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Product Review: Garmin Chronograph

By Joe Berk

In an earlier blog on my 458 Win Mag No. 1, I mentioned that I used a friend’s Garmin chronograph and decided I needed one. I pulled the trigger and I’ve been using my Garmin constantly since I bought it. I’ve shot rifle with jacketed and cast bullets and I’ve shot several handguns to see how it performed. The bottom line? Garmin hit a home run with their new chrono. Is it perfect? No. But it’s so good I can live with the few minor things I think could be improved.

The Garmin has a bunch of features (and I’ll get into them in a minute), but let my start by saying the most important feature is ease of use. Basically, you turn the thing on, make a few screen inputs, set it on the shooting bench, and you’re good to go. There’s no screwing around with setting up screens in front of the bench, running wires, or any of other stuff you need to do with earlier chronographs. It’s plug and play, but you don’t even have to plug it in.

Operation

Operating the Garmin is straightforward, but it’s not entirely intuitive. The On-Off button is one of four buttons on top of the device. Garmin labels it “Power.” Touch it once and the device is on; hold it down for two seconds and it turns off.

The buttons up top. They are a little confusing at first.

Getting to what you want to shoot involves scrolling through a series of screens and menu options via two of the buttons on top of the Garmin. One points up; the other points down, and that’s how you move from one choice to another on each data screen. Basically, the choices are rifle or handgun (there’s also choices for archery, but I’m not Robin Hood), and their selection is governed by projectile velocity. After navigating up or down on that screen, pressing the OK button gets the next screen up. That asks if you the Garmin to calculate power level (bullet energy). I always tell it no, but getting through that requires pressuring the down button and then the okay button again. Then another screen pops up, advising chronograph placement with regard to gun location. Then it’s necessary to press the OK button once more. That gun placement screen is unnecessary, and it just necessitates pressing more buttons and scrolling through more screens. Finally, the device is ready to use. It’s a lot of button pushing and scrolling. Granted, it is way, way easier than screwing around placing chronograph screens downrange, aligning them with your bullets’ flight path, and making electrical connections, and it’s easier than placing what used to be the most modern chrono (before the Garmin came along) out in front of the firing line. The Garmin is a major step forward in the chrono game.

Once the string has been fired (as many as the shooter wants to include in the string), the scrolling and selecting game starts anew (along with pushing the back, up and down, and OK buttons). I thought it would become intuitive for me, but I’m not the brightest bulb in the box and it seems I have to relearn it every time I go to the range (and I’m on the range at least a couple of times each week).

Charging and Battery Life

Charging is done via a laptop. The chronograph comes with a cord that connects the chrono to your laptop, and that’s how it charges. One charge is good for a couple of range sessions (or more, depending on how much you shoot). Although I didn’t time it, I’m guessing it took maybe an hour to fully recharge.

Downloading Data

I thought the cord connecting the computer to the Garmin would allow me to download the data from each range “session” (a session is a string of shots for which you wish to record data), but if there’s a way to do that, I couldn’t find it. I could the files for each range session, but they were in a format I couldn’t read. What I can do, though, is Bluetooth connect the Garmin to my cellphone. Then, once the data is in my cellphone, I can send the data (in an Excel spreadsheet) to my laptop via email. That’s more bother than I wanted to mess around with, though. I just look at the results on the Garmin screen.

Packaging and the Optional Case

The Garmin chrono doesn’t come with a carrying case. It should. I had to spring for an optional $15, cheaply constructed carrying case that probably cost about 25 cents to make in China. But I’m glad it did. It does a decent job protecting the Garmin and storing the charging cable.

The extra cost case. It ought to be included with the chronograph.

A Few Pistol Examples

I shot three handguns to assess how the Garmin would perform. I thought I could do this at my indoor pistol range (I belong to a couple of gun ranges). The indoor range is usually crowded, and that highlighted one of the Garmin’s weak spots. Even though there are barriers between shooting positions, the Garmin was consistently capturing data from the guy shooting on either side of me. As I had no interest in what they were doing, I picked up my marbles and to the West End Gun Club, an outdoor range.

1911s in .45 ACP, 9mm, and .22. The 1911 is one of the best pistol designs in the world. It’s been around for more than a century.

On the outdoor range there was more room between shooting positions, and the Garmin picking up another shooter’s bullets was not an issue. I shot and captured data for three different handguns. All were 1911s. I’ve written about them before (a .45 ACP Springfield, a 9mm Springfield, and a .22 GSG), but now I can bring you chrono data. My plan was to shoot 50 rounds from each pistol and record the data, shooting at the same silhouette target at 25 yards.

1911 .22 Long Rifle GSG

The GSG .22 Long Rifle 1911. There’s a lot of plastic in this gun, but wowee, does it ever shoot!

The first pistol up was the .22 GSG with Federal Champion ammo. It’s cheap ammo and it’s advertised as having a muzzle velocity of 1260 feet per second, but that’s probably from a much longer rifle barrel. I expected it to be slower from the 1911 and it was.

Federal .22 Long Rifle High Velocity Ammo. The GSG needs the high velocity ammo to function reliably.

I ordered a bunch of ammo when a court found California’s mail order ban unconstitutional. It’s since been overturned, but I brought in a couple thousand rounds when justice prevailed.

The Federal ammo is advertised at 1260 feet per second, but that’s out of a rifle. The chronograph doesn’t lie.

Here’s what the Garmin revealed for the 50 .22 Long Rifle shots fired from the 1911.

1020 versus 1260 feet per second. My lower velocities were due to shooting this ammo in a handgun rather than a rifle.

The velocity was lower than advertised, but as mentioned above, I fired from a 5-inch-barreled handgun and not a rifle.

1911 9mm Springfield

I then turned to my Springfield 9mm 1911, which is one of my all time favorite pistols.

My 9mm Springfield Armory 1911. This is a great handgun.

I fired another 50 rounds through it with my handloaded ammo (the load I used is the 124-grain roundnose plated Xtreme bullet and 5.5 grains of Accurate No. 5 powder. That ammo had about the same average velocity as the .22, but the extreme spread and the standard deviation were lower (a good thing). Accuracy at 25 yards was about the same as the .22 1911.

1035 feet per second ain’t too shabby. I could go higher by running a hotter load, but this one is hot enough and it’s accurate.

You may have noticed that the Garmin only picked up 49 of the 50 shots I fired. I don’t know why it did that.

1911 .45 ACP Springfield

For my final quick look handgun trials I used another Springfield 1911, this time chambered in .45 ACP.

One of the great ones: A .45 ACP 1911. This is also a Springfield Armory handgun.

The load was 4.6 grains of Bullseye under Gardner 185-grain cast semi-wadcutter bullets. This has always been a great target load in any of my 1911s, and it proved that to be the case again. I was not shooting for accuracy; I was simply showing 50 rounds through each of the three 1911s to wring out the Garmin. On the target, the GSG .22 and the Springfield 9mm were grouping at about 10 inches (again, I wasn’t try to put them through the same hole during this test). But that .45? Wow. It put 50 rounds through one ragged hold about 4 inches in diameter. If I had put any effort into it, that hole would have been smaller.

A .45-caliber bullet at 850 feet per second will settle most arguments. It’s accurate, too.

You can see the inherent accuracy in the .45 load I used in this portion of the test. Check out the very small standard deviation and extreme spread. Both are much smaller than the corresponding values for the 9mm and .22 handguns.

Mosin-Nagant Cast Bullets

I next wanted to try cast bullets in the Mosin-Nagant 91/30 rifle. I knew the load I was using (a 173-grain cast bullet and SR 4759 powder) to be an accurate load from previous forays.

I love the Mosin-Nagant. There are certainly more elegant milsurp rifles out there. I haven’t found any that shoot better than a Mosin-Nagant.

Cast bullets loaded in 7.62x54R cases. This is a fun load.

Fast enough, and no leading. This is a great load.

As I said above, I knew this to be an accurate load, and the Garmin showed why: It had a l0w standard deviation.

Mini 14 Jacketed Bullets

Finally, I wanted to see how the Garmin would do with a small bullet moving at higher speeds, so I ran a few shots through my faithful Mini 14.

You don’t see many Mini 14 rifles with wood like this one. It’s stunning, and it can be surprisingly accurate with the right load.

My accuracy loads for the Mini 14 have been a Hornady 55-grain full metal jacket boattail bullet and a max load of either IMR 4320 or ARComp. The results you see below are for the IMR load. You might be wondering why the velocity is a bit less than the expected 3000 feet per second speeds attained with a .223 cartridge. My Mini 14 has a 16-inch barrel.

The Garmin had no difficulty picking up those little 55-grain bullets flying away at 2800+ feet per second.

The results looked good to me. Those five shots went into less than 2 inches at 100 yards. Four of the five went into less than an inch.

A Mini 14? Are you kidding me? I never joke about my work, folks.

The Bottom Line

There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good is the Garmin chronograph has upped the ante by bringing an easily-used chronograph to the masses. There’s no screwing around wires or screens, and you don’t have to get in front of the firing line to set it up. This is a major breakthrough, and it’s what prompted me to finally pull the trigger on a chrono (well, that and my good buddy Walt telling me that any serious shooter and reloader needed a chrono).

The bad? There’s not much. I mentioned the tendency to pick up rounds fired from an adjacent lane on an indoor handgun range. I think the screen scrolling drill could be simplified a bit. The chrono occasionally failed to pick up a round (but that could be me not positioning it correctly). I think the chrono should allow downloading data sessions directly to a computer (without having to Bluetooth the thing to a cell phone and then email it to myself). These nits wouldn’t stop me from buying one, and they shouldn’t stop you, either. I love my Garmin chronograph. The Garmin engineers did a good job.

What surprised me (but maybe didn’t surprise me too much) was that the lowest standard deviation did not necessarily result in the tightest group. Barrel harmonics, bullet issues, and the guy behind the trigger also have a huge influence. I suspect the so-called accuracy loads in the Lyman reloading manual are based mostly (perhaps exclusively) on standard deviation. There are a lot of things that go into rifle and handgun accuracy. With a Garmin chronograph, you can get a better understand them.

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Inbound!

By Joe Berk

We’ve got a bunch of good stuff coming your way, my friends. I just finished a whirlwind week in New Jersey, we hit some of the Sopranos film locations, I grabbed a bunch of very cool Norton P11 photos, we saw where Bruce Springsteen was setting up for a concert in Asbury Park, I have a review on the new Garmin chronograph about to go live, Mike Huber (aka Mike Nelson) is down there in Indonesia and Thailand becoming one with the sea turtles, I’ve got a review on Ruger Customer Service and my revamped .357 Bisley, Joe Gresh has his Z1 Kawi all dressed up with lots of new places to go, and lots, lots more.

Andrew Capone, Isle of Man impresario and British Motocycle Gear CEO, with an unknown paparazzi reflected in a Norton Scrambler fender at an undisclosed location in New Jersey.

All dressed up with lots of places to go…Joe Gresh and the Z1…the gift that keeps on giving!

How fast is fast? Stay tuned, and we’ll tell you!

Bisley mania! Plinking at 100 yards with a handgun? You bet!

Andrew, Harry (aka “the Norton Whisperer”), and what is unquestionably one of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made!

There’s ink, and then there’s Sopranos ink. Oh, do we have a story for you!

You know, we blew right by 1500 blogs some time ago, and I started to wonder if we were going to run out of things to write about. Nope. Not gonna happen. It’s like when one of my geezer buddies told me he didn’t know what to say at a lunch gathering, and another of my geezer friends told him, “Don’t worry…you’ll keep talking until you think of something.”

Stay tuned, my Amigos…

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Indonesia: Part 3

By Mike Huber

Having found myself in Flores, Indonesia (one of the scuba diving meccas of Southeast Asia) I took it upon myself to dive as much as I could. On my second dive of the first day I saw some manta rays up close and personal and I managed to get a lot of sea urchin spines under my fingernails, hands, and pretty much everywhere. I was bleeding green as I was deep enough underwater that colors would change, and it looked like I had been rolling around in some saguaro cactus or been on the losing side of a fight with a porcupine. I had spines sticking out from every part of my wetsuit.

This was part of the adventure and part of the learning. What I didn’t expect was upon our ascent my air ran out, even though moments earlier I had checked and confirmed I was at about 25%. This was another “So this is how it ends” moment. There wasn’t much time to think about that as I was not prepared for running out of air. I figured I just had moments before I would black out due to no oxygen. Being about 10 meters deep I knew I could have just surfaced quickly to get air and many people probably would have done that. Well, just as in jumping out of airplanes, you train for these type of scenarios. Also, the approach is to take your time as you have the rest of your life to resolve the no air issues, just as you would with a parachute malfunction. The problem with that mindset is that the end of your life is only seconds away.

Fortunately, my dive partner was only a short swim away. I swam over to him as quickly as possible, signaled him I had no air, and calmly (I was actually panicking by this point) grabbed his secondary air hose, and took a much-needed breath in.

That first breath in was a relief on every level you can possibly imagine. We then performed our 3-minute safety stop off using both of his air supplies before we surfaced. Even with my fingers still bleeding from the sea urchin spines and having run out of air, I managed to make a couple jokes as we swam back to the safety of the boat. This is where we learned that my regulator was faulty and provided a false reading on the amount of air remaining. That was a bit of a relief that it wasn’t some rookie mistake by me.

The joking ended on my next dive that day. As soon as I hit the water I had some massive anxiety about the no air issues and going under. It was so intense that everyone on the team had already submerged and I was just sitting there on the surface having fear to let the air out of my BCD to sink and join the rest.

After a few moments, it passed and I did join them. I don’t think I have ever swam as close to a dive partner as I did on that dive. My air barely lasted 32 minutes as my stress and anxiety were causing me to breathe faster, using up my air rather quickly. This was fine with me, as I really had no interest in staying underwater.

Once back on the boat, I was seriously thinking that scuba diving wasn’t for me and would bow out of it using one excuse or another. The lack of air experience was that traumatizing. I began to think back to the Army and our jumps. Whenever someone had a bad jump the best thing to overcome it was to put them on the very next jump ton regain their confidence so they could continue to be effective. Since diving and jumping had so many parallels, I thought this would be the best way. I booked three more dives the next day with the mindset if I didn’t overcome it I would quit diving. I owed it to myself to give it one more try.

More epic adventures are here!

Scuba: Part 2

By Mike Huber

It was 0700 and the location was a pier in Cairns Australia as 30 of us were boarding a live-aboard boat to perform 9 scuba dives over the next 3 days and 2 nights. There were only 3 of us that had never performed an open water scuba dive before, and I was one of them. It would take 5 dives while completing our drills for us to obtain our PADI open water certification. We were ready.

It took the boat about 3 hours to get out to the reef for our first dive. 27 of the others were seasoned divers, so as the newbies we felt privileged they’d help us gear up and make jokes about our fumbling around prior to getting into the water.

Others may disagree with me and that is fine, but I have sky dived and to me, nothing felt closer to jumping out of an airplane as a paratrooper than scuba diving. You suit up, perform checks on your gear and your scuba buddy’s gear, shuffle to the edge of the boat, give an OK to the dive master who checks your air is on (I always stuck my hand out and yelled “ALL OK JUMPMASTER!” just to get into the moment a bit more), and jump off the boat into the water. I understand the two experiences are almost polar opposites, but what isn’t is the comradery and the procedures prior to diving (or jumping out of an airplane).

As soon as I hit the ocean waters of the Great Barrier Reef in full scuba gear I felt two things: A brief moment of anxiety, just as I felt in the pool during onshore training, and when we signaled to go down. This was a moment of bliss and freedom as you leave the world you know and enter a realm of tranquility beneath the ocean. It was so similar to exiting an aircraft as you leave the chaos and perform the 4-second count prior to your parachute opening. Both are moments when you have a quick chat with the big guy upstairs and are alone in the world. There are few experiences in life that compare to these. I was instantly hooked on scuba diving.

Our first five dives were work. They encompassed the same drills over and over that we performed in the pool. The objective was to review the same emergency procedures for a multitude of issues that you can face while underwater, and how to calmly overcome them. This was another similarity to being a paratrooper. The only big difference is there was less yelling for your mistakes, but the instructor did have a whiteboard to correct any errors you were making while on the dive. Another reason I knew my instructor was great was when she wrote my mistakes on her whiteboard for, I literally could hear her stern voice in my head just as clear and loud as if we were above water.

Upon all three of us successfully meeting the criteria we were now PADI Certified Open Water Scuba Divers. Now it was time to begin having fun and enjoying the benefits of diving. We were on The Great Barrier Reef after all and the coral and wildlife we saw over the next 3 days was magical. We were literally in God’s aquarium. Each of the dive sites we experienced had something unique to offer, from schools of colorful fish, to sea turtles, to even a couple nurse and reef sharks. If I wasn’t hooked before on this new hobby, I surely was now.

The remainder of the days were passed with dives, delicious food, and wonderful new friends. The beauty of this live aboard boat were absolutely the people I was surrounded by. We each had different experience levels in diving, and were from countries all around the World, yet we all bonded over this one passion, scuba diving. Once the evening festivities died down instead of returning to the tight quarters below deck a few of us decided to sleep on the open upper deck of the vessel. This was the perfect way to wind down. We would tell a few jokes while staring at the Southern Cross as it slowly made its way across the sky until we fell asleep, and in the morning awaking to the sunrise hitting this spectacular part of the World and lighting up the Australian Flag as the sun rose. A feeling of accomplishment washed across me each day and evening of this trip. It may have been the most rewarding time along my travels to this day, and for good reason. I had found a new way to add even further adventure to my travels.

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The Yanke Motor Museum

By Joe Berk

Talk about a hidden gem and a great destination: The Yanke Motor Museum in Boise, Idaho is about as good as it gets. There’s precious little information on the Internet about it, but trust me, it’s worth seeing. It’s not widely publicized and you can’t just roll up and visit its treasures; admission is by appointment only. My advice is to make the run to Boise and make the effort to get an appointment. The Yanke Motor Museum contains a world class automobile, motorcycle, tractor, and musical instrument collection.

A 1924 Packard convertible is one of the first vintage cars you encounter upon entering the Yanke Motor Museum.

As you know from reading this blog, I’m a big fan of car and motorcycle museums, and I never heard of the Yanke Motor Museum. It’s the only automotive museum in Idaho, and it never appeared on my radar before. I only came across it because I Googled “motorcycle museums in Boise.” Some of the Internet services won’t tell you that it’s by appointment only, but that’s the deal. Further complicating things, some of the GPS programs get the directions wrong. We used Waze to find the address and it worked.

There is a lot to see at the Yanke Motor Museum. We were lucky: Sue and I had the place to ourselves. We made an appointment and new good buddy Tyler (one of the curators) pulled up just as we entered the parking lot. Tyler was in a silver Subaru WRX, so I liked him right away. He opened the place just for us, and then he had to walk around turning all the lights on (and he flipped a lot of switches to do that). The place is huge.

A 1957 Cadillac. This is a beautiful car. I was 6 years old when it rolled off the assembly line.

I didn’t quite know what to expect because when we entered the main display area (after walking through a collection of musical instruments), I at first saw mostly automobiles. They were impressive and they were plentiful (see the Packard and drop-dead-gorgeous pink Cadillac above), with the odd motorcycle parked here and there. There was a Ural and a couple of Harley dressers, so I asked Tyler if there were more motorcycles. He smiled and pointed me toward another hall. Wow, were there ever! In fact, my back started bothering me lugging my boat-anchor Nikon D810 and 24-120 lens around to get the photos you see here, but it was worth it.

A Ural with a sidecar. Good buddy Dan owns one of these.

Before we got to the main motorcycle hall, we saw several more interesting motorcycles and the odd trike or two. There was a ’37 SS Jag replicar. It was flanked by a stunning cherry red Harley Servi-Car and a custom flathead Ford trike with Offenhauser heads.

A flathead Ford trike. Check out the front brake.

A custom in every sense of the word. The workmanship is stunning.

Offenhauser heads. Offy also made complete 4-cylinder engines. Think decades of Indy 500 dominance.

One last view of the flattie trike. Even the tires are beautiful.

Susie and I were blown away by the classic cars and the multiple motorcycles we encountered at the Yanke Motor Museum, and we hadn’t even made it to the motorcycle room yet. In the main hall, classic motocross and other bikes were scattered among the cars and other vehicles.

I once had a friend who thought a Bultaco was a Mexican food item. No kidding.

There was a flatbed truck with a Harley XLCR Cafe Racer, a vintage Indian Chief, and a vintage Harley.

I could have bought a new ’77 XLCR just like this one for $3,000, but I couldn’t justify spending $3,000 for a motorcycle back then. I don’t know who I thought I had to justify it to.

When we entered the motorcycle room, it was like being a kid in a candy shop. No, wait, I take that back. I used to be a kid in a candy shop six or seven decades ago. This was better. Just about everything imaginable was there if you are looking for cool motorcycles. Desert racers, WW II military Harley 45s, modern bikes, custom bikes, vintage Harleys, vintage Indians, scooters, Whizzers, vintage flat track and flathead Harley race bikes, and more. The Nikon was giving me fits weighing heavily on my lower back, and leaning over to get macro engine shots was getting downright painful, but I didn’t care. Susie had an Advil, I swallowed it, and the photo safari continued. I was on a mission. Anything and everything for our ExNotes readers…that’s our mantra.

In the motorcycle room…check out the Army 45s.

A 1934 74-cubic-inch Harley VLD flathead, another stunning motorcycle.

Harley-Davidson flathead flat track racing motorcycles.

Ah, the patina! Check out the steel shoe!

An Army 45 in decidedly non-Army colors.

The Yanke Motor Museum also contained some cool military stuff, including Jeeps and a few cannons. Cannons!

The same action as a Ruger No. 1. A classic falling block concept.

A custom scope mount for direct fire. This thing must be a hoot to shoot. Folks at the Museum reload for it.

I thought it couldn’t possibly get any better, but when I peeked into an adjoining room I spotted several 37mm and 25mm projectiles in various stages of the reloading process. Imagine that: Reloading for your own cannons! There’s no doubt about it: The folks who own and run the Yanke Motor Museum are our kind people.

Ron and Linda Yanke started the Museum. An extremely successful entrepreneur, Ron is unfortunately no longer with us. The Yanke family started the business empire with a machine shop. Ron Yanke expanded the business holdings to sawmills, an air charter service, a firefighting equipment manufacturer, extensive timberland holdings, several real estate companies, a mechanical contracting firm, a manufactured housing company, and a couple of banks. He was one of three original investors in Micron Technology, the world’s second-largest memory chip manufacturer.

The Yanke Motor Museum is located at 1090 Boeing Street in Boise, Idaho. If you want to get in, here’s the web address that will get you started.

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A New Chinese Super Tourer

I’ll bet you thought you were looking at a Gold Wing when you opened this blog.

Wow, the world is full of surprises. On my first foray into the Chinese motorcycle industry (a trip to Zongshen’s giant manufacturing campus in Chongqing), I was blown away by the size and sophistication of that company. Since then, I’ve been to China many times (including a visit to the Canton Fair, China’s significant motorcycle industry trade show). I thought I’d seen it all, and then I found this email from good buddy Fan in my inbox:

Hi Joe:

How are you, friend?

I’d like to share a news to you, of course it’s still about motorcycles/

A motorcycle exhibition was held in Beijing from May 17th to 20th.

Most of the products were still unremarkable to me, but one motorcycle sparked interest. This is a cruiser developed by Great Wall Motors, a Chinese automobile company. Its appearance may remind you of the Honda Gold Wing. At first, I thought this was another simple imitation of another motorcycle, but when I understood its structure and parameters, I found that it was not that simple. This cruiser is named SOUO and is equipped with a 2000cc engine with 8 cylinders, while the Honda Gold Wing is 1600cc with 6 cylinders only.

The price of this motorcycle has not yet been announced, but it is said that it will start accepting reservations in August. I guess the retail price should be 250,000 yuan, about 35,000 US dollars.

For your reference.

Best regards!

Fan

Whoa! 2000cc! Eight cylinders! An 8-speed dual clutch transmission! Talk about overkill!

I wonder what it weighs.

I tried to find what SOUO translates to in English, but it doesn’t translate to anything. What I found online is that SOUO is an acronym (you know, an abbreviation that forms a word). SOUO means “Search Own, Unlimited Outlook.”

This is a huge step in the Chinese motorcycle world. How Great Wall Motors markets the bike will be interesting to watch. I would think one of their principal markets has to be the United States (where else could it be?), but I have to wonder how many they think they are going to sell. Assuming the motorcycle could meet U.S. Department of Transportation and EPA emissions requirements (it most likely would, as the bikes I assisted in guiding through U.S. certification requirements all did), and assuming someone steps up to pay the roughly $50K associated with going through the certification process, how many people are willing to drop $35K on a new Chinese motorcycle? That’s more than what a new Gold Wing, a new BMW, or a new Harley costs. It’s a steep sales hill and it will require a significant marketing effort. I think the issues are the small size of the target market, the target market’s willingness to go with a new and unproven Chinese product (instead of a Gold Wing, a BMW, or a Harley), the price, and questions about Chinese motorcycle reliability and parts availability.

No one has asked for my advice on this, but that’s never slowed me down before. Here’s what I’d do:

- Lower the price dramatically to bring new folks to the table. The RX3’s initial price was a scant $2895 and none of the other manufacturers could touch that price. CSC didn’t make money on those bikes, but we more than made up for that with future sales, accessory sales, and building a loyal customer base.
- Do something similar to what we did at CSC to convince people the RX3 was a superbly reliable motorcycle. CSC sponsored a series of adventure tours to demonstrate the RX3’s reliability. Zongshen sponsored the 5000-mile Western America Adventure ride, and CSC sponsored a series of Baja rides. These events served us well. With the SOUO motorcycle, I’d think they might consider working a deal with the Southern California Motorcycle Club and the Iron Butt Association and run several of their bikes in their events, to include a Four Corners Ride (a ride that hits all four geographic corners of the U.S.), the Three Flags Ride (a rally from Mexico through the U.S. to Canada), and an Iron Butt ride (a run that covers 11,000 miles in 11 days). On top of that, I’d offer a 10-year warranty, kind of like Hyundai did with its cars.
- Bring in a huge spare parts inventory and brag about it. Folks will naturally worry about spares. Bring in enough to build complete bikes and let everyone know it. It’s what CSC did and it blew away any concerns about parts availability.
- Build a U.S. manufacturing facility. Boy, this could get complicated fast. But Great Wall Motors needs to address the U.S. disdain for Chinese products and the ongoing U.S./China trade war. Doing so is above my pay grade, but I would think making this bike in America would get around a lot of issues.
- Go balls out on a product placement campaign. The U.S. motorcycle market for big touring machines is primarily old guys, and we are dying off. One way to attract new blood is to get the bike featured in movies and streaming TV shows. You know, like BMW and Triumph have done in the Bond and Mission Impossible franchises. (“Balls out” is not an obscene anatomical reference to moving at great speed; the phrase actually comes from the old mechanical centrifugal governors used on steam and internal combustion engines.)

This motorcycle is an interesting development. I don’t think we’ll see SOUO motorcycles here in the U.S. any time soon, but I’d sure like to. In the meantime, here are a few more photos.

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A Tale of Two 1911s

If I had a dime for every article and Internet post comparing the 9mm to the .45 ACP cartridge (and the guns that shoot them) I could probably pay cash for a new Ferrari. That said, I make no apologies for this being another one. In this case (and for this article), one of the variables I have sort of eliminated is the gun. Both are Springfield Target model 1911 autos in stainless steel. They’re the two pistols you see in the photo above.

Here’s a macro photo of the 9mm cartridge (designed in 1901; also known as the 9×19 and the 9mm Luger) and the .45 ACP cartridge (designed in 1904). Both of the rounds shown below are my reloads, which I prefer over factory ammo for many reasons. We’ve written a lot about reloading both cartridges, and you can find those articles here.

I like these kinds of photos. The photo shows the 9mm cartridge (arguably the most popular handgun cartridge in the world) and the .45 ACP.

For this comparison, I used the Springfield Armory magazines that came with of the two 1911s. Here’s what the ammo looks like in the magazines.

Loaded .45 ACP and 9mm magazines. The .45 mag holds 7 rounds; the 9mm mag holds 9 rounds. I’ve read that the average number of shots fired in an armed confrontation (not counting military actions) is less than two.

The Springfield target guns have nice features, including click adjustable rear sights, dovetailed and pinned front sights, ambidextrous safeties, target triggers, skeletonized hammers, and more. I didn’t like the two-piece guide rods that came with both guns (you need a tool to unscrew the two-piece guide rods for takedown). Another two-piece guide rod issue is that they constantly unscrew. I immediately replaced those in both guns with one-piece guide rods.

A few of the features included on these Springfield 1911 target models are skeletonized hammers (a useless feature, in my opinion), a click adjustable rear sight (a very useful feature), an extended grip safety (another useless feature), and an ambidextrous thumb safety (yet another useless feature). I prefer wraparound Pachmayr-style rubber grips, but the Springfield Armory exotic wood checkered grips look cool.

The Springfield Target model front sights are dovetailed and pinned to the slide. The one on my 9mm still came loose when the retaining pin backed out. The .45 front sight has stayed put. You can see the one-piece guide rod below the barrel; it’s a feature I added to both 1911s.

What has been a disappointment on the .45 Springfield was that the stainless steel was not properly passivated (it came this way from the factory). The gun exhibited minor corrosion in a few spots after a while, which is unacceptable for a stainless steel firearm. It’s the only stainless steel gun I’ve ever owned that did this. The corrosion comes right off with a bronze bristle brush and the steel beneath it then looks pristine, but you shouldn’t have to do this with a stainless steel firearm, much less one purchased new.

My 9mm 1911 had a problem with its front sight. The pin securing it in place backed out under recoil. I contacted Springfield about that and they sent an oversized pin. It similarly backed out. I applied Loctite to the pin and very lightly peened the edges at the top of its hole in the front sight, and that seems to have fixed the problem.

Neither of the above issues should have been present. I’ve purchased three new Springfield Armory firearms over the years and every one of them has had an issue. My Springfield M1A rifle had two issues: The magazines were extremely tight going into the receiver, and the ejected .308 cartridge cases were striking and damaging the stock. I sent the rifle back to Springfield. Springfield fixed the magazine fit issue (that fix worked) and they attempted to address the cartridges impacting the stock (that fix did not work). The cartridge cases still hit the stock after being ejected (even after Springfield did a ham-fisted job removing wood in the impact area), so I put electrician’s tape on the stock where the spent cases impact before I take it to the range. The rifle is quite accurate, but damn, you shouldn’t have to deal with issues like this on a new gun. I believe these things speak to a generally sad state of affairs in Springfield’s quality assurance and process control. But I’m going off track a bit. Let’s get back to the topic of this article, and that’s the two 1911 Springfields.

Corrosion on the Springfield Armory .45 ACP 1911. I believe the stainless steel was improperly passivated. I removed the tarnish/oxidation with a bronze brush and it has stayed off.

My .45 reloads. I’ve been shooting this same recipe for more than 50 years. It works, so why mess with it? .45 ACP brass can be reloaded many, many times (and this brass has been).

In my most recent outing with both 1911s, the .45 was significantly more accurate. I believe that to generally be the case when comparing the .45 ACP and 9mm Luger cartridges, and this range day was no exception. The 9mm load I used was a 124-grain Xtreme plated roundnose bullet over 5.5 grains of Accurate No. 5 propellant. The .45 ACP load was a 230-grain Missouri cast roundnose bullet over 5.6 grains of Unique propellant (an accuracy load that always works for me). I shot the targets shown below on the 50-foot West End Gun Club handgun range using a two-hand hold supported by a rest beneath my hands.

The 9mm 1911 grouped just over 2 inches, which is typical for this load. This same handgun has done much better with other loads, which is outlined in earlier blogs on 9mm cast bullet loads and 9mm jacketed bullets loads.

The 9mm grouped okay, but not great. I’ve shot other loads in this handgun that were much more accurate, but I didn’t have any of those loads in the ammo locker the day I went to the range. If you would like to know about this, you can read about my 9mm ammo development efforts with the 9mm 1911 (and other handguns) using cast bullets and jacketed bullets.

Groups with the Springfield Armory .45 ACP 1911. Point of aim was at 6:00 on each target. Shooter fatigue is what opened up the last group.

The .45 1911 grouped very well. It’s a funny thing: The 9mm 1911 has way less recoil than the .45 and the trigger on my 9mm 1911 has been tuned to perfection by good buddy TJ (you can read about that here), but I shoot better with a .45 (and I always have). The .45 1911 barks like a Rottweiler and it kicks like a mule, but the thing is just flat accurate.

So there you have it: Another take on the rehashed ad infinitum 9mm versus .45 ACP argument. If you have an opinion, please weigh in with a comment or two below.

If you would like to read a bit more about how to shoot a handgun well, that story is here.

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Chanson d’Armour

Carl Bennett of the UK has contributed to the ExNotes blog before. He recently sent to us a piece related to riding gear and we thought you might enjoy it.

By Carl Bennett

One thing I never wanted to hear on a motorcycle was the Ra-ta-da-ta-da of my head, elbows, hips, knees and toes bouncing down the tarmac having come off it. Ok, you might have to be of a certain age and indeed of a more than certain pretentiousness to recognise the song and the joke in the title, if that’s not too strong a word for it, but if you ride, you’ll have thought about buying the stuff, if you haven’t already. Which I’m feeling as if everybody else in the universe already has.

Back when I started riding motorcycles, rider armour was something I read about in Bike magazine, something strictly for people like Barry Sheene, who was the nearest thing to the Bionic Man I’d ever heard of. For our younger readers, Barry Sheene dropped his bike at Daytona somewhere around 170mph when he was 24 when his tyre blew up.

“I was rolling, and I could feel all my skin coming off. I didn’t feel the leg because all I could feel was the skin tearing off my shoulders. I went to get up and looked down, and my leg was right-angled, poking under the other one.”

Barry Sheene

He broke his left femur, right wrist, forearm and collarbone, six broken ribs, and a few vertebrae, sandpapered a lot of his skin off and got himself a 40cm steel plate screwed into his leg bone to hold it together. I don’t know what it’s like to do 170 on a motorcycle, and on my antique BMW F650, it’s not something I’m likely to find out. But I do know I never want to feel anything like Barry Sheene that day. Or any other.

I’d seen a kid at school who came off his bike at something under 40mph, but as he was wearing one of those sleeveless tops with a strap over each shoulder, the kind of thing they made you wear at English schools for Games back in the days when the P.E. teacher would wander around the shower room to “make sure” everyone was washing. This kid had one big scab from his wrist to his shoulder for a couple of weeks. He’d given up gloves to keep cool.

My view back then was that the more I looked like Mad Max, the cooler I’d look, so I bought myself a leather jacket. The one I wanted was in a proper motorcycle dealer in Bath, just about affordable, padded with something at the shoulder and the elbow and bulked me up massively. It was also an unseemly shade of orange, which was probably why it was affordable. The other problem was all I had was a Yamaha FS1E. Seriously.

Instead, I got a jacket made for me by a chain-smoking hippy in a weird shop in Bath’s Walcot Nation. He got the leather from cutting up old jackets, handbags, or wherever he could find it for free, then lined the coat with an old wool blanket he’d probably dug out of a decommissioned Cold War bunker under Box Hill. I got full marks for recycling and alternative cred, but it was about as protective as the mini-skirts it was probably made from, and it stank of cigarettes for months until the wind blew the smell away.

When I got a 650 Triumph, I had to get something more becoming, so when I was on holiday and visited Truro market, I bought the Stranglers-style black leather jacket I’d always yearned for, for a massive £35. As Meatloaf used to tell us, it was long ago and far away. According to Google, that would be about £180 today, so it’s not so much better after all. When I got my Sportster, I got myself a Schott A2. Luckily, I never got to test either of these out seriously, but after that, I turned my Harley into a laser printer and a laptop to start a business that saw me around the world for 15 years or so, during which I didn’t have a bike and being dumb, gave away or sold all my kit, gloves, Ashman boots, Belstaff boots, open-face Bell 500, goggles, jackets, waxed cotton over-trousers, Rukka suit, the Schott, the lot.

Then, just before Christmas, Santa brought me a BMW 650. Before I rode it anywhere, I had to start from scratch, starting with a helmet. I drove up to Harleston on one of those crisp December days to find a shop full of bikes I didn’t even know the names of, where they totally ignored me, then on to a shed (always a sign of a better bike shop) full of guys my own age and more who tried very quietly but firmly to sell me a nice Triumph but didn’t have any helmets. When I got home, Best Beloved, who fondly recalled her tasselled leather jacket and Yamaha 650, took me to the nearest bike shop in Ipswich, marched me to the helmet racks and whipped out her bank card. She chose a flip-front helmet I’d never heard of. I tried it on in the shop, and the sales guy told me it was the right size. After talking me out of buying a Scott chain oiler, agreeing it would be ideal if I was riding Route 66 coast to coast but also pointing out quietly and firmly that, in fact, I wasn’t, she walked me to the till and then her car.

The biggest problem was my head. It’s huge. Seriously. It’s 63cm and 64 if I need a trip to the barber. I tried the shiny new, never-heard-of-the-maker polycarb (I know..) helmet on in my home office and couldn’t believe three things: How heavy it was. How much my head hurt. That the nice guy in the shop was lying when he’d told me the helmet was my size.

It clearly said 61cm on the label on the back of it, and yes, I most definitely had said 63 in the shop. Another Saturday, another trip to the store, and a full refund. I got a Bell online instead, with the Gold ACU sticker.

I’d forgotten, or rather never really knew, how fashion was now a massive part of motorcycles. This is good because it means old stock is Out Of Fashion, and the seller still has to sell it, so there’s a whole load of good stuff being sold off cheap because Oh-mi-Gard it’s last season’s gear.

The same day we went to the bike shop in Ipswich I answered an ad on Gumtree that promised leather jeans for £30. After a tour of the town’s lesser architectural gems southeast of the railway station we found the house and the guy who said he was giving up riding motorcycles. Whether or not that was true, £30 bought a fantastic pair of leather bike jeans, padded at the knee. Ok, they zip from the wrong side and possibly, just possibly the cut makes them fit slightly like jodhpurs, more as if I was going to co-pilot Amy Johnson than ride a motorcycle, but hey. £30. A significant upgrade on Levi’s for protection anyway, and I’m too embarrassed to say when I remember Levi’s were £30 anyway.

The brand new Halversen gloves donated to a charity shop on Ebay were better than the ones I used to ride with, despite the Mad Max-style knuckle dusters that seem to be a legal requirement for riding gloves these days. The Bering jacket was the best thing though. I was intending to use my old leather jacket. Not the Schott that went to Ebay about five years back but the one I bought one Christmas in Fuengirola about 20 years back when it wouldn’t stop raining. After waxing it, soaking it in neatsfoot oil, daubing it with cocoa-butter and generally stinking my office up I realised that I might as well just buy something with armour and have done with it.

The Bering was a ludicrous £89, and that’s from a man who still thinks £4.95 is a benchmark price for pheasant pie, chips and peas, which I used to get for quiet evenings on my own in Stow-On-The-Wold back when I had a 400-year old house there. It’s got armour in the elbows and the shoulders, and a slot to stuff more armour down the back. It’s blue instead of leather coloured, with a twin zip up the front and a zip across the shoulders at the back, so that in summer you can ventilate yourself on the three weeks it ever gets above 80 Fahrenheit in the U.K. It’s made of 600 denier Cordura with a woven aluminium zip-in full lining for winter, and a handy strap and a brass buckle at the throat. More to the point, despite all the protection and windproofing, it doesn’t make me look like I’m auditioning for a Mad Max film. Best Beloved, who sews for a living, took one look at it and said “That’s a £300 jacket.”

Now, maybe it’s me, but if I’m spending £300 on a jacket I’m only going to wear in one eventuality, on the back of a motorcycle or anywhere else, then I want it to look pretty special. Some lizard skin detailing, maybe, or a paisley lining. Instead I get armour and fine-spun aluminium. When I started riding the biggest deal in protective clothing was whether you could find white sea-boot socks to turn down over the top of your knee-length zip-up boots, the ones where the only armour insert was a steel plate in the right instep, for the kick-starter.

The older I get the more I realise that saying is true: the past is another country. They do things differently there. And just sometimes, at least when it comes to motorcycle clothing, they do some things a whole lot better here.

Carl, thanks much. It’s a good writeup, I enjoyed reading it, and I think our readers will, too. ExNotes readers, if you’d like to follow Carl’s blog, the link is writer-insighter.com.

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Paul’s New .40 Caliber Flintlock

By Joe Berk

Good buddy Paul recently told me about a custom crafted flintlock rifle he bought from rifle maker Tom Caster at a steep discount because the stock had been broken. A stock break sounds like a major defect, but actually it is not that uncommon and repairing the broken stock, if done correctly, makes the stock stronger than new. Paul is a serious black powder shooter and he builds custom rifles, so he knows what he is doing here. Both Paul and Tom gave me permission to share this story.

Here’s what Paul wrote to me about this rifle:

When I first saw it I had the same reaction as you. It ticked off all my boxes for a rifle of this style and caliber as I did not have a .40 caliber muzzle loading rifle. They are supposedly an accurate target rifle. He sent me a target that he shot at 25 yards and seven of the ten shots were around a 2-1/2″ cluster which is not bad for the first time the rifle was shot.

I asked Paul about the accuracy. Here’s what he said:

That flintlock target is good for the first outing of the rifle. From there you will test out different powder amounts, different patch thickness and ball diameters if you want better groupings. The .40 caliber is mostly a 50-to-75-yard gun so you would be hunting squirrels or small game up to small deer. A lot of states only allow .45 caliber and bigger for deer hunting, so the .40 caliber is used for varmints and target work.

Here’s the story on this rifle from Tom Caster:

I finished up this pretty little .40 cal Armstrong rifle last week and was putting a coat of wax on the stock when it slipped off my table and broke in two at the wrist!

Scrapping was never really considered (too much work into it) because I have always been about fixing things that happen on the job or in the shop. It was a pretty clean break, so I set it up in my two vices and glued it back together with Tite-Bond II. After that set up, I drilled a 3/8″ hole from the breech down thru the wrist 8″ deep and glued in a 3/8″ hickory RR in place. After drilling out the holes in the rod for lock screws and the sear area, I sealed the inside up with epoxy.

The crack barely shows now but it is there when you look close. The stock should be fine to use now.

Some guys would use a steel threaded rod instead of wood dowel, but I didn’t want to add any more weight to a 7.6 lb. rifle.

I plan to sell it after the first of the year at a discounted price if anyone is interested.

After another inquiry about the rifle, Tom added the following:

As far as the wood choice goes, I purchased this “in the white” from the estate of my old friend Fred Schelter. He purchased the Getz barrel and had Fred Miller (I believe) inlet it and pre-shape the stock in 2000-2001. Whether it was his wood or Miller’s, I don’t know. He had two Armstrong stocks done this way at the same time, one was a .50 cal (sold) and this .40 cal, rifle. Fred S. did the carving and inlay of the patchbox, butt, toe plate, nose cap, and trigger and guard. He had made the forend escutcheons for the barrel keys but didn’t inlay them.

Both stocks were inletted and drilled for a large Dlx. Siler Flintlock, but only one lock existed and it was curiously interchangeable. So I had to buy a second lock to complete this one. I fashioned a new trigger for a lighter pull and made a patchbox release, side plate and sights. Then I did the engraving and finish work.

…so, now you know…the rest of the story!

Tom Caster

In his email to me, Paul included several photos from Tom. As the photos show, the detail and workmanship on this rifle are stunning. Take a look:

It will be interesting to see if Paul shoots this one. I’m going to visit with him again (hopefully in the not too distant future) for a trip to the range. I’ve never fired my Colt Walker (it is a black powder revolver) and I know very little about shooting these weapons. Paul knows a lot, and I hope to get educated.

As I mentioned at the start of this blog, repaired stocks are not that big a deal. I had an experience where a seller did a poor job packaging a Ruger No. 3 he sent to me. I had the repair accomplished and the stock refinished by a competent shop, the rifle looks better than new, and it is now one of my favorites. It is exceptionally accurate, too. You can read that story here.

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Caught in the Snow

By Joe Berk

A few weeks ago I posted a blog about riding in the rain. With all the snow blanketing parts of the US this winter, I thought it fitting that I post a blog about getting caught in the snow. I’ve ridden in the snow four times and none of them were fun.

Crater Lake

On this ride, my buddy Marty and I were on our way home from Calgary to California after completing the 2005 Three Flags Classic rally. Marty was far more worldly than me and he knew all the good spots to stop. One was Crater Lake in Oregon. We rode in from the Oregon coast where the temperatures were cool but not unbearably so. We pointed our front wheels east and rode to Crater Lake. It was a brutally cold ride, and it grew even colder the further we climbed into the mountains.

We had an interesting encounter with a herd of elk on the way to Crater Lake. We had been seeing road signs warning of elk, but we hadn’t seen any until that day. A monstrous bull stepped out in front of my Triumph Daytona from the forest on the right side of the road. He stood broadside 50 yards in front of me, and he looked directly at me as if to say, “What’s your problem?” If he was attempting to intimidate me, it worked.

I stopped and Marty stopped on his BMW K1200RS behind me. My visor started to fog from my breath. It was just the three of us on that cold, cold morning: Me, Marty, and the Big Bull Elk. After what seemed like several minutes (during which I wondered how quickly I could execute a u-turn and accelerate away from those immense antlers), the elk turned his head and lazily sauntered across the road into the forest on the other side. Yeah, you’re bad, I thought.

I started to let out the clutch and moved forward a tiny bit when two more elk stepped out of the forest onto the highway. These were female elk following the alpha male who had successfully stared me down. So I pulled the clutch in again and waited. The ladies crossed the highway and I started to let the clutch out again. Then another lady elk appeared from the right. This went on for the next several minutes. Maybe as many as another 20 elk, all female, repeated the sequence, two or three at a time. I remember thinking the first one, that big bull, probably didn’t get much sleep with that harem to take care of. I wished I had grabbed a photo, but truth be told, I was too scared and shocked to react. I can still see it vividly in my mind, though.

The Daytona 1200 along Crater Lake in Oregon. A few miles earlier, we had a magical several minutes with a herd of elk.

After the elk episode, we continued our climb up to Crater Lake. The sun was getting higher, but we were climbing and instead of warming the temperatures continued to drop. There were bits of snow on both sides of the road, but the road was dry and we were doing okay. I used a Gerber electric vest in those days. It was a godsend.

Another view of Crater Lake. Note the snow in the foreground.

Crater Lake was interesting. I took a bunch of photos and checked that destination off my bucket list. Incidentally, on that trip I was still shooting with film. I had the N70 Nikon I blogged about earlier.

After taking in Crater Lake, Marty and I started our ride down off the mountain. The ride down was on the western side of the mountain, and the road was in the late morning shade. That section of the road had not warmed up. The snow was still there in two different forms…hard pack white snow in some places, and black ice where the snow had melted and frozen over. It was the first time I had ever ridden in such conditions on a big road bike, and I quickly realized my Daytona 1200 was way different than the Honda Super 90 I rode in the snow when I was a kid in New Jersey. Piloting that Triumph down off the mountain was an extremely demanding and mentally-draining 15-mph riding experience requiring intense concentration.

Fortunately, I remember thinking, Marty and I were the only two guys out there and I didn’t have to worry about anyone else on the road. Marty was in front and we both were taking things very easy. Then in my left peripheral vision I sensed a yellow vehicle starting to pass me. I was pissed and confused. Who the hell else is out here, I thought. Can’t they see I’m on a motorcycle, I’m on ice, and why the hell are they passing me?

Then I realized who it was. What I saw in my peripheral vision wasn’t another vehicle. It was my motorcycle in the rear view mirror. The big Triumph was sliding sideways. The yellow I had picked up peripherally was my rear tail light cowling. Damn, that was exciting! (And terrifying.)

Marty and I made it down off that mountain, but it was a religious experience for both of us.

The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup

This was a ride coming h0me from the Annual Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas (I wrote about the Roundup before and you can read that story here). We spent a half day at the Rattlesnake Roundup, another hour or so at the gun show in the hall next to the Rattlesnake Roundup, and then had a late afternoon departure headed home. The first portion of that ride was okay, but as the sun set the temperature dropped big time and the wind across Interstate 10 kicked up dramatically. We crossed into New Mexico and the wind was blowing so hard it felt like the bikes were leaned over 30 degrees just to keep going straight.

We pulled off the highway in Lordsburg, New Mexico, around 10:00 p.m. and stopped at the first hotel we saw. It was one of those small old Route 66 type motels (you know the type…a cheap single-story structure still advertising they had color TV). One of us (I can’t remember if it was Marty or me) decided we wanted to look for something nicer. We continued on into town and found a nicer hotel, but the desk clerk told us they had no rooms left. “With this wind, every trucker is off the run and in a hotel,” he said. The next town was 50 miles further down the road. I looked at Marty, he looked at me, and I made the case for doubling back to the Route 66 special.

We entered the lobby and two other people looking for a room followed us in. We were lucky. We nailed the last room in Lordsburg (which, I know, sounds like the title of a bad country western song). The folks behind us were out of luck. I have no idea what they did.

Most of the snow was gone after we returned from breakfast.

When we woke up the next morning, the bikes were covered in snow. There was no way we were going to ride in that, so we walked across the parking lot to a diner and had a leisurely breakfast. By 10:00 a.m. there was still snow on the ground, but the roads were slushy (not icy) and we could ride. When we were back on Interstate 10 the slush had disappeared and the road was dry. It was cold. I again enjoyed my Gerber vest. We made it back to southern California late that night. It was pouring rain (that’s the bad news), but it wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been and there was no snow (and that’s the good news).

The Angeles Crest Highway

I met my buddy Bryan at a water treatment company. Someday I’ll write a story about that company and the guy who started it. He was a crook (the company founder, not Bryan) and I’m not exaggerating just because I didn’t like the guy. He actually was a crook who was later charged with financial fraud and convicted. I know, I’m digressing again. Back to Bryan, me, motorcycles, and riding in the snow.

Good buddy Bryan and his VFR at warmer times in warmer climes.

Bryan was fascinated by my motorcycles (I owned four or five at the time), and within a few weeks he had purchased a Honda VFR. That VFR was a nice motorcycle (one I never owned but always wanted), and Bryan and I started doing a lot of rides together. We both live in southern California at an elevation of around 1700 feet above sea level, and it is rare to see snow here. I think in the 40+ years I’ve been in So Cal I’ve seen snow twice at my home, and it both cases it didn’t stick.

Bryan and I often rode the Angeles Crest Highway. We would take the 210 freeway to Glendale to pick it up, ride over the mountains on the Crest (the Angeles Crest Highway), stop for gas and sometimes a meal in Wrightwood on the other side of the San Gabriels, and then head home through the Cajon Pass on Interstate 15. It’s one of the best rides in the country.

A typical weekend parking lot scene at Newcomb’s on the ACH. Those were glorious days.

One day in the winter months, it was comfortable So Cal winter weather when Bryan and I decided to ride the ACH, but in the opposite direction. We rode up the 15 to the 138, we rolled through Wrightwood, and then we picked up the Crest heading over the mountains to Glendale. It got cold fast, and by the time we were on the Crest it was brutal. Then it started to snow. It didn’t seem that bad at first and we pushed on. I was on my Daytona 1200 again, and I could feel the bike moving around beneath me. I’d already ridden the Daytona on icy roads in Oregon (see above), so I thought I’d be okay. But this was worse. I could feel the big Daytona sashaying around like an exotic dancer in a room full of big tippers.

Bryan and I stopped. “Think we should turn around?” one or the other of us asked. “Nah, it probably won’t get worse and it’s shorter to keep going than it would be to turn around,” one or the other of us answered. We had that same conversation telepathically three or four more times. The weather was worsening and we hadn’t seen another vehicle on the road since we started. No motorcycles and no cars. It was just us.

Finally, we made it to Newcomb’s, a legendary Angeles Crest roadhouse that is no more (a pity, really…you’d see all kinds of moto exotica and sometimes Jay Leno up there on the weekends). We stopped for a cup of coffee and a bowl of chili. The parking lot was empty, but the place was open. The bartender was shocked when we entered. “How did you get up here?” he asked.

“We rode,” one or the other of us said.

“How did you do that? The road’s been closed because of the snow and ice.”

Well, what do you know? We had our coffee and chili and we warmed up. When it was time to leave, we kept going toward Glendale. No sense going back, we thought. We already knew the Crest behind us was bad. But we soon learned the road ahead wasn’t any better. It was a white knuckle, 15mph ride all the way down, and man, was it ever cold. But it made for a hell of story. I’ve ridden the ACH many, many times…but only once on snow and ice when the road was closed.

The “Build Character” Ride

In my opinion (and I’m the guy writing this blog, so it’s the one that counts) riding in the snow and ice is dumb raised to an exponent. If you’re already on a trip and you get caught in it, it’s sort of understandable. Making a decision to intentionally ride into the snow, though (at least to me), is a really dumb move. But yeah, I did it. Once. Peer pressure is a bitch, let me tell you.

The story goes like this: A bunch of us guys used to meet every Saturday morning at the local BMW dealer to listen to and tell tall tales (said tall tales usually involving motorcycles, women, or both). We did a lot of rides together, this group did. Baja. The American Southwest. The Three Flags Classic. Weekend rides up the Pacific Coast Highway to Pismo Beach for a barbeque dinner in nearby Nipomo at Jocko’s. And more. We were not spring chickens, either. I was in my late 50s and I was the youngest guy in the group. Most of the other guys were real deal geezers in their 70s. One guy was in his 80s.

Geezer riding buddies in the Jocko’s parking lot after coming down out of the mountains. Trust me on this: None of these guys needed to build any more character.

One day at one of our Saturday gatherings one of the guys had this brilliant idea that instead of simply getting caught in the rain, it would be a grand idea to start a two-or-three day ride in the rain when rain would be forecast for the entire ride. You know, a tough guy ride into bad weather. We would do the two-day run up to Pismo, through the mountains and along the coast, and do it on a weekend when it would rain all weekend. “It will build character,” said the geezer whose idea this was. Mom had warned me about guys like that. I should have listened.

Everybody was in. Like I said, peer pressure is a bitch. I had ridden plenty in the rain, and if you are properly attired, it’s not that bad. But snow and ice? Nope, that’s positively not for me. That’s what happened on this ride. Remember I said along the coast and in the mountains? Well, it was that mountain part that did us in. It was in the winter, we were at higher elevations, and sonuvabitch, all of a sudden that rain wasn’t rain any more. It was snow. The roads never froze over, but it was plenty slushy.

Somewhere along our descent, the snow reverted to plain old rain again, and we made it to Pismo without anyone dropping their bike. I noticed on the way home, though, we rode the coast (where it was modestly warmer) all the way back. I guess each of us felt we had built enough character to have banked a sufficient amount.

There you have it…my thoughts on riding in the snow. The bottom line from my perspective is that motorcycles and snow don’t mix. Your mileage may vary. If you think otherwise, let us know.

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