Motorcycle Adventure Ride – Page 20

The RV and Motor Home Hall of Fame

I used to work in the recreational vehicle industry. I ran a plant for Johnnie Crean at Alfa Leisure a couple of decades ago making See Ya motor homes (I’ve written about that before), and I consulted with Thor Industries on their travel trailers and Zieman on their trailers. It’s a fun business, although it was quite a bit different than the mostly aerospace work I had done up to that time. In the aerospace business, tolerances are thousandths of an inch, and if something is nonconforming (even if off by only a thousandth), it is rejected. In the RV business, tolerances are huge (usually denoted in fractions like ±1/8 or ±1/4 inch), and if the tolerances aren’t met, corrective action involves finding a bigger hammer.

You see a lot of elk statues in Elkhart. The RV and Motor Home Museum and Hall of Fame has one.

I loved making RVs and I loved working for Johnnie Crean. The guy is the most creative person I’ve ever known, and his ability to find simple solutions to complicated problems always impressed me. Johnnie came from RV royalty: His father was John Crean, the self-made billionaire who founded Fleetwood. I met Johnnie’s father a couple of times. He was a cool and unassuming guy. When Johnnie finished college, he went to work for his dad at Fleetwood and realized after a couple of weeks he could start his own RV company, and that’s what he did. I worked for Johnnie at Alfa Leisure and I ran the motor home plant.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic, which is the RV and Motor Home Museum and Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana. It was a fun visit and not surprisingly, John Crean’s name appeared more than a few times. Check out the little travel trailer in the photo below.

A 1950 Fleetwood travel trailer. This one has quite a pedigree.

The RV/MH Hall of Fame also included the very first Bounder, another John Crean design that set a new standard in the RV business.

John Crean drew the Bounder logo on a napkin in a Denny’s restaurant. It’s a cool story. It’s one of the concepts that made him a billionaire.

The main exhibit hall in the RV/MH Hall of Fame displays iconic recreational vehicles and early campers along a walkway painted to look like a two-lane road.

Mae West, the famous actress, was an RVer. Her RV was interesting.

This concept of movie stars having an RV is interesting. When I ran the Alfa Leisure plant, we also manufactured 5th-wheel trailers (they connect to a pintle inside a pickup bed instead of a trailer hitch). Alfa Leisure was the preferred 5th wheel in Hollywood, and big name movie stars’ contracts stipulated Alfa Leisure RVs.

The Museum also displayed several examples of early travel trailers and motorhomes.

General Motors dabbled in the motor home business briefly. It looks interesting, but GM’s interest in RV’s was fleeting.

In the early days, motor homes did not include bathrooms, showers, or other amenities. Today, high end motor homes include all of those things and more. Some sell for more than a million dollars.

Walmart used to allow RVs to park in their lots for free (maybe they still do). We joked about folks who would spend a million bucks on an RV and then spend a half day looking for a Walmart where they could park overnight for free.

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Dreambikes: ’97 Suzuki TL1000S

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

My ’97 TL1000S, somewhere in northern Baja.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Indiana’s Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg Museum

The Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg Museum is somewhat misleadingly named. Yes, they have a stunning and visually arresting collection of Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs (one of the best I’ve ever seen), but the collection of more than 120 vintage automobiles includes more than just these three marques. There’s even a vintage BSA motorcycle (I’ll get to that in a bit).

The Museum is housed in what used to be the Auburn factory. It’s in Auburn, Indiana, where they used to make Auburn automobiles. Auburn is north of Indianapolis (the quick way in is on Interstate 69); we stopped there on our way to Goshen to visit the Janus factory. Janus was fun and I grabbed a ton of awesome photos there, too. Grab the September/October issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine and you’ll see it. But that’s not what this blog is about. Let’s get back to Auburn and the Museum.

The Museum is magnificent and the automobiles are stunning. The Duesenbergs are beyond stunning but don’t take my word for it. You might consider seeing this magnificent collection yourself. I took enough photos to fill a book and I had a hard time picking just a few to show here. I probably went a little overboard, but the cars are so nice it was hard not to.

Here’s a 1931 Duesenberg Model J. The body was built by the Murphy company of Pasadena, who made more Duesenberg bodies than any other company. The car has a straight 8 engine.

This is a V-16 Cadillac, another truly magnificent automobile.

Next up is a supercharged 1935 Auburn. It is an 851 Speedster, with a Lycoming straight 8 engine. It cost $2,245 when it was new (less than a used Sportster, if you’re using that as a benchmark). The lines on this car are beautiful, and the colors work, too.

This next car is a 1929 Ruxton, a car I had never heard of before visting the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum. It’s a front-wheel-drive car, a competitor to the Cord in its day. According to what I found online, the Ruxton was lower, lighter, and handled better than the Cord. The looks and the colors work for me.

Check out the Ruxton’s headlights. These are Woodlite headlights, which are very art deco. They look like helmets.

Here are two 1937 Cord 812 automobiles: A convertible and a coupe. The colors and the style are impressive. When I was a kid, I built a Monogram plastic model of a Cord that I think was based on the convertible I saw in Indiana.

Here’s a 1948 Lincoln Continental Coupe with a V-12 engine. 1948 was the last year any US automobile manufacturer made a V-12. This one had 305 cubic inches and it produced 130 horsepower. The car you see here cost $4,145 in 1948.

This 1933 250cc single-cylinder BSA is the lone motorcycle in the Cord Auburn Duesenberg Museum. This one was E.L. Cord’s personal motorcycle, which he kept on his yacht and at his Nevada ranch.

Another magnificent Duesenberg. This one is a 1931 Beverly sedan, with a 420 cubic inch, straight 8, 265-horsepower engine It went for $16,500 when it was new.

This is an XK 120 Jaguar. I think this is one of the most beautiful cars ever made. It’s my dream car, in exactly these colors.

Here’s a first-year-of-production, 1953 Corvette. Chevy introduced the Corvette in the middle of the 1953 model year, so there were only a few made. The 1954 Corvette was essentially the same car.

Chevy was going to discontinue the Corvette due to its low sales, but the dealers convinced them otherwise. The dealers didn’t sell a lot of Corvettes, but they sold a lot of other Chevys to people who visited the showrooms to see the Corvette.

Another view of the first year Corvette. Note the mesh headlight protectors.

Ford’s answer to the Corvette…the two-seat Thunderbird. The little T-Bird never matched the Corvette’s performance. After three years of production (1955 to 1957), Ford redesigned the Thunderbird as a larger four-seater.

The Thunderbird soldiered on as a four-seater for years, then it was discontinued, then it briefly emerged again as a two-seater in 2002 (that’s the car you see below). The new Thunderbird only lasted through 2005, and like the classic ’55/’56/’57 two-seat T-Birds, Ford dropped this one, too. My buddy Paul drives one that looks exactly like this.

Auburn is a cool little town. Its population is about 14,000 and the town is about 145 miles north of Indianapolis (it’s a straight shot up on Interstate 69). The town is rooted in automotive history, and other history as well. In 1933, John Dillinger and his gang raided the local police station and they stole several firearms and ammunition. But it’s the automobiles and their history that make this town a worthy destination. Auburn, Indiana, loves its automobiles and automotive history. We saw several vintage cars being used as daily drivers. The murals were cool, too.

You can easily spend three or four hours in the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum, and spending the entire day there wouldn’t be out of the question. One of Auburn’s best kept dining secrets is Sandra D’s, a reasonably-priced Italian restaurant with an exquisite menu. Try the eggplant parmesan; you won’t be disappointed.

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ExhaustNotes’ Inaugural Santa Fe Vintage Motorcycle Hang Out

Long ago I wrote a story about traveling across the USA on an old, 1971 360cc Yamaha Enduro motorcycle. It was called Toxic Tour with the subtitle, The First Annual Blue Haze Across America Tour. I had grand plans of organizing a two-stroke only cross country motorcycle ride like the Three Flags Tour put on by the Southern California Motorcycle Association. Editor Brian Catterson’s warning to never call anything “the first annual” until a second one happened proved prescient. The Second Annual Blue Haze Across America Tour never happened.

The main reason it never happened is because I have no idea how to organize and plan such a massive undertaking. I guess I thought the event would just magically take place because I uttered the words out loud. Motorcycle events require many selfless people working behind the scenes to make the idle talk happen. I still like the idea of an all two-stroke pan-USA motorcycle tour but someone else will have to make it a reality. Robert Pandya comes to mind as someone who could pull it off.

Which brings us to the (hopefully temporary) defunct Motorado Motorcycle show. The Motorado was a great, classic motorcycle show held each year in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Motorado died out around Covid time and try as I might, I can’t find any information online about a 2022 show. Motorado’s Facebook page responded to my query with “ Unfortunately no show this year, lack of interest.” Adding these bits of information together I suspect there won’t be a Motorado show in 2022.

The thing is, I really enjoyed riding whatever moto-clunker I had that would run the 200 miles to Santa Fe. It was always sunny and warm in September; a great group of riders and motorcycle fixers gathered to chat bikes. You could buy an ice-cold beer from the restaurant located at the venue and sit on a bench looking at a Husky 400 or a Triumph T160. All those pleasurable feelings are gone now.

I admit I’m part of the problem, as I never volunteered to work the show or even joined the Motorado club. I cherry picked all the fun and left others to clean up the mess. I miss the Motorado and want something like that to happen again in Santa Fe. So I’m going to make it happen again, even if it’s only on the tiniest scale.

Working within my expansive limitations, the inaugural ExhaustNotes Santa Fe Vintage Motorcycle Hang Out will take place on Saturday September 24, 2022. The event will be held at the same mini-mall location as the previous Motorado shows were held. The address is 7 Caliente Road near the intersection of Highway 285 and Avenida Vista Grande.

The mall is about a block west of 285 and a block south of Avenida Vista Grande. You can see the mini-mall from the intersection. Since it will take me a few hours to ride up there the start time will be noon. Feel free to get there earlier if you like; don’t wait on me as my old RD350 may break down on the way north. The show will end whenever we want to leave. I plan to hang out until 3pm-ish then head south towards home. I don’t like to ride in the dark.

The Inaugural Hang Out is free to attend and there are no rules or classes as the show is not organized or judged in any way. It is literally a hang out. No trophies will be awarded. Try to ride an old motorcycle if you can so we have something interesting to look at. If you have vintage dirt bikes or a non-running street bike trailer them in.

There is a nice restaurant in the mini-mall called Santa Fe Brewing Company. The Brewing Company has good beer and air conditioning so I might hang out there for lunch. For the vegans there is an excellent bagel/coffee shop next to the hardware store. At least it was there last time I visited.

Since this is a non-organized, non-sponsored event I have made no arrangements with the mini-mall management. There is no special parking but the east side of the mall has a large dirt lot that no one parks in. We could line up the bikes there and be out of the way of normal commerce. Swag, like T-shirts or ball caps will not be available so dress accordingly. I will bring some ExhaustNotes stickers along but I find it hard to believe anyone would want them when they have no idea what or who ExhaustNotes is. Ask me and I’ll give you one.

Look, I harbor no illusions about the success of this event; I fully expect that I will be the only one that shows up. I’m prepared to sit alone for a few hours and talk to myself about the purple RD350 that I’ll ride to 7 Caliente Road. Wes Baca from Albuquerque might make the show on his H2 Kawasaki or his CT70 Honda so that will make two of us.

What I really want is the old Motorado show back, but until that happens we can go through the motions and enjoy a fine day in Santa Fe, New Mexico chatting about and looking at old motorcycles. And that’s a pretty good way to spend a Saturday.

Even if you can’t attend please share this blog on your social media. You never know who might be interested and live close enough to burble their vintage bike over to Santa Fe. When you get there, look for the little old man drinking a beer and sitting lonely next to a purple RD350 Yamaha. That will be me.

The comments section of this blog will be the central clearing house for Santa Fe Hang Out information. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section; if you are planning to attend let us know in the same comments section.

I hope to see you there on the 24th!

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Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site

I was in Hawaii when I wrote this blog, and we were on the Big Island (the actual island of Hawaii). It’s much less densely populated than Oahu and quite a bit less touristy. My daughter found a cool spot where the unification of the Hawaiian Islands originated, and that’s the Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site.

King Kamehameha, the guy who was in charge of the island of Hawaii (which is one of eight Hawaiian islands) consulted with a Hawaiian priest about how to unify all eight islands. The priest was called a kahuna, and because King Kamehameha was the guy was asking the questions, I suppose the priest would have been the Big Kahuna. The Big Kahuna advised King Kamehameha to build a temple and sacrifice an ally there.

The Pu’ukohola Heiau temple is what you see in the photo at the top of this blog. It kind of looks like a whale, and you can see whales occasionally when you are in Hawaii. The temple was built in just one year with stones mined 27 miles away (and this occurred on an island where there were no horses or mules). King Kamehameha picked an ally for the sacrificial offering; it was his cousin Keōua, except they weren’t really allies. As the story was told to us, Keōua realized it was his destiny to be sacrified, so even though he knew the invitation was for a party that would not end well, he went. There are other aspects to the story that are more disturbing. Cousin Keōua mutilated himself before he arrived (he thought that would make him an imperfect sacrifice), but it didn’t work. Yep, King Kamehameha killed the guy. But evidently the Big Kahuna had been right. King Kamehameha succeeded in unifying the Hawaiian Islands.

Pu’ukohola Heiau is where all this happened, at the edge of the Pacific, and the area and the temple King Kamehameha built are now a National Historic Site.

The Pu’ukohola Heiau temple is what you see in the large photo at the top of this blog. It is impressive. There’s a sort of a tower in front of it, and that’s what you see below.

This Pacific Ocean inlet is at the base of the temple. There are contemporary signs warning that the waters are shark infested, and they advise people not to swim or even wade there. The sharks will attack, the signs warn.

In the old days, or so the story goes, the Hawaiians used to make human sacrifices in this bay. The rock you see below is where the chief would sit to watch the sharks attack whoever was being sacrificed.

Surprisingly, there’s a public beach less than a quarter mile away along the same shoreline. Needless to say, I stayed out of the water.

Another thing we saw there (and all over the Big Island) were mongooses. Mongooses are an invasive species in Hawaii (they came from India), and they have become an apex predator as they have no natural enemies on the Big Island. We didn’t know they were mongooses initially. We thought they were rats, but the tails were way too big and thick for rats. They behaved liked squirrels and they are about the same size. The mongooses scurried about and would come right up to you (they were not afraid to beg for food). I gave a mongoose something to eat, even though youi’re not supposed to. I didn’t want to disappoint an animal unafraid to go head-to-head with a cobra. I suppose you could introduce cobras to Hawaii to counter the mongoose invasion, but that would create other problems.

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The Janus Halcyon 450 and Motorcycle Classics Magazine

Joe Gresh’s recent blog on the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club and their magazine is, like all of Gresh’s writing, outstanding. So much so that, as he suggested, I became a VJMC magazine subscriber.

I’d like to suggest another magazine, and as you have no doubt guessed from the title of this blog, it’s Motorcycle Classics. I think it’s one of the best motorcycle magazines in existence. Part of that is due to MC‘s quality…glossy paper, a great page count, great photos, and great writing. And part of it is I get to see my work in MC‘s pages on a regular basis. Most recently, it’s my story on the new Janus Halcyon 450. Sue and I had a great time visiting with the Janus team in Goshen, Indiana, and the Halcyon 450 motorcycle is a winner. Pick up a copy of Motorcycle Classics magazine and read the Halcyon 450 article. Better yet, subscribe to Motorcycle Classics.

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Want to read more about Janus motorcycles in action? Check out the Baja ride we did with Janus!

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Glendora Ridge Road

Glendora Ridge Road is one of the best kept secrets in southern California, offering 12 miles of well-maintained, low-traffic twisties nestled in the San Gabriel Mountains. And it’s not just 12 miles…it’s 12 miles with 234 curves (I counted them) through some of the most beautiful country imaginable. The striking thing about this road is its simultaneous desolation and nearness to civilization. Glendora Ridge Road is only 45 minutes from downtown Los Angeles. It’s only 10 minutes from my front door. Given its magnificence and nearby location, you’d think I’d ride it every day. I don’t, but I should.

Glendora Ridge Road is a glorious ride, and it’s been a favorite ride for me ever since I arrived in California. It’s hard to believe just how good it is and just how much of a change it offers between what most folks think southern California is and pure wilderness. Like I said above, it starts just 10 minutes away from my home. Ride it and you enter a different world. When I rode it last week, I saw two other vehicles on the entire ride. One was a single-cylinder dual sport; the other was a red Ducati. That’s it: Just two vehicles, and both were motorcycles.

As is the case with many mountain paths, Glendora Ridge Road began life as a dirt road many decades ago. Situated high up in the Angeles National Forest, asphalt came to Glendora Ridge Road in the 1970s. There’s no centerline for most of its length, which requires extra care in navigating its many tight blind corners. Glendora Ridge Road attracts motorcyclists, bicyclists, and the odd sports car or two. We also get some ricky racers in modified Honda Civics and the like up in the San Gabriels, so caution is in order.

Yikes! In the spring, you’ll see these guys looking for lady spiders at dusk. They say they’re harmless. I’ll take their word for it.

Glendora Ridge Road runs directly through one of the premier wildflower spots in America (the colors are surreal during April and May when the flowers are blooming…purples, reds, yellows, oranges, and more). Glendora Ridge Road also borders the San Dimas Experimental Forest, a 32-square mile research area. I’ve seen deer, fox, bobcat, bear, tarantulas, and snakes up there. I grabbed the tarantula shot above one evening in the pre-digital days with a 35mm Minolta and a 28mm lens. I had to get right on top of the spider to get that shot. I held the camera maybe six inches or so above it, only to later learn those things can jump 10 inches straight up!

I’ve ridden Glendora Ridge Road on virtually every motorcycle I’ve owned in the last 40 years. We used to do a lot of company rides with CSC Motorcycles, and everyone loved it. The RX3 is a perfect motorcycle for this ride. We once did a winter ride when the road was iced over. We rode it anyway.

The photo opportunities along Glendora Ridge Road are awesome. These days, I’m down to one motorcycle, and that’s my 650 Enfield. There are a lot of good spots for getting advertising quality photos on Glendora Ridge Road, and I took advantage of a few. Glendora Ridge Road has several areas where the cliffs and overhangs provide shade, so even on a bright day you can get great shots without harsh shadows

I pick a motorcycle based on how I know its colors will photograph. I chose wisely, I think.

On Glendora Ridge Road, looking north. It really is this scenic. I had the road and the San Gabriels to myself. The great Mojave Desert lies on the other side of those mountains.

Glendora Ridge Road runs roughly east to west (or west to east, depending on which way you travel). I like riding this road in the early morning or at dusk, as it makes for a more interesting ride (fewer folks, and the wildlife is more active.) In the morning, it’s best to ride in a westerly direction to keep the sun out of your eyes, and vice versa at dusk. The road’s curves make it tempting to go faster than you should, but my advice is to keep a relaxed pace. Many of the corners are blind, and you never know if there’s a squid pushing too hard coming the other way.

Just as you enter Mt. Baldy Village, the sign for Glendora Ridge Road appears on the left (if you’re not looking for it, you may miss it). You’ll only climb about a half-mile before you hit Cow Canyon Saddle. It’s a neat place to get a feel for the length and breadth of the valley skirted by Glendora Ridge Road. There’s a dirt road on the other side of that valley, but it’s not open to the public (the dirt road runs about eight miles to an abandoned tungsten mine). After running west for exactly 12 miles (and as mentioned above, no fewer than 234 curves), you arrive at the intersection of Glendora Ridge Road, Glendora Mountain Road, and East Fork Road. Glendora Mountain Road meanders down into Glendora. If you turn right to take East Fork Road, it continues on to Highway 39 above Azusa. The intersection of these three roads is a popular meeting spot where riders stop to talk and take in the view. On clear days in the winter, you can see the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island.

Always a good idea. This photo shows Glendora Mountain Road heading up into the San Gabriels.

My choice for the return home on this most recent Enfield ride was Glendora Mountain Road. It’s equally scenic and a little shorter ride back. My arthritis was bothering me a bit and even though I was having a great time, my shoulder was reminding me I’m not 17 years old anymore. It was a good ride down out of the mountains. There are places on Glendora Mountain Road where you can see Highway 39 and the reservoir above Azusa, as shown in the photo below.

This is a photo stitched together from four photos in PhotoShop. The road at the base of the mountains on the other side of the reservoir is Highway 39, which runs south to Azusa. CSC Motorcycles is located not too far from the notch in the mountains on the left side of this photo.

So there you have it: Glendora Ridge Road, one of So Cal’s best kept secrets. If you’re looking for a great ride, this is it. If you’re up there and you see an old guy on an Enfield nursing his left shoulder, give a wave.

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ExNotes Rally Review: 2022 VJMC 45th Annual Meet In Eureka Springs, Arkansas

I have a hard time in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The place is cursed, man. I either drink too much and get sick or don’t drink enough and make semi-lucid promises to people I only recognize by their colored lights, shouted conversations and loud music. By one o’clock in the morning Eureka Springs feels like I am wearing those flippers skin-divers wear on their feet. I look back fondly to my post Eureka Springs restroom sessions over a white porcelain toilet. It’s a refuge from the tourist anarchy. As long as I stay hunched over watching the better part of my gastrointestinal system swing lazily before my eyes I can’t possibly get into any more trouble.

Eureka Springs is situated in a steep, narrow gully filled with hippies, old buildings, artists, bars, restaurants, and music. Known for its healing mineral springs the town has always been a tourist spot that gives an buttoned down guy like me the impression he can hang out with the cool cats, if only for a day. It was a false impression.

Regardless of how it happens, I end up with my comically large feet awkwardly slapping the ground unsteadily and in a dead run. It’s my traditional way to leave Eureka Springs. So when Hunter sent me a link about the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club holding their 45th annual rally in Eureka Springs the first thought that popped into my head was “Oh no, not again.”

Hunter and I don’t have a lot of time to ride motorcycles lately, you know? Life is speeding by and eventually only one of us can end up owning Godzilla. There’s this whole, cats-in-the-cradle vibe going on. Losing a few years to the pandemic and chasing the American Dream doesn’t help much. What the hell, I’m old and expendable; I’ll try Eureka Springs one more time.

The plan was to meet at Hunter’s place in Oklahoma and ride our vintage Yamaha enduros to Eureka Springs, A distance of 200 miles or so. I tossed Godzilla into the truck and headed east. When I got to Oklahoma Hunter’s bike needed work and it was about 150 degrees outside. We decided to keep on going in my truck as Hunter stores another old Yamaha at his beat up shack in Eureka Springs.

The VJMC event was held in a gigantic Best Western located just outside of downtown Eureka Springs. It was the biggest Best Western I’ve ever seen, the place had three or four buildings, one of which was taken up by the VJMC. We came in on the Saturday and the greater part of the vintage bikes were not there yet. I asked some official-looking VJMC dudes, “Can we wander around and look at the bikes?”

“No, the show is only for VJMC members, if it was outdoors the public could see the bikes but for insurance reasons we can’t let you. You have to sign up for the rally.” There were maybe 20 bikes in the show, mostly Hondas. Hunter tried to explain to them I was a famous moto-journalist but none of the crew at the sign-in desk had heard of Motorcyclist magazine. It’s amazing how fast a star can burn out. The entry fee for the rally was pretty steep. The wizened old codger behind the desk decided to cut us a break. “Now, if you were VJMC members we can let you look around but you can’t participate in rally events.”

I bit, “How much to join the VJMC?” Turns out $35 for a year’s membership and with that you get a subscription to the VJMC magazine, an actual paper magazine. In this manner Hunter and I became part of the VJMC people. It was getting late and the taco truck across from the Best Western was calling our name so we beat it of of there vowing to return the next day when the vintage bike show would be at full strength.

Oark, Arkansas is a gas stop on the Trans America Trail. Oark also sells really good hamburgers. Hunter and me rode bikes down there on Sunday morning before it got too hot. Oark has changed a little since I was there so many years ago. The waitresses were younger and not so abusive. The interior had more tables and it was cleaner. It took some of the edge off the place.

By the time we finished our burgers it was getting late and the vintage bike show was waiting. Eureka Springs gets a lot of Harley-type bikers day tripping on the weekend and we managed to get stuck behind a slow moving train of the stuttering, popping, fart-bikes. They were weaving back and forth in the lane like they saw actor-bikers do in those 1970s Hell’s Angels movies. Hunter peeled off the main road and we blitzed through a small state park. At the other end of the park/short cut we came out just ahead of the fart-bikes. Hunter made it into the lead and I followed up on Godzilla passing the first farter in the train. One of the tattooed ladies riding pillion flipped us the bird as we pulled out in front of them. Just like in the movies. Godzilla laid down a fine blue fog for the fart-people to ride through.

The bike show had around 60 bikes; the majority were Hondas but there were enough Yamahas and Kawasakis to keep the big, red H honest. I didn’t see many Suzukis. The Best Western had two rooms with bikes and they spilled out into the parking lot. I parked Godzilla a discrete distance away so as to not shock the VJMC attendees. The bike show was a judged affair and as such we didn’t stick around to see who won. It doesn’t matter really. They’re all winners in my book. You know, the one I wrote called, “They’re All Winners.”

We missed the VJMC dinners, meetings and group rides because we didn’t sign up for the rally. That kind of geeky fellowship doesn’t appeal to me as much as it used to, and my old Yamaha is so ratty it wouldn’t do well in a show against new-looking bikes. If you like that sort of rally stuff there was plenty of it to do at the 45th VJMC rally.

It was a special day for me on Monday. You see, I’d made it out of Eureka Springs without any cellular level damage. Our old bikes ran fine; we rode about 180 miles over the weekend. I regulated my alcohol consumption and promised nothing to anybody. Staying away from downtown helped, although there was a hippy-dippy gathering at the big, natural amphitheater on the main drag. There was live music. People were dressed funny in purples and pinks. It started to get to me. I wanted to take my clothes off and run around naked but that would be old Eureka Springs behavior.

There are a couple things I would do differently if I was in charge of the VJMC. Of course it’s easy for me to critique because no one will ever put me in charge. The first thing I’d do is get the word out better. I have several vintage Japanese bikes and frequent many vintage sites and social media pages, even the VJMC’s own page on Facebook. I didn’t hear about the 45th until Hunter ran across it somewhere and told me about it.

I’d make event information clearer on the VJMC website. I could never figure out if I had to join the rally to attend the bike show. As a struggling writer, the rally was out of my price range and only when I was at the registration desk did we sort out a work around that allowed me entry to the show. And that was because one of the guys working the desk came up with a nifty plan B.

Next, why not invite the general public? It could increase membership if you charged a $35 entry fee to the bike show that included a year’s membership and a subscription to the magazine. Toss in a T-shirt! Finally, get someone at the VJMC to answer emails. I sent emails to the VJMC president and the person in charge of membership asking about the 45th event: crickets. Maybe the website has outdated contact information. No one has ever got back to me yet. I’m both old and into vintage Japanese bikes so I imagine I’m the target market. Not getting back to old guys makes them cranky.

We made it safely to Hunter’s ranch in Oklahoma and I only got one speeding ticket right as I crossed from Oklahoma’s No Man’s Land into the Texas panhandle. Even that wasn’t so bad as the cop chatted me up about Godzilla. His grandpa had an old RT1-B just like it. When I told Hunter about the ticket he knew the cop. Apparently it’s a popular speed trap. It was good to see Hunter again. It was good to ride a little dirt on the RT1-B. Life is short: go to the vintage bike show, any vintage bike show, if you get a chance.

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Sea Turtles and Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park

Wow: Hawaii is just full of suprises. The adventure on this fine Hawaiian morning was another National Historical Park, lava fields, a rugged downhill (and then uphill) hike over a jagged lava path, sea turtles, and a rotting meat flower (no kidding!). A rotting meat flower? You bet. Read on and you’ll see.

We asked the Park Ranger at the entrance if we would be able to see the sea turtles, and he told us it all depended on what they were doing. “They might be sleeping, they might be out to sea, or they might be eating…you never know until you’re down there.”

Down there meant taking the 1.3-mile hike to the Pacific’s edge, which we proceeded to do. We were lucky; the turtles were out in force munching on the algae that grows on the rocks. They were huge…their shells were maybe three feet long. It was really something to see. There were seven or eight turtles in the shallows when we arrived.

On the return hike Sue noticed an unusually attractive and large flower in a ravine next to the lava path. I had the 24-120 lens on my Nikon and I didn’t want to attempt climbing down the jagged lava to get closer, so I zoomed in and grabbed this shot.

What struck me as unusual about the flower was its size, the fact that it seemed to be growing out of a cactus plant, and the flower’s markings and vibrance. I wasn’t sure how to start researching a flower from a photo, but while I was looking at the photo Google popped up a Wikipedia link. The Wikipedia page had a photo, too, and no doubt about it, it was my flower. Here’s what it said:

Stapelia is a genus of low-growing, spineless, stem succulent plants, predominantly from South Africa with a few from other parts of Africa. Several Asian and Latin American species were formerly included but they have all now been transferred to other genera. The flowers of certain species, most notably Stapelia gigantea, can reach 41 cm (16 inches) in diameter when fully open. Most Stapelia flowers are visibly hairy and generate the odor of rotten flesh when they bloom. The hairy, oddly textured and coloured appearance of many Stapelia flowers has been claimed to resemble that of rotting meat, and this, coupled with their odour, has earned the most commonly grown members of the genus Stapelia the common name of carrion flowers. A notable exception is the sweetly scented Stapelia flavopurpurea. Such odours serve to attract various specialist pollinators including, in the case of carrion-scented blooms, blow flies of the dipteran family Calliphoridae. They frequently lay eggs around the coronae of Stapelia flowers, convinced by the plants’ deception.

I had heard of such flowers and I always wanted to see one. For me this was a first. I know what you are thinking, and no, I didn’t get close enough to take a whiff. Maybe next time.

Here’s the same flyer I showed in a previous post from Hawii. We weren’t on motorcycles on this trip, but rentals are available and I thought the pricing was reasonable.

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A European Moto Blog

One of the recent comments on a Joe Gresh blog post had a website address in it and I visited it. David Skogley’s East Goes West site is a good one. David is an American who lives and Germany and writes about his motorcycle travels in Europe. I wrote to David asking if I could mention his blog on ExNotes and here’s his answer:

Hi Joe,

Many thanks for getting in touch and for your kind words about my blog.

I started the blog about four years ago because I just felt like writing about some of the experiences I was having on bikes in and around Berlin, Germany. I’m certainly not a world traveller (other than long ago on a bicycle) but I figured there probably aren’t that many Americans writing about motorcycling in this neck of the woods, so thought I would give it a shot. In the end, it’s been fun and is interesting to see how my writing has slowly changed, even though I have a very small number of people reading what I put out there. It was never intended to be a money maker, just sort of an online diary, I guess. A way of not forgetting what has gone on in an important part of my life. The writing has become quite sporadic, however, as work (and lethargy) often gets in the way.

I’ve put in very little time or effort regading formatting, and requires a lot of scrolling to find the old entries. Have to change this at some point! Right at the beginning I wrote the following short description/explanation, which is only visible if you go way back to the beginning:

“I moved east to Berlin, Germany from the east coast of the US quite a long time ago. I started riding motorcycles not long after. The intention of this blog is to express some thoughts about motorcycles (and other two-wheeled modes of transportation) and things connected to them.”

A short blog about my blog sounds great! Many thanks for your kind offer.

Regards,

David Skogley

I think you’ll enjoy David’s East Goes West site just as I did. Here’s the link.

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