Motorcycle Adventure Ride – Page 30

2019: A Review and Wrap Up

This has been a fun year, and a fun year to be a blogger. When we started ExhaustNotes 18 months ago, we had no idea we’d get the loyal following we have, the number of hits we’re getting, and the number of comments we would receive from you, our amazing readers. In the past 18 months, we’ve published 572 blog posts (this is Blog No. 572), we’ve had something north of 200,000 page visits, and we’ve received 2,481 approved blog comments. We actually had quite a few more comments, but the spam comments are filtered out and we’re not counting those. And you spammers out there, thanks for all the biblical excerpts, the website optimization offers, the hairstyle stuff (seriously, you think Gresh or I need hairstyle products?), and the offers to manufacture stuff in and buy chotchkas from China. You guys keep it coming, and our filters will keep bouncing it. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

Our most commented upon post last year? It was Joe Gresh’s blog on Bonnier and the demise of Motorcyclist magazine, which really raked in some zingers. Nobody makes the written word come alive like Joe does, and that includes his opening line in that blog: The distance from being read in the crapper and actually being in the crapper is a short one. According to Dealer News, Motorcyclist magazine crossed that span this week.

Other ExNotes blogs that drew comments big time are our blogs on what constitutes the perfect bike, what the motorcycle industry needs to do to grow the market, dream bikes, and of course, the gun stuff. Keep your thoughts coming, folks. It’s what we enjoy the most.

Our most frequently visited blog post last year? Far and away, it was our piece on Mini 14 Marksmanship. Somehow that post got picked up by a service that suggests sites to people when they open their cell phones, and we were getting in excess of 10,000 hits a day for a few days on that one. Go figure. There must be a lot of people out there who want to shoot their Mini 14 rifles better. Glad to be of help, folks.

We’ve stepped on a few toes along the way. Some folks got their noses bent out of shape because we do gun stuff. Hey, let us know if you want your money back. One guy went away all butthurt because Google ads popped up mentioning President Trump and mortgage deals that I guess our President helped along. Hey, whatever. We don’t control the popups, and the Internet’s artificial intelligence does funny things with what it reads on the blog…I mentioned using my Casio’s backlight to help find my way to the latrine at night, and since that blog I’ve been getting an unending stream (no pun intended) of prostate treatment popups. I may click on a few of them. When you get your artificially-inseminated Google-driven popups, we’d like you to click on them, too. It makes money flow. To us. It’s what keeps us on the air, you know.

We did a lot of travel this year, but not as many motorcycle trips as we wanted. The Royal Enfields we took through Baja were fun, and we had a great story on that ride published in Motorcycle Classics. I really enjoyed riding and writing about the Genuine G400c. Joe did a great series on his Yamaha EnduroFest adventure, and he’s had articles published in Motorcycle.com. Joe did another series on motorized bicycles and it was a hoot.

Joe and I both did shorter moto trips this past year, and we both want to get more riding in next year. Gresh and I are going to do a moto trip to Baja in 2020, and we may get to visit with Baja John in Bahia de Los Angeles (that dude likes Baja so much he moved there). On any of the Mexico trips, we for sure will be insured with BajaBound Insurance, the best insurance there is for travel in Mexico. More good travel stuff? We published Destinations, a compendium of the travel stories appearing in Motorcycle Classics magazine, and it’s doing very well (thank you).

More plans? Gresh will be pouring more concrete, and I’ll be spending more time at the West End Gun Club. Joe is planning to maybe pick up the Zed resurrection again, and I’m pretty sure he’ll get that bike on the road within the next 12 months. We’ve got the upcoming 9mm comparo I mentioned yesterday, and for sure more gun articles. Good buddy Gonzo asked us to ride in the 2020 Three Flags Classic, and I’d like to make a go of that one this coming year (I was disappointed in myself for not riding that great event in 2019, but the circumstances just weren’t right). I think I’m going to write Tales of the Gun as a book and offer it for sale here on ExNotes, and maybe Joe Gresh will do the same with his collection of moto articles (and when he does, you can bet I’ll buy the first copy). We’ll be doing more product reviews, including movie and book reviews. I’m going to get on my bicycle more, and we may have some info on electric bicycles, too. You’ll read all about it right here.

So it’s a wrap for 2019. Susie bought a bottle of Gentleman Jack for me, and I’m going to pour a shot and watch 2020 roll in later tonight. To all of you, our best wishes for a happy and healthy 2020. Ride safe, ride often, and keep your powder dry.

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Dan does Tunisia…

Good buddy Dan is a young fellow I met when I was leading the CSC rides through Baja. He’s the real deal…a serious motorcyclist who enjoys getting out and seeing the world on two wheels. When I led the CSC rides, Dan was on every one of them, and we became good friends. Dan also rides Moto Guzzi motorcycles, and most recently, he rode with a Moto Guzzi tour in Tunisia. I was happy to receive this email from Dan yesterday about his north African excursion:

Joe:

Happy New Year – for me, the new year starts at the winter solstice. I hope you had a good year and will have a great holiday season.

I got my Christmas present early this year; a motorcycle trip in Tunisia. I flew to Milan and took trains to Mandello del Lario where the Moto Guzzi motorcycle factory is. I visited the Moto Guzzi Museum twice – it is only open one hour a day. A fantastic collection of motorcycles from their beginning in 1921. Then I took trains to Genoa where I met up with the tour group. The next day we took the overnight ferry to Tunis, and then the riding began. Seven days of riding, with lunch at the best restaurants and nights at the best hotel in town. Along the way we stopped and saw the sights – Roman ruins, an Ottoman fort, several oases, a famous mosque, salt flats, and a set from the first Star Wars movie, where I rode a camel. The trip was sponsored by Moto Guzzi; we were all riding Moto Guzzi motorcycles, and we had 26 motorcycles, several couples riding two up, two photographers, two mechanics, three guides, two support vans, and two spare Moto Guzzis. I may put together a trip report, meanwhile, this is a link to the Moto Guzzi report on the trip:

https://www.motoguzzi.com/us_EN/news/MG-Experience-Tunisia/

I did about ten thousand miles of motorcycle riding this year; my big trip in the US was home to Flagstaff to El Paso and home, with several stops along the way.

Dan

Dan, that’s an absolutely awesome report and a world class trip. Thanks so much for sending the note and for giving us permission to post it on the ExNotes blog. I’m reading the Moto Guzzi trip report now, savoring each photo and all of the descriptions. Wow, it sounds like a wonderful adventure!

Death Valley 2011: Hell Froze Over

This is the next installment of our series on Death Valley, and it’s about the Hell’s Loop Rally organized by Alan Spears and the Motor Scooter International Land Speed Federation. We rode it in November of 2011, and while it was sunny that day, it was plenty cold. It was a scooter endurance run of 400 miles in a single day. You might be thinking that’s not too many miles. Try it on a 150cc scooter and tell me if you still feel the same way.

I was working with CSC Motorcycles at the time and the thought was we could ride the event with our 150cc Mustang replicas. The team included good buddies TK, Arlene, and yours truly. It was grand fun and CSC garnered good exposure from that event. I had a blast, and for me, it nailed three birds with one stone: A great motorcycle ride, another chance for a ride through Death Valley, and a chance to get more cool stuff to write about (and photograph) for the CSC blog.

With that as a backdrop, here’s the story.

A Cold Day In Hell

Arlene B (of Go Go Gear fame, and a California Scooter rider) and TK. TK and I both worked at CSC Motorcycles. That’s my red CSC 150 motorcycle.

Hell’s Loop, that is…the Motor Scooter International Land Speed Federation (MSILSF) and Alan Spears’ latest event. You’d think an event named after a place known for warmer temperatures would offer toasty riding, but it sure was cold!

The Death Valley Loop

This event was all about endurance riding, and Alan and the MSILSF team sure outdid themselves on this one. The route took a big round trip from Barstow, California, east on the 15, north on the 127 along the eastern edge of Death Valley (think Ronald Reagan, the old Death Valley Days television show, and 20-mule teams hauling borax), west on 190 through Death Valley, a long loop down through Death Valley’s center to a delightful little town called Trona (just kidding about that one, folks), back to the 395 south, and then Highway 58 back to Barstow.

The Hell’s Loop event was billed as an endurance rally, but in actuality it was a race. You and I both know you’re not supposed to race on public highways, but on scooters and small motorcycles, “racing” is not what it would be on bigger bikes. We ran this event with our throttles wide open a good 95% of the time. No kidding. The twist grips were pegged. That doesn’t mean we were speeding, though. Sometimes a wide open throttle meant 65 miles per hour when we were on the flats with no headwinds, and sometimes it meant 35 mph when we were climbing a long grade. Another aside at this point…the bikes performed flawlessly. This was another event in which we beat the, uh, Hell’s Loop out of our California Scooters, and they ran great.

The guy who won the event, Tom Wheeler, won it on a 49cc Kymco motor scooter. Yep, you read that right. 49 cubic centimeters! We’re sure not in the business of publicizing other brands, but hey, we’re more than happy to give credit where credit is due. Tom drove out from Arkansas for this event and he finished first on his 49cc Kymco, beating machines with nearly 10 times the engine displacement.

The Ride

The weekend started with TK and I rolling into Barstow Friday afternoon for a great lunch at Del Taco. Those of you who know Del Taco might be tempted to laugh (it’s a fast food Mexican chain not usually known for their fine food), but the Del Taco restaurants in Barstow are different. Ed Hackbarth is the entrepreneur who started Del Taco, and he did so in Barstow. Ed sold the Del Taco chain to a conglomerate after building it up into a huge business, but he kept the original three Barstow restaurants. Here in southern California, we know that if you want good Mexican food, Barstow’s Del Tacos are unlike any others. Everything is fresh, everything is bigger, and it’s not unusual to see Ed himself working in the kitchen preparing your lunch. Trust me on this one, folks….if you’re ever passing through Barstow, you need to stop for a meal at Del Taco.

Our Motel 6 room…where old Tom Bodette left the light on for us…$35 a night, and it might have been the most expensive hotel in Barstow! It was raining and we didn’t want to leave the bikes out in the cold, wet weather. A lot of the Hell’s Loop riders slept with their bikes Friday night.

On Friday we had a bitter cold rain, but the forecast was for sunny warm weather on Saturday. Well, they got half of it right. I once heard one of those radio political talking heads say that the reason economists exist is to make weather forecasters look good. I think that guy might have had it backwards. It was sunny, but wow, was it cold when we woke up on Saturday morning. I wasn’t too worried…I had my California Scooter motorcycle jacket, a pair of warm motorcycle pants, and my Haix Goretex boots (they’re made in Austria and they’re great), but it was still cold. Really cold.

After a great 6:00 a.m. breakfast at IHOP Saturday morning, we rolled out onto Interstate 15 on our California Scooters and headed north. Wow, was it ever cold!

On California 127, headed into Death Valley. We rode under beautiful blue skies along Highway 127…it was a glorious day to be out on a motorcycle!

It sure was cold Saturday morning. As in maybe 40 degrees. Teeth chattering cold. I know all of our friends on the east coast would view this as something of a heat wave, but I gotta tell you, when you do 400 miles in one day through this kind of weather, it’s cold.

Before I get too much further, let me give you a warning about the photos. They’re not my best ever. We didn’t stop to smell the roses on this one, boys and girls, and most of these shots were from the saddle of my CSC motorcycle at high speed. That’s why a lot of the angles are off, and it’s why they might be a bit fuzzy. This ride was all about getting back to Barstow first. We stopped for fuel and restroom breaks, and that was it. We didn’t even eat. 400 miles on a motorcycle, in 40-degree weather, with no messing around. Riding…that’s what this run was all about. And in the cold weather, our CSC motorcycles were running strong. We thought we were gonna set the world on fire, until we heard about Tom Wheeler on that 49cc scooter. But I’ll come back to that. So after rolling along on Interstate 15 for about 60 miles, we took a left at Baker and headed toward Death Valley. The skies were clear, the riding was glorious, and we froze our tootsies off.

A 60-mph shot from the saddle…riding through the Mojave Desert!

We weren’t too sure about where we’d be able to buy gas, so we each carried a spare gallon or two. Turns out we didn’t need the extra gas, but we stopped nearly every place we saw a gas station just to make sure.

When we rolled into Shoshone, I was blown away by the gas prices. Believe it or not, these were not the highest gas prices we saw on this trip! I was sure glad I was riding a 100mpg California Scooter when I saw those prices. Ah, the glory of price gouging.

Every time I see something like what the photo above shows, I want to confront the owner and ask him if his mother knows what he does for a living, but I know it would be a futile gesture. And another 100 miles up the road, we paid prices that made what the photo above shows seem cheap.

Barney Fife

While we were topping off in Shoshone, I saw a National Park Service HumVee that I thought was pretty cool. I had never seen one of these in use by a law enforcement agency, so I snapped a quick photo of it while I was on my California Scooter. I guess the NPS ranger who was in it didn’t like that. As I kid, I always had a mental image of park rangers as pretty cool guys who took care of the bears and stuff like that. This guy was decidedly unfriendly…there’s no nice way to say it. Maybe it was a slow day for him and he wanted to harass some rough-looking bikers like me, Arlene, and TK. He wanted to know about Alan, who rolled through Shoshone earlier on his two-stroke Kymco burning “exotic fuels.” A park ranger. I chalked it up to another instance of our tax dollars at work. Go figure.

Continuing the Ride

After the fuel stop in Shoshone, we were on the road again. Here are a few more shots from the saddle.

On the floor of Death Valley, about 100 feet below sea level.

After we climbed out of Death Valley’s floor, it was a fast downill run west…you can see the flare from shooting into the sun

Heading west to Panamint on the western edge of Death Valley. The bikes were running just great in the cold weather. Here’s a quick shot of my speedometer as we rolled through Death Valley. Smoking right along on the Baja Blaster!

Arlene’s California Scooter ticked over the 9,000-mile mark on this ride, and we stopped for a quick photo.

9000 miles, including great California Scooter rides up and down the California Coast, the Sierra Nevadas, the entire length of Baja, and Death Valley! Arlene may well be our highest mileage California Scooter rider.

Our next stop was Panamint. There’s a gas station and a convenience store out there (but not much else). This place set a new record: $5.79 per gallon! It’s the most I’ve ever paid for gasoline in my life!

$5.79 a gallon….but what a cool photo op!

Wildrose Canyon Road and Trona

While we were stopped, I pulled out an extra T-shirt and added it to the several layers of clothing I already had on under my California Scooter motorcycle jacket. To my surprise, that one extra layer did the trick. I stayed relatively warm for the next 130 miles back to Barstow. After our Panamint gas gouging, we turned the bikes east for a quick three miles back down the road to Wildrose Canyon. That was our route out of Death Valley, and here’s a shot looking east across the valley floor.

Death Valley’s floor, as seen from the saddle, looking east from Panamint

We negotiated Wildrose Canyon Road, fought the wind downhill, and then we rolled into Trona. Trona is a mining town (they mine potash or some other such chemical), and there isn’t too much else out there. And I gotta tell ya, when they built “no place” they must have centered it around Trona (because that town sure is in the middle of no place). It’s an interesting place, though…a collection of white chemicals, brown hills in the distance, blue skies, and industrial processing equipment.

A late-in-the-day, shot-from-the-saddle photo of Trona. Some day, I’d like to ride out to Trona just to take photos.

Returning to Barstow

After Trona, we cranked the bikes wide open for the run home. It was a burst out to the 395, a speed run down to Highway 58, and then a left turn for the last 32 miles back to Barstow. We pulled in to the Motel 6 parking lot just after dark. And it was even colder. Did I mention earlier that it was cold?

Alan Spears, his friend Kathleen, and Dennis did a great job organizing this event.

When we returned to the Motel 6 rally headquarters, the good folks from MSILSF had good food and drinks waiting, and that was a good thing. We hadn’t eaten all day, and I was hungry. And cold. It sure was nice to return to a warm welcome. And it sure was interesting to learn about the winning bike and rider…that would be Tom Wheeler from Arkansas.

Tom Wheeler, a Kymco dealer from Arkansas, accepting one of his trophies for the Hell’s Loop Endurance Rally.

The Winner: A 49cc Kymco!

As I mentioned earlier, Tom won the event on a 49cc Kymco. Good Lord! A 49cc Kymco! My first thought was that the bike had to have had a couple of superchargers and maybe it was running on nitro, but no, that wasn’t it at all. Tom is obviously an experienced endurance rider, and he had the problem sorted. When I asked Tom about the top speed on his 49cc sizzler, he told me that it might see 45 mph on a flat road under ideal conditions. We sure didn’t have ideal conditions, and what that meant to me is that Tom ran a lot of the day’s 400 miles at something between 30 and 40 mph. The trick is to not have to stop. Tom had an auxiliary gas tank on his Kymco, and he only had to make one stop for gas.

Alan and crew sure did an outstanding job pulling this event together, which didn’t surprise me at all. MSILSF is the same outfit that organized the November 2009 Land Speed Record trials and last year’s Salton Sea Endurance Rally, and both of those events were wonderful.

I am more than a little intrigued by all of this, and by MSILSF. You might be, too, folks. Think about it. Motor competition. Real competition. Speed trials. Endurance rallies. All with scooters. You can get into it, real motor competition, for peanuts. And a California Scooter is a great way to do so.

Here’s a shot of Tom Wheeler’s winning 49cc scooter. 400 miles in one day on a 49cc motor scooter! Can you imagine!

So that was it, folks. 400 miles in one day, we won the 150cc class, and we had a great time.

We just returned from a trek through Death Valley a few days ago, which prompted our series of blogs about prior Death Valley trips. You can read the first two Death Valley blog installments here.

Death Valley: The Prelude
Death Valley 2008: My First Visit

And, oddly enough, the Los Angeles Times ran a story in 2017 about a trip that almost exactly described the ride you see in this blog. You can read that one here.

Read a few of our other great motorcycle rides here!

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Death Valley 2008: My first visit

A Trip To Death Valley!

Brown Motor Works in Pomona, California, hosted a chili cookoff in March 2008, which was immediately followed by a weekend trip to Death Valley. At the time, I’d been a California boy for 30 years, but I’d never been to Death Valley. I always wanted to go. And, I love chili. Free chili…lots of photo ops…good weather…and a motorcycle ride to a place I’d never been before. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. It was a ride I had to make.

Kawasaki’s KLR 650

I had purchased a 2006 KLR 650 a year or two earlier from my good buddy Art at the Montclair Kawasaki dealer, and something strange happened: I found I was enjoying the little KLR more than the other big roadburners I owned. At that time, I had gone way overboard in acquiring motorcycles. I had a TL1000S Suzuki, a Harley Softail, a Honda CBX, a Triumph Daytona 1200, and a Triumph Tiger 955 (and I think I owned them all at the same time). There was something about the KLR, though, that I liked, and I found myself riding it more often than not. All the guys I rode with either had BMWs, Harleys, or Triumphs, and my KLR was the smallbore of the bunch. I didn’t care. I liked riding it. To my surprise, I found that riding a smaller bike was more fun.

A lone KLR in a sea of BMWs. Nearly all of my friends rode BMW motorcycles in those days. I had a lot of fun with my KLR.

The Chili Cookoff

Good buddy Dennis, shown here immediately after taking top honors in the chili-eating contest. Dennis is an Iron Butt rider and he rides a BMW. The rules were different than what I expected. You weren’t allowed to lift the bowl off the table, so the serious competitors simply dove in. BMW riders are a particularly sophisticated bunch.

On To Mojave

The guys at Brown Motor Works planned to leave at the end of the day, but I didn’t want to hang around until then. Immediately after grabbing a few photos from the chili contest, I was on the KLR headed east and then north into the Mojave Desert.

I took my KLR and found my way along Old Route 66 into the Mojave Desert.

I took I-40 over to Kelbaker Road and then headed into the Mojave National Preserve. The group planned to meet in Baker, and I figured if I timed it right I would get there right about nightfall.

I grabbed this photo along the Kelbaker Road. I didn’t know too much about motorcycle photography. This is the shot magazine editors always hate…the motorcycle by the side of the road.

Baker and The Mad Greek

Baker is a wide spot in the road along the I-15, and it’s a jumping off point for Death Valley. It is a funky place with a couple of poorly-maintained and overpriced gas stations, the world’s tallest thermometer, and a cool restaurant called The Mad Greek. The Mad Greek is a place that seems to always show up in any movie about a road trip to Vegas. I have yet to find a Greek in the place, but the food is good and the staff is friendly.

We had dinner at the Mad Greek in Baker along the I-15. We spent the night in Baker, and then had breakfast at the Mad Greek the next morning, too.

Into the Valley of Death

After a breakfast at the Mad Greek the next morning, we road north toward Death Valley. There’s nothing out there but great roads and the Mojave for the 80 miles or so to the park entrance, and the Beemer boys were riding at speeds well in excess of 100 mph so I couldn’t keep up. The KLR might see 100 on a really good day, but I didn’t care. I wanted to stop, smell the roses, and get good photos. Riding by myself didn’t bother me at all. I preferred it.

My reaction was simple upon entering Death Valley: Wow! It was what I hoped it would be.

Artist’s Palette

One of the cool spots to stop in Death Valley is a hilly area called Artist’s Palette. Each hill has a different dominant mineral (and a different color), and the result is something that looks like an artist’s palette. It’s a very cool thing to see.

My friend Joseph and his Triumph Sprint.

High Prices and Photo Ops

Death Valley’s claim to fame is that it’s one of the lowest spots on the planet. It’s also in one of the more remote places on the planet, which meant that fuel costs were unusually high. All made for interesting photos.

This was a gas station in Furnace Creek. At the time (this was in 2008), the gasoline prices here were the highest I had ever seen.

An obligatory shot along the road in Death Valley.

Wildrose Road and the Charcoal Kilns

My friend Bob told me about Wildrose Road, a road that cut through some canyons on the way out of Death Valley.

It was a great ride. While I was on Wildrose Road, I saw signs for the Charcoal Kilns, so I took a short detour. On the way up to the Charcoal Kilns, I stopped to take the picture above. A guy and his wife were coming from the other direction and he asked if I wanted a picture of me with my KLR. Death Valley was cold. I had on every piece of clothing I brought with me.

The Charcoal kilns. These were built in the 1870s. They are 25 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter.

Wildrose Road. You could probably get through it on any motorcycle, but I was glad I had the KLR. Bob was right…Wildrose Road was a great ride.

The Gear

I had a Nikon D200 digital camera when I did this trip and the first-generation Nikon 24-120 lens with a polarizer, and it did a good job for me. I think it was a 10 megapixel deal and that seemed like a lot in those days. I kept the D200 for a long time and I had a lot of fun with it. I used it for all of the photos you see here. It was big and bulky, and as I recall, it took all of the space in one of the Kawasaki saddlebags I used with my KLR. It was only a weekend trip, and the other saddlebag was enough for my other stuff. I like to travel light and the arrangement worked fine for me.

Death Valley: The Bottom Line

If you’ve ever thought about taking a ride to Death Valley, do it. Take a camera, too. Trust me on this: You won’t be disappointed. As a rider and a photography enthusiast, I had a great time. The KLR 650 was more than enough motorcycle, I felt it was a good bike for a trip like this, and I concluded that Death Valley is doable on just about any motorcycle (especially if you mostly stick to Death Valley’s paved roads, as I did). The photo ops in Death Valley are stunning. If you live in southern California, it’s an easy weekend trip.

One day was not enough, though. There was a lot of Death Valley left to see, and I knew I’d be back.

There’s more coming on Death Valley and a bunch of other great rides. Sign up here and never miss an Exhaust Notes blog!

Death Valley: The Prelude

Leaving Death Valley headed to Shoshone, California.

I just returned from a road trip and our last day was in Death Valley, California. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had lived in California for more than 30 years before I ever made the trek to Death Valley (that first trip was on my KLR 650). I’ve been there five times now, traveling on different bikes and in different cars. Death Valley is probably my favorite California destination. I thought I would do a blog about this latest trip and then I realized: Death Valley is a story that takes more than a single blog. To get things started, here’s a link to a Destinations piece I did on Death Valley 11 years ago for Motorcycle Classics magazine. There’s lots more coming, folks, so stay tuned.

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Happy Thanksgiving, and let’s hear from you…

My first motorcycle had 3 cubic inches. This one must be 48 times better.

I love this time of year. The temperatures are nice (although it’s raining here in So Cal today and for the next couple of days), it’s good to get together with friends and family, and like most folks fortunate who live in the US, I have a lot for which I am thankful.

Earlier this week, I picked up a screw in one of my Subie’s tires, so it was off to America’s Tire, where they fix these things for free. The idea is that you’ll think of them first when it’s time for new tires, and in my case, you can bet that’s going to happen. It was a 2-hour wait, and I used that time to go for a walk. Our local Harley dealer is just up the street from the tire place, I hadn’t been in a Harley showroom in a while, so I stopped by to check things out.

Things have changed from when I rode a Harley. In those days, any Harley dealership was a hopping place. When I walked over to the dealer this week, the place was mostly empty, they didn’t have a ton of T-shirts, and there were plenty of motorcycles. It’s a world gone mad, I tell you.

Sometime when I wasn’t looking, production shifted from T-shirts to motorcycles. In the early and mid-1990s, you’d have to go to the Laughlin River Run, Daytona, or Sturgis to see this many Harleys in one spot.

Ah, hope springs eternal. A thousand dollar dealer markup? At least these folks are honest about it, and they don’t try to disguise gouging as freight and setup.

I haven’t kept up with the latest from Harley, other than the headline-grabbing stuff about the Livewire. I guess they had a hiccup with the initial rollout, but that sort of thing happens and I hear it’s been fixed. What hasn’t been fixed is the Milwaukee notion that any Harley is worth $30K, and I think that’s one of the major reasons the bar-and-shield folks’ best days are in the rear-view mirror. I haven’t heard that Livewires are flying out of the showrooms, and judging by the looks of the dealer I visited, neither is anything else. It’s not just me saying this…the stock market shows a Harley trend that is downright scary. Harley has ridden their rebel reputation big time since the early 1990s, but one place you don’t want to buck the trend is in the stock market.

Harley’s stock performance over the last 5 years.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last five years. It’s been said that a rising tide lifts all boats. Maybe it does. Maybe Harley’s stock would have been much lower without the bull market of the last few years. Maybe, maybe, maybe….

The Harley sales guy was eager to help, so I asked him about the Bronx 975 (Gresh did a piece on it not too long ago). My guy never heard of the Bronx, so I asked if they had any Sportsters (there was one, so maybe they are selling better). I then asked about Harley’s Street models (the 500 and 750 V-twins), and he told me there were none. “They didn’t sell too well,” he said. I thought that was unfortunate. I’m conceited enough to think that if Gresh and I had ridden those bikes in Baja, if Harley offered guided Baja tours to Street buyers, and if Harley had an effective blog, that bike could have been a winner. We sure sold a lot of motorcycles at CSC with those Baja tours (including to folks who didn’t ride with us in Baja). It was just the idea that they could (that, of course, and the CSC motorcycles’ price). Good buddy Dan is adventure touring in Tunisia right now along with a bunch of other Guzzistas on a ride organized by Moto Guzzi. I think that’s brilliant (and I’m jealous). Tunisia! Damn, that’s exotic!

I don’t think there’s much of a future in two-wheeled, 900-pound, 114-cubic-inch dinosaurs, but hey, what do I know? That’s a rhetorical question…I think my lack of knowledge is right up there with the industry wizards who continue to ponder the “what can we do about the sad state of the motorcycle industry” question, and then continue to offer 114-cubic-inch, $30,000 motorcycles that sit for presumably extended periods on showroom floors. And like I said earlier, I don’t think ebikes are the answer.

So, what do you think? Let us know with a comment or two. We love hearing from you. And I think the folks in Milwaukee would, too. They read these pages, I think, judging by what I’m seeing on Google Analytics. Let us know.

One hell of an ad…

A selfie of yours truly, as reflected in J’s visor, somewhere in the twisties below Lake Tahoe.

Good buddy J, with whom I’ve ridden a lot, is selling his old KLR. I had to laugh when I read his ad, and with his permission, I’m printing it here for you to enjoy as well (and if you ride a GS, my apologies in advance). J and I have ridden big miles in Baja (those trips were on the CSC RX3 motorcycles), as well as northern Nevada and California in the Lake Tahoe area (we both rode our KLRs on that ride). They were all awesome rides.

Okay, that’s enough of a stroll down memory lane. Here’s the ad for J’s KLR:

2005 Kawasaki KLR 650 project for sale – $800 (DAYTON)

2005 KLR650 project for sale
$800
49,509 miles

Do you have big adventure-bike dreams but a very small adventure-bike budget? Have you got some basic mechanical skills, a strong desire to learn more, and a dry place to work over the winter? If so, this is perfect for you.

This is a Kawasaki KLR650. The OG adventure motorcycle.

Show up at any gathering of adventure riders on a well-traveled KLR and hold your head high. While a guy on a BMW GS has to put up with constant Starbucks jokes, when you ride a KLR you just climb on and go look for a good taco stand. In Baja.

I’ve done this. I rode this bike all the way to Cabo San Lucas and back. In winter. To a Horizons Unlimited meet in Mariposa. I rode it to Overland Expo in Flagstaff a couple of times and had a beer with Ted Simon. All of those were amazing trips. I want you to have trips like that.

The best thing about this bike is that you’ll know everything about it. Because you overhauled it yourself. Imagine sitting around the campfire, under a big desert sky, telling the story of how you brought this bike home, tore it down, put it back together, and rode it to somewhere awesome, far away. You need that experience in your life.

The bike has been sitting in my garage since June, 2016. I haven’t tried to start it since then. It ran well enough when I stopped riding it. I know the clutch was slipping under load. And the fork seals were leaking. I quit riding this because I got something newer that I liked better. I’m not aware of any major issues that aren’t easily fixed.

Somebody who really knows what they are doing could probably have this thing roadworthy in a few days. I don’t have the time nor the motivation to make that happen. So I’m offering it as a project, at a price much lower than I would ask if I didn’t just want it out of my way.

Clean title in hand.

First person who shows up with $800 in cash, and a truck or trailer to haul the bike and all the extra parts away, gets everything.

Farkles:
Progressive Suspension adjustable rear shock with remote adjuster
Doohickey done at Happy Trails headquarters in Idaho
Happy Trails soft panniers with waterproof liners
Happy Trails pannier racks
Happy Trails engine guard and highway pegs
Happy Trails engine guard bags
Happy Trails skid plate
Happy Trails rear master cylinder guard
Moose Racing handguards
Bike Master heated grips
Powerlet accessory power outlet on handlebars
RAM mount ball mount and double-socket mount
Sargent gel seat, needs to be recovered

Spare parts and extras:
New Shinko 705 front and rear tires, still in the shipping packaging
Slightly used Michelin T63 front and rear tires, lots of life left
New clutch kit, still sealed in the original packaging
New clutch cover gasket, still sealed in the original packaging
New clutch cable, in original packaging
New front and rear brake pads, still sealed in original packaging
Spare engine, needs to be rebuilt
Spare carburetor
Lowering links
Shortened sidestand
Clymer shop manual

You know, after reading that ad, I’m tempted to buy that KLR myself. But I’m in the same boat as J: I don’t have the time or the motivation to bring it back to life. But wow, it’s one hell of a deal and the Kawasaki KLR was one hell of a motorcycle. I had a lot of fun with my KLR, and I often wish I still had it. But it went to a good home, and good buddy Daniel is putting it to good use.

The ride J and took with a bunch of other motojournalists in the northern Sierra Nevadas was grand. The riding through that part of the world is about as good as it gets.

Carla King’s photo of yours truly. My KLR went down the road a couple of years ago. Maybe I should have kept it.

Chasing J, Carla, and a a few others in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Oh, hey, one more thing: If you have an interest in J’s KLR, here’s the link to the ad.

The Three Rivers Petroglyphs

It’s mid-November here in southern New Mexico, nights are cold but our mid-day temperatures are still in the 70’s. That will change soon. I needed a break from concrete so I texted Mike and asked him if he wanted to take a little ride before it got cold. Mike always wants to ride.

Mike lives in Carrizozo about 50 miles north from Tinfiny Ranch. 50 miles is not a lot of distance but the weather is much wilder up at his place. Located at the crossroads of Highways 380 and 54 right between a dip in the Sacramento Mountains the landform, there funnels a steady stream of wind across the strange little town. Even though it sits at a lower elevation than Tinfiny, Carrizozo is colder in winter. Hollywood has found the old buildings of Carrizozo picturesque and it seems like there’s always a crew shooting a funky scene whenever I go through.

“Can we get a couple coffees?” The lady working at the Three Rivers trinket shop says she will have to make some. Mike tells her that’s okay, we’ll wait. The coffee making process is interrupted by two black dogs coming in the front door. The dogs seem really glad to see us. They fall to the ground and beg to be petted. The smaller dog wants to kiss, needs to kiss, will die if he doesn’t get a kiss. That coffee pot is taking forever so I grab a cold drink. Mike is eating a bag of chips. When the coffee is finally ready and the dogs are thoroughly petted, we’ve killed an hour.

The road to the petroglyphs heads east towards the mountains, if you keep going it turns into dirt and ends at the beautiful Three Rivers campground. From that point Ruidoso is only a 20-mile hike: uphill all the way. You should go camp there.

The rocks here have some kind of iron oxide-like coating and the petroglyphs are kind of pecked into the rock. Dimpled could be used to describe it. The dimple knocks off a small chunk of the oxide revealing the stone beneath. There are thousands of them along a three-mile round trip path at Petroglyphs State Park. The images are still very clear with lots of contrast. You can mostly tell what the artist was representing with maybe 25% of the artwork being symbolic of something that made sense thousands of years ago.

These pictures from the past aren’t fragile cave paintings or fading lines scraped into soft sandstone. These suckers are exposed to the elements and some look like they were made last week. We don’t know a lot about the Mogollon People who made the petroglyphs but I can tell you they built their artwork to last. These stone images will go another 10 thousand years no problem.

It’s late afternoon by the time we get back to the trinket shop for more coffee. “There’s only enough for one cup and it’s gotten cold, I’ll have to make another pot.” The dogs can’t be bothered to lift their heads and acknowledge our existence. We are old news. The coffee brews its slow drip. A BMW rider sees our bikes out front and stops in to chat.

Conversation is easy. The trinket lady joins in with strong opinions on which Medicare plan is best (Plan F). I snack on a bag of dry-aged peanuts and some hard candy. The BMW guy is staying at the Three Rivers campground. He trailers his motorcycle around the country stopping in different areas to ride. His wife got all the money and the 80-acre farm back in Wisconsin. We pay the trinket lady; she made 9 dollars from us today and it only took her 2 hours to do it.

It’s starting to cool down now. In a few weeks we will be getting started with winter here in Southern New Mexico. I don’t like riding at night so I say goodbye to the boys. We start our bikes and three motorcyclists go their separate ways: Mike to the north, me to the south and BMW guy to the east.

Book Review: Berezina

Berezina, by Sylvain Tesson. Save your money, folks. This one’s a snoozer.

Damn, it sounded good, and the book review I read last week in The Wall Street Journal (which I must have read too quickly) made it sound like an interesting read. And the cover looked good, too. It had to be good: Five guys riding from Russia to France in the dead of winter, retracing Napolean’s retreat from a military disaster, on three Ural motorcycles. I love motorcycle adventure books. How could it not be great?

Well, let me tell you how. Berezina is the name of a river Napolean crossed on the way back from Moscow in 1812, and in colloquial French it’s become a term for anything that’s a disaster. It’s an entirely appropriate title for this book. I was hoping for stories about riding in the cold, riding from Russia to France, the challenges in riding motorcycles not known for reliability…in general, a good adventure read. What I found was a lot of intellectual drivel laden with three-dollar words talking almost exclusively about Napolean and his retreat. Somehow, for the most part, the author managed to do this without describing the areas he rode through, and without hardly mentioning the bikes or the ride. He spent a lot of time imagining the misery experienced by Napolean, his army, and bizarrely, his horses. I would estimate that less than 5% of the book was about the riding. Getting through this story was a slog, even though the book was mercifully short.

I realized all of the above in the first few pages, but I kept reading and hoping it would get better. It didn’t. Berezina reminded me of another motorcycle adventure that was mostly about things other than motorcycle riding (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I also found to be a slog when I read it 50 years ago). Zen, however, at least spent some time on the bike and the riding. In Berezina there was precious little of that, and what little there was wasn’t nearly enough. Save your money, folks. The best thing about Berezina was that it was only $15.

There’s an old saying: You can’t tell a book by its cover. In this book’s case, never were truer words spoken.

If you want a great read about a real motorcycle adventure, buy a copy of Riding the Edge, Dave Barr’s epic story about his ride around the world on a constantly-failing Harley. If it has to be about riding Russia in the winter, try Riding the Ice, Barr’s sequel about a trip across Siberia in a sidecar-equipped Sportster. Either of those books is a great read. Better yet, buy both books. You can thank me later.

More books? Hey, check out our Books page!

The Perfect Bike?

This was a blog I wrote for CSC about 6 years ago, and it’s still relevant. Earlier this year I posted a photo showing my Harley in Baja and Gresh made a good comment: Any motorcycle you take a trip on is an adventure motorcycle. I agree with that. The earlier blogs on my Harley Softail had me thinking about this question again: What is the perfect motorcycle?

Cruisers. Standards. Sports bikes. Dirt bikes. Dual sports. Big bikes. Small bikes. Whoa, I’m getting dizzy just listing these.

The Good Old Days

In the old days, it was simple. There were motorcycles. Just plain motorcycles. You wanted to ride, you bought a motorcycle. And they were small, mostly. I started on a 90cc Honda (that’s me in that photo to the right). We’d call it a standard today, if such a thing still existed.

Then it got confusing. Bikes got bigger. Stupidly so, in my opinion. In my youth, a 650 was a huge motorcycle, and the streets were ruled by bikes like the Triumph Bonneville and the BSA Lightning. Today, a 650 would be considered small. The biggest Triumph today has a 2300cc engine. I don’t follow the Harley thing anymore, but I think their engines are nearly that big, too. The bikes weigh close to half a ton. Half a ton!

I’ve gone through an evolution of sorts on this topic. Started on standards, migrated into cruisers after a long lapse, went to the rice rockets, then morphed into dual sports.

Cruisers and Adventure Bikes

The ADV bug hit me hard about 15 years ago. I’d been riding in Baja a lot and my forays occasionally took me off road. Like many folks who drifted back into motorcycles in the early 1990s, the uptick in Harley quality bit me. As many of us did, I bought my obligatory yuppie bike (the Heritage Softail) and the accompanying zillion t-shirts (one from every Harley dealer along the path of every trip I ever took). I had everything that went along with this kind of riding except the tattoo (my wife and a modicum of clear thinking on my part drew the line there). Leather fringe, the beanie helmet, complimentary HOG membership, and the pot belly. I was fully engaged.

Unlike a lot of yuppie riders of that era, though, I wasn’t content to squander my bucks on chrome, leather fringe, and the “ride to live, live to ride” schlock. I wanted to ride, and ride I did. All over the southwestern US and deep into Mexico. Those rides were what convinced me that maybe an 800+ lb cruiser was not the best bike in the world for serious riding…

The Harley had a low center of gravity, and I liked that. It was low to the ground, and I didn’t like that. And it was heavy. When that puppy started to drift in the sand, I just hung on and hoped for the best. Someone was looking out for me, because in all of that offroading down there in Baja, I never once dropped it. As I sit here typing this, enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee that Susie just made for me, I realize that’s kind of amazing.

The other thing I didn’t like about the Harley was that I couldn’t carry too much stuff on it without converting that bike into a sort of rolling bungee cord advertisement. The bike’s leather bags didn’t hold very much, the Harley’s vibration required that I constantly watch and tighten their mounting hardware, and the whole arrangement really wasn’t a good setup for what I was doing. The leather bags looked cool, but that was it. It was bungee cords and spare bags to the rescue on those trips…

Sports Bikes

The next phase for me involved sports bikes. They were all the rage in the early 90s and beyond, but to me they basically represent the triumph of marketing hoopla over common sense. I bought a Suzuki TL1000S (fastest bike I ever owned), and I toured Baja with it. It would be hard to find a worse bike for that kind of riding. The whole sports bike thing, in my opinion, was and is stupid. You sit in this ridiculous crouched over, head down position, and if you do any kind of riding at all, by the end of the day your wrists, shoulders, and neck are on fire. My luggage carrying capacity was restricted to a small tankbag and a ridiculous-looking tailbag.

I was pretty hooked on the look, though, and I went through a succession of sports bikes, including the TL1000S, a really racy Triumph Daytona 1200 (rode that one from Mexico to Canada), and a Triumph Speed Triple. Fast, but really dumb as touring solutions, and even dumber for any kind of off road excursion.

Phase III for me, after going through the Harley “ride to live” hoopla and the Ricky Racer phases, was ADV riding and dual sport bikes. The idea here is that the bike is equally at home on the street or in the dirt. Dual purpose…dual sport. I liked the idea, and I thought it would be a winner for my kind of riding.

A BMW GS versus Triumph’s Tiger

The flavor of the month back then was the BMW GS. I could never see myself on a Beemer, but I liked the concept. I was a Triumph man back in those days, and the Triumph Tiger really had my attention. A couple of my friends were riding the big BMW GS, but I knew I didn’t want a Beemer. In my opinion, those bikes are overpriced. The Beemers are heavy (over 600 lbs on the road), they have a terrible reputation for reliability, and I think they looked goofy. The Tiger seemed to be a better deal than the Beemer, and it sure had the right offroad look. Tall, an upright seating position (I had enough of that sports bike nonsense), and integrated luggage. So, I bit the bullet and shelled out something north of $10K back in ’06 for this beauty…

The Triumph had a few things going for it…I liked the detachable luggage, it was fast, it got good gas mileage (I could go 200+ miles between gas stations), and did I mention it was fast?

The Tiger’s Shortfalls

Looks can be deceiving, though, and that Tiger was anything but an off-road bike. It was still well over 600 lbs on the road with a full tank of gas, and in the soft stuff, it was terrifying. I never dropped the Triumph, but I sure came close one time. On a ride out to the Old Mill in Baja (a really cool old hotel right on the coast a couple hundred miles south of the border), the soft sand was bad. Really bad. Getting to the Old Mill involved riding through about 5 miles of soft sand, and it scared the stuffing out of me. I literally tossed and turned all night worrying about the ride out the next morning. It’s not supposed to be like that, folks.

And the Tiger was tall. Too tall, in my opinion. I think all of the current dual sport bikes are too tall. I guess the manufacturers do that because their marketing studies show a lot of basketball players buy dual sports. Me? I don’t play basketball and I never cared for a seat that high. Just getting on the Tiger was scary. After throwing my leg over the seat, I’d fight to lean the bike upright, and not being able to touch the ground on the right side until I had the thing upright was downright unnerving. I never got over that initial “getting on the bike” uneasiness. What were those engineers thinking?
The other thing that surprised me about the Tiger was that it was uncomfortable. The seat was hard (not comfortably hard, like a well designed seat should be, but more like sitting on small beer keg), and the foot pegs were way too high. I think they did that foot peg thing to make the bike lean over more, but all it did for me was make me feel like I was squatting all day. Not a good idea.

Kawasaki’s KLR 650

I rode the Tiger for a few years and then sold it. Even before I sold it, though, I had bought a new KLR 650 Kawasaki. It was a big step down in the power department (I think it has something like 34 or 38 horsepower), but I had been looking at the KLR for years. It seemed to be right…something that was smaller, had a comfortable riding position, and was reasonably priced (back then, anyway).

I had wanted a KLR for a long time, but nobody was willing to let me ride one. That’s a common problem with Japanese motorcycle dealers. And folks, this boy ain’t shelling out anything without a test ride first. I understand why they do it (they probably see 10,000 squids who want a test ride for every serious buyer who walks into a showroom), but I’m old fashioned and crotchety. I won’t buy anything without a test ride. This no-test-ride thing kept me from pulling the trigger on a KLR for years. When I finally found a dealer who was willing to let me ride one (thank you, Art Wood), I wrote the check and got on the road…and the off road…

My buddy John and I have covered a lot of miles on our KLRs through Baja and elsewhere. I still have my KLR, but truth be told, I only fire it up three or four times a year. It’s a big bike. Kawi says the KLR is under 400 lbs, but with a full tank of gas on a certified scale, that thing is actually north of 500 lbs. I was shocked when I saw that on the digital readout. And, like all of the dual sports, the KLR is tall. It still gives me the same tip-over anxiety as the Tiger did when I get on it. And I know if I ever dropped it, I’d need a crew to get it back on its feet.

That thing about dropping a bike is a real consideration. I’ve been lucky and I haven’t dropped a bike very often. But it can happen, and when it does, it would be nice to just be able to pick the bike up.

Muddy Baja

On one of our Baja trips, we had to ride through a puddle that looked more like a small version of Lake Michigan. I got through it, but it was luck, not talent. My buddy Dave was not so lucky…he dropped his pristine Yamaha mid-puddle…

The fall broke the windshield and was probably a bit humiliating for Dave, but the worst part was trying to lift the Yamaha after it went down. Slippery, muddy, wet…knee deep in a Mexican mudbath. Yecchh! It took three of us to get the thing upright and we fell down several times while doing so. Thinking back on it now, we probably looked pretty funny. If we had made a video of it, it probably would have gone viral.

The Perfect Bike: A Specification

So, where is this going…and what would my definition of the perfect touring/dual sport/ADV bike be?

Here’s what I’d like to see:

Something with a 250cc to 500cc single-cylinder engine. My experience with small bikes as a teenager and my more recent experience has convinced me that this is probably the perfect engine size. Big engines mean big bikes, and that kind of gets away from what a motorcycle should be all about. Water cooled would be even better. The Kawi KLR is water cooled, and I like that.

A dual sport style, with a comfortable riding position. No more silly road racing stuff. I’m a grown man, and when I ride, I like to ride hundreds of miles a day. I want my bike to have a riding position that will let me do that.

A windshield. It doesn’t have to be big…just something that will flip the wind over my helmet. The Kawi and the Triumph got it right in that department.

Integrated luggage. The Triumph Tiger got that part right. The KLR, not so much.

Light weight. Folks, it’s a motorcycle…not half a car. Something under 400 lbs works for me. If it gets stuck, I want to be able to pull it out of a puddle. If it drops, I want to be able to pick it up without a hoist or a road crew. None of the current crop of big road bikes meets this requirement.

Something that looks right and is comfortable. I liked the Triumph’s looks. But I want it to be comfortable.

Something under $5K. Again, it’s a motorcycle, not a car. My days of dropping $10K or so on a motorcycle are over. I’ve got the money, but I’ve also got the life experiences that tell me I don’t need to spend stupidly to have fun.

It was maybe a year after that blog that the RX3 came on the scene, and it answered the mail nicely. A year or two after the RX3 hit the scene, BMW, Kawasaki, and one or two others introduced smaller ADV motorcycles. I commented that these guys were copying Zongshen. One snotty newspaper writer told me I was delusional if I thought BMW, Kawi, and others copied Zongshen. I think that’s exactly what happened, but I don’t think they did as good a job as Zongshen did.

If you’ve got an opinion, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!

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