the Eisenhower administration, Interstate 10 followed the path of Highways 60 and 70. Patton’s troops and the POWs were gone and I-10 became the major east/west freeway across the US. We had become a nation on wheels and Chiriaco’s business continued to thrive as Americans took to the road with our newfound postwar prosperity.
Fast forward yet again: In the 1980s Margit (Joe and Ruth Chiriaco’s daughter) and Leslie Cone (the Bureau of Land Management director who oversaw the lands that had been Patton’s desert training area) had an idea: Create a museum honoring General Patton and the region’s contributions to World War II. Ronald Reagan heard about it and donated an M-47 Patton tank (the one you see in the large photo at the top of this blog), and things took off from there.
I first rode my motorcycle to the General Patton Memorial Museum in 2003 with my good buddy Marty. It was a small museum then, but it has grown substantially. When Sue and I visited a couple of weeks ago, I was shocked and surprised by what I saw. I can only partly convey some of it through the photos and narrative you see in this blog. We had a wonderful visit with Margit, who told us a bit about her family, the Museum, and Chiriaco Summit. On that topic of family, it was Joe and Ruth Chiriaco, Margit and her three siblings, their children, and their grandchildren. If you are keeping track, that’s four generations of Chiriacos.
The Chiriaco Summit story is an amazing one and learning about it can be reasonably compared to peeling an onion. There are many layers, and discovering each might bring a tear or two. Life hasn’t always been easy for the Chiriaco family out there in the desert, but they always saw the hard times as opportunities and they instinctively knew how to use each opportunity to add to their success. We can’t tell the entire story here, but we’ll give you a link to a book you might consider purchasing at the end of this blog. Our focus is on the General Patton Memorial Museum, and having said that, let’s get to the photos.
The Patton Museum’s new Matzner Tank Pavilion. When we were there, one of the two M60 tanks you see in front was running. If you think a motorcycle engine at idle makes music, you will love listening to an M60’s air-cooled, horizontally-opposed, 1790-cubic-inch, 12-cylinder diesel engine. I drove an M60 once when I was in the Army. Yeah, I still want one.The business end of an M60’s 105mm main gun. This one has been out of service for a long time; hence the rust. Firing one of these settles disagreements quickly.The M4 Sherman, our main battle tank in World War II, on the right, with an M5 Stuart tank on the left.Don’t tread on me, or so the saying goes. Everything on a tank is big. You don’t realize how big until you stand next to one.When Patton’s men trained at the DTC-CAMA, they used mockup aggressor vehicles (jeeps fitted with frames and canvas) to simulate the bad guys.M60 main battle tanks parked behind the Museum. This was a shot I could not resist. If Joe Gresh was into tanks, this is what Tinfiny Ranch would undoubtedly look like. The Patton name was attached to the M47, M48, and M60 tank series. I asked Margit about these tanks, and she told me that when the Museum raises enough money, they’ll be made operational and put on display. For now, Margit said, “they stand as silent ghosts with General Patton at the helm.” I like that.The General Patton Memorial Museum outdoor chapel. The chapel was built using desert rocks. If someone is looking for a unique wedding venue, this is it.
When I first visited the Patton Museum nearly 20 years ago, there were only three or four tanks on display. As you can see from the above photos, the armored vehicle display has grown dramatically.
Like the armored vehicle exhibits, the Museum interior has also expanded, and it has done so on a grand scale. In addition to the recently-built Matzner Tank Pavilion shown above, the exhibits inside are far more extensive than when I first visited. Sue and I had the run of the Museum, and I was able to get some great photos. The indoor exhibits are stunning, starting with the nearly 100-year-old topo map that dominates the entrance.
The Metropolitan Water District’s scale map of southern California, Arizona, and Nevada. MWD brought this model to the US Congress in 1927 to secure funding for the California Aqueduct, then they stored and forgot about it for decades. An MWD executive overhead Margit talking about the planned Patton Museum in the Chiriaco Summit coffee shop one day, he remembered the map, and one thing led to another. MWD donated the map to the Patton Museum in 1988. The Big Map (as it is known) covers the area used by Patton’s Desert Training Center and the California Arizona Maneuver Area. It’s a visually-arresting display that is truly something special.Generals Patton and Rommel, the two key players in North Africa. If you’ve never seen the movie, Patton, you need to fix that oversight. It is a great movie.George S. Patton: The early years. Patton attended the Virginia Military Institute and the United States Military Academy at West Point. His family was from San Marino, California. Patton was born into wealth and could have done whatever he wanted. He chose a career in the US Army.One of the display rooms inside the Patton Museum. I could have spent the entire day in just this room. That’s an A-10 Warthog model in the foreground. It’s the airplane we used to take out Iraq’s Republican Guard tanks in Operation Desert Storm. I worked for the company that manufactured the A-10’s 30mm Gatling Gun ammo and Combined Effects Munitions cluster bombs that did most of the heavy lifting in that war.Another view inside the Patton Museum. A tripod, a Nikon, a wide angle lens, and having the room to myself. It was a grand day.A model of Patton’s command vehicle. Patton lived in a trailer and moved with his troops during most of World War II, unlike other US generals who mostly stayed in hotels. Patton was an RVer before there were RVs.The Patton Museum has an extensive World War II small arms display. I could have spent half a day just viewing this part of the Museum. I’ll be back.The Patton Museum’s small arms display included this beautiful Model 1917 Colt .45 ACP revolver. Most of the surviving specimens you see today (when you see them at all; they are not very common) have a Parkerized finish. This one has the original blued finish. I own a Colt 1917; mine has the original finish, too. There’s quite a story behind these revolvers.A beautiful British Infantry Lee Enfield No. 4 rifle. I grabbed a photo of this one because it had an unusually attractive stock, something you don’t often see on infantry rifles.A replica of General Patton’s ivory-handled Colt Single Action Army revolver. Patton carried different sidearms during World War II, including this Colt SAA and a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum (also equipped with ivory grips). Patton’s Colt SAA had two notches carved in the left grip. Then Lieutenant Patton was part of the Pershing expedition that chased Pancho Villa in Mexico from Fort Bliss (my old stomping grounds). Patton personally killed two men in a gunfight during that action. There’s no doubt about it: Patton was the real deal, a genuine warrior.
In addition to the General Patton Memorial Museum, there are several businesses the Chiriaco family operates at Chiriaco Summit, and the reach of this impressive family is four generations deep. As we mentioned earlier, it’s a story that can’t be told in a single article, but Margit was kind enough to give us a copy of Chiriaco Summit, a book that tells it better than I ever could. You should buy a copy. It’s a great read about a great family and a great place.
I enjoyed Chiriaco Summit immensely. That’s Joe Chiriaco in the lower left photo, and Ruth Chiriaco in the upper right inset. Margit Chiriaco Rusche, their daughter, is seated in the 1928 Model A. Fourth-generation Victor (whom we met) runs a vintage car header company at Chiriaco Summit. Victor is the young man standing behind Margit.
So there you have it: The General Patton Memorial Museum and Chiriaco Summit. It’s three hours east of Los Angeles on Interstate 10 and it’s a marvelous destination. Keep an eye on the Patton Museum website, and when the pandemic is finally in our rear view mirrors, you’ll want to visit this magnificent California desert jewel.
I met Charlie Wilson a couple of times when I was an engineer in the munitions business, so Charlie Wilson’s War
