The Big Island, Hawaii, was formed by volcanoes, like the other Hawaiian islands and nearly all others in the Pacific. Five volcanoes formed the Big Island, and one is still active. That’s the Kīlauea volcano. It’s the one you see above. It’s the one we visited recently.
The walk from the park entrance to the Kileaua crater.
It’s a bit of a hike to get to the Kīlauea volcano crater once you enter the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (the photo above shows the way in), but the hike is worth it. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is one of the few National Parks in Hawaii that charges admission. I have the brass pass (the senior citizen National Parks lifetime pass), which has to be one of the best deals ever.
The big photo at the top of this blog is the crater, and it was impressive. Hissing steam, a bit of lava flow, and a hint of what this planet is all about. It was only in the last 50 years that the US Navy completely mapped the Pacific floor. The Navy survey found many underwater mountains formed by volcanoes, all in a straight line. A theory emerged that these were formed by the same magma eruption (i.e., a volcano) that created the Hawaiian Islands (which are the end of that straight line). The eruption is a fixed point; the islands and underwater mountains that extend in a thousand-mile-long straight line occurred as a result of tectonic plate shift over this point. Fascinating stuff.
Lava in the Kīlauea crater.
The red glow you see in the photo above is lava in the Kīlauea crater. I was a good half mile or more away from it, but thanks to the 24-120 Nikon lens and a bit of PhotoShop cropping, it looks like I’m right there. Trust me; I wasn’t.
We stayed just outside the Park on Volcano Road in a bed and breakfast tucked away deep in a tropical bamboo forest. It was pretty cool and very remote. Think banana trees, palms, humidity, colorful birds, and everything you might expect to see in an equatorial jungle. We had a herd of wild pigs briefly wander into our yard one afternoon (and I, without a rifle or a camera, could only stare). Surprisingly, the nights were deafening thanks to the Coqui frogs. The Coqui frogs are an invasive species from Puerto Rico. A few evidently hitched rides on plants coming from Puerto Rico to Hawaii. The Coqui have no natural enemies in Hawaii, and they reproduced to levels previously unheard of (folks who know about this stuff estimate the Hawaiian Coqui population density at roughly 2,000 frogs per acre, and with no natural enemies, the levels are still climbing). Well, maybe “unheard of” is probably a poor choice of words. Believe me, at night, all you can hear are the Coqui. Their “croak” is a 100-decibel “Co Kee” and when you multiply that by 2,000 per acre…well, you get the idea. How a tiny frog the size of half your thumb generates that kind of noise is beyond me. It’s deafening and goes from dusk to dawn. The good news is that the Coqui are only in the jungle areas; we didn’t have that problem on the other side of the island.
To state the obvious, you can’t ride your motorcycle to Hawaii. But you can rent a motorcycle there. The going rate is about $200 for a day, and if you rent for several days, the rate drops a bit. The roads through Hawaii are scenic, and in a week on the Big Island you can pretty much take in most of what there is to see. I checked out the motorcycle rentals in Hawaii’s Waikaloa Village. Big Island Motorcycle Company had Harley big twins, Sportsters, and Suzuki V-Stroms, along with Polaris three-wheelers and other vehicles. Gas prices in Hawaii were high, but surprisingly, they were below what gas costs in California these days.
You might wonder: Where did I get that fantastic cover photo? The photo shows Trooper Ralph Dowgin, a New Jersey State Trooper who went on to command Troop D (the Troop that patrols the New Jersey Turnpike, the most heavily-traveled road in the country). I actually met Trooper Dowgin when I was a boy (my Dad knew him). The photo came to me from my good buddy Mike B, who retired as the New Brunswick, New Jersey, Chief of Police. Like they say, it’s a small world.
The story of police and military motorcycles is an intriguing one, espeically as it applies to the US War Department, Indian, and Harley-Davidson. During World War II, the US government bought motorcycles from both Harley and Indian, but the positions taken by Harley and Indian were worlds apart. The Feds told both manufacturers they had to stop producing for the civilian market and focus exclusively on military motorcycles. Indian did what they were told. Harley told the government that they, not some government bureaucrat, would decide who to sell motorcycles to. Harley called the government’s bluff, and they got it right. The War Department continued to buy Harleys as Harley continued selling to the civilian market, and the results were predictable: When the war ended Harley still had a civilian customer base and Indian did not. Indian struggled for a few years trying to regain market share, but the damage was done and the handwriting was on the wall. Indian went under in the early 1950s.
If you buy a copy of The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles, understand that it describes the market as it existed when the book was published in 2001. Things are a little bit different now. Future plans call for an update to include today’s military and police motorcycles, but that’s far in the future and the book will sell for a bunch more than $9.95. I’ll have a Kindle ebook version at some point in the future, too, but it’s not going to be immediate. For now, it’s print only, and it’s only $9.95. Spend the bucks, make a friend for life, and don’t forget: Click on those popup ads!
One of the main halls in Bill’s Old Bike Barn features Moto Guzzi and military motorcycles along with other militaria, motorcycle engines, and more. We know Moto Guzzi primarily as sporting motorcycles. Back in the day, though (the day being World War II and beyond), Moto Guzzi made motorcycles for the Italian Army. Good buddy Bill has a few and they are on display, along with military motos from Germany and America and sporting Moto Guzzis.
There’s just so much to take in. I imagine Bill enjoys collecting and curating these things. That’s a cargo parachute, and it fits the collection nicely. There are several airplanes throughout Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
The Harley WL comes to mind first when anyone mentions military motorcycles. It’s the iconic World War II American military motorcycle. It’s a 750cc flathead V-twin, OD green, and it has a scabbard for a .45 ACP Thompson (and there’s one in Bill’s WL).
The quintessential American military moto, also used by Canadian forces. When I was a kid, we heard stories that you could buy these brand new, still in the shipping crates, for $25. I never found out if that story was true.
The German counterpart was a 750cc flathead BMW and sidecar. Zündapp also provided sidecar bikes to the Wehrmacht. And BMW also had a 600cc overhead valve model. Bill has a BMW with sidecar on display in this hall, but it’s a later model (note the overhead valve engine configuration).
A World War II BMW with sidecar.
Here’s another interesting military motorcycle: The 1946 500cc single-cylinder Moto Guzzi Alce. You wouldn’t think a motorcycle would be notable for its sidestand, but that’s one of the first things I noticed about it and Bill made the same comment. If you’ve ever tried to park a motorcycle in soft sand, you’ll know what this motorcycle is all about.
A 1946 Moto Guzzi Alce. It’s also the cover photo for this blog. Note the passenger handlebars.A macro shot of the Alce storage compartments.This is a serious kickstand. I could have used this in a few spots in Baja!
Harley-Davidson wandered into the military motorcycle world when they bought the Armstrong-CCM company in 1987. Armstrong had a 500cc single-cylinder Rotax-powered bike and Harley probably thought they would make a killing selling these to the US Army, but they were a day late and more than a dollar short. The Army had zero interest in gasoline-powered vehicles (the US Army has been 100% diesel powered for decades…I knew that when I was in the Army in the 1970s). The effort was quickly abandoned. That’s the bad news. The good news? The Harley MT 500 military bikes became instant collectibles. And Bill’s Old Bike Barn has one.
A Harley-Davidson MT-500. “MT” was an abbreviation for military transport; it more accurately was an acronym for sales results (as in “empty”).Interesting, but for Harley it was no cigar.
The military room also houses the Moto Guzzi Mulo Meccanico, and motorcycle half-track featured in an earlier ExNotes blog.
The Mulo Meccanico, a case study for why complexity for complexity’s sake always comes in second place. Intended to replace live mules in Italian Army service, the real donkeys had the last laugh. Or was it a hee haw?
The Mulo and the Alce military bike share real estate in Bill’s Old Bike Barn, along with commercial and very desirable Moto Guzzi non-military motorcycles. Here’s an early 1970s Moto Guzzi Ambassador.
A Moto Guzzi Ambassador from the early 1970s, when Bill was a Moto Guzzi dealer.
Bill’s Old Bike Barn includes what has to be the definitive Moto Guzzi motorcycle classic, the Falcone 500. In case you’ve ever wondered, it’s pronounced “fowl-cone-ay.” Fire engine red is a color that works well on Moto Guzzis.
A beautiful 1951 Moto Guzzi Falcone, also known as the baloney slicer for its exposed flywheel on the bike’s left side.A 1000cc Moto Guzzi sports bike.
One of the more unique “motorcycles” in Bills Old Bike Barn is a 1961 motorcycle-based dump truck. Bill kept it in its original unrestored condition for a number of years and used it to haul manure around on his farm (I used to write proposals in the defense industry, so Bill and I have that in common). Bill cleaned up the Guzzi dump truck, customized it with a show-worthy paint job, and made it too pretty to use. This is a three wheeler built around the same 500cc Falcone baloney-slicer motor shown above.
A Moto Guzzi trike dump truck. Gresh and I have a thing for three wheelers reaching back to our ride across China. Bill used this one for hauling manure around the farm.The Guzzi dump truck’s motorcycle underpinnings are obvious.Stunning by any standard.
So there you have it, folks. This is the last in our series of blogs about Bill’s Old Bike Barn. I enjoyed my visit to Bill’s more than I have to any other museum, partly because of the content and partly because of Bill. If you’re looking for a worthy destination and an experience like no other, Bill’s Old Bike Barn should be at the top of your list. I’d allow a full day for the visit, maybe with a break for lunch. We asked Bill for the best kept secret regarding Bloomsburg fine dining and his answer was immediate: The Scoreboard. It’s only a mile or two away and you can Waze your way there. Try the chili; it’s excellent.
There are six blogs in our series about Bill’s Old Bike Barn. Here’s a set of links to the first five:
Our first blog on Bill’s Old Bike Barn? Hey, here it is:
The Quail motorcycle show Facebook page posted up photos of the bike that won Best In Show. The bike was a Vincent V-twin engine slung into a banana style frame. The front wheel was almost all brake drum with the levers and pivots inside the polished backing plate/dust cover. The foot pegs were forward mounted and the handlebars were very low attached near the top triple clamp, the control levers were internal cable type to leave a clean tube.
To ride the bike, if it was even rideable, your body would be bent into a severe “C” shape. For me, the bike would be unusable and I don’t think anyone ever really planned on riding it more than a mile or two. I don’t want to pick on this particular machine. There is no denying the skill that went into the build, but the bike reminded me why I’ve gone sour on custom, show bike stuff. Here’s my list of 5 reasons I don’t like custom bikes.
Reason Number One: Professional Builders
I understand that people have to make a living. If you are good at building custom bikes you should get paid for it. However, from the customer standpoint hiring others to build a custom bike for you ultimately means nothing. Well, not nothing…I guess it means you have the money to hire a builder. Yea you.
Motorcycles are tools to build your personal experience. They are the means, not the end. The rides you take in the stinging rain, switching to reserve on a lonely highway or cold ice cream from a glass-top freezer are the true artistry of the motorcycle. Making the mundane exceptional is the reason motorcycles exist. Having a custom bike won’t make that experience better any more than a gold-plated paintbrush will make you a better artist. Throwing tons of money at a professional builder to win a bike show hollows out the win. What was it for? You didn’t paint that picture.
Reason Number Two: Regressive Engineering
I’ve built custom bikes in the past. They would be considered Tracker-Style today but back when I built them the goal was lighter weight, improved handling, better braking and more speed. I wasn’t averse to making the bikes look cool as long as it didn’t get in the way of a better motorcycle. The modern custom bike scene sees master engineers and amazing craftsmen devoted to making fantastically intricate clockwork movements that cannot tell the time of day. Look Ma, no hands! Useless quality, while nice to look at, is still useless. The custom-built bike turns out to be a worse motorcycle for all the effort. The handling is worse, the practicality is much worse, the braking is worse.
We see beautifully designed, narrow tube chrome forks that work as if they have no suspension. We see swoopy frames connected with buttery welds but poor in every factual way. They scrape the ground rounding a mild corner and flex under the slightest load. Think of the misallocation of skills: we have our best and brightest motorcycle engineers and craftsmen wasting their time building non-functional wall hangings. We are squandering talent and treasure and there isn’t that much around here to squander.
Reason Number Three: Art for Art’s Sake
I hear you. These are rolling art projects. Custom bikes aren’t supposed to be sensible. I learned a long time ago that art is defined by the artist: If you say it’s art then it’s art, dammit. My problem is that there’s nothing particularly new or innovative going on in the custom bike scene…oops… I mean art world. The motorcycles are all derivatives of each other with the few new-ish ideas getting beat to death over and over. Is it really art if we are just coloring between the same lines? Is bolting on a tiny fireman’s ladder art? How low can we set the bar?
I’m going to cause hurt feelings here but the custom bike scene is no more artistic than making a different length lanyard in your grade school arts and crafts class. In fact, it is craft, something that can be taught and through repetition honed to perfection.
Reason Number Four: Stupidity is the New Cool
Up until the 1980s most custom bikes were rideable. A little rake, a bit of extension to get the stance right, funky pipes, and maybe a cool seat, but the bike could still get around without causing too much pain. Those days are gone, replaced by the excess, the decorative, and the soulless. Now custom bikes must tick all the stupid boxes. Hubless wheels? Check. Horribly ugly bagger with giant front tire? Check. Cookie cutter, store-bought choppers that look exactly the same as every other cookie-cutter chopper? Check. If you’re going to remove the burden of function and place a motorcycle in the art world then that world demands better than what we see now. How many Mona Lisa copies does it take before someone builds a melting landscape? The custom scene is boring crap and deep in your heart you know it.
Reason Number Five: I’m Getting Too Old For This
When we were kids we used to cut up good running motorcycles thinking we were doing something worthwhile. My dad would tell us to leave it alone, that we were just going to make it worse and he was right. We did make the bikes worse. There are a million Harleys out there so go ahead and butcher them if you must, but when I see a nice classic bike tore up to make look it look like a child’s toy I say, “I’m getting too old for this.” I realize that everything I cherish will disappear eventually. I know that it’s your bike and you can do what you want to it. I know it’s none of my business, but if destroying nice bikes to make boring customs is your thing I don’t have to like it. Skill and craftsmanship do not absolve you from responsibility and I will not go quietly into the night.
Paso Robles’ Estrella Warbird Museum is way more than just warbirds. There are military vehicles, a munitions display, classic cars, race cars, vintage motorcycles, small arms, and more. And then it’s in Paso Robles, a worthy destination all on its own. We’ll touch on each of these in this blog.
First, the warbirds. There are a bunch on display, and there are two I feel most connected with personally…one is the F4 Phantom, and the other is the F-16 Air Combat Fighter.
That’s an F4 at the top of this blog. It’s what the USAF was flying when I was stationed at Kunsan AFB back in the mid-1970s, and it is an impressive airplane. I was on a HAWK air defense site just off Kunsan, high up on a mountain top overlooking Kunsan. We could pick up the F4s as they started their takeoff roll on Kunsan’s runway. When our high-powered illuminators locked on, the pilots knew it in the cockpit. They’d take off on full afterburner (a sensory and sensual delight for anyone who witnessed it), execute a quick 180, and then fly directly at my missile site coming in at just under Mach 1 below the top of our mountain. They were trying to break the lock my scope dopes had on them. Then, at the last minute, they’d climb just enough to clear the tops of the HIPIR’s Mickey Mouse ears. The radars would flip around 180 degrees in two axes with such force that one side of the radar’s support legs would clear the ground by 6 inches. Ah, those were grand and glorious days. At night, in the Kunsan AFB Officers Club, the Air Force jet jocks would ask me about the radars. My answer was always the same: Sorry, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. They’d laugh. They thought I was joking.
When I left the Army, my first job was on General Dynamic’s F-16 engineering team, and just about every defense industry job I’ve had since was somehow associated with something on that airplane. Munitions, 20mm Gatlings, fuel tanks, aerial refueling systems, ejection seats…it all seemed to come back to the F-16. I loved being around that airplane.
Well, okay…maybe one more airplane, and that’s the F-86. Yeah, it’s been obsolete for decades. But when I was at Kunsan AFB in the mid-1970s, the ROK Air Force (as in Republic of Korea) still flew the F-86. It’s a svelte little bit of a fighter, and it was on display at the Estrella Warbirds Museum.
As soon as you enter the Estrella Museum, there’s a small arms display. Hey, I love that sort of thing, and this display grabbed my attention.
I caught something the Estrella curators missed. See those red arrows in the photo above? That rifle was labeled as a Mosin-Nagant. I know my Mosins, and this wasn’t one of them. It was maybe a Mauser, but most definitely not a Mosin. I told one of the docents. She thanked me, but I don’t think she understood what I was telling her.
The Estrella Museum had a munitions display, too. It was cool. I like bombs and bullets. And mines. A mine is a terrible thing to waste, you know.
The Museum also houses the Woodland Automobile Display, which includes classic cars and race cars with an emphasis on dirt track oval racers. The collection was extensive, interesting, and photogenic.
There were military vehicles and motorcycles, too. I’ll get to those in a second, but first, take a look at this. How about a water-cooled Harley Knucklehead engine used in midget racing? That’s what you see in the photo below.
The engine you see above is a Drake-modified Harley V-twin, and it was way ahead of its time. The Drake/Harley was called a “popper” because it vibrated so much. These engines produced close to 100 horsepower, and that was way back in the 1940s. 100 horsepower. Water cooled. Harley, how could you have ignored this back then?
The Estrella Warbird Museum also has a few interesting military motorcycles, including a World War II US Army WL Harley, an M20 BSA single (used by the British in World War II), and real oddity…a 98cc World War II Welbike used by British paratroopers.
For me, a big part of the Estrella Warbirds Museum was its location. I love the Paso Robles area. Getting there is easy. If you’re coming from the North, pick up the El Camino Real (Highway 101) south. If you’re coming from the south, it’s the 101 north. Take California State Route 46 east, Airport Road north, and watch for the signs.
The best kept secrets in this area? The obvious ones are not secrets at all: The riding in and around San Luis Obispo County is awesome. Paso Robles is a wine producing region, and there are plenty of vineyards. You can ride west on State Route 46 to get to the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the premier motorcycle roads in the world (it intersects the PCH near Cambria and Hearst Castle; both are worthy destinations). For a world-class dinner, ride just a few miles south to McPhee’s Grill in Templeton (make reservations, though…you won’t get in without a reservation). There are great missions all along the 101 attesting to the region’s early Spanish influence (they followed the El Camino Real in developing the missions, you know), including the nearby San Luis Obispo and San Miguel Missions. Paso Robles is a California destination, and the riding is good year round. If you’re going in the winter months, dress accordingly. If you’re riding in the summer, stay hydrated.
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Any story about Bill’s Old Bike Barn has to feature Bill Morris, the man who created it all. The museum and its contents are amazing. The man is even more so.
Bill grew up right where I met him: Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, the site of Bill’s Old Bike Barn. Bill started working at age 11 on the farm, and he never stopped. Bill is 83 now, something I found hard to believe (he doesn’t look or act like it), and his energy level tops most young folks I know. Let’s start with a Reader’s Digest biosketch. Bill joined the US Army (Corps of Engineers) from 1957 to 1960, and then went to work for Chrysler building Plymouths and Dodges in Newark, Delaware. After two years with Chrysler it was back to Bloomsburg and a job with the local Harley-Davidson dealer.
Parts is parts. Keep what you like, sell the rest. That’s a gold-plated Knucklehead engine on the right. As in real gold. “Never could sell it,” Bill said. There was no regret in that observation.
Harley and Bloomsburg Harley were a good deal; Bill went to Harley-Davidson’s motorcycle technician school in 1966. Yep, he’s a factory-certified motorcycle tech. He worked for Bloomsburg Harley from 1966 to 1969.
Ah, 1969. Let’s see…Hollywood was going ga ga over The Wild Angels, Easy Riders, and other miscellaneous motorcycle movie mayhem. The chopper craze was sweeping through America and the rest of the developed world. Bill wanted a chopper, and a builder in Westminster, California advertised that if you had five old hogs to trade, they would build a California custom for you at no charge. Bill asked if he sent 18 old hogs, would they build him a California chopper and return some cash? The answer, of course, was yes, so Bill shipped 18 old Harleys to California and waited. And waited. And waited. He finally went to California to see what was happening and found a rundown chopper shop big on dreams but short on ability.
Bill hung around California for 60 days, bought a pickup truck, and took a partially crafted California chopper back to Pennsylvania. “I figured if those clowns could make custom motorcycles, I could, too,” Bill explained. And he did. The bike Bill hauled back to Bloomsburg needed wiring, wheels, and more, but that was simple stuff. Bill was, after all, a factory-trained motorcycle tech.
Indeed, a Silent Gray Fellow. It’s one of many Holy Grail bikes in Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
Bill’s Custom Cycles emerged, and Bill’s talent (as a custom motorcycle builder, a collector, and a businessman) took center stage. Bill purchased his first collectible motorcycle for $20, a 1928 single-cylinder Harley-Davidson, but he quickly realized the best way to acquire collectibles and saleable parts was to buy out other motorcycle businesses and that’s what he did. When Harley Davidson entered troubled times in the early 1970s, Bill purchased the assets of 28 Harley dealerships in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and in an international reach, the Netherlands, Belgium, and South Africa. Bill tells of a recurring theme: A dealer would ask $600,000 for their inventory, Bill would offer a quarter of that amount, the dealer would decline the offer, and then came the call a few months later asking if Bill’s $150,000 offer was still good. It was, of course. Bill knew his business.
Bill loves sidecars. At one point, he bought a European dealer’s entire stock of 60 sidecars and brought them back to Pennsylvania. He sold them all quickly.Wow. Just wow. Get used to that word. You’ll use it a lot at Bill’s Old Bike Barn.Would you pay $200 for a used Panhead back in the day? Bill did. I was going to offer him what he paid, but thought better of it.
Bill’s business model was to sell the parts and complete motorcycles from his constantly growing and profitable inventory. He sold via mail order and became one of the largest sources of Harley parts and Harleyana in the world. All the while, he kept the collectible motorcycles and parts that caught his interest, and he built custom bikes.
Bill has a way with the ladies. On this road trip, we hit Gettysburg, Hershey, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, the Jersey shore, and more. But all the girls wanted to talk about was Bill.
While acquiring the inventories of motorcycle shops and dealers going under, Bill built a massive collection of Harley signs. That lead to a lawsuit with Harley as the plaintiff and Bill in their crosshairs…Harley didn’t want anyone displaying “authorized Harley-Davidson dealer” signs if they weren’t, you know, an authorized Harley dealer. Bill eventually settled the suit by opening a second building (the origin of Bill’s Old Bike Barn) where he could display the signs but not sell Harley products. “That made the lawyers happy,” Bill explained. It was only a short walk up the hill behind Bill’s Custom Cycles, but it satisfied Harley’s legal beagles.
Bill loves motorcycle signs, so much so that Harley sued him for displaying them a few decades ago. The lawsuit was a good thing: It was the catalyst for Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
Around the same time, Bill became a Moto Guzzi dealer (one of the very first in the United States) and he still has a love for the Italian motorcycles. Moto Guzzi was just entering the United States and they approached Bill. He rented a gas station and just like that, voilà, Bill was a Moto Guzzi dealer (he held the franchise from 1970 to 1975). As Bill explains it, it was a match made in Heaven: He had no money and Moto Guzzi had almost no bikes. The bikes would come in via air one at a time to Teterboro, New Jersey (a two and a half hour road trip from Bloomsburg).
A beautiful Guzzi Ambassador. These things sound more like a Harley than a Harley did. They are beautiful motorcycles. I always wanted one.
Like many people, Bill loved the look and the sound of those early 1970s Guzzis (they sounded a lot like Harley-Davidsons, with a wonderful lopey potato potato exhaust note).
California chopper chic meets Mandello del Laurio.Paint themes that were all the rage back in the day. Think Dennis Hopper Does Italy.
As a custom bike builder Bill knew a blank palette when he saw one, and he rebuilt an early Guzzi police bike as a 1970s chopper. It’s on display in Bill’s Old Bike Barn. In fact, Bill has an entire room he calls Guzziland, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Guzziland will be the focus of a near-term future ExNotes blog.
Stay tuned, my friends. Bill’s Old Bike Barn is a fun story. I’m having a lot of fun writing it.
Miss our first installment on Bill’s Old Bike Barn? Hey, here it is:
Stop what you’re doing. Get off the Internet (and for sure, get off Facebook and the other moronic “social media” time wasters). Start planning a trip to Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. You need to see Bill’s Old Bike Barn. The riding is fabulous in rural Pennsylvania and with Bill’s as a destination, the ride is even better. You can thank me now or you can thank me later, but you will thank me.
Any motorcycle museum that includes in its directions “turn where you see the dinosaurs” should grab your attention. In the case of Bill’s Old Bike Barn, your undivided attention is warranted. To say I was blown away would be an understatement of immense proportions. To cut to the chase, I’ve never seen anything like Bill’s, and I know for damn sure I’ve never met a man like Bill. That’s Bill artistically framed by Milwaukee iron in the photo above, and yeah, I shot that picture. I’m proud of it. It hints at the dimensions of the man and what he’s created out there in Pennsylvania.
During our interview I asked Bill his last name and he told me: Morris, just like the cigarettes. I didn’t get it until later, and then I couldn’t stop laughing. If you don’t get it immediately, you will. Bill has that kind of slingshot wit. I love the guy and his collection. You will, too.
Above all else, Bill is two things: A collector, and a people person. The extent if his collection…well, I can’t describe it. You need to see it. You’ll get just a hint here in the ExNotes series of blogs we’re doing. When you visit the place, you’ll feel like you owe me. When you meet Bill, you’ll know you’ve made a friend. A most interesting friend.
Up above, that’s the building that houses Bill’s collection. You can’t really see it from the highway. You have to look for the dinosaurs (just like the directions say), turn, and then head uphill. You’ll go by the bison, some other cool items, and more. The building looks deceptively small from the outside. Inside…you could spend weeks and not see all of what’s in there.
You can learn about Bill’s Old Bike Barn on his website, but we’re going to give you more here on ExNotes. We’re going to do it over the span of several blogs over the next few weeks, and in an upcoming article in a major moto mag. Ever watched and enjoyed American Pickers? Trust me on this (and trust me on everything else, for that matter): Bill Morris puts American Pickers to shame. You and I have never seen anything like what’s in Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
I’m excited about what I’ve seen and what I’m going to be sharing with you. I’ll do my best to bring it to life in print and in the photos, but it won’t be enough. You really need to visit Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
I’ve ridden motorcycles through Baja probably 30 times or more over the last 30 years, and it’s unquestionably the best place to ride a motorcycle I’ve ever experienced. Many people are afraid to venture into the peninsula for fear of a breakdown. Hey, it happens, but it’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t happen often. They don’t call it adventure riding because it’s like calling for an Uber.
Not all “breakdowns” result in your motorcycle being nonoperational. Some are just mere annoyances and you truck on. A few breakdowns result in the bike not running, but there are usually ways to get around that. When it happens, you improvise, adapt, and overcome. Here are a few of mine.
Heritage Indeed
The first time I had a motorcycle act up was on my beloved ’92 Harley Softail. It started clanging and banging and bucking and snorting somewhere around Ensenada. I was headed south with my good buddy Paul from New Jersey. It was obvious something wasn’t right and we turned around to head back to the US. The Harley got me home, but I could tell: Something major had happened. The bike was making quite a bit of noise. I had put about 300 miles on it by the time I rode it back from Mexico.
A roller lifter that converted to a solid lifter.
One of the Harley’s roller lifters stopped rolling, and that turned it into a solid lifter. And when that happened, the little wheel that was supposed to rotate along the cam profile started wearing a path through the cam. And when that happened, the metal filings migrated their way to the oil pump. And when that happened….well, you get the idea. My 80-cubic-inch V-Twin Evo motor decided to call it quits after roughly 53,000 miles. It happens I guess. Nothing lasts forever.
Potato, potato, potato.
Here’s where it started to get really interesting. My local Harley dealer wouldn’t touch the bike. See, this was around 2005 or so, and it seems my Harley was over 10 years old. Bet you didn’t know this: Many Harley dealers (maybe most of them) won’t work on a bike over 10 years old. The service manager at my dealer explained this to me and I was dumbfounded. “What about all the history and heritage and nostalgia baloney you guys peddle?” I asked. The answer was a weak smile. “I remember an ad with a baby in Harley T-shirt and the caption When did it start for you?” I said. Another weak smile.
An S&S engine in my ’92 Softail. It let me ride a slow bike fast.
I was getting nowhere fast. I tried calling a couple of other Harley dealers and it was the same story. Over 10 years old, dealers won’t touch it. I was flabbergasted. I tried as hard as I could, but there was no getting around it…the Harley dealer would not work on my engine. It was over 10 years old. That’s that; rules is rules. For a company that based their entire advertising program on longevity and heritage, I thought it was outrageous. A friend suggested I go to an independent shop. “It’s why they exist,” he said. So I did.
So, I went with Plan B. I took the Harley to a local independent shop, and they were more than happy to work on my bike. I could have the Harley engine completely rebuilt (which it needed, because those metal bits had migrated everywhere), or I could have it rebuilt with an S&S motor. I went with the S&S motor (the cost was the same as rebuilding the Harley engine), doubling the horsepower, halving the rear tire life, and cutting my fuel economy from 42 to 33 mpg.
Justin’s Countershaft Sprocket
On the very first CSC Baja trip, I was nervous as hell. The CSC bikes had received a lot of press and the word was out: CSC was importing the real deal, a genuine adventure touring motorcycle for about one sixth of what a GS 1200 BMW sold for in those days. The naysayers and keyboard commandos were out in force, badmouthing the Chinese RX3 in ways that demonstrated unbridled ignorance and no small amount of bias. And here we were, taking 14 or 15 guys (and one gal) who had bought new RX3 motorcycles that had literally arrived in the US just a few days before our departure. There was one thought in my mind as we headed south from Azusa that morning: What was I thinking? If the bikes started falling out on this first trip, it would probably kill the RX3 in America.
Hey, it worked. Adapt, overcome, improvise. The adventure doesn’t start until something goes wrong.
I need not have worried. None of the engines failed. We had a few headlights go out, but that’s not really a breakdown. And then, when we were about halfway down the Baja peninsula, I took a smaller group of riders to see the cave paintings at Sierra San Francisco. That trip involved a 140-mile round trip from Guerrero Negro into the boonies, with maybe 20 miles of that on a very gnarly dirt road. As we were returning, good buddy Justin’s RX3 lost its countershaft sprocket. We found it and Justin did a good enough MacGuyver job securing it to the transmission output shaft to get us back to Guerrero Negro, but finding a replacement was a challenge. We finally paid a machinist at the Mitsubishi salt mining company to make a custom nut, and that got us home.
On every Baja trip after that, I took a spare countershaft sprocket nut, but I never needed any of them after that one incident on Justin’s bike. Good buddy Duane had a similar failure, but that was on a local ride and it was easily rectified.
Jim’s Gearbox
Four or five Baja trips later, after we had ridden all the way down to Mulege and back up to the border, good buddy Jim’s transmission wouldn’t shift.
Good buddy Jim in the Mulege mission.
That’s the only breakdown I ever experienced anywhere on an RX3 that wouldn’t get us home, and that includes multiple multi-bike Baja trips, the multi-bike 5000-mile Western America adventure ride, the multi-bike 6000-mile ride across China, the 3000-mile circumnavigation around the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and quite a few CSC local company rides. One of the guys on that Baja ride lived in the San Diego area and he owned a pickup truck, so he took the bike back up to Azusa for us.
Biting the Bullet
A couple of years ago Joe Gresh and I did a Baja road test with Royal Enfield press bikes. One was the new 650 Interceptor twin (a bike I liked so much I bought one when I got home); the other was a 500 Bullet. The Bullet was a disaster, but it really wasn’t the bike’s fault. The dealer who maintained the press fleet for Royal Enfield (I won’t mention them by name, but they’re in Glendale and they’re known for their Italian bikes) did a half-assed job maintaining the bike. Actually, that’s not fair to people who do half-assed work (and Lord knows there a lot of them). No, the maintenance on this bike was about one-tenth-assed. It was very low on oil, it had almost no gas in it, the chain was loose and rusty, and on and on the writeup could go. The bike kept stalling and missing, and it finally gave up the ghost for good at the Pemex station just north of Guerrero Negro.
Joe Gresh, inflight missile mechanic extraordinaire, getting intimate with the Bullet in Baja. “The Bullet needs me,” he said.
Fortunately for me, Gresh had one of those portable battery thingamabobbers (you know, the deals that are good for about 10 battery jumps) and it allowed us to start the bike. We bought a new battery that didn’t quite fit the bike in Guerrero Negro (big hammers solve a lot of problems), but the entire episode left a bad taste in my mouth for the Bullet and for the Glendale Ducatimeister.
Big hammers fix all kinds of problems.
That bike had other problems as well. The kickstand run switch failed on the ride home, and Gresh did an inflight missile mechanic bypass on it. Then, just before we made it back to my house in So Cal, the rear sprocket stripped. Literally. All the teeth were gone. That was another one I had never experienced before. The Bullet was sort of a fun bike, but this particular one was a disaster. We joked about it. The Bullet needs me, Gresh said.
John’s Silver Wing Leak
Ah this is another motofailure that tried but didn’t stop the show. On one of my earlier Baja forays, Baja John had a Honda Silver Wing. That’s a bike that was also known as the baby Gold Wing (it had all the touring goodies the Gold Wing had). It was only a 500 or a 650 (I can’t remember which) and it had no problem keeping up with the Harleys (but then, it doesn’t take much to keep up with a Harley).
Baja John and the mighty Silver Wing, somewhere well south of the border.
The Silver Wing was a pretty slick motorcycle…it had a transversely-aligned v-twin like a Moto Guzzi and it had plenty of power. Unlike the Guzzi, the Silver Wing was water cooled and that’s where our problem occurred. John’s bike developed a coolant leak. I was a little nervous about that. We were more than halfway down the peninsula and headed further south when the bike started drooling, but John had the right attitude (which was not to worry and simply ignore the problem). The little Silver Wing was like a Timex…it took the licking and kept on ticking, and to my great surprise, it simply stopped leaking after another hundred miles or so. I guess it doesn’t really count as a breakdown.
John’s KLR 650 OPEC Bike
Baja John had another bike, a KLR 650, that developed a fuel petcock leak on another one of our Baja trips. As I recall, it started leaking on the return run somewhere around El Rosario. I get nervous around fuel leaks for the obvious reasons, but John stuck to his policy: Don’t worry, be happy.
Baja John: The man, the legend.
We stayed in a hotel in Ensenada that night. The hotel had an attached enclosed parking structure, which immediately started to smell like the inside of a gas tank. Not that I’ve ever been inside a gas tank, but that parking garage pretty much had the aroma I imagine exists in such places.
John’s luck continued to hold, and we made it home without John becoming a human torch.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is you basically need four things when headed into Baja:
A tool kit.
A good attitude that includes a sense of adventure.
A well maintained motorcycle.
Maybe some spare parts.
So there you have it. If you’d like to know more about riding in Baja, please visit our Baja page and maybe pickup a copy of Moto Baja.
If you’re headed into Baja, don’t leave home without BajaBound Insurance. They are the best there is. If you are nice, they might even fix you up with a cool BajaBound coffee mug!
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When I was consulting with CSC, one day Steve Seidner (the CSC CEO) asked me to go with him to visit Shinya Kimura, a man who builds custom bikes. Steve thought I might enjoy grabbing a few photos of Mr. Kimura’s shop and a few of his bikes. Little did I know about what I would see.
From the outside, all I could see was a small shop, but when I entered I was stopped dead in my tracks by one of the most beautiful motorcycles I had ever seen. It was an early CB750 Honda Shinya had customized and it was visually arresting. I had never seen anything like it. The lens cap came off my Nikon, I dialed the ISO up to 800, and I had started snapping away.
Steve introduced me to Shinya, who invited me to look around the shop and photograph whatever I wanted. And I did, not really knowing who this guy was. But the shop…wow! It was more of a studio and a museum than a shop and it was amazing. The place was a working shop, but the tools, custom motorcycles with a unique, retro-futuristic-formed-aluminum theme, the motorcycle accoutrements, the patina, and more somehow made me feel immediately like I was in a place where I belonged. It’s hard to describe and I know these words are failing me, but if you’re a gearhead, I think you’ll get it.
But don’t take my word for it. Take a look.
Later that day I Googled Shinya Kimura. It’s good I did this later, as I might have spent more time asking him questions than taking photos, and the things I photographed were amazing. I didn’t know anything about Mr. Kimura, but Google gave me perspective on the man I had met earlier.
That night I went through the raw files I had captured with my Nikon and processed them in Photoshop. I think they are some of the best photos I’ve ever taken, but that’s not me bragging about my photography or my Photoshop skills. It was what I was shooting that made the photos what they are.
Zion. The name implies something of biblical proportions, something religious or heavenly. It’s easy to understand that’s what the Mormon settlers thought when they entered this area in the mid-1800s. One of the crown jewels of the National Park system, Zion may be as close to heaven as you can get without a one-way ticket.
Late in the day, entering Zion National Park from the east on Utah SR 9.
I’ve visited Zion many times, and I’d go back again in a heartbeat. Living in So Cal, Zion is only a day’s ride away. I’ve been there in cars and many times on motorcycles ranging from 250cc Chinese imports to Big Twin Harleys. My strong feelings for Zion are personal: It was the destination of my first big motorcycle trip. My riding buddy and departed friend Dick Scott suggested Zion back when we were going through our Harley phase (a phase most of us passed through), and it was beyond beautiful as we rolled into the park on Utah State Route 9. Zion exceeded anything I could have imagined; I remember feeling like I was riding into a Western painting. It has this effect on everyone with whom I’ve ever visited the Park. That big photo above? That’s Mr. Tso, a very likeable visitor from the Peoples Republic of China who rode with us on the CSC Motorcycles/Zongshen 5000 Mile Western America Adventure ride (a publicity effort that sold more than a few RX3 motorcycles worldwide).
Riding into Zion National Park, peering over the windshield. It’s almost a religious experience.
Nestled where the Mojave, the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau meet, Zion requires adjectival adeptness to even approach an accurate description. Pastel pink mountains, verdant vegetation, electric blue skies and emerald pools combine with abundant wildlife to create a surreal collage of seemingly endless picture postcard scenes. As national parks go, it’s small, but the scenery is absolutely over the top. I’ve been to a lot of places on this planet, and I can state with certainty that Zion’s beauty is unsurpassed. The wildlife add to the experience. On one of the CSC rides (the Destinations Deal ride), we hit what I thought was traffic and had to stop in one of Zion’s tunnels. I was frustrated until I lane split to the front of the line and found that the delay was caused by a group of bighorn sheep majestically and casually crossing the highway in front of us. They were magnificent, and no, I did not get a photo.
Stopped by a bighorn sheep herd, with my fellow Zongers in the rearview mirror.Taking in the splendor that is Zion, this group of riders is stopping to takes photos.Tony, who is finding Zion to be a bit different than the Peoples Republic of China.
The folks who know about such things think the first humans inhabited Zion a cool 12,000 years ago, hunting local game including woolly mammoths, camels and giant sloths. As these critters were hunted to extinction, the locals turned to farming and evolved into an agrarian culture known as the Virgin Anasazi. The Paiutes moved in when the Anasazi migrated south, and then the Mormons settled alongside the Paiutes in the mid-1800s (that’s when the area received its biblical moniker). Archeologists are still finding evidence of these earlier civilizations. These earlier folks were moving into Zion around the same time that the indigenous peoples were creating the cave paintings in Baja.
A wide-angle photo of SR 9 winding through Zion National Park.One of the tunnels through Zion’s mountains along Utah SR 9.
The Great Depression brought great change in the 1930s, and Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps built roads and added upgrades to make the park more accessible. The Virgin River cut deeply through sandstone to create magnificent channels and impressive geologic formations, and the CCC work made these areas easier to reach. For most people, a visit to Zion is to see the sights from the valley floor, but you can also take a half-day excursion up the western edge of the park on Kolob Reservoir Road. From there, you can look down into Zion for a completely different and equally magnificent perspective of the area.
Good buddy Rob, Willie, and more on a ride through Zion National Park.
Let’s talk about the ride — more superlatives are in order here. From any direction, you’ll know you are approaching a magical area. Antelope. Deer. Brilliant blue skies. Magnificent forests. Stunning mountains; it’s all here. From Southern California, you’ll experience tantalizing two-wheeled treats as Interstate 15 cuts through the canyons carved by the Virgin River. Riding in from Arizona’s Grand Canyon region southeast of Zion, the roads are similarly magnificent. And if you’re riding in from Bryce Canyon National Park to the northeast, well, you get the idea. This is one destination that has to be on the bucket list.
An easy ride from southern California…just take I-15 north and exit at Utah SR 9.
Zion National Park is an easy one-day freeway ride from southern California. Grab Interstate 10 East, then I-15 North through Nevada into Utah, to Utah Route 9 East (as you see in the above map). From the south, pick up State Route 89 North in Flagstaff and watch for the signs where Route 89 crosses 9 West before Mt. Carmel, Utah. From the northeast, it’s I-70 West and grab the exit for Route 89 South.
Looking up from the floor of Zion National Park. In Zion, you are mostly in the canyons looking up.
As mentioned above, unlike Bryce Canyon or the Grand Canyon (two National Parks in which you look down into the rock formations), at
Zion you are in the canyon looking up. For a different Zion perspective, take the Kolob Reservoir Road from the north to see things looking down into Zion. Check weather conditions first, as the road climbs to over 8,000 feet and may be impassible during the winter months. Kolob Terrace Road begins in Virgin, Utah, about 13 miles west of Springdale. Look for the sign to the Kolob Reservoir.
If you’re looking for a good place to eat, Casa de Amigos Restaurant in Springdale, just before you enter Zion from the south, is a good spot (the shredded chicken burritos are my favorite). It may be a victim of the pandemic, as Google indicated it was closed temporarily. If you enter Zion from the east, Mt. Carmel is the last town before you reach the Park and there are several restaurants and hotels there.
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If you would like to learn more about our 5000-mile christening ride through the American West on Chinese 250cc motorcycles, pick up a copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM.
