We had a glorious ride today, from Tecate along the Ruta del Vino to Ensenada, and from there down the Transpeninsular Highway to San Quintin, which is where we are spending the night. The weather has been perfect. The Bullet, no so much so earlier, but I think we’ve got it wired now. More on that in a bit.
Joe and I swapped bikes today, so I was on the Bullet and he was on the 650 Interceptor. He’s in love with that 650, and it’s easy to see why. The 650 is a home run for Enfield, I think. Like me, Gresh is wanting to buy one, too. But I’m finding I really love the Bullet as well. Yeah, it was missing a bit, but like I said, I think we found and fixed the problem. You know, it’s not an adventure until something goes wrong, and then a big part of the fun is figuring out what to do about it. I’ll get to that shortly.
The photo ops along the Ruta del Vino were awesome, and we took advantage of them…
Another cool thing….with all the rain we’ve had this winter, I’ve never seen Baja so green. As we rode through the old wine country south of Ensenada, the green mountainsides were blanketed with bright orange wildflowers. It really was quite a sight. I didn’t get any photos of that, but I will on the return leg of this trip.
So, about that Bullet missing deal. The bike only did it when decelerating and then accelerating, and it felt to me that it might be a clogged injector. It doesn’t take much to mess with a fuel injector. Gerry Edwards, my good buddy at Brown BMW, used to work on my RX3 and he’d always dose it with Lucas injector cleaner. Gerry thinks the stuff is great, so Gresh and I found a Mexican AutoZone store in Ensenada and I bought some. We put a little bit in and it didn’t really make a difference (if anything, it felt like the Bullet was missing more). As we continued to ride south, I thought about what it could be and concluded it might be related to a spark plug. We stopped at a Pemex station and pulled the plug. What happened next was interesting. The plug body looked like it had been arcing, but even more interesting was the way the sparkplug cap literally fell off the lead to it. When we looked inside the cap, the screw that turns its way into the lead was covered with green corrosion. Joe got a wire brush and cleaned the connector well, we put it back on, and the bike is running way better. We’ll know for sure tomorrow when we pile on the miles to Guerrero Negro, but I think we’ve got it. I felt a noticeable improvement as soon as we put it back together.
You know, you’d think that I’d not like a bike that’s missing, but I am loving that Bullet. I love the vintageness (if that’s a word) of it, and I’m enjoying racking up the miles on a big single. It’s cool. It’s kind of a Lawrence of Arabia feeling, floating along at a steady 65 mph and listening to (and feeling) that big thumper thumping away. I can’t really describe it, but I’ll think about the right words some more and give it another go in tomorrow’s blog. I like it. A lot.
I’m happy to report that the Old Mill Hotel in San Quintin is going strong, and they’ve opened a new restaurant (the Eucalipto). We had a couple of beers after the bikes were put away (Lucia took good care of us), and then it was on to a fabulous dinner (Gresh bought!).
Tomorrow, we’re headed through the Valle de los Cirios, and then Guerrero Negro. Stay tuned, folks. Good things are happening.
So far I’m not meshing well with the 500cc Royal Enfield Bullet. I keep stalling the thing at stops and unless its pulling under load it hits and misses like a two stroke. Other times it runs flawlessly. Berk has ridden the thing and says it’s fine and that I don’t know how to ride a heavy flywheel, old fashioned motorcycle. Being the senior member of the Royal Enfield tour team he should know. Although, in my defense he stalled it twice. Berk is going to ride the 500cc single all day tomorrow and we will see if it’s me or the motorcycle.
We’re going to be on the road as you read this, and you can follow our adventure right here on the ExNotes blog. If you missed the first few preparatory Enfield posts, here they are:
The Bike Week flat track has another, even stranger configuration this year. Before I get onto that a brief history is in order. The Bike Week AMA points-paying races were held at Memorial Stadium on 11th Street for many, many years. It’s a good venue with lots of seating, parking and being a real stadium it’s perfect for flat track.
It seems like I’m always working a pick and a shovel at Tinfiny Ranch. Situated at 6000 feet in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains the place is steep with many elevation changes. An arroyo runs past the house so that when it rains (and it rains a lot in New Mexico) my driveway becomes a short-lived trout stream.
We had a day to kill before I picked up the tractor so we went to Hunter’s Skybox at OSU and watched the OSU women’s basketball team dismantle a team from Kansas. The governor of Oklahoma has a suite two doors down and there was unlimited free food along with all the ice cream you could eat. The suite had a commanding view of both the football field and the indoor arena.
The Tractor was a beauty with tires so new they still had rubber bar codes visible. Kubota’s have earned a good name in the heavy equipment arena and this L2850 sported a diesel engine that fired right up.
Underneath the driven front end you’ll find a portal-type axle to give the tractor plenty of ground clearance. Everything is leaking a bit but oil is cheap and Tinfiny can use a little dust control. The steering felt tight and Woody, the guy I bought the tractor from takes good care of his stuff.
When I worked construction in Miami it was rare to see a dashboard unbroken. Vandalism was a constant problem. Lights, tires and hoses were routinely damaged by bored kids. The L580 dash was clean and everything works except the tach needle fell off.
At the rear of the Kubota has a two-speed PTO drive that I will be using as soon as CT buys me a backhoe attachment. Amazon has some cool 3-point hoes costing around $3600. You don’t want to do a lot of side digging with a 3-point hoe because the hitch wasn’t meant for big side loads but as long as you are crabbing in a straight line they will work well.
The transmission has high and low range with low range, first gear being super slow. Top end of the tractor in high range-high gear is around 12 miles per hour. With zero suspension 12 MPH is plenty over Tinfiny’s rough grounds.
This lever engages the front wheels. This is pretty important because the front end loader combined with nothing attached to the hitch means the big rear wheels have little traction.
I didn’t start out in the typing business looking for swag. I was more interested in seeing my byline on a real, printed object. Being published meant at least one person in the world thought my stuff wasn’t terrible. No, it was like more swag found me. Slowly at first, then faster as the typing game became less and less lucrative, swag has grown ever larger in importance.
CSC sent me a flat-brimmed swag cap. They didn’t need to: I love those guys and how their business plan is a fantastic experiment in mail order motorcycling. I like that the customer needs to be a bit more self sufficient to operate their motorcycles. And I like the hat. With most products becoming sealed off to us regulars, CSC bikes actually require you to dig in. Since I own mostly weird motorcycles that have no dealer support I relate to the pride a CSC owner feels when he sets his own valves or replaces the chain and sprockets on his motorcycle.
Swag works. The preceding paragraph should be all the proof you need. Swag turns customers into advocates and a scuba suit beer cooler celebrating Pandya’s 50th birthday will always come in handy. Come to think of it, Exhaustnotes.us has no swag that I’m aware of. I’ll have to get to work on that.