Category: Motorcycle Adventure Ride

Three Flags Classic: Day 2

The second day of the 2005 Three Flags Classic motorcycle rally would take us from Gallup, New Mexico (where we stayed the first night of the tour) to Grand Junction, Colorado.  You can catch up on the ride by reading our prior blog posts here:

The 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally:  the Intro!

The Three Flags Classic:  Day 1

And with that, let’s get to Day 2!

Day 2 of the 2005 Three Flags Rally. Good times. Great roads. Gorgeous scenery. A grand ride in every respect!

To continue the adventure, we were up early and we rolled out of Gallup, New Mexico on a beautiful day.  The bikes were running great and Marty and I were in high spirits.  It’s hard to put into words what it feels like to be on these kinds of rides.  You’re out in the world, on a powerful motorcycle, seeing things worth seeing.   It’s a great experience and a great feeling.  Everything just seems better to me when I’m on a motorcycle ride.  I sleep better, the food has better flavors, the people are friendlier, the bikes feel stronger, and on and on it goes.  You need to experience it to really understand it.  You folks who ride the big rides know what I’m talking about.

We spent very little time on the freeways on the Three Flags Rally. Most of our riding was on magnificent roads like the ones you see in the photos below.  The folks at the Southern California Motorcycle Association who planned the ride did a fantastic job.

Another cool shot on the road in New Mexico. That’s Marty and his K1200RS BMW, with my Daytona in the background. Marty still owns the K1200RS. It has 144,000 miles on the clock.
Another Daytona shot in New Mexico. That’s Shiprock in the background.

If it seems like there are a lot of pictures of my Daytona here, well, I guess there are. I loved owning the Daytona, and the more I rode it, the more I liked it. For a cool story on how I came to own this bike, check out this blog entry I wrote a few months ago.

A few miles up the road from this location, we crossed into Colorado. This was my first time in Colorado, other than passing through the airport in Denver a few time on business trips.  But those stops don’t really count…a layover in any airport could be a layover in, well, any other airport.

Mesa Verde, Colorado. Wow…this was a great ride!

Marty wanted to stop in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.  I had never heard of the place (I don’t get out enough, I guess), but I was up for it.  Marty was a very easy guy to travel with and he didn’t have many preferences.  He was a judge (that is to say, he’s the real deal…a Superior Court judge), and he told me that he didn’t want to make any decisions on this ride.  Where we stayed, where we stopped to eat, and all the rest were up to me.  I think that’s because Marty was paid to make decisions all day long.   Making decisions was his job, and he wanted a break.    So when he asked to hit Mesa Verde, it was about the only time he expressed a preference on where to go, and I was all for that.  It was a good move.   Mesa Verde National Park is an impressive place.

The ride up to the top of Mesa Verde (it literally means “green table” in Spanish) was awesome.  It’s a multi-mile climb to about 8500 feet, and the vistas are incredible.  You can see clear into New Mexico from the top.

All of the above, as you can see from the photos, was grand.  But the main attractions at Mesa Verde National Park are the ancestral Pueblo Native American ruins.   That part of the Park is almost beyond belief.  It’s real Indiana Jones stuff.

Ancient Indian cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde. If you’ve never been to Mesa Verde National Park, trust me on this: You need to make the trip. Watch for the next issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine…it’s got all the good info on where to stay, where to eat, and more.

Mesa Verde is a very interesting National Park.   I liked it so much that Sue and I took a road trip there last summer to explore the area in more detail.  I’d been thinking about it in the 14 years that have elapsed since the 2005 Three Flags Classic.  I wanted to see it again and bring my wife so she could see it.   The Native American cliff dwellings are amazing and the scenery is magnificent.  I have a story coming out on Mesa Verde in the next issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine.  It really is a special place.  Marty made the right call on this one.   Hey, he’s a judge.  The guy makes good decisions!

After Mesa Verde, we rode through heavy rains along the Dolores River and stopped in Telluride, Colorado.  The sun came out just as we entered town.   The ride along the Dolores River in Colorado was beautiful even in the rain.   We were having a grand time.

Downtown Telluride, washed clean by a torrential Colorado rain.

We had a checkpoint in Rangely, Colorado. It was a great experience.  I had a conversation with a guy named Pat (a BMW GS rider), and it turned out he lives one street over from where I live in California.   I mean, think about that: Here we were, probably 1300 miles from So Cal, two guys strike up a conversation, and it turns out we’re practically neighbors (but we had never met before this ride).   What are the odds?

Good buddy and GS rider Pat, a fellow Californio, at a checkpoint in Colorado.

We made Grand Junction, Colorado, where we would be spending the night, and we reconnected with our friends at the hotel.  Dinner was great, and then the rain started again.   I felt like taking more photos after dinner and I wanted to play with a couple of new toys.  I had just purchased an ultra-wide Sigma 17-35 lens and I wanted use it.  I had also purchased a Sunpak MiniPro Plus tripod for the trip.  It looked like it was going to be a good idea, but it was a bust. One of the legs broke off halfway through the ride, and I threw the thing away.  I almost never travel with a tripod any more.   They’re just too bulky, and I can usually find something to steady the camera for evening shots.

Our bikes, parked in the rain at the hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado. I used the 17-35 Sigma for this shot, and my uber-cheap tripod (before it broke).

That wrapped up Day 2 of our Three Flags Classic ride in 2005.   It was a great ride.   We were two days into it and we had already ridden halfway across the United States.   Out tally so far was two countries and four states.  We still had several more states and another whole country to go.  It was magnificent.

There’s more to come on this grand adventure, folks.  Stay tuned for Day 3!

And the winner is…

Our moto adventure book giveaway winner is none other than good buddy Trevor Summons, and that’s a hell of a coincidence. I actually know Trevor. We have quite a few folks following the ExNotes blog, and Trevor is one of those who signed up for automatic email notifications when we post a new blog.  I first met Trevor when he did a story on CSC Motorcycles several years ago for the Daily Bulletin newspaper, and we’ve stayed in touch since.

Trevor and his Harley Heritage. Harleys have been featured a lot lately here on the ExNotes blog!

Trevor’s the real deal…he’s a columnist who writes the “Trevor’s Travels” feature, and he’s a Harley-Davidson rider.  Trevor and his son (who lives in Japan) do a 3,000-mile moto camping trip every year. They’ve been to the Canadian border, Sturgis, Yellowstone twice, and southern Colorado. This past September Trevor and his son went up to northern Ontario (the one in Canada, not here in So Cal).

Trevor opted for a signed copy of Moto Colombia, and we’re getting together for lunch sometime in the next couple of weeks so I can give it to him. You can bet I’ll grab a photo or two when we do that.

You can order your own copy of Moto Colombia right here!

For those of you who didn’t win this time, don’t have a cow.  We’re going to have a regular quarterly book give away, and the next contest starts today. We’ll announce the winner on April 1st, except it will be for real (that is to say, it won’t be an April Fools sort of thing). All you need to do to enter is be on our email list, and you can do that by adding your email address to the widget on this page!

Buffalo’s Vietnam videos…

I first met Buffalo Bonker on one of the CSC Baja rides and I liked the guy immediately.  I think it may have taken him a bit longer to warm up to me, but I’m told I’m an acquired taste, so that’s okay.  Anyway, Buffalo bought his first motorcycle ever and learned to ride just for the Baja trip, and he caught the spirit.  The guy is a true adventure rider, so much so that he and his cousin (and his cousin’s daughter) flew to Vietnam, rented motorcycles, and toured the country.  That’s very, very cool.  I’m in awe.

Buffalo created a series of videos about his Vietnam adventure ride.  I’m including the first one here, and a link to the entire series.  Enjoy, my friends.  I sure did!

Lunch at Jardines

You guys and gals will remember my good buddy Baja John, a guy with whom I’ve been exploring Baja for close to three decades now…

Baja John back in the mid-’90s. Big V-twins and black leather were all the rage. I shot this photo at La Bufadora during a break in the El Nino rains.

John sent an invitation to me to ride with him in Baja this month, but I couldn’t make it (I’ve been in northern California this week).   I suggested to John that our ExNotes readers sure would appreciate it, though, if he could send photos from his trip, though, and here’s an email I just received from him…

Joe,

I was originally going to send you just the pictures when you mentioned putting pictures in the blog, so I thought that you might want a story to go with them. I’ve attached a Word document with a story just in case. For some reason, I cannot transfer the pictures to my laptop, so I left places within the document to place the pictures. I will try again to upload the pictures from my phone to my email. Hopefully it works this time. It should be easy to figure out which picture goes where. If you don’t want the story, just enjoy the pictures. BTW, I just finished two fish tacos and two shrimp tacos at Antonio’s. I may go back and eat another one for you before I leave town.

John

That sounds awesome, John.  Tell Tony hi for me when you see him again, and tell him I’ll be down there soon enough!  We sure appreciate the story and the photos.  And folks, without further ado, here’s Baja John’s most recent Baja adventure…

In early 2002, I bought a house in Bahia de Los Angeles on the Baja Peninsula with thoughts of retiring there someday. Over the ensuing years, I continued to ride motorcycles to and from Mexico, anxious for the day when I could leave from my house in Mexico instead of riding 600 miles just to get there, and then begin my ride. Well, that day finally arrived, and I decided to take a ride to Jardines in San Quintin for lunch. I’d heard a number of positive remarks from fellow Americans who had stayed there and who had eaten there. It was time to give the place a personal assessment.

I packed some snacks and water in my tank bag in preparation for my trip. The morning was cool and crisp when I left. It was within a couple of days of the winter solstice and the days were short, so my plan was to leave at sunup, hoping to complete the 450-mile roundtrip before dark. This picture was taken about 20 miles out of town.

The fog nestled so close to the ground made it appear as though I was looking at a forest of cacti poking their heads through the clouds. For some unknown reason, I took that as an omen of good things to come. I passed one truck on that 40 mile stretch to the main highway.

When I reached the junction at Highway 1, my fuel gauge read 3/4 full. I turned to the north, and immediately saw this sign.

I wasn’t yet familiar with my CSC TT250, but I had read reviews of 65 mpg, and since I didn’t yet know what 3/4 full meant on my bike, I decided to press on, optimistic that I would find gas somewhere on the way.

Traffic increased on Highway 1. I guess that’s to be expected since it’s the only paved highway that travels the entire length of the peninsula. After passing 6 vehicles within the first 30 minutes, I decided that traffic probably wasn’t going to be bad enough to have a negative impact on my ride, so I continued north, enjoying the solitude and watching the highway twist its way through the desert as I came down yet another mountain.

As I continued north, I noticed my gas gauge reaching 1/2 full at Chapala. I still had 63 miles to go to Catavina, which was the only place that I thought may have gas. Hoping that the gauge accuracy was a bit on the conservative side, I continued on. Running the numbers in my head, I concluded that I should make it to Catavina, even if my actual fuel level was a little less than indicated. However, if Catavina didn’t have gas, then I was going to either have to stay there until I could find someone passing through with extra gas, or try to locate a rancho that might have a couple of gallons to spare. Fortunately, in Catavina I came across a small sign stuck in the dirt on the left side of the highway that said Pemex. The arrow pointed to the right side of the road, and as my eyes scanned the opposite side of the highway, I saw a pickup truck with a couple of 55 gal drums and a few one gallon plastic containers. By this time I had travelled about half the distance to San Quintin, and although my low fuel light was already flashing, I still had not gone on reserve

I figured the price would be astronomical, but that was ok since I would only need a couple of gallons. Surprisingly, it was only $1 per gallon higher than the Pemex station where I had filled up in my town the day before. Confident that I could now make it the rest of the way to San Quintin, I pressed on north, maintaining between 60 and 65 mph indicated.

The desert continued to get greener as I closed in on the town of El Rosario where Mama Espinoza’s famous restaurant is located. I passed by knowing that I had a meal waiting for me in less than an hour at Jardine’s. Traffic remained consistent through the remainder of my trip, and I reached my destination at 11 a.m.

Jardines was like an oasis in the middle of the desert. There were no signs indicating its presence, and as I turned off the main highway just south of town, I thought the place must really be nice since it appeared that they relied on word of mouth for advertisement. Making the turn onto the final dirt road, I still didn’t see it, and there was no indication that a hotel existed anywhere ahead.

After a 1/2 mile, a beautiful hotel, restaurant, and gardens appeared on the right through the trees.

I pulled into the empty parking lot of the restaurant, dismounted, and approached the door. It was locked. Fortunately the hours were posted. Another hour before they opened. That wasn’t good. If I waited around until they opened, got seated and served, I wouldn’t get back on the road until after 1 p.m. That would make it difficult to make it home before dark. Hmmm! Better check the hotel. I had heard the rates were good, but I was pleasantly surprised that a single room was only $31. A two bedroom-suite was a bit steeper at $45. It didn’t take me long to decide to take advantage of one of the perks of retirement – unscheduled time. I quickly pulled out my wallet, checked in, walked around the grounds for a few minutes, and then waited outside the restaurant until they opened.

I opted for the Mediterranean Shrimp at $8.40.

It was fantastic. I was seriously glad that I decided to stay. I kept occupied throughout the day by reading my kindle and talking to Anna, the hotel manager that day. She had spent several years in Wichita, KS, so she spoke English quite well. That night I paid a whopping $4.00 for some Fish and Chips. Another great meal.

The next morning I took my time riding around the area before heading home. I finally left town at 11 a.m. Traffic was the same as the previous day, and I made it home at 3:30 p.m. I stopped for a moment, looking at the moon over the bay before winding my way down the mountain toward home.

Hard to believe; for less than $100 I had a wonderful two days of riding, great food, a good night’s sleep and not one stop light. I feel truly blessed.

Just awesome, John!   I had never heard of Jardines, but you can bet it’s on the list for my next visit.  Thanks again.

Folks, if you’d like to know more about Baja and our moto adventures down there (and our recommended insurance company, BajaBound), just click here!   And if you’d like a more in-depth discussion of what is arguably the greatest adventure riding spot on the planet, why not pick up a copy of Moto Baja!


Harley Tanking

This article in Barron’s on Harley’s sales popped up recently.  The bottom line is that Harley’s sales are dropping more than predicted, and things are not looking good in Milwaukee.  It’s simultaneously interesting and disappointing.  I don’t like it when any motorcycle company has bad news, and I’m hoping that Harley gets it turned around.  Harley is introducing new, smaller motorcycles, and I think that’s the ticket back.  The question is:  Can they do it quickly enough?

Harley has a tough row to hoe, having built their business selling overweight, underperforming, uber-expensive bikes to a clientele that is aging out.  The smart move would be to acquire a small motorcycle manufacturer or importer with a proven track record and to then build on that success, but hey, what do I know?   I know there aren’t too many people left willing to shell out $20K to $40K for chrome, conchos, and leather fringe.  I also know that you can’t get inventory fast enough when you’re selling new motorcycles for $2K, or maybe $4K.

We’ll see.

Your thoughts on all of this?   Leave us a comment and let us know where you think the market is going, why a great old company like Harley is having such a tough time in a booming ec0nomy, or any other topic.

Hey, one more thing:  There are less than 4 more days left to get in on our moto-adventure book drawing!  Just leave your email address for automatic email notifications, and you’re entered!

Three Flags Classic: Day 1

A full day, Day 1 of the TFC05 was. 700 miles, two countries, and three US states. Good times and a great start!

Tijuana is where the 2005 Three Flags Classic started, and in order to start from there, we had to get there.  Marty and I both live near Los Angeles in southern California, and we had both ridden in Baja before, so getting to Mexico was not that intimidating.  But it was still a 140 mile ride for us and it still involved crossing an international border.  We rode down the afternoon before our departure, allowing sufficient time to find and check into the Tijuana Grand Hotel.

I was a bit nervous that day.  Yeah, I had done a number of big rides already, but for this one, I knew that I would be on the road for two weeks and that we would cover about 5,000 miles.  I also knew part of it would be hot, part of it would be cold, part of it would be sunny, and parts of it would most likely be wet.  I would be right on all counts.  I just didn’t know (yet) just how right I would be on all counts.

We arrived in mid-afternoon and walked around Tijuana a bit.  In those days, crossing the border into Mexico was probably the easiest border crossing you might imagine.  There were no stops, no visa required, no questions to answer…no anything.   All there was to it was riding under a sign that said Bienvenidos A Mexico, and trying not to drop your bike riding across a line of monstrous Bots dots (you know, those polished metal hemispheres the size of a large grapefruit…they were designed to slow vehicular traffic, and they worked).  Just like that, and we were in Old Mexico.

We found Tijuana’s Grand Hotel, we checked in, and we walked around downtown TJ a bit.  It was fun.  Goofy photos, and more.

Tijuana, the starting point of the Three Flags Classic. This was the view from our room in the Tijuana Grand Hotel.
Yep, Tijuana. Just making sure.
A sculpture in Tijuana.

We were having a good time, but what was really on our minds was the 3:00 a.m. departure the next day.  We were both a bit nervous about that.   To leave at 3:00 a.m., we’d have to get up at 2:00 a.m.  I briefly thought about staying up all night (after all, getting up at 2:00 a.m. would practically be the same thing), but I decided to turn in early and do the best I could to get some shuteye.   I might not have bothered…I was too nervous to really sleep well.  I knew we would be covering about 700 miles the next day, I was afraid I would oversleep the next morning, and I usually don’t sleep well the night before a big a trip.  I was in bed for maybe 5 hours that night, but I probably only slept for 45 minutes.

Whooping it up the night before our departure in the Grand Hotel in Tijuana. We would all be on the road at 3:00 a.m. the next morning. Can you picture almost 500 motorcycles at the border crossing at that hour!
We had an excellent buffet in the Grand Hotel the night before we left. We were on the road for 12 days and we never had a bad meal.

The next morning, well before sunup, we were off.  Normally, even back in those days, the border crossing re-entering the US in Tijuana is difficult.  Picture this…nearly 500 motorcycles idling north into a crowded but huge border station.  There were maybe 15 lanes heading north, but only two were open at that early hour.   All of our bikes were in those two lanes, with maybe 20 cars in front of us.   But the US border officers were efficient.  They opened several more lanes and motioned for the bikes to move into the newly-opened portals.   We were across the border in minutes.  It could have taken hours, so this was a big deal.

Once we entered the US, it was north on I-5, and then east on I-8, which we would follow well into Arizona.  It was still dark out, and we rode directly into what would soon be the rising sun.  It was cool, but not cold.   Life was good.  My Triumph was purring (or growling, depending on throttle position…nothing sounds as good as a Triumph motorcycle).  There were literally hundreds of motorcycles, and all were fellow Three Flags riders.   We were alive, out in the world, riding motorcycles in one of the world’s greatest motorcycle adventures.  We already had knocked down two of the Three Flags, and the sun was still hiding below a distant horizon.   This was good stuff.

The first checkpoint, in Holbrook, Arizona.

Our first checkpoint on the Three Flags Classic would be in Holbrook, Arizona.  Marty had done this before, and he knew the drill. I followed his lead.  I was lucky to be riding with a much more experienced motorcyclist.  It took away any anxiety.  It was a good feeling.

More Three Flags riders in Arizona. There were quite a few Harleys in this event. This is on the road to Payson.
Marty and I in Arizona on the first day of the event.

Shortly after we stepped up to get our event passports stamped, we experienced a severe rainstorm. We were delayed at the checkpoint for about an hour.   I didn’t care.  Covering the remaining miles that first day would take what it would take, as would the miles on the rest of the ride.  Yeah, we had to make the checkpoints.  But we were doing well.  My Triumph was running well.  Marty’s BMW was the Rolex of motorcycles, and it always did well.

After hitting the first checkpoint and after the rain stopped, we continued our ride and crossed the state line into New Mexico.  Wowee…what a day:  Mexico.  California.  Arizona.  New Mexico.  Two countries.  Three states.  All in a single day.  We stopped to take a few photos, and I was loving it.  My Nikon N70 35mm film camera was doing its thing, and I was working it.  I was seeing grand sights and and I wanted to capture it all.  I had two lenses with me…the old first generation 24-120 Nikon lens, and a 17-35 Sigma wide angle (which was actually a pretty decent lens).   Our bikes were magnificent…both 1200cc road-burning four-cylinder monsters, both with visually-arresting yellow paint themes, and both capable of stratospheric speeds and arm-stretching acceleration.  Both bikes could easily top 160 mph.  We could (and at times during the Three Flags we would) cruise for long stretches at speeds well over 120 mph, knowing adventures like this were what the engineers in Bavaria and England had in mind when they designed these motorcycles.  Great bikes, great company, great roads, and great scenery.  It was an awesome show, and we were the stars.

We covered 700 miles that first day, which would be our highest mileage day for the entire Three Flags Classic.  The guys who organized the 3FC05 had it wired.   The first day was the big mileage day, and every day after that the miles would decrease a bit.  It was a well organized event.  Hit the checkpoints, see what you want to see along the way, stay wherever you want, but hit the checkpoints.  It’s a great formula, and it made for a great ride.

That first night, we stayed in Gallup, New Mexico.  I’d never been there before.  Gallup, New Mexico.  On a motorcycle.  Wow.  The next day, the adventure would continue.  I couldn’t wait.

Hey, read the prequel to this great story here!  And would you like to know more about that dynamite Daytona 1200 I rode in the Three Flags Classic?  That story is here!

Electric Motorcycles In China

This is a blog I originally posted on the CSC blog, and I like it so much I want to include it here on ExNotes.   The topic is, as the title implies, the ebike scene in China.

I encountered electric bikes in a major way on my RX3 ride across China (you can read that great story in Riding China).  Electric scooters and other vehicles are everywhere in China.  Quite simply, electric vehicles are a way of life over there. Rather than babble on about that, I thought I would include an excerpt from a Riding China chapter.  The locale is Beijing, where I was struggling with the heat and a minor injury…I had been nailed in the eye by a bug the night before, and…well, let me  get to the pages I’m talking about…

From Riding China…

The next day we took the subway into Beijing. We already were in Beijing when we got on the subway, but Beijing is a megacity and you can’t simply drive into the center of it. We rode the subway for a good 45 minutes, and when we emerged, we visited the Forbidden City and Tien An Men Square. It was all grand. It was touristy, but it’s something that should be on any China visitor’s bucket list.

At the entrance to the Forbidden City.
In the Forbidden City. It’s an amazing thing to see.
A glimpse of ancient Chinese architecture in the Forbidden City.

After seeing the Forbidden City, we walked around downtown Beijing for a while. I told Tracy (note: Tracy was our translator on this trip) my eye was getting worse and I wanted to get antibiotic eye drops for it. It was Sunday afternoon, but there was a large pharmacy right in front of us and it was open. Tracy went in with me and he told one of the young pharmacists what I wanted. She responded and it didn’t sound good.

“She cannot sell it to you without a prescription,” he told me.

“Well, shoot, Tracy, it’s Sunday afternoon,” I said. “We’re not going to find a doctor. I’ll be okay. Let’s just go.”

“No, it is okay, Dajiu,” he said. “We are China and we have a bureaucracy. It is my bad.”

Good old Tracy, I thought. The guy felt responsible for everything. I was resigned to the fact that my eye was going to take a while to get better. Tracy, in the meantime, had walked not more than 8 feet away to an elderly woman sitting at a wooden table. He spoke to her in Chinese and pointed to me. She never looked at me, nor did she look up. She simply pulled out a white pad with a big “R” at the top. Nah, this can’t be, I thought. She wrote something in Chinese characters and handed the slip to Tracy.

“Our prescription,” Tracy said. “Such a bureaucracy.” He walked the three steps back to the pharmacist, Tracy handed her the prescription, and 30 seconds (and 24 yuan, or about $4) later, I had my antibiotic eye drops. I put two drops in my eye.

When we got off the subway after visiting The Forbidden City and the center of Beijing, we waited on a street corner for our Uber ride back to the hotel. I watched the scooters and small utility vehicles rolling by, and I realized that nearly every one of them was electric. I must have seen 200 scooters during the 20 minutes we waited, and perhaps 2 had gasoline engines. This wholesale adaption of electric scooters and small utility vehicles in China is nothing short of amazing.

One of many, many electric bikes and scooters in Beijing.
Another electric scooter…
…and another…
…and another…
…and another…
…and another…
…and another…
…and another. They were all over. I’d never seen anything like it.

Sean (our guide) explained to me that the transition to electric vehicles started about 15 years ago, and the government has done a number of things to encourage people to convert to electricity. For starters (once again, pardon my pun), many of the larger cities in China now prohibit motorcycles and scooters unless the vehicle is electric. Electric scooters are allowed where gasoline-powered bikes are not. That alone is an enormous incentive. The next incentive is that you don’t need a driver’s license to take an electric vehicle on the street. You just buy one and go. And finally, as I’ve mentioned before, electricity is cheap in China. There are windfarms, solar panel farms, coal plants, nuclear power plants, and hydroelectric power plants all over the country. We saw scooters parked on the sidewalk and plugged into extension cords running into small stores everywhere. People charge them like iPhones; they didn’t miss any opportunity to top off the batteries on these things.

An unusual electric trike in Beijing. We saw many unusual electric vehicles in China.

That night was a great night. The Zongshen dealer took us to a restaurant that specialized in Peking duck. The guys were excited about this development, but I was initially leery. I thought I didn’t like Peking duck. Boy, was I ever wrong! I tried Peking duck 25 years ago when I visited Beijing with Sue. We both thought the duck was awful. That’s because we went to a restaurant that served tourists. The food at that place didn’t have to be good. They knew they would never see us again, and Yelp hadn’t been invented yet.

This night in Beijing with the Zongshen dealer and the RX3 owners club was different. The Peking duck was incredible. The chef sliced it paper thin right at our table. They had thin tofu (almost like a crepe), and the guys taught me how to eat duck properly. The deal is you put a few fresh vegetables on the tofu, you add a slice or two of duck, you add this amazing brown gravy, and then you roll the affair up like a burrito. Wow, it was delicious!

We had several rounds of toasts at dinner that night and the liquor flowed freely. I got lucky. Kong sat next to me and he schooled me in the proper way to make a Chinese toast. To show respect, you clink your glass against the other guy’s glass, but you hold your glass at a lower level so that when the two glasses meet, the rim of yours is lower than the other person’s. When the Zongshen dealer toasted me, I followed Kong’s advice, and the Chinese riders all nodded approvingly. Ah, Dajiu knows.

It was funny. Sergeant Zuo and I had made several toasts to each other, and when we touched glasses, we both tried frantically to get our glasses lower than the other, so much so that we usually crashed the bottoms of both on the table (to a hearty laugh and round of applause from everyone). Zuo was being polite; I was being completely serious (I have enormous respect for him).

It was a great night, and the next morning was even better. Those eye drops Tracy had helped me secure a prescription for did the trick. When we rode out of Beijing the next morning, my eye was good as new.

So there you have it.   It was in China that I realized this electric bike thing is for real.  It’s not just a fad.  I think it’s going to be for real in the rest of the world, too.  It is the future.

You can read our other ebike materials here, and check back here on the ExNotes site regularly.  We’ll be including new ebike materials often.

Merry Christmas!

We hope you have a great Christmas, folks!  Three years ago I was in Colombia for a motorcycle ride through the Andes Mountains, and one of the high points of that fabulous adventure was our visit to a little town called La Playa de Belem.   It was a grand evening, as you can see here…

Enjoy the holidays…ride safe, shoot straight, and keep your powder dry!

The Ideal Electric Motorcycle

I like to read the ExhaustNotes blog. In the aerospace industry, if you liked what your team created too much, we called it drinking your own bath water. The risk in drinking your own bath water was that you lost sight of what was important to the customer and you stopped reviewing your work objectively.  Anyway, every once in a while I’ll read through the blog to see what looks good and what we could maybe do better. And in doing that I realized that old Arjiu and I hadn’t done a dream bike piece recently.

That brings us to today and the dream bike bit du jour:  The Ideal Electric Motorcycle. I’m going to define the specs for what I think would be a riotously successful electric motorcycle.  Bear with me…I think this is going to be good, which can sometimes happen even with bath water.

I guess the first order of business is to consider the current crop of ebikes’ weaknesses.  That’s easy.  Limited range, limited top speed, long recharge times, clunky and bulky external chargers (for some bikes), and the biggest one of all (at least to me):  A near complete lack of cool. Yeah, I’m defining the specs for an ebike that would do well in the US, and the lack of cool is a very big deal.  We have to address that. It’s a serious shortfall in all the ebikes I’ve seen.  I mean, nobody visualizes themselves as Steve McQueen jumping a fence in Nazi Germany on an ebike.  Nobody thinks of themselves as Peter Fonda kickstarting a silent ebike to take Nancy Sinatra for a ride.

Remember that old Harley ad? The one that showed a toddler in a Harley T-shirt with the this question at the bottom: When did it start for you? That ad says it all. I know for me, and I suspect for nearly all of you, our fascination with motorcycles originated when we were wee ones and we saw a motorcycle that stopped us in our Buster Brown tracks. You know what I’m talking about. A bike that made us just stop and stare, usually for a long period of time. I have two such recollections: One was a 1950’s era Harley Duo-Glide dresser (with a monstrous V-twin engine, corrugated exhaust headers, and drop-dead-deep-gorgeous paint); the other was a ’64 500cc Triumph twin (white with gold accents, pea-shooter mufflers, Triumph’s “parcel grid” on the gas tank, a matching tach and speedo, and those magnificent, sweeping exhaust headers). Yeah, those bikes defined cool. They were visually arresting things. None of the ebikes currently on the market do that for me. Like my old platoon sergeant used to say, this is something we need to talk about.

Serious cool. Visually arresting. I’m not saying an ebike should look like a Panhead, but a Panhead has a cool factor that no current ebike possesses. We need to address that.  We need to find a way to have an ebike elicit the same kind of irrational, emotional, I-need-this-in-my-life response.

Okay, enough reminiscing. Let’s get to the specs. The way I see it, we need to address weight, size, top end, range, recharging, cost, comfort, and the cool factor. Here we go, boys and girls…

Let’s hit the elephant in the room first, and that’s the range issue. We need more. Nobody has a motorcycle with decent range. The City Slicker, under best case conditions (I’m talking low speeds and summer temperatures) can do about 60 miles, maybe a scosh more, and obtaining the last few miles involves really low speeds and lots of prayer. Zero claims much greater range, but every magazine that’s tested the Zero shoots those claims down with a heartfelt dismissal that goes along the lines of “in your dreams, Zero.” Nope, the range on the current crop of ebikes just isn’t where it needs to be yet. Where is that? Hey, I’m writing the spec. I’d say 250 miles. Put an ebike out there that can go an honest 250 miles at normal speeds, and I’m in. I think that should be doable at a reasonable price (I’ll say more on that in a bit). Yeah, a 250-mile range would make an ebike viable for me.

We want range, and lots of it. If an ebike had a range of 250 miles and a recharge time of 30 minutes, I could ride to Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario, charge the bike while I was enjoying one of the old gal’s lobster burritos, and make it all the way to Guerrero Negro in a day. Where do I sign?

Next up: Recharging. Look, the bottom line is I don’t want to wait 8 hours to recharge a bike. As long as I’m writing the spec and dreaming out loud, I’d like to see a sub-30-minute recharge time. When I stop at a gas station, it’s about 10 minutes to pull up to the pump, put the bike on the sidestand, get off, take off my gloves, unlock the fuel cap, get out my wallet, put the credit card in the gas pump, enter my zip code, pick the octane level I want, take the nozzle out of the pump, peel back the nozzle’s foreskin so the fuel will flow (hey, we live in Kalifornia), put fuel in the tank, and then reverse the process. Add another rider or maybe another ten riders (if I’m on one of my Baja tours and I’m being my usual hardass self about not wasting time), and a fuel stop grows to maybe 30 minutes. I’m used to that, and that’s what I want in an ebike: Quick replenishment. That’s beyond the current state of the art, but don’t tell me we can’t do it.  The solution is obvious: We need to change the state of the art.

On the recharger, I want it built into the bike, with a simple cord that pulls out of the bike to plug in someplace (kind of like you get on a vacuum cleaner). Give me a 15-foot cord and I’m good to go. I don’t want to screw around with an external power converter, because then I’d have to find a place to carry it on the bike.  Build that thing into the motorcycle.  Zero has the right idea on this one.

I think an 85-mph top speed is good. I know, I know…maybe you’re one of those guys:  Ah need at least a 1000cc and Ah need to go at least a hunnert else they’ll run me down on the freeway.  If that’s you, don’t waste any more time here; go back to posting stupid stuff on Facebook and the other forums. Here’s the deal: I’ve been riding for a few years, and the times I’ve needed to go above 85 mph are few and far between. In fact, I’ve never actually “needed” to go over 85.  Adding top end takes a big bite out of an ebike. I’m willing to give up stupid top end to get more range, shorter recharge times, and less weight. So, 85 mph it is. Give me that in an ebike and I’m a happy camper.

I want a reasonable amount of stowage space so I can do Baja without bungee cords. Some folks look like they’re moving when they go on an overnight motorcycle trip.   I’ve ridden with those guys.  They and their bikes are like the opening Beverly Hillbillies scene with Granny on top of the pickup truck (not that’s there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly, or a Granny, for that matter). The City Slicker has a cool stowage compartment where the fuel tank would be on a gas bike. Something like that would work just fine for me. I don’t need to change my underwear every day on a motorcycle trip.

The ideal motorcycle (not just an ebike, but any motorcycle, in my opinion) should have a seat height no higher than 30 inches, a weight of 400 lbs or less, and physical dimensions that allow for easy u-turns on two-lane roads. None of this 36-inch seat height, 800-lb silliness.  The ergonomics should be straight standard motorcycle, too. No Ricky Racer, stupidly-low-clip-on, first-two-years-of-chiropractor-visits-are-free seating positions.  And while I’m on doctor references, no gynecological-exam, silly-ass cruiser seating positions, either.  If the designers of my ideal ebike could just get a 2006 KLR 650 and duplicate its handlebar/seat/footpeg relationship, that would be fine.  My KLR had the best seating position of any motorcycle I’ve ever owned.

I’d vote for 17-inch rear and 19-inch front wheels because that combo just flat seems to work for damn near everything. I won’t be jumping any logs with my ideal ebike or trying to fly across soft sand, and that eliminates the need for a 21-inch front wheel. And everybody has all kinds of tire combos for the 17/19 setup. To borrow a phrase, why re-invent the wheel?

I want a plug-and-play bike with BITE. Not as in “bite me,” but as in built-in-test-equipment (like the aerospace industry uses). That would completely eliminate the need for a dealer (come to think of it, it would also eliminate the need for a shop manual). No obscene, inflated dealer freight and setup fees. Nope, I want factory direct. And if anything goes wrong with the bike, it shows me which module I need to remove and replace. Plug and play. I don’t feel the need to fund an on-the-job-training program for a dealer-based, wannabe motorcycle mechanic. BITE me, baby.

I think the cost of such a bike should be about $7,500. That feels about right for what a motorcycle should cost.  Yeah, I know, you probably couldn’t build it for that in America.   Maybe India?  Or China?  Or maybe you could make it in America.  Source the subassemblies wherever you need to, keep the UAW and IAM snouts out of the trough, and assemble the bikes here.  Create 30 to 50 US jobs at an assembly plant, preferably in Texas or New Mexico.  This is doable, folks.  Trust me on this.  I used to run manufacturing facilities before I moved up to blogging.  We can do this.

So there you have it. Do all of the above, and folks would beat a digital path to your online direct sales website. Yep, all of the above, at $7,500. That’s the ticket.

Oh, and one last must have: Electric start.  Peter and Nancy (and the rest of the Wild Angels cast), my apologies in advance, but no kickers on my ideal electric bike.  I know they’re cool, but this is the 21st Century.

Want to read more of our ebike stuff?  Hey, just click here!  It’s our new index page with all the good ebike articles we’ve done here on the blog.

More good stuff.  It seems the Chairman of the Southern California Motorcycle Association, my new good buddy Gonzo, is a big fan of the ExhaustNotes.us site.   We had a nice conversation yesterday, and Gonzo told me he particularly liked our story on the Jack Daniel’s visit (so much so they are running it in their newsletter this month) and our first intro piece on the 2005 Three Flags Classic.

One thing led to another…I’ve been invited to the 2019 Three Flags Classic (boy oh boy, I’m really thinking about that one), and I became an SCMA member.  You should be, too, even if you’re not living here in the Southland because SCMA’s events are international in reach.   You can join right here.

And one last thing:   Want to win a free copy of one of our moto adventure books?  You can get in on the drawing if you sign up for automatic email blog updates (the widget is in the upper right corner if you’re on a laptop, and below this article if you read the blog on a phone).  We’ll never share your email with anyone else!

The 2005 Three Flags Classic: The Intro!

Feel like going for a motorcycle ride? How about the Southern California Motorcycle Club’s Three Flags Classic?

Headed for Canada…nope, we were not draft dodgers. We were riding in the 2005 Three Flags Rally! That’s Marty on the left and Joe on the right.

This is one of the best motorcycle runs in the world, spanning (as the name implies) three countries: Mexico, Canada, and the United States. My friend Marty and I, along with 457 other motorcyclists, rode the Three Flags in 2005. It was the 30th Anniversary of this grand event, and it was a hoot.

The Route

What a run this was! We rode our motorcycles from our homes to Tijuana (Mexico), Gallup (New Mexico), Grand Junction (Colorado), Driggs (Idaho), Whitefish (Montana), Calgary (Canada), Penticton (Canada), Portland (Oregon), Roseburg (Oregon), Davis (California), and back home…a 12-day round-trip sprint spanning just under 5,000 miles.

The map. GPS? We don’t need no stinkin’ GPS!

It was a grand ride. Speeds ranged from slogs through traffic to a few times when we cruised at speeds north of 130 mph. Temperatures ranged from ungodly hot to subfreezing. We had sunny days and we had rain. It was grand. I’ll do my best to tell the story with pictures and words, and you’ll have to imagine the rest. Did I mention that it was a great ride?

The Bikes

Marty rode his K1200RS Beemer (with close to 100,000 miles on it when we left) and I rode my ’95 Triumph Daytona 1200 (the only Triumph motorcycle in the entire event). At the banquet in Calgary, Charlie Coyner (the event director) announced that there were 218 Hondas (most of these were Gold Wings), 90 Harleys, 90 BMWs, 34 Yamahas (mostly FJRs), about a dozen Suzukis (mostly DL1000s), about a dozen Kawasakis, and one Triumph.

Yep, one Triumph, and that was me!

The Equipment

I used my Nikon N70 film camera with just two lenses (the 24-120 Nikon, and the 17-35 Sigma). Yep, in 2005 I was still shooting film. The photos were okay…not as good as I would be able to do in later years with my Nikon digital cameras, but not terrible, either. Hey, you go to war with the Army you have, and in 2005, that was my trusty old N70.

Other gear included included Joe Rocket pants, jacket, and gloves, a Firstgear rain jacket, a Gerbing electric jacket (it was worth its weight in gold as we continued north), an HJC helmet, Haix boots (from Australia; they are wonderful!), a Nelson Rigg tank bag, and Oxford saddlebags.

The Guys

That would be Marty and me, and four other guys we rode with who were part of the Brown BMW First Church of Bob. Everybody but me was on a Beemer.

Did I mention I was the only guy in the entire Three Flags Rally on a Triumph?

Most of the time it was just Marty and me. The other three guys were off riding their separate ways, but Marty and I rode together for the entire trip. Marty is a retired Superior Court judge. At the time, I was heading up Layne-Christensen’s western US water treatment business sector. Marty told me about the event and I wanted to go. You had to pay for tickets and hope  your name was drawn, and ours were not. I thought that would end it, but nope, Marty told me that happens. You just wait and some of the guys who had been drawn would be selling their tickets, that’s what occurred, and Marty and scooped up a couple.  Then I had to ask my boss at Layne for two weeks off, and I thought that would kill it. But nope, he was a good guy, too, and he told me I should go for it. (A side note: Layne was in the drilling business, too, and when those Chilean miners were trapped underground a couple of years later, this same guy ran the drilling project that reached and retrieved the miners…how’s that for “genuine good guy” credibility?)

So, we were off. But I don’t want to force feed you through a fire hose and try to cram the entire 5,000-mile Three Flags Rally into a single blog.  We’ll present this story in six or seven separate blogs. This is just the first one…the introduction…something to whet your appetite, as they say.

Stay tuned!