Category: Motorcycle Adventure Ride

Coimbra, Portugal

I photographed the Honda VFR you see in the big photo above in Coimbra, Portugal.   Bait and switch?  Perhaps.  We are a motorcycle site, sort of.   I’ll try to work in a little moto content when and where I can.  For us on this adventure, it was all walking, buses, and high-speed rail transport (and that was really cool).  But that’s coming up later.

Coimbra was another stop on our recent trip to the Iberian peninsula.  Coimbra is a college town on the Rio Mondego.  It was Portugal’s medieval capital before the Portuguese government relocated to Lisbon.  But this college town was particularly cool.   The UNESCO-recognized Universidade de Coimbra is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe.

On the Universidade square in the medical school area in Coimbra. It was a stunning day.

Like many areas in Portugal, Coimbra also has a rich wine producing heritage.  Many of the signs display this heritage.

The shape of signs in Coimbra. Wine was everywhere in Spain and Portugal. We had wine with virtually every meal except breakfast.

The  Biblioteca Joanina is one of the world’s great libraries.  One of the things that is particularly interesting is the way the librarians protect the ancient manuscripts from insects (insects are the books’ natural enemies, because they eat the pages).  Bats reside in the library.  They live behind the books.  The bats come out at night and eat the insects in the library.  I can’t make this stuff up, folks.  This really happens.

In the Joanina Library.
Books, books, and more books. The principal threat to these books is insects eating the pages. The University has an app for that.

I grabbed a macro shot or two as we wandered the campus.  This sidewalk guardpost was interesting.

Photo ops galore. Nothing fancy with equipment here…all these shots are with a basic Nikon consumer-grade D3300 DSLR and 18-55mm kit lens.

As we would find to be the case in virtually every Portuguese and Spanish town, Coimbra has a cathedral.  Actually, it has three.  We visited St. Michael’s at the University of Coimbra.  That’s where I grabbed the interior photos below.

Inside St. Michael’s with our fellow travelers.
The tile work, the organ, the roof colors…I had a great time on this trip.
A coat of arms, surrounded by scrollwork.
A statue in St. Michael’s.

After walking around the University, we walked into the city.    It was pleasant.  The weather was comfortable, the city was beautiful, and the photo ops continued.

One of many statues in downtown Coimbra.
This almost looks like a fancy ancient church or castle. Actually, it was a store catering to tourists with a unique product line: Canned sardines.
Another statue in the Coimbra town square.
A street menu for one of the many restaurants in downtown Coimbra. The food was excellent; the prices were reasonable.

I enjoyed Coimbra.   As a retired college professor, I thought visiting a campus was a cool thing to do.   We had a fabulous lunch, and then our journey continued.

Back on the motorcycle thing again…I’ve traveled by motorcycle in some pretty exotic locales.  I think bopping around Europe on a motorcycle would be a fun way to see the continent.  I wouldn’t want a big bike, and even on the freeways, the speeds are such that a 250 or a 400 would be just fine.  Maybe someday.   I know my friends in Chongqing read the ExNotes blog.  If you need somebody to ride around Europe on your motorcycles to spread the gospel, the ExhaustNotes staff is available.  We’re your boys (and one girl).  Call us.

Stay tuned.  I’ll work in more from Spain and Portugal as time and other blogs permit.

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More Spain and Portugal stories?  You bet!

Spain and Portugal
Camino de Santiago:  Part 1
The Sportster of Seville
Évora
Lisbon
Gibraltar

Life as a Digital Nomad: Part II (Exiting the Wheel)

By Mike Huber

It was May 2012, Boston was becoming extremely boring, and the thought it might be time to expand my horizons began to grow inside my head.  Still remaining as a “work from home” employee and having traveled throughout most of the United States with not so much as a hiccup in missing calls or people asking “Hey, where are you working from today?”  Most wouldn’t expect any type of a response outside “my living room” or “the kitchen table” since that is what everyone was doing and to think an employee was winding up roads in New England on an Italian sport bike or hanging out in Haight Ashbury in a coffee shop while leading a project team call was unthinkable. Now, many will read this and think I wasn’t working and just touring the country while attending a call here and there.  While that perspective isn’t totally wrong, it isn’t fully accurate, either. My organization was giving me awards every quarter, to include project manager of the year.  While this was all happening, our company was constantly laying people off to the point where morale was extremely low.

Even with my newfound freedom I felt myself being dragged into the depths of depression due to the constant threat of layoffs. It was time to take this working from home to the next level.  That being the “what if I don’t have a home” plan.  It wasn’t much of a plan, but more of an execution of an idea born over a few beers in a dark Boston bar two years earlier.

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As with everything in life the first step is the scariest, but also the most critical to set the wheels in motion.  After thinking this over for a bit the most effective way to ensure I followed through with my plan of setting myself free geographically was to rent out my Boston condo.  This was easier than I expected, and had it rented through a management company in under two weeks.  June 1st my new tenant would move in.  This was it.  I was going to not have a home for at least a year. A timeline was now drawn for me to sell everything I owned and find out where my new “home” would be.

Somehow, I knew that returning to Boston wasn’t going to be in the cards.  Having a massive fire sale seemed the best way to clear my life of material possessions that were now just clutter, and there was a lot of clutter to be cleared.  With time being short it was an emotionless task to sell, donate, and give away almost everything.  Paying for a storage unit for an unknown amount of time seemed pointless.

Once everything I owned was condensed into a small box of keepsakes and my travel backpack it was time to decide where to go.  As I looked around the condo (which echoed because it was empty), I was left with the question that I probably should have started with before taking all these drastic actions.  Where the Hell am I going to go?  This is one of those “I may have screwed up” moments.

Originally the semi sorta kinda plan was to just drive around the United States and spend a month or so in each state and see what became of it.  As I was looking at a map figuring out a few first stops on my new journey my phone rang.  It was a 617 Boston number and instantly thought it was a spam call.  Well, this is one call I am glad I didn’t push to voicemail.  It was one of my relatives whom I had gifted a Magic Jack plug a year or so ago.  He was calling to catch up and let me know he was had just moved to a house in the jungles of Nicaragua and had internet service that was just as fast as in the USA.  My jaw dropped and I threw the map of the United States into the trash can that was already overflowing with trinkets and other items that I felt would never be needed again.

Feeling so lost in the United States (on many levels), a new environment would not only be healthy mentally for me but might propel my work motivation (which was currently nonexistent).  Right about this time most of my friends and family were sure I had lost my mind.  Going to Nicaragua on a one-way flight for an undetermined amount of time seemed reckless and a sure way to lose my job (some even felt my life would be in jeopardy).

Having previously traveled much of Central America, I knew most of these concerns were unfounded or pulled from a news article where one person had a bad experience.  The news never really covers the thousands who traveled to this part of the world and had nothing but wonderful things to say about the people, the culture, and the sights that many will never know.  Having grown up in Maine (where for many fear to even venture to Boston) it was incomprehensible for them that I would move to Nicaragua.

As I arrived in Maine, I parked the Ducati in the garage, closed the door, and wondered when I would next see that beautiful machine.  Little did I know that it would be a year and a half before I would hear the magical dry clutch clacking again. Later that day I boarded a flight out of Logan Airport.  With reality setting in I stared out the window.  I was really doing this. Nicaragua was going to be my new home.

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.

I found it: The Barber of Seville!

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.
Decor on a home in Seville.

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.

Columbus lies within. Impressive.

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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Évora!

By Joe Berk

I know, we’re a motorcycle (and other interesting stuff) site, and you might be thinking this blog is going to be about a Lotus Evora (the Evora is a Lotus sports car).   The Evora is probably an incredible automobile, but that’s not why we are here today.

A Lotus Evora.

The word Évora is a feminine word of Portuguese origin; it means “she who lives near yew trees.”  That’s about as irrelevant as the big photo up top.  But hey, we’re a motorcycle site, and who wouldn’t enjoy a photo of a Barbie-themed pink BMW cafe racer carousel ride?  I saw those carousel Beemers as we walked into Évora.  They called out to me.  I had to get a photo.

But I digress: Our focus in this blog is indeed Évora, but it’s not about the Lotus.  It is about a small 2,000-year-old town in Portugal, a World Heritage Site, named Évora.  Before I get to the Évora photos, let me digress a bit more and tell you about our stop as a gas station on the ride from Lisbon to Évora.   That gas station had a magazine rack.  They still do printed motorcycle magazines over there, you know.

Moto mags in Portugal.

On to Évora.  One of our first photo ops was the Capela dos Ossos (the Chapel of Bones).  It was one of many churches we would see on our travels through Spain and Portugal, but this one had a rather bizarre twist:  The walls and columns are covered in bones.

Yep, I said bones.  Human bones.  Weird stuff, this is.

An interior shot of the Capela dos Ossos. The little 18-55 Nikon kit lens was earning its keep.
The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone…or something like that. Skulls, too. Go figure.

The Capela dos Ossos is a small chapel (it’s located next to the larger Church of St. Francis), and it was built by Franciscan monks in the 16th century.  I guess they wanted it to stand out, and to accomplish that, the guys dug up medieval cemeteries and used the bones from an estimated 5,000 dead folks as interior decor.  It was weird, man.  Bones.  I tried to imagine the conversation hundreds of years ago that led to this decision.  Sue and I have  had interesting discussions about our interior paint and wallpaper choices.  I get it that these decisions are not always easy and everybody has opinions.  But bones?  Those old Portuguesers must have had some spirited interior decor conversations.  Paint?  Nah.  Wallpaper?  Nah.  Tiles?  Maybe a little, but everybody’s done tiles.  Bones?  Yeah, that could work.

All this kind of made me think about cremation as an alternative to burial, but I’m not going with either option.  I’ve already left directions to my heirs.  I’m going to be stuffed when I go.  Stuffed with bullshit, and mounted in front of my laptop.  You know…so I can keep writing the blog.

One thing I love about travel anywhere is that it gives me lots of photo opportunities.  Here’s another picture of a more conventional statue in the bone barn.

High ISOs, the 18-55mm Nikon lens, shooting in RAW, and Photoshop’s noise reduction filter brings it all home.

Gresh asked me about two-stroke motorcycles in Portugal.  The only one I saw was this older Zündapp.  It was very clean, it was plated, and it was obviously still in use.

An old Zündapp still in use in Evora.

I would see a few more two-stroke motos in Spain, but two-strokes have pretty much had their day on the Iberian peninsula.  Bultaco, Ossa, and Montesa (or was it Montessa?) are no more.  Gresh loves his two strokes and he owns several.  I’ve only had one, a BSA Bantam two-stroke.

An excellent resource: The Clymer BSA book.

My Beezer didn’t look anything like the one you see on the Clymer BSA book above (which is an excellent reference, by the way).  Mine was a clapped out, rattle-can black beater bike.   But it was fun and frisky and for a 175 it had power way out of line with its displacement.  Maybe some day I’ll get another two-stroke motorcycle, but the odds are low.  The way the world is going it’s more likely I’ll have an electric motorcycle first, but that’s a topic for a later blog.

I’m digressing again.  Back to the main attraction.  Colors abound in Portugal.  I grabbed this photo of a few plates on display.

Portugal’s photo ops abound.

As we walked through Évora, the door handles and knockers caught my attention.  Here are a few photos.

The macro shots of the door knockers were fun. Take my hand…
Another handy door knocker.
A set of stereo knockers. The one on the right sees the most use.

Many of the doors were cool, too.  I’ll show more of these photos in subsequent blogs.  I took a bunch.

An impressive entry.
And another.

Cork is a big industry in Portugal, and we saw many different cork products (cork bowls, cork pads, cork purses, cork hats, and more).  Did you ever wonder where cork comes from?  Cork is made from tree bark (something I did not know).  The tree is called a cork oak, and the bark can be harvested every 9 years after the tree matures (the bark grows back).  Spain and Portugal are the dominant suppliers.

Our local tour guide with a chunk of cork oak bark stripped from the tree. Who knew?
Cork hats and purses.
Cork bowls and spoons.

Évora is a colorful place.  Walking Évora’s narrow and climbing streets was fun, and the photo ops made it even more so.

Frida Kahlo?

Évora dates to the Roman occupation of the Iberian peninsula.  The remains of the Temple of Diana are on a hill overlooking the city’s center; the temple was built in the first century.  It’s known today as the Temple of Diana, but that’s not what it was when the Romans built it.  A 17th century priest, Father Manuel Fialho, is believed to be the person who tagged it as the Temple of Diana.  It’s too bad we don’t do politics here on ExNotes; this story screams out for a Father Fialho comparison to Fox News or CNN (depending on which way you lean).

Roman ruins in Évora.

Portugal is a well-developed nation with excellent roads.  I’d say it is better-maintained and cleaner than a lot of places I’ve been in the US.  The expressways were every bit as good as ours, and other than the fact that signs were not in English and there was little traffic, the freeways were no different than the ones in southern California.   The climate is about the same, the towns and roads are much cleaner, and we didn’t see any homeless people.  Prices on everything except gasoline were similar to those in the US (gas was around $8 per gallon), but the average wage is substantially lower (their average annual income is about a third of ours).  Somehow they make it all work.

The photo below shows the view from our bus just before we entered Spain.

Espana bound. Spain was a quarter mile in front of us. We didn’t need our passports to enter Spain nor did we need to stop. It was like driving across the state line between California and Arizona.

I’m skipping around a bit.  There’s more to cover from our time in Portugal, and I’ll touch on that in subsequent blogs.  For now, it was on to Spain.

To be continued…

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ZRX RX: An ExNotes Resurrection

By Joe Gresh

The Carrizozo Mudchuckers have too much disposable income. Just in the last few months they’ve bought a Husaberg 400, a gas-in-frame Buell, a KTM 890, and a Kawasaki Vulcan 750. The boys want to do some high speed touring, like going to the Sacramento mile in California, and they are talking 500-mile days in the saddle. As I look over my operational motorcycles I don’t see anything I’d like to sit on for 500 miles.  But if I include the non-ops there is one that is capable of reeling off 500 miles without breaking a sweat.

I’m talking about the long dormant Kawasaki ZRX1100. The bike is a road burner of the highest order and looks cool as hell to boot. The only problem is the ZRX has sat for 9 years as CT and I wandered the world. Nothing on the thing works.  The last time I rode the bike was on the Christmas toy run in the Florida Keys in 2014. It’s time I changed that.

The ZRX front brake caliper kit, available on Amazon.

This resurrection might take a while because I’m knee deep in concrete projects but at least I can start ordering parts as my Social Security checks roll in.  I’m starting with the brake systems and forks. The front brakes on the Rex are 6-piston jobs and there are two calipers which means I have to deal with 12 pistons. The brakes are great on the Kawasaki but 12 pistons are a bit much.

The rear brake caliper kit, also available on Amazon.

Both master cylinders are frozen, probably full of crystalized brake fluid. I’m going to try and get away with cleaning up the master cylinders as I have not been impressed with the quality of aftermarket junk and I don’t feel like looking up a bunch of part numbers on the Kawasaki sites. I mostly stop with the front brake anyway; hopefully that master will be in good shape. A failure of the rear brake won’t slow me down…that doesn’t sound right.

The ZRX fork seal kit.

I will rebuild the rear caliper using new seals. Don’t try to follow the logic. In addition, the fork seals need replacing and new fork oil dumped in. I might take a stab at greasing the steering head bearings while the front end is apart.

Maxima fork oil. It’s good stuff.

Due to its long slumber there are many, many issues with the ZRX, like:

      • Cooling system leaks, probably from the water pump
      • Broken throttle cable at twist grip housing
      • Chain is worn out
      • Carbs are gummed up
      • Gas tank is full of smelly, gooey gasoline
      • Clutch lever is frozen
      • Clutch slave cylinder is leaking
      • Battery is not there
      • Valves need adjusting

And I’m sure other things will crop up as I get into the project.

Barely broken in, my ZRX is.

I’ve really let this bike down. Believe me, I feel bad about it. Nine years of neglect have taken a huge toll on anything rubber. The good thing is the Rex has relatively low miles (25,000) and has never gone under water so I’ve got good bones to work with. The paintwork is mostly perfect and there are no dents. The bike will clean up and be a stunner. I rode the ZRX from Florida to New Mexico years ago and it will be bookoo-maximus karma if New Mexico is the place where the ZRX1100 rises up to snarl across the rust-red landscape again. Watch this space for updates.

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Fishing the Florida Keys: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Motorcycle

By Mike Huber

So, I figured using a slightly amended line from the movie Jaws for this title would fit nicely since this story is a step up from fishing off the BMW GS1200.  My friend Sal (who is a new owner of a Can Am) and his brother Mike had just invited me out to go deep sea fishing off the Florida Keys. It was time to take my amateur fishing skills to the next level.  Having been hooked (no pun intended) into fishing last month, this opportunity was timed perfectly and would allow me a chance to catch some really big fish.  Fish large enough that I would need a Can Am to transport them.

One of my objectives in life is to hit all the National Parks and living primarily off my BMW GS1200 has really provided me the opportunity to rack up those numbers.  Florida is just so flat and straight that even the thought of riding to knock out the five National Parks there grew the chicken strips on my tires.  The main focus of this trip would be on relaxation and fishing, so I wasn’t overthinking the National Parks objective.  There will be another trip for those.

Well, it turned out we would be fishing in Everglades National Park. I totally love it when you can combine two objectives into one; it’s probably the project manager in me.  Either way we were on a 21-foot boat westbound out of Islamorada Key. Our first day on the water was pretty impressive, mostly with how the captain yelled at me almost nonstop.  This provided endless entertainment for Sal and Mike.  I think the only reason he yelled at me more is I was catching more fish and was volunteering to help with tasks around the boat, which put me in the spotlight (or I just screwed up a lot).  Either way I got more than one chewing out that day.  For example, the captain wasn’t too thrilled when I tried to wind a 6-foot shark into the boat instead of taking the hook out of its mouth outside the boat. That action racked up my fourth chewing of the day, but who’s counting (Sal and Mike were).

The second day out we each took a chewing but for me it was more personal.  The captain, Mark Gibson, who was former UDT (Navy Underwater Demolitions (SeALs before there were SeALs)) happened to have known my uncle who was also UDT.  So, he took it upon himself to ensure my “Army” ways were wrong every time, even if they weren’t. In between our constant bickering and putting each other down (all with love, of course) and catching fish, he began to explain to me his true passion, which is helping veterans with PTSD.  He runs a nonprofit called Fish With A Hero that takes veterans out on excursions to fish, heal, talk, and, well just be themselves with their brothers and sisters in arms. That day was beautiful.  The company was great, the water was like glass, and there was no wind while we fished Florida’s gin-colored waters. We each caught our trout limit that day and we had several larger fish we couldn’t land.

At the end of each fishing excursion, we took our fish to the Lazy Days Restaurant.  For a small fee they prepared our catch any way we liked. This was a perfect spot to watch the sun setting over the water as we devoured freshly caught fish with a cold beer and joked over the mishaps and successes experienced that day.

Overall, it was a solid week in the Florida Keys, which is a new area of the world for me.  If you like fishing and taking time out from the world this is a perfect place to visit with friendly people in a laid-back environment (outside the fishing captain yelling at me).  As far as purchasing a larger moto to carry an 80-pound shark or a 35-pound hammer jack, I think that may require a Can Am.  It was odd that on this trip Sal received a few prank phone calls about his Can Am.  Somehow, I got blamed for that too, even though I was sitting right next to him when the calls came in. Who knows, maybe a Can Am will be in my distant future to knock out the remaining four National Parks in Florida, and for loading heavy fish for the Lazy Days  cooks.  Until those days arrive, it is back to freshwater fishing in Arizona with the BMW GS1200.

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Spain and Portugal

By Joe Berk

Never heard of Antoni Gaudi, the man who designed Barcelona’s La Sagrada Família Basilica?  Don’t feel bad; I had never heard of him, either.  His work is the wildest architecture I’ve ever seen…think Dr. Suess meets George Lucas, except this guy predates both.

How about scooter-borne motor officers?  Scooters and small motorcycles make way more sense than the gigondo police bikes we use here in the US.  The photo below shows a Policia moto cop we watched roll up on criminal activity (0utside a cathedral, no less), and the bad guys simply evaporated.

Enjoy majestic cathedrals and stained glass?  Hey, there’s a lot of that coming your way, too. We were in so many cathedrals I had to check the itinerary just to get my photos organized.

Did I mention the Flamenco dancers?  Here’s another teaser.

Take my word on this:  If you enjoy photography and motorcycling, fine dining, good wine, beautiful people, and the good life, Spain and Portugal are tough to beat.

Sue and I just returned from a couple of weeks over there and it was awesome.  I left the big Nikon at home and carried a much lighter D3300 Nikon (the same one I used on the China, Colombia, and Baja rides), and life was a lot easier.  The photos are about as good as those I get with the boat anchor D810 and I minimized the wear and tear on me (I’m so spring chicken, you know).  I took three lenses with me:  the 18-55 kit lens that came with the camera, an inexpensive and lightweight Rokinon 8mm fisheye (using it required manual everything, as it doesn’t interface with the D3300’s auto focusing and metering capabilities), and a very sharp Nikon 35mm f1.8.  Even though the 35mm Nikon lens was the best in the bag, I never put it on the camera.  I used the 18-55mm for the bulk of my shots (it was easy to use and I think it did a good job) and the 8mm fisheye for just a few (like that big photo in the Gaudi basilica at the top of this blog).

There’s more content in the ExNotes queue on our visit to the Iberian Peninsula, with a little bit of moto content in each.

Stay tuned, my friends.

The Wayback Machine: How Many Miles Can You Ride In A Day?

By Joe Berk

How many miles can you ride in a day?

About 30 years ago I cranked 1070 miles in one day on a Harley Softail coming home from Mexico (and that was on an older Softail without the rubber mounted engine…it’s the one you see in the photo above).  I was younger and I could ride, as they say, like the wind.  A couple of weeks ago, I did a 250-mile day ride on my Enfield and it about wiped me out.

Gresh and I were talking about this recently, and I thought I would share my thoughts on how many miles you can plan on covering in a day.  Maybe it will influence your planning.  Maybe not.  We get paid the same either way.

1: Age

Like I said above, big miles used to be no big deal for me.  That’s not the case any more.  After substantial scientific study and close observation of my geezer buddies over many decades, I developed a graph showing the relationship between age and how many miles you can reasonably ride in a day.

Like it or not, when we get older, it gets harder to rack up big miles.  Serious scientific study went into the above, so if you want to debate our conclusions, bring facts.  We want to hear them.

2: Weather

Weather plays a big role in how many miles you can ride in a single day, and here at ExNotes we rely heavily on our weather rock before leaving on any ride.  You’ve probably heard about weather rocks.  We sell weather rocks here on ExNotes and they are conveniently sized to fit into a tank bag.  They work like this…you hang the rock from any available support (you have to supply your own string and support).  Here’s how to interpret your weather rock:

    • If the rock is wet, it means it’s raining and you should reduce however many miles you had planned to ride by half.
    • If the rock is swinging, it means it’s windy that day, and you should reduce your miles by maybe a third.
    • If the rock is hot to the touch, it means the temperature is elevated, and you should reduce your miles by maybe a third.  Maybe even more.
    • If the rock is cold, it means it’s cold, and you probably can ride as long as you dress appropriately.  If the rock is really, really cold, though, maybe you should stay home.  If there’s ice on the rock, you definitely should stay home.

ExNotes offers weather rocks in brand-specific models:

    • If you ride a Harley, we offer chrome weather rocks for $395, chrome with conchos and black leather fringe weather rocks for $495, and chrome, conchos, fringe, and matching do rag weather rocks for $595 (freight and setup fees not included).
    • If you ride a BMW, we offer the GS weather rock with an electronically adjustable center of gravity, BMW logos, and a one-year Starbucks gift certificate for $1995.
    • If you ride a Ducati, you probably don’t need a weather rock (Ducati riders generally only ride their motorcycles short distances on clear days, anyway, although if you insist, we can provide a red rock for you personally autographed by the former famous racer of your choice, or we can put several rocks in a bag you can shake to sound like a Ducati clutch).  Ducati rocks are free, or at least that’s what we tell you (we’ll recover the cost on your first valve adjustment and let you think you got the rock for free).
    • If you ride a Chinese motorcycle, we sell an ExNotes weather rock decal for $2 and you can put it on your own rock.

3: Roads

The kind of roads you plan to ride make a huge difference.  If it’s all freeway, you’ll be bored but you can rack up huge miles.  If it’s surface streets (and a lot of us do everything we can to stay off the freeway), you won’t cover as many miles unless you’re riding in Baja, where you can run 140mph+ on the long straights south of Valle de Los Cirios.  If it’s in the mountains, it will be less, unless you’re posting about your skills on Facebook, where the folks who post are world class riders (to hear them tell it).  The same holds true for riding in the dirt.  You just won’t cover as many miles.

4: Headcount

This is the big one, folks.  Maybe I should have listed it first.  If I’m riding by myself or with one of my motorcycle buddies in Baja, I can easily do over 500 miles a day.  Throw in more people, and…well, read on, my friends.

The number of riders in your group has a profound impact on how many miles you can ride in a day.   In the math world, we would say that the miles per day are inversely proportional to the number of riders in your group.

As a starting point (and after extensive research and mathematical modeling), the technical staff here at ExNotes developed Formula A:

A)  Miles per Day = (M)/(N)

where:

M = Miles you want to ride
N = Number of riders in your group

What the above means is that as the number of riders in your group increases, the number of miles you can cover in a day decreases.  That’s because with more riders you’ll start later in the morning, you’ll be stopping more often, and you’ll take more time at each stop.  That is, unless you’re riding with me.  Then Formula A reduces to Formula B:

B)  Miles per Day = M

where:

M = Miles you want to ride

The B in Formula B stands for Berk because basically I’ll leave you behind if you’re not ready when I am.  You can catch up with me later.  You might think I’m joking. I’m not.

Formula A varies a little depending on what kind of riders you have in your group, and especially if you have a Rupert.  Rupert is the guy who takes 20 minutes putting his motorcycle gear back on after every stop.  I once rode with a Rupert who could take 20 minutes just putting his gloves on.  He got better when we threatened to cut a few of his fingers off.

5: Your Motorcycle

There are several motorcycle factors that play a huge role in how many miles you can ride in a day.  In the old days, a motorcycle was a motorcycle and we did it all with a single bike (touring, off-road, canyon carving, adventure riding, etc.).  Today, you gotta get specific:

    • ADV-style bikes are actually pretty comfortable and the ergonomics make sense.  500-mile days are easy.  My KLR 650 was one of the best touring bikes I ever owned.   It had phenomenal ergos.
    • Standard motorcycles are also relatively comfortable and you can probably do 500 miles in a day, but you’ll feel it, especially if your bike does not have a windshield.  My Enfield 650 Interceptor is a good bike, but it’s the one that wiped me out on that recent 250-mile ride.
    • Cruisers look cool in motorcycle ads and they complement do rags and tattoos nicely, but they are less comfortable on long rides.  I’ve found I can reasonably do 350-mile days on a cruiser without needing to see a chiropractor.  Go much beyond that and you’ll feel it.
    • Sportbikes generally cut into big miles, but a lot depends on your age. Good buddy Marty and I rode sportbikes on the 2005 Three Flags Classic (I was on a Triumph Daytona) and we did big mile days on that ride. But I was 20 years younger then and I bent a lot easier.  I wouldn’t want to do it again.
    • Classic bikes generally require shorter daily riding distances, particularly if they are British and equipped with electricals manufactured by Lucas (as in Lucas, the Prince of Darkness).  I think a mid-’60s Triumph Bonneville is the most beautiful motorcycle ever created, but I wouldn’t want to ride Baja on one.

Beyond the style issues outlined above, there are other motorcycle factors to consider:

    • Bigger motors generally mean more miles in a day, but bigger motorcycles can slow you down if they suck up too much fuel.  One year at the International Motorcycle Show, Yamaha’s bikes all had labels that showed, among other things, fuel economy.  The VMax, as noted by Yamaha, averaged 27 miles per gallon.  You’d be making a lot more fuel stops on that one.  27 miles per gallon.  I can’t make up stuff this good.
    • Daily mileage is independent of displacement at 400cc and above (as long as fuel economy is not VMax nutty).  Below 400cc, it gets harder (I think) to crank big miles.  On my 250cc RX3, 500 miles is a big day for me.  But my good buddy Rob once did a 1000-mile Baby Butt on his RX3, so I guess anything is possible.
    • Seats can make a big difference.  I’ve never found any motorcycle seat to be really comfortable, but I have found a few to be god-awful (my Enfield is working hard to earn that title).  If you want to really improve a motorcycle seat so you can up your miles, get a sheepskin cover (I’ve found those to be quite comfortable).  There are other options like inflatable seats or custom made seats, but my advice is don’t waste your money.  A guy showed up with an inflatable seat cover on a group ride once and it slowed us considerably.  It kept blowing off his bike and we had to stop and look for it each time that happened.
    • Fuel tank capacity doesn’t make much difference.  My KLR could go 250 miles on a tank; my TL1000S would start blinking at 105 miles.  You’d think you could ride a lot further with a bigger tank, but I found I need to stop and stretch roughly every hour or two, and if I do that at gas stations, tank capacity doesn’t matter.

What do you think?

So there you have it:  Our thoughts on a complex topic.

We know there are keyboard commandos out there who will take exception to our carefully constructed and presented thoughts.  If you disagree, let’s hear it.  We appreciate all comments, dumbass and otherwise.  Please leave your thoughts here on the blog for others to see.  Don’t waste your time leaving comments on Facebook (all the cool people leave their comments here…only losers post comments on Facebook).  You’ll be a faster rider, you’ll be thinner, and you’ll look better if you post your comments here.  And don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar, or capitalization (believe it or not, it will help our readers assess the validity of your thinking).

Like they say, your mileage may vary, and we’re looking forward to your comments.  If they’re particularly inane, so much the better. We await your inputs.

Some of our more interesting rides?  Right here, folks!

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