Anyone who wants to become Vulcan must learn how to cut metal. There are many methods available like bandsaws, oxyacetylene torch, abrasive wheels, hacksaws and the old reliable, bend-it-back-and-forth-until-it-breaks. One of the relatively newer methods (in relation to the age of the Universe) is a machine called the plasma cutter.
Plasma cutters used to be very expensive. The plasma machine we use at school cost around 4000 dollars and is rated at 60 amps. The global economy (AKA China) has driven down the cost of plasma cutters dramatically. The Yeswelder cutter in this story cost me under 200 dollars and is rated 55 amps. Shipping was free.
In use, a plasma cutter works much like an oxyacetylene cutting torch. The big difference is that you don’t need any fuel: no acetylene gas to buy or bottles to rent. The only thing burning in a plasma cutting system is the material you are cutting through.
The plasma cutter uses regular compressed air and a bunch of ions and magical stuff inside the cutting head to create a super-hot, narrow stream of plasma. It’s sort of like having your own pocket-sized northern lights shooting out of the torch to cut material.
Unlike oxyacetylene, there is no waiting for the material to heat up. With a plasma cutter you set the torch near the material and pull the trigger. A jet of plasma shoots out of the torch and you can start cutting immediately. The plasma cutter cuts at about the same speed as an oxy cutter so you can move right along.
The 55 DS Pro Yeswelder plasma cutter will operate using 120 or 240 volts AC using the included adaptor. The machine auto selects for the voltage you are plugged into. At 120VAC input the machine will only go to 30 amps. You’ll need 240 VAC to access all 55 amps of metal slashing power
My air compressor is too small for the plasma cutter and is located too far away from where I cut so there’s a long air hose involved; with a long hose line pressure drops fast. I made a remote air tank out of a defunct water pump to give me a little more cut time and eliminate the line drop. I can cut 6 to 10 inches before I have to wait for the compressor to catch up. If you’re going to be doing a lot of continuous cutting with a plasma cutter you’ll need a decent sized air compressor.
With the compressor and the plasma cutter operating simultaneously, my smallish off-grid inverter struggles and spits out a low voltage alarm when the compressor starts. To get around this problem I use a fossil fuel powered 10KW Honda generator. The big V-twin Honda doesn’t even notice when I cut with the plasma torch and the air compressor kicks in.
Most everything you need to get started is included with the Yeswelder Cut-55. You’ll need to provide the air compressor and connect an air hose to the built in pressure regulator/filter on the back of the Yeswelder. Unless you cut through the torch hose or spill a Big Gulp container of Pepsi Cola inside the cutter, normal consumables are only the bits inside the torch that churn out ions.
The controls are pretty simple on the Yeswelder Cut-55. There is an amp setting, an air pressure setting, 2T or 4T trigger actuation (on-off with squeeze and release or squeeze on, release, torch stays on, second trigger pull turns off) an indicator for input voltage and not much else. It’s a simple machine to operate.
I haven’t used the machine very much; it cut through 1/8-inch steel like a hot jet of plasma through 1/8-inch steel. There’s not as much slag as with oxy cutting so clean up is easier. It should handle ¼-inch steel without a problem and I don’t work with anything thicker.
The prices on these Chinese plasma cutters are so much lower than the old line companies something must be sacrificed. I’m guessing in a full time metal shop the cheapo versions wouldn’t last long but for guys like me or you who just want to cut out a metal silhouette of a buffalo once in a while the Yeswelder looks like the goods. I give it a 5-star rating on the Hacksaw Chi-Com scale. That being said I have only one caveat: The thing may go up in a ball of exploding ions tomorrow. If it does quit I’ll be sure to report it in a follow up story.
I usually use two jack stands with a long piece of ½” rod through the wheel bearings to balance a motorcycle tire. It works ok but there is a bit of drag on the bearings that makes balancing a sticky affair. You can get the wheel close but minor amounts of weight (like ½ ounce) won’t have much effect.
Since I got the Harbor Freight tire machine I’ve been happily changing tires as needed. I’ve done around eight tire changes and I’ve got the system somewhat down. The only thing I was missing was a dedicated tire balance stand. This is where the Easyberg (no relation to Joe Berg) tire balancer comes in.
An Amazon search will return about two dozen motorcycle tire balancers, and most of them look exactly the same. The Easyberg was the cheapest at the time I bought it, but prices sway back and forth depending on which seller is having a sale or coupon deal. I paid $36 for the balancer and there is no way I could build one as nice for that amount of money.
My Easyberg came unassembled. It was Easybarrak to assemble the thing, requiring only an open end wrench and a hex wrench. A tiny screwdriver was needed to tighten the bubble level.
Once assembled, the Easyberg I received was slightly tweaked. The axle did not run parallel to the base making the tire sit crooked in the stand. The Easyfoil material is thin enough that I could tweak it straight. Any warpage of the base due to the tweaking process can be taken out by the four, adjustable feet. I used a four-foot level on top of the axle to check the bubble and it was fairly accurate. I’m not sure being perfectly level is all that critical, but I set it up that way.
Using the balancer is Easyberg as pie. You slide the axle through the wheel and snug up the centering cones using the supplied Allen wrench to lock the cones into position. This next step is where the Easyberk…I mean berg, is better than jack stands. The four ball bearings supporting the axle spin much Easyburger than the bearings found in your motorcycle wheel; this free movement allows a finer balance. ¼ ounce of weight will cause the wheel to move.
I give the Easyberg four stars (out of five) subtracting one star due to the thing being crooked. Otherwise it’s Easilyberk worth the $36. I’m now fully set up to change motorcycle tires. At the speeds I run, usually less than 100 MPH this balancer does a good enough job and my limited riding skills can’t detect any wheel vibration at highway speeds.
Zongshen ended production of its iconic RX3 motorcycle and CSC sold the last of its RX3 inventory. I was tangentially involved in bringing the RX3 to America and I had a ton of fun on that motorcycle. Knowing that the RX3 is no longer in production is like hearing an old friend has passed away. In the end, the S-curve prevails for all of us, I guess. But it still hurts. The RX3 was and still is a great motorcycle.
An early clay mockup of what would become the RX3 in Zongshen’s Advanced Design center.
According to my sources in Chongqing, Zongshen first started thinking about a 250cc offroad and adventure touring motorcycle in 2010. Engineering development took about two years (excluding the engine). China’s initial and traditional 250cc was based on a Honda CG125 air-cooled engine, which evolved into 150cc, 200cc, and 250cc variants (the 250cc CG engine was actually 223cc; it is the engine that powers CSC’s current TT 250). The CG-based variants didn’t have the performance Zongshen wanted for its new adventure touring motorcycle, and that led Zongshen to develop a 250cc water-cooled, four-valve engine for Megelli in Italy. It went into the Zongshen NC250 motorcycle. This engine also went into the RX3.
Yours truly with former Sears president and CSC advisor Carl Mungenast on Glendora Ridge Road. I rode the CSC 150 Mustang replica in this photo to Cabo San Lucas and back.
For CSC, the Zongshen connection started with a search for a larger CSC 150 engine. The CSC 150 was the Mustang replica Steve Seidner designed and manufactured in 2009. I was already in China for another client, and it was only an hour flight from Guangzhou to Chonqging for the initial visit to Zongshen. To make a long story slightly less long, CSC started purchasing the Zongshen 250cc engines for the little Mustangs. I think most of the folks who bought those Mustangs really didn’t care if it was a 150 or a 250. Both were capable bikes; my friends and I rode the 150cc version to Cabo and back. It was the 250cc Mustang engine that established the relationship between CSC and Zongshen, though, and that was a good thing.
When CSC’s Steve Seidner noticed an illustration of the RX3 on the Zongshen website, he immediately recognized the RX3 sales potential in the United States. Steve ordered three bikes for evaluation and he started the U.S. certification process. Steve and I did a 350-mile ride on two of those bikes through the southern California desert and we both thought they were great.
Showing the Zongshen execs in Chongqing possibilities for a ride in America. The Chinese sponsored the Western America Adventure Ride as a result of that discussion. It was awesome and the bikes performed magnificently.
Zongshen was not targeting the U.S. market when they developed the RX3; they thought the U.S. market had different requirements and consumer preferences. The initial RX3 design did not meet U.S. Department of Transportation lighting and other requirements. It was back to China for me to help set up the specs for the CSC RX3 and the initial order.
On the Western America Adventure Ride, we rode from southern California to Mt. Rushmore, back to the Pacific across the top of America, and down the Pacific Coast to return to Azusa. Here King Kong, Leonard, Hugo, and Tso emulate the American presidents at Mt. Rushmore.
On that early visit, the Chinese told me they wanted to ride in America. They sent over a dozen bikes and as many riders, and we had an amazing 5,000-mile adventure we called the Western America Adventure Ride. Baja John planned the itinerary and mapped out the entire ride; we even had special decals with our route outlined made up for the bikes. We let the media know about it and it was on this ride that I first met Joe Gresh, who wrote the “Cranked” column for Motorcyclist magazine. I made a lot of good friends on that trip. After the trip through the American Southwest, Zongshen invited Gresh and me on a ride around China, and after that, I was invited by AKT on a ride through the Andes Mountains in Colombia.
In Medicine Bow, Wyoming, on the Western America Adventure Ride. Two Colombians also participated, which resulted in an invitation to ride in Colombia.On the road in the Andes Mountains. The sign says the elevation is 3950 meters (that’s 13,000 feet above sea level).Joe Gresh and I gladiating near Liqian, China. The China ride was the adventure of a lifetime.
At CSC, we had a lot of discussions on the initial marketing approach. We were looking at a $50,000 to $100,000 hit for an advertising campaign. Maureen Seidner, the chief marketing strategist for CSC and co-owner with Steve, had a better idea: Sell the bikes at a loss initially, get them out in the market, and let the word spread naturally. We knew the price would stabilize somewhere above $4K; Steve’s concept was to sell the bike for $2995. Maureen had an even better idea. $2995 sounded like we were just futzing the number to get it below $3K; Maureen said let’s make it $2895 for the first shipment instead. I wrote a CSC blog about the RX3 and CSC’s plans to import the bike. When I hit the Publish button on WordPress for that blog, the phone rang literally two minutes later and I took the first order from a guy in Alaska. Sales took off with CSC’s introductory “Don’t Miss The Boat” marketing program.
I wrote another CSC blog a week later saying that I was eager to get my RX3 and ride it through Baja. I thought then (and I still think now) that the RX3 is the perfect bike for Baja. The bike does 80mph, it gets 70mpg, it has a 4-gallon gas tank, and everything you needed on an ADV touring machine was already there: A skid plate, good range, good speeds, a six-speed gearbox, a comfortable ride, the ability to ride on dirt roads, panniers, a top case, and more. We started getting calls from folks wanting to ride with me in Baja, and the orders continued to pile in. That resulted in our doing an annual run through Baja for RX3 owners. We didn’t charge anything for the Baja trips. It was a hell of a deal that continued for the next four or five years. I had a lot of fun on those trips and we sold a lot of bikes as a result.
The Western America Adventure Riders in Arizona. This photo is prominently displayed in the Zongshen main office building lobby. That’s Baja John in front; he did nearly all the work organizing the ride.
CSC’s enthusiasm surrounding the RX3, the CSC company rides, and CSC’s online presence did a lot to promote the RX3 worldwide, and I know Zongshen recognized that. I visited the Zongshen campus in Chongqing several times. One of the best parts of any Zongshen visit for me was entering their headquarters, where a 10-foot-wide photo of the Western America Adventure Ride participants in Arizona’s red rock country dominated the lobby.
The RX3 was controversial for some. RX3 owners loved the bike. A few others found reasons to hate it, mostly centering around the engine size and the fact that the bike came from China. I spent a lot of time responding to negative Internet comments until I realized that the haters were broken people, there was no reasoning with them, and none were ever actually going to buy the motorcycle anyway. These were people who got their rocks off by throwing rocks at others.
When RX3 production ended recently, I contacted one of my friends at Zongshen and I thought you might enjoy some of what he told me. Zongshen sold 74,100 RX3 motorcycles (35,000 in China; the rest went to other countries including Mexico, Colombia, other South American countries, Singapore, Turkey, and the United States). Colombia alone purchased 6000 units in kit form and assembled their bikes in Medellin. I watched RX3 motorcycles being built in the Zongshen plant in Chongqing; I was also in the AKT factory in Colombia and I saw the RS3 (the carbureted version of the RX3) being built there. Ultimately, RX3 demand dropped off, but 74,100 motorcycles is not a number to sneeze at. The RX3 greatly exceeded Zongshen’s expectations and their initial marketing forecasts, especially in overseas markets. CSC had a lot to do with that success, and playing a minor role in that endeavor has been one of the high points of my life.
The CSC 650cc RX6 twin cylinder motorcycle. The Chinese motorcycle industry is moving to larger displacement bikes.
Chinese motorcycle companies today are emphasizing larger bikes. We’ve seen that here with the CSC RX4, the 400cc twins, and the 650cc RX6. I’ve ridden all those bikes and they are great. I like larger bikes, but I still think a 250cc motorcycle is the perfect size for real world adventure riding. I think the emphasis on larger bikes and the decision to drop the RX3 is a mistake, but I haven’t sold millions of motorcycles (and Zongshen, with CSC’s help, has).
That photo you see above at the top of this blog? It’s good buddy Orlando and his wife Velma riding their RX3 up to Dante’s View in Death Valley National Park. Orlando thinks blue is the fastest color, but I know orange is. Sue and I recently visited Death Valley again; watch for the ride reports here on the ExNotes blog.
You can learn only so much from watching Utube videos. To get proficient at welding you have to actually weld, and weld a lot. This is where New Mexico State University comes in handy. I signed up to be an Aggie for Welding 102 with Mr. Hurt in the hope my shabby attempts at welding could be improved.
Welding 102 is the NMSU starter course, ground zero. For the first few classes we dwelt on safety stuff and spent the time gathering the needed tools of the trade. Steel toe boots were required and I couldn’t find a pair cheaper than $200. I had most of the other stuff: welding helmet, fire resistant shirt, chipping hammer, pliers, safety glasses, welding gloves and a wire brush. It’s a lot of gear and if you’re starting from scratch you’ll be $300 or more into the deal before striking a bead.
Welding 102 is not cheap either. The course runs $500 and is two days a week, 1 1/2 hours each class. I’m not sure how long a semester lasts but I plan on going until they tell me to stop. Most of the cost of welding 102 is materials. NMSU provides all the steel, gas, welding rods and other consumables. It’s fair: I can burn up $20 worth of rod in one sitting.
Arc welding (or MMA, Manual Metal Arc) is the first type of welding we are learning. It requires the least expensive equipment and the fewest bits and pieces. You have a buzz box, the rod, and the material to be welded. The first thing we did was run 6-inch beads on a 3/8-inch plate of mild steel. You started at the top and ran a bead across then started a second bead just below the first bead and overlapping onto the first bead a little. We used 6010 rods, which is a fast freeze metal. The rod makes coarse ripples as you move along, freezing only a fraction of an inch behind the molten puddle.
I had a hard time with 6010. After I finished filling my plate with beads Mr. Hurt said I needed to work on my bead width consistency. So I turned the plate 90 degrees and started again, bead after bead. I still sucked. Turning the plate once again I laid beads over the other two layers of metal. My plate was getting heavy and was warping like a taco.
Mr. Hurt opened the welding shop on a Saturday for us uncoordinated kids who need more practice. I welded on my 6-inch square plate of mild steel from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. and the thing was approaching ¾ of an inch thick when Mr. Hurt said that it was enough. I could never weld that many hours with the Vevor 130 welder I bought on Amazon.
Through all the practice I was getting better at seeing the welding process. I still couldn’t see where I was going but I could see the puddle, puddle width and was getting the tiniest bit more consistent.
7018 is the next rod we are tackling. It’s the same process: cover a 6×6 steel plate with beads overlapping beads. The 7018 was easier to control and the beads have a more uniform appearance. 7018 is more liquid (slower cooling?) than 6010 so the ripples between the puddles are less pronounced and not as coarse. 7018 is a low-hydrogen rod, whatever that means. It is kept in a 250-degree oven so that the flux doesn’t absorb hydrogen from the atmosphere.
Each student has their own welding booth complete with a table, smoke extractor and arc shielding curtains to keep from flashing other kids. A blind welder isn’t much use to anyone.
Our class of 13-ish started out with two women but they both dropped out after the third class. I don’t know why. There is no gender-based physical limitation to be a welder. Eyesight and a steady hand are more important than brute strength. There is one other geezer in our class; the rest is made up of younger guys looking to get into welding as a trade. I just want to know how to use the machines I bought.
The university provides Miller equipment and these things are beasts. They will do arc, wire feed with gas and TIG welding. You can run them 24 hours a day. They don’t overheat or shut down. If you were running a welding shop this is the way to go.
I feel like I’ve made some progress with my welding. That long Saturday session really helped. Welding 4 hours straight will calm your nerves right down. I’m still nowhere close to being Vulcan. There are a many more types of welding to learn. NMSU has three more welding courses, each more advanced than the previous. If you manage to complete them all you will be Vulcan at the end. Live long and prosper, my brothers.
I spent most of the morning in the garage, organizing my reloading bench and the tons of components I have stacked in, on, under, and around it. I rearranged a good chunk of my 9mm brass (I probably have something north of 4,000 empty 9mm cases, enough to keep me in Parabellum paradise for the rest of my natural life). I’m waiting on a part for my Lee turret press (Lee is sending it to me at no charge), and when it gets here I’ll start reloading 9mm again. It’s become a favorite cartridge, but more on that in a future blog.
Busy real estate, my reloading bench is. Those coffee cans are chock full of 9mm brass.
As part of the garage cleanup and reorg effort, I pushed the Royal Enfield out so I could sweep the floor. A young lady who lives in the neighborhood was walking her dog when she spotted the Enfield. “It sure looks like a nice day for a ride,” she said. We chatted for a bit and then I thought about her comment. It really was a nice day for a ride. We’ve had rain big time for the last couple of weeks (don’t believe the lyrics…during the winter it rains a lot in California), and today we finally had a day that was bright and sunny. I did what anybody would do…I closed up shop and fired up the Enfield.
The nice thing about the winter rains here in So Cal is that when the clouds disappear we see the San Gabriel Mountains blanketed in snow. It really is quite beautiful. I started a ride into the mountains to get a good shot of the Enfield with the snow-capped mountains as a backdrop, and then I realized it was already 1:15 p.m. I had a 2:00 appointment with Doc Byrne, my chiropractor. I stopped for the quick shot you see above, and then it was over to the doctor’s office.
People who see a motorcycle parked in front of a chiropractor’s office should probably realize the doctor knows his business. My guy does, and another plus for me is that he is a rider. We’ve had some interesting conversations about motorcycles while he works his magic. I’m a big believer in chiropractic medicine.
A motorcycle parked in front of a chiropractor’s office. What’s wrong with this picture?
After getting my back straightened, I pointed the Enfield north and wound my way into the San Gabriels. I was looking forward to a late lunch at the Mt. Baldy Lodge, and I was not disappointed.
The Mt. Baldy Lodge, a favored destination in the San Gabriel Mountains.
I like the Mt. Baldy Lodge. It was busy (that was good), although like a lot of places their prices have climbed irrationally (that’s not so good). I ordered a turkey melt sandwich and paid the extra $2.00 for onion rings instead of French fries (not exactly a healthy option, but it was delicious).
As soon as I sat down at the bar, a younger guy (they’re all younger these days) who was shooting pool asked if I came in on the Enfield. “Guilty,” I answered.
“Cool,” he said. “I had an Enfield about 10 years ago, but I crashed and the insurance company totaled it.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the Interceptor was only introduced about four years ago. I had no interest in a conversation with a guy who was obviously making it up as he went along. Better he should find a job with the news media or in politics, or maybe as an Ivy League university president. (Does that count as politics? We don’t do politics here on ExNotes, you know.)
I enjoyed my sandwich and the onion rings. I didn’t eat the whole thing, which somewhat eased my guilt pangs (I’m having a weight loss contest with Baja John, and he’s kicking my ass). I was having a good day. There’s something about a motorcycle ride into the mountains, sitting at the bar in the Mt. Baldy Lodge, having a good lunch, and listening to the pool table balls clicking and clacking that just feels like all is right with the world. I had a great ride and a great lunch, but it was getting late and the outside temperature was starting to drop. I knew I’d better head home. Even though it was cold, I enjoyed the ride down out of mountains as much as the ride up. The next time I see that young lady walking her dog, I’ll thank her for her suggestion. She was right; it was a nice day for a ride.
So, in case you are wondering why you received a notification email about the new Janus 450 Scrambler and the link didn’t work…well, that was a case of operator error. I hit publish before I should have, which triggered the email notification, and then I took the blog down so I could repost it on 23 February. But the email notification had already gone out. I reposted the blog on the 23rd (like I was supposed to do to first time), and you can view it here. My fellow blogistas have warned me that they are going to lop off yet another finger if I screw up again, so I have to be careful. I only have a few fingers left, and it’s getting hard to type. Mea culpa, and all that…
The first time I cleaned the carburetors on the Kawasaki ZRX1100 everything went well except for the part about removing and installing the carbs back on the engine. The ZRX had sat for 9 years and it wasn’t running all that well when I parked it. The first carb cleaning saw new float needles installed and a general poking and cleaning of all jets and orifices.
The bike started up okay and ran fairly well, if a bit ragged at low RPM. This I chalked up to the four carbs needing synchronization. I didn’t have a carb sync tool so I just ran it like it was. It ran pretty good for 7000-8000 miles but became harder to start and really rough at any RPM below 2500. I put up with it because I dreaded removing the carbs again.
The old, original fuel hose started leaking where I had installed an inline fuel filter. No matter what clamp I used it leaked. Giving it a through examination I discovered the hose itself was rotten and the inner liner split. I pulled the hose off and sealed my fate. It was impossible to reach the hose connection buried between the carbs to install a new hose. Things had finally gotten so bad I had to fix the situation.
Removing the carbs was as dreadful as I remembered it to be. There’s not a lot of room between the air box and the intake rubbers so it was a bear (like an Ossa!) to remove the bank of four constant velocities.
Once on the bench the Kawasaki ZRX1100 carbs are pretty easy to work on. I ordered new carb kits and new fuel pipes that go between the carbs to supply fuel. The old pipes weren’t leaking but I didn’t want to go through this ordeal only to have them start leaking.
To install the new fuel pipes you have to un-rack the carbs and split them into individual units. The old pipes looked pretty crusty and I can see them puking fuel because I disturbed them once too often. I also wanted fresh plastic to replace the 24-year-old pipes. While I was at it I bought factory coolant hoses to replace the silicone ones that leaked when it was cold. The new hoses fit much better and should last the rest of my life. All in, I spent three hundred bucks with Dave at Southwest Suzuki/Kawasaki out on Highway 70.
Two of the pilot jets were clogged solid. I had just cleaned them a few months or 8000 miles ago. Possibly the rotten fuel line sent debris down stream and clogged the jets. In addition there are supposed to be tiny washers between the o-ring and the tension spring on the pilot jet adjusting screws. Three were missing and I must have lost them the last time I took the carbs apart. Without the little washers the tension spring digs into the o-ring shredding the thing. Any pieces of o-ring go right into the tiny idle transition holes on the floor of the venturi. So that’s on me. I swear, I never saw the things.
When I say the pilot jets were clogged I mean clogged. I soaked the pilot jets in Evaporust and tossed them into the ultrasonic cleaner: No joy. I had to use a single strand of copper from a fine strand electrical wire and work it for 20 minutes to get the things cleared.
The new Parts Unlimited carb kits came with all the stuff I needed, even those tiny idle mixture screw washers. I usually don’t use the jets out of kits because the quality is so suspect. In this case I decided to use them to be sure the pilots were clear enough. Besides, it couldn’t run any worse. I rechecked the float levels, one was a millimeter off, and assembled the entire mess.
The next day it occurred to me that I had installed the new jets without making sure they were actually drilled all the way through or that a bit of machining swarf hadn’t been left inside. So I took the float bowls off and ran copper wire through all four pilot jets and the main jets. It was good for my peace of mind. I also sprung for an OEM Kawasaki fuel line at a reasonable $12.
Because they are so hard to remove I try to be sure the carbs are not leaking by bench testing the floats and needles. This will save you a lot of work in the event something isn’t right. There’s nothing more depressing that fighting the carbs back into place only to have the things leak when you turn the petcock to On.
As you may have heard I was banned from the ZRX owner’s forum because I posted an ExhaustNotes light bulb review. It didn’t sit well with the members that were selling light bulbs. My new ZRX hangout is on Facebook called Banned ZRX members, or something like that. A lot of the same guys who were on the other site ended up there due to disagreements with the admin. Anyway, these ZRX guys suggested a thin piece of material between the air box and the rubber intakes to make replacing the carbs easier.
I had some thin sheet metal from a filing cabinet and used it to make two carb slider thingies. The sliders are held onto the engine by small bungee cords. I put a 90-degree bend in the sliders so they wouldn’t slip down in use. Those ZRX guys know their stuff, as it was a breeze to slide the carbs into position then remove the sheet metal. That’s half of a hard job made easy.
The Kawasaki ZRX1100 has a lot going for it in the maintenance department. The valves are easy to set clearances. The carbs use three simple, spring-loaded adjustment screws for synchronization, and there are no lock nuts to cause changes when tightened. The procedure is simplicity: You adjust the left set of two outside carbs, then adjust the right set of outside carbs, then adjust both sets of carbs to each other using a middle adjusting screw. It actually takes longer to write the carb sync procedure than to do it.
With all four idle circuits functioning correctly the ZRX starts up first push of the button. The bike pulls smoothly from idle all the way to redline. Having the carbs synced makes for a smooth transition coming off a stop and I don’t think the bike has ever run as good as it does now. I’ll be heading to Utah in June for the Rat Fink convention. It will be a lot more fun with the bike running like Kawasaki intended.
A long time ago I had a carburetor synchronizer that used mercury to measure engine vacuum. The synchronizer had four plastic tubes about twenty inches long, each tube was about a quarter-inch in diameter. On top of the rig were four rubber tubes that connected to your intake ports using the little hose barbs molded into the motorcycle’s intake manifolds. This machine worked well, the heavy mercury kind of dampened the vacuum pulses so you could get an accurate reading.
One problem with the mercury gauges was that sometimes, if you revved the engine too much, mercury would get sucked into the engine. The mercury never seemed to hurt an engine but it would pop and miss a bit, then toxic smelling fumes would come out the exhaust pipes for a while. The cure for this problem was to not rev up the engine with the mercury sticks connected.
My mercury gauges went under water in one of the floods that were common in the Florida Keys. Who knows where the mercury that was inside the gauges ended up. Probably in my fish sandwich 6 months later.
Another type of vacuum gauge uses four needle-and-dial mechanical gauges to measure the vacuum. These gauges would jump all over the place reacting to each vacuum pulse. The mechanical type came with plastic clamps that you would fit over each vacuum hose. By adjusting the pinching action on each hose you could slow down the needle reaction enough to be able to read the dials. I didn’t like this type so I threw them away after they sat on my shelf 27 years.
The Carb Tune vacuum gauge uses steel rods and springs inside plastic tubes. They are mostly like mercury gauges except the rods replace the mercury. There are clones of the Carb Tune available (maybe the Carb Tune is a clone of some other brand) but the clones are near enough in price that I sprung the ten bucks extra for the brand name unit.
The Carb Tune need a little work before you can use it. Included in the set is a blue plastic tube with a tiny hole through it that serves the same purpose as those hose clamper deals on the dial gauges. You have to cut the tube into four pieces and then cut each vacuum hose about 100mm from the end to insert the plastic tube into the hose. It’s no big deal but I wonder why Carb Tune didn’t go ahead and complete this final assembly step.
Once put together the gauges work great. The Carb Tunee is very stable and easy to read. Get all four rods even across the top and your carbs are synched. The third rod was stuck on my set but a light tap freed it up to move in the tube.
Normally the actual number of the gauge doesn’t matter; you are going for even-ness. If you had a bad cylinder or your valves were way out of adjustment it might show up on the vacuum gauge so that’s another good use for the Carb Tune.
I rate the Carb Tune gauges 5 stars even if it is a little expensive for what you get. I’m guessing the things are made in China and probably cost Carb Tune a couple bucks a copy. Still, that’s the capitalist system and I was a willing participant for many years so it would be hypocritical of me to bitch about it now.
Towards the end of last year’s heating season the Vevor 12-volt, 5kw diesel heater started shutting down and giving an error code. The big blue, start/stop button on the front of the machine blinks the code number between pauses. I counted an error No. 8, which the owner’s manual said was a problem with the temperature sensor. This was a little disappointing because I had only run 10 gallons of diesel through the heater. (It runs a long time on a gallon, like 8 hours) I didn’t mess with it at the time as it was warming up and I was busy doing other vital, yet unimportant tasks.
Fast-forward to winter, 2024 and it’s cold again so I figured I’d better fix the heater. I looked up a new temperature sensor for $4 on Amazon and after waiting a few weeks the thing came all the way from China. Installing the new temperature sensor changed nothing. The heater kept shutting down with an error code No. 8.
Utube Academy provided some more ideas, one of which was the fuel pump was not functioning good enough to keep the fire going. I bought a new fuel pump on Amazon for $18 and installed it. After bleeding the air out of the pump the heater turned on for a few minutes and then shut down showing error code No. 8 again.
Another Utube suggestion was that the glow plug was bad, failing to ignite the diesel fuel. While looking up the glow plug @ $19 I found a complete new heater for $90 with free delivery. I stuck the new heater in the shopping cart and it showed up a few days later.
The new heater was almost an exact duplicate of the Vevor unit and in fact it had a more advanced keypad display instead of a blue button. The replacement unit swapped out easily and in no time I had heat in the shed.
A few more weeks passed and the new glow plug showed up. Taking the unit apart to gain access to the plug was easy and I pulled the wires off of the glow plug so I could put a socket on the thing. That wasn’t a good idea. Turns out the wires are non-removable and you need a special 12mm slotted deep socket to unscrew the plug. When I pulled the wires off I actually broke the glow plug ceramic. The special socket for the plug was helpfully included in the box with the new glow plug. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this before destroying the old glow plug. That’s just how I roll.
None of this mattered because once I started taking the heater apart I noticed the exhaust port was almost plugged with diesel soot.
It was so clogged I had to take the fuel feed pipe and the combustion chamber apart to clean out all the soot.
The gaskets tore when I dismantled the fuel feed and the combustion chamber so I had to order new gaskets from Amazon @$16. If you’re keeping count I now had almost as much in parts as a heater costs.
These Chinese diesel heaters are pretty simple to work on and after cleaning the combustion chamber and exhaust pipe it was only a few minutes to put the whole thing back together. I rigged it up for a test run and the heater put out plenty of hot air and ran for as long as I wanted to hear it run. It seems to be fixed but I don’t understand why it sooted up so soon. Maybe there was another issue that I have inadvertently fixed while swapping out parts? Maybe not. Keep clicking on ExhaustNotes and I’ll report on this situation as it develops.
We were a swarm of 250cc bees bound for Medicine Bow, Wyoming. I didn’t know why that excited me and I didn’t know what to expect, but the place sounded romantic. Not romantic in the sense of female companionship; it was instead the romance of the Old West. Medicine Bow, Wyoming, and we were headed there on our single-cylinder Zongshen motorcycles. We had been on the road for a week, showing the American West to our Chinese and Colombian visitors. It all started on the other side of the world in Chongqing when Zongshen asked if I could take them on a ride though America.
Wow, could I ever.
Susie took this photo as I was showing the Zongshen execs where we might ride in America. The guy on my immediate right is good buddy Fan, who follows the ExNotes blog.
Medicine Bow. It had a nice ring to it. I was thinking maybe they had a McDonald’s and we could have lunch there. I think the reason Medicine Bow sounded so intriguing is I had heard it maybe dozens of times in western movies and television shows. Medicine Bow was one of the major destinations for cattle drives in the 1800s, where cows boarded trains for their one-way trip east, where they would stop being cows and become steaks. An average of 2,000 cows shipped out of Medicine Bow every day back then. That would keep McDonald’s going for a day or two (except there were no McDonald’s in the 1800s).
The very first western novel.
I was surprised when we buzzed in. Medicine Bow is about five buildings, total, none of them was a McDonald’s, but one was the Virginian Hotel. It’s the hotel you see in the photo at the top of this blog and as you might imagine there’s a story to it. You see, back in the day, the first western novel ever was written by a dude named Owen Wister, and the title of his book was The Virginian. It was later made into a movie. The story is about a young female schoolteacher who settled in Medicine Bow and two cowboys who vied for her attention. When the historic hotel was later built in Medicine Bow, what other name could be more appropriate than The Virginian? And about the name of the town, Medicine Bow? Legend has it that Native Americans found the best mahogany for making bows (as in bows and arrows) in a bend (a bow) along the Medicine River, which runs through the area. I can’t make up stuff this good.
I was the designated leader of the Zongshen swarm on this ride. My job was easy. All the mental heavy lifting and deep thinking fell to good buddy and long-time riding compañero Baja John, who planned our entire 5,000-mile journey through the American West. John did a hell of a job. The roads he selected were magnificent and the destinations superb. It’s also when I first met Joe Gresh, who was on assignment from Motorcyclist magazine to cover our story (more on that in a bit).
Big Joe Gresh, or “Arjiu” as the Chinese called him, on our 5000-mile ride through the American West.
Back to Medicine Bow, the Virginian Hotel, and a few of the photos I grabbed on that ride. The place is awesome, and the Virginian is where we had lunch.
Lunch at the Virginian. That’s Gresh on the right, and Juan and Gabe (two dudes from AKT Motos in Colombia) on the left. A few months later I rode with Juan in Colombia, another grand adventure.
After lunch, we wandered around the hotel for a bit. It would be fun to spend the night in Medicine Bow, I thought. Dinner at the hotel and drinks in the bar (as I type this, I can almost hear someone on the piano belting out Buffalo Gal). I will return some day to check that box.
The lighting isn’t great in this selfie (of sorts). Yours truly on the old D200, Lester, and Mr. Zuo. Lester is a teacher in China. Mr. Zuo owns a motorcycle jacket company in China.Bison. We saw a few live ones in the next couple of days.Who’s a good boy? That’s Baja John and Lester, taking a break after a great lunch at the Virginian Hotel. Lester came to America as a vegetarian. That lasted about two days. He sure enjoyed his hamburger at the Virginian. He told us he wants to be like Baja John when he grows up.Yes, there are moose in Medicine Bow, along with mountain lion, bear, elk, deer, and a host of other animals. Theodore Roosevelt hunted this part of the world.A Virginian Hotel hallway. I think you can still stay here overnight.Hotel hallway art.Even a public telephone.
The Virginian Hotel bar was indeed inviting and I could have spent more time there, but we were on the bikes and my rule is always no booze on the bikes. I grabbed a few photos. We had more miles to make that afternoon and more of Wyoming awaited.
The Virginian Hotel bar. It looks like it would be a fun spot to have a beer or three at the end of the day.Photos and artifacts on one of the Virginian Bar walls.A mural in the Virginian Hotel bar
The Virginian Hotel owner (who looked like he could have been someone right out of Central Casting) saw our interest in photography and showed us this photograph. He told me only six or seven copies of it exist. Spend a minute reading the writing…it is amazing.
There are more than a few interesting characters depicted in this photo.
Medicine Bow was a fun visit, it is a place I would like to see again, and it has a palpable feel of the Old West. It was a place where we could have stayed longer, but after lunch it was time for Happy Trails and we were on the road again. I felt like a cowboy, I suppose, swinging my leg over my motorcycle. Instead of “giddy up” it was a twist of the key and a touch on the starter button; the result was the same as we continued our trek west with Frankie Lane’s Rawhide on repeat in my mind: Keep rollin’, rollin’ rollin’, keep those motos rollin’…
In a few hours, we’d be riding into the sunset. Lord, this was a fantastic ride.
Here are a couple of videos you might like. The first is about Medicine Bow, the second is Joe Gresh’s video covering the ride. And one more thing…don’t miss Joe Gresh’s magnificent story about our ride in Motorcyclist magazine.
That’s me that I’m talking about in the title of this blog and the story is a Riding China excerpt. Joe Gresh and I rode with a group of Chinese riders on a 38-day motorcycle ride around China. This is a small part of it describing the ride into Beijing.
Gresh, King Kong, and yours truly in China. I’m the bugeyed old bastard on the right (after the swelling subsided).
Traffic was moving but it was heavy, and Chinese drivers in cars do not respect motorcycles. If they want to occupy your spot on the road, they just move over. It’s not that they don’t see you; they just don’t care. You’re a motorcycle. They’re a car. They know who’s going to win. At very low speeds in city traffic, you can scream at them or maneuver away or stop. At freeway speeds if you don’t get out of the way, you’re a hood ornament or a big wet spot on the asphalt. Our Chinese riders’ propensity to ride on the shoulder all the time suddenly made sense to me.
On a quiet road in China. China has delightful country roads and modern freeways. We weren’t supposed to take our motorcycles on the freeways, but we didn’t do too well with rules. We literally rode thousands of miles, all of it illegal, on Chinese freeways.
It was dark well before we reached our hotel that night and we had to ride about 45 minutes or so after the sun set. The Asian-configuration RX3 headlight is not very bright (our US bikes are much better), and to make a bad situation worse, as I have mentioned before I don’t see too well in the dark. To see a little better that night, I lifted my visor. Even though it was a clear visor it still has a slight tint to it and when I lift it at night I can see better.
In the motorcycle world, there’s another term that’s similar to ATGATT (you know, all the gear, all the time). It’s “visor down.” What it means is that you should keep your helmet visor down all the time. The reason is obvious: You don’t want to get whacked in the eye with whatever is floating in the air. That night, I proved that “visor down” makes sense. I caught a bug smack in my right eyeball. It hurt immediately, but I could still see. At that point, I put the visor down, but it was a classic case of closing the barn door after the horse got away.
We arrived at the hotel about 20 minutes later. I was tired and cranky. I went to my hotel room in a blue funk. Gresh tried to calm me down, but he was fighting a losing battle. “We have a couple of good rolls of toilet paper in this room,” he said. That was a good point and it was definitely something to be happy about, but it didn’t help me feel any better.
I really didn’t want to eat dinner that night, but I decided that bagging dinner would be too rude. So I went and I sat next to Sean. After some small talk, he noticed my eye. He was shocked. I had not seen myself in the mirror and I guess it looked pretty bad. My eye wasn’t white anymore; it was mostly red and swollen. Okay, I’ve been whacked in the eye by bugs before. I knew it would be red and it would bug me (pardon the pun) for a couple of days, and then it would be okay.
Yep, that Great Wall.
We rode through the countryside the next day to see the Great Wall at another location, but I still wasn’t over being upset and cranky from the night before. When I lead rides in the US or in Mexico that last for more than a weekend, there’s usually one guy in the group that will get cranky at some point. I had thought about that before this ride and I realized that on a ride lasting over five weeks someone would get to that point. I just didn’t think that guy would be me. But it was. I was tired, my eye was jacked up, and the stress of watching out for Chinese drivers was getting to me.
Dong drifting toward Beijing.
The next morning, I missed grabbing a good photo because of that. We were riding to see the Great Wall at a different location. On a lightly-traveled mountain road on a curve, we all stopped and Dong intentionally laid his RX1 on its side in the middle of the lane. He got on the bike with his knee out and had one of the other guys photograph him from the front (to make it look like the bike was leaned way over in the corner and he was dragging his knee). I think nearly everyone got their photo on the bike, but I declined. I just wasn’t in the mood. I think Dong knew I wanted that photo, though, and after I had returned to the US, he emailed a copy to me. (It’s the photo you see above.)
When we got to the Great Wall that morning it involved a considerable hike up a steep hill to get close enough to touch it. I’ve done that on prior visits, so I didn’t want to do it that day. Four of us opted to wait while the rest of the guys made the hike. It was relaxing. Wong, Zuo, Furem, and I shared a bag of peanuts Sean had left in his car while we waited for the others to return.
As we were riding back to the hotel from that location, heading downhill through the mountains the same way we had ridden in, I started slowing down. I didn’t realize it at first, but eventually I was the last guy in our formation. Then I started riding even more slowly, until the rest of the guys were so far ahead of me I couldn’t see them. My eye was still bothering me and by now I was having some problems seeing well. To add fuel to that fire, my left shoulder was hurting (I have a pinched nerve somewhere in there and it bothers me on long motorcycle rides).
But there was more to what I was feeling than just what I described above. Something was going on. I suppose a shrink would call it an anxiety attack. I was driving around every twist in the road expecting to see a truck stopped in my lane, an oncoming truck passing another vehicle in my lane, a person sweeping the street in the middle of the turn in my lane, a guy pulling out right in front of me, a bus making a U-turn in front of me, a car cornering too hard drifting into my lane, someone going the wrong way in my lane, someone pulling into my lane without looking, an old woman walking directly in front of me, people stopping to have a conversation in the middle of the street, or someone squatting down to take a dump (in my lane, of course). On this trip, I had seen all of what I just described and more. What was happening that morning was the enormity of the insanity that is riding a motorcycle in China caught up with me. Yeah, it was an anxiety attack. The nuttiness of it all, my vulnerability being on a motorcycle, and my inability to do anything about it was suddenly overwhelming.
The guys were waiting for me at the next intersection, and from there we went to a Sinopec gas station to refuel the bikes. It was hotter than hell. I guess it was fair to say I was miserable. I was still feeling all of this accumulated anxiety when a guy in a black Mercedes starting blasting his horn at me in that gas station parking lot. He didn’t want to drive around me; he wanted me to move even though there was plenty of room for him to go around. It was more of the “I’m a car, you’re a motorcycle” bullshit that is pervasive in China.
I don’t know what came over me, but I think I just got supremely tired of being the vulnerable victim. I looked directly at that Mercedes driver. I made eye contact. He looked at me, not realizing I was here with eight other guys on motorcycles. I eased the clutch out until my bike was directly alongside his window (which was open). I then leaned on my horn and let it rip for a good solid 20 seconds. Then one of the other Chinese riders watching me did the same, and yet another yelled a really bad word at the Mercedes (which he probably learned from either Gresh or me). It was pretty funny, especially hearing that kind of profanity with a Chinese accent. The guy in the Mercedes had screwed with the wrong Marine on the wrong day. Without realizing it, he took on the Wild Angels that hot afternoon just outside of Beijing. He suddenly and fully realized what might happen as a result of his boorishness. He rolled up his window, he averted his eyes, and he backed his big black Mercedes respectfully away from us. That broke the spell. I wasn’t helpless any more. I felt amazingly better.
Okay, enough about me being a butthead: On to Beijing proper. We stopped at the Beijing Zongshen dealer that afternoon (where they were expecting us) and it was the Dajiu and Arjiu show all over again.
Gresh presenting a vest to a Zongshen rider. They thought we were celebrities.
There were the usual tons of photos with Gresh and me. Hey, how often do Dajiu and Arjiu show up in your neighborhood? Tracy told us the dealer had just sold five new RX1s. He wanted to have a ceremony in which we gave the keys and Zongshen fluorescent vests to the five lucky guys who had purchased the bikes. I was feeling my old self again. I saw an opportunity and I took it.
“We’ll do it this time, Tracy,” I said, “but if you don’t start doing a better job getting these dealers prepped it will be the last time.” Tracy doesn’t always know when I’m teasing him. I could tell that this was going to be one of those times. Gresh picked up on it, too.
“Yeah!” Gresh said. Joe sometimes has a way with words.
“What is wrong, Dajiu?” Tracy asked, concern and maybe a little fear showing in his eyes.
“Where’s the watermelon?” I said. “We’re supposed to have watermelon waiting for us at each dealer visit,” I said.
Joe Gresh on a Zongshen motorcycle and his contractually-mandated chilled watermelon.
“Yeah,” Gresh added, “and it’s supposed to be chilled, too.”
“It’s right there in Section 6, Paragraph 3.2 of the Dajiu and Arjiu contract,” I said, “and there’s no cold watermelon here, Tracy!” (I don’t think I need to mention this for my readers, but I will just in case you were wondering, there is no such thing as a Dajiu and Arjiu contract, let alone any paragraphs about cold watermelon.)
“Ah, I am so sorry,” Tracy said. “It is my bad, Dajiu. I am so sorry.” Then he turned to Gresh, and addressing him as Arjiu, he said the same thing.
“Tracy, relax,” I said. “I’m just screwing with you.” But it was too late. Tracy heard me tell him I was joking, but it didn’t register.
We had a great ceremony and we had fun taking photos and giving those five proud new RX1 owners oversized Styrofoam keys and then their real keys. It was one of the most fun things I did on this entire trip. As we were doing so, I could see Tracy (who had left and returned) slicing several large (and delightfully cold) watermelons on a table in front of the showroom. Hey, a contract’s a contract.
The Beijing dealer had an RZ3, Zongshen’s naked sportbike, parked in front. Gresh was really impressed. I took photos of it and put them on the CSC blog that night, but I couldn’t tell you then what you now know to be the case: CSC is going to bring the RZ3 to North America. I like the RZ3 a lot. It’s essentially the RC3 with a normal seating position and upright bars without the RC3’s bodywork. We’re going to sell a lot of RZ3s. The RZ3 has the RX3 powertrain, and that’s both bulletproof and fast. I already have ideas on how I’m going to customize mine.
When we got off the subway after visiting The Forbidden City, we waited on a street corner for our Uber ride back to the hotel. I watched the scooters and small utility vehicles rolling by, and I realized that nearly every one of them was electric. I must have seen 200 scooters during the 20 minutes we waited, and perhaps 2 had gasoline engines. This wholesale adaption of electric scooters and small utility vehicles in China is nothing short of amazing.
An electric scooter in China.
Sean explained to me that the transition to electric vehicles started about 15 years ago, and the government has done a number of things to encourage people to convert to electricity. For starters (once again, pardon my pun), many of the larger cities in China now prohibit motorcycles and scooters unless the vehicle is electric. Electric scooters are allowed where gasoline-powered bikes are not. That alone is an enormous incentive. The next incentive is that you don’t need a driver’s license to take an electric vehicle on the street. You just buy one and go. And finally, as I’ve mentioned before, electricity is cheap in China. There are windfarms, solar panel farms, coal plants, nuclear power plants, and hydroelectric power plants all over the country. We saw scooters parked on the sidewalk and plugged into extension cords running into small stores everywhere. People charge them like iPhones; they didn’t miss any opportunity to top off the batteries on these things.
That night was a great night. The Zongshen dealer took us to a restaurant that specialized in Peking duck. The guys were excited about this development, but I was initially leery. I thought I didn’t like Peking duck. Boy, was I ever wrong!
I tried Peking duck 25 years ago when I visited Beijing with Sue. We both thought the duck was awful. That’s because we went to a restaurant that served tourists. The food at that place didn’t have to be good. They knew they would never see us again, and Yelp hadn’t been invented yet.
This night in Beijing with the Zongshen dealer and the RX3 owners club was different. The Peking duck was incredible. The chef sliced it paper thin right at our table. They had thin tofu (almost like a crepe), and the guys taught me how to eat duck properly. The deal is you put a few fresh vegetables on the tofu, you add a slice or two of duck, you add this amazing brown gravy, and then you roll the affair up like a burrito. Wow, it was delicious!
Peking Duck, done the way it is supposed to be done, in a Beijing restaurant. It was exquisite. Photo by King Kong.
We had several rounds of toasts at dinner that night and the liquor flowed freely. I got lucky. Kong sat next to me and he schooled me in the proper way to make a Chinese toast. To show respect, you clink your glass against the other guy’s glass, but you hold your glass at a lower level so that when the two glasses meet, the rim of yours is lower than the other person’s. When the Zongshen dealer toasted me, I followed Kong’s advice, and the Chinese riders all nodded approvingly. Ah, Dajiu knows.
It was funny. Sergeant Zuo and I had made several toasts to each other, and when we touched glasses, we both tried frantically to get our glasses lower than the other, so much so that we usually crashed the bottoms of both on the table (to a hearty laugh and round of applause from everyone). Zuo was being polite; I was being completely serious (I have enormous respect for him).
The next day we took the subway into Beijing. We already were in Beijing when we got on the subway, but Beijing is a megacity and you can’t simply drive into the center of it. We rode the subway for a good 45 minutes, and when we emerged, we visited the Forbidden City and Tien An Men Square. It was all grand. It was touristy, but it’s something that should be on any China visitor’s bucket list.
After seeing the Forbidden City, we walked around downtown Beijing for a while. I told Tracy my eye was getting worse and I wanted to get antibiotic eye drops for it. It was Sunday afternoon, but there was a large pharmacy right in front of us and it was open. Tracy went in with me and he told one of the young pharmacists what I wanted. She responded and it didn’t sound good.
“She cannot sell it to you without a prescription,” he told me.
“Well, shoot, Tracy, it’s Sunday afternoon,” I said. “We’re not going to find a doctor. I’ll be okay. Let’s just go.”
“No, it is okay, Dajiu,” he said. “We are China and we have a bureaucracy. It is my bad.”
Good old Tracy, I thought. The guy felt responsible for everything. I was resigned to the fact that my eye was going to take a while to get better. Tracy, in the meantime, had walked not more than 8 feet away to an elderly woman sitting at a wooden table. He spoke to her in Chinese and pointed to me. She never looked at me, nor did she look up. She simply pulled out a white pad with a big “R” at the top. Nah, this can’t be, I thought. She wrote something in Chinese characters and handed the slip to Tracy.
“Our prescription,” Tracy said. “Such a bureaucracy.” He walked the three steps back to the pharmacist, Tracy handed her the prescription, and 30 seconds (and 24 yuan, or about $4) later, I had my antibiotic eye drops. I put two drops in my eye. When we rode out of Beijing the next morning, my eye was good as new.
Like the above story? Want more? Pick up your copy of Riding China!
