What this trip was all about. I grabbed this somewhere in the Vizcaino Desert. That’s my red KLR up front and John’s green one behind it. These are the perfect bikes in the perfect place.
In October 2009 it had been a year since my last motorcycle trip in Baja, and that was entirely too long. I was good to go, but most of the guys I hung out with here in So Cal were timid. They believed what they read in the LA Times. You know, about Mexico being dangerous. Me? I knew better. I needed to get my knees in the Baja breeze. My good buddy Baja John felt the same way.
My first journey into Baja was with John back in 1994, and it would be good to ride with him again. Our earlier trips were on cruisers…John on a Viagra (spelling intentional) and me on a Harley. We’d both be riding Kawasaki KLR 650s this time. I bought one, and after listening to me rave about it, so did John.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with a Yamaha Virago, and if driveway jewelry is your thing, there’s nothing wrong with a Harley (Harleys are the world’s most efficient machines for converting gasoline to noise and self-perceived status upgrades, you know). But the KLR 650s…those were real motorcycles. No pretense, all business. I wish I had kept my KLR. I let the guy who bought it know that I’ll but it back. But that will be a story for another time.
The plan for this trip was to explore places off the Transpeninsular Highway. On previous trips, we’d seen signs pointing down rough dirt roads to the ruins of various abandoned Spanish missions, the marble quarry at El Marmol, and a few other places promising adventure. On those prior trips we quite appropriately opted not to take our cruisers down those gnarly dirt roads. This time, though, we had the right bikes and we would go wherever we wanted. Dirt? Soft sand? Mud? Banditos? Rabid dogs? Hey, bring it all on. We were ready.
So, here we go.
John rode south from Tehachapi to meet me near the Cal Poly campus, and we left late on a Thursday afternoon (John worked his job at Palmdale AFB, and I taught that day at Cal Poly).
We made it to Rosarito Beach Hotel that first night, my favorite hotel in that town. It’s a classy joint with a great restaurant, but the adverse publicity and overall economic climate in 2009 were killing the place. Think unending stories about drug wars and purported lawlessness in Mexico, and the worldwide Great Recession. My guess is that fewer than 10 rooms were occupied that evening.
The KLRs, rode hard and put away wet that night in the Rosarito Beach Hotel.
Our plans for this trip were purposely vague, other than to head south and consume large quantities of Tecate after the bikes had been put away. We briefly talked about doing a banzai run all the way to Cabo San Lucas, but that would have been a push. It was already dark when we passed through Tijuana, and south of TJ, the Pacific Ocean mist was fogging my faceshield. I thought about Susanna’s restaurant in Rosarito (more on that in a bit), and all thoughts of Cabo vanished. For that night, Rosarito Beach was it. And that was a good thing. I love having dinner in Susanna’s. Susanna’s is the best restaurant in town, and maybe the best in all of Mexico. A stay in Rosarito Beach without dinner at Susanna’s would be a crime against nature and good judgment.
Susanna, don’t you cry for me. I’ll be back.Ah, yes. The perfect antidote for low cholesterol. The dining at Susanna’s is as close as you’ll get to Heaven without a one-way ticket.
After a five-star dinner, Baja John and I walked around downtown Rosarito Beach for a bit. It was deserted.
Rosarito Beach 2009. The LA Times was killing this place with its unending negative stories about Mexico. More than half the stores, restaurants, and other places were shuttered. Normally a hopping party town, in 2009 it was dead, and there was really no reason for it other than the US news media’s fixation on demonizing the place.At a club in Rosarito Beach. We were the only two people there. That’s Baja John on the left.
The next morning we rolled south along the Pacific coast to a great breakfast in Ensenada. Good God, we were packing on the calories. My favorite breakfast spot in Ensenada is Velero’s, a place near the ocean just behind the Corona Hotel. The clientele is mostly local business folks, the breakfasts are great, and it’s the hot ticket. They bring a large plate of light, delicious pastries as soon as you sit down. The coffee and the orange juice are superior. That’s followed by a tortilla with melted cheese and salsa. I could have (and should have) stopped at the pastries and the cheese tortilla, but I went for my customary two eggs over hard with the fixings you see below. It was as good as it looks.
Simple, delicious, and filling. Velero’s is the breakfast spot in Ensenada.Velero’s is on a side street that juts off the road along the coast. The Ensenada sign is gone. A pity, as it made for a great photo.
After a great breakfast, we were on the road again, headed south out of Ensenada toward points south, including the aforementioned abandoned missions, a shipwreck on the Pacific coast, and more.
To be continued…
Hey, we have a couple of pages you should check out. One is our Baja page, which includes great info on taking a motorcycle into Baja. The other is our new Epic Motorcycle Rides page. Take a look and let us know what you think!
Well, actually, it’s my story and my photos, it’s in the current issue of Adventure Motorcycle magazine, and you should pick up a copy!
I know…you can’t really read the print in the photo above, and that’s by design. Pick yourself up a copy of ADVMoto (it’s on the stands now). And if you want to see the blog posts from the Janus adventure ride, you can find them here.
Our good buddy Carl Mungenast was in town yesterday and Susie and I had dinner with him and his grandson, Jason. It was awesome.
I know what you’re thinking, and no, we don’t use the same barber!
I’ve known Carl for about 10 years now, and it all started about the time I hooked up with CSC Motorcycles. Carl had an interest in the original Mustangs and he quickly signed on as an advisor to CSC. I mentioned him several times in CSC blog, and one of the best things ever was the Baja trip Carl, his charming wife Mary, and I did in the Starship Subaru. The company, the conversation, the scenery, and the whale watching were fantastic.
Carl and Mary, who officially became Bajaenos in 2012.
Good times and good company, and it was grand seeing Carl again last night.
Hey, I just got off an A380 after 17 hours in the air, so it’s just a short blog tonight (or should that be today?). Later, my friends.
Yours truly and the Genuine G400c, patrolling the mean streets of San Francisco!
This is one of those blogs for which I could have used any of several titles. The Real Deal got the nod, as this is indeed the real deal…a genuine (pardon the pun) motorcycle. Another contender was The Streets of San Francisco, like that Karl Malden and Michael Douglas show 30 years ago. And yet another was We Are Living In Interesting Times (read on, and you’ll see what I mean).
Anyway, enough of the trip down memory lane and alternative blog titles. I made a few memories of my own yesterday, riding around downtown San Francisco around good buddy Lunchbox’s San Francisco Scooter Centre. Barry is the guy who owns and runs the dealership, but Lunchbox is the guy in charge. He’s about a year old now (I’ve known him since he was a pup), and he’s a cool 82 lbs. After checking in with Lunchbox, I visited with Barry for a bit. I always like coming up here. I like Lunchbox, I like the city, I like the San Francisco Scooter Centre, and I like Barry.
Lunchbox, the man in charge. He’s cool. He lets Barry think he’s the guy running the San Francisco Scooter Centre, but Lunchbox is the one really calling the shots.Good buddy Barry and the Genuine G400c motorcycle.
Barry and I had a great taco lunch downtown, we talked about the motorcycle market, and we swapped stories about a couple of our other common interests. Then it was time to get on the G400c. Barry tossed me the keys and the bike’s registration, and told me to have fun. Being a guy who aims to please, I did as I was told. It was easy on the Genuine.
So let me tell you about the Genuine G400c. The first thing I noticed was that it’s a motorcycle. A real motorcycle. Tear drop gas tank (where the gas actually goes), a tach and speedo that look like a tach and speedo should, and a long, low, flat seat (good for moving around on when necessary, carrying a passenger, and strapping on soft luggage for longer trips). Wire wheels. Chrome fenders. Chrome handlebars that put the controls in comfortable reach. It all came together the way it should. Yessiree, this is a motorcycle that is visually appealing. None of that Ricky Racer, low bar face on the tank, angry Ninja insect, or giraffesque ADV wannabe silliness or styling. This is a motorcycle that looks like a motorcycle should.
The next thing I noticed was that the G400c was easy to throw a leg over. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a bike where I could say that. I’ll say more on this in a bit.
And another thing I noticed was that the bike sounds like a motorcycle. A real motorcycle. A Genuine motorcycle. I like that, too. I had my big Nikon with me (the D810) and I grabbed a video of the startup sequence…
This bike sounds good. It has a nice, deep, throaty rumble. The skyscrapers I darted between in downtown San Francisco amplified the exhaust note, and the reverberations were intoxicating. There’s something undeniably cool about riding a nimble, throaty motorcycle in a city. It would have been cool to grab more video of myself riding around San Francisco, but I’m not as talented as Joe Gresh in that regard and besides, I was having too much fun. You can have a great ride or you can make a great video. Unless you’re Joe Gresh, you can’t do both at the same time.
So back to that nimble thing. You’re reading something written by a guy who thinks that somewhere in the 1970s and the 1980s the wheels came off the wagon here in the US with regard to motorcycle size and complexity, and until very recently, things have continued to get nuttier as the years have gone by and advertising guys (who are supposed to be creative people) kept defaulting to bigger has to be better. My thoughts are in synch with most of the rest of the motorcycle world (not the aforementioned advertising gurus) in that I think a 250cc is the perfect size. A 400cc single is even better, especially if it comes in a 250cc-sized package, and that’s what the G400c is.
I don’t know the Genuine’s weight. I could find it in a few seconds with a Google search, but I don’t need to. I know what I need to know from my ride, and that’s this: The G400c is light and it’s nimble, and that’s all the spec I need. Hell, you can’t trust what most of the manufacturers tell you about their bikes’ weights, anyway. And even if you could believe their numbers, what really matters is where a bike’s center of gravity is located. Make it too high, and a motorcycle will feel unwieldy regardless of its weight. Make it low, though, and a bike becomes flickable, agile, nimble, and just plain fun to ride. That’s what this machine is. I had fun splitting lanes and braaapping around downtown San Francisco. The G400c is perfect for that, but that’s not the only arena in which I see it excelling. I think the G400c would be a great bike for a Baja ride, too. Someday. We’ll see.
Next up: Seat height. It’s the same story here, folks. Like I said earlier, I could throw my leg over the seat without having to take a yoga class or do any stretching exercises, and you know what? That’s a good feeling. The saddle is low enough to make getting on and off the bike easy, and that’s decidedly not the case for a lot of motorcycles these days.
You might ask about suspension travel. When I was younger and dumber, I used to pour over the spec sheets you’d see in the motorcycle magazines, and then I realized that unless you plan to ride motocross, the only thing a ton of suspension travel does for a street bike is make thing way too tall. The G400c seat height was just where I needed it to be. And on that suspension travel topic, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Even though our taxes in California (and San Francisco in particular) are among the highest in the world, we still have lousy streets with lots of potholes and rough sections. The G400c was fine being flung around in the city, sloppy streets and road surfaces notwithstanding. It soaked it all up without a whimper. I’d like to buttonhole our politicians someday and ask them: Exactly where does all that tax money go? In the meantime, though, I know the suspension on the G400c gets the job done.
Mean streets? Bring ’em on. The G400c was just plain fun riding around San Francisco. It’s a comfortable, right-sized motorcycle.
I didn’t take the G400c on the freeway, although Barry invited me to do so. Nope, the freeways are typically a mess in San Francisco, and I figured (correctly, as I experienced on the drive out of San Francisco later in the day) I could actually get more miles in and reach higher top speeds on the city streets. And I did. Until this guy you see in the photo caught up with me, lit me up, and started casting dirty looks my way. Then he got in front of me. Point taken, Officer. I rode a bit more like a normal person after that.
Another view from the cockpit. I like the instrument layout. It’s what a motorcycle is supposed to look like.
Okay, let’s not ignore the 800-lb gorilla in the room: The G400c is manufactured in China. As many of you know, I know a little bit about Chinese motorcycles and I played a tangential role in making the case for Chinese quality when CSC Motorcycles started importing the Zongshen RX3 back in 2015. You might have trepidations about buying a Chinese motorcycle, and it’s almost a certainty you know people who badmouth Chinese products. My advice when you hear the inevitable anti-China mush is to remember that God loves stupid people (because He sure made a lot of them). Yeah, they’ve got their stories about their buddy who worked at a dealer 10 years ago and he told them…well, you get the idea. Folks, these people just don’t know.
I know a little bit about this topic, I think. Maybe more than most of the weenies posting opinions on Facebook and the motorcycle forums.
My advice is to blow these weenies off, get yourself to a dealer, and see for yourself. I know a little bit about quality and manufacturing, I’ve been in several Chinese manufacturing plants, and I’m here to tell you that Chinese motorcycle quality is as good as or better than anything that’s out there. Consider this: Automobile and motorcycle companies like BMW, Vespa, Honda, Suzuki, and many others have components, major subassemblies, engines, and complete motorcycles manufactured in China. These world-class companies wouldn’t be doing that if the quality was low.
You might have a concern about the G400c being a new bike, that is to say, one that doesn’t have a track record. Actually, that’s not the case. This motorcycle has been rolling around China for a good three years now (I saw them when I rode across China on the RX3 a few years ago). The G400c is manufactured for Genuine by Shineray (it’s pronounced Shin-yu-way), and in China, they have been selling two versions of the bike for several years (a street version and an adventure-touring-styled version). The riding in China is way tougher than it is here. We tend to use our motorcycles as toys. In China, motorcycles are work horses. They are ridden hard and put away wet.
Another thing that’s nice about the G400c motor is that it’s a Honda clone. The concept (but not the engine) here is the same as the Honda CG clone motors that power the CSC and Janus bikes…an engine based on a Honda design built for an environment where folks don’t take care of their bikes. It’s a different Honda motor design, but it’s a proven design. It’s a strong, torquey, fuel injected single.
The G400c’s braking is good. It’s a single disk in front, and a drum in the rear. A lot of folks will be grasping their chest and convulsing at the thought of a drum brake in back, but it works, and it works for me. Again, don’t let some kid writing a magazine article (or worse, someone posting an opinion on Facebook) tell you that you have to have a disk brake in back. Drum brakes have worked fine for decades. It’s one of the things keeping the cost down on this bike, and it’s a reasonable tradeoff. Like it said, it works for me.
What I don’t know yet is the parts availability question, nor do I know about the availability of a shop manual. Those are fair questions to ask a dealer. I didn’t, mostly because I was focused on the riding.
Genuine states the top speed is over 80 mph. I’ve ridden bikes with the same engine in China and I saw indicated speeds on city streets over 90 mph and the bike still had more left (and at that point I thought to myself “Whoa, Bucko…what am I doing here?”). I think the top end is more than adequate for any real world needs. And on that note, this is another area in which you hear the keyboard commandos espouse things like “Ah need a bike made in ‘Merica that can do at least a hunnert twenty miles per hour or I’ll get run over…” You do, huh? Hey, I rode across China, I’ve been up and down Baja a bunch of times, I circumnavigated the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and I’ve ridden all over the US. And I did all of this on 250cc motorcycles. Motorcycles made in China, to be specific. But what do I know?
You might ask: Are there any negatives? I guess to play magazine road test writer I have to find something, and on the G400c it might be that some of the details could be more finely finished. Maybe the handlebar switchgear castings could be polished a little more, things like that. Barry told me the bike I rode is one of the very earliest ones to arrive in America, and that Genuine is sweating the cosmetic details like this. But these are minor points. The next question would be: Would I recommend buying this bike? To that question, the answer is yes. They retail at about $4600, and with all the fees they go out the door at a notch above $5700. Barry is one of the few honest dealers I know in that he doesn’t treat setup and freight as a major profit center. Here’s how he has the bikes priced…
The G400c pricing sheet at the San Francisco Scooter Centre. Freight and setup are honest numbers here, which isn’t the case at many other dealers.
We are living in interesting times. Just a few years ago the small motorcycle landscape in the US was pretty barren, and what few bikes were out there carried stupid-high prices and obscene dealer freight and setup fees. Our choices in recent decades have been outrageously tall, fat, and heavy motorcycles with prices in the stratosphere. Today, the moto menu before us is interesting and intriguing, and it’s rooted in the real world. There’s the CSC Motorcycles line with several 250cc selections and soon, the 450cc RX4. There the Janus line of magnificently-handcrafted contemporary classics. There’s Royal Enfield, with their 400cc Himalayan, 500cc Classic, and soon-to-be-released 650cc Interceptor (at an incredible $5795). I’ve ridden nearly all of these motorcycles (I haven’t caught a ride on the Himalayan yet, but that’s coming up), and I’ve ridden many of them through Baja (you can read about our Enfield Baja trip, the Janus Baja trip, and any of several CSC Baja trips). And now, there’s another great bike in the mix: The Genuine 400c. For the first time in a long time, we have choices. Good choices that won’t break the bank. Life is good, folks.
Check out our related Genuine G400c and San Francisco Scooter Centre posts!
I was up in San Francisco a week or so ago and I stopped by good buddy Barry’s San Francisco Scooter Centre for two reasons: To say hello to Barry, and to check out the new Genuine G400c motorcycle. It’s the bike manufactured by Shineray (in Chongqing, China), and I had seen two versions of it when I rode across China on an RX3 nearly three years go.
Brand new Genuine G400c motorcycles in good buddy Barry’s San Francisco Scooter Centre.The new Genuine’s pricing in the San Francisco Scooter Centre. Like other Asian and Indian bikes from Royal Enfield, CSC, and BMW, the price is seriously lower than others on the market from the Big 4 and Europe. Unlike many other dealers, the San Francisco Scooter Centre’s setup, documentation, and freight charges are honest and reasonable.
I didn’t have the time or the gear to ride the Genuine G400c last week, but Barry said he wants me to try the new machine and he offered a ride. I’m going to do that later this month, and I’ll tell you more about the bike when I do.
The products available to us as motorcyclists sure are changing, and there’s no doubt the imports from China and India are rocking our world. Gresh and I have a bit of experience on Zongshen’s RX3, RX4, and TT250 (made in China and imported by CSC). I’ve had some seat time on the new BMW 310 made in India. Joe and I recently completed a week-long adventure in Baja riding the Royal Enfield 500cc Bullet and their new 650cc Interceptor (both made in India). I don’t have any time yet on Harley’s 500cc and 750cc v-twin cruisers (also made in India), but I’m working on correcting that character flaw. There’s an old proverb that says “may you live in interesting times.” We certainly are.
Hey, more good news: I finally received my printed copies of Destinations, and my story on Kitt Peak National Observatory is in the next issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine. You can see all of theDestinations pieces (and get your very own copy) right here. Good buddy Mike did. Mike and I graduated junior high school and high school together back in the day (as in 50 years ago), and we still talk to each other a couple of times each month. Good friends and good times!
Good buddy Mike, who knows a good thing when he sees it!
Good buddy Bob, our most recent adventure moto book contest winner!
It’s that time again, and our first quarter 2019 adventure motorcycle book contest winner is good buddy Bob. Bob became eligible when he signed up for our automatic email blog updates, and you can, too! We’re giving away another book at the end of this quarter, and all you have to do is sign up for our automatic email updates.
When we notified Bob of his win, he wrote to us…
I like your approach with the Zongshens…1200cc is not required for touring. My touring machine is shown in the photo: A 2002 Honda Silverwing scooter. I sold it with 35K showing on the odometer and later bought another.
Bob, your copy of Destinations, our latest moto adventure book, will be going out to you in the next few days. Congratulations to you and thanks for being an ExhaustNotes reader!
Shortly after we passed this Alfa See Ya motorhome, we stopped at a rest area along Interstate 5. The coach pulled in behind us.
I was driving south on Interstate 5 this weekend, enjoying the Subaru and the wildflowers, and feeling good about the zillions of bugs splattering on the Subie’s windshield instead of me (as they had been doing with a vengeance when Gresh and I were in Baja on the Enfields the prior week). Various thoughts floated through my mind, one of them being that we had not done a “Back in the Day” blog in a while. That concept was Gresh’s…a series of blogs about past jobs, experiences, and…well, you get the idea. That thought drifted around in my noggin while we passed a long string of trucks and motorhomes, and Susie suddenly said “Look, Joe, an Alfa!”
Sure enough, it was an Alfa Leisure 36-foot, diesel pusher motorhome…the See Ya model, to be exact. If you’re wondering why this was a source of wonderment for both Susie and yours truly, it’s because I used to run the plant that manufactured that magnificent RV. That was almost 20 years ago.
Yep, I was the Operations Director for Alfa Leisure. It was one of the best jobs I ever had, and I worked for one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known. That would be Johnnie Crean, and I’ll get to him in a minute. Well, maybe less than a minute, because I’ll tell you about the motorhome first, and I can’t do that without touching on Johnnie’s genius.
The See Ya was a watershed product, and that was because it was one hell of a deal. Let me start by putting it this way…the See Ya’s MSRP was $184,600, but the thing was so good and demand was so high the dealers were tacking on more than $20K over list price and we still couldn’t build them fast enough. That’s because the See Ya was way better than the competition.
Johnnie did a lot of cool things. He put the air conditioner underneath the chassis, which allowed a higher ceiling inside the coach while still meeting Big Gubmint’s max height requirement for road vehicles. That may not sound significant, but that one feature alone sold a lot of motorhomes for Alfa. On any dealer’s lot you could go into any other motorhome and with their low ceilings they always felt cramped. You see, they all had their air conditioners on the roof, which forced them to make the ceiling lower. Walk into an Alfa, though, and it felt like you were in your house. The difference was immediate and obvious, and it was all Johnnie. And just to rub salt in that marketing wound, Johnnie put a ceiling fan in the See Ya. You know, a Casa Blanca, like you might have in your family room.
Next up was the color palette. For the exterior, you could have any color you wanted, as long as it was white. Johnnie realized that folks spend their time inside the motorhome, and they really didn’t care what the exterior color was. That little deal right there was a $10,000 price advantage. Another cool color advantage: Alfa only offered two interior carpeting colors (light tan and dark blue) and two cabinet color choices (light oak and dark walnut). We built the light tan carpeteted, light oak configuration almost exclusively. Johnnie knew that women preferred those colors (men preferred the darker colors), but the purchase decision was almost always made by wives, not by husbands.
One morning, Johnnie popped into my office early in the morning. “Put a spoiler on the coach,” he said, and with that, he turned to leave.
“A spoiler?” I asked. Johnnie always drove either a Porsche or a Bentley, but mostly the Porsche, and he owned a couple of race cars. I kind of assumed he was talking about a whale tail spoiler like his Turbo 911 had, but I didn’t know.
“A chin spoiler,” he said, showing through body language and tone that he was thinking I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
“A chin spoiler?” I asked. “That will take a few weeks, you know, to talk to the guy who makes the front fiberglass for us…”
“No, no, no…” Johnnie answered, frustrated by my inability to visualize what he had in mind. “Just cut a spoiler out of plywood and mount it under the nose with angle iron. Make it stick out about a foot.” He was drawing pictures in the air with his hands, tracing an imaginary arc in front of an imaginary coach. “Just tell your guys what I want. They’ll understand.”
So I went to our R&D shop, told the guys what I thought I wanted (Johnnie was right; they got it immediately), and 90 minutes later they were bolting a chin spoiler to the lower front face of a 36-ft diesel pusher motorhome. I thought it was an absurd idea, until I took that coach out on the freeway moments later. It felt like it was glued to the highway. Planted. Solid. Where before being passed by an 18-wheeler turned the See Ya into an E-ticket Disney ride, the coach now felt stable and absolutely unfazed when passing (or being passed by) a semi. I took it on the overpass from the northbound I-15 to the westbound I-10 (one of those high-in-the-sky elevated roadways where the winds were always severe) as an acid test, and I was convinced: The guy was a genius. The See Ya’s handling was dramatically better.
Another time, Johnnie came into my office and without sitting down, he told me he had just read a book about ancient Roman baths and he wanted to do the same in the See Ya.
“A Roman bath?” I said.
“No, no, no,” he answered. I didn’t know what Johnnie was talking about, but I knew it would be revealed soon. The trick was to dope out what the guy had in mind without appearing to be too slow. Sometimes I succeeded. This wasn’t going to be one of them.
“They heated their marble floors with hot springs, you know, geothermal stuff. It kept the floors warm so they didn’t get cold feet,” Johnnie explained, and again, the body language and tonality hinted that he felt like he was talking to a 5-year-old.
“You want me to park the coach over a hot spring?” (I can be kind of slow at times, people tell me.)
Johnnie just looked at me. Then he started drawing pictures in the air with his hands. “There’s hot water coming out of the engine, going to the radiator. Route that hot water through a zig zag pipe under the tile floors down the main hallway in the coach. Like a coil.” He was making zig zag motions in the air, that big gold Breitling watch flashing in front of me as he did so. I got it, finally. Son of a gun, the Roman bath idea worked. My guys had a prototype mocked up in a day, and the tile floor was satisfyingly toasty. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, but trust me on this, it was. Try walking down the aisle of a motorhome with a tile floor in the winter in your bare feet. There isn’t much under that tile. It gets pretty cold. But not in an Alfa. It was a brilliant idea.
I could go on and on because I have lots of Johnnie stories like that. Those were some of the best days of my working life. Yeah, Johnnie’s a character, but damn, he came up with some amazing things. I think I learned more working there then I learned anywhere else, and building motorhomes was a lot of fun. They were like the Battlestar Galactica, huge moving things with features galore. When I started at Alfa, at the start of the See Ya production run, we were building one coach a week. When I left a couple of years later, we were building 10 coaches a week. Good times those were, back in the day.
Destinations is a collection of motorcycle rides and destinations culled from the pages of Motorcycle Classics magazine. I’m a regular contributor to Motorcycle Classics, and this book encompasses travel stories going back as far as 2006. My good buddy and editor Landon Hall (who found a few Rock Store photos I put on the Internet in 2005) is the guy who first got me started in the travel writing business, and he wrote the foreword to this book for me.
Destinations has 56 chapters and 150 photographs (many of which have never before been published). Great motorcycle hangouts, mountain roads, national parks, motorcycle museums, best kept secrets, how to get there, things to avoid, the best restaurants, and more for great rides both in the United States and Baja…it’s all here, inviting you to ride the best roads and the most exciting destinations in North America!
When I saw the first photographs of Royal Enfield’s new 650 twin the bike seemed perfect. 650 vertical twins have owned the sweet-spot of cool long before McQueen bashed them around the desert and they are still an ideal size and configuration for all around use. Unfortunately the latest vertical twin offerings from other motorcycle manufacturers have sprouted slow-moving tumorous pistons, lost their summer beach-bodies and become uselessly complex. The whole situation kind of put me on edge. I was actually a bit angry: “Royal Enfield better not screw this up,” I mumbled to my cat.
I liked the new Interceptor 650 so much I was going to get really pissed off at Royal Enfield if the bike was crude and uninspiring. Luckily for everyone involved, the Interceptor, or INT, or Cartridge, or Clip or whatever legal BS we are supposed to use, is a great bike. It’s hard to judge long-term quality without the requisite passage of time but from what I can see the 650 is well and truly the Nads.
In the video I rave about the frame, because it is noticeably well-finished. I couldn’t get over the thing. All the component parts of the RE 650 appear to be designed not only with function in mind but also with an eye toward aesthetics. This is a motorcycle that will look just as good dismantled as it does assembled, like how a Norton 750 looks good in pieces on your cycle bench. Thanks, whoever is responsible for this.
The 650 Royal Enfield engine feels peppy and it breathes well. The bike pulls hard right up until the rev limiter cuts in at 7500 RPM. It feels like a happy engine if you know what I mean. Sitting upright I saw an indicated 115 mph in 5th gear at redline and 6th gear dropped the top end to 110. I think if I didn’t have 75 pounds of touring garbage flapping in the breeze and made myself really small I could have gotten 120 mph in high gear.
The fuel injection on my 650 delivered its tiny spurts of fuel precisely and in a timely fashion. I could not imagine it working any better. On the highway the thing got an amazing 70 miles per gallon. Fuel injection is one of the few modern advances that I think are useful on a motorcycle. Handling was a non-issue: The bike tracked well and the suspension is good enough for me.
The shifting is slick and effortless and if I wasn’t running out of old Cycle magazine issues from the 1970’s to steal complimentary phrases from I’d go on about the transmission for hours. I’d really like to take this bike apart and see what makes it so good.
The brakes were not super powerful. I never felt like the bike wouldn’t stop but I’ve gotten used to incredibly powerful brakes on other bikes. It’s not a deal killer for me because this is a multi-purpose motorcycle, not a race bike. I didn’t care for the Royal Enfield’s anti-lock brake system but in their defense I don’t like anybody’s anti-lock brake system. I’ll have to yank the fuse or defeat the system somehow when I get mine.
Yes, I would actually buy one of these motorcycles if moto-journalism paid in something more fungible than “Likes.” I’m not sure what they will actually sell for yet but it will be less than the other guys. If they make a high-pipe scrambler version all bets are off.
Some motorcycles play much larger than their spec sheets would indicate. The Royal Enfield is one of them. It’s such a joy to travel on a simple, lightweight motorcycle and the pleasing burble exiting from the 650’s exhaust system is music to anyone who rode a Honda twin from the 1970s. The 650 is a bike built to ride and it’s nice to look at parked in the garage.
I’m afraid motorcycle riders have become trapped in the American Dream of bigger is better and more plastic is better. The road grows dimmer and further from their nerve endings in the cause of comfort and technology. Stop now. You can easily find a more powerful motorcycle or find a faster one but you’ll play hell finding a better looking motorcycle than the Royal Enfield 650. And you won’t find one that’s more fun to ride on the street.
If you’d like to read the rest of our recent Royal Enfield Baja adventure ride posts, here are the links…
Daily destinations for a 7-day, relaxed whale watching Baja itinerary.
Good buddy Peter asked me to post a map of our recent Royal Enfield adventure ride to see the whales in Baja. That was a great suggestion, and it also provides an opportunity to suggest a great 7-day itinerary to see the whales in Baja. This was a relaxed ride of approximately 200 miles per day, and a full day off the bikes in Guerrero Negro on the day we saw the whales. One thing I want to mention up front: If you’re taking a motor vehicle into Mexico, you must insure the vehicle with a Mexican insurance policy. We insure with BajaBound, and that’s who we always recommend.
Day 1: The Los Angeles Basin to Tecate (170 miles)
The 170-mile distance I reference here is taking the 15 or the 5 south from the Los Angeles area. When you get down to the San Diego area, just find California 94 off the freeway, stay on it for about 25 miles heading east, and make a right on 188 for the 2-mile hop to Tecate.
Rolling into Tecate, Mexico!
You can make Tecate in about three hours if there’s no traffic. It’s an easy run and it gives you time to process into Mexico by picking up a visitor’s card, you can change U.S. currency into pesos, and you have time to explore Tecate a bit. An alternative route is to head south by riding over Mt. San Jacinto into Idyllwild and then take country roads through California down to Tecate, but you’ll need a full day if you do this and you would get into Tecate much later.
Jonathan and Pablo at Amores. It’s world class dining in downtown Tecate, and it is amazing.
My advice for a Tecate hotel is either the El Dorado or the Hacienda (you get to either by running straight into Tecate and turning right on Boulevard Benito Juarez. If you are with your significant other, you might consider the Amores Restaurante for dinner (it’s world class fine dining and it is superb). If you want something simpler, go for Tacos Dumas, a short walk from the Hacienda Hotel. There’s also a great Chinese restaurant across the street from the Hacienda (there are a lot of great Chinese restaurants in Mexico).
Day 2: Tecate to San Quintin (180 miles)
Day 2 starts with breakfast at 8:00 a.m. at the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant. It’s in the same building as the Hacienda Hotel, and as explained to us by Jonathan (the head chef at the Amores restaurant) it’s the best breakfast in Tecate. I think it’s the best breakfast anywhere, and with their exotic buffet featuring different Mexican regional cuisines, it will start your day right.
Maria, one of the friendly folks who took care of us in the Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos restaurant.
After breakfast, head east on Boulevard Benito Juarez, turn right when you see the sign for the wine country, and stay on that road (it becomes Mexico Highway 3) to Ensenada. It’s Mexico’s Ruta del Vino, and the scenery and the vineyards are grand.
On Mexico’s Ruta del Vino headed for Ensenada!
After 70 miles of glorious wine country, you’ll hit Mexico Highway 1 just north of Ensenada. Turn left, hug the Pacific, and skirt through Ensenada (one of Baja’s larger cities). After Ensenada, you’ll pass through several small towns and then the road becomes the Antiqua Ruta del Vino, or Baja’s old wine country. The scenery is impressive. Stay on that road; you’ll pass through many small agricultural towns as you continue south through Baja. San Quintin is the destination on this second day of our Baja journey. There are lots of hotel options in San Quintin; my favorite is the Old Mill Hotel. Watch for the Old Mill Hotel sign, and make a right when you see it to reach San Quintin Bay and the hotel 4 miles to the west. Staying here is a tradition for Baja travelers.
When heading south in San Quintin, watch for the sign pointing to the Old Mill Hotel.Lucy, the lovely young lady who brought us beer and dinner at the Eucalipto restaurant.
There are two great restaurants on either side of the Old Mill, and the Old Mill now has its own restaurant, the Eucalipto. Good buddy Javier is the owner and head chef, and the cuisine is fabulous. You’ll get a free beer when you check into the hotel. Ask for a Modelo Negra; it’s superb.
Day 3: San Quintin to Guerrero Negro (264 miles)
This is the long stretch, and it starts with a run south from San Quintin through Los Pinos, and then roughly 20 miles along a roller coaster road skirting the Pacific. Then it’s a climb into the hills, a Mexican military checkpoint, and you’ll arrive in El Rosario. Top off at the Pemex in El Rosario, and if you’re hungry, you might have a late breakfast or an early lunch at Mama Espinoza’s (try the chicken burritos; they’re awesome). After that the Transpeninsular Highway climbs into the Valle de los Cirios and the desolation that is Baja. You’ll see several varieties of plant life that grow in Baja and no place else on Earth (including the Dr.-Suess-like cirio and the mighty Cardon cactus).
A Royal Enfield Interceptor 650, the first one to enter Mexico, parked near a giant Cardon cactus in Baja’s Valle de Los Cirios.
It gets even better when you enter the Catavina boulder fields. The area around Catavina is a magnificent region with stunning scenes. There’s a hotel on the right side of the road that seems to change ownership every time I’m down that way. The food is good (but a little on the pricey side); the trick is to get there before any tour buses arrive. A new Los Pinos 7-11 type store recently opened across the street from the hotel and it looks like they’re putting gas pumps in, which is a good thing. For now, though, if you’re on a bike we advise filling up from the guys selling gasolina out of cans. It’s 110 miles to the next gas station, and most bikes don’t hold enough fuel to make the entire 231-mile run from the Pemex in El Rosario all the way to Guerrero Negro.
You’ll want to fill up in Catavina if you’re on a motorcycle. Photo by Baja John.
After the Catavina boulder fields, it’s a run through Baja’s Pacific coastal plains to Parallelo 28, the border between Baja and Baja Sur (the two states comprising the Baja peninsula). There’s an immigration checkpoint there where you might have to produce your visitor’s form, but usually the Mexican immigration folks just wave you through. Make a right turn off the Transpeninsular Highway, and head on in to Guerrero Negro.
Joe Gresh riding through the Catavina boulder fields on a Royal Enfield Bullet.A gray whale skeleton as you make the right turn heading into Guerrero Negro. Good times ahead!
There are plenty of hotels in Guerrero Negro. I’ve stayed at the Hotel San Ignacio (no restaurant), Malarrimo’s (one of the best restaurants in Guerrero Negro), the Hotel Don Gus (they have a good restaurant), and the Hotel Los Corrales. They’re all good. The real attraction here, though, is whale watching, and that’s the topic for Day 4 of our 7-day Baja adventure.
My KLR 650 parked in front of Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro. It’s a decent hotel and they have a great restaurant. It’s on the right as you enter Guerrero Negro.
Day 4: Whale Watching in Guerrero Negro (0 miles).
Day 4 is a day off the bikes and a day devoted to whale watching. I always have breakfast at Malarimmo’s when I’m in Guerrero Negro. For whale watching, we’ve used Malarimmo’s and Laguna Baja’s tour service; both are great. They have morning and afternoon tours. Folks ask if the whale watching is better in the morning or the afternoon. I’ve found both are awesome (and both are just under $50 per person). The whale watching tours are only available January through March because that’s when the California gray whale herd is in Scammon’s Lagoon. You’ll be out on the boat for roughly three hours, so you’ll want to use the bathroom before you go. You can expect a genuine life-altering experience when you visit with the whales. You might think I’m exaggerating, but I am not. Bring a camera. No one will believe what you tell them about this experience unless you have pictures.
Up close and personal with a California gray whale in Scammon’s Lagoon. It is an experience like no other.
After seeing the whales, look for a fish taco van parked on northern side of the road. That’s my good buddy Tony’s Tacos El Muelle truck. Tony makes the best fish tacos on the planet. Yeah, I know, that’s another strong statement, but I know what I’m talking about here.
Tony, fish taco chef extraordinaire. Tell Tony Joe sent you.
For dinner in Guerrero Negro, there are lots of options. The Hotel Don Gus has a great restaurant, Malarimmo’s is great, and we most recently tried the San Remedio (off the main drag on a dirt road in Guerrero Negro) and it, too, was awesome.
Restaurante San Remedio in Guerrero Negro. It was authentic,and you will very likely be the only non-local guest.Brianda, who served us dinner at the San Remedio.Corvina grilled with olive oil and garlic at the San Remedio. It was 135 pesos, or about $7 US, including soup.
Day 5: Guerrero Negro to San Quintin (264 miles)
You might wonder: Are there other ways to head back north in addition to the way we came down? The short answer is yes, but the roads are sketchy and I’ve seldom felt a need to take a different route. My advice is to just go back the way you came down, and stop and smell the roses along the way. There’s plenty to see. Take photos of the things you missed. Enjoy the ride.
Joe Gresh feeling his oats on the ride north out of Guerrero Negro.Photographing a cirio plant in the Valle de los Cirios.Gresh spotted an unusual (and abandoned) geodesic dome in the desert north of Catavina on the way south and he said he wanted to stop there on the return leg north. So we did!More artwork framed our test Enfield from the geodesic dome’s interior. Gresh had the idea to grab this photo. He’s better at this than I am.
On the return leg of this adventure, you can stay at the Old Mill Hotel again. Yeah, it’s my favorite. There are other hotels in the San Quintin area, including the much larger and more modern Misione Santa Ines (which also has a great restaurant). There’s also Jardin’s, which Baja John told us about but I haven’t visited yet. One of these days I’m going to spend two or three days in and around San Quintin. It’s a cool area.
A bleu cheese salad at the Eucalipto. It was exquisite.
The Old Mill’s Eucalipto isn’t open every morning for breakfast, but that’s okay because there are lots of good places to eat once you get back on the Transpeninsular Highway heading north. If you want to pick one of the great breakfast spots, just look for any restaurante with a whole bunch of cars parked in front (the locals know what they are doing). If you’ve never had chilequiles, give this Mexican breakfast specialty a try.
Day 6: San Quintin to Tecate (180 miles)
This is the same ride we took on the way south, and my guidance is the same: Stop, smell the poppies, and grab a few photos along the way. If you can hold out for a great lunch, I have two suggestions. One is the Los Veleros in Ensenada, which is in the Hotel Coronado building as you ride along the coast. The other is Naranjo’s along the Ruta del Vino (Highway 3) back into Tecate.
The Naranjo’s dining room along the Ruta del Vino. It’s on the left as you head north to Tecate, and you’ll have to watch for it or you’ll miss one of the best restaurants in all of Mexico.Yours truly in the LA Cetto tasting room. I’m wearing my R Heroes USA workshirt, a top-quality item I’ve been wearing on every adventure ride for 10 years!
I always like to stop at the L.A. Cetto vineyard on the way home (rather than on the first part of the ride). I’ll pick up one bottle of wine (and for me, that’s either a Malbec or a Cabernet). I’d like to be able to take more home, but it’s tough to do that on a motorcycle, and you’re only allowed to bring one bottle back into the United States. Rules is rules, you know.
If you had dinner at Tecate’s Amores on the way down, you might want to try a street taco restaurante on this, your second night in Tecate. We like Tacos Dumas, just up the street from the Hacienda Hotel. It’s awesome.
For an authentic experience, try Tecate’s Tacos Dumas restaurante. Life doesn’t get any better than this.
Day 7: The Ride Home (168 miles)
This is an easy run, and for me, it starts with a breakfast at Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos in Tecate (yeah, I love that place). After that, it’s a quick stop at the Mexican immigration office to return your tourist visa (don’t skip this step; you need to check out of Mexico and simply crossing back into the US won’t do that). If you’re in a car, you’ve got to get into the long line waiting to get back across the US border. If you’re on a bike, go a block or two east of the street you took into Mexico, turn left, and look for the US border crossing. There’s a break in the K-barriers guiding the automobile line, and you can go right to the head of the line. I’ve never had a problem doing this, even though it feels like I’m doing something wrong.
And folks, there you have it: Seven glorious days of the best riding on the planet. I’m ready to go again.
If you’d like to read the rest of our recent Royal Enfield Baja adventure ride posts, here are the links…
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I know…you can’t really read the print in the photo above, and that’s by design. Pick yourself up a copy of ADVMoto (it’s on the stands now). And if you want to see the blog posts from the 
When I saw the first photographs of Royal Enfield’s new 650 twin the bike seemed perfect. 650 vertical twins have owned the sweet-spot of cool long before McQueen bashed them around the desert and they are still an ideal size and configuration for all around use. Unfortunately the latest vertical twin offerings from other motorcycle manufacturers have sprouted slow-moving tumorous pistons, lost their summer beach-bodies and become uselessly complex. The whole situation kind of put me on edge. I was actually a bit angry: “Royal Enfield better not screw this up,” I mumbled to my cat.
