Category: Motorcycle Adventure Ride

Galleta Meadows Estate

By Joe Berk

So let’s say you’re a rich guy…not little rich from a corporate job where you’re overtitled and overpaid, but big rich as in inheriting a fortune from Dad.  Let’s say Dad was George Avery, the guy who founded the label making company of the same name.  We’re talking big bucks here, folks.  What do you do with all that money?

Dennis Avery was the guy we’re talking about here.  He was George Avery’s son and he was a good guy who did good things with his money.  He gave away a lot to worthy causes both in the U.S. and overseas.  Kids going to school.  AIDS clinics.  Authors writing interesting books.  Kids’ athletic endeavors. And lots, lots more.

An author Dennis helped was George Jefferson (not the one from the TV sitcom The Jeffersons, but instead a guy who studied geology and dinosaurs).  Jefferson wanted to write a book about dinosaurs and with Avery’s support, he did.  That brings us to a point where Dennis meets Ricardo Breceda.

The 3,000-acre estate Dennis Avery bought is called Galleta Meadows. “Galleta” means cookie or biscuit in Spanish.  It also refers to a species of grass (not marijuana, but actual grass) that grows in the area (see below).
Galleta grass. It grows up to about two feet tall and it thrives in the desert.  The name is probably due to the plant’s seeds, which look like little flattened cookies.

But before we get there, Dennis started buying land in and around Borrego Springs, a small desert town northeast of San Diego.  Mr. Avery liked it as is, and didn’t want to see it consumed by development as has happened in so many other parts of California.  Score one for the good guys here, folks.

Breceda was a guy who grew up in Mexico, came to the United States, tried a few different business ventures, and ended up owning welding equipment.  He wasn’t a welder initially, but he learned how to use the welding gear.  Kind of like Joe Gresh.   Breceda’s daughter had seen the new hit movie, Jurassic Park, and she wanted a dinosaur for her birthday.  Breceda had a welding machine. You can see where this is going.  After creating a dino for his daughter, Breceda started making and selling large metal sculptures.  You can’t miss them.  We’ve seen them in various parts of southern California, including a very large mastodon looking over the 60 freeway near Riverside not too far from where we live.

One day, Dennis Avery is driving by, and he notices the large metal creatures crafted by Breceda.  He stops in to talk.  See where this is going?

What looks like hair on Breceda’s sculptures is actually tiny strips of sheet metal. We have some cool things out in our California deserts.

To make a long and fascinating story a little less long and a little more fascinating, Avery and Breceda struck up a deal to repopulate Galleta Meadows with creatures from the Plio-Pleistocene age (a period combining the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras that began 5 million years ago and lasted until about 12,000 years ago).  The concept took off from there, and the art expanded to include other creatures.  One is the 300-foot-long dragon/sea serpent you see in the photos at the top of this blog and in the three photos below.

A sense of scale. The sea serpent dragon is huge. That’s my sister Eileen and my wife Susie taking it all in.  You can walk under the coils further back.
It’s hard to imagine the labor that went into these sculptures.

We were astounded by the number of sculptures in the immediate area of the sea serpent.  It surprised me that we didn’t the others at first; I guess it was because we fixated on the sea serpent sculpture I had programmed into my Waze navigation app.

While we were viewing the sea serpent and taking a bunch of photos, we saw another sculpture almost hidden in the nearby desert.  We drove through the area’s dirt pathways to get a better look.  Wow.  You can walk right up to these things.  It was amazing.

Another prehistoric beast, as interpreted by Ricardo Breceda. It almost seems life like.
A better shot, with the sun at my back. The old iPhone was getting a workout and it was doing a good job. I was thinking I could get better photos with my Nikon the entire time I was out there in the Anza Borrego desert. Anza Borrego translates into Bighorn sheep. They’re in the area, but we didn’t see any.
A closer shot of the beast above showing how Breceda used thin strips of sheet metal to simulate hair. Brilliant work, this is.

Then we spotted another sculpture 50 yards or so away.  They were popping out like Easter eggs or seeing the whales in Scammons Lagoon down in Baja.  At first you don’t see any.  Then they suddenly appear in a manner that makes you wonder why you didn’t see them before.  We were enjoying the experience.

Oppossums and other modern animals carry their young like this. The artist is brilliant. This rusty old things actually look alive.
Another view of the prehistoric mama and her baby. That dark spot under her tail? It’s another sculpture off in the distance.

After photographing the sculpture above, I looked around and there was yet another one way off in the desert.  It was a camel of some sort.  This was really cool stuff.

Would you walk a mile for this camel? I would and I will. I’ll be back with better equipment next time.

The entire adventure was sort of an Easter egg hunt, with our spotting yet another sculpture a rifle shot or so away that we hadn’t noticed driving into the area.  I think you probably could see them all from the road if you knew where to look for them, but we didn’t know until we were at the sea serpent.  I’m glad I didn’t know where to look.  I felt like a little kid discovering one more each time I moved on to another.  It was great fun.

When I finished taking the iPhone photos you see here, I thought I had captured all the sculptures.  Boy, was I wrong.  In researching the sculptures, the artist, and the man who sponsored it all, I was astounded to learn that there are actually 130 of these things scattered around the Galleta Meadows Estate.  We had seen only a half dozen.  You know what that means:  Another trip.  On the next one, I’ll bring along the Nikon D810 and my tripod, and I’ll get better pictures.  That’s going to be really cool.

The obligatory selfie. Maybe I’m a narcissist. It was the middle of February, and it was a comfortable 70 degrees out in the Anza Borrego desert. My wife, my sister, and I had a great time

Getting there was both easy and fun.  We started in Escondido and picked up California State Route 78 east.   That’s a glorious ride on either a motorcycle or a car, winding through the mountains and then bringing you up to the Anza Borrego desert floor (where the sculptures reside).  We stopped in Julian for breakfast and a delicious slice of apple and cherry pie along the way.  It was a fun day.

The 70-series roads in southern California are fabulous roads. This is a great ride. If you’re going to see the Breceda sculptures, you can get right next to them in a car; you cannot do so on a motorcycle.

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China’s Shaolin Temple

By Joe Berk

I posted a blog yesterday about Chinese pocketknives and drew a few comments (as I knew I would).  One of them mentioned Shaolin martial arts, and that prompted a response from me about the Shaolin Temple in China.  Not a lot of folks here in the US have been to the Shaolin Temple.  I know of two who rode there on motorcycles (that would be Joe Gresh and yours truly).   I covered that visit in Riding China, and I thought it would be good to share a part of that chapter with you today.  Who knows…I might even sell a few books by doing so.  You know, so you can read the rest of the story about our ride through China.

We continued riding and entered a mountainous region. I liked that a lot. The roads were nice, there wasn’t much traffic, and because we were both moving and climbing, the heat abated a bit. We stopped for a break, and a fellow came along on a 250cc Yamaha that was configured for touring. He stopped and chatted with us and we took turns taking pictures of each other. His bike looked good. We only saw a few other Chinese on our trip who were touring on motorcycles.

A Chinese motorcyclist on a 250cc Yamaha. His luggage is from Lester Peng’s motorcycle luggage company. Lester rode with us last year on the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were very close to the Shaolin Temple when we stopped to talk to the Yamaha rider. That would be our next destination this day. Another fellow then came by and he had an animated conversation with Sean (our guide). It turns out he was selling, Sean was his mark, and the guy was working Sean hard. This guy owned a restaurant and he wanted us to eat there. He was successful; we did.

We didn’t pause for naps after this lunch, but Sean was soon having another excited conversation with folks outside the restaurant. I didn’t know what they were discussing, but I later realized it was about transportation and how we would get into the Shaolin Temple. The bottom line to this conversation was that we all piled into three small gray minivans that took us about two miles down the road, back the way we had ridden to get to the restaurant.

What I learned later was that there were two ways to get into the Shaolin Temple complex. One was through the main gate, and apparently that cost more. The other was a woodsy trail through the mountains that required a climb over two or three mountains on a slippery muddy trail. If you did that, you could sneak into the Shaolin Temple complex for free. That’s what we did, and that climb was rough. The trail was slippery, and by now the temperature and humidity were up again. Had I known what was going on I would have gladly paid to go in through the front door, but I didn’t realize what we were doing until I was doing my best impersonation of a mountain goat in the hills behind Shaolin.

So here’s the deal on the Shaolin Temple: It’s famous as the home of Chinese Kung Fu. No kidding; it’s both a Buddhist Temple and a world-renown Kung Fu school (the original Kung Fu school, actually). It’s where Bruce Lee learned his craft, and if you’ve ever seen a martial arts movie with scenes that have large numbers of young Chinese guys learning the martial arts, it was almost certainly filmed here.

The Shaolin Temple was beautiful. As we walked along its well-manicured paths, a young guy went into a martial arts routine that was mesmerizing. It was something right out of a movie. The guy was executing all of these snappy martial arts stances (one seemed to flow into the next) in a manner that almost made the display a dance routine. It probably only lasted a minute or two, but when it ended, a large crowd had already gathered and everyone applauded. I enjoyed seeing it, even though I know nothing about any of this stuff.

A martial artist demonstrating his moves at the Shaolin Temple.
More moves. I told the guys I could do this, but I don’t think they believed me.

The Buddhist Temple was beautiful, but by then it was so miserably hot and humid we weren’t enjoying anything. We were in a walled courtyard that allowed no airflow, and I couldn’t seem to get my body temperature down. I was still perspiring from climbing over the mountains.

I shot a few photos of some of the figures inside the temple (yet again, the D810 Nikon’s incredible low light level capabilities came through).

A figure inside the Shaolin Temple. It’s likely Bruce Lee saw these things when he studied here.
Another huge and menacing figure inside the Shaolin Temple.  These statues were about 15 feet tall.

On our walk out (we left through the main gate), it mercifully started raining again. The rain finally helped me cool off. So far, this day was the hottest and most humid day of our ride (and I found I was saying that nearly every day for the last several days).

At dinner that night, I thought I would have a little fun with the guys. One of the dishes that evening had black fungus mixed in with the vegetables, and I loved that stuff. As I mentioned earlier, what the Chinese call black fungus is a mushroom of some sort, and I loved the taste of it. A small speck of one of the mushrooms, a black piece about a quarter of an inch long, was on the edge of my dinner bowl. I managed to pick up that tiny piece of mushroom with my chopsticks in preparation for solidifying my reputation as a chopstick martial arts master.

I told Tracy, who was sitting next to me, that I wanted him translate exactly what I was about to tell the Chinese guys in our group. He said okay, but went back to his meal. “No, Tracy,” I said. “I want you to tell the guys to stop eating and listen to what I have to say.”

Tracy looked at me for second, and then he spoke to the group in Chinese. The others stopped eating, looking at Tracy and then at me.

“We all visited the Shaolin Temple today and we saw the birthplace of Kung Fu,” I began. I paused, nodded at Tracy, and he started speaking to the group in Chinese.

“You may not know this, but like Mr. Bruce Lee, I, too, am a martial arts expert,” I said. Tracy looked at me and translated what I just said. The others stared at me, taken in by my serious demeanor.

“You know that I am an expert with chopsticks, as I demonstrated on our second night in the peanut contest,” I said. Tracy diligently continued to translate. “You may not know that I am a master at using chopsticks in the martial arts. In fact, I created a branch of Kung Fu that relies entirely on chopsticks.” As I said that, I motioned with my left hand as if I was shooing a fly away from the food on our table. It was a motion all of us had used across China at all of our dinners to get rid of the flies.

As Tracy continued to translate, and when I saw everybody look at my left hand shooing the imaginary flies away, I lunged out into the space over our table with my right hand, still holding my chopsticks. As I did so, I emitted a piercing “eeeee yah!” (my best rendition of a martial arts cry, worthy of no less a master than Bruce Lee himself). I held up my chopsticks, which still held that small morsel of black mushroom. No one could have confused that speck of mushroom for anything other than a fly captured in mid-air by a martial arts master (with his chopsticks, of course).

A loud gasp of astonishment and admiration went up from all of the Chinese riders. Before they could get a closer look, I plopped the tiny piece of mushroom into my mouth and exaggeratedly swallowed. There was a second of stunned silence at our table, followed by another gasp and heavy applause. Gresh was the only one who rolled his eyes. A legend was born that evening, my friends, and he be me.

We had a great dinner that night (I know, I’ve been saying that about every meal on this trip). Eeeeeeyah! The fly-impersonating black fungus. The chopsticks. The applause. It was wonderful.

After dinner, all I wanted to do was get back to the hotel, take a cool shower, crank the air conditioner all the way down, and get some sleep. I posted a blog that night, I went to bed, and I probably dreamed about being a chopstick martial artist.

They’re still talking about me over there, you know.

The ride across China was amazing, the adventure of a lifetime.  You can read about the adventures of dos Joes on the entire trip here:

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It’s Miller Time

By Joe Berk

On our recent visit to Milwaukee, we visited the Miller brewery.  It’s in the center of the city, right on West State Street, nestled in the town’s hills.  Those hills will become significant in a moment when I tell you about the caves.

Our tour guide was a very energized guy.  I can’t remember his name, but I can tell you he made the tour come alive for us.  It was fun.

One of the first things our tour guide covered was the girl.  She was present in several stained glass windows and a few other places.

Our guide, that interesting guy a few photos up, explained her history to us.  The story goes like this:  A.C. Paul, Miller’s advertising guy, got lost in the Wisconsin woods (as in good and lost, at night, in freezing temperatures).  He had a vision of the Miller High Life girl you see above, perched on a crescent moon, pointing the way back to civilization.  That vision (in various forms) has been in Miller’s advertising and branding pretty much ever since.  Is it true?  Hey, it’s a good story and it’s got something to do with beer, so who cares?

The Miller company goes back a long way, and in the old days, they used to store newly-made beer in the caves adjacent to the plant in the hills on West State Street.  The advent of refrigeration made that unnecessary, but Miller still owns the caves.  They’re part of the tour, and if you have an event (a wedding, a party, a Bar Mitzvah, whatever) they make a hell of a venue.

The photos you see here didn’t use any flash.  I bumped the ISO up to 800.  That, along with my 24-120’s vibration reduction capabilities and a bit of post processing in PhotoShop created the images you see here.

Miller has also has a cool party place (you can also rent this as a venue) in the main building.   You can see that in the photo below.

Those glasses you see above were samples provided to us during the tour.  The ones you see above were Miller’s Killian Red label.   Folks, there were a lot of beer samples on this tour, starting with the very beginning of the tour in the Miller Visitor Center (it’s where I snapped that photo of the custom chopper at the top of this blog).  The samples weren’t small, either.  If you weren’t watching what you consumed, I imagine you could get a pretty good buzz on this tour.  Me, I was watching what I drank, and I didn’t finish any of the samples.  They sure were good, though.  Miller beer is awesome.

After the stop above, we entered the actual beer factory.  Our guide explained that folks are usually amazed when they see this part of the operation.  There were hardly any people working in the plant.

I wasn’t surprised at the lack of people; in fact, I would have been surprised if there were people there.  Beer production is a process-based industry, and most process-based industries are automated.  The days of the LaVerne and Shirley show are long gone in the beer business (that show featured two women who worked in a Milwaukee beer factory).

Back in the LaVerne and Shirley days, they could have been employed by any of several beer companies in Milwaukee.  Automation and consolidation changed all that.  Today, pretty much all the Milwaukee beer companies are part of the Miller empire.  Miller has something like 11 breweries across the country.  There’s one not too far from me here in southern California.  The regions they cover are divided geographically.  Our tour guide told us that the plant we were in covers the Midwest.  It produces 10 million barrels of beer annually, and 40% of the beer manufactured in the Milwaukee plant goes to just one city (and that’s Chicago).  Those Chicago boys like their beer, I guess.

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The New Year Comes with New Adventures

By Mike Huber

Having spent 11 months abroad and successfully (I am the one gauging the definition of success, by the way) traveling through 7 countries (some multiple times) returning to my home country of the United States of America was a welcome way to round out 2024.  The past month has been filled with catching up with family and friends, as well as catching 3 mice and 12 flying squirrels that seem to have filled my vacancy in my parent’s house in Maine.  The break was also filled with replacing some of my gear and clothes that were “gently used” throughout my travels in Oceania and Southeast Asia.  Outside the occasional waking up at 3:00 a.m. and freaking out that I am sleeping in my old bedroom at my parents’ house, homeless and unemployed (clearly, that should be my intro if I ever join a dating site), it’s been a really productive month.

With the New Year approaching my plan was to begin traveling through South America for the entire year by motorcycle.  In November that plan quickly changed (imagine that) when a fellow rider I had camped with four years ago in Death Valley National Park messaged me and stated that he and another rider were about to embark on a 1-month motorcycle journey through India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh in February on Royal Enfield Himalayans. I wasn’t too impressed as I figured it would be some BS tour with a guide and not really count as a motorcycle adventure.  He replied stating that was not the case and it was just the two of them.  It took me about 15 minutes to reply stating that I was in.  He promptly let me know that he wasn’t inviting me and was just discussing the trip with me.  At any rate I invited myself and they seemed okay with that.  I mean, who wouldn’t be?  I am an absolute joy to be around.

This will surely be one of the more challenging adventures for me in quite some time.  It really began to hit me while packing my gear in freezing cold Maine.  Even though this nomadic lifestyle has been my life for the past eight years, there always is some anxiety that comes when the reality of the adventure begins to sink in.  After India, per my usual I have no plan and must mentally prepare to face isolation yet again for an unknown amount of time.  Of course, that is until I meet 100 new beautiful friends, which is sure to happen. Another issue I am concerned with is I sold my BMW GS1250 to my friend who was babysitting it and fell in love with the bike (that’s not hard to do as it’s a great motorcycle).  Well, he sold it, and with it my helmet, jacket, etc.  So, riding these countries with rental gear is something I am apprehensive about.  Buying new gear really isn’t an option as once this trip is wrapped up there is still no definitive plan for my next location or activities. As in the past, I place that as a problem for “Future Mike Huber,” and he is pretty good at figuring these things out.

In the meantime, there are still a few weeks to kill prior to motorcycling India.  I thought scuba diving Mexico would fill that void. Mexico will also serve as a solid way to ease back into traveling and rebuilding my confidence for what is sure to be an adventurous New Year with plenty of stories to come.

Happy New Year to all.

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ADV Cannonball Press Release

By Joe Berk

This press release came in the mail a few days ago and I thought I would share it here.

ADV Cannonball Rally

A mix of curated motorcycle roads and a checkpoint rally for the ultimate cannonball rally, ADV moto style.

Port Angeles, WA — A new kind of annual adventure motorcycle event is in the works. It will take riders across the United States on amazing roads hand-selected specifically for riders. But this isn’t a tour – it’s a competitive GPS-based rally. Go for glory. Go for adventure.

The 2025 ADV Cannonball Rally will take place October 6-14, 2025. This year it will start in historic Kittyhawk, North Carolina on the Outer Banks and ends in Redondo Beach, California at the famous Portofino Hotel & Marina – a staple finish line for many cannonball rallies throughout history. This unique 3,550-mile experience is open to motorcycles of all types, will include nine days of riding, and has GPS-based checkpoint competitions located at epic places.

This coast-to-coast rally will have an emphasis on overland GPS navigation, endurance, preparedness, self-reliance, and rider skill. Aaron Pufal, the event’s organizer, says, “Each day, participants will leave the official hotel at specific times. Navigating by provided GPX tracks, competitors will ride on paved and optional unpaved roads to checkpoints, electronically earning points while experiencing a highly curated and painstakingly vetted motorcycle route.”

Pufal, an experienced rally planner and ADV moto enthusiast believes there’s a secret sauce to a good motorcycle road, and this route is carefully crafted by motorcycle enthusiasts for enthusiasts. The event will take riders through iconic, amazing locations—all with remarkable riding roads as the backbone. “This route isn’t for the faint of heart,” Pufal states, “but riders will appreciate the hundreds of hours of planning and prerunning.”

This isn’t a race; It’s a rally; and it’s self-supported. No team chase vehicles. No support crews. No whining. Riders must rely on themselves or any public resources available to any competitor to stay the course on the road to victory.

The ADV Cannonball Rally is a friendly competition. Here, riders are scored on their ability to reach specific checkpoints. Bonus points are awarded for the first rider to arrive at the next official hotel each day of the rally. Special achievements and separate extreme checkpoints revealed throughout the event will allow the chance to get a leg up on the competition with some extra points. The event is scored via a GPS app. The rider with the most points at the end is the winner.

Trophies will be awarded at the rally’s banquet for various achievements. The overall winner will have their name embossed on the ADV Cannonball perpetual trophy in perpetuity.

Entrants can be as competitive as they’d like—go for glory, adventure, or a bit of both. No rally experience? There will be opportunities for learning and guidance before the starting gun is fired, ensuring entrants understand how the competition aspect works.

Entries Are Limited: This event is open to the public. Anyone is welcome on any motorcycle. Current entries are exactly what you’d expect, big ADV bikes, but, we’d surely welcome the wacky, brave, or oddball entry!

Currently, we have enough paid signups to proceed with the event but we are limiting the entries to 30 hotel rooms for the 2025 rally.

Learn More: Complete info is available at the rally website, ADVCannonball.com. There, visitors will find the rules and regulations, interactive route map, FAQs, ADV Cannonball Podcast Links, and the official entry form. The ADV Cannonball Motorcycle Rally is sure to be an amazing journey. “Come have a good time,” says Pufal. “This is going to be for like-minded riders who are sick of sitting behind the computer and ordering accessories for their bikes—and definitely not for ADV Weenies.”

We’re seeking: Press interactions, sponsors, and partnerships in the ADV-Biz and motorcycle social media. We feel the inaugural running of the ADV Cannonball is a great story that deserves to be told.

It looks exciting.  It’s worth considering.  I checked out the website and it’s interesting reading.

Happy New Year, folks.  I’m looking forward to a great 2025.  We’ll keep the stories and the photos coming.  You keep clicking on those popup ads and  please consider making a donation via the Donate buttons below!

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Too Pretty To Fight?

By Joe Berk

The Harley WLA at the National Infantry Museum was a lot prettier than any other WLA I had ever seen, but  I wasn’t impressed.  It was way over-restored, finished in gloss OD green (something I had never seen on a WLA before).  I couldn’t find anything in my research to show that any World War II Harleys might have had such a paint treatment.  I found a reference that indicated Army administrative vehicles were sometimes painted gloss OD, but nothing about motorcycles.

Can you say over-restored?
Fancy leather. I doubt anyone ever sat in this saddle.
The port side of the Harley 45.

I once saw General William Westmoreland’s Cadillac Sedan de Ville in Washington, DC, and it was gloss OD.  But WLAs had been out of service long before that, and in any event, when I spoke with General Westmoreland he didn’t mention anything about riding motorcycles.  If anyone out there knows anything about WLAs with glossy paint, please leave a comment.

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British Motorcycle Gear Exclusive Offers!

By Joe Berk

Good news!  Good buddy Andrew Capone, Isle Of Man empresario and British Motorcycle Gear baron is having an exclusive sale for ExNotes readers.  It’s a whopping 21% off any BMG brand jacket. When you enter your order on the British Motorcycle Gear site, just add the code BMGJOES21 at checkout.  British Motorcycle Gear also has great deals on Belstaff closeouts (as well as nice gifts in the $100 range) for under your Christmas tree.  Andrew tells us that the 21% BMG jacket discount is 1% more off the sale he’s currently running, and that’s because we ExNoters are his kind of 1%-ers.

You read about Andrew here on ExNotes before.  He’s the real deal and he’s a real rider.  The latest issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine (Jan-Feb 25) is about to hit the newsstands, and Andrew’s magnificent Norton P11 is featured in it.  It’s a great read about a great bike (I know because I wrote it).  Pick up a copy when you get a chance.  Or, if you have a subscription, you can read it online.

You’ve also read about BMG gear here on ExNotes.  Joe Gresh tested several of their items, he’s a crusty old fart, and he gave all the British Motorcycle Gear high marks.  You can read Gresh’s BMG reviews here.

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ExNotes Review: Shinko Raven R009RR Tires

By Joe Gresh

There are many fast motorcycle riders/writers that would be better suited to the task of reviewing motorcycle tires. Unfortunately, none of them are available at the moment so you’ll have to go with my impression of these Shinko Raven tires.

I previously ran Continental Conti-Motion tires on the ZRX1100 mostly because they were cheap. I got a good deal on a set of front/rear tires with shipping included. The Conti-Motion set came with a 180/55-17 rear tire that was a little bigger than the original 170/60-17 called for on the ZRX. The wider, lower profile tire seemed ok at the time because I hadn’t ridden the motorcycle for 9 years. After I fitted the Shinko Ravens I could tell a difference.

The Harbor Freight tire machine along with the tubeless rims on the ZRX made swapping the tires a breeze. The new tires took only a few ounces of weight to balance so I assume the rubber is pretty evenly distributed around the tire.

I have around 4000 miles on the Shinko tires and it looks like the rear might go another 3000 miles or so. The front tire is wearing much slower and looks like it will go 10,000 miles. Like I said: there are faster riders that could eat these tires up in one day.

The Shinko Ravens are supposedly aramid belted radials with a speed rating of Z, or 149 mph plus. The ZRX1100 won’t do 149 falling out of an airplane so I should be good. Shinko claims the Raven is their longest wearing sport tire. Until they start making car tires, that is.

In a straight line the Contis and the Shinkos are about the same. However the Shinko tires feel much different than the Contis in corners. With the wide 180 series Continental rear tire it felt like the ass end of the bike raised as you laid the bike into a corner. Or maybe the front end dropped. Hitting a bump mid-corner made the rear of the bike want to twist outwards instead of absorb the bump. You had to counteract that wagging sensation with a firm grip on the bars.

No such problem with the Shinko Raven 170 series tire. The ZRX leans into a curve with the ride height feeling evenly matched front to back. No effort on the handle bars is required. Mid-corner bumps don’t have the twisting feel and the rear suspension articulates without drama.

These sensations are all relative and feelings are hard to quantify, maybe it’s just me, and on a race track there might not be any difference in lap times. But then what are you doing racing a heavy street bike on cheap street tires? Stop that.

I much prefer the handling characteristics of the Ravens even though I can’t find the word “Raven” anywhere on the tire. They are stable, go around corners nicely and are round and black.

I haven’t had many opportunities to try the Shinko tires in the wet. In the dry season it rains infrequently (hence “dry season”) and when it’s monsoon I tend to stay home. Still, it’s possible to get caught in the rain here in New Mexico. What little time I have in the wet with the Shinkos didn’t feel all that grippy. I took it easy as the oils accumulated during the dry season rose to the top of the asphalt. Cracking the throttle on the torquey 1100cc 4-cylinder can induce wheel spin on a wet road so don’t do that. In a wet corner you can get the big ZRX drifting easily. Don’t do that either.

In the dry I have yet to lean the bike over far enough to use all the available tread, also known as crashing. The mountain roads where I live are swept only by wind and rain. It’s not surprising to round a corner and find a steaming cow turd in the road. Or sand. Or a downed tree. Anyway, that’s my excuse.

The Shinko tires are a great match for the ZRX1100, I wouldn’t think a small thing such as tire size would have such an outsized effect on the overall feel of a motorcycle but there it is. I would buy another Raven if they go on sale but then I’m the worst guy to take tire advice from, as there are other, faster shills.

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Dave Barr (12 Apr 1952 – 7 Nov 2024)

By Joe Berk

I first heard of Dave Barr on a motorcycle ride with Baja John and friends through the wilds of Tehachapi and Kern County.  One of the riders in our group (an Air Force colonel) mentioned Dave’s book on a roadside stop somewhere out in the Owens Peak wilderness area.  It had my attention immediately.  The Internet was in its infancy in those days and when I made it home, I managed to find more about Mr. Barr online.

The site I found listed a book (Riding the Edge) and a phone number, so I called.  I ordered several copies, one for me and others for friends.  The guy on the other end of the line was Dave Barr himself and we had a nice conversation.  As it turned out, Dave lived in Bodfish near Lake Isabella.  One thing led to another and in that conversation, I arranged another ride to meet Dave in person.  Good buddy Baja John rode with me.

Dave Barr and yours truly 20 years ago in Caliente, California.

It was a grand ride, starting in Caliente (on the magnificent Bodfish-Caliente Road) and then around glorious Lake Isabella with world traveler and living legend Dave Barr.  Dave rode a Sportster in those days; his earlier ride was a 1972 Super Glide.  Much has been made of the fact that Barr rode that Super Glide around the world as a double amputee, but it took only a few minutes knowing Dave to stop thinking of him as a double amputee and to see him as a fascinating and genuinely nice guy, and that’s what I remember about him.

Dave Barr’s book, Riding the Edge, is the greatest motorcycle adventure story ever told, made all the more significant by two facts.   The first is that Dave Barr, the author, did the ride after losing both legs to a land mine in Africa; the second is that Dave did the ride on a beat up old ’72 Harley Super Glide that had 100,000 miles on the odometer before he started his run around the planet.

Dave Barr’s ride around the world took four years, mostly because Dave financed the trip himself.  He’d ride a country or two, run out of money, get a job and save for a bit, and then continue.  I first read Riding the Edge two decades ago, and it was the book that lit my fire for international motorcycle riding.  I’ve probably read Dave’s book five or six times.  The guy was and still is my hero.

Rest in peace, Dave.   You inspired me and many others, and your memory will far outlast all of us.

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ExNotes Review: UABRLA Tire Inflator

By Joe Gresh

There’s a reason we call this pump a tire inflator instead of an air compressor. The thing is pretty small to start with and half of that size is battery to power the thing. Don’t expect to run your 1/2″ air impact wrench with the UABRLA is what I’m trying to say in an original, thought-provoking manner.

I have a small, 12-volt Slime brand tire inflator that I carry on whichever bike I’m riding. It works well and is like 15 years old now. The main issue (I hate to say problem because it’s more of a design limitation) is that you have to connect it to the motorcycle’s battery. On the RD350 that’s not a big problem but on some bikes, like the ZRX1100, the battery is buried under a bunch of junk I store on the bike. You have to remove the dirty socks, chucks of broken concrete, a dried up Sharpie marker and last year’s Laguna Seca vintage racing schedule. That gains access to the battery door, then you have to slide the battery out to access the terminals.

For airing up bike tires in the shop I use a larger 12-volt compressor (it has some grunt) and a 12-volt car battery.

I bought the UABRLA because I sometimes forget on which bike the Slime pump is stored. I’ve ridden off to the hinterlands thinking I had flat tires covered yet the Slime was packed away on a different motorcycle.

You’re probably wondering if I’ll ever get to the UABRLA review.

The UABRLA was delivered from Amazon in only two days.  That’s pretty fast considering where I live. It came with a hose for connecting to tires, a charging cord, a 12-volt cigarette adaptor so you can keep filling tires even if the built-in battery is dead and a little collection of adapters for beach balls, inflatable mattresses and New England Patriots footballs. A handy tote bag is included. The unit also has a flashlight and a USB port for charging small electronics. The flashlight has three modes: on, on-strobe, on-SOS. Four modes if you count off.

The inflator has presets for car tires, motorcycle tires, bicycles and sports equipment. I can’t see the need as air is air but maybe if you were a complete novice it would help.

A nice touch is the auto-shutoff that kills the inflator when the tire reaches a preset pressure. The setting is pretty accurate being only a pound or two off when checked against a pencil-type gauge. Or maybe the pencil gauge is off. Regardless, I can’t tell a tire is low until the rim scrapes the ground.

The built in battery supposedly has 20,000 mah capacity but I can’t be bothered to test that. I filled up two bicycle tires and topped up 6 motorcycle tires with the little inflator and it was still showing 2 of 4 bars. I’m guessing you could fill one car tire with the built in battery. After that you’ll have to switch to the 12-volt cigarette adaptor.

Anyway, I wouldn’t use this machine for car tires. Maybe adding a few pounds would be ok. My experience with these little inflators is that they get hot if you run them too long so I’d let it cool a few times if you’re filling a 40-inch tall muddier tire.

One thing I would like different is a 90-degree air chuck instead of the straight chuck that comes with the UABRLA. It gets a little tight on some motorcycle wheels.

The UABRLA is a nice-looking bit of consumer glitter. I’ll be tossing this pump into my motorcycle travel kit and hopefully it will last more than one or two uses.

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