The right bike and the right clothes make for good traveling, and this is especially important when you’re riding Baja. Travel light and travel right is the way to go. What you don’t want to do is travel like I did on my first Baja trip. On that one, my Harley looked like that opening scene in The Beverly Hillbillies (you know, the one with everything strapped to Jed Clampett’s old pickup, including Granny in a rocking chair on top).
I guess it all starts with the right bike, and for all of us, that’s the bike we have. I’ve ridden Baja on many different motorcycles, and they all worked for me. My preferred bike for Baja riding, though, is my CSC RX3, which I think is perfect (especially with its standard luggage). I’ve settled on a 250 as the perfect size for real adventure travel (your choice may be different, I’m not trying to pick a fight, and if my choice upsets you, hey, you’re young…you’ll get over it).
When I’m on the RX3, I can carry everything I need in its two panniers and the top case, with nothing strapped onto the bike with bungee cords. I don’t like to carry stuff outside the luggage, because everything is locked and I can leave the bike when we stop to eat or take pictures without worrying about anyone stealing anything. I’m usually carrying more than most of the folks I ride with, too, because I’ve got my Nikon DSLR, a laptop computer, the power supply and cord for the laptop, the recharger for the camera battery, an extra camera battery, and a laptop mouse. I need to keep the beast fed (i.e., this blog), and I blog daily from the road. The top case is devoted to the computer and the camera gear. I keep tools, spare parts (you can read about recommended Baja spares here), and chain lube in the right pannier, and clothes in the left pannier. Remember what I said above…travel light and travel right.
If I’m on a bike that doesn’t have luggage, my preferred approach includes an older Nelson Rigg tailpack and a set of Wolfman soft pannier bags. That’s all I need. These two items go on and off the bike easily and they are high quality items. I bought the Nelson-Rigg tailpack 20 years ago when I rode Baja on my TL1000S, and I bought the Wolfman bags from CSC when I rode Baja with my TT250. I’ve been impressed with both the Wolfman and Nelson-Rigg brands. Wolfman, especially…it’s good gear.
My helmet is another item I bought from CSC. It’s an HJC and I like it. It’s not heavy (which makes a huge difference when you’re covering hundreds of miles day after day) and it’s comfortable. I’ve tried others, but I keep coming back to the HJC line. I have a Scorpion, but it doesn’t have a visor position that allows opening the visor slightly for air flow. Others don’t form a good seal between the visor and the helmet, so when it rains the visor gets wet on both the inside and the outside. Nope, for me that HJC works.
My jacket is made by Olympia. I like it because of the color (fluorescent yellow), and the fact that it is all one color. Most (maybe all) of the other fluorescent yellow jackets available today have black panels along with the fluorescent yellow and I don’t care for that approach. My jacket has a removable liner and it keeps me warm, and at night if it’s cool and I’m off the bike, I can wear just the liner as a light jacket.
I should mention that I hated the Olympia jacket the first two years I owned it. Olympia used cheap stitching when they had these made, and most of it came undone. Every time I washed that jacket, more stitching came apart. Oly wouldn’t make good on it (they were quick to point out that the jacket had a 1-year warranty). I paid a tailor to resew all the seams, though, and after that, it stayed together (even after repeated washings). It’s the jacket I wear most often now.
I always bring along my R Heroes 505 workshirt, an ultra-high quality sweatshirt I wrote about in an ExNotes blog a few months ago. I own two of these shirts (one of which has held up for 10 years now). It’s warm and it’s extremely comfortable. It’s also loose enough that if you’re carrying a concealed sidearm, it provides good coverage (don’t do that in Baja, though). I love my R Heroes shirts.
I wear Walmart jeans (I’m not into fancy jeans and I think anybody that pays big bucks for blue jeans is bonkers) and an old set of motorcycle pants. On warmer days, the motorcycle pants go into one of my bags and it’s just the jeans. On cooler days or if it’s raining, I wear both. My motorcycle pants are water resistant but not waterproof (if the rain lasts long enough, they’ll soak through). Every year or so, I’ll spray the paints with Kiwi water repellant to refresh the Scotchguard. I’m kind of embarrassed that I don’t know who made the motorcycle pants. I’ve had them for more than 20 years and the labels are long gone.
My gloves are Joe Rocket. Joe Rocket gear is reasonably priced and the quality is there. I have two pair. I cut off the right index finger tip off on one so I can work my iPhone when I’m using it as a nav system. I also have an older set of BMW cold weather riding gloves, and they work gangbusters. I think I paid a hundred bucks for the BMW gloves (everything that says BMW is big bucks), but on supercold mornings, I’m constantly reminded that was money well spent.
The last item I’ll mention are my boots. I’m not a big fan of any of the motorcycle-specific boots because they are too big, too heavy, and too uncomfortable when you get off the bike. I like military or police style boots, and my preferred brand is from an outfit called HAIX. They’re Austrian (the boots are actually manufactured in Croatia). They’re expensive (about $200), but they are worth it. The first pair I bought lasted 10 years. I bought a new pair a year or two ago, and I’ll get 10 years with them, too.
I didn’t start out in the typing business looking for swag. I was more interested in seeing my byline on a real, printed object. Being published meant at least one person in the world thought my stuff wasn’t terrible. No, it was like more swag found me. Slowly at first, then faster as the typing game became less and less lucrative, swag has grown ever larger in importance.
CSC sent me a flat-brimmed swag cap. They didn’t need to: I love those guys and how their business plan is a fantastic experiment in mail order motorcycling. I like that the customer needs to be a bit more self sufficient to operate their motorcycles. And I like the hat. With most products becoming sealed off to us regulars, CSC bikes actually require you to dig in. Since I own mostly weird motorcycles that have no dealer support I relate to the pride a CSC owner feels when he sets his own valves or replaces the chain and sprockets on his motorcycle.
Swag works. The preceding paragraph should be all the proof you need. Swag turns customers into advocates and a scuba suit beer cooler celebrating Pandya’s 50th birthday will always come in handy. Come to think of it, Exhaustnotes.us has no swag that I’m aware of. I’ll have to get to work on that.
Unlike motorcycles, I’m not fixated on doing things the old way for electrical energy storage. I run a 
in the Husqvarna that has exceeded all my expectations. The thing never goes dead (no trickle charger needed) it has tons of cranking amps (no need to use the compression release to start the bike) and it weighs nothing. You can install the thing in any position and nothing will leak out. The only drawback to the 
Battery technology is advancing rapidly with so many new combinations of lithium with something else, molten salt or rare elements only found in war torn areas. It’s hard to know which technology will win out in the end but for now, in my solar-powered shed system, lead-acid still offers the best electron storage option.
Lead-acid batteries are easily scalable and nearly any voltage or amperage desired can be achieved with large, simple jumper cables. I’m running 4, group 31, 12-volt batteries in my 24-volt system. My future plans are for 16 batteries total but there’s no rush. I can take as long as I want to get there or 8 batteries might prove to be enough for my usage level.
Most important for me: They are cheap! The four deep cycle marine batteries in my off-grid system @100 amp/hour each give me a total of 2400 watts of storage (@ 50% capacity) for 400 dollars. If I ever get to 16 batteries I’ll have 9600 watts of storage for around 1600 dollars. Compare that to 7000 dollars for 7000 watts of storage from Tesla’s Powerwall.
I’m not a Luddite when it comes to battery technology on motorcycles or power tools but for me the new designs and materials haven’t yet made sense for large, stationary storage banks at low cost. I’ll revisit the topic if Tesla reduces the price of their Powerwall by half or some new manufacturer comes up with a wiz bang combination of chemicals that outdoes ancient lead acid technology.
The Ruger would rust if you didn’t keep it clean and the bottles weren’t shattering enough to suit me so the next gun I bought was a stainless steel Smith and Wesson .357 revolver with a 4-inch barrel. When you pulled the trigger you could see the drum turn, the hammer draw back and flames shoot out the sides of the weapon. It was like a miniature cannon. You got dirty shooting the thing. The whole process of firing the S&W revolver satisfied me on so many levels that at this point I was perilously close to becoming a gun nut.
For some reason, maybe it was God’s Hand, I didn’t become a gun nut. The trips out to Kitchen Creek became fewer. The ammunition got more expensive and the two pistols were packed away. It was only a few years ago that I dug the guns out. The Ruger was a mess. Rust had scarred its smooth gun-black finish and the mechanism was stuck. It took hours to get the thing cleaned up and the rest of the day to figure out how the various parts fit back into the handgrip. Being stainless, The Smith was fine, only needing a bit of oil to loosen things up.
This Christmas CT gave me one of those heavy steel spinner targets, the kind with a large round target on the bottom and a smaller one on the top. When you manage to hit the thing the target spins around like a kinetic lawn ornament. I guess CT enjoyed our day at the range more than I did. Now she wants a Mosberg pump shotgun and one of those scary looking assault style rifles. You know, for home protection. It seems like we might end up with a gun nut in the family after all.
This is not a restoration. This is a resurrection. I plan to ride Zed, not store it away like a stolen Rembrandt. The front down tubes were pretty chipped and scratched with lots of bare metal so I had to fog a little black paint onto them to slow down the rust. I know all things rust. As soon as ore is melted into steel it begins the long path back to earth. We live in a temporary world; as soon as we stop our struggles and ambitions the things we care about turn into dust. So I painted the Kawasaki’s down tubes.
Next on my list were new steering head bearings. I have a Proto puller set that cost around $150 in 1970 and it mostly is still intact. From that kit I used the bearing separator to get behind the lower stem bearing. I clamped the stem in the vise and a few sharp raps later the bearing was off.
Removing the races pressed into the fork stem is a little harder. There isn’t a whole lot of meat exposed to get a purchase. Some people weld a bead on the race then use that to punch the race out. I’m sure there’s a correct way but I don’t know it so I use two puller claws and force them against each other to wedge the puller tips behind the race. Since you have to hold the claws together with one hand you’ll need a length of old bronze boat shaft to pound on the claws. Most Old Boat Shaft stores carry lengths of bronze shaft. It’s finding the store that’s the hard part.
The new races pop in without trouble. I get them started with a dead blow hammer then finish seating them with a punch worked slowly around the circumference of the race. You can hear the hammer-tone change pitch when the race seats against the frame tube.
The triple clamps were a mess so I wire brushed them and shot some black paint on the things. I’m always aware that any paint work or cleaning I do destroys the originality of the bike so I try to keep it to a minimum. While the headlight ears were soaking in a vat of Evapo-rust I started assembling the forks.
A new throttle/switch assembly from 
I’m close to $1000 in parts now. I’m replacing some wear items so I don’t think those should count against Zed.
The reason lefty bits are the nads for removing stuck or broken bolts is because of their natural tendency to unscrew whatever they are drilling into. By increasing the bit size in stages hopefully you can get the offending screw so thin that the remaining threads weaken, collapse slightly and wind out of the hole looking like a coil spring. And that’s mostly what happened except the thread came out in pieces.
After clearing out the swarf I ran a bottoming tap into the hole and tidied up the threads as much as possible. I will use a slightly longer screw to compensate for the compromised hole but I’m pretty sure it will be fine and I have avoided using a Helicoil thread repair, which is the hack mechanic’s favorite crutch.
I haven’t forgotten about the carburetors either. I’ve been soaking them in Evapor-rust and the stuff is doing a fine job. It’s very mild so you can leave zinc carb bodies immersed for days without fear of eating away the good parts. All four of the carbs are clean and I’m waiting on a few parts before I can reassemble the rack.
Zed’s little clutch-cover, oil level window was black with sitting-bike mung. It was so black the oil level could not be determined. I removed the cover and cleaned out behind the metal back-plate. Since I had the cover off I figured it would be a good idea to check the clutch plates for wear. The fibers are within tolerance and the steels are only slightly rusty so I’ll clean all those parts up and Zed should have a functioning clutch.
When Kawasaki designed the Z1 they went all out. This was Big K’s flagship motorcycle and the robust clutch is a fine example of strength. The large, straight-cut clutch gear would not look out of place in a one-ton manual truck transmission. The fingers that locate the fiber plates are surrounded by a steel band to prevent them from spreading under load. This clutch is awe-inspiring and looks like it could handle double the Z1’s 82 (claimed) horsepower. The bike has 41,000 miles showing on the clock and the metal parts show minimal wear. I am impressed.
Don’t take my word for it, here is the author of the Z1 repair manual waxing eloquent over the Z’s clutch.
I’m making another list of parts and will be blowing more money on Zed. I really hope this engine runs without a lot of knocking and the transmission shifts like butter.
