We had a nice note from our good buddy Peter today, an ardent ADV rider, Norton fan, and fellow Mesa Verde enthusiast…
Joe, I enjoyed your post about Mesa Verde today. A few years ago Sara and I spent the night there and toured the ruins. We agree, photos don’t give the appropriate scale. Our guide made the whole place seem alive! With that said, there are at least two notable things about Dolores. First, they have a pretty decent motel right on the main drag. It’s owned by a Swede (cannot remember his name) and about 4 blocks away they have a good brew pub. Second, just outside of town you’ll find Colorado Norton Works. Matt Rambo (another Swede) is the owner. He has a very small shop that, as I recall, lacks any kind of sign. Inside you will find a motorcycle shop that closely resembles an operating theater, it’s that spotless. Matt will take your Norton and totally rebuild it from the frame up. The end product is absolutely beautiful and improved in so many ways I cannot remember them all. Matt and John Snead (owns a CNC machine shop in Jacksonville, FL) have also designed an improved electric start system for Nortons. I mention all this because you owe it to yourself to visit the shop, meet Matt, and drool over his rolling jewelry. You’ll love it!
Matt and John are both friends of mine. I have visited Matt’s shop three times and even stayed at his house on one trip.
Peter
Thanks for taking the time to write and convey your thoughts, Peter. I had heard of Colorado Norton Works from Gerry Edwards, another good friend. He spoke of them in reverential terms.
For those of you who don’t know, Dolores is a nice little Colorado town just up the road from Mesa Verde. When my good buddy Marty and I rode the Three Flags Rally in 2005 and visited Mesa Verde (my first time there), we rode along the Dolores River into the town of Dolores. It was pouring rain that day, but we had decent weather during our earlier stop at Mesa Verde.
Somewhere in New Mexico, with good buddy Marty on the 2005 Three Flags Rally. One of these days I’ll post more photos from that trip here on the ExhaustNotes blog. It was one hell of a ride!
Ride safe, Peter, and again, thanks for your note!
Sue and I stopped at interesting spots on our way home from Tinfiny Ranch earlier this month, and one of them was Mesa Verde National Park. I first went there on the 2005 Three Flags Rally with my buddy Marty. On that visit, Marty and I were only there for a quick stop, and I knew it was a place that needed more time.
At the Mesa Verde National Park entrance. It would be another 1000-ft climb and 14 miles of glorious twisties to get to the good stuff.
Mesa Verde is just outside of Cortez, in southwestern Colorado. It’s a great little town.
The whole idea behind Mesa Verde National Park is that Native Americans lived in advanced cliff dwellings about a thousand years ago. It’s real Indiana Jones stuff.
A shot I showed on Facebook a week or so ago. Folks told me it looked fake, and I needed a photo with some people in it to give a sense of scale.As requested.
The place was amazing. We were up on a huge mesa looking down into dramatic canyons, and these dwellings were built into overhangs and crevasses in the canyon walls…
The Tower structure. Several of these little villages had a tower like the one you see in this photo. Maybe the chiefs lived there?Another hamlet.A view from across the canyon at another set of dwellings, this time with my 70-300 lens. All of the other photos were with a 24-120 lens.
While we were there, we met a nice young guy named Tom, a Canadian artist traveling through the US on a motorcycle…
Captain Tom…Tom’s ride, a rented Honda Africa Twin.
Tom was an interesting man and a world traveler. He gave his card to us and I visited Tom’s website. He’s been to many of the same spots Sue and I have visited, including Turkey (one of the world’s best-kept tourist destination secrets) and southeast Asia (another best-kept secret). You should take a peek at Tom’s site; it’s awesome.
Cool stuff, to be sure. One last Mesa Verde photo today, folks…my signature selfie…
In the painted bumper of my blue Subie…
When we were planning this trip, I asked Gobi (that’s Joe Gresh) what he recommended on the ride back to California. One of his suggestions was the Petrified Forest in Arizona. That’s next, folks. Stay tuned!
On its face, it seemed like a weak market to target…folks who want very high end, small displacement, expensive custom motorcycles. But it worked.
When CSC revived the Mustang motorcycle concept 10 years ago, the company didn’t really have a grand plan, a handle on the market, or even a clearly defined name. CSC was originally California Scooter Company, and the original plan was to re-introduce a concept pioneered by the Mustang Motor Company in the postwar 1940s.
Original vintage Mustangs. Both of these bikes, along with more than a dozen others, are in Steve Seidner’s personal Mustang collection (the largest vintage Mustang collection in the world).
The idea was to spin off of Pro-One Performance Manufacturing’s line of very high billet and other accessories (and complete large V-twin custom motorcycles), and apply it to a small, modern version of the Mustang. Pro-One, CSC’s sister company, was founded by Steve Seidner (the same guy who started CSC). And boy oh boy, did those little bikes sell. They were beautiful little creations. Jewels, actually. Hand made, and built to extremely high standards. Mirror-like paint. Billet. Chrome. Little choppers. Expensive little jewels you could actually ride.
Ah, but that name…the California Scooter Company. It created confusion. People would see the new California Scooter modern Mustang and ask: Is it a scooter or a motorcycle? They didn’t get that the name was old school. Back in the day, antiques (folks like yours truly) called any bike a scooter. A Harley was a scooter and so was a Triumph…as in “I’m going to ride down to Cabo on my Scooter.”
Me? I wanted to tell anybody who asked that question (is it a motorcycle or a scooter?) that they were too dumb to ride either, but I couldn’t do that. Then one day, the boss hit on the idea of just calling the company CSC Motorcycles. You know, go with the tradition of other world-class marques with three-letter names: BMW, BSA, AJS, KTM, and more. And that worked. The dumbass scooter or motorcycle questions stopped, and the bikes continued to sell.
Back to the modern Mustangs…the initial thought was that the bikes would sell for $4,995, and they’d be a hit with young folks.
The modern California Scooter Greaser in the San Gabriel Mountains. Folks loved this bike and it was one of the best-selling paint themes.
Ah, what we didn’t know. The market will tell you what it is. Plans and fancy marketing studies mean nothing. A hit with young folks? The problem with young folks is that they don’t have any money and they don’t buy motorcycles. Hell, a lot of them don’t even want driver’s licenses. Just, like, you know, call an Uber.
Good buddy Walter B, back in the day, on his Knucklehead Harley-Davidson.
What we found out at CSC 10 years ago was that our modern Mustang market squarely centered on older folks (who often have a lot of money). Specifically, older folks who wanted a Mustang back in the day, but Dad said no. Or folks who rode big bikes way back when and who still wanted to ride, but they didn’t want to wrestle with 800-lb monsters. Fast forward 60 years, Dad’s no longer around, an Advil a day is just the ticket, and what do you know, I can buy that Mustang I always wanted and still ride. And they did. In droves.
A near-standard CSC Mustang on the right, and two custom versions on the left. Nearly all California Scooters were extensively optioned with additional chrome, billet, and custom paint.
Almost no one bought the standard, no-accessories, $4,995 CSC 150. They could have (that bike featured a slew of custom high end stuff, like billet and chrome all over the place and a world class finish). But those old guys who were denied an opportunity to scratch that Mustang itch as teenagers wanted more. A lot more. They would call on the phone (“I don’t do the Internet”), option the little California Scooters up to over $10,000 with lots more bling (custom wheels, custom paint, and more), and then put it all on a credit card. They wouldn’t attempt to negotiate price. California Scooter buyers wanted to spend more. Negotiate a lower price? Nope, that would demean the purchasing experience. It was full boat, full freight, and here’s my security code number…
A custom California Scooter. This was the “Bobber” variant. Note the gangster whitewalls, chrome wire wheels, and other custom touches.Steve Seidner built a personal aviation-themed custom California Scooter he called the P-51 (get it?…the P-51 Mustang). Steve intended to keep the bike, but I put this photo on the CSC blog and it sold within an hour. Someone called with a godfather offer (a deal Steve couldn’t refuse).
Those little bikes were awesome. I owned one of the very first ones, and I found I was having more fun on 150cc than I had on bikes with ten times the displacement. I rode mine all the way to Cabo San Lucas and back, but that’s a story for another blog. The Baja trip did a lot for CSC, too. The 150cc bikes had Honda CG clone engines manufactured in Asia, and the Baja trips showed the bikes were supremely reliable. We invited famous people to ride with us in Mexico and that was a force multiplier. The press coverage was off the charts.
Simon Gandolfi, British novelist and world traveler, on the road in Baja with a California Scooter. He cuts a commanding figure, doesn’t he?Simon, suspenders flying, at speed on my CSC 150, just north of Cabo San Lucas.Arlene Battishill, CEO of Go Go Gear, on the Sea of Cortez with her custom California Scooter. Arlene later appeared on the TV show, Shark Tank, with this motorcycle.
One of the things that sticks in my mind is the uninformed and the ignorant occasionally posting somewhere on an Internet forum that you could get a used Sportster for the kind of money people were happily spending on California Scooters. These keyboard commandos just didn’t get it. You could actually get a new Sportster for that kind of money, but that wasn’t the point. California Scooter buyers didn’t want a Sportster. They wanted, and were happy to pay top dollar for, a custom-crafted bit of motorcycle jewelry that could be both admired and ridden. A current classic.
There’s a market for such a thing. I know. I was there.
Here’s the last of three videos we made during our recent visit to Tinfiny Ranch a couple of weeks ago. Joe and I have been on several epic motorcycle rides, including the ride across China. It was awesome. When I watch those earlier videos, I’m reminded of how fit we were (we both lost weight on the China ride). Watching this one, I’m reminded that I need to spend more time at the gym (a lot more time).
Me? I’m headed out on a bicycle ride later this morning. I’ll hit the gym later. I love riding my Bianchi. I just need to do more of it.
We’ll have more on the blog later this weekend, and the focus will be on what you need to bring with you on a trip into Baja.
My initial exposure to the Mosin-Nagant rifle occurred when I saw the movie Enemy at the Gates a few years ago. At that time, I didn’t know anything about Mosin-Nagants other than I had seen them for sale at ridiculously low prices in Big 5 sporting goods stores. I never took Big 5 as a serious gun store (I went there when I needed jogging shoes), nor did I think of Mosins as interesting rifles. But Enemy at the Gates got my attention. It was very well done, starting with the opening scene when Vasily Zaitsev nailed a wolf with a Mosin, and progressing to the now famous “Can you shoot?” scene near the beginning of the movie.
Enemy at the Gates was set in Stalingrad. I studied that battle. Stalingrad was one of the world’s epic struggles. Hitler sent two million men into Russia; fewer than 3,000 returned to Germany. Incredible and awesome stuff, and snipers played a key role in turning the tide for the Russians.
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I didn’t run out and buy a Mosin-Nagant after watching Enemy at the Gates, but the seed had been planted. I also knew a bit about the history of modern sniping in the US military. I read a book a few years ago about Carlos Hathcock, our famous sniper of the Vietnam War (that book, incidentally, is awesome).
Available on Amazon, Marine Sniper is a great read.
So, fast forward, and my interest in rifles ultimately extended to the Mosin-Nagant. I purchased my first Mosin-Nagant (a round receiver Tula; more on that in a moment) and I was impressed with it. For $179, it was cheap fun. I started reloading 7.62x54R ammo for the Mosin after I bought a couple of boxes of factory PRVI Partizan ammo. The PRVI ammo was stupid hot, not very accurate, and I knew I could develop a better load than the factory stuff. And I did, but that’s a story for another blog.
I told my shooting and riding buddies about my Mosin and how much fun I was having with it. After listening to me babble on, my friends started buying Mosins, too. One of those guys was my good buddy Paul up in Hollister. Paul picked up a real nice hex-receivered Izzy (Ivhevsk was one of the two Russian arsenals that produced Mosin-Nagant rifles; my first Mosin was made by Tula, the Russian other arsenal). Then, like most of us, Paul convinced himself one Mosin was not enough. Paul wanted a round receiver (the other Mosin receiver configuration).
After picking up his second Mosin-Nagant, Paul shot an email to me explaining that he found a couple of holes on the left side of the receiver filled in with threaded plugs, and that the outside of the receiver over these holes had been welded and filed smooth. He had researched it and, to his great surprise, Paul learned that his Mosin had been a former sniper rifle. It seems that after World War II, the Russians refurbed these guns (including their sniper weapons), and they returned the snipers to a non-sniper configuration by welding in the receiver’s scope mounting holes.
Let me go tangential for a minute and explain how the Russians made sniper rifles during World War II. Unlike us, the Russians did not build a sniper rifle from the ground up to be super accurate. They built more than 17 million Mosins, and they test fired every one. If a particular rifle was found to exceptionally accurate during their routine post-production test firing, it was marked to be a sniper rifle. And my good buddy Paul scored one.
I thought that was beyond cool. An actual Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle. It was Enemy at the Gates come home to roost. I was happy for Paul finding such a great rifle, and I was jealous. I thought that the entire Mosin thing was great…my getting into Mosins, Paul buying two Mosins based on my enthusiasm, and then finding out that one of his was a sniper rifle.
My interest was pumped, and remembering the scenes from Enemy at the Gates, I started looking for stuff on Vasily Zaitsev. That’s when I came upon these videos…
Enemy at the Gates certainly played up the Zaitsev-Koenig sniper duel, and so did The History Channel special. To hear it straight from the man himself (Vasily Zaitsev) it was just a chance encounter. Ah,Hollywood.
All the while this was going on, my interest in Mosins continued to develop. Just like Paul was convinced he needed a round receiver Mosin, I convinced myself I needed a hex receiver. Hey, at these prices, Mosin-Nagant rifles were like potato chips. You couldn’t have just one. So I found a 1935 hex receiver Izzy at Big 5 (Ivhevsk was the other Russian arsenal that built Mosins), I pulled out my credit card, I waited my obligatory People’s Republik of Kalifornia 10 days, and it was mine. The bore on the new-to-me ’35 Izzy was about in the same condition as the 1940 rifle, which is to say it looked like it had been rode hard and put away wet. Maybe I’m being too kind. It looked like a sewer pipe.
Then, on a motorcycle ride through Big Bear, California, I stopped at their Big 5. Like most Big 5 stores, the kids that worked there didn’t know much about these rifles, and the one rifle they had on display looked pretty decrepit. I asked the same question I always did when seeing a rifle on the sales rack, and they dutifully pulled out the other Mosins they had in their safe. To make a long story short, I found another 1935 hex receiver rifle with all matching numbers and I pulled the trigger (figuratively speaking) on that one, too. Another 10 days went by and I made the trek back up to Big Bear to pick up my latest Pringle.
The next day I went to the range with all three of my Mosins – the first 1940 Tula, the second 1935 Izzy with a hex receiver, and my latest 1935 hex receiver Tula (the Big Bear rifle). Of the three, I had previously only fired the 1940 Tula.
The Big Bear Mosin, waiting to surprise me.Same rifle, different side…
I shot the first two Mosins, and they were good shooters. Then I tried the Big Bear Tula, and at first, I thought the accuracy was terrible. My first shot was on the paper at 50 yards, but my second shot had missed the paper completely (that’s how it looked through the spotting scope). I fired a third round and that one was satisfyingly only about 3/8 of an inch away from the first. I walked downrange to inspect the target, and wowee!
My first three sniper rifle shots…two went through one hole!
That second shot wasn’t off the paper…it went through the same hole as the first shot! Thinking that this was just a fluke, I fired another group of three shots, with similar results! Wowee again! With open sights, this was iron sight accuracy I just wasn’t used to. It was stellar. Bear in mind these were the first shots I had put through this rifle. I was elated.
Knowing that this Tula was a shooter, I took the rifle apart later that day to give it a good cleaning. I noticed the little nicks and dings you see when you do this sort of thing, including what looked like painted over weld spatter on the left exterior of the receiver. Even though Paul had explained the findings on his sniper rifle to me, it never occurred to me what I was working with. I didn’t think about sniper rifles; I just thought that due to this particular rifle’s condition it probably saw action in World War II and the Russian refurb arsenal did the best they could to clean it up. And I knew it was a shooter. The thing was just flat accurate. Amazingly so.
I snapped a bunch of photos when I reassembled the Tula, and here’s the money shot…
Lots of markings. The red arrows point to the sniper designation. The star means the rifle was manufactured at the Tula arsenal.
I didn’t know what all the markings on it meant; I simply liked the photo and I posted it on one of the Mosin Internet forums.
Well, the Mosin forum lit up, and the comments started pouring in. The first one was a simple one-word comment:
Sniper.
Hmmm. How do you know that, I posted, watching more comments pour in about my Mosin being a sniper.
It’s the markings that look like a C and an N, the forum dudes told me. One guy wrote “Look inside the receiver and you’ll see the two plugs on the left side…I know they’ll be there.”
Wow, before I even looked, it all came together for me. The weld spatter on the outside of the receiver. The overall condition of the rifle (rode hard, put away wet, definitely not pristine). I pulled the bolt back, looked inside, and there they were…the plugged holes where the sniper scope used to be. Awesome! I had hit the jackpot, just like Paul did!
So this whole Mosin Sniper thing really had my attention. I poked around on the Internet a bit more and these photos showed up…
Roza Shanina
That’s Roza Shanina, “the unseen terror of East Prussia,” holding a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle. She’s credited with 59 kills during World War II. Her story is fascinating and would make for a great book. It all sounds like a hell of a story.
You’ll notice there’s a scope on Roza Shanina’s rifle, which is what the sniper rifles had. The mount for it required two threaded holes on the receiver, the two holes the Russians plugged when they refurbed the rifles. The sniper rifles also had a longer, downturned bolt handle that allowed the shooter to work the bolt with the scope mounted. All very cool stuff. The Stephen Hunter novel references to a fictionalized Shanina are oblique and like most novels, some of the technical stuff is wrong. But it’s a great read.
You can still buy Mosin-Nagant rifles, but the prices are climbing sharply and these rifles are not as readily available as they were just two or three years ago That’s probably a good thing, because my credit card can stay hidden away in my wallet. But I still like to look, and if I see a Mosin on the rack in any gun store, I’ll check the receiver for the sniper markings and the two weld plugs where the scope used to be. I haven’t seen a single one since I scored mine, and that’s a satisfying feeling.
Here’s a video that popped up on my YouTube this morning…
I have mixed emotions on the topic…I’ve been to Sturgis a couple of times (once, on a Chinese motorcycle), I’ve been in Chinese factories, I’ve managed manufacturing facilities where I had to contend with labor costs, and I’ve owned a couple of Harley-Davidsons. I guess if the answers were easy there wouldn’t be any discussion.
New Hope, Pennsylvania, from the iron bridge over the Delaware River. George Washington crossed the Delaware just a few miles from here.
Motorcycle Classics published my latest Destinations piece, this time on New Hope, Pennsylvania. New Hope is a great destination in an historic place, and it’s a ride I used to do regularly back in the early ’70s on my CB750 Honda. Good times, those were. I recently made the trek again to write the story for MC, and the ride to New Hope through New Jersey’s rolling farmlands is as good as it ever was. It’s a good read, and Motorcycle Classics is a great magazine.
I’ve been writing for Motorcycle Classics for 10 years now, and if you’d like to see the complete collection, here you go! Joe Gresh, who is a much better writer than me, has been similarly widely published in Motorcyclist and other magazines, and if you would like to visit the grotto of great Gresh literature, here it is!
4.2 inches of travel in front, 4.3 inches of rear suspension travel, and 12-inch wheels…this puppy can carve!
I thought I would add a few words today about the CSC City Slicker’s wheels and suspension.
First, the suspension. Slick’s front end has a conventional non-adjustable inverted front fork with 4.2 inches of travel, and the rear has a swingarm, pre-load-adjustable monoshock, arrangement with 4.3 inches of travel. Here are a couple of photos showing each:
The action up front…Slick’s rear monoshock. It’s adjustable for preload by loosening and moving the locknuts.
The City Slicker’s suspension felt good to me, and the handling was razor-sharp. On prior internal combustion bikes from Zongshen (the RX3 and the TT250), we realized a handling improvement changing the fork oil from whatever the bikes shipped with to a 10W oil. The City Slicker did not feel to me like it needed this change. The front suspension feels good right out of the box. The was no bottoming out, nor was there any topping out (when the forks fully extend). The rear suspension felt firmer to me than it needed to be, but I noticed the rear shock had been set with the spring preload adjustment in the middle of the monoshock’s adjustment range. There appears to be plenty of room for adjustment. This can be accomplished by using a spanner to unlock the locknuts and relax the spring a bit (this assumes the spring is already compressed a bit with the adjustment as delivered by the factory). I haven’t tried this yet, but I will the next time I have an opportunity to do so.
The Slicker’s cockpit view on Route 66.
The wheels on the City Slicker are 12 inches in diameter, which is the same as most scooters, the Honda Grom, the CSC Mustang replicas, and the original Mustang motorcycles. On one of the many recent forums discussing the new City Slicker, a poster commented that 12-inch wheels are dangerous…you know, you might hit a pothole in the rain and get thrown from the bike. I don’t think that should be a concern. The truth is this: 12-inch wheels are a common design on smaller bikes and they make for incredibly quick handling. When I was on my 150cc CSC Mustang replica, I rediscovered what Walt Fulton proved back in the 1950s (more on that in a second). My CSC 150 had 12-inch wheels (just like the original Mustangs) and it was awesome in the twisties.
Yours truly with my CSC-150 on Glendora Ridge Road. I rode that bike to Cabo San Lucas and back, but that’s a story for a future blog.
Glendora Ridge Road, up in the San Gabriel Mountains, is just few miles from my house. It’s a great road from many perspectives, not the least of which is a set of glorious twisties. It is my favorite ride, and I wrote a story about it for Motorcycle Classics magazine. The point that I’m getting to in my very roundabout way is this: When I was on Glendora Ridge Road on my 150cc Mustang, I could hang with any bike up there, and most other motorcycles of any displacement couldn’t catch me (other than on GRR’s very few short straights). In the corners, my little 150 was king. It was all about wheel diameter and handling. You might not believe me, but there are more than a few riders I’ve met up there who know. They’re not talking about it, but they know. They’ve been humbled.
Walt Fulton breaking 100 mph on a Mustang back in the day…all on 12-inch diameter wheels!
So, back to Walt Fulton. He was a famous factory racer back in the 1950s who had lost his factory ride with another manufacturer. This was just before the Catalina Grand Prix, and Fulton did not have a ride. At the last minute, the Mustang Motor Corporation offered Fulton a factory spot, he accepted, and he nearly won on his 320cc, 12-inch-wheeled Mustang. Fulton passed 145 other riders on machines with up to four times the displacement (and, of course, larger wheels).
Fulton’s engine failed just a few miles from the finish, but he was on a tack to win that event. To make a long story just a little less long, the other factories complained to the Catalina Grand Prix organizers and delivered an ultimatum: Find a way to outlaw that damned Mustang next year, or we’re picking up our marbles and going home. Whaddya know…there was a sudden change to the rules. As Forrest Gump might say, just like that no one could race with wheels smaller than 16 inches. Yup. It happens.
The bottom line here is this: Slick’s 12-inch wheels make for extremely crisp handling. If you’ve never ridden a bike with 12-inch wheels, you really need to try one. I’ve found the handling is sharper than anything I’ve ever experienced.
A 1975 Z900 Kawi, a future Joe Gresh project that sort of came with Tinfiny Ranch…
One of the coolest parts of visiting Tinfiny Ranch was seeing Joe Gresh’s motorcycles. He sure has interesting toys and great project work lined up. My favorites are his 360 Yamaha and the Z900 Kawi. Joe tells the story better than I can, so here you go…
Photo ops abound in New Mexico. They have at least four different license plate themes. It’s cool.
Wow, we are enjoying our travels here in the Land of Enchantment. Every where we’ve been, the roads have been awesome and the photo ops have been amazing.
Yesterday we were up near the Colorado border in the little town of Aztec, New Mexico, and we came across a National Park Service Native American ruins site. I never heard of Aztec, I certainly never heard of the ruins there, and the roads were amazing. We stopped for a few photos, and then it was on to Colorado.
A kiva, a large multipurpose room. It was cool.A storm on the horizon…As we viewed the ruins, thunder boomed. It added to the mood. It was a great stop. Sometimes the unplanned ones are the best.The view through an ancient Native American door.
Mesa Verde is coming up next, but that’s a topic for another blog.
More cool stuff…it seems my friend Dan the K is planning a trip to the northwest territories on his 250cc RX3, I invited myself along, and Dan told me that’s great. It looks like Gresh may ride with us for at least part of the run, too. All adventure motorcycle tours are great; I believe the ones on 250cc bikes are even more so. We’ll include you in the planning for this ride, and you’ll be able to read all about it on the ExhaustNotes.us blog.
