I thought I’d read everything that had ever been published about traveling the world on a motorcycle. I’ve written about it on ExNotes, describing my favorites among all the books on this topic.
Notice that I’m writing in the past tense, and the reason for that is I most recently learned about another motorcycle saga that belongs on my best-in-class list: Going the Wrong Way, by Chris Donaldson.
My newfound discovery came about almost by accident a few days ago when I visited with Moto Guzzi Classics, an independent Guzzi revival and maintenance facility in Signal Hill, California for a potential story I’m doing for the ExNotes blog and maybe one of the motorcycle magazines. The guys who run Moto Guzzi Classics are, in as few words as possible, both a bit eccentric and absolute subject matter experts. One of them, my new good buddy Wyatt, showed a few of the bikes in their shop to me, and one of those motorcycles belongs to Chris Donaldson. Chris is a Belfast boy (as in Belfast, Ireland) who is going around the around on a Moto Guzzi 850 Le Mans.
Man, there’s a lot to unpack in that last sentence. Belfast. Coming of age during The Troubles. Getting out of Ireland as a young man. Moto Guzzi, which has to be one of the coolest motorcycles on the planet (they’re like Harleys, but for people who like motorcycles). The Le Mans 850, which has to be one of the worst motorcycles in the world for world travel. Traveling the world (as in present tense). That’s right, the journey is not over, even though Mr. Donaldson started it many decades ago. Donaldson plans to continue his global conquest on the same motorcycle, which is one of the reasons why the bike you see here is currently in the queue at Moto Guzzi Classics in Signal Hill.
I’ve had a hard time putting the Going the Wrong Way down on my nightstand each night for the last several nights. I’d read until I couldn’t stay awake, and fall asleep reading it. Don’t get me wrong; the book is anything but boring. Just the opposite is true. It’s fabulous, and even though I couldn’t keep my eyes open because I was reading into the wee hours, I couldn’t stop reading. Going the Wrong Way has all the bike reliability stuff to keep an engineer interested, all the philosophical stuff to keep a philosopher awake, all the people stuff to keep a people person awake, all the border crossing drama stuff to keep a world traveler tuned in, and, well, I could go on, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. The writing is almost poetic. It’s that good.
Folks, Going the Wrong Way is a great read. Don’t just take my word for it; there are something like 1,394 Amazon reviews posted on this book (soon to be 1,395, when I write mine), which is really kind of stunning for a motorcycle travel book written by a rider with no sponsors. Trust me on this: Get yourself a copy of Going the Wrong Way. You can thank me later.
Our other book reviews (along with reviews on a lot of other things) are here.
I suppose I could wax eloquent about all the magnificent three-cylinder motorcycles out there in the world, but in keeping with the theme of this series, I’m sticking (at least for now) with motorcycles I’ve owned or ridden. In those of the triple flavor, there have been three: A 1969 Kawasaki two-stroke H1 Mach III, a 2006 Triumph Tiger, and a 2007 Speed Triple. The first one (the Kawi 500 triple) didn’t impress me at all; the Triumph triples impressed me mightily.
Keith Hediger’s 500cc Kawasaki
Way back when I was in college, I had a 1971 Honda 750 (I’ll you about that bike when I do the ¿Quantos Pistones? blog on the fours). One of my ROTC buddies, Keith Hediger, had a 1969 Kawasaki Mach III. It was a real oddball: A 500cc, two-stroke triple that could stay with a Honda Four in a drag race (which was kind of amazing, considering the Honda’s 50% displacement advantage). Keith and I had this great idea that it would be a real adventure to ride from New Jersey to Quebec, Canada, and we set off to do just that.
A 1969 Kawasaki Mach III 500cc two-stroke triple, a bike that broke all the rufes.
New Jersey to Canada on two naked street bikes with no plan, no luggage, and no rain gear was not a great idea. That point was driven home when it started to rain somewhere in Vermont. It kept raining all the way up into Canada, and when we hit Montreal, we decided we had experienced enough adventure riding for one trip. But it was my first international motorcycle ride, and I had a chance to ride Keith’s Mach III when we switched bikes for a while.
My short ride on the Mach III convinced me of three things:
The Honda CB750 Four was downright luxurious compared to the Mach III.
The Mach III had a seat like a 2×4. It was uncomfortable as hell.
The Mach III was indeed every bit as powerful as the CB750 Four.
I didn’t ride the Mach III long enough or on the right kind of roads to assess its rumored widow-making handling, but the bike felt twitchy and unstable compared to my Honda. And that was it for me and triples for the next 2o or 30 years.
My decades-earlier short ride on the Mach II notwithstanding, I changed my mind about triples. I wanted a Triumph. It started at a Cycle World event (or maybe was it Cycle; I always get the two pubs mixed up) in Los Angeles. I was there on my ’92 Softail when it happened: I heard a Trimph Speed Triple enter the parking lot. It was a magnificent thing, kind of a pearlescent candy pink (which sounds weird as I type this), but wow, it hit all the buttons for me. The color (I would call it bubble gum pearl) just flat worked for me, and that exhaust note…it was just wonderful. It was kind of a mix between a small block Chevy with a big cam and a jungle cat’s snarl. Fierce, yet refined. Loud, but not obnoxious. Big power, but controlled. I knew that someday soon I would own a Triumph triple.
2006 Triumph Tiger
That someday soon arrived when I stopped at Doug Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino. In those days some 20 years ago now, Doug Douglas was an old school motorcycle shop. San Bernardino is regarded by many in southern California as the armpit of the state, and I guess I was of that opinion, too. At least until one of my riding buddies corrected me: “It’s more like the crotch,” he said. I think he was right.
My 2006 955cc Triumph Tiger. The haze in the background is real. I and buddy of mine were riding in the mountains north of Los Angeles during one of our many famous forest fires.
Anyway, I was riding through San Bernardino on my Harley when I stopped at Doug Douglas Motorcycles. Doug was an old guy even then, and he was famous, I guess, as a former motorcycle racer. He was a crusty, cagey old guy who picked up on my reaction when I saw the candy blue, tiger-striped Tiger you see above. He knew I was a goner before he ever said a word. Doug told me what it would be, out the door, and my fate was sealed. Folks, I’ve never paid the asking price for anything, and folks who know me, know I’m as tight was a turtle’s butthole (and that’s watertight). I looked at the Tiger and then Doug and I simply said, “Okay.”
I don’t remember exactly, but I think the Tiger was about $9,000. Sue hit the roof when I came home and told her what I had just done. Then I told her I needed a ride back to Doug Douglas so I could bring the bike home. She fumed for about half the trip until she finally asked me where the money was coming from. I told her I had some money left from selling my Suzuki TL1000S. “What did you do with the rest of that money?” she asked.
“That mother of pearl and black onyx bracelet I bought for your birthday,” I said. I hadn’t known it when I said it, but it turned out that was the perfect answer. Sue was sweet as a kitten for the rest of the ride. When we reached Doug Douglas’s place, I introduced her to Doug.
“You must be the world’s greatest motorcycle salesman,” Sue said. “My husband told me he said yes to your first offer, and that never happens.”
Old Doug scratched his chin and told her, “It’s true I’m a good motorcycle salesman, but I’m really much better at selling new living room and bedroom furniture.” Sue and I were perplexed at that one, until Doug added, “lots of guys who come home with new motorcycles end up buying new furniture within a few days of their buying a motorcycle from me…”
The Tiger was a wonderful motorcycle and I covered a lot of miles with it. The Tiger was Triumph’s “me, too” ADV machine, but it was god-awful off road. I was terrified on it every time I turned onto a dirt road in Baja, which was exactly twice. In soft sand it would scare the bejesus out of a former paratrooper (something I can speak to with authority). The Tiger was essentially a high-performance street bike with ADV styling. It excelled on mountain roads. It was tall and top heavy, but it was fast, it sounded wonderful, and I loved it.
2007 Triumph Speed Triple
The Tiger scratched a lot of my itches, but I still remembered that candy bubble gum Speed Triple, I fancied myself a hooligan, and I still had the urge to own a Speed Triple.
My 2007 Triumph Speed Triple. I shot this photo up on Glendora Ridge Road.
About a year after I bought the Tiger from Doug Douglas, I was in his dealership again and I saw the Speed Triple you see above. I didn’t buy it on that visit, but I thought about it a lot in the days that followed. I drove out there on a lunch break (I was still working then), made an offer, and it was mine.
I opted for a few doodads, including gold-anodized bits and pieces, the little flyscreen, and a set of Jardine carbon fiber mufflers. The result was what was unquestionably the most beautiful motorcycle I’ve ever owned. I remember I was getting a haircut one time downtown and a cop came into the barbershop. He asked if the Speed Triple was mine. I got an adrenaline rush thinking I had done something wrong, but nope, he just wanted to tell me it was a beautiful motorcycle.
The Speed Triple was beautiful and it photographed well, but it was buzzie and uncomfortable, and with its short wheelbase it was a little bit twitchy. I owned four or five motorcycles in those days, and the S3 was the one I rode the least. I sure liked looking at it, though.
One morning, I was headed to the University early in the morning for an 8:00 class. That was November 9, 2009. I exited the freeway and turned left, and I remember seeing a guy at a stop sign in a Camaro. We established eye contact. The next thing I knew I was being loaded into a helicopter, in great pain, with the blades’ downwash sweeping over me, thinking either I was having a really bad dream or I was being medevaced in Vietnam (which is kind of interesting, as I’ve never been in Vietnam).
My “I got screwed” photo. Trust me on this: It was as painful as it looks.
It wasn’t the Camaro guy at the stop sign, and it wasn’t even at that intersection. My S3/automobile altercation had occurred a block further west, which I learned 6 weeks later while I was still in the hospital. I have no memory of the crash (event amnesia, the doctor called it), but as crashes go, it was a relatively bad one. I had a concussion, two crushed vertebra, and two big fractures of my left femur. The femur was the big deal. One surgery while I was still in the hospital put a big metal plate down there to hold everything together while the fractures healed, and when that broke a year later, I had revision surgery to remove the now-broken plate and install a femoral rod so that the lower fracture (which had not healed) could do so. (Trust me on this: The words “revision” and “surgery” should never be used together.) I went on to ride other motorcycles throughout the western US, Mexico, Colombia, and China, so I guess the accident didn’t screw me over too badly. But it made an impression, and I’ll never use a motorcycle to commute to work again. The streets have a different personality during commuting hours, one best suited for a big car, or maybe an armored vehicle.
So that’s my story on the triples. Although the idea of a three-cylinder motorcycle may feel weird (and from an engineering perspective, maybe a little unbalanced or asymmetric), I believe a three-cylinder motorcycle makes a lot of sense. I think a triple has it all: Power, balance, handling, and (at least for Triumphs) the right ExhaustNotes.
Missed our stories on the Singles and the Twins? Hey, no problemo! Here they are:
Boy oh boy, it’s hard to believe a dozen years have slipped by. The year was 2013, and one of CSC Motorcycles’ early marketing campaigns for the CSC 150 Scooter was the “bike in a box” program. CSC sold its Mustang revival motorcycle as a kit, with assembly to be performed by the owner. It was a brilliant marketing campaign and it worked well. So well, in fact, that when CSC started importing the iconic RX3 250cc adventure touring motorcycle a couple of years later, an option available to consumers was to buy the bike in a pre-setup format and perform the setup themselves.
In an effort to hold the line on tariffs and keep prices down, CSC is returning to its roots for the San Gabriel 250, one of its best-selling models. Buyers can get the bike pre-setup, set it up themselves, and save a whopping $495. It’s easy to put one of these motorcycles together, and to make it even easier, CSC provides a complete “how to” video. It’s a great way to bond with your bike and to learn a bit about motorcycle mechanics in the process. For more info, visit the CSC website at www.CSCMotorcycles.com.
Would you like to learn more about CSC’s early days and the role yours truly and Joe Gresh played in helping to promote CSC Motorcycles? It’s all there in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM.
Yes, it really was like that. Somewhere along the Silk Road (the actual Silk Road) in China. I parked my RX3 when I saw the double rainbow, thinking someday I might use the shot in a blog about this adventure.
Almost 40 years ago, I saw my first Indiana Jones movie and it affected me profoundly. I started traveling the world stumbling upon lost empires. Things that have been swallowed by time, as they say. My motorcycle ride through Colombia had some of that. The Baja adventures have a bit of it, too. But none of the rides had more of an Indiana Jones flavor than did the ride across China. That ride was three years ago this month, and I still think about it every day. There were several things we saw in China that would have been right at home in an Indiana Jones movie. One was Liqian. I can best tell you about it with an excerpt from Riding China, the story of the ride with Joe Gresh across the Ancient Kingdom.
Gobi Gresh, aka Arjiu, stopping to smell the sunflowers in China.
The ride in the morning was just like yesterday. We rode the Silk Road at high speed, making great time in magnificent weather. I knew we were going to Wuwei (you could have a lot of fun with that name; it’s pronounced “woo wee”), but that was really all I knew about that day as we started out that morning. Boy, would this day ever be an interesting one!
It was to be a very full day, and Wuwei would be another one of those cities of several million people that seem to pop up in China every 50 to 100 miles. It was a huge city I had never heard of. China is an amazing place, and I was going to learn today it is more amazing than I could have imagined, and for a reason I would have never guessed. I’ve mentioned Indiana Jones movies a lot in this book. Today, we came upon something that could easily be…well, read on. This is going to be good.
After riding for a couple of hours, we left the freeway and entered a city called Yongchang. It seemed to be pretty much a regular Chinese city until we stopped. I needed to find a bathroom and Wong helped me. Wong is a big, imposing guy. He’s a corrections officer supervisor in Xi’an. He has a friendly look, but he can turn that off in a New York minute and become an extremely imposing figure. I saw him do that once on this trip, and I’ll tell you about that episode when we get to it.
Corrections Officer Supervisor Wong. He looks like a mischievous guy. This guy’s command presence was amazing. I saw him stop a car just by looking at it. Here, he’s enjoying the attention in Yongchang.
Anyway, I followed Wong through a couple of alleys and businesses until we came to an empty restaurant (it was mid-morning, and it had no customers). Wong spoke to the lady there, she nodded her head and smiled at me, and pointed to the bathroom. When I rejoined the guys back on the street, several women at a tailor shop (we had coincidentally stopped in front of a tailor shop) were fussing over Wong. He needed a button sewn on his jacket and it was obvious they were flirting with him. Wong seemed to be enjoying it. Like I said, Wong is a big guy, and I guess you could say he’s good looking. I think the women who were sewing his button on were thinking the same thing.
Beautiful young Chinese ladies. Mostly Chinese, anyway. The one on the left is entering my phone number in her contacts list.
Three teenage girls approached us and wanted to know about our bikes. Like many young Chinese, they spoke English (in China, you learn English as a second language in grade school; it is a strong advantage in Chinese society if you can speak English well). They wanted to practice with us. It was the routine stuff (“how are you?” “hello,” and things like that) until one of the teenaged girls looked directly at me and asked, “Can I have your phone number?” Gresh and I both had a good laugh over that. I actually gave her my phone number and she carefully entered it into her phone (and no, she hasn’t called me yet).
I was enjoying all of this immensely, taking photos of the girls, the seamstresses flirting with Wong, and the rest of China all around me. There was something different about one of those teenage girls. I couldn’t quite recognize what it was, but to me she definitely looked, well, different.
Yongchang statues. They don’t look as Chinese as you might think they should. There’s a reason for that.
It was at about that time that Sean approached me and said, “Dajiu, do you see those three statues over there?” He pointed to three tall statues that faced us, perhaps 300 yards away. I nodded yes. “If you look at their faces, you will see that they have Roman features.” Truth be told, I couldn’t really see it in the statues because they were too far away, but I grabbed a photo and later, on my computer, I could see something different. But before I looked at the photo, it all clicked for me. That’s what had my attention with that girl. We were literally in the middle of China and she didn’t look as Chinese as her two friends. She looked different.
All right, my friends, I need to go tangential here for a minute or two and share this story with you. Hang on, because this is real Indiana Jones stuff. No, scratch that. I’ve never seen an Indiana Jones movie with a story line this good (and I’ve seen all of them).
More than 2,000 years ago, before the birth of Christ, the two most powerful empires on the planet were the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. These two superpowers of their time enjoyed a brisk trade relationship along the Silk Road. Yep, the very same trail we had been riding for the last few days. Between them (in what became Iran and its surrounding regions) lay a smaller empire called Parthia. For reasons only the Romans understood, Rome thought it would be a good idea to attack Parthia. They sent several Roman Legions to war (and to put this in perspective, a Roman Legion consisted of about 5,000 men). To everyone’s surprise (including, I would imagine, the Romans), the Parthians kicked Rome’s butt.
Wow, imagine that. Rome, defeated on the field of battle by the much smaller Parthian Empire. To put it mildly, things did not quite go the way the Romans thought they would.
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All of this severely disrupted trade between the Han Dynasty and the Romans, and nobody liked that. “Why the hell did you do that?” the Han Dynasty asked Rome. “We had a good thing going and you screwed it up.” At least that’s what I’m guessing the conversation went like. You get the idea.
Cooler minds prevailed and the Romans realized, yeah, that was a dumb move. The Romans told the Parthians, hey, it’s over, let’s be friends again. The war ended, the Chinese were happy, the Romans were happy, the Parthians were happy, and trade resumed. All’s well that ends well.
Well, sort of. There was still that matter of those pesky Roman legions that had invaded Parthia. They didn’t come back from that war, and for two thousand years, no one knew what happened to them. The Romans probably assumed their Legionnaires had all been slaughtered. No one knew until an Australian dude and a Chinese guy, both University archeologist types (starting to sound a little like Indiana Jones yet?) put a theory together in 1957. Hmmm, maybe those Romans had not been killed after all.
The Parthians, being bright enough to defeat the Romans, were not about to let the Legionnaires go home and perhaps attack them again in some future war. They didn’t want to kill the Romans, either. I guess they were kinder, gentler Parthians. Here’s where those two Aussie and Chinese archeologists enter the picture. They hypothesized that the Parthians told the errant Legionnaires, “Look, we don’t want to kill all you guys, but there’s no way we’re going to let you go back to Rome. And there’s no room for you here, either. Your only option is to keep heading east. Go to China. Maybe you crazy warmongering Italians will find nice Chinese girls and settle down.” With that, and as one might imagine, a hearty arrivederci, the Romans continued their eastward march straight into the middle of China.
And folks, the prevailing wisdom today is that is exactly what happened (although the prevailing wisdom evidently hasn’t prevailed very far, as I had never heard the story until that morning in Yongchang). In fact, prior to this theory surfacing, folks wondered why the Chinese referred to the area around Yongchang as Liqian. That’s not a Chinese word, and it’s unlike the name of any other Chinese town. The folks who know about these things tell me it is an unusual word in the Chinese language.
Liqian is pronounced “Lee Chee On.”
Get it yet?
Lee Chee On? Liqian?
Doesn’t it sound like “legion?” As in Roman legion?
A Chinese man in Liqian. This guy could be the Marlboro Man for a Chinese cigarette company!
I found all of this fascinating. I saw more than a few people around the Liqian area that had a distinct western appearance, and they all consented to my taking their photos when I asked. They recognize just how special their story is. The Chinese government is taking note of this area, too. They are developing a large theme park just outside of Yongchang with a Roman motif. We visited that theme park, and while we were there, Sergeant Zuo gave a book to me (printed in both English and Chinese) about the place. It is one of the two books I brought back from China, and that book is now one of my most prized possessions.
Imagine that: Roman legions, resettled in the middle of China, in a town called Liqian. And I rode there. On an RX3.
Watch for our next Indiana Jones episode in China. It’s about the lost Buddhist grottos at Mo Gao in the Gobi Desert. There’s more good stuff coming your way. Stay tuned!
Want to read more about the ride across China? Pick up a copy of Riding China!
Last year, Susie and I took a trip to Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It was fun. We met with my former battery commander (with whom I served in Korea), we went to the Harley Museum in Milwaukee, we visited Green Bay and their fabulous Auto Museum, we stopped in at the Green Bay Rail Museum, we rode up to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, we toured the Miller Brewery, and we hit a few other places (I’ll provide links for all these at the end of this blog). We do trips like this to have fun and as ExNotes and Motorcycle Classics content safaris. It’s fun. I like to travel, I like to write, and I like taking pictures. Yep, life is good, and what we do sure beats working for a living.
Susie is super good at finding places (usually ones I’d never heard of) wherever we wander, and one of them was the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee. This is an interesting story. You probably know from the Miller Brewery blog we wrote last year that Milwaukee is America’s beer capital. One of the early beer companies in America was Pabst. The story goes like this: Frederick Pabst came to this country from Germany as a 12-year-old boy (with his family) in 1848. He started his working life as a cabin boy on the ships plying Lake Michigan and eventually worked his way up to captain. He married Maria Best in 1857, which brought him into the beer business. Maria’s father owned Best and Company, which at the time was the largest beer company in the country. The Captain (as Frederick Pabst was known by that time) joined the beer biz in 1864, and through hard work (and an obviously smart choice in the matrimonial department) he soon became the top dog. The Captain changed the company’s name to the Pabst Brewing Company in 1874.
The Captain commissioned construction of the Pabst Mansion in 1890. It took a couple of years to build, but I think the wait was worth it. This place is as grand as anything I’ve seen anywhere in the world. Apparently, I’m not the only who felt that way; in 1908 the Catholic church’s Archdiocese of Milwaukee purchased the place. Over the next seven decades, five Archbishops and more than a few priests and nuns lived there, too. By 1975, the Archdiocese wanted out, and sold the property to Wisconsin Heritage, and outfit that offers tours and sells tickets. That’s a good thing; the Pabst Mansion (prior to the sale) was going to be demolished and turned into a parking lot. Just prior to the sale to Wisconsin Heritage, the Pabst Mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Once inside the mansion, we were blown away by its ornateness, the beautiful wood paneling, and the sheer luxuriousness of it. As we went through the different rooms, I wondered what it must have been like for the Captain, and then all those archbishops, priests, and nuns to live here. It must have been grand.
Living there must have been grand. We had a fun time at the Pabst Mansion. If you ever find yourself in Milwaukee, the Pabst Mansion is worth a stop.
The other blogs and magazine articles I mentioned that resulted from our visits to Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan? Here they are:
This was an interesting blog to write (and it was interesting on many levels). As you know, I’m writing a series of blogs on motorcycles I’ve owned with the machines organized by cylinder count. The idea is to consider all of them from my ownership perspective, rack up a bunch of (hopefully) fun-to-read blogs, and then wrap up with my opinion on which engine configuration is the best. I’ve already done the first one on the singles I’ve owned.
A word on the photos: I was surprised I had photographs of every bike I’ve ever owned. In recent decades, after I had become a half-assed amateur photographer, the photo quality is generally good. In earlier years, I was not a very good photographer, nor was my equipment very good. Some of the photos are in black and white, and most of the earlier ones were taken with a dinky little Minolta C-110 camera. Hey, you go to war with the army you have.
Between that first ¿Quantos Pistones? post and this one, something self-updated on my computer and my laptop went from simply taking my orders to predicting what words I’m going to type next and then filling them in, which I found to be wildly annoying. I thought it was in the WordPress software, but it wasn’t. It was in my Edge browser. Google helped me; I found the offending “feature” in the Edge settings and switched it off. I think these software weenies are changing things just to give themselves something to do. I wish they would stop. The folks who keep doing this sort of thing are going to have a hard time explaining themselves when they’re standing in front of the pearly gates. I’ll be there, too, as a witness for the prosecution.
Rant over; let’s get back to the main attraction.
As was the case in the blog on singles, I am again discovering this: Just when I think I’ve listed all of the twins I’ve owned, I remember another one. That sure has been the case here. I suppose I had better hit the Publish button before I remember another one.
Alrighty then: With the above as a backdrop, here we go.
1965 Honda CB 160
Okay, I’m cheating a little. This wasn’t my bike at all. It was my Dad’s. But I rode it in the fields behind our house quite a bit and I sort of considered it to be mine, and that’s why it’s on this list.
The 1964 Honda CB 160, That’s me on the bike in New Jersey, during the winter months, when I was 14 years old.
The little 160 was nice. It was the first motorcycle I ever rode and I had a lot of fun on it. Honda was making big inroads in the United States in the mid-1960s and they changed nearly everything in the motorcycle world. It was a fun time for a 14-year-old kid.
The CB 160 only stayed with us for a couple of months. Dad had been bitten by the bug. He wanted something bigger.
1965 Honda Super Hawk
As was the case with the CB 160, the Super Hawk was Dad’s motorcycle. But the same modifier applied: I used to ride it in the fields behind our house in New Jersey, so I’m including it here.
Fast forward a bit, and it’s me again during the summer months on a 1965 Honda Super Hawk. We had a swimming pool, so I spent my summers in a bathing suit.
The Super Hawk, with its 305 cubic centimeters, seemed infinitely more powerful than the CB 160 (especially riding it in the fields behind our house). Dad had the bug, though. The Super Hawk would only last for a couple of months, too.
1966 Triumph Bonneville
Ah, this was a motorcycle. A Triumph Bonneville. I couldn’t believe it. It had been my dream machine for at least a couple of years, and now there was one in the garage. And you know what? Dad let me ride it in those same fields behind our house. I can’t imagine what he was thinking or why he let me do that. I never dropped it, though. God Almighty, it was powerful. And the sound….it was awesome.
Mom and Dad on the 1966 Triumph Bonneville. You can see their other Bonneville (a 1965 Pontiac) in the garage. You could say we liked Bonnevilles. No one in my family has ever been to the Bonneville Salt Flats. I probably should go there one of these days.
The Bonneville was an amazing motorcycle. Dad and I had a lot of good rides on it. I wish we had kept it. On that sound comment above: Nothing, and I mean nothing, has a a more soul-satisfying exhaust note than a Triumph.
1978 Triumph Bonneville
I was living in Fort Worth, Texas, I was single, and I was an engineer at General Dynamics on the F-16 program. When I passed by the Triumph dealer I realized I hadn’t ridden a Triumph Bonneville since I was 16 years old, so I thought I’d stop by. An hour later I signed on the dotted line, and I owned a Bonneville again.
My 1978 Triumph Bonneville, parked outside my apartment in Fort Worth, Texas. The colors have mostly drained from these two photos. The bike was a deep candy apple red.Another shot of my 1978 Triumph Bonneville.
It was a great motorcycle. There was an older guy who owned a Yamaha TT 500 at General Dynamics (his name was Sam), and we road all the farm roads in the areas around Fort Worth. We both had hay fever and Texas had terrible pollen, but the riding was great. My Bonneville would top out at exactly 109mph (the earlier T120 and then T140 designations notwithstanding), and that was enough. The bike was kick start only (which made it an anachronism in 1978), but I was okay with that, too. For awhile, anyway.
I sold the Bonneville. I’m can’t remember why; I did a lot of dumb things when I was young. Shortly after I sold the Bonneville, I realized I needed a motorcycle again. You know, to be a complete person. That led to my next acquisition. But to this day, I wish I had kept the Bonneville.
1979 Harley Electra-Glide Classic
I used to spend a lot of time at the Fort Worth Harley dealer drooling over their new bikes. The late ’70s were, in my opinion, the height of the Willie G styling years at Harley. It was also the absolute bottom for them from a quality perspectives, as I would soon find out when I finally bit the bullet and bought the bike I thought was the most beautiful motorcycle I’d ever seen: The 1979 Electra-Glide Classic.
Yours truly, with a full head of hair and a 1979 Electra-Glide Classic. I called it my optical illusion. It looked like a motorcycle.
The Electra-Glide was beautiful, but to call it a piece of crap would be insult to turds the world over. The bike couldn’t go a hundred miles without something breaking on it. It needed three top end jobs in the 12,000 miles I owned it (the first two were on the warranty, the last one was on me). I’d finally had it with that bike and what some folks like to call “The Motor Company.” Hell, the motor was the worst thing on that bike. And the brakes. And the clutch. And the starter. And the handling. And the….well, you get the idea. It was one of the last years Harley was owned by AMF, and when a Harley mechanic told me what that stood for, I finally got it. I smiled inwardly when I sold the bike, thinking to myself, “Adios, MF.”
On the way down to San Diego, with the Pacific Ocean in the background. I explored a lot of southern California on the Harley. It was the most unreliable motor vehicle of any type I ever owned.
After that awkward ownership experience, I swore I’d never buy another Harley. I didn’t keep that promise, though.
Even considering all the above, I wish I still had that ’79 Electra-Glide. It would be worth a small fortune today. It sure was a pretty motorcycle.
1976 Triumph TR6
Somewhere in the succession of events described above, I moved from Fort Worth to southern California. General Dynamics transferred me to the Pomona facility. I loved southern California and I hated GD/Pomona. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. The company was okay, but my boss was a dickhead. So I did what I normally do in that situation: I quit and went to work for another defense contractor. While there, I worked with yet another defense company, and one of the guys there had a 1976 Triumph TR6 he offered to sell to me for $500. It was running, it was registered, and minutes later it was mine.
On Glendora Ridge Road on the 1972 Triumph Tiger. It was a great motorcycle.
The TR6 was a wonderful motorcycle. If there was a performance difference between it and a Bonneville, I didn’t have the asspitude to feel it. The single-carb TR6 actually felt stronger at low rpm than the Bonneville did. I loved that bike, too.
Another Glendora Ridge Road portrait. The Tiger had character, and I mean that in a good way.
The paint on the TR6 had oxidized pretty badly (the former owner kept it outside). I had this idea I would restore it (see above regarding my propensity to do dumb things when I was younger). I did a pretty good job turning the great-running TR6 into a basket case (again, see the preceding comments regarding my youthful decisions). The paint job I paid for on the fuel tank was a disaster, and then I lost interest in resurrecting the bike. I sold the basket of bits and pieces for what I had paid for the bike. I wish I still had that one.
1972 Triumph Daytona
The first motorcycle I ever went gaga over was a 1964 Triumph Tiger that a kid named Walt Skok rode to high school. In those days, the Tiger was a 500cc twin that looked a lot like a Bonneville. God, that thing was beautiful.
One of the neighbor kids on my 1972 Triumph Daytona, also known as the Baby Bonneville. This was another great motorcycle.
Triumph kept that 500cc twin in their line for years, ultimately adding a second carb and rechristening the bike as the Daytona. When the 650 line went to the oil-frame-configuration in the early 1970s, the Daytona (also known as the Baby Bonneville) did not; it kept the classic Triumph separate oil tank and peashooter mufflers.
I can’t remember who I bought the Daytona from (I bought it used), but I sure remember its looks. It was a deep candy metallic green with silver accents. It was bone stock and it was a wonderful ride. The handing was almost thought-directed…I could just think what I wanted the motorcycle to do and it would do it. One day, for no particular reason, I took it to the top of one of our streets that ran up into the mountains, turned it around, turned off the ignition, and started coasting downhill. I wanted to see how fast it would go with zero power (see my previous decision-making comments); the answer was exactly 70mph.
I never registered the Daytona over the three years I owned it; I just rode the snot out of it. I never got stopped or and I never had a citation for the expired plates. I can’t remember why I sold it, or who I sold it to. The Daytona was a wonderful motorcycle. I wish I still had it.
1992 Harley Heritage Softail
I didn’t keep my promise to never buy another Harley. A fried let me ride his ’89 Electra-Glide. It was a big, fat porker (the bike, not my friend), but Harley was getting a lot of press about their improved quality. I saw a blue Heritage Softail on the road one day, and I decided I need one. It was that simple.
I covered a lot of territory on my 1992 Harley Softail. This shot was in the mud flats near Guerrero Negro in Baja, a trip I made with good buddy Baja John.
I put a lot of miles on my ’92 Softail, and while it lasted, it was a great motorcycle. Good buddy Baja John and I rode our bikes to Cabo, we took the ferry across the Sea of Cortez, and we rode down to Guadalajara and then back up through mainland Mexico to Nogales (you can read about that adventure here).
The Harley died on me down in Mexico on another trip, and although I had regained a tiny bit of trust in Milwaukee, the dealers were still (in my opinion) basically incompetent. When my ’92 went belly up, the dealer wouldn’t touch it because it was more than 10 years old (I can’t make this stuff up, folks), so I took it to an unencumbered independent repair shop and had it rebuilt as a real motorcycle (you can read that story here).
What kind of killed the Harley dream was me forgetting to pick up milk one day when coming home from a ride on the Harley. My wife asked about the milk. I realized I had forgot it, so I went back out to run to the store. For whatever reason, I took my KLR, and it was as if I had been set free. The KLR was just so much better, I put an ad in the local Cycle Trader the next day and sold the Harley the day after that.
While I am on this subject of Harley twins, I will tell you that I always wanted a Sportster. One day the Harley dealer had to keep my bike overnight and he lent a Sportster to me. That changed my mind in a hurry. It was gutless. I know some of my readers ride Sportsters and others ride Big Twins. Mea culpa in advance. If you’d like to tell me how great your bikes are and how I have my head up my fourth point of contact, please leave a comment, or send in a draft blog (info@exhaustnotes.us) with pics and I’ll publish your rebuttal.
1982 Yamaha XS 650
This was a lucky find, or rather, it sort of found me. I was teaching a failure analysis class at McDonnell Douglas about thirty years ago, and the first evening when I connected my laptop to the projector, a photo of the Triumph Daytona (the one described above) briefly appeared in front of the class.
“Hey, I have one of those,” one of the older engineers in the class said. I asked if he was a Triumph fanboy (as I was). He told me that he didn’t have a Triumph; he had the Yamaha that was based on it. He offered to sell it to me in front of the entire class. I hadn’t even introduced myself yet.
“Let’s talk after class,” I said.
I turns out this guy had purchased the XS 650 new, rode it very little, and it had sat in his garage for several years. I bought it for $900. I think it was a 1982 model, but I can’t say that for sure. Being a Triumph rider, I always thought it would be cool to own one of the Japanese 650 twins. You know…better reliability, no oil leaks, smoother running engines, better fit and finish, and all that.
I found had a good shot (at least I think it is good) of my 1982 Yamaha XS 650 Heritage Special. To this day, I don’t know how Yamaha managed to make the bars so uncomfortable.
I didn’t keep the XS 650 long enough to assess its reliability. I did keep it and ride it long enough to find out that it had absolutely no personality, it didn’t have the bottom end torque that a Triumph did, it sounded more like George Jetson’s car than a real motorcycle (let’s see how many of you know who he was), its Phillips head screws reacted to a screw driver the same way butter reacted to a hot butterknife, and the “cruiser style” handlebars were the most uncomfortable I’d ever experienced. As you can guess, the XS 650 didn’t hang around long. I traded it in to lower the cash outlay on my TL1000S Suzuki.
1997 Suzuki TL1000S
Ducati was setting the world on fire with its L-twin performance bikes, and predictably, it was only a matter of time before the Japanese attempted to do the same. Two L-Twin Japanese motorcycles emerged in 1997: Suzuki’s TL1000S and Honda’s Super Hawk (not to be confused with their Super Hawk of the mid-1960s, as shown above in this Twins story). I opted for the Suzuki variant in red. I just liked the looks of it; I felt it was a prettier motorcycle than the Honda.
The Roadmaster. This thing ate miles and speed limits voraciously. I toured a lot of Baja on it. This photo was taken somewhere in northern Baja.
The Suzuki was the fastest and hardest accelerating motorcycle I ever owned. It would lift the front wheel when shifting from second to third at over 100 mph. I dropped it twice getting in over my head, but I never really damaged the bike or myself. I used the TL as a touring bike, and I covered large parts of Baja with it. It was a fabulous machine and I wish I still had it.
2020 Royal Enfield INT
My most recent twin is the Royal Enfield 650 INT. Enfield called it the Interceptor initially (which is a much better name), but they quickly changed it to the INT (my guess is because Honda threatened to sue them, as they already had a model called the Interceptor).
The Motorcycle Classics magazine centerfield showing the two Enfields Gresh and I used for touring Baja. It was a fun trip.
Gresh and I conned Enfield North America into loaning us two bikes (a 500cc Bullet and the new twin INT) for a comparo ride in Baja. We had a great trip, trading bikes off each day and blogging extensively about our impressions. I liked the INT so much I bought one shortly after we returned. It’s a great bike at a great price and it has all the performance I’ll ever need, both as a street bike and as a touring bike.
So there you go. I’ve owned a lot of twins. To me, a well-engineered twin makes a great street bike.
You know what? In searching for photos of my old twins, I found another single I’d forgotten all about. It was my Triumph Cub.
I never put the Cub on the street. I just rode it a bit in the fields behind my apartment building and then sold it. It was crude compared to other bikes of the era, but it was nice. It would be worth way more today than what I paid for it or what I got when I sold it.
Originality is rare in the mechanical world. Designers build on other’s work. The clean sheet stays clean and so the Honda Dream was heavily influenced by German motorcycles of the 50’s. Just like Honda’s 305 inspired Laverda’s 750 of the mid-1960’s.
The Dream borrowed a lot of ideas from the German NSU.And then Laverda borrowed a lot of ideas from Honda’s 305 engine.
Of course, none of that has to do with the job at hand: getting the 1962 Dream running as cheaply as possible.
The running part was easy: you can’t kill these old Hondas. I cleaned the carb, squirted some oil in the cylinders and onto the valve train, rigged a battery and a hot wire to the ignition, stabbed the starter wire onto the positive-battery and the Honda fired right up.
The sprag clutch (red arrow) will need some work. It skips and grabs intermittently.
Not right-right up as the electric starter’s sprag clutch is a hit and miss affair. (I’ll work on that later) once the engine turned over it ran.
Of course, clouds of smoke poured out of the tail pipes, as all that oil I squirted in the cylinder was burning off. Then the left cylinder stopped firing. I discovered the Tytronic ignition puts out a strong spark when I electrocuted myself pulling the left-side spark plug lead to confirm it wasn’t hitting.
Next I swapped leads to check the secondary of the ignition coil and the problem stayed on the left side. Since there’s only one carb, that left the spark plug. I swapped plugs and the problem moved to the right side.
The Dream came with three boxes of parts, and inside those boxes were at least eight new spark plugs. All were the wrong ones (the reach was too long). I kept digging and found a used plug with the correct reach but a different part number. Regardless, I screwed the thing in and the Honda ran on both cylinders.
The rear fender is kind of a mess.
I shifted the gearbox through its four speeds. The countershaft rotation speed increased with each up shift. I didn’t hear any untoward noises except for the taillight. At some point the taillight cracked the rear fender. Someone, probably an engineer, welded the light to a back plate and then to the fender. Which should have been fine. It wasn’t. The welds broke and the taillight rattled like a loose roofing panel.
I like the way the Dream looks with the fenders shaved. (Photo from internet, I don’t know who took it.)
A hacksaw remedied the taillight situation. I ran the Honda until it quit smoking. The bike kept running better the longer it ran. I have something to work with, baby. Now I can move on to the running gear.
The old speedo cable took a beating.
Unfortunately, my budget-build took a setback with the speedometer cable. The cable stuck in the housing and twisted the end off near the wheel side. Fiscally, I was going to fix it. The dried grey plastic around the housing flaked off easily. I managed to get the cable out and since the speedo cable was a bit long I figured to shorten it by a 1/2-inch and re-crimp the drive tang and end piece. For the plastic cover I was going to use black, heat shrink tubing.
All was going well. I decided to wire wheel the rust on the cable housing. Long-time wire-wheelers will be able to predict what came next. I must have momentarily relaxed my grip on the housing. The wheel grabbed the housing and wound it around the grinder shaft. The loose end flailed like a weed whacker string. I was lucky to escape un-whacked. The worst part is I kind of knew it was going to happen but I kept going anyway.
Four cables for $100! Such a deal!
A new speedometer cable was around $50 on eBay. Or, I can get a complete set of speedometer, clutch, throttle and front brake cables for $100. My budget swelled with excitement. At least I won’t have to watch those other three cables wind around the wire wheel.
I’m using a generic starter relay. These are cheap and available. I’ll need to make a bracket to mount the thing to my bike.Interesting duct work on the 305’s phenolic carb spacer
Then came a bridge rectifier, a starter solenoid, a chain, some o-rings, and new spark plugs. When the stuff shows up I’ll have more work to do.
Still on the list is tires and tubes, a seat cover, cleaning out the gas tank liner crap, and all the wiring. The plan now is to get the bike operational and ride it around a bit to see if it’s worth messing with further.
For Where You in ’62 Parts 1 and 2, as well as earlier Joe Gresh Resurrections, click here.
It’s monsoon season here in New Mexico and the hard rain mixed with hail has me wasting time indoors…I mean tinkering with the Dream 305.
The most annoying problem on the black Dream was the clutch lever wouldn’t move. The cable was like a banjo string, the lever wouldn’t move and the kickstart spun freely. I guess the Dream doesn’t have primary gear start.
The clutch released after I removed the right cover. Several sessions of Gunk got it looking a bit cleaner.
I took off the right-side engine cover and that released the clutch. Once the cable was loose I slipped the cover back on and the kicker turned over the engine with a slipping gear sound.
The kickstart splines look ok but the start lever slips. I’m thinking a keyway might solve the problem.
Turns out the kick lever slides onto the kickstart shaft and is kept from turning by shallow splines in the shaft and kick lever. My Dream must have been kicked a lot. I’m not sure how to fix the problem, maybe grind a keyway?
Sprockets don’t wear out this much in 4000 miles. I suspect the white Dream is the low mileage bike. This black Dream has been around the block.
The sprocket area was a greasy mess so I cleaned it up and removed the worn out countershaft sprocket. The kickstarter and the sprockets have me thinking the 4000 miles on the odometer isn’t accurate. The white Dream looks more like the low-mileage bike.
The wiring was a snarl of mismatched colors. When things get this bad it’s time to start over.
Moving on, the wiring was a mess. The main harness looks like it was new in the past 10 years. Everything else was a tangle so I removed all the wiring to get a clear view of the situation. I’ll start fresh if the engine proves usable.
I’m going to check the valve clearances but the round rocker covers are 23mm. I started easing into the cover with a large adjustable wrench but it felt like the aluminum might round off. 23mm is a socket I don’t have. I’ve ordered a socket from Amazon and when it shows up I’ll tackle the valves.
The carb bits looked good. The Dream is a simple machine to work on and tune.63 years old and doesn’t look a day over 40. The single small venturi and two, 150cc pistons promise many miles per gallon.
I also removed the carb for cleaning. At first glance it seemed not too bad and the second glance confirms it. Everything was in good shape inside so I reused all the bits.
The Tytronic system is easy to connect once you have a diagram. I don’t like the single Allen head set-screw holding on the magnetic trigger.
The Dream came with a Tytronic electronic ignition system. Whoever wired it connected the ground side of the coil in series with the condenser then to the ignition module. I don’t see how that can work. Condensers are used with points to help with arcing when the points break so why would an electronic ignition use one?
Thank you to the internet hero who took the time to draw a diagram. Something Tytronic should have done instead of their lame, verbal-to-text description.The simplified coil/ ignition wiring. Blue and red go to Tytronic module. Battery positive to red, battery negative to frame.
Clear information on the Tytronic set up wiring was hard to find. The factory instructions online used wire colors, most of the colors didn’t match what I have. I like a wiring diagram but all I found was “connect the yellow to the blue” type of stuff. Luckily some brave soul posted a diagram of his set up. I rigged the Tytronic as the line drawing showed. Next I used a test light across the coil connections to set the timing. It’s really simple. I hope the Tytronic actually works.
Oh, how I hate tank liner. Anyone using this crap is not professional.
I’m kind of all over the map on the Dream but as issues are resolved you’ll see a more organized approach. The gas tank has that horrible tank-liner crap inside. It’s delaminating so I pulled some big pieces out. Now only 90% of the liner needs to be removed. There are very few occasions when tank liner is required. Don’t do it.
The near-term goal is to see if the engine is good. After that I don’t know where this project is going. I’m not spending any money on the bike or making a decision until I hear the engine run.
The question du jour (and for several upcoming blogs) is as stated above: How many pistons?
A thought occurred to me the other day: I’ve owed singles, twins, triples, fours, and even a six (a Honda CBX, which was a wonderful motorcycle). There have even been (and are) companies that offer 8-cylinder bikes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8: What’s should be the right number of pistons for the perfect motorcycle?
Man, I don’t know. I’ve owned a lot of motorcycles of varying engine configurations. This blog focuses on the singles. There will be future blogs on other engine configurations. What I’ll describe are my experiences with singles, and (spoiler alert) they’ve all been good. Your mileage may vary.
Honda Super 90
My first motorcycle ever was a Honda Super 90 previously owned by Sherm Cooper of Cooper’s Cycle Ranch in New Jersey. Sherm was a famous flat track and ISDT racer in the 1950s and 1960s. Mr. Cooper had customized the Super 90 I bought from him with an upswept pipe, a skid plate, and knobby tires.
On my Super 90 in the 1960s. It was a fun bike. I wasn’t old enough to have a driver’s license yet, but that didn’t slow me down at all.
I owned the Super 90 before I had a driver’s license, and I rode my Honda all over. It would hit 65mph given enough time and road. I had a lot of fun on that bike.
BSA Bantam
Somewhere in my misspent youth as a goofy teenager, I owned a 125cc two-stroke BSA that actually ran, but not well enough that I was willing to venture very far from the house on it. I rode it in the fields behind our place for a couple of weeks and then parked it on the front lawn with a for sale sign. My first and only Beezer sold quicky.
A BSA Bantam on display in Australia. This one was way nicer than mine.
My Bantam was all black (I don’t know if that was its original colors), it had a lot of power for a small bike, and then it was gone. I didn’t own it long enough to get a photo, but decades later when visiting a motorcycle museum in Australia, I did manage to get a photo of a concours condition Bantam.
Honda SL90
I sold the Super 90 and the BSA Bantam you read about above, and I was a working kid, so I was pretty flush with cash but I didn’t have a motorcycle. I didn’t have a driver’s license, either, but that didn’t slow me down. I bought a new Honda SL90, a model Honda had just released, and I loved it.
A Honda SL90 just like mine (I never took a photo of my SL90). This one sold for about $3500 five years ago.
The SL90 wasn’t any faster than the Super 90, but it had that SL look. Honda had a series of SL bikes back in those days, including an SL175 and an SL350. I’d really like to own an SL350 today, but the prices on those bikes are in the stratosphere. I rode the wheels off my SL90, and I kept it immaculate the entire time I owned it. You know, it’s funny: I can’t remember selling it. But I guess I did. I just checked my garage and it’s not out there.
Honda Cub
One of the families in our neighborhood had a welding business (I guess their welding business was good; they bought new Cadillacs every year). The guy who owned that business somehow acquired a 50cc Honda Cub. You know, the little ones with a step-through frame. I offered him $50 for the Cub. Suddenly, I owned a 50cc Honda Cub.
My 50cc Honda Cub. I only owned it for a short period.
The Cub had three speeds and a centrifugal clutch. I sold it a month or two later for $75 and considered myself a wheeler dealer. Seiko recently came out with series of watches commemorating the Honda Cub. I’m wearing that watch as I type this blog.
Honda Cubs are still in production (new ones MSRP for $3,899.00, not including transportation to the dealer, California emission equipment, government fees, taxes, finance charges, dealer document preparation, electronic filing fees, tire tax, and, well, you get the idea). As I understand it, more Honda Cubs have been built than any other motor vehicle of any type. I’ve traveled a bit in my life, and I can tell you that Honda Cubs are everywhere. The people who keep track of such things stopped counting when the total number of Cubs went over a hundred million. Soichiro outsold Henry Ford. Imagine that.
KLR 650
I had always wanted a Kawasaki KLR 650, and in 2006, I scratched that itch. It was one of my all time favorite motorcycles. I used mine as a touring bike, and that touring sometimes included offroad excursions here and in Mexico. I had fabulous rides in Baja with the KLR.
I covered a lot of miles in Mexico on my KLR. It never let me down. It was the perfect motorcycle for Baja.
I sold the KLR just because I was busy riding other machines. Looking back on that, I wish I’d kept it. The KLR was a fabulous motorcycle. I think it made less than 40 horsepower, and that was all I needed. I could touch 100mph on mine. The ergonomics on it were perfect for me. I loved that bike.
CSC 150
My CSC 150 Mustang replica was kind of my comeback bike after I crashed big time on a Triumph Speed Triple (that’s a story I’ll tell in a subsequent blog).
My new buddy Umberto upgrading a preproduction muffler tab to the production configuration, while simultaneously demonstrating proper personal protective equipment use. Welker is pulling fire guard duty.Our CSC 150s parked in front of the Desert Inn in Catavina, Baja California Sur, about 330 miles south of the border. My bike is the fire engine red one, second from the left.
I caught a lucky break after the above-mentioned motorcycle crash: My buddy Joseph Lee told me about a new venture, the California Scooter Company, that was resurrecting the Mustang motorcycle. I consulted for CSC for the next 6 or 7 years, and one of my brilliant ideas was to ride the little 150cc Mustang to Cabo San Lucas and back. I and three of my friends did so. You can read about it here.
Janus Gryffin
I never owned a Janus, but I spent a four day weekend riding one through southern California and northern Baja with the Janus CEO and his videographer (you can read about that ride here). It was a Janus promotional ride that I talked them into doing, it was a lot of fun, it resulted in a couple of magazine articles for me, and I had a hoot doing it.
The Janus CEO taking the Gryffin offroad in northern Baja.
The Janus Gryffin uses a CG-250 Honda clone engine (the same one used in the CSC TT 250: see below). I had a good time on that ride. Hell, I’ve had a good time on all of my rides through Baja.
CSC TT 250
I talked CSC into bringing the TT 250 to America. On one of my many visits to Zongshen (in Chongqing, China), I noticed a 150cc motorcycle on a platform in their marketing department. It was a sharp bike, I knew that the CG 150 engine has the same exterior dimensions as the 250cc engine, and I asked the Zong wizards if they would make that bike for us (us being CSC) with the larger engine. The answer was yes, and the CSC TT 250 was born.
My TT250 On Mexico Highway 2 at the Rumarosa Grade. it was a fun trip.Dangerous Dan with his TT250 in Baja.
The bike was wonderful, and they initially retailed for $1895. They sold like hotcakes, and to this day, they still comprise the bulk of CSC’s motorcycle sales. I had a blast on mine. Many of the folks who owned CSC RX3 motorcycles also purchased the TT 250, and we ended up doing a ride through Baja on those bikes. They were awesome.
CSC RX3
My last single-cylinder motorcycle was a 250cc RX3, imported to the US by CSC Motorcycles in Azusa, California. The RX3 is a Chinese motorcycle that looks a lot like a slightly scaled down GS1200 BMW.
My RX3 along the malecon in Loreto, Baja California. That’s the Sea of Cortez in the background. I covered a lot of miles on this motorcycle. It was one of the two best bikes I ever owned (the other was my KLR 650).Joe Gresh (shown here in the Gobi Desert) and I rode RX3 motorcycles across China. It was the ride of a lifetime.
A lot of the China haters claimed that Zongshen copied the styling from BMW (hey, nearly everyone else did, too, on their adventure touring bikes in those days). There sure was a big cost difference, though. BMWs were going for $25K; the RX3 sold for $2895 when it first came to America.
The RX3 proved to be a remarkably reliable motorcycle. We took a dozen Chinese riders on a 5000-mile tour through the American west, Gresh and I rode a 6000-mile loop through China, I rode around the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and we did numerous Baja rides with groups of CSC riders in Baja, all without a single mechanical breakdown (well, we had one guy break his gearbox in Baja, but he was a guy who liked to shift without using his clutch, so I’m not counting that one). The RX3 is a wonderful machine.
I was one of the key guys involved in bringing the RX3 to America, and I’m proud of that. It was one of the high points of my professional life and my riding life. I wrote a lot of blogs for CSC and several books about my adventures on the RX3. I think the RX3 is one of the best motorcycles in the world. I wish the bike was still in production.
You know what? In searching for photos of my old twins, I found another single I’d forgotten all about. It was my Triumph Cub.
I never put the Cub on the street. I just rode it a bit in the fields behind my apartment building and then sold it. It was crude compared to other bikes of the era, but it was nice. It would be worth way more today than what I paid for it or what I got when I sold it.
Next up in our Quantos Pistones series? The Twins, of course. Stay tuned.
I’ve been to a lot of great places. None were as grand as Yellowstone National Park. I was reminded of that when watching the Kevin Costner special, Yellowstone One-Fifty.
I’ve been to Yellowstone twice. The first time was with a bunch of guys from China, two guys from Colombia, Baja John, and Joe Gresh. The second time was with Susie. Both trips were great. Seeing the Costner special reminded me of a blog I wrote about those trips a few years ago, and I thought you might enjoy reading it again.
Man, it was cold. It was the coldest we would be on our 18-day, 5000-mile ride around the western United States. Yellowstone National Park was our destination and we wanted to arrive early. Baja John was doing the navigating and the trip planning, and we were leaving early that morning out of Cody, Wyoming, at 5:00 a.m. to beat the tourist traffic in Yellowstone. I had an electric vest; our Chinese and Colombian guests did not. I knew they had to be hurting. I had my vest dialed all the way up and I was. Did I mention it was cold?
So, about that big photo above: That’s Yellowstone Falls on the Yellowstone River. There are something like 10 waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park. I’ve only seen the one above. That means I have at least nine reasons to return.
Back to the story. I did mention it was cold riding into Yellowstone that morning, didn’t I?
Following Baja John into Yellowstone. That trip was 6 years ago, and I still get cold looking at this photo.Another shot entering Yellowstone National Park from the east. That’s Baja John in front of me…we were dressed for the cold, but I think our guests found it to be a little colder than the weather they are used to in southern China.
The trip was a wild one…18 days on the road with a dozen guys from China, two from Colombia, and all on free motorcycles provided by Zongshen via CSC Motorcycles. CSC was the importer, I was the go-between spanning the CSC/Zongshen interface (and two continents), and while we were arranging the initial shipment Zongshen asked if I had any ideas to promote the bikes in the US. Wow, did I ever!
In Zongshen’s main offices, with key Zongshen execs viewing photos from my rides in the US and Baja. Sue grabbed this photo and it’s one of my favorites. Without realizing it, I was selling those guys on giving us 15 motorcycles to ride around the US. This looks like a staged photo. It’s not.
That ride became the Western America Adventure Tour, and it was a hoot. I mean, think about it: Every angry and ignorant asshole on the Internet was condemning Chinese bikes and here we were, with 15 of the things that had just arrived in America, setting off on a 5,000 mile ride from So Cal to Sturgis, west across the US to the Pacific Ocean, and then riding the Pacific coast back to So Cal. On that epic ride we didn’t have a single breakdown and that was giving the Internet trolls meltdowns. It was a grand adventure.
But I digress. Back to Yellowstone. On our ride, we hit every National Park along the way, and Yellowstone was one of the best. Prior to that ride, I’d never been to Yellowstone and I had always wanted to see it. And for good reason…it is (in my opinion) the quintessential National Park. Yellowstone is surreal, with sulfur-laden steams and ponds spewing forth, majestic views, waterfalls, bison, bears, deer, elk, wolves, geysers, and more. It was a first for me. I was a Yellowstone green bean.
When we entered Yellowstone, we arrived so early the gates were unmanned and we entered for free. But it had been a long, cold ride in from Cody and we were nearly out of gas. My fuel light was blinking as we entered the park and I didn’t know for sure if there would be gas in Yellowstone. John felt confident there would be, and he was right. I saw the Sinclair sign up ahead, but before we got there, we had a close encounter of the bison kind. We were cruising along at about 30 mph, and all of a sudden I noticed this locomotive next to me. I was too slow to realize what it was until I was alongside, but our chase vehicle driver John (we had two Johns and one Juan on this ride) grabbed this photo…I had passed within 10 feet of this monster!
Just as I went past my big buff buddy above, he exhaled. In the frigid Yellowstone air, fog came out of his nostrils. It was like riding alongside a steam locomotive.
Here’s another cool shot in Yellowstone: The Continental Divide. We had crossed it several times on the ride to Yellowstone already, but I think this is the first time I stopped for a photo.
Sometimes the photos almost take themselves.
One of the many attractions in Yellowstone is Old Faithful. Here’s a shot of the geyser in its full glory.
It was one of those motorcycle rides that was so much fun it made me feel a little guilty. (That’s a Jewish thing; maybe some of our Catholic readers will understand it, too.) I felt bad because Sue wasn’t enjoying the trip with me. So I fixed that. A few years later Sue and I hopped in the Subie, pointed the car north, and a few days later I rolled into Yellowstone National Park again (this time with my wife). Naturally, I grabbed a few more photos.
Peering into the valley carved by the Yellowstone River.Ah, the bison. This was really cool stuff.Click. Click. Click.A photo of Sue in the Subie photographing a bison.Wow.
I’m not a geologist, but geology seems to me to be a pretty interesting subject and there sure are a bunch of geological things in Yellowstone. Like the bubbling and burbling pits and pools you most definitely do not want to fall into.
You get the idea. In doing a bit of Internet research on Yellowstone, I came across this Yellowstone map. It is a good way to get the lay of the land up there in Wyoming, but visiting Yellowstone National Park would be even better.
You can learn a little bit more about Yellowstone as a destination (and how to get there) by reading an article I wrote for Motorcycle Classics magazine. It’s a cool place and I’ve never met anyone who felt like visiting Yellowstone was anything other than a marvelous experience. Trust me on this: Yellowstone National Park belongs on your bucket list.
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Would you like to read more Motorcycle ClassicsDestinations articles? Hey, just click here or better yet, buy your own copy of Destinations.
One more thing…if you’d like to learn more about the RX3 motorcycle and our 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, you should do two things: Buy yourself a copy of 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM, and watch Joe Gresh’s video:
I’ve had a hard time putting the Going the Wrong Way down on my nightstand each night for the last several nights. I’d read until I couldn’t stay awake, and fall asleep reading it. Don’t get me wrong; the book is anything but boring. Just the opposite is true. It’s fabulous, and even though I couldn’t keep my eyes open because I was reading into the wee hours, I couldn’t stop reading. Going the Wrong Way has all the bike reliability stuff to keep an engineer interested, all the philosophical stuff to keep a philosopher awake, all the people stuff to keep a people person awake, all the border crossing drama stuff to keep a world traveler tuned in, and, well, I could go on, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. The writing is almost poetic. It’s that good.
