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ExNotes Event Review: AHRMA Motofest, Monterey, California

By Joe Gresh

After riding through the stifling heat of Utah, Nevada and central California the cold, foggy mists of the Monterey Peninsula penetrated my mesh jacket and I shivered. It was wonderful to be cold and it was wonderful to be at Laguna Seca’s Weather Tech Raceway. This wasn’t my first visit to Laguna Seca but it was my first time inside the track. Years ago I rode up from San Diego back when Laguna Seca was a date on the world championship calendar. Today, Austin’s COTA circuit has usurped that role in America but Laguna Seca is still way prettier.

Two strokes ruled Moto GP racing in that era and when I pulled up to the entrance gate the $50 ticket price almost gave me a stroke. I was earning $3.50 an hour working on boats and $50 was a ton of money. I figured the hell with it and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium instead. Oddly enough, the entry fee for AHRMA’s Motofest vintage racing was still 50 dollars some 40 years on. This time I paid for a ticket because riding from La Luz, New Mexico is a long way to go for nothing.

Motels around Monterey are sort of expensive. Your best deal is the 4-day camping pass at the track. I bought a reserved campsite because I wasn’t sure how things worked inside. Turns out there were plenty of campsites available for this event. I had site 110A, which gave me a view of turn 5 in one direction and a view of the bikes going up Rahal hill to the Corkscrew in the other direction.

Site A-110: it’s a good place to spend the weekend.

Plenty of portable toilets were sprinkled around the venue and hot showers were available in the more substantial structures. All the faucets were marked non-potable so bring plenty of water. I had to buy those little bottled waters in the paddock at $3 a bottle. The ground at my site was pretty hard so I never got my flimsy aluminum tent pegs to penetrate. Luckily my site had an old steel spike that someone left behind. I drove the spike into the hard ground on the windward side, tied the tent to the spike and used my gear to hold the other three corners down. The hydraulic jack came in handy as a hammer.

I say the ground was hard but apparently the hundreds of ground squirrels had no problem burrowing holes every 15 feet. The squirrels are all over the place at Weather Tech. I’m surprised that an aged vintage motorcycle racer hasn’t fallen in a squirrel hole and broken a leg. I’ve heard that when they get up in years it’s best to shoot them rather than let them suffer.

Me and Milich, he’s tall with a lot of drag but still wins. You can visit Milich’s websites at http://guzzipower.com/ and https://www.ducpower.com/.

Thad Wolf’s Suzuki. I never did find Wolff, he must have known I was looking for him.

Thursday was practice all day. The bikes were sent out in groups with staggered starts. There are a lot of classes in AHRMA, like dozens, to keep track of but I mostly just listened for two-strokes. AHRMA’s Motofest had a sort of mini Motorcyclist magazine reunion vibe. The Kevin Hipp racing family was there along with Thad Wolff and Ed Milich. Go-Go Gulbransen, whose name the announcer never tired of uttering was there also. Go-Go was the guy who tested the upper limits of new sport bikes for Motorcyclist magazine. All these guys live and breathe motorcycles and it’s the passion you can’t fake that made them such good journalists.

This might be a real S2 Kawasaki production racer. Very few were built. You had to know somebody.

Vintage racing today looks a bit different from when the motorcycles were current models. Hondas seem to dominate. The 160cc slopers, 175 twins and 350 twins were much faster than I remember them. In fact, I don’t remember them racing at all. I assume it’s due to better oils and electronic ignition systems, because in the old days the small bore grids were mostly Yamahas with a few Suzukis and Kawasakis. If there was a Honda racing it was usually sputtering at the tail end of the pack and the rider was wearing construction boots and welding leathers. Of course, things were different at the GP/factory level where Honda did all right for itself considering the handicap it was working under. It helps to have Mike Hailwood and Freddie Spenser on your team.

A brace of H2s these sounded good when they pulled in.

Jewel-like T500cc twin Suzuki. This was a revolutionary bike when it came out. Some people thought you couldn’t go this big without heating problems. Another bike I want to own one day.

Zoomie RD 350 with DG sunburst heads. Going for that squish band action.

A pile of Ossas. These are Stilettos; I want a Pioneer.

Stretched Honda Mini Trail with custom Grom-based block. 350cc, tops out around 100 miles per hour. I asked the kid if it was dangerous. He said he lived in Oakland, so it was the least dangerous thing he did.

After setting up camp I walked all over Laguna Seca: I needed the exercise after sitting on the ZRX1100 for five long days. To get to Monterey I took the long way around, up through Colorado to Grand Junction then across Utah and Nevada to California. I tried to ride Highway 120 through Yosemite Park but the road was closed. I detoured north from Lee Vining to Highway 108 and was rewarded with one of the world’s great motorcycle roads. Anyway, from my campsite to the paddock was only a 15-minute walk. Less if you didn’t tangle with a ground squirrel.

Vintage racing is all about the paddock. The racing, while serious, is almost secondary to checking out the old race bikes. The paddock is where the food is, where the beer is and where the old motorcycles are. Most of the spectators hang out in the paddock area. I wandered around for hours looking at motorcycles. I ate a turkey sandwich and drank a beer that was like 28 dollars but we need to support the moneymaking aspect of Laguna Seca or it’ll become luxury housing.

Saturday and Sunday were race days. I hung out with Motorcyclist Magazine alumni Ed Milich for a bit. Ed has an admirable cost per win philosophy in that he expends just enough effort to get first place and no more. His bikes look like hell but they run great. Paint don’t win races, says Ed. On the track he never seems to be trying hard, the gap between him and second place grew larger as if by magic. Ed won every race he entered (four) I did some math and determined that Ed spends around $4.37 per win. Hipp won his races also. Hipp’s bikes are those fast Honda 350s and they look like show bikes. Hipp’s wins probably cost more than Milich’s, but they still count.

Sunday morning I went over to the trials section. Set in gullies and on the sides of hills, trials riding never looks too hard until you try it. Trials events at the level Laguna Seca puts on have the advantage of being relatively safe as the speeds are very low and you can’t fall very far. This isn’t the crazy stadium trials you watch on YouTube but it suits the old motorcycles participating. I might try the trials on Godzilla next time I go to Laguna.

The legend Dave Roper. I think he’s still the only American to win at the Isle of Man races.

With such wildly different motorcycles it’s hard to compare rider skill. Except when it comes to Dave Roper: Roper, who resembles a stick of beef jerky with a cotton ball stuck on one end, was smooth and fast on any bike he rode. Roper and Walt Fulton, with a combined 300 years of racing experience, put on quite a show with their matching H-D branded, Aermacchi Sprints. There was a vintage motocross at Laguna Seca but it ran concurrent with some other races so I missed it. You really need to be two people to see all the action at AHRMA’s Vintage Motofest.

Nice, tank shift flattie. This bike sounded good on the track, very low rpm drone.

It was nice to have the campsite for Sunday night; I didn’t have to rush to pack and head out into the unforgiving freeways of California in the late afternoon. Wherever I ride the ZRX1100 it attracts attention. I’ve had people take selfie photographs standing next to the bike, I get asked what year it is almost every ride. The thing is bone stock. Laguna Seca was no different, the bike garnered a steady stream of complements from my camp neighbors. I must look hard up because the guy camping across from me handed me 40 dollars and said I had dropped it. I think he was trying to be nice to a vagabond. Normally I would have taken it but I’m trying to become a better person and told the guy it wasn’t mine.

Californians and Ex-Californians like to bitch about their state, but the damn place is beautiful. California has it all from the beaches to the mountains to the desert and all types of terrain in between. With straight roads crowded by farm equipment, the central valley (also known as The Breadbasket of America) was like the Tail of the Dragon for my nose. Sweet manure, grassy hay, dust and soil, the smells kept swapping back and forth giving my nasal passages whiplash. If it wasn’t so expensive, I’d live in California again but my total running costs at Tinfiny Ranch are less than the annual taxes on any house I could afford there. The Californians I met were universally friendly and interesting to talk to, we would start up a conversation like we had known each other for years and had just spoken last Thursday.

I’ll go to AHRMA’s Monterey bash again. It’s closer than Daytona for me and with the camping, about the same cost. I give the event high marks for value. You really get your 50 dollars worth with AHRMA.

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Want the story on the ZRX resurrextion? It’s right here.

Triumph’s New 400cc Motorcycles

By Joe Berk

Well, what do you know? Triumph is the latest moto manufacturer to jump on the small bike band wagon with the announcement of their new 400cc single-cylinder motorcycles. Not to be too snarky, but better late than never, I suppose. Harley did the same thing a year or so ago with their 350cc and 500cc motorcycles, but the Harleys were supposed to be manufactured and only available in Asia. More’s the pity, although I get it: A small bike wouldn’t go well with the typical Harley crowd.

Back to today’s topic: The new 400cc Triumphs: I like them.

Triumph announced two models: A Speed 400, and a Scrambler 400. They look like Triumphs, which is to say they look fabulous. I like the colors (each will available in three different color themes) and I like the looks.

With a published 40 horsepower, the bikes will probably be good for 100 mph, and that ought to be enough for any sane rider. I’m guessing the bikes will get something around 70 miles per gallon, and that should be good, too. Triumph turned to Bajaj (in India). There’s nothing wrong with that. Triumph’s Bonneville line is manufactured in Thailand. My Enfield 650 (which I’ve been riding for three years) is manufactured in India, and its quality is magnificent. Prices on the new Triumphs haven’t been announced yet. If the Mothership can keep the dealers from pulling their normal freight and setup chicanery, these bikes should be a good deal (but expecting dealers to abandon their larcenous freight and setup games is, I realize, probably wishful thinking).

On that Harley thing I mentioned above: QianJiang (also known QJ Motor) bought Benelli (an Italian motorcycle company) in 2005. QJ took the name and started offering bikes made in China but labeled as Benellis (I saw them at the Canton Fair a few years ago). The QJ/Benelli bikes are not bad looking, but I’ve never ridden one and I have no idea how good (or bad) they are. It’s that very same Benelli (i.e., the Chinese one) that Harley announced would be making 350cc and 500cc small Harleys. The Harley plan was that their smaller models would only be sold overseas (i.e., not in America). Harley makes and sells more motorcycles than I ever will, so I suppose they know what they are doing. But I think they are making a mistake not bringing their small bikes to America.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a QJ Motor! No, it’s a Benelli! No, it’s Super Harley!

Let’s not forget the new BSA Gold Star, another made-in-India Britbike reported here on the ExNotes blog about a year ago. That one is still in the works, I guess. For a delivery date, the new BSA website still says “available to order soon,” which is to say we have no idea when the new BSA Goldie will be here.

The revivified Beezer Gold Star. I think it is a better-looking bike than either the new Triumph or the small Chinese Harley.

While all this is going on, my friends in Zongshen (they make the RX3, the RX4, the Zongshen 400cc twins, the TT 250, the San Gabriel, and now the RX6 650cc twin that CSC imports to the US) tell me that the craze in China has gone full tilt toward bigger bikes. That’s why they introduced the RX6. I was the first journalist/blogger/all around good guy in America to ride and report on the RX6. It’s a good bike, but I’m not a fan of the movement toward ever larger motorcycles. I’m convinced that my RX3 was the best all around motorcycle I ever owned (especially for riding in Baja), and I’ve written extensively on that.

I’m looking forward to seeing the new Triumphs. Hell, I’d look forward to seeing the new small Harleys and the BSA, too, but maybe that’s not in the cards. Why the fascination and appreciation for small bikes? Take a read here.

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Life as a Digital Nomad: Part 1 (Testing the Waters)

By Mike Huber

In 2010 the company I worked for gave me my pink slip due to budgetary cuts. I was feeling distraught and lost because I had been working there for 8 years. Fortunately, I had a great director who helped by transferring me from a management position into a project manager slot that would be fully remote.

Remote positions at the time were called working from home. It didn’t take long for me to ask myself a question: What if I didn’t have a home? This mostly was bar talk amongst friends and I didn’t expect the crazy scenarios we discussed to ever become a reality. Well…it seems planting those seeds in my mind was all it took for them to nurture, and then to grow into 13 years of almost nonstop travel.

The first two years were mostly spent learning to excel in my new position as a project manager along with clumsily discovering how to adjust my work/life balance in creative ways. This involved motorcycling throughout New England in between work responsibilities.

Something I learned early is that there are McDonald’s with wi-fi everywhere, and at the time it was one of the better places to stop to respond to emails or for a conference call (this was a life prior to riding a BMW, so I didn’t require Starbucks). I timed my rides to reach these locations 10 minutes prior to conference calls. This allowed me time to set up and prepare for them as needed.

The first day as a remote employee I decided to knock out a ride from Boston to Route 17 in northern Vermont. Route 17 is also known as the “Little Tail of the Dragon.” It was May and I was literally working off my Ducati Monster M1100 as I tore up Vermont. Since it took so long to reach Route 17 it made sense to ride it twice to ensure the long ride was worth it and regain the curve back in my tires. It may have been one of the best days I have ever had working and figured this newfound freedom would provide many opportunities to fill in the gaps that I had been missing by going into a regular office day to day.

Riding all the way to Vermont from Boston on your first day in a new position probably was a bit of overkill. I was missing calls and hadn’t noticed my phone was constantly ringing in my pocket (an easy oversight being so heavily focused on riding). I was in flight formation and setting the pace for a flock of mallards that happened to be flying down the White River, which ran parallel to Route 100. Unbeknownst to me the phone continued ringing as the Ducati’s Termignoni exhaust roared through the Green Mountains while I leaned into corners that followed the river.

Shortly after parting ways with the mallards and crossing back into New Hampshire, I saw some lights behind me. It was a New Hampshire State Trooper. Dammit! I am sure I was speeding, but the question always is how fast. It was fast. As I began talking to the State Trooper to try to minimize the damage, I could now hear my cell phone ringing. I picked it up as the Trooper ran my information. It was my new manager based in Virginia calling to introduce herself and ask if I had noticed that I had missed a call I needed to be on. I stated I was just out getting a coffee (which was 100% true; it’s just that the coffee was 200 miles away). This was probably one of my more challenging multitask scenarios (i.e., signing a speeding ticket while on an introductory call with my manager). To this day I feel I would have been able to get out of that ticket had I not been so distracted by work. Lesson 1 as a remote employee learned.

After that day I knew I should take my work a bit more seriously and slow my pace. I continued to ride, but always ensured I attended every call (which I did over the next 13 years). My work ethic has always been strong, and I didn’t want to compromise this position and what I could possibly do with it by losing my focus. Continuing to merge my work responsibilities with riding was something that I honed to an art form.

Once I was comfortable performing my work one or two days a week off the motorcycle, I thought I would step the adventure up a notch: California. I had relatives in Oakland and there was a Harley rental in San Francisco, a short transit ride away. It made sense to fly there for two weeks and work remotely in a new environment and time zone to see how I would perform.

The test run couldn’t have gone smoother. I was on Pacific Time when my team was on Eastern Time. This ensured that by 1:00 p.m. all my tasks and calls were completed. Having earlier workdays provided much more time to explore San Francisco and the Bay Area. A couple of vacation days in the mix allowed time to rent a Harley in San Francisco and take a 3-day trip to Tahoe and Yosemite. Even though I was on vacation those days I felt obliged to join work calls whenever possible just to stay on top of my projects, while obtaining bonus points from management for doing so on my time off. I felt this made up for my missed meeting when I had first started this position in New Hampshire.

The California trip had solidified my abilities to work from anywhere. On the return flight to Boston my thoughts focused on a farfetched mindset: What if I don’t have a home? It would take a few months of planning and a solid leap of faith. As with all leaps of faith you never know where or how it will end, but I felt sure I could make this dream a reality. What I didn’t realize is how far I would take this and the new experiences my decision would deliver. I turned my life into Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on steroids over the next 13 years.

The Sportster of Seville

By Joe Berk

When I was a kid, I used to watch a weekly television comedy show called The Little Rascals. In one of the episodes, one of the rascals named Alfalfa sang a song from Gioachino Rossini’s opera, The Barber of Seville. Until very recently, Alfalfa’s rendition and a Cadillac made in the 1970s (the Seville) were all I knew of Seville. That changed with our recent trip to Spain.

Cards on the table: I didn’t know anything about Gioachino Rossini’s opera until I Googled the Little Rascals and the Barber of Seville. In so doing, I found out that Warner Brothers also had a Bugs Bunny cartoon with the same song. I know…I digress. Indulge me for 56 seconds more. Here’s Alfalfa belting it out. Told ya…

You might be wondering: What’s with the Sportster in the cover photo up top? I saw it my first afternoon in Seville. Believe it or not, in Spain, the land that brought us Bultaco (the motorcycle, not the Mexican bullfight snack bar delicacy), Ossa, and Montesa (or, as some might say, Montessa), the ultimate motorcycle status symbol is a used Sportster. Hence the title of this blog: The Sportster of Seville. We’ve had a lot of fun with Sportster blogs here on ExNotes, but let’s get to the main topic of this discussion: Seville.

One of our first stops in Seville was the Plaza de España, which is a magnificent building and park area built in 1929 when Seville hosted the Ibero-American Exposition World’s Fair. The Plaza de España is impressive. Today, the building has been renovated and it is used for Spanish government agencies. It’s beautiful.

Photo opportunities abound. This shot of the tower through one of the many arches almost took itself.

Any time there’s water or a mirror, I’m there. You can do a lot with reflections when you shoot a photo.

We saw a bunch of touristy chotchkas in the Plaza de España courtyard that made for good photos (I would never buy this sort of stuff…if I need to generate a breeze, I’ll hop on my motorcycle…you know, to get my knees in the breeze). But it was fun to photograph.

Fans for sale in the Plaza de España courtyard.

My attention then turned to the tilework along the Plaza de España courtyard wall that stretched for half a mile. Each tile-based mural depicts a Spanish province. The work was impressive, but what was even more impressive was what happened next.

One of many tile murals in the Plaza de España courtyard.

Another Plaza de España courtyard tile mural.

Two Spanish motor officers rolled into the Plaza de España courtyard on (get this) police motor scooters. I always thought small motorcycles and motor scooters made a lot of sense in urban areas (I’ll say more on that in a second). I asked the motor officer in the photo below if I could grab a picture and he was cool with it.

A Seville motor officer. If I was 50 years younger and spoke Spanish, I might try out for a job like this. It looked like a great gig, and I like the colors.

I didn’t realize why the motor officers had appeared out of nowhere. All those tourist chotchkas like the fans you see in the photo above? The folks selling their wares there (I’m told they were Gypsies, if you can even say that anymore) weren’t supposed to be there. When I looked up after grabbing the photo above, all the chotchkas (and the chotchka merchants) were gone. They just went poof and vanished. Wiped clean from the face of the Earth (as they said in that Indiana Jones movie). I guess you don’t want to mess with a Spanish motor officer.

On the motor scooter/small motorcycle thing for police motorcycles: When Gresh and I were at the Zongshen factory in Chongqing, one of the many very cool things we saw there were RX3 police motorcycles. Imagine that: A 250cc police motorcycle. I talked Zongshen into giving us (“us” being CSC Motorcycles) three or four of the things so we could market them to police departments in America. Imagine that, too…one short email and poof: Three free motorcycles.

The CSC RX3 250cc police motorcycle. I had a lot of fun on these.

The obligatory blog commercial: The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles. Did I mention these make great gifts?

I thought I knew the police motorcycle market a little bit because I had written a book about police motors. Man, I tried, but it was a bust. The Sacramento Fairgrounds Police were interested, but I couldn’t close the deal. We shipped one to the New York City Police Department (I knew they used Vespas for police work), Andy Sipowicz and crew kept the bike for about two months without ever taking it out of the crate, and then they shipped it back. I took one to a couple of local police departments, but the only thing to come of that was one of the cops told me I wasn’t allowed to ride it around with the red and blue lights and the siren still attached. I told him not to worry; I only used that stuff if people wouldn’t get out of my way. Zongshen, on the other hand, has done fabulously well with their police bikes. They are selling RX1s, RX3s, RX4s, and other bikes as police motors literally all over the world. Just not in America. I’ll do a blog about Zongshen police bikes someday.

I know, I’m digressing again. Back to the main attraction: Seville. We walked around quite a bit (I did 17,000 steps one day) and there were tons of photo ops. Doors, tiles, alleys, and more.

A door in Seville. Spain and Portugal are an artist’s palette. Both were awesome.

A Seville sidewalk. The sidewalks were awesome everywhere we went. Think of the labor that went into this. Joe Gresh, this is your new concrete standard. I’ll take a photo when you finish and put it on the blog.

As we walked around Seville and took in the sights, Jose (our awesome guide) told us we were in the Jewish quarter. I asked if Jewish people still lived there. Very few, he said. You know: The Spanish Inquisition. Oh, yeah. I remember reading about that in James Michener’s The Source (a great story and a great read).

In Seville’s Jewish Quarter. Note the sign on the wall on the right.

Our walk through Seville presented one photo op after another. I had my old Nikon D3300 (the current version is the Nikon D3500), an entry-level consumer grade digital SLR, and the relatively inexpensive (but vibration-reduction-equipped) 18-55mm zoom lens. It was great. The D3300 is a light camera. My other Nikon (the D810) has more capability, but it is much heavier. For this kind of tourism, the D3300 (or the current D3500) is a better deal.

A fountain in the exterior corner of a Seville structure.

I saw this and had to ask: Is Antonio here? Which one, they answered…we have lots of Antonios. Sometimes, my humor is an acquired taste.

We continued our walking tour, and it was on to the Catedral de Sevilla, a massive cathedral built between 1434 and 1517 over what used to be the city’s main mosque (when the Moors occupied the Iberian peninsula). It rivals the Vatican’s Saint Peter’s cathedral (it’s that big).

The 18-55mm lens wasn’t wide enough to take in the entire Catedral de Sevilla. It is a massive church, the largest in Spain.

Susie, my traveling buddy for 40 years, with the Catedral de Sevilla in the background.

The Catedral de Sevilla interior is impressive, but it is dimly lit and flash photography is strictly verboten (I wouldn’t have used flash, anyway), so I relied on finding something to brace my camera against and the lens’ vibration reduction technology (which did a great job). I could do a photobook with just interior shots, including the Catedral de Sevilla’s beyond impressive stained glass windows.

This was but one of many stained glass windows in the Catedral de Sevilla.

Shooting in the camera’s RAW mode and allowing PhotoShop’s Auto adjustment to work its magic brings up features that can’t be captured with jpeg alone.

Incredible sights, incredible detail, and lots of photography fun.

You may not know this (I certainly didn’t) but one of Christopher Columbus’s crypts is in the Catedral de Sevilla (folks apparently spread his remains around a bit). The photo below shows one of his crypts in the Catedral de Sevilla. Columbus was an Italian from Genoa, but his expeditions were funded by Spain’s Queen Isabella.

So there you have it: Seville. There’s more to come from our Spanish adventure, so sign up for your free subscription (don’t forget to tell your email program we’re not spam) or check back often. Or maybe do both. And if you have comments, we’d love to hear them.

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Lisbon

I should have paid more attention in my elementary and junior high school geography classes. I remember studying Christopher Columbus (the guy who “discovered” America), but the other explorers’ names are lost among my fading neurons. And here we were, in Lisbon, where Vasco de Gama, Magellan, Henry the Navigator, old Christopher C. himself, and others hung out five or six centuries ago. I wish I could repeat my 7th grade geography class with Mr. Costa for just that reason. Being 12 years old again would be cool, too.

My new good buddy Ibrahim, one of our fellow tourists on this adventure, is a serious photographer. He used my consumer grade Nikon to take the photo below at the Parque Eduardo VII . It was one of the first places we stopped in Lisbon, and the statue at the end is Christopher Columbus. Look at those hedges and think about how much labor is needed to keep them looking this good. By the time you get to the end trimming them, you’d have to go back to the beginning and start over. That’s the Tagus River in the background. Lisbon is right on the Atlantic Ocean. A lot of 14th and 15th century New World explorations started right here.

Susie and yours truly at the Parque Eduardo VII in Lisbon. Photo by Ibrahim Alava.

The photo below is from one of many churches we visited (we saw many churches and a couple of synagogues in Spain and Portugal; before the Spanish Inquisition, there was a thriving Jewish community on the Iberian Peninsula).

Blue and white tiles were a common decor in Spain and Portugal.

Blue tiles were everywhere in Lisbon. Spain and Portugal were occupied by the Moors for centuries. The Moors brought their art, their architecture, and their style (including blue tiles) to the region. The Moors were ultimately driven out, but the tiles remained. I could spend a month in Lisbon just photographing the tiles. The tiles get their blue color from cobalt, which is locally mined.

We wandered through Lisbon’s Alfama neighborhood to a church at the top of a hill, led by a local guide. Our walk here involved a steep uphill climb through narrow streets and alleys. When Sue and I first joined up with our tour group two days earlier, I felt good seeing that the group was mostly made up of old people (I called our group the Portugueezers). I figured our age would hold the walking and climbing to a minimum. I was wrong. We did a ton of walking and climbing. My iPhone told me one day I did over 17,000 steps. Most days were at least 10,000 steps.

A colorful door in Lisbon’s Alfama neighborhood.

I took a lot of artsy-fartsy photos of doors, doorknobs, door knockers, and other things as we climbed the twisting and narrow streets of Lisbon’s Alfama neighborhood. My fellow Portugueezers thought I was a serious amateur photographer when I frequently stopped to grab a picture, and I didn’t say anything to persuade them otherwise (the stops were so I could catch my breath).

I noticed that a few of the homes had printed tiles with photos of older women on their exterior walls. I tried to find out more about this on Google but I struck out (I should have asked our guide while we were there, but I was huffing and puffing too hard to ask). Maybe these women were famous Portuguese mountain climbers. Sue later told me our guide said the tiles tell a bit about the residents of each home. Say hello to Ms. Delmira and Ms. da Luz.

Ms. Delmira, an Alfama neighborhood denizen.

Ms. da Luz, known as Maria to her friends.

We were in an area frequented by tourists and there were lots of shops selling things. Where there were colors, I took a photo or two.

We then went down to the waterfront Belém area along the Tagus River. The statue below is a monument to Henry the Navigator.

An interesting monument to Henry the Navigator in the Belém area.

A closer view of statues on the Henry the Navigator monument.

The Hieronymites Monastery was across the street from the Henry the Navigator monument. Jose, our guide, told us that nuns in this monastery (I didn’t think they had nuns in a monastery, but what do I know?) were famous for their Pastéis de Belém. Jose disappeared for a bit and then reappeared with samples for us to try. They were excellent.

James (one of our fellow travelers) and Jose, our tour guide.

Like Porto and other big European cities, downtown Lisbon was a hotbed of scooter activity. At any traffic light, scooters filtered to the front of the queue, and when the light turned green, it was a multi-scooter drag race. It was fun to watch. I guess Portugal has a helmet law; everyone wore one. But that was it for protective gear. Think full face helmets accompanied by t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops (all the gear, all the time). I’m guessing I saw a hundred scooters for every motorcycle, and when we did see motorcycles, they were mostly 125cc machines. Many appeared to be of Chinese origin, with Honda and Yamaha motorcycles making up the balance. There were a few big bikes; I spoke to a guy at a rest stop who was on a BMW GS. He told me he liked his GS and it was a good machine, but he had another motorcycle that was his pride and joy: A Harley Sportster. “It has a carburetor,” he proudly told me (an obvious vintageness badge). I thought I might refer him to our earlier ExNotes post, 18 Reasons Why You Should Buy A Used Sportster, but he was in a hurry and I had already run out of ExNotes business cards.

Check it out: 18 Reasons Why You Should Buy A Used Sportster.

There’s more, but this blog is getting long enough. You get the idea. After two days in Lisbon, it was on to Évora and then Spain.

Stay tuned, my friends.

Have you bought your copy of our latest book, A Cup O’ Joes?

Live on Amazon!

A Cup O’ Joes is available now on Amazon. Every bathroom in every motorcycle shop and every motorcyclist’s home needs this book. They make great gifts. Check out the blurb:

Joe Gresh and Joe Berk bring you a collection of their favorite articles and stories from the ExhaustNotes.us website, Motorcycle Classics magazine, Rider magazine, Motorcyclist magazine, ADVMoto magazine, and other publications. Ride with the Joes in China, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, the former Soviet Union, and the United States. Read their opinions on motorcycles, accessories, and more. Humor, wit, insight, and great reading…this collection of motoliterature belongs in your library. Published in black and white.

You could wait for the movie, but the movie deal fell through. You know the story…I wanted Leonardo di Caprio to play me or Gresh, the studio countered with Danny DeVito, and things fell apart after that.

Seriously, though, you need this book. It will make you taller, skinnier, more attractive, and a faster rider. Trust us on this.

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ExhaustNotes TV Review: then came Bronson

I’ve been on a then came Bronson kick lately. I can’t find any of the TV shows on YouTube but the website Dailymotion has a few complete episodes available free online and I’ve been watching them one a day for a week or so. A bit of backstory for motorcyclists under the age of 105: then came Bronson was an episodic, 1-hour TV drama about a guy traveling the country on his Harley Davidson Sportster. It was sort of like Easy Rider but without the drugs. This was in the era before Sportsters were considered a girl’s bike. In the late 1960’s the Sportster was a high performance motorcycle that ran with the best of the British bikes…in a straight line.

When tcB was a new show I watched it on a black and white television with maybe a 19” diagonal measurement. I was 12 years old and a TV show about motorcycles and motorcyclists not depicted as Hells Angels had never been done. I remember watching the TV show but I can’t remember specific episodes. In those pre-internet, pre-DVD recorder days if you missed the air date it was gone forever. Watching the old show on the Dailymotion site has been like seeing them for the first time.

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Bronson was from The Bay Area and he chucked it all to cruise around the California backcountry meeting interesting characters and saving damsels in distress. Watch the classic opening scene on YouTube: nobody wanted to be that guy in the station wagon. I guess distress is too strong a word. The damsels were more dissatisfied than distressed. They were small town girls trapped in boring lives and Bronson represented a different ending to the story. Bronson was their ticket to Any-where-else, USA.

Lord knows Bronson never went out of his way to encourage the girls but when you look like James Dean you don’t have to try very hard. Bronson’s sure-fire method for attracting women was to do exactly nothing. He wouldn’t talk unless really pushed into it. He never tried to get fresh or make the first move. Often he would fall asleep on a date with a beautiful woman who was holding up a cardboard sign that said, “Take me now, you idiot!” written in red lipstick. His method may have been sure-fire but his actual success rate was low. It wasn’t long before the girls would get frustrated, give up, and go back to their small town boys

Of course I didn’t notice this strangeness when I was 12 years old. It was enough to see a motorcycle on the television. Looking at the show today it is clear than Bronson suffered from narcolepsy and possibly landed on the high end of the autism spectrum. At times it seemed painful for him to speak, he would grimace before he could manage to drag the gut-hooked words out of his mouth. Sometimes when another character would ask Bronson a question his answer would be to turn away and look off into the distance. It was all too much for him.

It seemed like in almost every episode Bronson’s motorcycle would be wrecked. A car might back into him, he might run into a ditch and bend the forks or a friendly local might ride it into the lake. These crashes were a way to hold Bronson in a town long enough for the local women to throw themselves at him; normally it took two or three days for all of them to have a go at Bronson. If you’re a nitpicker for accuracy the scenes of Bronson repairing his bike will have you yelling, “That’s the fifth time you’ve put the gas tank bolt in!” or, “There’s no way you got that fender straight with two rocks!”

I’m poking fun at then came Bronson but it really was a great show that had a huge influence on my generation of motorcycle riders. Hell, it’s still a great show. Bronson came along at the exact right time to catch the first big wave of what we think of as modern motorcycling, when you could meet the nicest people on a Honda or a meanie on a Yamaha. The show still holds up well to re-watching if you can suspend logic for an hour. And who doesn’t love a show with a bronze-head Rudge in it?

As you can see in the photos above, watching then came Bronson had absolutely zero effect on me. I was lucky to travel around the country in 1975, only a few years after Bronson aired. The small towns in America still looked like scenes from then came Bronson. Today many of the towns I saw in my travels are boarded up and abandoned. Thriving businesses where I bought gas and a RC cola have crumbled into the ground. Turns out none of those people Bronson met and befriended really wanted to stay in their little towns. They didn’t know where they were going but they ended up somewhere.

After my Bronson binge I’ve been thinking about getting a jet-style, open face helmet like the one Bronson wore in the show. I know a full helmet is safer but I want more interaction with the environment, but not like my face on asphalt interaction. Maybe getting a few bugs in my teeth would be a good thing, and maybe I do talk a little too much. I’ll practice my pained looks and concentrate on the horizon. I wonder if I ignore CT long enough she’ll hold up one of those lipstick-lettered cardboard signs. That would be cool. Go check out then came Bronson on Dailymotion, and hang in there.

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Dreambikes: ’97 Suzuki TL1000S

The year was 1997 and the Ducati V-twins had been dominating magazine covers for years. Not to be outdone, two Japanese manufacturers produced similarly-configured V-twins (actually, L-twins). Honda had the SuperHawk, and Suzuki the TL1000S. I’ve always liked Suzuki better, so I went with the TL1000s. Suzuki offered the TL in two colors….a forest green with red accents; and bright red with yellow accents. For me, it had to be red.

My ’97 TL1000S, somewhere in northern Baja.

I bought my TL at Bert’s in Azusa. If I recall correctly, I negotiated the guys down to $8700 out the door, and part of that was a Yamaha 650 twin I traded in. I had bought the Yamaha used from a guy in a course I taught at McDonnell Douglas, thinking the Yamaha would be like my old Triumph Bonnevilles but reliable. The Yamaha was a bust. It was too heavy, it had cheap fasteners, the Hopper/Fonda riding stance was awful, it didn’t handle, and it lacked the low-end grunt of my earlier Triumphs.

I remember riding the TL home from Bert’s. The riding was awkward with the bike’s low bars and high footpegs, but I got used to it and I made it less punishing with a set of Heli-Bars. The Heli-Bars were slighly taller and wider (you got about an inch more in each dimension, which made a difference).

A stop for fuel in Catavina. The guys sell gasolina from bottles along Mexico Highway 1.

The TL was the fastest and hardest accelerating motorcycle I ever owned. It would wheelie in third gear if you weren’t paying attention, and it went from zero to 100 in a heartbeat. The bottom end torque was ferocious. Fuel economy was atrocious, and it had a tendency to stall at low rpm. But wow, did it ever look good. Did I mention it was fast?

My friend Marty had an Aprilia V-twin (a Mille, I think, or something like that), another bit of Italian exotica, that cost even more than the Ducati. Marty’s spaghetti-bender was more than twice what I paid for my TL. We swapped bikes once on a day ride and I came away unimpressed. My TL was faster.

Baja a few years ago. Younger, thinner, and hair that hadn’t turned gray yet. That motorcycle made me look good.

I wanted the look of a sport bike, but I’m not a canyon racer and the exotic look didn’t do anything for me once I had ridden the TL a few times. Then something funny happened. My Harley died on a Baja ride. I nursed my Harley home, parked it, and took the TL. Surprisingly, it did a good job as a touring platform. And I could ride at speeds the Harley couldn’t dream about. In those days, if there were speed limits in Baja, I didn’t know about them.

That first big trip on the TL instead of the Harley cinched it for me. I bought sportsbike soft luggage and used the TL on many rides after that. 700-mile days in Baja became the norm (I could make Mulegé in a day; the TL wouldn’t break a sweat). The only downside was the abominable fuel economy (the fuel light would come on after 105 miles), but a one-gallon red plastic fuel container and a bungie cord fixed that. It was Beverly hillbillies, but it worked. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly (somebody’s got to shoot those road signs).

TL1000S touring. The bike was a surprisingly good touring machine.

Even with the TL’s mid-30-mpg fuel economy, I only ran out of fuel twice. Once was on the Bodfish-Caliente Road (one of California’s best kept secrets). I didn’t have my gas can with me; Marty rode ahead and returned with a gasoline-filled water bottle he hoped wouldn’t dissolve (it didn’t). The other time was on Baja’s long stretch headed south to Guerrero Negro. That road runs straight as an arrow, and I ran the TL at a surprisingly comfortable 145 mph (still well below the TL’s top speed). The TL was fuel injected and when it ran dry it was like someone shut the ignition. I poured my extra gallon in and made it to the next Pemex station. The guys I rode with were still far behind.

I had fun with the TL, but I dropped it a lot more than any other bike I had ever owned. All the drops were my fault. The low-mounted sport bars restricted steering, and once when pulling into my driveway, there wasn’t enough to keep the bike upright. Before I realized it, the bike and I were both on the ground (my first thought was to wonder if anyone had seen me). The next time the bike was in my driveway, facing slightly downhill. I started it to let it warm up, and the bike rolled off the sidestand. Again, my first thought was if anyone had seen me. The third time was more dramatic. The TL had a slipper clutch; you could downshift with reckless abandon. The clutch would slip and not skid the rear tire. It was cool, until I used it diving hard into a corner. The curb was coming up quickly and I wasn’t slowing fast enough. The slipper clutch was doing its thing, but when I touched the front brake, that was enough to unload the rear wheel. It broke loose and I fishtailed into the curb. I went over the bars, executed a very clean somersault, and came to rest in the sitting position looking straight ahead. I had been watching the Oympics on TV the day before and I remember thinking (as I completed my dismount) I could be a competitor. A woman in a station wagon saw the whole thing. She rolled down her window and I half expected to see a sign with a 10 on it (like they do at the Olympics). “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered. “I’m a gymnast and I’m practicing.” The window went up and she disappeared.

I loved the looks of the TL. Yeah, the carbon fiber was faux, but I didn’t care. In those days I was running a factory that made carbon fiber aircraft stuff and I never understood the attraction. Even with fake carbon fiber, the TL was a motorcycle that looked fast. And it was.

Suzuki only made the TL for a few years. Some guy in the UK killed himself in a speed wobble, the bike got an Internet rep as a tank slapper, and that killed sales worldwide. Suzuki had a recall to add a steering damper, but the damage had been done. Bert’s installed the damper on my TL, I couldn’t feel any difference , and my bike never went into a wobble (either before or after the recall). My hypothesis is that the UK guy rolled on too much throttle exiting a corner, lifting the front wheel with the bike leaned over. That will induce a wobble, you know. There was another recall to fix the low speed stalling issue. I guess it worked; my bike never had a low speed stall after that.

Suzuki offered a more radical fully-faired version called the TL1000R (I didn’t like its looks), but the TL-R didn’t survive, either. The engine, however, proved to be a winner. Today, 25 years later, a detuned version is still soldiering on in the ADV-styled V-Strom. I never owned a V-Strom, but I should have. Everybody I ever talked to who owned one loved the V-Strom. Me, I loved my TL.

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Catching Up

Here’s a quick update on things we’ve posted about recently.

Someone else won the auction for Hank Williams .357 Ruger Blackhawk, and like I said I would, I ordered a New Model Ruger Blackhawk instead. To my astonishment, the Hank Williams gun sold for a whopping $4,993.37 (when new in 1972, it was a scosh over $100). My New Model .357 Blackhawk is at the local dealer, and I’m in the Peoples Republik 10-day cooling off period. I snagged it for $659 on Gunbroker, a reasonable price in today’s economy. I’ve got a bunch of ammo in a variety of flavors reloaded and ready to test, but I think I know what works in a Blackhawk. We’ll see.

I took Poppy’s watch to the repair shop and it was enlightening. My guy opened the watch up, which confirmed it is 14-carat white gold and revealed the serial number. The watch tech looked it up, and I learned that Poppy’s watch dates to 1884. It’s 138 years old and it’s still ticking. It’s the oldest and coolest thing I own.

Gresh’s blog on a proposed vintage bike gathering in New Mexico garnered a lot of comments and it was picked up by Motorcycle.com. I think this event it is going to happen. A few guys have posted it on other forums (we appreciate that). We’ll keep you updated right here on the ExNotes blog.

The Harley that flew off the Oakland Bay Bridge? It’s still under water (dive crews can’t find it). I wouldn’t have thought it worth the effort (you know, you can buy a brand new Chinese motorcycle from CSC for less than what a used Harley costs). I would think the divers could just look for the oil spots and work back, but hey, what do I know?

I found the piece Gresh did on the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club particularly appealing and I joined the VJMC, too. Like Joe, I recently received my first print magazine, and Gresh was right….there is a special excitement in getting an actual printed magazine in the mail.

The Gresh Husky saga soldiers on. Joe is already deep into the guts of his Husky’s transmission, and his engineering talents and Ebay prowess are moving things in the right direction (you’ll get an update on that in the very next ExNotes blog). Good buddy Terry pointed out that Gresh could have bought a used Sportster for what he’ll have into his Swedish meatball (it seems that Harleys are the benchmark for all things motorcycle). With Gresh’s considerable skills and Harley’s rumored reliability, maybe the best approach would be to wedge a Milwaukee transmission into the Husky (a Husky-Davidson?). Like you, I’m looking forward reading about how this adventure progresses.

And finally, one last comment, this one on Mosin-Nagant rifles. We’ve done Mosin stories (see the Tales of the Gun page). It’s no secret I’m a big fan, and it looks like that interest could pay dividends if I was interested in selling my Mosins (I’m not). Rock Island Auctions recently published an article on Mosin-Nagant price trends, and it shows they are sharply up. That’s good.

So there you have it. We appreciate you following the ExNotes blog and we appreciate your comments. Please keep the comments coming, and as always, please keep hitting those popup ads!

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A Harley Submarine?

Everybody who’s ever thrown a leg over a motorcycle has a story about when they crashed. This guy (who’s name I do not know) has us all beat. Last Thursday night, our unnamed hero was riding his Harley-Davidson across the Oakland Bay Bridge (the other big bridge connecting San Francisco to the mainland) when some dweeb in a Mini Cooper merged into his lane. A crash ensued, the rider came off the bike and suffered minor injuries, but the Harley kept going. And going. And going. Until it hit the rail and (you guessed it) went over the side.

The Oakland Bay Bridge is 190 feet above the Bay.

This fellow sounds like one tough (and lucky) dude. According to the news reports, he transported himself to the hospital, where he was treated and released. Also according to the news reports, no citations were issued to either our would-be U-boat commander or the Mini pilot.

The CHP and the Fire Department say they know exactly where the bike is. (So do I. It’s in San Francisco Bay.) The emergency responders will attempt to recover the motorcycle at a later date (the water under the bridge is about 100 feet deep). They are worried about it leaking gas and oil into the Bay. There’s a joke in there somewhere. Harleys are known to leak both, you know. I know Harley is moving to liquid cooling, but this is ridiculous. There’s got to be more. Let’s hear ’em.

As motorcycle crash stories go, this has to be one for the ages. I’m glad our hero (whoever he is) came through it with only minor injuries. Ah, the stories he’ll be able to tell.

So, here’s an invitation. Recognizing it’s not likely any of us will ever be able to top this story, what’s yours? Got a good crash story? We’d love to hear it.

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