Gear – Page 22 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Death Valley 2008: My first visit

A Trip To Death Valley!

Brown Motor Works in Pomona, California, hosted a chili cookoff in March 2008, which was immediately followed by a weekend trip to Death Valley. At the time, I’d been a California boy for 30 years, but I’d never been to Death Valley. I always wanted to go. And, I love chili. Free chili…lots of photo ops…good weather…and a motorcycle ride to a place I’d never been before. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. It was a ride I had to make.

Kawasaki’s KLR 650

I had purchased a 2006 KLR 650 a year or two earlier from my good buddy Art at the Montclair Kawasaki dealer, and something strange happened: I found I was enjoying the little KLR more than the other big roadburners I owned. At that time, I had gone way overboard in acquiring motorcycles. I had a TL1000S Suzuki, a Harley Softail, a Honda CBX, a Triumph Daytona 1200, and a Triumph Tiger 955 (and I think I owned them all at the same time). There was something about the KLR, though, that I liked, and I found myself riding it more often than not. All the guys I rode with either had BMWs, Harleys, or Triumphs, and my KLR was the smallbore of the bunch. I didn’t care. I liked riding it. To my surprise, I found that riding a smaller bike was more fun.

A lone KLR in a sea of BMWs. Nearly all of my friends rode BMW motorcycles in those days. I had a lot of fun with my KLR.

The Chili Cookoff

Good buddy Dennis, shown here immediately after taking top honors in the chili-eating contest. Dennis is an Iron Butt rider and he rides a BMW. The rules were different than what I expected. You weren’t allowed to lift the bowl off the table, so the serious competitors simply dove in. BMW riders are a particularly sophisticated bunch.

On To Mojave

The guys at Brown Motor Works planned to leave at the end of the day, but I didn’t want to hang around until then. Immediately after grabbing a few photos from the chili contest, I was on the KLR headed east and then north into the Mojave Desert.

I took my KLR and found my way along Old Route 66 into the Mojave Desert.

I took I-40 over to Kelbaker Road and then headed into the Mojave National Preserve. The group planned to meet in Baker, and I figured if I timed it right I would get there right about nightfall.

I grabbed this photo along the Kelbaker Road. I didn’t know too much about motorcycle photography. This is the shot magazine editors always hate…the motorcycle by the side of the road.

Baker and The Mad Greek

Baker is a wide spot in the road along the I-15, and it’s a jumping off point for Death Valley. It is a funky place with a couple of poorly-maintained and overpriced gas stations, the world’s tallest thermometer, and a cool restaurant called The Mad Greek. The Mad Greek is a place that seems to always show up in any movie about a road trip to Vegas. I have yet to find a Greek in the place, but the food is good and the staff is friendly.

We had dinner at the Mad Greek in Baker along the I-15. We spent the night in Baker, and then had breakfast at the Mad Greek the next morning, too.

Into the Valley of Death

After a breakfast at the Mad Greek the next morning, we road north toward Death Valley. There’s nothing out there but great roads and the Mojave for the 80 miles or so to the park entrance, and the Beemer boys were riding at speeds well in excess of 100 mph so I couldn’t keep up. The KLR might see 100 on a really good day, but I didn’t care. I wanted to stop, smell the roses, and get good photos. Riding by myself didn’t bother me at all. I preferred it.

My reaction was simple upon entering Death Valley: Wow! It was what I hoped it would be.

Artist’s Palette

One of the cool spots to stop in Death Valley is a hilly area called Artist’s Palette. Each hill has a different dominant mineral (and a different color), and the result is something that looks like an artist’s palette. It’s a very cool thing to see.

My friend Joseph and his Triumph Sprint.

High Prices and Photo Ops

Death Valley’s claim to fame is that it’s one of the lowest spots on the planet. It’s also in one of the more remote places on the planet, which meant that fuel costs were unusually high. All made for interesting photos.

This was a gas station in Furnace Creek. At the time (this was in 2008), the gasoline prices here were the highest I had ever seen.

An obligatory shot along the road in Death Valley.

Wildrose Road and the Charcoal Kilns

My friend Bob told me about Wildrose Road, a road that cut through some canyons on the way out of Death Valley.

It was a great ride. While I was on Wildrose Road, I saw signs for the Charcoal Kilns, so I took a short detour. On the way up to the Charcoal Kilns, I stopped to take the picture above. A guy and his wife were coming from the other direction and he asked if I wanted a picture of me with my KLR. Death Valley was cold. I had on every piece of clothing I brought with me.

The Charcoal kilns. These were built in the 1870s. They are 25 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter.

Wildrose Road. You could probably get through it on any motorcycle, but I was glad I had the KLR. Bob was right…Wildrose Road was a great ride.

The Gear

I had a Nikon D200 digital camera when I did this trip and the first-generation Nikon 24-120 lens with a polarizer, and it did a good job for me. I think it was a 10 megapixel deal and that seemed like a lot in those days. I kept the D200 for a long time and I had a lot of fun with it. I used it for all of the photos you see here. It was big and bulky, and as I recall, it took all of the space in one of the Kawasaki saddlebags I used with my KLR. It was only a weekend trip, and the other saddlebag was enough for my other stuff. I like to travel light and the arrangement worked fine for me.

Death Valley: The Bottom Line

If you’ve ever thought about taking a ride to Death Valley, do it. Take a camera, too. Trust me on this: You won’t be disappointed. As a rider and a photography enthusiast, I had a great time. The KLR 650 was more than enough motorcycle, I felt it was a good bike for a trip like this, and I concluded that Death Valley is doable on just about any motorcycle (especially if you mostly stick to Death Valley’s paved roads, as I did). The photo ops in Death Valley are stunning. If you live in southern California, it’s an easy weekend trip.

One day was not enough, though. There was a lot of Death Valley left to see, and I knew I’d be back.

There’s more coming on Death Valley and a bunch of other great rides. Sign up here and never miss an Exhaust Notes blog!

An elevated pucker factor…

We ducked into a candy store in Sonora while exploring a very wet Highway 49, and I thought of you, Fred. The YooHoo review is in the queue, my friend.

It was not intended to be an inclement weather Subie road test, but that’s what our Bay Area/Yosemite/Tahoe/Bishop trek has become. Talk about weather…wow! It’s either been rain or snow with only one day of sunshine, but it was sunshine below freezing at high altitudes on Highway 88 into Lake Tahoe. The rules said I was supposed to have tire chains or 4WD with snow tires, but hell, I’ve never been too good with rules. I’m talking slick roads with walls of snow taller than the top of my Subie Outback. We rode the ice nearly all the way. It was grand fun, and the Subaru hasn’t missed a beat. Chains? We don’t need no stinking chains!

We only ventured about 10 miles into Yosemite when discretion won out over valor. The visibility was low and the snow was high, so we called it a day and turned around. We stayed in Groveland at a grand old hotel and had dinner in the oldest bar in California (the Iron Door Grill). It used to be a sporting palace back in the day (I asked, but all the sports ladies had long since retired). The Gold Rush Highway the next day was grand even in the rain, but the ride up to Lake Tahoe was a bit on the scary side. And then the ride down the Kingsbury Grade from Tahoe down to Highway 395 was just flat terrifying…it was 20 miles per hour all the way down in a heavy snowfall. The 395 was daunting, too, with most of it in the snow. But hey, we’re here in Bishop, we’re warm, and we’re ready to continue in the morning.

Tomorrow it’s Death Valley and then home. The weather is supposed to be nice and that almost seems like a letdown after what we’ve driven through. The Subie is a star in the snow and we’re loving it.

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Movie Review: The Irishman

A swing and a miss is the way I’d describe it. Formulaic. I know what the Italian quattro (Scorcese, Pacino, DeNiro, and Pesci) were thinking: Hey, it worked before; maybe it will work again. The mob. The Kennedys and Castro. DeNiro as an Irish hit man. Hoffa. Music from the 1950s. Voiced-in explanations from the main characters giving the lowdown on each mob dude. Over-restored ‘50s and ‘60s cars. Let’s throw it all against the silver screen for 3½ hours and maybe something will stick (yeah, you read that right: 3½ hours). I know what they were thinking: Goodfellas, The Godfather (and all of its Roman-numeraled follow-ons), and Casino. Yeah, it worked before, so maybe it will work again. Except it doesn’t. Those earlier mob flicks were great. The Irishman is not.

Guys, at some point you have to realize there’s not any milk left in the cow. Even with your digital filtering to make old guys look young, all you gave us were weird, slitty-eyed visions of a younger DeNiro with the body and gait of a senior citizen (where’s Fredo when you need him?). And Pacino playing Hoffa? Another swing and a miss (you should have let the ump call a strike). Jack Nicholson will forever be Jimmy Hoffa; Pacino just wasn’t believable in this role. If you can see it, then hey, I’m the Pope. Al, go back to threatening Mr. Trump. You’re not believable in that role, either, but you apparently know what they say about bad publicity.

Save your money, folks, and hang on to that 3½ hours of your life I’ll never get back. The Irishman is one that should sleep with the fish.

Product Review: iPhone 11 Pro

I’ve been a Mac fanboy since I bought my first Mac laptop computer. Coming from the industry standard PC/Windows environment the Mac was a revelation in simplicity. I had no routine tasks to perform, no re-stacking those little blocks, no blue screen freeze ups, no re-booting, no unplugging the power, no internet viruses and the thing worked for 10 years before it was too slow and space-limited to run a film editing program. My old Mac still works fine but it’s been softwared into obsolescence. Once I got the hang of never needing to do anything and learned the Mac Way of doing tasks I never looked back.

Mac users used to laugh about the bloatware that came standard with each new iteration of Windows. PC users had to upgrade their computers to fit all the useless junk that Microsoft stuffed into their multi-level marketing system masquerading as an operating system. Macs were clean machines: If you wanted extra programs you went out and got them.

With Apple fandom comes an Apple phone and I’ve had the 3, 4 and 6 models. For the most part the phones have been okay. The 6 I’ve been using for a long time was getting glitchy. I suspect the glitches are pre-programmed into the phone to drive sales of newer phones. The thing needed re-booting everyday. It was almost like Windows software had infected the thing. Web sites stopped displaying properly and the newer iPhone software versions (free!) were not compatible with the old 6. My wife decided that I needed a new phone and with Black Friday deals flying around on the Internet she secured a new phone at somewhat of a good price.

The biggest reason for choosing the 11 Pro over the other iPhone models is the camera. Or cameras. There are 3 separate focal length lenses built into the back of the phone: A super wide 13mm, a wide 26mm and a standard 52mm (all view angles 35mm equivalent). Note: These ranges are optical so you are not just zooming into an ever-decreasing pool of data. I don’t know if the three lenses share a sensor or if each lens has its own sensor. If you do digitally zoom there are a lot of pixels. I don’t know how many. You can look that stuff up online. Anyway, I don’t care about file sizes as long as they don’t get too big.

The new 11 Pro is supposed to be water resistant. I’m not going to test it out but that is a big improvement for motorcycle riders. No more digging around for a plastic grocery bag or a ziplock when it starts to rain.

Once you get past the great camera and the improved water resistance Apple has become Microsoft. This phone is full of bloatware and programs that I will never use. It’s the most intrusive thing you can buy. Everything you do or say is tracked. I spend my free time looking for ways to shut the junk off. If it’s not facial recognition it’s Siri butting onto the screen trying her best to seem relevant. The overly sensitive touch screen keeps taking me places I don’t want to go. Maybe there is a way to deaden the touch response.

The home button is gone so you have to tap out, but that motion sometimes takes you to another screen. I’ve yet to figure out how to stop the first open-screen from displaying my messages. Anyone can pick up my phone, tap the screen and see my latest communications. The home screen is two pages of junk I will never use. Maybe I’m not typical.

Everything seems to take an extra step or two. To screen shot I have to choose where to save the image; with the old 6 it went to photos automatically. The button functions are relocated for no good reason. I’m sure there is a way to work around this stuff. The thing is, I shouldn’t have to opt out of all this junk. I shouldn’t have to search through the extensive menu layout to find intrusive software and shut it off. I couldn’t even activate the phone without signing into iTunes. Apple isn’t selling you a phone any more; it’s selling a tracking device for advertisers. They should pay me to carry the thing. If someone invented a lead-lined, soundproof pouch to slip your iPhone into when you want to be alone they could make billions. Maybe print happy pictures of cats on the dead-zone pouch and call the thing “Garbo.”

“The best camera is the one you have with you.” It’s an old photographer’s cliché but so true. Get the iPhone 11 pro for the cameras. There is no other reason to subject yourself to the bloatware. And the cameras are enough reason for me to put up with Apple’s nosy corporate attitude. With this phone I’ll be able to rely even less on a real camera when I travel on a motorcycle. I’ve just got to watch what I say around the thing.

Gear’d Hardware ZX2 Features

This puppy rocks! A 40-year-old Model 659 S&W that I picked up for a song!

I’ve been wearing my Gear’d Hardware ZX2 watch for a few weeks now and I’m enjoying it. The watch has stood up well after being subjected to lots of miles on the motorcycle and repeated poundings from the recoil of my .45 Compact, my custom Colt 1911 bright stainless, a .30 06 M1 Garand, a Marlin 336 Texan, a Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby Magnum (finally got that one back from Ruger), and about a thousand rounds of hot 9mm ammo through a new-to-me Model 659 Smith and Wesson. I’ll have stories on each of these here on the blog in the near future, but I digress. In this blog, I want to give an update on the Gear’d Hardware watch and its features.

For starters, the Gear’d timepiece includes both digital and analog displays, which you can see in the photo below. The analog display is consists of standard analog watch hour, minute, and second hands. The digital display shows the date (day and month), the day, and the time in hours, minutes, and seconds.

The ZX2’s hands display the time in analog fashion, while the LCDs display the time digitally. You can set the digital time to use a 12-hour or 24-hour clock.

When you press the upper left button, the digital display illuminates. It’s bright enough to see easily in the dark, but not so bright that it lights up the entire area. That’s cool, because I remember from my Army days that some watches can actually reveal your position if you light them up at night. This is just right, in my opinion.

Pressing the upper left button illuminates the digital display.

There’s a mode button on the watch’s lower left, and that steps you through the stopwatch, the alarm, and the time setting functions.

The Gear’d’s stopwatch mode. The time starts and stops with the upper right button, and resets with the lower right button.

The alarm mode. You can set the watch to start beeping at a time you select.

One thing I noticed on the Gear’d watch is that you can set two different time zones, one on the analog display and another on the digital display. This in effect makes the Gear’d watch a GMT watch (at least by my definition of a GMT watch). I didn’t realize that at first and it’s not mentioned in the Gear’d literature, but it’s a powerful feature. I travel a lot internationally, and it’s important to me that I know what time it is where I am as well as the time back in the United States. I don’t want to call a client in the middle of the day when I’m in China and wake them up at 2:00 in the morning back in the world. In fact, about the only kind of new watch I’ll buy these days is a GMT watch (that’s how important that GMT feature is to me).

Just to make the point, I set two different time zones on my Gear’d watch. In this case, the analog time displays 2:06, and the digital time displays 15:06. Being able to show two different time zones is a cool feature.

My Gear’d watch is running just fine, and it’s keeping what appears to be perfect time. It hasn’t gained or lost anything since I first set it. And it just soaks up the abuse I’ve been throwing at it. I like this watch a lot.

That’s it for today. I’m headed to the range. As always, more to follow, and you’ll see it right here on the ExNotes blog. Stay tuned.

Shovel Ready

The Kubota tractor is a little too large for Tinfiny’s expansive back yard. Long and narrow, the yard requires a multi point turn to get the tractor aimed in the correct direction for filling the side yard. Once there, it’s another 20-point turn to get the bucket dumped where I need it.

I was using the flat point shovel to load droppings into the wheel-buggy. It’s not hard digging and it’s actually faster than maneuvering the machine. I lean the shovel on the tractor between loads.

After the buggy is full I can wheel it to the side yard and place the dirt right where it needs to go. It’s a slow process but I’m at that stage in life, the hobbling stage, where I just enjoy being able to move.

The pile at the end of the yard was getting low and I needed to scrape another few inches off the back yard. I’m trying to slope the yard away from the house.

The Kubota runs great (thanks Hunter!) and as I pulled forward I heard a gunshot. The shovel. The thing was and busted in two pieces. Heavy equipment is called that for a reason. I never felt a thing.

Internet searches turned up shovel handles for $13 to $15 dollars. The big rivet that holds the shovel head in was another couple bucks. I went to the local Home Depot and they had a new shovel for $10. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out the situation and I’d have to be really attached to a particular shovel head to pay more for the honor of fixing it. Maybe a shovel handed down for generations or something.

They wear out, you know. Shovel heads get ground away in use. The center part eats away leaving the sides protruding. I guess what I’m trying to say is, in life, don’t lean your shovel on the tractor.

Gear’d Hardware ZX1 Watch

Gear’d Hardware sent ExhaustNotes.us a couple of their watches to review. Like guns, I’m not really into watches. I mean, if they keep time and have old-fashioned hour/minute hands I’m good. I told Berk that I’d review the watch and send it back to him since I already have two watches and didn’t need another one cluttering up my junk drawer.

Now that I’ve opened the Gear’d Hardware box, though, Berk is not getting this thing back. The ZX1 is huge and heavy. The numbers are gigantic. I can see the damn thing without having to hold my arm inches from my face. It’s a really nice piece of gear.

The watchband is a metal link type and it comes adjusted for George Foreman’s wrist size. I have skinny little wrists; I’m surprised I haven’t managed to break one or both of them yet so I’ll have to adjust the thing. There are two options that I can see: Reset the pins on the flip-close buckle or remove one link from the band. I’m going to take the thing up to the shed and sort it out today. I prefer a leather, belt, buckle-type watchband but the link band looks nice so I’ll keep it on there unless it starts grabbing my arm hair.

The ZX1 is easy to tell time on. The time is set by pulling out the big red, knurled aluminum knob. I love the hell out of that friggin’ knob. There’s no mincing around with tiny crap on this monster. There are four, small, blackish LCD displays for day-date, stopwatch function, 24-hour clock and alarm. Those are visible from some angles and just black dots from other angles. As you tilt the watch the reflection angle changes and the numbers will pop out making them easy to see. There is another button that energizes a cold, blue light on the LCDs. The four LCDs are actually easier to see at night than in the daytime. I’ll need to read the manual to learn how to reset all the digital stuff. Or maybe I’ll just ignore it.

There are four buttons besides that red knob, one for the light, a couple for the stopwatch and I don’t know what the other is for. The back side of the watch has more information: 3 atmosphere water resistant which is about 100 feet deep by my math, movement made in Japan, stainless steel case and sapphire glass. It’s all good stuff. Battery access is via a snap-type cover, there are a couple slits for inserting a pry bar to open the thing. I have a watch with a screw back that jewelers cannot open for some reason so I bought a watch vise and the adjustable watch wrench to do it myself. The snap off back will be a new experience for me.

The corporate attitude of Gear’d Hardware seems to be, “We are not messing around. We make a big ass watch that’s built like a tank.” I’m going to be testing the ZX1’s tank-like abilities in the next few weeks. There’s concrete that needs pouring and I’m not stopping to baby this watch.

Motorcycle Travel Photo Gear

Photography is a big part of a motorcycle trip for me. I’ve been riding motorcycles on long rides for a long time, and capturing the memories adds immensely to the enjoyment. I relive and remember each of my adventures though the photos. The photo quality standards for online stuff are not that high (it’s all 72 dpi and small photos); the requirements for print publication are significantly more stringent (that’s all 300 dpi and big picture stuff). The gear I carry meets both standards well. From time to time people ask me about the camera gear I use on my motorcycle adventures, so I thought I would take a few minutes to describe the toys I bring along.

Motorcycle Travel Photography Gear

Here’s the photo gear I bring on a motorcycle trip:

Nikon D3300 digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera.
Nikon 18-55mm VR general duty lens.
Nikon 70-300mm VR telephoto lens.
Tokina 12-24mm wide angle lens.
Circular polarizers for all of the above lenses.
Extra camera battery.
Battery charger.
Extra SD card.
Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag.

I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s really not that much, it gives great capability on the road, and it all fits into my CSC RX3 motorcycle’s topcase.

My camera gear, including the Nikon D3300 DSLR, the 18-55mm lens (mounted on the camera in this photo), the 12-24mm Tokina wide-angle lens, the 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens, and polarizers for all three lenses. It all fits in the Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag.

I’m a Nikon guy, but any of the current crop of DSLR cameras has capabilities way beyond the abilities of most photographers (including me). Gresh prefers Canon. Here’s your shovel, take you pick. Six to one, half a dozen to the other. All the manufacturers offer good cameras. My D3300 is a 24-megapixel camera, which means I can crop the photo significantly and still have sufficient resolution. It’s a good size for a digital image.

DSLR Advantages

I use a DSLR camera because when I press the shutter button, I want the shutter to trip instantly. The point-and-shoot cameras usually have ½-second or so lag after depressing the shutter button, and that’s unnerving if you’re shooting anything other than landscapes. Maybe the technology has advanced to where that’s no longer a point-and-shoot issue, but I’ll still stick with my DSLR because a DSLR gives me creative control. I usually shoot in the Program Mode, but if I’m not happy with that, or I want greater depth of field, I can make the camera do pretty much anything I want it to.

One of the things that is so appealing to me about the D3300 is its light weight. I often ride with the camera hanging from my neck so I can snap shots from the saddle while on the move, and the D3300’s light weight makes this easy. Several of the photographs I’ve had published were taken while I was riding the motorcycle. It’s way better than the standard motorcycle-parked-by-the-side-of-the-road stuff you see most of the time. I think shots from the saddle bring readers into the ride. One thought I want to interject about this shooting-from-the-saddle business: When I take photos while riding my motorcycle, I never use the camera’s viewfinder or rear LCD screen. Trying to look at the camera (or worse, trying to look through the viewfinder) while riding is dangerous and I don’t do it. I use the camera’s 18-55mm lens and I leave it at about the 24mm mark. I’ll point the camera in the general direction of what I want to photograph, and I take a lot of photos knowing that one or more of them will be good. Digital film is cheap.

The last thing I’ll mention is the histogram. It’s the display you can see on the camera back that tells you instantly if the exposure is correct. All DSLRs have a histogram capability. This x-y plot lets you know if the photo is under or over exposed, allowing you to dial in exposure compensation to adjust for it.

The D3300’s histogram. The histogram, to me, is one of digital photography’s major advantages.

DSLR Cost

The D3300 used to be Nikon’s lowest-cost DSLR camera. I think they’re up to the D3500 now. I like the D3300 for the motorcycle and overseas trips because it’s light, it’s small, it’s capabilities are amazing, and it’s inexpensive. I think I paid $499 for my D3300 a few years ago; I’ve recently seen the current D3500 on sale for something like $399, including the 18-55mm lens. Sometimes Costco has a package deal on the camera, two lenses, a carrying case, the SD card, and more. It’s a phenomenal deal.

Making Movies

The D3300 also has a video mode. I thought that was kind of silly at first, but I changed my mind the first time I used the video feature. The video is superb, and Nikon’s vibration reduction (VR) feature makes the video rock steady. On our second day in Mexico on the first CSC Baja ride, I rode ahead of the group and filmed all of the riders as they came around a bend. When I viewed the video on my laptop later that night, I was blown away by how good it was. The video looked as if the camera had been tripod mounted. When I saw the video, I knew I had purchased the right camera.

Moto Photography Travel Lenses

Moving on to the lenses for the D3300, I travel with three. I use the camera’s 18-55mm lens for the majority of my photos, I use the Tokina 12-24mm lens for the wide-angle panoramic shots, and I use the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto for the long-distance stuff. The 18-55mm is my default lens, and it stays on the camera most of the time. It used to be that the standard low-cost zoom lenses that camera manufacturers provided with their low-end cameras were mediocre. That’s not the case with Nikon’s 18-55mm lens. It does an excellent job, returning high contrast and sharp images. The other thing I like about the 18-55mm Nikon lens is that it has Nikon’s VR feature. It works and I like it. It delivers significantly sharper hand-held photos.

Sometimes you see something that screams out for a wide angle lens, and on the Colombia trip I brought my Tokina 12-24mm lens with me for those occasions. I like that lens a lot because of its sharpness, high contrast, and overall construction quality. The photo magazines rated the Tokina 12-24mm as sharper than Nikon’s 12-24mm lens, which costs more than twice the Tokina lens. I’ve had a lot of photos published using this lens in the “Destinations” pieces I write for Motorcycle Classics.

Two RS3 motorcycles (the carbureted version of the CSC RX3) at the edge of a Colombian cliff. I used a manually-focused Tokina 12-24 lens, a circular polarizer, and the Nikon D3300 camera.

I shot the photo on the cover of Moto Colombia with the Tokina wide angle lens at the edge of a cliff in Barichara. It was great place and a great moment, and I preserved it with a great photo.

I brought my 70-300mm Nikon lens with me on the Colombia trip, too. It’s a big, heavy, and clunky lens and it goes against what I always tell people, and that is to travel light. I only used the 70-300mm on the camera twice while I was in Colombia, and on one of those two occasions, my subject got away before I could get a good photo. That was when I tried to photograph an iguana while having lunch in Magangué. On the other occasion, though, I was quicker (actually, my subjects were slower). That’s when I photographed the vultures outside of Guane. I captured some amazing shots of those big old Colombian vultures.

Hey, you talking to me? A shot of a Colombian vulture with the Nikon 70-300mm telephoto lens, handheld, showcasing Nikon’s vibration reduction technology.

I had circular polarizers with me for all three lenses. A circular polarizer filters out the white light and that makes the colors much more vibrant in outdoor shots. I left the polarizers on the lens, and I would remove them when I shot indoors, or at night, or when I used flash. They don’t take up much room, and they make a real difference on outdoor shots.

A Good Camera Bag

I carried all of the above in a Tamrac Velocity 7X camera bag. The Tamrac bag has a sling that makes it easy to carry, but I didn’t carry the bag much. I’d just throw the whole enchilada (the Tamrac bag with the camera, the lenses, a spare battery, and the battery charger) in the topcase.

And folks, that’s it. If you have any thoughts on moto photography travel gear, we’d love to hear them. Just leave a comment below and share your thoughts with us.

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The Bomber

Gearheads Road Trip stopped by Tinfiny Ranch to say hello. The poor guy ran right into a concrete pour as is likely to happen any time you visit our mountain lair. Nothing stops mud, least of all visitors, so we trundled off to the Big Box store to pick up some concrete.

Lowes has a price break if you buy 70 bags of concrete or more. That ends up being 3500 pounds and the Bomber, my 1990 1/2-ton Suburban groans under the weight. The rear leaf springs invert to frowns and the truck sways down the highway alarmingly. You want to keep it around 45mph.

3500 pounds was a bit nerve wracking on the twisty mountain roads so I’ve since developed a new plan: I order two pallet loads of concrete which gets me to the 70 bag discount but I take the pallets home one at a time. 2800 pounds is a lot easier to haul, and the Bomber totes it nicely with no sway issues. You still don’t want to make any drastic maneuvers, though.

The 1990 Suburban was an oddball, the last year of the straight front axle 4×4. That axle, kind of like a Dana 44, was upgraded a bit for 1990 making it a one-year deal. It’s got the manual locking hubs, 6-bolt wheels and leaf springs. For a 1/2-ton ride it’s a real Dream Axle if you’re into that sort of stuff.

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Obsolete Product Review: Scorpion EXO R410 Helmet

My Scorpion EX0 helmet. It’s not bad, but it’s not perfect, either. Read on, and you’ll see why.

I’ve been riding with a Scorpion EXO R410 helmet for about three years now, so I suppose it’s time for a new one. I tried to get the latest cost for my helmet on the Scorpion website, but they’re up to the EX0 420 series now, and mine is obsolete.

This is my second Scorpion helmet. My prior (and first) Scorpion helmet saved my life when I crashed my Triumph Speed Triple back in ’09. I’m very grateful for that (I literally landed on the top of my head, and the top of that earlier helmet looked like a hardboiled egg that had been whacked against a counter top). But, truth be told, I’m not all that wild about my current Scorpion.

First, the good stuff. It’s a one-piece full face helmet, the price was reasonable, and it’s all one color (and that’s the color I like, fluorescent green). When I bought this helmet it was difficult to find one that was all fluorescent green (and I noticed on today’s Scorpion website that they don’t offer this color as a solid color any more). When I bought my current Scorpion three years ago, other helmets from other manufacturers had weird color combos consisting of different combinations of fluorescent green and flat black. I didn’t care for that look. There were modular helmets in solid fluorescent green (you know, the kind that have a flip up lower section), but I don’t like that concept, either. Weird things happen in a crash, and I could visualize that modular part heading south when impacting the pavement. Nope, I wanted a solid safety green full face helmet, and Scorpion was the only one out there.

More good stuff: The helmet fits snugly and it keeps me warm. That’s important. And it’s not too heavy (it doesn’t become onerous at the end of a long day). And one more: The helmet was reasonably priced. As I recall, it was something around $200 and change. I paid a little less because I work in the industry. Come to think of it, if I had worked the problem, I probably could have talked Scorpion into giving me one for free if I had featured it on the blog, but I didn’t do that. The bottom line: The Scorpion’s price is reasonable.

Okay, on to the bad stuff. I wear eyeglasses, and sometimes I wear contacts. Contacts are the way to go if you wear a full face helmet because they make pulling the helmet on and off a lot easier. But a lot of times I wear my glasses and putting them on while wearing this helmet is a real pain in the ass. The temples just don’t want to sneak in between the helmet liner and my ears, and it usually takes me several tries to put my glasses on once I’ve got the helmet on. I guess you could say I make a spectacle of myself every time I put my helmet on. (I’m sorry; I couldn’t resist sneaking that in. You know, making a spectacle of myself. Get it? Eyeglasses? Making a spectacle of myself, like the time the optometrist fell into his lens grinding machine?)

Film at 11:00. And 12:00. And…well, you get the idea. That weird film on the inside does not want to completely separate.

My next complaint: The faceshield has some kind of film on the inside that can’t make up its mind about staying there or peeling off, and it seems to be doing both right in my line of sight. I’ve tried scrubbing it with Windex, water, alcohol, and all kinds of other stuff. It’s a weird one; I’ve never seen any other faceshield behave similarly. I could just buy a replacement, but hey, it might do the same thing. You’d think somebody at Scorpion would know about this and they would have fixed it before the faceshields got out of the factory. Maybe they already have on the newer ones.

Another complaint, although it’s not really fair to single out Scorpion for this: The vents don’t seem to do anything. Open or closed makes no difference in airflow around my noggin, nor do they make any difference in how cool or warm I am inside the helmet. The vents don’t make any difference in the faceshield’s propensity to fog, either. But, like I said, all of my helmets have been like this. As far as I’m concerned, the manufacturers could leave these vent arrangements off altogether and sell the helmet for less.

The chinguard vent. Open or closed: Machst nicht. ( I had three years of German in high school and that’s all I remember.)

The upper vents. There are two of them. You toggle that little lever to open or close the vents. I couldn’t feel that it made any difference in airflow or fog prevention in either position.

When I need air flowing in my helmet, or if the faceshield is fogging, I just open the faceshield a scosh, and that brings me to my next complaint: You can’t do that on the Scorpion.

The first open position on the Scorpion, which puts the lower edge of the faceshield directly in your line of sight.

Detent positions that govern faceshield elevation. The first one (denoted by the red arrow) is way too high. My guess is that it was designed by someone who never rode a motorcycle.

There’s no interim notch that allows the faceshield to crack open the quarter inch or so that my other helmets have always been able to do. There are plenty of notches for interim faceshield positions; they’re just poorly conceived and they’re all way too high. The first one after the full faceshield down position puts the bottom edge of the faceshield right in my line of sight. If you look above that edge, the angle through the faceshield is severe and everything is distorted. If you look below it, you have to tilt your head at an odd angle and you get no protection from the faceshield. The five upper positions are such that you might as well completely open the faceshield. Whoever designed the positions probably doesn’t ride.

So there you have it. I’ve read that you’re supposed to replace your helmet every three years, so I guess I’m about due. The good thing for me about writing this blog is it firms up (for me) what I need to evaluate when considering my next helmet. The above negatives notwithstanding, I’m going to give Scorpion another shot. I owe them, big time, based on the performance of my first Scorpion helmet. It did its job.