It was the fourth or fifth day Joe and I had been on the road in China, and we were headed up to the Tibetan Plateau. I think I can safely say that Gresh and I were the only two Americans in Wenchuan that day based on the fact that we were taken to the city’s police department to fill out forms and let them know we were there (it was the only place in China we had to do that).
Wenchuan is a lively town, and the next morning we were enjoying what had already become a routine breakfast of hardboiled eggs and Chinese fry bread on the sidewalk when a bus stopped in front of us. The fellow you see above stepped off and looked at us quizzically (we didn’t quite look like Wenchuanians). I asked if I could take a photo by holding up my Nikon. He nodded his head, I shot the photo you see above, and he was gone. The entire encounter lasted maybe two seconds, but that photo is one of my China ride favorites. His expression could be used in a book on body language.
Three earlier favorite photos, one in Bangkok, one in Death Valley, and one in Guangzhou. Click on them to get to their story.
The RG3 is Zongshen’s newest motorcycle, and yesterday this video and its description showed up in my feed:
We are excited to share the epic journey of RG3 crew! Along the 318 national highway, our RG3 adventurers spent 12 days riding to reach Lhasa, Tibet from our factory in Chongqing. May the journey inspire you to start you own!
This is cool stuff and Zongshen (sold by CSC Motorcycles here in North America) is a cool company. I’ve been in the Zongshen plant a bunch of times along with good buddy Gobi Gresh, and we rode with Zongshen across China.
Gresh and I had a lot of fun with the Cult of the Zong, and we joked about the lines we’d be able to use after our 6,000-mile ride in the Ancient Kingdom. You know, little things we’d slip into a conversation like “as I was riding across the Gobi Desert” and “when we rode down off the Tibetan plateau” and others. We knew it would gave us the street cred we needed to converse with hardcore riders making the trek to Starbuck’s.
Zongshen puts together first class videos, and I always watch their new ones as they are released. One of my Zongshen favorites is the one they did on our China ride:
And another I enjoy is Joe Gresh’s video on that same ride:
Here’s another Amazon Prime television show and video review. This one (as the blog title suggests) is on a series titled Tough Rides China. It’s about two Canadian brothers (Ryan and Colin Pyle) who circumnavigated China on BMW F800 motorcycles, and you can either watch it on Amazon Prime (if you have that streaming service) on your TV or on your computer.
The bottom line first: I enjoyed this 6-part series. A big part of that was because Joe Gresh and I rode around China with the cult of the Zong and we had a whale of a time, so it was easy to relate to what these two fellows did.
I didn’t think this series was as good as the one I reviewed recently about the two German dudes who rode from Germany to India (Himalaya Calling, which was a stellar production), but I still enjoyed it.
Surprisingly, the Pyle brothers’ BMWs broke down a couple of times during the trip, which suprised me. They were concerned about how long it would take to get parts and the lack of a strong BMW presence in China (now there’s a switch). For the record, our ten Zongshen RX1 and Rx3 motorcycles didn’t have a single breakdown during our ride. The Pyle brothers had breakdowns that mandated trucking the bikes significant portions of the trip (does GS actually stand for Go Slow?).
The Pyles also put their bikes on trucks when they wanted to get on the freeways because motorcycles are not allowed on some Chinese freeways. When Gresh and I were over there with the Zongers, we rode them anyway. It made me nervous that we rode around the toll gate arms (without paying the toll) and I asked one of our Chinese brothers about it. “We’re not allowed on the freeways, so if we tried to pay, they wouldn’t know what to do,” he told me.
Tough Rides China has a long introduction at the beginning of every episode, and it was the same in every episode. That became a bit distracting, and I blitzed through the lengthy and redundant intro after watching the first two episodes.
Tough Rides China featured the giant sand dunes and camels in the Gobi Desert around Dun Huang. Gresh and I were there. It was an awesome place, as was all of China. It really was the adventure of a lifetime.
Tough Rides China is part of a series. The Pyle brothers have done similar series in Brazil and India, too. I’ll have to look for those. While I didn’t think this series was as good the Himalaya Calling adventure ride we recently reviewed, it was still good and I recommend seeing it.
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I think most motorcycle videos are silly, including the ones I’ve done (and I’ve done a few). It’s a personal preference…videos (compared to the written word and good photography) dumb down whatever they cover, and I would much rather read a good article with great photos than watch a video. But on occasion I’ll stumble across a video I enjoy. I recently encountered a couple that hit home for me. One compares the Royal Enfield 650 to the Kawasaki W800, and the other compares the Enfield to a Triumph Bonneville.
Back in the day (the 1960s), British vertical twins ruled the roost, and of those the Triumph Bonneville was the king. My father rode a 1966 Triumph Bonneville, and I’ve owned a number of Triumphs from the ’60s and ’70s. They were (and still are) awesome motorcycles. It just makes sense to me that ’60s-era British vertical twins are a platform deserving of the sincerest form of flattery (i.e., copying), and apparently, the modern incarnations from Kawasaki, Royal Enfield, and Triumph do exactly that. Well, maybe not exactly, but enough to let you imagine you’re Steve McQueen.
These videos are fun to watch. The narrators are funny as hell and there are some great quotes. One was, “I’m not even going to try to keep up with you on the way back…you just take care of yourself and watch out for buffalo.” That quote reminded me of Gresh’s video when he entered a corner a bit too hot on a Harley Sportster and famously said, “It handles pretty well when it’s out of control.”
The video editing and imaging in these two videos are superior (way better, in my opinion, than what you see from the self-proclaimed videomeisters here in the US). And the tech content is light years ahead of the typical vlogger tripe clogging up our bandwidth.
Enjoy, my friends.
Here’s a fun fact: All three of these bikes (the Royal Enfield Interceptor, the Kawasaki W800, and the Triumph Bonneville) purport to copy British vertical twins, yet none of these bikes are British. The Enfield is made in India, the Kawasaki is made in Japan, and the Triumph is made in Thailand.
I ride a Royal Enfield 650. I like my Enfield, and for the money, the Enfield has to be one of the best buys ever in motorcycling. Gresh and I already did a road test of the Enfield in Baja, and you can read our reports on it here. One of these days in the near future I’ll do a road test my current Enfield and tell you what it’s like to own one of these grand machines, but I’ve got another road test I’m going to post first. That’s on the 250cc CSC RX3, 5 years in. Good buddy Sergeant Zuo over in Lanzhou has 50,000 miles on his RX3 and it’s still going strong.
I am enjoying my Enfield, and I just found a bunch of Enfield accessories available online through Amazon. I’ll poke around on there a bit later today.
Stay tuned, folks. More good stuff is coming your way.
When I rode to the Overland Expo in Arizona a few years ago with good buddies Duane and Paul on CSC RX3 motorcycles, I met a bunch of interesting people. One man I saw at that event but didn’t meet was Sam Manicom. When this quiet and friendly-looking guy stopped by the CSC booth and left a flyer, I stuck the flyer in my pocket, from there it went into my saddlebag for the freeway blast back to California, and a week or so later I read it.
My first reaction when I read the flyer was that I had missed an opportunity. Had I known who Sam was back then I would not have let him slip by without a conversation. Just a few lines into the flyer I knew I wanted to read his books. I did (I bought and read all of them) and they were great. In fact, I’m wondering now why I didn’t include them in the Five Best Moto Books blog I recently wrote (they were that good). I should have, and I’m making up for that oversight with this blog.
Fast forward a few years, and I was at another adventure touring motorcycle event (the Horizons Unlimited gathering in Mariposa), and Sam was there as a speaker. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. I met Sam, we had a great conversation, and I attended his presentation later that evening. The guy is a mesmerizing story teller, and Sue and I enjoyed his travel descriptions. He has a voice and a manner of speaking that made us feel like kids listening to stories around a campfire. The word “hypnotic” comes to mind. Trust me on this, folks: Don’t miss an opportunity to listen to one of Sam’s talks or read his books. The guy is a master.
I wrote about Sam when I was doing the CSC blog, and the thought occurred to me I might post an updated blog here on ExNotes. I wrote to Sam to make sure he was okay with that, and he is. Sam sent materials and links to me for inclusion here on the ExNotes blog, and I’m sharing them with you today.
So who is Sam Manicom? Well, this is a man who went out and did what many have always wanted to do. Chuck it all in and set off on an epic motorcycle adventure.
A senior manager in retail, but wanting to do something completely different, Sam learned to ride a motorcycle and set off to ride the length of Africa on a 1991 BMW R80GS. He’d been riding a bike for just three months the day he arrived at the Sahara. This one-year trip turned into an 8-year, 55-country, 6-continent adventure (Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa again, South, Central and North America).
But there’s a twist. Sam now has four books published about the journey, and he never intended to write a thing. The point for him was to hunt out new adventures, but along the way other travellers encouraged him to write magazine articles.
He did this successfully over the latter four years of the ride, but he’s quick to point out, “Writing never took over as being the point of the journey. I was out there to learn, to have fun and to enjoy the freedom travelling by motorcycle was giving me. But sometimes you find yourself in places for longer periods of time. It might be because you are on a visa hunt that takes longer than anticipated, or that you have simply found yourself in a place that you really don’t want to leave in a hurry. I wrote all of my articles in times such as these. The journey is what really matters.”
Sam’s first book, Into Africa, was written as a result of readers’ letters to editors. His other books include Under Asian Skies, Distant Suns, and Tortillas to Totems. He’s been described as being one of the foremost and most readable adventure motorcyclists writing about their adventures on two wheels, and I will tell you that description is accurate.
Why attempt to write the books? As Sam tells it, “I guess it was a new challenge and I’d spent time during the last year or so on the road, wondering what I could do with all that I’d learnt. Not only would trying to write a book be a new adventure for me but I had another thought in mind. In part my books are aimed at those fortunate enough to know that they actually can go out and live the dream, with the hope that they might encourage them to just do it. But also for those who love the sound of travelling but are quite happy with adventure from the pages. I’ve also consciously written them for those who live in circumstances that may never allow them to ride into adventure.”
Sam writes for ADVMoto Magazine, Overland Magazine, Motorcycle Sport and Leisure, Adventure Bike Rider, Motorcycle Monthly and various other motorcycle magazines and newspapers around the world. He is a regular presenter at BMW dealerships, and Horizons Unlimited, Overland Expo, and Adventure Bike Rider Festival events. Sam is also a co-host of the Adventure Rider Radio RAW show.
Sam has a fairly unusual background in that he was born in the Belgian Congo in Central West Africa. His parents worked and lived through the two rebellions that preceded the change of the country’s name to Zaire. They brought the family home to England when he was ten years old. For the first few years at school in the UK he was known as “Jungle Boy.”
Sam’s first solo journey was by bicycle age 16. His next big trip was a backpacking, seat-of-the-pants voyage of discovery across Europe, India and Australia, which often saw him down to his last $10. On arrival in Australia, no one asked him if he had any money and a return ticket. He had neither. What was needed, he earned along the way and this he says was a great learning experience.
Though not looking for a girlfriend, Sam met his partner Birgit Schuenemann in New Zealand during year two of his 8-year motorcycle trip. After riding pillion with him for 3 months through Nepal and India she joined him for the latter four years across Africa and the Americas. She was travelling by bicycle when they met but transferred steeds to ride her own motorcycle, a 1971 BMW R60/5. She started her ride in Africa with just 600 miles experience on a motorcycle. Sam’s BMW R80GS, at the time of writing, has 278,000 miles under its wheels and is still his only means of transport in the UK where he is based. He also owns an F800GS which he keeps in the USA for his regular trips to the States.
So there you have it: My thoughts on one of the best adventure motorcycle story tellers ever. Take advantage of the links we’ve provided above. You can thank me later.
Riding in a group is a lot like sex: Most of us think we’re better at it than we really are.
This blog focuses on how to play well with others on a group ride. It’s told from the perspective of a guy who has organized and led group rides (that would be me) and who has been a participant on group rides (that would also be me). You can have a lot of fun on a group ride and go places you might not otherwise go, like Seda in the photo above. Seda is a town that will take your breath away…it’s the largest Tibetan Buddhist school in the world, it took days to reach, and I would have never visited it had I not done so on a group ride. You can read all about that in Riding China.
Riding AKT Motos RS3 motorcycles in the Andes Mountains. This was a fabulous group ride organized by AKT Motos and my good buddies Juan and Carlos. The RS3 is a carbureted RX3. You can read that story in Moto Colombia.
I make a distinction between organized group rides and simply taking a ride with a buddy or two. This article is not about rides in that second category. In this blog, I’m describing organized rides with several riders, rides that are usually put together by a club, a dealership, and on occasion, by a manufacturer (like the ride I did with AKT Motos through the Andes Mountains in Colombia).
Tip 1: Don’t Be A “Maybe” Rider
If you’re not sure, don’t commit to the ride. Don’t be a guy who says he might go if he can get off work, or if his girlfriend says he can go, or if he feels like going that day, or any of the myriad of brainless “ifs” folks put on their potential participation. You know the drill…you start out with a whole platoon of guys who say they’re going, a week before the ride it’s down to five people, and the morning of the ride it’s you and one other guy. If you can go, put on your big girl panties and go. If you’re not sure, don’t say anything.
Tip 2: Don’t Invite Others Without Checking First
I’ve had this happen to me a few times when I’ve planned rides: Folks I invited invite others. Consider it from this perspective: I invited you because I think you’d add something to the ride and I think I know how you ride. I don’t know other folks you might want to invite, I don’t know how they would fit in the group, and I don’t know how they ride. My suggestion is this: Ask the ride organizer if you want to invite someone else. Don’t just invite others along.
If it’s a marque-specific ride, don’t invite others along who ride other motorcycles. The ride organizer is promoting a manufacturer’s motorcycle. It’s weird; folks would badmouth Chinese motorcycles but then get their shorts in a knot because we wouldn’t allow other brands on the CSC Baja rides (you can read about those in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM and Moto Baja). Call Brand X and complain to them if they don’t have a ride for you; don’t bitch at me because I don’t want your bike sneaking into my marketing photos.
Tip 3: Don’t Ask To Join The Ride Along The Way
This seems to be a recurring request, and the only thing I can attribute it to is laziness and that all-too-common sense of “You don’t understand…I’m special.” It doesn’t seem to matter if we’re organizing a 300-mile ride or a 5000-mile ride. There’s always that guy who doesn’t want to ride an extra 15 miles to join the group at the starting point. He wants the group to pull off the highway to meet him somewhere along the way.
Don’t do this, folks. Either make it to the start of the ride or stay home. The ride organizer has enough going on without adding additional stops to save you 15 miles (and we don’t want to inconvenience everyone else who made it to the start point). Find those big girl panties. Pull ’em on.
Tip 4: Attend the Pre-Ride Briefing
If there’s a pre-ride briefing, go to it. Ride organizers do this to provide critical information and to emphasize safety. Don’t ask if you can skip the pre-ride briefing.
A combined dinner and pre-ride briefing before our Western America Adventure ride. It was an awesome ride: 15 guys, 5000 miles, and no mishaps.
Tip 5: Don’t Push Alternative Routes
Trust me on this: The ride organizer has put a lot of thought into the route. I know when I plan a ride I have a lot of things in mind (start times, how long the ride will take, getting in before dark, the group’s safety, things to see along the way, the route, fuel stops, etc.). If you have a better idea, do your own ride.
If the group isn’t going somewhere you want to go, you might ask the ride organizer privately if it would be okay to split off, see what you want to see, and then meet up with the group later that night (or just finish the ride on your own). I’ve had guys do this and I’m fine with it. What ride organizers don’t want is a debate during the pre-ride briefing.
Tip 6: Arrive Early
This is so obvious it almost seems silly to mention it. When I plan a ride and specify a departure time, that’s when we’re leaving. If you’re not ready to go at that time, we’re leaving anyway. I won’t delay the group because you can’t get there on time.
It was the morning we departed California for a 5000-mile ride through the western United States. Everyone was there on time except the chase truck driver. Always show up early for any group ride.
Tip 7: Arrive Fully Fueled
Stop for fuel someplace close to the departure point and fill up, and do so such that you can arrive for the start on time. There are few things more frustrating than a rider who announces he has to stop for fuel when the group is ready to leave.
This applies to breakfast, too: Eat your breakfast early, unless the group plans to stop for breakfast. I’ve had guys announce when the group was ready to leave that they needed to eat first. Seriously?
Tip 8: Make Sure You and Your Bike Are Ready
If you need to adjust your chain, check your oil, charge your cell phone, clean your faceshield, tweet, post on Instagram, adjust your jockstrap, or any of the other things I’ve seen guys do at the start of a group ride, do all that before you arrive. I used to ride with a guy named Dick who did that sort of thing constantly, and he always did it just as we were ready to leave. “Wait a second,” Dick would say, “I think my chain is loose.”
Yep, I needed to clean my faceshield. But I didn’t make anyone wait while I did so.
The advice here is simple: Don’t be a Dick. Do whatever you need to do so that you’re ready to roll at the designated departure time.
Tip 9: Keys, Gear, and Mount Up (in that order)
Put your key in the ignition before you suit up, suit up, and then get on your bike. Don’t get on your bike before you put on your gear, and don’t pull your gloves on when your key is still in your pocket. I know, this all sounds obvious. But people do these things. I’ve seen guys drop their bikes because they suddenly realize they need to put on their helmet, jacket, and gloves as the group is leaving. They’ll jump on their bike, try to balance an 800-pound motorcycle while pulling on their gear, realize the key is still in their pocket so they have to remove their gloves…and in the middle of it all: Bam, down goes the bike. Dick used to do that all the time.
Put the key in the ignition, suit up, and then get on your bike. And do it so when the group is ready to leave, you are, too.
Velma and Orlando at speed in Death Valley. She was wonderful…always on time and always reminding Orlando that orange is the fastest color.
One more point on this: If you want to bring your significant other along and he or she is one of those people who takes a long time getting ready, explain that motorcycle rides are different. They just are. If your significant other can’t adapt, maybe you need another significant other.
Tip 10: Refuel When Everyone Else Does
Your ride organizer will have considered the bikes and their fuel ranges and selected stops accordingly. Don’t assume you can make it to the next fuel stop when everyone else is refueling. I’ve had guys do this and then run out of gas at inconvenient times and in inconvenient places. One guy did so coming home from a Baja ride. We spent the night in Tecate and fueled the bikes there, but for whatever reason, he decided he had enough gasolina and he didn’t top off. He ran out of gas on I-5 somewhere north of San Diego. For all I know, he’s still sitting by the side of the road.
Tip 11: Keep Your Helmet On At Gas Stops
A fuel stop can be 10 minutes if everyone pulls up to a pump, keeps their helmet on, and is efficient. Or it can be 45 minutes or more if folks take their helmets off, start kibitzing and posting on social media…you know. Listen to what the ride organizer says about this during the pre-ride briefing. I like to keep my helmet on and keep things moving.
Drink enough to stay hydrated. Use the restroom every chance you get, even if you don’t have to (so you won’t have to while underway).
Fuel stops are a good place to use the rest room, too, but be quick about it. Most ride organizers will make a pit stop every hour or so (hey, we’re mostly a bunch of full-figured mature prostate patients), so take advantage of every stop and hit the head.
Tip 12: Eat With The Group, and Be Nice
Don’t decide you don’t like the restaurant the ride leader selects for lunch and wander off looking for your idea of the perfect place, and don’t suggest different places to eat when the group stops at a restaurant. Give the ride leader credit for having thought about things like how long it takes to get served at a restaurant, cost, etc. On the wandering off thing, I’ve had guys do this and I left without them when we were finished eating. Sometimes they got back in time and sometimes they didn’t, but I wasn’t going to inconvenience everyone else waiting for my vagabundos to rejoin the group.
If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you know large groups are tough. The wait staff may be leery of your group for a couple of reasons…you’re a bunch of people dressed like Power Rangers (so you may be a little intimidating), and most groups tend to leave scanty tips (or no tip at all). Be nice and leave a good tip. The ride organizer probably has a relationship with the restaurant from prior visits, and he ‘ll probably want to bring other groups on subsequent rides. Don’t poison the well.
That ketchup bottle belongs where you see it. Gresh knows this now. We are not alone.
Don’t take up other tables by stacking your helmets, your jackets, and other stuff on them. Leave other tables free for the restaurant’s other customers.
Some folks take forever choosing from the menu, or they have special requests (you know, put this on the side, add this but subtract that, can I get goat cheese instead of American cheese, etc.). That makes things difficult for the restaurant and the other riders. Choose from the menu, be quick about it, and don’t delay the group.
Here’s another thing I want to mention: I’ve ridden with guys my age or older who mostly look like me, yet they somehow feel compelled to hit on the wait staff. For the record, I’m overweight, I’m bald, and I’m not tall, dark, or handsome. Read that sentence again, because whether you realize it or not, I may have just described you. Do you really think a young woman working in a restaurant is going to be impressed by a short, fat, and not-so-handsome guy three times her age hitting on her? Give it a break, guys.
Tip 13: Ride Safely
Safety trumps everything else on a group ride. Go to the safety briefing, ride in a staggered formation, don’t crowd the rider in front of you, and don’t try to carry on a conversation by riding alongside another rider.
Good spacing and a staggered formation make for a safe ride. If you’re wondering, I shot this photo in Baja.
Riding in a group also means keeping up…you don’t want to tailgate the rider in front of you, but you don’t want to ride so slowly that it opens up huge gaps in the group.
If a traffic light changes to red, don’t blow through it just to keep up with the group. The ride leader will most likely stop to wait for you. You should know the route so that if you do get separated, you can join the group down the road. And if a car needs to change lanes to exit in front of you, allow it to enter and cross your lane.
Finally, know your capabilities and consider the group. If you’re a loud-pipes-saves-lives kind of rider and the group is a bunch of loud-clutches-saves-lives canyon carvers, you may be praying at the wrong church. If the group is riding at a pace beyond your capabilities, drop out and ride your own ride. Don’t get in over your head, and don’t assume because the guy in front of you made it through that corner at 80 mph you will, too.
Tip 14: Avoid Alcohol During the Ride
I’ll only ride with folks who won’t drink at all on a ride. Once the bikes are parked for the evening, that’s another story, but during the day, it’s no booze. Period. I’ve played the game with guys who think they can have a beer during the day. Then it becomes two. Then three. Nope. Not gonna happen. Not with me.
Nothing is better than a Tecate with lime and rock salt around the rim once the bikes are put away for the evening.
There are liability issues here, and it’s likely that folks sponsoring a ride simply won’t risk the extra exposure that goes with allowing alcohol consumption on a ride.
Tip 15: Be An Extremely Careful Photog
You can have a great motorcycle ride or you can make a great video, but you can’t do both at the same time.
If you want to do a video on the road, get a mount (Ram makes good gear) to mount your Go Pro or cell phone to the bike so you don’t have to screw around holding it or looking through a viewfinder while you ride. If you’re using a wide angle lens, don’t try to make up for it by crowding the rider in front of you to get a better view of his bike. Safety first all the time is the rule here.
If you’re using a digital camera for still shots, never try to use the viewfinder or look at the LCD screen to compose the shot while you’re riding. Digital film is cheap: Take a bunch of photos without looking through or at the camera. One or more of your photos will be good. You can’t control your motorcycle trying to compose a photo, and you put yourself and the riders around you at risk if you attempt to do so.
Riding China. Buy the book (don’t wait for the movie). It was a glorious 6,000-mile group ride without a single incident.
Last point on this topic: Don’t delay the ride so you can get the perfect photo or an artistic video. There’s a lot more at stake here than the number of likes you’ll get on Facebook.
Tip 16: Pay Attention To Your Turn Signals
Keep an eye on your turn signals. Dick used to put his turn signal on, he’d make the turn, and then he’d ride the next 72 miles with his turn signal flashing. Again: Don’t be a Dick.
Tip 17: Pack Your Bike Safely
One time I rode with bunch of guys from the place I was working at the time, and the plan was for a 3-day trip to San Felipe. I had my KLR, there was another guy on an FJR, and there was another guy on a full dress Harley. We met up at a Denny’s and I was shocked, although I guess I shouldn’t have been. The Harley guy’s bike had saddlebags and a tailpack, and he still had a bunch of stuff strapped down on his rear seat and the top of the tailpack. “I brought everything I needed for the three days,” Mr. Harley announced (his name wasn’t Dick, but it could have been).
I had everything I needed, too, and it was all in the tankbag on my KLR (including a camera). I pointed that out to my portly V-twin buddy. Learning how to pack (and what to pack) comes with experience, I guess. New riders tend to overpack. I used to do that. I travel light now.
My Harley on one of my first Baja rides. Cue in the music from the Beverly Hillbillies.
The drill on a ride for me is this: If I can’t get it into the panniers and the tailpack, I don’t need it. And that includes tools, a laptop, my camera, and a couple of lenses. I mentioned this on one of the week-long CSC Baja rides, and one of my friends said, “I don’t know how you do it. I have the same bike with the same bags, and I still need to strap a bag down on the rear seat to hold everything. And I only brought enough underwear to change every other day.”
My response? “You brought underwear?”
Tip 18: Let Others Know If You Bail
If you’re going to leave the ride, let others know. It’s okay to do that; it’s not okay to do it without letting anybody know and just disappearing. That happened to me once in Baja and it scared the hell out of us. You don’t want to make people nervous (and maybe become the object of a search party, like we had to do in Baja) by simply changing your mind about the ride or the route. Be a nice guy and let someone know if you’re going to bail.
So there you have it. If I’ve offended anyone with the above list, my guess is you’re young and you’ll probably get over it. If not, mea culpa. And if you have more suggestions on how to ride well in a group, we sure would like to hear them. Please leave your comments here on the ExNotes blog (don’t post your comments on Facebook; be one of the cool kids and post them here).
Ride safe, folks. And ride extra safe if you ride with a group.
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I think CSC gets $3995 for a new RX3 these days, and that’s with all the goodies…skid plate, luggage, ABS, 300W alternator, auxiliary accessory switches, the 19-inch front wheel, and probably a few more things I don’t know about. That’s my RX3 in the photo above. I’ve been riding it for more than 5 years. For the Sinophobic haterbators out there, I’ve never found any fish oil in it, I’ve spent substantial time in the factories where they make the RX3 and there are no children chained to the manufacturing equipment, and the Zong techs are most definitely not slave labor. My RX3 has been and still is a good motorcycle.
Looking over the windshield, on the road in Baja.
I know you can buy a used Sportster for what a new RX3 costs if you shop around; the topic comes up nearly every time I mention the price of an RX3. It’s a silly thought, actually, because I’m still looking for that prospective buyer who is trying to decide between a used Sportster and a new RX3. I’ve been on that quest ever since I started writing about the RX3 six years ago, when the keyboard commandos first started pushing the used-Sportster-in-lieu-of-an-RX3 argument.
Here’s a hot flash: That person (the dude or dudette struggling with such a decision) doesn’t exist. You either want an ADV motorcycle, or you want a used bar-hopper with “much chrome” (as the Sportster ads often highlight). I have never met, or even heard of, somebody pondering whether they should buy a used Sportster or an RX3.
Behold: The financial equivalent of a new RX3.
I hear the same kind of keyboard drivel when Janus motorcycles are mentioned. They’re stunning motorcycles, and I’ve had good times riding them through northern Baja. Invariably, though, the used Sportster financial comparison will emerge. Janus is always polite in their responses. Me? I’m a noncombatant and I don’t respond to such Internet drivel. If you want a used Sportster, it’s a free country. Go for it.
To listen to the keyboard commandos, there must be a lot of folks out there dreaming about used Sportsters. Maybe that’s the answer to Harley’s problem. Even though motorcycle sales in general are up sharply since the pandemic started, Harley’s sales most definitely are not. In fact, to read The Wall Street Journal, Harley is circling the drain. Not to worry, though, because I think I have the answer: Rather than rewiring or hardwiring or screwing around with $30K electric motorcycles, or hiring high-priced executives with zero motorcycle experience (as they seem to love to do), Harley should simply stop production and only traffic in used Sportsters. There would be no need for a factory; that’s a huge savings right there. More savings? Harley wouldn’t need to spend anything on advertising; there’s a potful of worldwide web wannabe wizards pushing used Sportsters already doing that for free.
Used Sportsters. Who knew?
Back to my RX3: I’ve covered a lot of miles on it here and overseas. I had it out this Sunday charging through the smoke we call breathable air here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. I hadn’t ridden the RX3 in a couple of months, but it started right up (like it always does) and it’s still running strong (like it always has).
Good buddy Greg on the road to the cave paintings in Sierra San Francisco, Baja California Sur.
It’s kind of a funny story about how the RX3 came to America. I was in China on a consulting gig for another client when CSC asked me to poke around for a 250cc engine for its line of Mustang replicas. It’s funny in the sense that a lot of Internet people told us they’d buy the Mustang if only the bike had a 250cc engine (instead of its 150cc engine). I found a source for the 250cc engine (Zongshen; they weren’t very hard to find). CSC put the 250cc Zong engine in the Mustang and sales…well, they remained essentially the same. All those yahoos who said they’d buy one if the bike had a 250cc motor? They went MIA. I don’t know what they did after CSC introduced the 250cc engine, but they sure didn’t buy a new Mustang. Ah, I take that back…I do know what they did…they posted more comments on Facebook. It’s hard work being a keyboard commando, I guess, and it’s lonely down there in those basements. But they kept at it. Why buy a CSC Mustang, they said. You could buy a used Sportster for that kind of money, they said. Actually, most of the CSC Mustangs were optioned up by their customers so much that their cost approached and sometimes exceeded what a new Sportster would cost, but that’s neither here nor there.
A 250cc CSC Mustang, accessorized to the max.
The arrangement with the Big Z was a good one, and it led directly to things like the RX3, the RX4, the City Slicker, the TT250, the SG250, and more. It’s how I came to own my RX3, and like I said above, I am still riding and enjoying it. Even though I could have bought a used Sportster.
Good buddy Kyle from China, somewhere in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Don’t worry; he’s not armed (and if you’re wondering what that’s all about, you can read that story here).
I’ve been up and down Baja lots of times with lots of RX3 riders. I’ve been across China, including the Gobi Desert and the Tibetan Plateau, and I’ve ridden around the Andes Mountains in Colombia. I’ve ridden to Sturgis, then back across the top of the US, and down the Pacific Coast with a bunch of guys from China. Gresh rode with me on a lot of of those rides. I know, I know, he didn’t get invited on the Colombia adventure, but hey, he didn’t invite me on the Russia ride, either. But to stay on topic: It’s all been on the RX3.
Riding into the Gobi Desert with Joe Gresh as my wingman. Or was I his? In 6000 miles and 40 days of riding across China, we did not see a single Sportster, used or new.
Those early RX3 rides were marketing demos, basically, designed to show a few guys having the time of their life and demonstrating to everybody else that the RX3 had real chops as an ADV bike. But don’t think I wasn’t nervous. We took 14 guys and one gal on a 1700-mile ride through Baja literally the same week the first RX3s arrived in the US from China (I was sweating bullets on that one), and then we immediately took another 12 or 15 guys from China and Colombia (and one motojournalist from Motorcyclist) on a 5000-mile ride from southern California to Sturgis, back across the top of the US, and down the Pacific coast on what was arguably one of the most highly-publicized (in real time, too) motorcycle publicity stunts ever. I was scared the entire time, thinking something might break and generate a lot of bad press. I guess I didn’t realize how well things were going until the last night of the trip, 4700 miles into it, when Gresh told me to relax. “You won, man,” he said. He was right. But just think: I coulda had that used Sportster.
The Canton Fair: I’d heard of it many times, and it has been billed as the world’s largest motorcycle trade show. I don’t know if that latter statement is true, but the Canton Fair is certainly China’s largest motorcycle trade show, and China is one of the world’s dominant motorcycle producers. Biggest or not, I had an opportunity to attend the Canton Fair in 2017, and who could say no to something like that?
Inside the Canton Fair’s motorcycle exhibit area.
So, after a midnight departure from Los Angeles International and 15 hours in a center seat on a Boeing 777, I arrived in Guangzhou at around 8:30 p.m. either that day, the next day, or the day before (I can never get the time change thing right). Those 15 hours in the big Boeing flew by (literally and figuratively) quickly, clearing Chinese Customs and Immigration in Guangzhou was efficient, finding a cab was easy, and before I knew it, my Chinese Mario Andretti cab driver was shepherding me through the rain-slicked streets of late night Guangzhou. I’ve spent a lot of time in China and it felt good to be back. A lot of folks hate China these days. I’m not one of them. I’ve had too many good times and I have too many good friends in China.
Receptionists at the Paco Hotel somewhere in Guangzhou.
I stayed at the Paco Hotel, only a couple of miles from the Canton Fair. A hotel right next to the Fair was a cool $1000 a night, so that was a nonstarter. The Paco had what I thought was a good buffet and I ate heartily on all but my last day in Guangzhou. On that last day, a cockroach the size of a small bird ran across a tray of noodles just as I was reaching in, and that killed my appetite for the Paco buffet. I guess I’m lucky it happened on the last day.
Here’s a shot taken while I was on the bridge crossing the Pearl River. The oval building on the left bank is part of the Canton Fair complex. That tower you can barely see in the distant haze is Guangzhou’s radio tower, which is a cool quarter of a mile high. For a few years, it held the title of the world’s tallest structure.
The next morning, my first full day in China, it was off to the Canton Fair. I had no idea what was in store for me. Think big, think big crowds, and think “I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going but I’m following the crowd,” and you’ll start to get a feel for what getting into the Canton Fair was like for me that first day. My leg was killing me (an old motorcycle injury), it was hot and humid (hey, it’s China) and it took a good two hours from the time I left the hotel until I was actually inside seeing new motorcycles. There’s the Guangzhou traffic. It’s normally heavy, but as we got closer to the fair (after crossing the Pearl River, which bisects Guangzhou), things really got thick. And there were the crowds.
The crowd entering the Canton Fair. There were a lot of people.
There was a press of humanity trying to get into the fair once I was off the bus. I walked along with a heavy crowd for a good mile, with my sciatic nerve on fire every inch of the way. Getting into the fair was a process, and it started with guessing which crowd to follow. I got lucky; I guessed right. I had to buy a pass, and I opted to get the 100 RMB buyer’s badge. 100 RMB is about $16, and that allowed me to enter the Canton Fair all week (as opposed to paying 30 RMB for a spectator’s pass every day). But I couldn’t just buy the badge. Lines, lines, and more lines. And for every one of them, I had to guess at which one to follow. I had to go through a metal detector after standing in one long line. Then I had to stand in another long line to fill out an admission application form. Then it was another long line for a photo. Then it was another long line to take the photos to the folks who made the badges. Then it was another long line to pay for the badge. Then it was another long line to get the badge. And while all this was going on, the crowds were deep and pushy. But they were friendly.
Oddly, I didn’t bump into anybody from the United States. I met several interesting people from other countries. One guy pushed up into me and asked where I was from. When I told him, he told me he was from Iran. Wow. Iran. An American, and an Iranian, literally pushed into each other. He asked me what I thought about what Mr. Trump had done in Syria a few days ago (The Donald had lobbed a missile in). Hmmmm. This could get interesting, I thought. “You know, Don doesn’t call me as often as he used to,” I told my new friend, “and even if he had called this weekend, I was on a 15-hour flight to get here, so I would have missed the call.” My new buddy stared at me for a couple of seconds and then he started laughing. I did, too. He took a selfie of the two of us. Me. Working for world peace, one Iranian at a time. My photo is probably in the ayatollah’s database now, but hey, you do what you gotta do.
Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!
Things were moving along. I had my photo, I had my badge, and there was one last line: The line to get inside and actually start seeing motorcycles. And then it started raining. On us. Standing in line. Outside. Hey, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.
Inside, much to my surprise, I still wasn’t in the motorcycle part of the Canton Fair. The complex is immense, and I had to ask around a bit to find my way to the motorcycle area. I finally made it, though, and the Zongshen booth was the first one I saw. It was one of many and I knew several of the guys from Zongshen, so we visited a bit.
The Zongshen booth. Recognize that bike?
Zongshen, as one of the Big 4 Chinese motorcycle manufacturers, has a lot going on and they have a lot of interesting products. They make motorcycles, they make workhorse trikes, and they make a lot more.
Zongshen’s 500cc diesel trike. Gresh fell in love with these when we saw one in Zongshen’s R&D area in Chongqing.
There were a lot of motorcycle manufacturers showing their new products at the Canton Fair. I enjoyed seeing them all.
Tien Ma. Never heard of them, like most of the manufacturers I saw displaying motorcycles at the Canton Fair. Lifan (the booth behind this one) is one of China’s Big 4 motorcycle manufacturers.XGJao, another one I never heard of. One of their sales guys was named Elvis.Loncin, another one of China’s Big 4.
My buyer’s badge gave me status. There are motorcycle parts suppliers at the Canton Fair, and when they see a buyer’s badge, they’re on it. They all wanted my business card and they all wanted me to have theirs. That’s another bunch of databases I wormed my way into, I guess. I still get four or five emails every day from manufacturers trying to sell me stuff. I could have made a killing on N95 masks. And I can buy digital watches for 88 cents each if I buy a thousand or more. Who knew? And the exhibitors? They all seemed to hire attractive young women who wanted me to buy their motorcycle stuff.
Motorcycle component supplier booths at the Canton Fair.A young lady selling motorcycle batteries.
More than a few of the bikes and trikes were interesting. Some had names that were funny as hell. And some were styled to fit regional preferences. Take a look.
Now, I ask you: Who wouldn’t want a Yamasaki? It might go nicely with your Kawazuki.Monkey bikes, miniature versions of the real thing.Appropriately named, of course.Behold: The mighty Zarang. Check out this CG-engined trike cargo hauler sold in Afghanistan. If I was marketing this thing, the music would be Zarang Me, sung to the tune of Johnny Cash’s Hang Me. “Zarang me, Zarang me, they ought to take a rope and hang me…”The Zarang’s lighting and hornage. Think about that poor alternator!
The Canton Fair has a restaurant row that must have 100 restaurants, ranging from exotic Middle Eastern foods to all kinds of Chinese food to Papa John’s pizza. I had Chinese food every day (it’s a “when in Rome” kind of thing for me). The beef dumpling soup was a whopping 25 RMB (that’s $3.96 in US dollars), and it was delicious.
The Canton Fair’s restaurant row.
There are people here from the Middle East, Australia, South America, Africa, and other places. Yesterday while I was enjoying my now-standard lunch of beef-and-onion dumplings, an older fellow asked if he could sit at my table (the seating is very crowded because there are so many people here). “Sure,” I said. His English was a little rough, but he reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of flatbread. He broke it in two and offered half to me. Not wanting to be rude, I accepted it. I asked my new friend where he was from and his business. He was a construction guy from Lebanon. My guess is that piece of flatbread was from Lebanon. Imagine that…a guy from California at a motorcycle show breaking bread (literally) with a construction guy from Lebanon. A small world indeed, and I was living it, one flatbread bite at a time.
Beef dumpling soup, best paid for with true money.
I had another interesting experience one day at lunch when I attempted to pay. I peeled off some the Chinese currency I had and the young lady at the cash register examined it closely. “Not true money,” she exclaimed, in English, and loudly. Other folks around the cash registers looked at me. “Not true money,” she said again, the volume up another notch or two. And then, just in case I was hard of hearing: “NOT TRUE MONEY!!!”
So there I was, attempting to pass counterfeit currency in the Canton Fair, with what seemed like fifty thousand Asian faces taking in the drama unfolding before them: An American (me) trying to pay for his soup with counterfeit money. I had visions of rotting in a Chinese prison. Maybe worse (they have capital punishment over there, you know). I fished out more bills and handed them to Miss NOT TRUE MONEY, and her focus immediately shifted from prosecution to sorting. She studied each bill, giving some back to me and keeping others. The line behind me continued to grow. Weirdly, nobody seemed to mind my attempted criminal behavior or the delay it had induced.
Miss NOT TRUE MONEY was finally satisfied with the cash she selected, and the soup, as always, was delicious. When I left the restaurant area, there was a young guy selling ice cream outside. I found an ice cream bar that looked good and paid him, using some of the bills Miss NOT TRUE MONEY had rejected. He looked at each one suspiciously, but he ultimately accepted them. That ice cream was delicious, too. I admit: It was kind of a rush, committing a felony in a foreign land. I’m only writing about it now because I think the statute of limitations ran out.
When I returned to the hotel, I hit the ATM around the corner to get more (and hopefully, more true) cash. When I reached into the ATM hood, my hand started burning. Something either stung or bit me. I had an immediate and big welt on the back of my hand that hurt like hell, and within an hour, the entire back of my hand turned black. Maybe it was a murder hornet before they gained fame here in the US. My Mom would have told me it was God punishing me for passing that counterfeit money. Whatever it was, it sure hurt. It was gone by the next day, but wow, my experience with all things related to Chinese currency was not pleasant.
I had been sticking to the motorcycle exhibits during my time at the Canton Fair, but I took a different entrance one morning. Silly me: I thought the Canton Fair was only motorcycles. Nope, it’s everything. There are a lot of exhibits marketing to the construction industry. China was still building furiously, and they evidently supply construction materials to a lot of the world. I imagine Lowe’s and Home Depot have been here more than a few times. Here are a few shots as I walked through these areas.
Surprisingly, I didn’t meet a single US person in the motorcycle area during my several days at the Canton Fair. There were lots of folks from Asia, and more than a few from the Middle East, South America, and Europe. But no Americans (other than me). Go figure.
The Canton Fair was canceled this year due to the Covid 19 pandemic, but it’s going to be back. If you ever have a chance to roll through Guangzhou in April, the Canton Fair needs to be on your bucket list. It’s a cool thing to see.
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Sergeant Zuo on our 2016 ride across China, somewhere along the Silk Road.
I recently wrote to my good buddy Sergeant Zuo, who led our 2016 ride across China. Zuo lives in Lanzhou, a huge refining center we visited on the China ride. He and I became great friends on that 38-day adventure. Zuo is a former Chinese Army senior NCO and in an earlier life I was a lowly lieutenant in the US Army. But hey, a lieutenant outranks even a senior noncommissioned officer, and every morning (even though we served in different armies), he’d snap to attention and salute me. And I would then return the salute. It was cool and it added to the good nature and relaxed camaraderie we all felt on the China adventure. Zuo is that rare natural leader you sometimes encounter when groups gather and he was perfect for the China ride. He made what could have a been a scary undertaking into a grand adventure. I would follow him anywhere, and I imagine the troops in the Army units he led felt the same way.
Sergeant Zuo along Qinghai Lake, one of the largest salt water lakes on the planet. We were about a third of the way into our ride when I took this photo.
Zuo owns an RX3 (he was one of the very first people to buy an RX3 in China) and it is his daily driver. He doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Chinese, but that had no impact on us. We spoke RX3 and riding, I guess, and we formed an immediate bond. A good motorcycle can do that, you know.
Sergeant Zuo on the ferry ride to Qingdao. Qingdao was our final destination on the China ride.
Our trip started in Chongqing, we rode to northwest China (the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert), then back to central China, and finally over to Beijing and then Qingdao. Qingdao was a name that stuck in my mind. Nearly 50 years ago I was on a US Army missile site in Korea and our primary target line pointed straight across the Yellow Sea at Qingdao. And now, here we were at the end of our China ride five decades later in that very same city.
Zuo, Gresh, I, and a dozen others rode our motorcycles right onto the beach at Qingdao, stripped down, and went swimming in the Yellow Sea’s cool waters. Damn, that felt good. After fighting the oppressive heat and humidity of a damp Chinese summer, I could have spent all day in that cool ocean water. Back in the day I was ready to launch missiles at bad guys coming from Qingdao; 50 years later I swam in the Yellow Sea with Zuo at that very same spot to wrap up the grandest adventure of my life.
Our route on the ride across China.
With that as a backdrop, here’s the note from my good buddy Zuo:
Yeah, I know, you don’t speak Chinese. That’s not a problem; we’ll just turn to Google’s translation site:
Joe (big uncle):
Thank you for your letter.
Seeing the spread of the new coronavirus (CV-19) in the United States from the Internet, this terrible guy has become a common enemy of humanity, but we should believe that it will be defeated! Although the epidemic situation here has been controlled and alleviated, the epidemic alert has not ended.
J, I’m fine, thank you.
Reading your and Erji’s blog is the biggest joy in my life, and it’s great to see you playing happily. Because you have always believed that there is a good friend who cares about you on the other side of the ocean, has you been paying attention to you.
When the epidemic is over, it will be my happiest waiting if I can travel with you.
I miss you so much–my mentor.
Say hello to your friend.
I wish you and Erji all the best.
—- Zuo Zhenyi in Lanzhou, China, March 20, 2020
About that “Erji” business…the Chinese quickly gave Gresh and me Chinese names. I was Dajiu (big uncle), and Joe was Erji (little uncle). After that initial christening, those were our names for the entire trip. It was cool.
You know, when this CV19 business is over, it would be grand to get Zuo over here for a US and Baja ride. It’s something to look forward to, and I promise you it’s going to happen.
Edit: Just in case you haven’t seen these videos, here you go. The first is Gresh’s China Ride video, the second is the one released by Zongshen. They’re both great.
Man, we are through the looking glass, living in what feels like a bad science fiction movie. The freeways and malls are empty, parking lots are empty, and we are sheltered in place. To top it all off, Susie and I are recovering from two of the worst colds we’ve ever had, and you can imagine what we’ve been imagining. And it may have all started because some dude in Wuhan wanted to eat a bat. A bat!
This current situation will bring out the worst in us, and it will bring out the best in us. We’re already seeing some of the worst, with the accusations flying back and forth about where the virus originated, who did what to who (or who failed to do what and when), and on and on it goes. But we’ll get through it, and we’ll come out on the other side better. We always do.
I have good friends in China, and I feel for them. I think I feel for us, too, with the COVID-19 virus emerging here. The market is way down, on paper we’ve lost a ton of wealth, and people are losing jobs. I had a gig in Singapore and I would have been heading over there. Nope. Not now.
All the above aside, I find myself thinking more and more about my friends in China, and the ride Joe Gresh and I took across China. And the food we ate (we ate a lot of strange stuff, and a lot of watermelon). And the pretty girls. And the roads and the people. This summer it will be four years since that ride. It was the grandest ride I’ve ever done and the greatest adventure I’ve ever had. With that as an introduction and without a lot of narrative, I’ve got a ton of photos to share with you from that epic road trip. Enjoy, my friends…
Riding China was a good ride. I’d like to do it again someday. In the meantime, keep the faith, folks. Things will get better.
available online through Amazon. I’ll poke around on there a bit later today.
