During the summer of 2016, your blogmeisters (Arjiu and Dajiu) rode RX3 motorcycles 6000 miles across China. Tracy was our translator and he was funny as hell.
Our good friend Tracy is an up and comer in the Zongshen organization. He sent an email to us recently, along with the above photo. Tracy is being reassigned to the Zongshen team in Mexico, and Gresh and I may take a ride down there once Tracy is in country. You can bet the beer will flow freely when that happens!
Hey, buy two or three…they make great gifts!
If you’d like to read the story of our ride across China, you can do so here. It was a great ride and an amazing adventure.
Or maybe the title of this one should be: Go West, Young Man! That’s what Ernie did, and that’s what I did, too.
My good buddy Ernie and I go back. Way back. As in kindergarten back. Hell, that was 62 years ago. That’s how long I’ve known Ernie. Elementary school, junior high school, high school, and beyond. Whoooeee!
Ernie and yours truly in elementary school.
Anyway, we’re coming up on our 50th year high school reunion back in the Garden State, and Ernie has been posting stories (along with a few other folks) about what’s gone on his life over the last five decades. Ernie’s stuff is good, and it sure hit home for me. I asked Ernie if I could run one of his stories here on the blog, and he agreed. You’ll like this…I know I sure did.
Fast forward 5 years, and it was 1969, and that meant high school graduation. Two boys from the Garden State. We both had a lot of hair back then. Ernie still does.
And those photos above? They are, as you probably guessed, from our school yearbooks. Yep, I still have them.
Ernie, over to you, my friend…
*************************************
Thanks, everybody, and especially you, Joe. I enjoy your tales on the trail. I have a few tales that you might enjoy, too.
In 1979 when our daughter Stephanie was born, we made one of our good friends Jim her Godfather. Jim was really cool. He and his brother were on a road trip with Jim’s wife Bonnie, and I was lucky enough to have met them and made friends with them, when I decided to get out of NJ and try my hand at the West.
I had been to Salt lake City about a half year before with two of my buddies. We had a few weeks where the 35-man shop was a bit slow due to the economy, so the three of us did a scouting expedition points West. We left in late October, and as luck would have it, we hit a bad snow storm in Pennsylvania.
After we made it through that, we pushed on across Ohio, Indiana and into Illinois. It was around midnight and as it has happened before to me since then, I-80 had construction and we made a wrong turn and were headed straight into the windy city. It was hell getting back on track and on 80 west again. We wasted a good hour. The highway around the area is a lot like the famed city. It blows, too.
Well, on we went. it was dark out when we were in western Nebraska and entering Wyoming. We stopped in a bar and my friend Paul, all he could talk about was Coors beer all the way from NJ, so we needed this break and to our delight guess what they had on tap. Well, it was pitcher time. All we heard was Paul’s mouth flapping happy about that ice-cold Coors.
When we got back on the road, and into Wyoming as luck would have it, a herd of mule deer were about to run out in front of us, but our headlights persuaded them not to. A while later we saw our first Western state’s snow. We stopped at a rest area and spent a good half hour throwing snowballs at one another. Finally, we rolled into Utah, and the sign said Port of Entry. The hell with the port, we wanted more Coors. Then we experienced our first big downhill run. Parley’s Canyon. 14 miles downhill at a 6% grade, winding through the Rockies.
We saw our first major “run-away truck lane.” If I was a semi, I would want to run away too. Then we saw a big opening and soon…ta dah…the Salt Lake Valley loomed in front of us. We intersected with I-15 and off to our left we spotted Dryer’s Harley Davidson. We decided that was going to be our first stop. Good thing too, because right next to it was a tavern. Well I can go on and on about this trip because we had some great experiences throughout Utah, which we circled, and some cool adventures on the way home with 25 cases of Coors beer. And we got stuck in a snowbank in Kansas, and a state trooper helped get us out. And, as luck again would have it, the exit we took led us to the hotel that they used in that movie Paper Moon. We stayed there. Yahoo!
So that scouting trip was the deciding factor that Chris and I were going to move to Salt Lake City. Months later my Dad and I took off in my Dodge van and drove across country to Salt Lake. I got the biggest kick out of my Dad, all the way across he was wide awake and thrilled at all the sights he saw. He stayed with me a few days till I found a good place to camp to look for an apartment. It was sad. It was the first and only time I saw my Dad tear up.
I camped out at the KOA on I-80. That’s where I met Jim, Bonnie, and Tom. They were on a bike road trip, and the cool thing about it was both Jim and Tom worked at the Harley-Davidson factory in Milwaukee. They both worked in engines and transmissions. Later Jim became a factory test rider. His job each night was to log in 250 miles on the test bikes (what a job, what a job!). They even sent him to Harley’s test track in Texas to race their bikes. We were at the big car show back in February and Harley had a big van there with all their new models. I entered a contest and got to talking to one of their staff. It turned out he knew Jim and Tom well. Jim still works there.
I went back to NJ to pick up my 1974 74 cubic inch dresser from my parents’ house. On the way out of NJ, I was pulled over by a state trooper who noticed my bike in the back of my van. I had shoulder length hair then and a beard and all, and I looked the part, I guess. Well ha, ha, ha. I whipped out my registration and bill of sale and foiled that trooper’s ideas.
I did lots and lots of riding while living in Utah with and without Chris. So, back to the main objective of the story, Joe. When our daughter was born we invited Jim and Bonnie to Stephanie’s christening. A few days later (this is now in Gresham, Oregon) I wanted to escort Jim and Bonnie out of town. It ended up I drove all the way to the California border with them, via the mountain pass at Eugene to Highway 101. Here is the part you may find fascinating, Joe. The Harley I had at the time was a stock 1965 Electra Glide. The problem was the front brake was out all the way down. The real issue was, the rear brake went out just when I started home from leaving Jim and Bonnie. I drove that bike up 101, through the hairy mountain pass and around that damn grooved circle they used to have in Eugene (you know how it makes your front tire wobble, Joe), then the 120 miles up I-5 in heavy traffic on the I-205 (which at the time was not completed) and on back roads to Gresham. It was challenging as hell, but a real thrill ride.
The other story is one of my best friends named John, who was a factory-sponsored, award-winning motorcycle racer for Harley-Davidson. He once rode a Harley from Seattle all the way to Portland on old highway 99 with tons of stop lights and through many small towns without a clutch, and never stopped or stalled the bike. He also hill climbed the widow maker between Salt Lake and Provo canyons, and get this, he took his Harley up to the top of Beacon Rock on Highway 14 (you know where it is, Joe), and he almost made it to the very top of Mt. Hood. The sun melted the snow and prevented him from making the last few yards.
Joe, this man was a legend. He built my 1947 Knucklehead from a basket case. The man knew every nut and bolt on just about anything that rolled sailed or flew. I was privileged to have known him.
******************************
Good stuff, Ernie, and thanks for allowing me to share it with our friends over here on the ExhaustNotes blog. We’re looking forward to seeing you next summer, Dude…we have a lot of catching up to do!
And for our great blog followers, you may be wondering how well the last 50 years have treated us.
Well, wonder no more, my friends…
Life is good. With lifelong friends like Ernie, it’s even better!
Never miss an ExhaustNotes blog…subscribe here for free!
Our recommendation for Baja motorcycle insurance is BajaBound.
If you’re headed into Baja, you need to have Mexican insurance on your car, truck, motorcycle, or motor scooter. Your regular US motor vehicle insurance won’t be recognized as meeting this requirement in Mexico. It’s that simple.
At the risk of being challenged by a keyboard commando telling me that you don’t have to have insurance in Mexico, I’ll say at the outset that what you need is proof of financial responsibility for liability incurred as the result of a motor vehicle accident. Yeah, there are other ways of getting around this. You can arrange a bond in advance with a Mexican bank (not very practical), you can carry enough cash to meet Mexico’s upper liability limits (just bring $333,000 in cash with you to show to the officer if you are stopped) or you can get Mexican insurance. Door No. 3 is the obvious answer.
You might be tempted to just blow off the requirement for Mexican insurance, and you might get away with it. Then again, you might not. If you are stopped (or worse, you have an accident) and you can’t produce proof of Mexican insurance, you are going to be spending a lot more time in Mexico (and the accommodations will dramatically different) than what you originally planned. Trust me on this. It’s just not worth the risk.
I’ve been traveling in Baja and other parts of Mexico for close to 30 years, and I’ve tried several different outfits. To cut to the chase, BajaBound is the easiest and best way to insure your vehicle. What I like about it is that it’s all done online, it’s inexpensive, and it’s a quality product. What you need to get insurance is an internet connection, your driver’s license, a credit card, your bike’s registration, and a printer. That’s it.
Why go for anything but the best?
I always buy my insurance a day or two before I travel to Baja, and I always set it up to start the day I enter Baja (and just to be on the safe side, I insure for one day longer than I plan to be south of the border). If you’re new to BajaBound, you’ll answer a few questions about yourself to set up an account the first time you visit their website, and then you’re ready to start making selections (how many days, how much coverage, etc.). If you’ve insured previously with BajaBound, all you need to do is log in, specify the vehicle you’ll be using (super easy if it’s one you’ve previously insured), specify the dates, and pick the coverage you want. In my case, it typically works out to something south of $20 per day, and that’s a hell of deal. You pay with a credit card, the policy is immediately available, and all you need to do is print the proof of insurance and you’re good to go.
I’ve been lucky. I’ve never needed to use my BajaBound insurance because I never crashed my car or motorcycle in Mexico. On one of the tours I led in Mexico, though, one of the guys I rode with had a bad crash. He got through it okay, but the motorcycle did not. My friend put in a claim and BajaBound paid promptly. This is the real deal, folks. It’s good insurance, it’s easy to get over the Internet, it meets all of Mexico’s legal requirements, and when necessary, they pay promptly. It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s the only insurance I use for my Baja forays.
Would you like to know more about riding in Baja? Hey, it’s the best riding on the planet! Check out our ExhaustNotes Baja page for the best routes, hotels, restaurants, whale watching, cave paintings, and more! Do a search here on the ExhaustNotes blog using the search term “Baja.” Better yet, pick up a copy of Moto Baja, available now on Amazon.com!
If I were forced to live in a large city I probably wouldn’t ride motorcycles. Connected technology has brought us all closer together, so close that none of us really like what we see from our fellow man. This ubiquitous-connectedness has created a disconnect in a huge quantity of automobile drivers. Proximity sensors that auto-apply braking and lane-holding algorithms are responses to a driving populace that grows ever more disinterested in what is happening on the other side of the windshield. Self driving cars can’t get here soon enough for me.
Public roads are dangerous for motorcycles, no two ways about it, but there is a better place to ride. It’s a place where youthful hijinks don’t end in an expensive traffic citations or death by obliviousness. This place can be found everywhere, mere inches below the civilized world. This place is called The Dirt.
The Dirt. It’s awesome. There are no drivers on their cell phones.
The Dirt is the true and holy Mother Road, unlike The Street, which relies completely on and has to be built on top of The Dirt. The Dirt stands on its own merits needing neither creation nor sustenance. Dirt will still be here long after the last human on Earth has crashed the last Volvo on Earth into the last telephone pole on Earth while sending the last text ever sent…on Earth.
The Dirt encompasses a wide variety of surfaces from graded county roads to nearly impassable paths more suitable to mountain goats. And you can ride a motorcycle over all of it. True, it’s getting harder to find places to ride near population centers. So pull up stakes and move to the less tony parts of the USA where there are miles and miles of dirt roads to explore.
A better place to ride.
Motorcyclists who start out in the dirt are simply better riders than those that don’t. Finding the limit on pavement is risky, expensive and painful. Those same limits can be exceeded and re-exceeded many times while riding in the dirt, sometimes without any input from the rider. Hell, sometimes the rider is tangled in a bush with a sprained thumb while the motorcycle explores the limits on its own. Crashing in The Dirt is less damaging to both body and bike. I’m not saying you can’t get killed dirt riding but it takes a determined effort to accomplish on your own what a drunken car driver will do for free.
The most interesting, less-picked-over sites are accessible only by dirt roads. Fencing and authorities are few and far between. If you see an abandoned mine shaft that needs falling into or a rusty car that needs a few more bullet holes you can fall or shoot with complete freedom.
Listen, don’t let street riding scares put you off motorcycles. Pick up an old dual purpose bike for a thousand or two and start finding your groove out where it’s safe to do the things you like to do.
I liked that Dream Bike piece Gresh did over the weekend about his fantasy bike, the Kawasaki 350cc Avenger. I like the concept: Articles on the ones that got away.
And as is always the case, if Gresh wrote it, I like it.
Can I say that on this blog? You know, Gresh and I do most of the writing, so am I allowed to say that about his stuff? Hey, I don’t care.
I’m guessing if you’re reading this, you have a dream bike. You know, one you didn’t buy but wish you had. We’d like to hear about it. Do a short piece on it with a photo or two and we’ll publish it here.
In the meantime, and because I like “the one that got away” concept so much, I’m going to do a short bit on my dream bike. One of them, anyway. It’s the 1983 Harley XR1000. Yeah, I know, I’m a guy who made his bones writing about small bikes (the CSC RX3, in particular), and the XR1000 is anything but small. But I like it.
The 1983 Harley XR1000. Check out the massive Dellortos and the K&N air filters. All business. I like it.A view from the other side. I’m not a guy who normally leans left or listens to folks who do, but the XR1000’s asymmetry and leftist tendencies are oddly appealing.
The magazines of the era all panned the XR1000, and every once in a while one of them does a retrospective (and they still don’t like it). You know what? I don’t give a rat’s rear end about some magazine weenie’s opinion. I like the look, the concept, and the sound of the XR1000, and one of my few regrets in life is that I didn’t buy one new in ’83.
Not that I didn’t have good reason back then. I had bought a Harley Electra-Glide Classic, new, in 1979. It was the worst vehicle of any type I’d ever owned, and I swore I’d never buy another Harley. That was the principal thing that kept me from pulling the trigger on a new XR1000 in ’83 (I sold the Electra-Glide in ‘82, and the reliability reputation injuries it left hadn’t healed yet). But time heals all wounds (I wish I had that Electra-Glide now), and if I could find a clean XR1000 I’d be on it in a New York minute.
The magazines said the XR1000 vibrated (they actually paid folks to point that out on a Harley?), you could burn your left leg on the exhaust (duh), and the twin Dellortos hit your knee on the right side of the bike (seriously?). Not content with stating the obvious, one of the magazines actually wrote the bike had a predilection for turning left. A bike based on a flat tracker? A predilection for turning left? And folks wonder why the motorcycle magazine business fell on hard times.
Everything the magazines hated about the XR1000 made me want one more. It was a raw, muscular, asymmetric, no passenger, no compromises, in-your-face motorcycle. I still want one.
Most of us think of ourselves as creative people. But we’re really not. In fact, some studies show that our creativity peaks when we are in kindergarten, and takes a steady slide south by the time we graduate from high school. I’d argue that it’s even worse for engineers, as most of our focus never gets beyond meeting minimum requirements at the lowest possible cost. It’s a concept that seems to be in force when we see the latest motorcycles from the major manufacturers, often with nothing newer than paint and decals.
I’m an engineer and I feel comfortable saying the above, and I’m not alone in that regard. Many of the engineering managers I’ve known feel their engineers are not particularly creative. So much so, in fact, that I was asked to develop a course on engineering creativity several years ago, and it’s one I’ve since taught in the US and overseas many times. And in order to do that, I wrote a book covering 16 preferred creativity tools…
Unleashing Engineering Creativity, with an interesting cover photo showing a simple gate latch and a Modelo 1909 Argentine Mauser. Paul Mauser, inventor of the bolt action rifle, got the idea for his new rifle by observing a simple gate latch. Adapting earlier design concepts to new applications involves a technique called TRIZ, developed by a scientist in the former Soviet Union.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
– Charles H. Duell, Director of US Patent Office, 1899
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
– Harry M. Warner, Warner Bros Pictures, 1927
Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.
– Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895
The horse is here today, but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.
– Michigan Savings president, advising against investing in Ford
Video won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
– Daryl F. Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, commenting on television, 1946
What use could the company make of an electric toy?
– Western Union, when it turned down rights to the telephone, 1878
And my personal favorite, one I’ve heard many times in my life…
We’ve always done it this way…
– Unknown
All this begs the questions:
What’s the next big thing in motorcycle design?
Where it will come from?
Are other businesses or industries are doing things that might make a new motorcycle more fun?
There’s a creativity technique called lateral benchmarking, which involves looking outside your industry for new ideas. Southwest Airlines greatly reduced their turnaround times after studying how NASCAR pit crews worked. Is there something a company not in the motorcycle business is doing that would work well in a new motorcycle?
Kano modeling is another creativity technique in which you identify and assess potential cool features not expressed by the customer, but once experienced by a potential customer cinch the sale. I bought a Corvette in 2004 when I saw its Heads Up Display.
A 2004 Z06 Corvette Heads Up Display. I wasn’t looking for such a feature, but when I saw it, I knew I had to own that car!
I would have never imagined I needed such a thing, but I worked on the F-16 HUD back in the ’70s, and when I saw it in the Z06 I knew I had to have that car. What’s out there that’s supercool and might be incorporated in the next cool motorcycle?
Hey, do you have any motorcycle ideas? Let us know about them, and we’ll toss them up here on the ExNotes blog for comment.
One of the pages on the ExhaustNotes.us site lists the books we’re written. Surprisingly, since we’ve launched the site, Unleashing Engineering Creativity has enjoyed a nice sales spike. I guess there are a lot of engineers following ExNotes. That’s cool, and thanks very much, folks!
Let’s wrap this one up with two thoughts. First, please add your email address to our subscribers list (it’s the widget in the top right corner of this page). You’ll find out the instant we post a new blog, and we’ll never provide your email address to anyone else. And second…what are your ideas on new features that might entice you to buy a new motorcycle? Let us know!
The stuff dreams are made of…in this case, a Kawi 350cc Avenger!
Kawasaki’s A7 is high on my motorcycle lust-list. The styling of the Gen 2 models is as perfect as a motorcycle can be. Decals and graphics, a Kawasaki strong suit in the 1970’s, gave the bike a speedy, eager look that shouts, “Let the good times roll!” And roll they did, Big Daddy: long before the Yamaha RD series, Kawasaki was hazing the streets and smoking tires with its 350cc, twin-cylinder, disc-valve two-stroke.
I don’t believe the manufacturer-claimed 42 horsepower, but then I’ve never ridden one so maybe it does crank out that much. Large displacement (over 125cc) twin-cylinder, disc-valve motors have always been relatively rare in the motorcycle world. That’s probably due to the excessive crankcase width mandated by two carburetors sticking out past the ends of the crankshaft-mounted, induction timing discs. Crankcase width aside and freed from the symmetrical intake timing of a piston-port engine, a disc valver usually makes more and better power (I’ve been told).
The Avenger, along with its less-attractive, low-pipe sister was also a pioneer in electronic ignition. It was a great system when it worked, but 50-years-on may not be so hot. The addition of oil injection made the Avenger about as maintenance-free as a 1970’s bike could get. The package as a whole looks 50 years ahead of the British and American offerings from the same era.
Prices on A7’s haven’t reached silly RD350 heights yet. The bike in these photos that I stole from Smart Cycle Guide is listed at $3600, the high end of the range. Here’s the link: www.smartcycleguide/L49224558. If you spend a few minutes you can find clean, running examples for $1500 on the Internet.
For me, the only knock on the A7 is that it may be too well made. I’m at the stage in my life where I don’t need a reliable motorcycle. New bikes are darn near perfect and perfection is boring. I search for the ever-elusive soul ride: Motorcycles that drip. The best motorcycles are the ones that leave you stranded; they turn any ride into a grand adventure. Besides, quirky flaws and secret handshakes appeal to my need to be special.
The thing with dreams is that you don’t want to over-analyze them. I can’t say why I like the A7 so much. I’ve never seen one running. I guess it’s the optimism of the design. The A7 is from an era when anything was possible and the future was a burning arrow pointing straight into the sky. If I ever hit the lottery I’ll have one, along with a bunch of other motorcycles to be discussed later here on the ExNotes blog.
Our good buddy Dan from Colorado (the other Dan from Colorado; we know two of them) sent an email to me last night with a link to a very cool blog (the Maple Fiesta) about five guys who all bought new TT250s when they were first offered by CSC. They had a plan…they all bought the bikes to ride the Continental Divide Trail from Mexico to Canada.
A great read about a great adventure. Five men, five TT250 motorcycles, and three countries. Well done, guys!
Yeah, they had a few problems, but that’s what adventure riding is all about. They fixed the problems and trucked on, and they all made it. It’s a hell of story and it’s worth a read!
Petrified Forest National Park, east of Flagstaff. It’s an awesome destination.
Sue and I recently completed a 2700-mile road trip in the Subie. The idea was to drive a grand circle through the Southwest, with the apex of our trip being a visit with Joe Gresh at the Tinfiny Ranch in New Mexico. I asked Joe what to see on the way out and back, and wow, did he have a great list. Old Arjiu had a number of outstanding recommendations, one of which was the Petrified Forest in Arizona. Petrified Forest National Park straddles I-40 (which was mostly built over old Route 66) and it was easy to get to.
The place sounded cool. I’d never seen a petrified forest (or even a tree, for that matter). I remembered being fascinated by dinosaurs and all things prehistoric when I was kid, and the concept of a petrified forest sure fit in that slot.
The Petrified Forest…wow. As soon as Gresh mentioned the place, it became a bucket list item. I had to see it. We had to stop.
An abandoned car on what used to be Route 66.
Like I mentioned above, I-40 is mostly built over what used to be old US Route 66, and when you travel through Arizona, you see a lot of kitsch pertaining to The Mother Road. The sun was in just the perfect location to bring out the best of my polarizer on the 16-35 Nikon lens when we stopped by an old abandoned automobile you see in the photo above. There was a preserved stretch of Route 66 immediately behind it. In that photo above, it looks like it was a deserted area. Trust me on this: It was anything but. There were tourists taking photos at that spot from Germany, Turkey, Portugal, Brazil, and more, and I can tell you from reading the body language they were all having a good time. So were we. We all took turns getting out of each other’s way as we took pictures. It was fun.
We drove a little further down the road and came upon the area you see below. This part of the National Park is called the Painted Desert, for obvious reasons…
The Painted Desert in central Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. The colors really are this dramatic. This stop was a grand suggestion from Uncle Joe Gresh.
I was struck by just how beautiful the Petrified Forest National Park was, and then it hit me…I had driven this stretch if I-40 on many motorcycle rides several times before, and it never occurred to me to stop. Folks, take it from me: Don’t make that mistake. Although not as well known as other flagship US National Parks (Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, etc.), the Petrified Forest is a real gem.
Another view of the Painted Desert. It really is this dramatic.Yet another perspective on the Painted Desert. This is good stuff, folks.
There’s only one road that meanders through the Petrified Forest National Park, with numerous strategically-located viewing stops along its length. We hit nearly every one.
One such stop was Newspaper Rock. We thought it would be a rock formation that looked like a newspaper, but it wasn’t that at all. It was a collection of petroglyphs deep in a canyon. The newspaper moniker was related to the idea that early Native Americans communicated with and left messages for each other here. Fortunately, I had my 70-300 lens, and that allowed the reach I needed to get good images…
Cool stuff. Very early Native American newsprint.The people who created these petroglyphs lived here about a thousand years ago. They predate the Native American tribes we know of.
While we were admiring the petroglyphs, a couple of crows landed nearby. By that time I had already put the wide angle lens back on the Nikon, and I wanted to see just how close I could get before the crows flew away. The big black birds were cool until Sue and I were about 4 feet away, and then they took off. They were huge. We actually heard the wind they created flapping their wings.
An old crow in the Petrified Forest National Park. It was a big bird.
The scenery and the roads were stark and colorful. We stopped and I grabbed this photo of Sue and the Subie…
Sue and the Subie. My Outback was perfect for this kind of road trip. Over a distance of 2705.6 miles, the Subaru averaged 28.3 mpg. That included stints in the mountains, dirt roads, city driving, and many 75mph+ freeway stints.
You might be wondering…what about the petrified trees? Where were they?
Well, we saw those, too…
Petrified trees. They are really cool. You can’t take them out of the Park, but once you leave the Park, there are souvenir stores selling things like this.More petrified logs. As I understand it, over the millenia the wood leaches out and is replaced by silica until, oila, a petrified tree remains. It’s pretty cool stuff and this was the first time I’d ever seen it.
This was a great destination. We exited I-40 on the eastern edge of the Petrified Forest and followed the road through the Park all the way to the western edge. From there, you pick up an Arizona country road and follow it west for roughly 20 miles to Holbrooke, where you can get back on I-40. Good times and a great destination. You might want to add it to your list of places to see. It’s worth a trip to Arizona all by itself, and it’s certainly worth a stop if you are passing through Arizona on Interstate 40.
I remember hot summer days mixing concrete with my father. I remember the two-holed hoe oozing mud like Play-Doh through a Fun Factory press. Back and forth you shoved the concrete with each hard pass plasticizing a frustratingly minor amount. The demand never ceased, more concrete was required all the time until the sun and the humidity and the sweat burning your eyes (combined with the resistance of the aggregate) lulled your body into a Zen state of denial. The only way to push on was to pretend it wasn’t happening. “I am not really here,” I’d tell myself.
“More mud!” Dumping another 80-pound bag of concrete into the wheel-buggy I quietly promised that I would never, ever, under any circumstances, become a concrete finisher.
Harbor Freight. Cement mixers. Life is good.
With the $180 purchase of Harbor Freight’s 3-1/2 cubic foot concrete mixer I broke that promise made so long ago. I got mine at one of Harbor Freight’s closeouts. Or maybe it was a parking lot sale. Come to think of it, could it have been one of the 4357 tool disposals that brought my attention to the mixer? These events are held almost daily at Harbor Freight and if you ever pay full price at that store you’re no friend of mine. The mixer came out of the box in a million pieces and it took the better part of three hours to assemble the thing because I am not genetically disposed to look at directions.
I mixed about 400, 50-pound bags of concrete before the key in the larger of the two pulleys fell out. The parts landed inside the motor box so I stuck the key back onto the pinion shaft and swabbed a bit of lock tight onto the screw holding the key. I’ve since mixed another 800 bags with no further problems. In total, about 15 cubic yards of concrete have been run through the little mixer to date.
Gears. Lube. Like the innards of a Rolex, but on a grander scale…Industrial grade. Good stuff, Harbor Freight is.
Maintenance on the HF mixer consists of lubing the drum pivots, greasing the large stamped ring gear and oiling the sealed drum bearing with whatever dregs of slippery stuff I have laying about the shed. I do all these things before each use whether I’m mixing 3 bags or 100.
The drum is sized for 150 pounds of concrete mix. Any more and the tilt angle becomes too vertical and the mixing action slows to a crawl. Depending on which size bag of pre-mix concrete is cheapest, I have mixed as high as 180 pounds in the thing but mixing performance suffered with each additional pound. These are nitpicks. I spent less than a week’s rental to own the HF mixer. I give it high marks.
High tech tilt angle control. Who needs instructions?Warnings? I don’t need no stinkin’ warnings!
It’s funny how life works out. I enjoy mixing and finishing concrete now. I love the smells and textures and the sound of a steel trowel scraping across a smooth burnished surface. These are simple motions that bring back sweet muscle-memories of working with my father and those hot summers when I was young and strong.
For me, the only knock on the A7 is that it may be too well made. I’m at the stage in my life where I don’t need a reliable motorcycle. New bikes are darn near perfect and perfection is boring. I search for the ever-elusive soul ride: Motorcycles that drip. The best motorcycles are the ones that leave you stranded; they turn any ride into a grand adventure. Besides, quirky flaws and secret handshakes appeal to my need to be special.
