Wow, we mentioned good buddy Bill Murar’s endurance racing exploits just a few blogs down on a 150cc motorcycle circling Lake Erie, and while we were posting a blog, Bill was wrapping up a 400-mile bicycle ride. Good Lord!
Bill Murar, on the shores of Lake Erie.
Here’s Bill’s post describing the ride…
Today I finished riding the Ohio To Erie Trail, a 326+ mile bike route from Cincinnati (Ohio river) to Cleveland (Lake Erie). It took me 6 days to complete with a couple all time bests for me. Best speed 39.11 mph, most miles in a day 88+. It was a long, grueling affair that was both terrible and wonderful. Some needed recovery time is in order before contemplating anything like this again. But it’s over and done with and another goal’s been achieved. I couldn’t have done it without my loving wife and companion, Joyce. She followed me and procured all the campgrounds we needed, where we needed them. She fed me, encouraged me, stopped and bought stuff, etc., etc., etc. I’m exhausted, beat and very satisfied.
Bill, that’s most impressive, and thanks very much for allowing us to share it with our readers!
The ExhaustNotes post today has two videos, and both are from Janus Motorcycles.
Janus checks all of the boxes for us: Small displacement, custom crafted, ultra-high quality, hand-built-in-America motorcycles. What I found especially intriguing is that one of the Janus founders, Richard Worsham, rode his 250cc motorcycle across the United States. That, my friends, is extremely cool (it’s downright inspirational, in my opinion). It grabbed my attention because long trips on small-displacement motorcycles to demonstrate reliability is one of the things we did when I was at CSC Motorcycles. It’s a brilliant strategy.
We’ll be telling you more about the Janus line in the future, but one of the things I’ll mention up front is that Janus uses an overhead valve CG-clone engine, which is probably the most-frequently-used engine on the planet. My experience with these engines has been that they are bulletproof, and I say that because I’ve put tons of miles on them. They’re easy to maintain, as they should be. That’s what Honda had in mind when they designed the CG engine.
So, enough yakking. Let’s get to the videos. First, the ride across the United States…
And here’s another one about the Janus culture, and the inspiration for their motorcycles…
This was a trip I did almost 10 years ago with a few good friends, and we were all on 150cc hardtail Mustang replicas. California Scooters, to be precise. Just as they were being introduced to the market. Yep, we rode to Cabo San Lucas and back on 150s.
Anybody can ride Baja on a big bike. We wanted to do something different. It was all a big publicity thing. Dog bites man, no big deal. Man bites dog, that’s a story. Ride to Cabo and back on a motorcycle? No big deal. Do it on a 150cc repop of a bike made 70 years ago? That’s something the media would pick up, I reckoned, and I was right.
But first, let me introduce the crew…
Simon, Arlene, J, Baja John, and me. And the star of this show, the CSC 150 Mustang Replica.
I invited folks on this ride who had to meet two criteria: They had to be able to help maximize CSC’s exposure in digital and print media, and they had to say yes.
Simon Gandolfi is a British novelist who rode a 125cc bike all the way to the southernmost tip of South America and back, and then he rode another 125cc bike across India. He had a blog and he posted a lot on ADVRider.com.
My good friend Arlene Battishill is president and CEO of Go Go Gear, a maker of high end women’s riding apparel. Arlene had a custom California Scooter, she’s a tweeter, and she’s all over that great American institution fortuitously founded before the #MeToo movement, Facebook.
I wanted my longtime Mexico riding partner Baja John Welker to ride with us. John and I have been all over Mexico on our motorcycles. He keeps me from doing really stupid things on our Baja trips. To hear him tell it, it’s a full time job.
My good buddy J Brandon (president of American Sahara), tagged along in his Dodge Power Wagon, carrying spare parts and water. I thought having a chase vehicle might be a good idea. It turned out that having the chase vehicle along was just okay. Having J along, though, was great.
You might be wondering…how did I hook up with CSC? I kind of fell into the CSC gig. I was initially hired to duel the digital dufi, the cretins badmouthing CSC on Internet forums (dufi is the plural of dufus). I knew the digital dufi supply was infinite, so I reckoned this new gig might be a job for life. Dealing and Dueling with the Dufi. It almost sounded like a TV show (you know, Dancing with the Stars). What intrigued me beyond that, though, was the CSC motorcycle. I liked it. A modern Mustang. That could be a hell of a thing.
As I was being clever and outwitting unarmed digital opponents in the Great Forum Wars of the New Millenia, I pitched the Baja idea to Steve Seidner, the guy who owns CSC. Steve was all for it. “Don’t be gentle,” he said. “Take the bikes down there and break them.” Seidner wanted to unearth the modern Mustang’s weaknesses, and Baja’s broad badlands would bubble those up.
So, what was it like? Okay, here ya go…
A sneak preview of the next 2200 miles….on 150cc California Scooters!
I’ll tell you about the ride, and I’ll tell you a bit about each of the riders on this trip, and in this first installment, Simon Gandolfi gets the spotlight. Like I mentioned above, he’s a British author. A famous one. And he’s a blogger, too. I started reading Simon’s blog during his travels through South America, and I was hooked. He wrote Old Man On A Bike about that adventure. This guy would be perfect for our ride, I thought. World traveler, small bikes, and he has a following. And then Simon met the most important criteria: He said yes when I invited him. Simon blogged our Baja adventure, and his words were mesmerizing. Here’s one of his descriptions…
Joe and Arlene ride production bikes. John and I ride pre-production bikes. These are small bikes, pretty babies to treasure. The average owner will ride down to the store on a Sunday or drop by a neighbour’s – say twenty minutes max. Steve wants the bikes tested to destruction. John is massive and I’m no light-weight. Steve wants destruction, we’re his men. Day one south from Tijuana is horrific coastal-strip development on the cheap side of cheap. Pass Ensenada and I begin to understand Baja’s magic: clarity of light, range upon range of mountains, immense spaces across which merely to travel is an adventure. Even Big John becomes little more than a moving microdot.
Baja John, a microdot somewhere up there…riding south of Ensenada, headed for Cabo San Lucas…
This will be maybe six or seven blogs in total, spread out over the next month or so. It’s a good story and I like telling it. This has been the first installment.
That’s my good buddy Bill in the photo above, at speed, riding the Lake Erie Loop, a 600-mile scooter endurance rally. I first met Bill shortly after starting the CSC blog. Bill is a retired firefighter who is a serious Iron Butt rider, and he wanted a CSC scooter to ride in the Lake Erie endurance event back in those days. We were only too happy to oblige.
Yesterday, I received a nice note from Bill, and I want to share it with you…
Joe:
I’ve just registered for the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, a fundraising motorcycle ride to help beat prostate cancer. You’re receiving this because you happen to be in my phone directory and because you know what a fanatic I am about riding. This year’s ride is on September 30th and, ironically, my birthday is on September 29th. Now, I know you were going to send me some kind of gift (nudge nudge, hint hint), but in lieu of that, I’d prefer that you make a nominal donation in my name for this great cause. Or, better yet, join me on the ride. To do either (or both) go to www.gentlemansride.com/fundraiser/WilliamMurar227980
Thanks, Ride Aware, Bill
Bill, that’s awesome! Thanks for writing and we’re only too happy to post your request here on the ExNotes blog. How about it, folks…let’s help Bill in this most noble cause!
Good buddy Greg admiring my M1922 Springfield on the range this past weekend. This rifle is about as old as Greg is, but it looks like it left the factory last week. It’s super collectible.
So, what’s this all about? A tale of two Springfields? Well, the topic is Springfield rifles, and specifically, the 1903 Springfield and its variants. I own two, and I think they are two of the finest firearms ever made. One is a 1903A1 with a scant stock (more on that in a bit). It’s a recent acquisition of a century-old rifle, and mine is essentially in as-new condition. It was gunsmithed from selected components so it’s not an original rifle, but I don’t care. I bought it to shoot it, and that’s what I’m doing. My other Springfield is an M1922, a special number chambered in .22 Long Rifle. It’s a magnificent rifle, it’s one I inherited from my father, and it is an amazing firearm. It’s in pristine condition, and boy oh boy, can it shoot!
The challenge here is to keep this blog short. There’s just so much to tell when the topic is the 1903 Springfield rifle and its variants. I’ll do my best to keep it manageable.
The M1903A1 Springfield, chambered in the mighty .30 06 cartridge.The M1922 Springfield, which shoots the much smaller .22 Long Rifle cartridge.
The Reader’s Digest version of the story goes like this…although we won the Spanish American War (and its Battle of San Juan Hill probably put Teddy Roosevelt in the White House), we very nearly got our butts kicked by the Spaniards. We were armed with antiquated, big-bore, rainbow-trajectory, single-shot rifles. The Spaniards had modern 7mm Mauser bolt action rifles, which were flatter shooting, faster (both in terms of reloading time and bullet velocity), and far more accurate. It was a dicey victory for us, and shortly after, the US Army incorporated the 1898 Krag rifle. We had to keep up with the Spanish Joneses.
While the Krag was a bolt-action rifle, it was not without problems, and we quickly developed a new rifle based on a modernized Mauser action initially chambered in a round called the .30 03. It fired a .308-inch diameter bullet (which is where the .30 part of the .30 03 name came from) and it was adopted in 1903 (which is where the 03 came from). We then improved the cartridge a bit in 1906 and it became the .30 06, or simply, the ’06. The ’06 is one of the world’s premier hunting cartridges, and many folks think is the best all-around cartridge on the planet. I’m one of them, but I digress. One more photo, and then back to the story.
A modern Winchester Model 70, chambered in the 102-year-old .30 06 cartridge. That wild boar, late of Arizona, fed us for a year!
Like I said, the original Springfield rifle was cambered for the .30 03 and the rifle was designed as the Model 1903. The .30 03 only lasted a short time and all of the 1903 rifles chambered for it were recut for the improved .30 06, but the rifle’s name remained the Model 1903. These early ones were cool, with straight grip stocks and elegant (but complex) rear sights. Then the rifle got a pistol grip stock, which I think looked cooler, and they became the 1903A1 rifles. Then they were made with stocks that were supposed to be straight grip stocks, but the Army wanted the pistol grip and the arsenal’s walnut blanks did not have enough meat to allow for a full pistol grip. The solution was to get as close as possible to a pistol grip from a straight grip walnut blank, which resulted in a shallow pistol grip; these became the “scant” stocks (presumably so named because the wood was too scant to allow a full pistol grip).
The 1903A1 “scant” stock. Note the relaxed pistol grip aft of the trigger, and on this particular rifle, the crisp Springfield Armory cartouche stamped into the walnut.Check out the 1903’s early, complex, adjustable rear sight. There’s was a lot of machine time and money there. The Army needed something less expensive.Load development for the 1903A1. These were cast bullets loaded with IMR 3031 powder. This particular rifle prefers jacked bullets with IMR4320 powder.
Later, the Army realized that the 1903’s fancy rear sight and other features were overly-expensive for a standard-issue battle rifle, so the ’03 was “value engineered” to make it less costly to manufacture. These became the Model 1903A3 rifles, often referred to simply as the ‘03A3.
Somewhere while all this was going on, the Army introduced versions of this rifle chambered in .22 Long Rifle. They were intended to be trainers, but they proved to be exceptionally accurate and the Army’s shooting teams (and others) competed with them.
The .22 Long Rifle cartridge (fired in the M1922 rifle), and the .30 06 Springfield cartridge (fired in the Model 1903).
The M1922s are phenomenal rifles, they are rare, and they are expensive in those rare instances they come on the market. My Dad bought one released through the Civilian Marksmanship Program 60 years ago for $25. Today, when one changes hands, you can bet the price is somewhere around $3,000. They’re that rare, and they’re that good.
The starboard side of the M1922. It is an elegant rifle.Lyman competition aperture sights on the M1922.The M1922’s Lyman aperture front sight. This rifle has “peep-to-peep” sights; both the rear and the front sights have holes to allow “peeping” at the target. They work very, very well.
You might be wondering: How do these rifles shoot?
Very well, thank you.
The M1922’s results at 50 yards. On the first bullseye on the left, the lone shot out of the black (at the 12:30 position) was the first shot of the day, fired from a cold and wet barrel.Targets shot with the Model 1903A1. The one on the left was terrible; I shot it with cast bullets at velocities too high for the bullet (the lead smeared in the barrel and the bullets wouldn’t group). The remaining four were shot with one of my favorite .30 06 loads (a 130 grain Hornady jacketed soft point bullet and 52.0 grains of IMR 4320 powder).
So, what happened to the 1903 as a military rifle? It served in World War I (although we couldn’t make them fast enough, so another rifle, the Model 1917, accounted for more than half the US battle rifles during the Great War). By the 1930s, we were already hard at work developing the Garand (that rifle fired the same .30 06 cartridge, and it was a semi-auto). The Garand became the US Army’s standard rifle in World War II. Interestingly, the US Marines stuck with the 1903 going into World War II, but they, too, soon switched to the Garand. The 1903 evolved into a specialty item. It was still recognized as phenomenally accurate and it became our sniper rifle in World War II (with a telescopic sight, it became the 1903A4).
Like I said, all of the above is the Reader’s Digest version of the story behind the Model 1903 rifle. The definitive reference on the 1903-series Springfield rifles is Joe Poyer’s The Model 1903 Springfield Rifle and Its Variations, and if you have a deeper interest in these historic and fine rifles, it is a book you should own. You can find it on Amazon.
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Baja John, somewhere in Baja’s Valle de los Cirios, making my old KLR look good.
I just got a call from good buddy Baja John, a guy with whom I’ve been exploring Baja for the last 30 years. Part of the call was about what we’d be riding and where we’ll be going on our next Baja foray in December (more on that in a future blog), and part of was about keeping a bike in Mexico. John has a home in Mexico right on the water in Bahia de Los Angeles. The Bay of Los Angeles is about 400 miles south of the border on the Sea of Cortez. It’s a cool place.
Bahia de Los Angeles, denoted by the red arrow.
My good buddy John wants to buy a bike and keep it at his Baja beach house. I think that’s a cool idea. The question is: Which bike? John saw a CSC RX3 for sale near his home here in the US. He already owns an RX3 and he loves it, but the idea of picking up a second one and keeping it in Mexico is appealing.
A second RX3 isn’t the only bike John is considering. He also has an older KLR 650, and he might just move it to Mexico. And, old John is intrigued by the CSC TT250 (he’s heard me talk about its light weight, super handling, and simple maintainability enough and he’s interested). And then there’s the Royal Enfield Himalayan (that bike is getting great reviews, too).
I told John I had my ideas on the perfect beach front bike, and then I thought hey, I’m not the brightest bulb in the room (the room being the ExhaustNotes blog). I asked John if it was okay to post the question here and solicit your inputs, and he thought that would be a grand idea. So, the question is: Which bike would you keep in a Bahia de Los Angeles beach house, and why?
Let’s hear your thoughts in the Comments area of this blog, folks!
Wow, the comments to our blog are pouring in. We’ve only been doing this for a little over two months, and we have something close to 300 comments on the roughly 90 blog posts we’ve done so far. We love getting your comments, so please keep them coming.
Hey, see that space to the right where it asks for your email address? If you add your email to the blog, you’ll get a notification every time we post. You won’t get unwanted emails as a result of signing up here, as we won’t sell or give your email address to anyone else. All you need to do is add your email address, and as soon as a new blog goes up, you’ll get notified. It’s FREE!
Sue and I took a ride to the LA County Fire Museum in Bellflower yesterday. They have a cool collection of vintage and historic fire-fighting equipment, including the actual truck used by the Granite Mountain Hotshots team (you might have seen the movie, Only the Brave), and the fire engine from the old Emergency TV series. It was a cool place to visit. I had the 8mm lens along with my favorite 35mm prime, and it was awesome…take a look!
That’s it for now, with just one teaser photo from an upcoming blog.
Whenever we post anything gun-related, the hits on our blog go through the roof. Good buddy Gobi told me to get another gun blog up on the wire, so my friend Greg and I sent some lead downrange through the Springfield rifles earlier today. Here’s a teaser photo from an upcoming blog showing Greg admiring a real beauty…anybody know what it is? One hint…my Dad paid a whopping $25 for it back in the day.
Somewhere in New Mexico on the 2005 Three Flags Rally with my ’95 Daytona 1200, a bike I still dream about.
I guess a bike can still be a dream bike if you owned one and then sold it. Hell, I still dream about my Triumph 1200 Daytona, so I guess it qualifies. It was a fantastic bike. A real locomotive. Crude, strong, powerful, and fun. And fast. Wow, was it ever fast!
I first saw a 1200 Daytona at a CBX Honda meet (yeah, I had one of those, too). It was at a guy’s house somewhere in Hollywood, and this dude also had a black 1200 Daytona. Well, maybe that’s not quite right…I saw one at the Long Beach Show even before then, but I didn’t really appreciate what it was all about. This CBX guy was laughing and telling me about the Daytona’s design.
“What they did, har har har, was basically just hang an extra cylinder off the right side of the motor, har har har,” he said. “Here, har har har, take a look at this, har har har,” and with that, he walked behind the Daytona and pointed to the engine. Holy mackerel, I thought. It had been a 900cc triple. Now it was a 1200 four, and the added girth of that extra cylinder stuck out of the frame on the right. They didn’t even re-center the engine in the frame. Anything this crude, I thought, I had to have. Har har har, the CBX guy was right. This was a machine worth owning. I had to get me one.
I guess the feeling passed (they usually do), but that bike stuck in my mind. I had pretty much forgotten all about that Daytona until one day when I received an email, way back in ’02, from my riding buddy Marty. It seemed there was a brand-new 1995 Triumph Daytona on Ebay. 7 years old, never sold, and the dealer in Wisconsin was auctioning it off on Ebay. In 2002.
Jesus, I was still on dial up Internet in those days. I can still hear the squelching when I logged onto AOL to get to the Internet. This can’t be right, I thought, as I studied the Ebay listing. I called the dealer. He was a Ducati and Kawasaki guy now, somewhere in Wisconsin. Used to be a Triumph dealer. He got the Daytona when he was still selling Triumphs, he had put it on display (it was stunning), nobody bit, he was anxious to sell, he lost the Triumph franchise years ago, and he was finally getting around to unloading the Daytona. Yep, it’s brand new, he told me. Never registered. 0.6 miles on the clock. $12,995 back in ’95. I already knew that. It was beyond my reach back then.
I did the only thing I could think of. I put in a bid. Using dial up. On Ebay. My friend Marty was shocked. So was I.
Over the next several days, the price climbed. Then it was D-day. Then H-hour. Then M-minute. The bid was $7,195. For a 7-year old, brand new, originally $12,995 motorcycle. I waited until there were just a few seconds left and I put in a bid for $7,202. On dial up Internet. Nothing happened. That was dial up for you.
The auction ended, my dial up Ebay was flashing at me. I swore up a blue streak, cursing the genes that had made me a cheap SOB who wouldn’t pay extra for broadband. I used dial up to save a few bucks, and now it had cost me big time. I thought I had let that dream bike get away. Then Ebay announced the winner, and it was me.
Yahoo! (No, Ebay and AOL!) I won! Whoopee!
My dream come true, after arriving from Wisconsin by air. I had visions of flying to Wisconsin and riding back, but when I called, the dealer’s wife told me he was out front shoveling snow…I know. Stunning. Mine. A dream come true.Beauty like this can drive ya buggy. The aftermath of a CLASSIFIED high speed run across central California on Highway 58.
A few days later, I had the bike, and my dream came true. I put 20,000 miles on it, I rode the thing from Canada to Mexico on the 30th Anniversary Three Flags Rally with Marty (I was the only Triumph among the 400 bikes that rode the event that year), and then I sold it. A dream come true, and I sold it. I know, I know. What was I thinking?
I can still dream, I guess, and I often do, of that big yellow locomotive with one cylinder hanging off the right side…
Our tiny motorcycle world is flooded with hyper-ventilating products. We are spoiled for choice in both gear and bike models to suit an unfathomable number of riding styles, lifestyles and hairstyles. Motorcycle manufacturers pour increasing amounts of capitol into chasing an aging, dwindling ridership. Adrift, bike makers are doubling down on complexity and exclusivity combined with rich textures and finishes. It’s a Corinthian Leather approach to motorcycling that didn’t work for the Chrysler Cordoba, either. The same technology that helps keep computer memory exponentially increasing allows builders to make a (nearly) unique motorcycle for each and every one of us, for a price. It’s still not working for me.
I don’t understand the desires of today’s motorcyclist. I don’t value the things they value and I don’t even understand the conversation when they start talking farkles. To me, farkles are things that break off in a crash. Big, heavy, cluttered motorcycles are the popular choice amongst riders. Riders like massive, unusable power tamed by tinker-toy mystery boxes and acres of plastic covering automotive-quality mechanicals. Strip the faring off of a modern motorcycle and gaze at the industrial wreckage: That’s not why I got into motorcycles, man.
The last time a motorcycle manufacturer spoke to me was in the early 1980’s, by, of all people, Honda. You guys know I’m pretty hard on Honda. Their recent offerings have been bland and sensible, but there was a time when Honda built some of the most desirable motorcycles in the world.
The bike that called my name…the Honda XL600R.
We have lost the ability to be surprised in this Internet age but in 1983 I walked into San Diego’s Fun Bike Center and ran head first into Honda’s new XL600R. I was blindsided by its superiority over every motorcycle I had ever owned. A pulsing red mist settled in over my eyes. With its long travel mono-shock suspension and potent 600cc single-cylinder engine it was not only perfect for dirt, but the semi powerful disc front brake allowed the XL to do a damn good impression of a sport bike on the pavement. Ask that guy riding the Ninja 600 on Palomar Mountain.
I had to have one right now. With $2000 dollars in my bank account I drained that sucker dry and started pitching the deal to area dealerships. The downtown Honda dealer bit and later the next day I was flat broke but invincible.
The bike was a revelation. Trails that I bounced over at 45 miles per hour were now smooth and level at 70 miles per hour. I could go so fast (95 mph!) in the dirt I was overshooting familiar corners. Dry riverbeds became desert freeways. The bike demanded a recalibration of all my senses and a new riding style. It didn’t like pussy-footing around. You had to slide way up on the gas tank and make every move a hard, aggressive move. Kick starting it was a pain but the endless wheelies and powerslides made it all worthwhile. I put 70,000 miles on the XL600. Sadly the engine reliability wasn’t equal to its overall brilliance. I had to rebuild the engine three times.
$10K, to start. Wow!
I look at the zillions of new motorcycle models and none of them fire my passion like that ’83 XL600R. There is one bike though, one bike that almost duplicates that long-ago blood-lust and oddly enough it’s another Honda. The new CRF450L. At $10,000 I wont be rushing down to the Honda dealer with cash in hand like 1983. I’m older and wiser now, and I may not be able to recalibrate my senses.
Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota…the turnaround point on our 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, a wildly-publicized event to show the world that the Chinese RX3 is a reliable motorcycle (and it is; we rode the entire ride with a bunch of bikes without a single breakdown, I wrote a book about it, and the rest, as they say, is history). We cut a meandering beeline (I know…we’re running a special on oxymorons this week) on some of the best roads in the US, from So Cal to South Dakota, turned west and hit more great roads until we ran out of continent, and then turned left again to follow the Pacific Coast back to So Cal. It was an amazing ride (you can read about it in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM) and it was incredible fun.
My favorite moment? Hands down, it was a photo at Mt. Rushmore. Kyle, one of the Chinese riders, was grabbing a pic of King Kong, Leonard, Hugo, and Tso in front of the world-famous monument. Dumb-ass me…I thought Kyle just wanted a photo of the four with Mt. Rushmore in the background and I wondered why he was making it so complicated. Holding the camera with his right hand and barking orders in Chinese while motioning with his left, old Kyle seemed to be injecting complexity into a situation that required none. At each new Kyle edict, the four guys in the above photo moved this way or that, changed their gaze slightly, and generally responded instantly to their Chongqing taskmaster. It suddenly dawned on me (and the rest of the folks watching this show, who started laughing and cheering at about the same instant): Kyle and his men were creating a “Made in China” Mt. Rushmore!
That’s it for now, with just one teaser photo from an upcoming blog.
