Back In The Day – Page 4 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

¿Quantos Pistones? (The Sixes)

By Joe Berk

As the Sixes go, there have been a few: The Honda CBX, the Kawasaki KZ1300, the Honda Gold Wing, the Honda Valkyrie, the Benelli Sei, and the BMW K1600. This doesn’t include any custom engined bikes, and there have been a few. This blog is long enough already, so I’m leaving out things like bikes with three Triumph 650 Twin engines. All the bikes included here were factory offerings.

Honda CBX

The year was 1979, and I was riding a Triumph 750 Bonneville I bought new in Fort Worth, Texas. We had a Honda dealer in town that had a demo CBX, and I went over there as soon as I knew the dealer had the CBX in stock.

In those days, dealers of all kinds of bikes allowed unsupervised test rides. Very few dealers, if any, do that today, and for good reason. There are guys out there that will ride the snot out of them. I was one of them back in 1979. I picked up the CBX (a beautiful silver one that was essentially a naked bike; this was before Honda put the big fairing and bags on the CBX in 1981), and I headed out to Loop 820. Loop 820 (as the name implied) looped around Fort Worth. I lived on the west side of town out near the General Dynamics plant where I was an engineer on the F-16.

Loop 820 in those days way out on the west side of Fort Worth was a traffic-devoid area, and that made it a favored spot for top speed testing. My ’78 Bonneville would top out at an indicated 109 mph on Loop 820 (I think I’m past the statute of limitations on that moving violation, which is why I’m sharing this with you). Naturally, it was where I took the CBX. The bike had something like 6 miles on the odometer, but I didn’t care. The magic number? 131 mph. Yep. I was a speed demon back in the day.

When I brought the bike back to the dealer, I put it on the sidestand with the engine still running. It squirted oil arterially out the left side of the forward cam cover. It squirted in spurts, like it had a heart pumping it out. “How’d you like it?” the enthusiastic sales guy asked, and then he saw the oil orgasming out the top end.

“I didn’t,” I said. “I mean, look at it. It leaks worse than my Triumph…”

So I didn’t buy that CBX, but I never abandoned the idea of owning one.

My 1982 Honda CBX. Bone stock. Impressive. Fun to ride.

Maybe 20 years later I stopped at Bert’s, a huge local Honda/Suzuki/Yamaha/Kawasaki (and maybe a few other makes I can’t remember) dealer. He had a 1982 CBX on the floor. It was a used bike with just 4500 miles on the odometer, and he wanted $4,000 for it. It was beautiful. Completely stock, it was pearlescent white with turquoise and black accents. I stopped twice but couldn’t quite bring myself to pull the trigger. Then I stopped in a third time and it was gone. Rats. Missed it. He who hesitates is lost, and I had hesitated.

I asked about the bike and was told some rich guy from Japan had bought, and Bert’s was putting new seals in the forks, installing a new air filter, cleaning the carbs, and doing a general servicing on it. Lucky guy, I thought.

Then I stopped in a fourth time and the bike was back on the floor. The sales guy on duty in Bert’s used bike department was a nice old guy who told me he won the Daytona 200 in 1956. Did he really? Hell, I don’t know. We didn’t have the Internet yet. But none of that mattered. The ’82 CBX was back on the floor and it was now $4500. I could get my checkbook out fast enough.

Six pipes, six cylinders, six carbs, 24 valves, double overhead cams.

I had a lot of fun with the CBX, riding all over California, Nevada, and Arizona with it. I put 20,000 miles on the bike. I even road to the Laughlin River Run one year, where it drew more stares than any of the cookie-cutter wannabe rebel yuppie EVO-engined Harleys.

On the road near Bagdad. Bagdad, Arizona, that is. That’s my buddy Louis and his Gold Wing. Louis went into witness protection and has since taken to wearing a shirt.

I loved the bike, but I decided it was time to sell it a few years later. A friend offered me $4500, which is what I had paid for it and about what they were going for in those days, and I sold it. I wish I still had it.

The Honda Gold Wing

Somewhere in its history (actually, it was way back in 1988, which surprised me), the Honda Gold Wing became a flat six displacing 1520cc. I think they are up to something like 1800cc or maybe a million cubic centimeters by now. I never rode a Gold Wing Six and I never had a desire to own a Gold Wing (one short ride on Louis’ Wing, a Four, convinced me that Wings are crafted of boredominium).

A Wing Ding Six. I think there’s a bathroom with a shower somewhere in there.

None of the Wings in any denomination ever appealed to me. I know that modern Gold Wings are impressive and fast and handle well (for a battleship) and all that. The whole Wing thing just never appealed to me. Never has, and never will.

The Honda Valkyrie

The Honda Valkyrie used the Gold Wing engine and it was, I think, supposed to sort of compete with Harley. I liked the idea, and I thought I wanted one, so I went back to Bert’s and looked at one on the showroom floor. Fortunately for me and my wallet, I rode my ’92 Harley Heritage Softail there. The Valkyrie looked good, I thought, until I went back out to the parking lot and saw a new Valkyrie that someone had parked right next to my Softail. Both bikes had windshields and saddlebags, so it was a good side-by-side comparison.

That visual comparison is what drove a silver stake through the Valkyrie’s heart for me. I couldn’t believe how big, porky, and bloated the Valkyrie looked next to my Softail (and the Softail was not a small machine). The Heritage Softail just looked way more svelte, nimble, and sexy. That killed it for me. No Valkyrie would ever live in my garage.

Like the Gold Wing, there were two iterations of the Valkyrie – a 1520cc initial offering and then later an 1832cc version. The Valkyries were known for their atrocious fuel economy, although I can’t imagine anyone who bought one worried about that. They were huge bikes.

The Kawasaki KZ1300

Shortly after Honda introduced the CBX, Kawasaki introduced a 1300cc, water-cooled monster they called the KZ1300 (I think that’s what they called it). Unlike the Honda CBX (whose production run lasted only from 1979 to 1982), the KZ1300 stayed in the Kawasaki lineup for several years. I don’t know why.

The KZ1300 fell from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

The Honda CBX (even though it was a Six displacing 1050cc) looked nimble, lean, and mean. The Kawasaki looked like a bus or maybe a dump truck to me. There was nothing elegant or graceful about it. I wanted no part of it. I’ve never ridden one.

Benelli Sei

Benelli jumped on the air-cooled inline 6 theme with their Sei models. They were good looking bikes, but they looked (at least to me) like a copy of the Honda CBX. As copies go, the CBX wasn’t a bad thing to use as a starting point, but to me, the CBX was a far more attractive motorcycle.

The Sei was offered at first as a 750 and later as a 900. The Benellis were made from 1973 to 1978. I think I may have seen one or two Benelli Sei motorcycles, but I can’t remember where. I never rode one and I had no desire to. The CBX spoiled me.

My Benelli B76 pistol. The story on it is here.

As an interesting aside, Benelli is one of those interesting companies that made both guns and motorcycles. I have a rare Benelli 9mm handgun, a pistol that didn’t make it commercially but is delightfully complex and fun to shoot. Benelli also makes rifles and shotguns. Motorcycles marketed under the Benelli name are today manufactured in China.

BMW K1600

The BMW K1600 series of luxo-barges are (as the name implies) 1600cc motorcycles. They have inline (across the frame) six-cylinder engines, with the pistons at a steep forward angle.

There’s a K1600 GT and a K1600 GTL. I think the L stands for luxury. Or maybe it stands for loaded (which is what I’ve have to be to ever purchase one of these 750-pound land yachts). Like most BMW products, the K1600s are outrageously priced, a situation made worse by tariffs.

These bikes, I think, are unnecessarily laden with electronics and other silly features. A few years ago when the K1600 first hit the market, I was in a BMW dealer chatting with the marketing manager. He was multitasking during our conversation. The other thing he was doing? He was trying to figure out how to use a K1600’s electronic ignition key for a bike he had just sold. BMW North America was on the phone, and the guy on the other end was similarly perplexed. That made four of us who couldn’t break the code on how to use the key (BMW NA, the dealer’s sales manager, the bike’s new owner, and me). I was the only one of the four who didn’t care, as I wasn’t going to ride the bike. Ah, the good old days…when a key was just a piece of mechanically-notched steel that you stuck in the bike’s ignition lock and turned.

So there you have it: My take on the Sixes. So is this it? We’ve done singles, twins, triples, fours, Fives, and Sixes. Surely there can’t be more.

Hey, don’t call me Shirley. Stay tuned. Yep, there are 7-cylinder, 8-cylinder, 9-cylinder, and more cylinders coming up. Stay tuned.

Missed our other ¿Quantos Pistones? stories? Here they are:

¿Quantos Pistones? (The Fives)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Fours)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Triples)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Twins)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Singles)

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A Day With Emma at Moto Town in Marina, California

By Joe Berk

A few months ago Sue and I visited the Jameson Classic Motorcycle Museum in Monterey, California, for a Motorcycle Classics “Destinations” article. It was a marvelous museum in a marvelous locale, we had a wonderful time, Motorcycle Classics published the article, and I first learned of Emma Booton. Staci Jameson, heir to the Jameson museum collection, explained that several of the bikes on display had been lovingly restored by Emma Booton, whom Staci described as a “restoration goddess.”

I’m currently working on another Motorcycle Classics set of articles featuring how to do different motorcycle maintenance activities, which led me to seek Emma’s advice and, hopefully, to photograph her activities as she did some of the things I would be writing about. Well, I hit a home run there, too. Emma was very willing to support the activity, so Sue and I did another run up to the Monterey Peninsula to visit with Emma at her Moto Town shop.

Emma has a sense of humor, as this photo in her shop demonstrates. That’s Emma on the right.

Emma and I spent a great morning together as she worked through a series of activities on a vintage Honda dirt bike and I snapped away with my Nikon. Emma is a wonderful teacher with a delightful British accent and a very keen sense of humor. It was fun and I enjoyed every second of it.

Emma Booton’s resto mod Triumph Trident. I want it.

While all this was going on, my eye wandered to the other bikes in the shop, and one in particular was visually arresting: A resto mod Triumph Trident. I asked Emma about it and learned it was one of her personal bikes. The bike has been poked out to 900cc, it has larger diameter forks and dual disk brakes, bigger carbs, transistorized ignition, a hotter cam, an oil cooler, and lots more.

I asked Emma if the colors were the stock Triumph purple that was available in those early 1970s Trident days. I remembered that Triumph had a purple, but Emma’s bike was much more vibrant than any Triumph I remembered. “No, dear,” came the answer in that vibrant British accent (aurally matching the Trident’s stunning purple paint). “I knew I wanted purple, but not the Triumph purple, which wasn’t very uplifting. I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, and then I saw it…the purple on a Roto Rooter truck! I call it Roto Rooter purple!”

There weren’t any Roto Rooter trucks nearby, and on the long drive back down to So Cal, Sue and I diligently scanned the other cars and trucks we saw on the road, but we didn’t see any Roto Rooter vehicles. A quick look on Google Images struck paydirt, though, and we saw it. Emma was right. She nailed it: Rotor Rooter purple!

I would dearly love to own Emma’s Triumph. Not many motorcycles reach out and grab me like that, but the Trident you see here sure did. It’s a good feeling.

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¿Quantos Pistones? (The Fives)

By Joe Berk

In prior ¿Quantos Pistones? posts, I wrote about engines with which I had personal experience. When dealing with five-cylinder engines, though, I cannot do that. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a five-cylinder motorcycle. They exist, though, and I found them by poking around a bit on the Internet. The best source was Wikipedia, which lists several. I used Wikipedia as the basis for further research, and I went beyond that to include others found online.

The Straight Fives

These fall into two categories: Custom-built motorcycles created from stock bikes, and Honda’s 1960s small displacement Grand Prix racing motorcycles.

Honda built the RC148 (the first edition of their 125cc inline five-cylinder, four-stroke engine), and the RC 149 (which was a further development effort). The RC149 is reported to have reached speeds of over 130 mph. It had an 8-speed transmission and the pistons must have been about the size of thimbles. Well, not really. This engine was originally based on Honda’s 50cc twin (can you imagine such a thing). Take two and a half 50cc twins, throw in some Honda pixie dust, and voilà, you get an inline 125cc 5-cylinder GP bike. It must have been exciting, being an engineer at Honda back in the 1960s.

Here’s a video I found of Honda techs evaluating an RC149 on a Honda test track. If you like listening to engines wail (their, um, ExhaustNotes), you’ll enjoy this one:

There have also been custom straight fives fabricated from other engines. Here’s one based on the Kawasaki three-cylinder 750cc two stroke:

Those bikes must have been impressive, too. I thought I once saw something on the Internet about a similar custom Kawasaki 900 (you know, like Gresh’s old Zed) that had been cobbled into an inline 5-cylinder machine, but I couldn’t find it again. Maybe it was in a dream.

Honda’s V-5 GP Bikes

Honda was the only player in the V-5 game, and they only did so on their GP bikes in the early 2000s. That bike was designated the RC211V. Everyone else used either a V-4 or an inline four.

The reasons are very technical, but they all boil down to two advantages:

- The V-5 engine was actually smaller than either a V-4 or an inline four engine, and
- The V-5 engine had an inherent power advantage over the other four-cylinder engines.

The above is explained well in the video below.

The Verdel Radial 5

Here’s one that has a bit of controversy about it: The Verdel radial 5-cylinder bike:

Some have written about it as a rare, 1912 motorcycle, but it’s not. It was built in Britain by an engineer in the late 1990s. A notable motorcycle museum bought it thinking it was a genuine vintage motorcycle (Verdel did exist, but the company made aircraft engines, not motorcycles), and apparently the museum has since acknowledged that this never was a production motorcycle from Verdel. It kind of looks the part, so it’s easy to understand how the museum fell for the vintage bike story. The ground clearance and those two cylinders hanging out from the bike’s undercarriage just scream for a skid plate.

Go Puch Yourself

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that (every once in a while, my New Jersey roots emerge). Back to the story: Here’s another interesting 5-cylinder custom motorcycle assembled by a talented builder using Puch moped engines.

Uwe Oltman (that’s the builder’s name), a guy in Germany, assembled the custom you see above from five Puch 50cc (actually, 48.8cc) moped engines.

The info I found says the bike is pretty much an unrideable showpiece due to the noise and heat from the five Puch 2-stroke engines. They’ve been poked out to 70cc each, so I guess that makes this creation a 350. As design exercises go, I think it’s cool.

Megola

I first heard of this from a friend who had a conversation about rare motorcycles with Jay Leno. Mr. Leno has a Megola in his collection. The Megolas were German bikes from 1921 to 1925 in Munich. The name is combination of its designers’ names (Meixner, Gockerell, and Landgraf).

Megolas are about as weird as motorcycles can be. The engine’s five cylinders rotate around the front axle, with a 6-to-1 transmission that cuts the axle rotation to one sixth of the engine’s speed. The 640cc engine ran at 3600 rpm, which turned the front wheel at 600 rpm, which provided a top speed of about 60 mph. There’s no clutch, so when a Megola rider came to a stop, so did the engine. The owner’s manual suggested riding in small circles if you didn’t want to shut the engine off. Weird, huh?

So there you have it: The Fives. Next up in our ¿Quantos Pistones? series will be (you guessed it) the Sixes. That one will be easier, as I owned a Honda CBX a few years ago. Stay tuned!

Ah, missed a couple! I thought I had them all, but then I found this video, and it identified a couple more 5-cylinder bikes. Take a look; it’s worth a watch!

Missed our earlier ¿Quantos Pistones? stories on the Singles, the Twins, the Triples, and the Fours? Hey, no problemo! Here they are:

¿Quantos Pistones? (The Fours)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Triples)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Twins)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Singles)

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¿Quantos Pistones? (The Fours)

By Joe Berk

Fours? I’ve owned a few, and Lord knows I’ve sure seen a bunch of them. For starters, there’s the 1931 Excelsior-Henderson at the top of this blog (a photo that graces every one of our ¿Quantos Pistones? blogs). It’s not mine and I didn’t ride it. I was so interested in photographing that motorcycle, I didn’t realize I was standing next to Jay Leno until he took his helmet off. I’ve written about that encounter before.

Honda CB 750

When the Honda CB 750 Four came on the scene in 1969, it turned the motorcycle world upside down. I thought the bike was interesting before I saw one, but I also thought I was a 650 twin kind of guy (you know, Triumphs and BSAs). The first 750 Four I ever saw accelerated past my house when I was way younger. It was a gloriously visceral and symphonic four. To a guy used to lopey Harleys and throaty Triumphs, the CB 750 sounded like an Indy Offenhauser. When I heard that high performance four-cylinder yowl, it was like walking through the jungle on a moonless night and having an unseen leopard suddenly scream a short distance away. It reached deep, took hold, and shook me mightily. I remember it like it happened yesterday. At that instant, I knew I would own a 750 Four someday soon. And I did.

Yours truly in the 1970s. Hard to believe it was more than 50 years ago. I loved that motorcycle.

Our family bought our motorcycles from Cooper’s Cycle Ranch in Hamilton, New Jersey. The CB 750 was $1539 out the door (I can’t remember what I had for lunch earlier today, but I remember that number), and my 750 was the color I wanted. Honda offered the 750 Four in four colors in 1971 (brown, green, gold, and candy apple red). I wanted a red one, and Sherm Cooper made it happen. It was a glorious bike. I rode it to Canada with a fellow Rutgers student (Keith Hediger, who had a white Kawasaki 500cc triple). That was my first international motorcycle trip. I rode it a lot of other places, too. It was a wonderful motorcycle. I wish I still had it.

Honda CB 500

I owned two Honda CB 500 Fours. I bought one from good buddy John who was a high school and college classmate. I only put a few miles on before putting it on my front lawn with a for sale sign. It sold quickly. I liked the bike (it was very smooth), but I needed the cash for something else (I can’t remember what).

Good buddy John and the CB 500 I bought from him.

A similar opportunity popped up decades later when a guy at work had a metalflake orange CB500 for sale at Sargent Fletcher (an aerospace plant I ran in the 1990s). Metalflake orange was a factory color on the CB 500 Honda. At $500, I figured I could take a chance. I bought it, rode it a little bit, never registered the bike, and sold it with a Cycle Trade ad a couple of weeks later.

Suzuki Katana

This was a bike way ahead of its time. Wow, was it ever fast. In 1982, the performance was incredible. It would probably be tame by today’s hyperbikes, but back in the early ’80s, it was something else.

Me and my Katana. I still had some hair in the 1980s. Not much, but some.

Take a good look at that photo. The ’82 Katana you see above is the only vehicle (car or motorcycle) for which I ever paid over list price. When it first came out, it was pure unobtanium. Suzuki only made 500 initially. I think mine was No. 241. I paid $5500 for it, which was way over list price in 1982, and I had to go all the way to Victorville to find one.

I thought I had something special, but that only lasted a month or two. After the initial limited release, Suzuki made another 500, bringing the total number to 1,000. I found that troubling, and I felt cheated. Those sold quickly, too, so Suzuki went ahead and produced yet another 500. Those last 500 didn’t sell well at all (Suzuki had reached all the fools like me by then and the market for a bike like the Katana had been saturated). Suzuki had to discount the remaining bikes heavily to move them. That really pissed me off. It would be another 15 years before I would buy another Suzuki (that was my ’97 TL1000S). The way I was buying and selling bikes in those days, that was a long time.

The Katana was my first ever superbike. It was scary fast in 1982, and it would probably still be scary fast today. Thanks to Joan Claybrook and Jiminy Carter (remember those two?), the speedo maxed out at 85 mph (as if that would somehow slow anyone down).

The pipes were one of the coolest things on the Katana. They were what Suzuki called black chrome and they looked great. The instrument pod was cool, too. The tach and speedo needles moved in opposite directions, which made it seemed like the two needles were unwinding as you rowed through the gears. This was my first ever bike with low bars. I didn’t like them, but the rest of the bike was very, very cool. I sold the Katana when my first daughter was born. A fat lady knocked it over in a shopping mall pulling her car out of its parking space. I took that as an omen. Time to step away from riding for a bit. I wish I still had that motorcycle.

Suzuki went on to use the Katana name (a Katana is a Japanese Samurai sword) on other models, but they were never the same at that first 1982 Katana.

Triumph 1200 Daytona

This was a fun machine. I bought when it was still brand new (but already 7 years old) on Ebay, thanks to an alert from my buddy Marty. It was $7,000. As soon as I won the auction, the next highest bidder contacted me and offered to buy it, but I turned it down.

The Locomotive. This was one of the best motorcycles I ever owned.

I’ve written about the Daytona before, and rather than reinvent the wheel, I invite you to read the more complete Daytona story here.

Honda Gold Wing

Back in the day, the initial Honda Gold Wing was a four, as they continued to be for several years. I thought I wanted one when the Gold Wing was first introduced (I was in Korea at the time and I saw the new Gold Wing in a Cycle World magazine). But I never acted on the urge to buy one and that was a good thing. I rode a friend’s a few years later and the bike had no soul whatsoever. It was boring beyond belief; I would not have thought any motorcycle could be that boring. But it was and it made me glad I never bought one.

Somewhere in Arizona on a road trip in the ’90s. That’s my CBX (to be covered in a later ¿Quantos Pistones? blog), my buddy Louis V (who went into the witness protection program), and Louis’s Honda Gold Wing (the most boring motorcycle I ever rode). All the gear, all the time was definitely not Lou’s motto.

Guys who have Gold Wings seem to love them. Emilio Scotto rode one around the world and wrote a great book about it. Today, of course, Gold Wings are sixes. I’ve read that the handling on the new ones is great for a big bike. But they’re not my cup of tea. You may feel different about Wings, and that’s okay.

So there you go: My experiences with four-cylinder motorcycles. The configuration makes sense from a lot of perspectives. They can be powerful and they are an almost universal configuration on Japanese motorcycles. But they’ve grown too big for my liking. I know there have been smaller fours out there (the Honda CB350 Four comes to mind), but as I’ve matured (read: become a geezer), I like smaller bikes better. As always, your mileage may vary.

Missed our earlier ¿Quantos Pistones? stories on the Singles, the Twins, and the Triples? Hey, no problemo! Here they are:

¿Quantos Pistones? (The Triples)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Twins)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Singles)

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A Sign From God?

By Joe Berk

At this point in my life, I realize it’s an itch I’ll probably never get to scratch: The need to own a Moto Guzzi. It started back in the early 1970s, when I was exploring rural northern New Jersey on my ’71 CB 750 Honda (yes, there were and still are rural parts of New Jersey). I had stopped for gas at a sort of combination general store and gas station when a pair of full dress Moto Guzzis rumbled by. I heard them first, before I saw them, and from the sound I thought it would be a couple of Harleys. Moto Guzzis sound a lot like Harley-Davidsons. Moto Guzzis were new in America, and these were the first I had ever seen. They burbled on by, leaving a lasting image and their captivating ExhaustNotes in my mind.

Ewan and Charlie, at it again. The Long Way Home is a good show. It somehow felt much more real watching these guys on older bikes battling the weather and old bike breakdowns. I enjoyed this one much more than the other McGregor and Boorman series.

So, about this sign from God business: A few days ago while channel surfing on Apple TV+, I saw another “Long Way” series from Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. I had seen the other series from Ewan and Charlie and thought they were silly, almost an affront to real adventurers, guys like Dave Barr who had ridden around the world. You know, two dilletantes with more money than talent cashing in on the adventure motorcycle craze, versus Dave Barr, the real deal, a guy who rode around the world on his own dime on a trashed-out old Super Glide, one of the most unreliable motorcycles ever. Not finding anything more interesting as I brainlessly surfed through Apple’s offerings, The Long Way Home got a click from me. This time, the boys were on old bikes, an old BMW boxer and an old Moto Guzzi. It was the Guzzi that got my attention. I’m watching (and enjoying) the series. I’ll have a review of it posted here on ExNotes in the near future.

There can be no doubt about this shop’s focus on Moto Guzzis.

Then another thing happened. I visited Moto Guzzi Classics in Signal Hill and found myself in a sea of old Guzzis, like the stunning El Dorado you see at the top of this blog. Several of the old Guzzis were former police bikes, and I’ve always had a fascination for police motorcycles (I wrote a book about police bikes a few years ago).

Mark, the proprietor, specializes in bringing old Guzzis back to life. Mark doesn’t usually do 100-point restorations; Moto Guzzi Classics’ forte is in resurrections. You know, finding old bikes and getting them running again, kind of like Joe Gresh has done on his Zed and is currently doing on his Honda Dreams.

Mark let me snap a few photos of the 850 El Dorado and a former CHP police bike in his shop when I visited recently. It sure was fun.

Patina to an exponent. Mike Wolf and Joe Gresh would love this place.

This is a good portrait-oriented moto photo. I like getting pictures framed this way, capturing both the engine and the gas tank.

Another photo of the CHP Moto Guzzi. It’s strange, realizing that that guys who rode these bikes are all retired now.

An old-school siren. It was powered by the rear tire. When the officer actuated the cable, the siren’s drive rotated into the rear tire. I used to have bicycle siren on my Schwinn when I was a kid that worked the same way (at least until the neighbors told me to knock it off).

The El Dorado’s certified speedometer. These were calibrated at regular intervals in case an offender challenged the ticketing officer’s accuracy in court.

The amber spotlights shown here were red when this bike was on active duty. Mere civilians can’t run police lights on their bikes.

So, about this sign from God business: I had to think that with all the Guzzi inputs occurring lately (The Long Way Home and the visit to Moto Guzzi Classics in Signal Hill), maybe it was a sign. Maybe there’s a Guzzi in my future? I thought so, until I realized there just aren’t any dealers around me to work on them. I think there’s one in Glendale, but Gresh and I had a bad experience with the Enfield provided by that dealer for our Baja adventure a few years ago. I think the next closest one is 120 miles away in San Diego. That was enough to sour me on the idea of a new Guzzi. But maybe a used one? Hey, who knows?

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Where Were You In ’62: Part 4

By Joe Gresh

When I was younger (by a lot) I used to modify all my motorcycles. Different forks, different gas tanks, different wheels. I never left well enough alone. Until I bought a new, 1983 Honda XL600, I only had a few stock bikes. The XL600 was so good it started me thinking about why I kept messing with original bikes. And so I stopped.

I found the reason why the kickstart splines slip. The lever knuckle is cracked allowed the splines to expand when kicking. Luckily the spare engine has the part.

I pretty much leave motorcycles stock now. It’s a lot easier and quieter. Let’s face it: The bikes are more reliable stock. Reliability is important to me now. Along with resale value.

I’ve been polishing the turd a bit. The aluminum color is too bright, I’ll try something else but the bike should clean up and look decent.

Lately, the Dream 305 decision tree has branched off in a different direction. Getting the bike running was exciting but figuring out how to proceed has not been. What to do with this beast? If the engine was bad things would be easy: Part it out. But the engine is not bad.

The main issue is the low value of restored Dreams. A couple thousand bucks will get you a nice rider that needs nothing. My ’62 is an early model that has some cachet, but not enough to make much difference.

I was going to leave the bike rough and stock, just get it operational, but deep down, I don’t like the way a Dream looks. The engine is fine. I like the close-set fins, but It’s those fender flares. They make the bike look stodgy and old.

Front brake shoes are cheap and available for the Dream but rear shoes have a different mounting set up. At $38 each shoe I’ll be running the old ones. Hopefully the lining stays glued on and doesn’t come loose and lock up the wheel.

I’ll be the first guy to tell you don’t modify old bikes because it lessens interest and value, but what if the bike has little value to start with? I’ve decided the flares have to go. Kind of a return to my roots on a bike that isn’t in great shape.

The rear rim is in fairly good shape, and the new Kenda fit will. Neither of the front rims are very good. They are round and straight, but the chrome is shot. As this is a budget build, I may try some chrome spray paint just to get the bike on the road.

Hear me out: Modding this bike is not a big deal as I have a bit of metalworking to do on the Dream’s sheet metal frame and have decided to take the bike completely apart to allow easy access and flat welding.

The Dream has been down sometime in the last 60 years. I’ve tweaked the front fender straight-ish. A little welding and trimming will make it usable.

The taillight area is kind of a mess. I’ll use the flare cut-off to supply original sheet metal when I plug this hole.

The front fender has a crack and the flare is bent; it will need some massaging and removing the flare removes one problem. The rear fender has a gaping hole where the taillight sat, and I’ll be welding that closed. There are a few dents that would be easier to beat out with the frame upside down. The bike won’t be original, but it won’t be far off original. And most importantly, I’ll like the way it looks. I’m shallow that way.

These square shocks are iconic Dream bits. No longer held to a high standard, I won’t be looking to replace the eroded plastic covers.

Things are hopping at the ranch, so I have made little progress (but not zero progress). Just having clarity, freedom and a plan saves on lateral moves.

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ExNotes Book Review: Going the Wrong Way

By Joe Berk

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.

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¿Quantos Pistones? (The Triples)

By Joe Berk

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.

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:

¿Quantos Pistones? (The Twins)
¿Quantos Pistones? (The Singles)

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Buy A Bike In A Box!

By Joe Berk

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.

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Indiana Jones Revisited

By Joe Berk

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!