The ExhaustNotes Blog

Reloading Part I: Equipment and Components

The finished product: Reloaded .45 ACP ammunition. This handcrafted ammo is tailored for my 1911, and it is much more accurate than factory ammunition. Our blogs on reloading will cover the equipment and components needed, and the steps involved, in reloading ammo for the .45 Automatic.

I’ve had a few requests for a blog on reloading. You know, not just favored loads for different cartridges, but how to go about reloading. I know it can be a bit intimidating if you’ve never done it, but (trust me on this), learning how to reload adds an entirely new dimension to shooting, and many of us view reloading as being as much fun as shooting. In fact, one of my friends often jokes about shooting…he says it’s what we do so we get to reload ammo again.

A very cool guy named Roy Johnson taught me how to reload when I was in the Army. I was assigned to Fort Bliss, Texas, and Roy ran the Rod and Gun club there. Roy was a colorful El Paso fixture, and they named the road to the Rod and Gun club Roy Johnson Lane when he died. I was 22 years old when Roy taught me how to reload, and I’ve been reloading ever since.

I thought I would approach this topic in two or three parts, with the first blog focused on the equipment and components you’ll need to reload, and a subsequent blog or two on the actual reloading process. I had to pick a cartridge, so I thought I would start with the first one I learned to reload: The .45 ACP.

With that as a backdrop, here we go…

Reloading reverses the process of firing a bullet, and reversing that process requires several pieces of equipment.

One part of the equipment list is the dies that force the fired brass case back into shape (the brass expanded during firing) and knock the used primer out of the case.

A set of RCBS carbide dies for the .45 ACP cartridge.

A die set consists for a pistol cartridge typically includes three dies. From left to right, they are the resizing die (it sizes the brass case back to original dimensions and punches the primer out of the case), the expander die (it opens and flares the case mouth to accept the new bullet), and the seating die (it seats the new bullet in the case and removes the case mouth flare).

I stick with RCBS dies, as I’ve learned over the years they work best, but there are other manufacturers out there. I also use Lee dies for a few of the cartridges I reload (they are typically less expensive than RCBS dies, and they are as good). An added advantage of the Lee dies is that they include the shellholder with the die set, so you don’t have to buy a separate shellholder and pay extra for it. I don’t care for Hornady dies, but as they say, your mileage may vary. I’m the guy doing the writing here, so I’ll share my experiences and preferences, and I like RCBS and Lee. A new set of RCBS carbide dies are a little north of $50; Lee dies are typically $10 to $15 less than the RCBS dies (and like I said earlier, the Lee dies come with a shellholder).

The business end of the carbide resizing die. The red arrow points to the carbide insert.

I use carbide dies for pistol cartridges. A carbide die has a super-hard carbide insert that interfaces with the brass case, and it allows you to squeeze the case back to its unfired configuration without having to lubricate the case first. The downside is that carbide dies are slightly more expensive than non-carbide dies. For straight-walled pistol cartridges, there are three dies in a set. We’ll discuss in more detail what each does in Part II of this series.

You will also need a reloading press and a shellholder for the brass cartridge case. I use an RCBS Rockchucker press I bought new nearly 50 years ago when Roy Johnson taught me how to reload. A good press lasts forever.

The RCBS Rockchucker reloading press. A good one lasts forever. The red arrow points to the shell holder. Different cartridges take different shell holders. We’ll see how all this stuff is used in Part II of our reloading series.

A scale is necessary for measuring propellant charges (also referred to as powder). Several companies offer scales specifically designed for reloading.

My RCBS reloading scale. Like the Rockchucker press shown above, I’ve been using this for a half century.

It’s a good idea to have reloading trays for the cartridges. These are relatively inexpensive, and they seem to last forever, too.

Reloading trays. These hold the brass cases we are going to reload, and allow for easy tracking and inspection of each reloading process step.

A powder dispenser allows you to dispense the correct amount of propellant in each cartridge case.

A powder dispenser, and the propellant I like to use for loading .45 ACP ammunition. I bought that dispenser back in the day, along with the scale and the press. My preferred propellant is Unique.

At this point, we’ve covered the equipment necessary; let’s now turn to the components. One is the propellant you see in the photo above. As seen in the photo below, for the .45 ACP cartridge, I prefer Unique.

You’ll need previously-fired cartridge cases. You can also buy new brass that has never been loaded if you don’t have any, or you can buy factory ammo, shoot it, and save the brass. I don’t think I’ve ever purchased new brass for the .45 ACP, mostly I had plenty available from my days in the Army. The .45 ACP cartridge is a relatively low-pressure cartridge, and the brass seems to last forever. I’ve been reloading the brass you see here for a long time.

Fired .45 ACP brass. It’s dirty. I usually polish mine, but it’s not necessary that you do so. We’ll talk more about that in the next blog.

Polished .45 ACP brass. It cleans up well and it seems to last forever (look at the stamps on the two cases on the left).

You’ll need primers. The primer is the little cap that the firing pin strikes when you pull the trigger. There are two or three companies making primers these days. I usually buy whatever the shop has in stock. I haven’t found that primers make a difference in accuracy or reliability for handgun shooting.

Winchester primers. We’ll talk about the tool you see below the primers, and how to install the primers, in the next blog.

And finally, you will need bullets. I’m using moly-coated 230-grain roundnose lead bullets these days, like you see in the photo below, mostly because I have a bunch of them in my reloading locker. Many other bullet configurations are available.

Bullets. I usually buy them in boxes of 500 because I do a lot of shooting. There are different kinds of bullets available, but that’s a discussion for another time, too. If you’re just starting out and you’re reloading .45 ACP ammo, my advice is to get a 230-grain roundnose bullet in either cast or jacketed flavors. It will feed reliability in nearly any 1911. We’ll talk more about this in the next blog, too.

There’s one other item I strongly recommend you purchase, and that’s a reloading manual. These manuals list different loads for different cartridges and different bullets and propellants. The whole idea here is to experiment with these combinations (within the parameters provided by the manuals) to find the recipe that produces the best accuracy and reliability in your gun. My preference is the Lyman manual, as it lists different bullet manufacturers and cast bullets, too. You can buy manuals from the bullet manufacturers, but the downside there is they only show data for their bullets.

You can buy all of the equipment separately (as I did a long time ago) or you can buy a complete kit that has everything you need to get started. RCBS has a kit that goes for about $350. Lee has a similar kit for a lot less (about $150), and it will get you into the reloading game. I have a friend who bought the Lee kit a few years ago, he uses it to reload .308 Winchester ammo for his Model 700 Remington, and the ammo he makes routinely delivers 1/2-inch groups at 100 yards. With either kit, you’ll need to buy the dies required for the cartridge you wish to reload, and the components as described above.

You might be wondering: Where do you buy this stuff? Most gun stores sell reloading equipment and components. Cabela’s and Bass Pro are two that come to mind. You can also buy components and equipment online from places like Amazon, Midway, Natchez Shooter’s Supply, Grafs, and other places. Buying the energetic components online gets a bit more complicated (propellants and primers), but the stores can fill you in on that. In most areas, there’s usually a shop that is known for being the best in your neck of the woods for reloading stuff, and you can find these places with a quick Google search or by asking around.

So there you have it. I’ve described the equipment and the dies you’ll need to reload the .45 ACP, but the procedures I’ll describe in subsequent blogs will be the same for nearly any handgun cartridge (.38 Special, .537 Magnum, .380, 9mm, .40 S&W, .44 Magnum, and .45 Colt). All you need will be different dies and shellholders, and of course, different types of bullets.

Our next reloading blog will cover the first steps of the reloading process. Stay tuned; it’s coming up!

Read our other Tales of the Gun stories for the loads we prefer. Disagree with anything above or want to toss your $0.02 into the discussion? Hey, there’s a comments section below and we’d love to hear from you.

One last thing…ever wonder what the “ACP” stands for in .45 ACP? Well, here you go…wonder no more.

What Do You Have In Your Project Bank?

There are more ways to measure wealth than money. Sure, traditionalists rely on a strict net worth approach, adding up the figures on electronic statements in a system where the winner is whoever has the highest number. You can count all sorts of things, though. You can count friends, you can count grandchildren, you can count experiences: These are forms of wealth that won’t show up on that balance email from the bank.

When it comes to future projects I am a very wealthy man. I’ve got them lined up out the door and around the corner. And my account keeps growing; with compound interest my Project Bank doubles every seven years. Most of these projects will never see the light of day but they remain secure in my thoughts, if not in my actions.

On of my largest assets is the 4-speed Suburban project. When I bought the ’90 ‘Burb it came with a malfunctioning automatic transmission. I hate automatics and malfunctioning ones even more so. The 700R4 works in Drive and Reverse but not in 1-2-3. The truck runs fine and it will tote a 3000-pound load without complaint but that boring automatic has got to go. It’s a rare Suburban that came with a 4-speed from the factory and even rarer to see a ½-ton version. I’ve only seen one 4-speed ‘Burb and it was ¾-on. This project keeps earning interest and I’ve been training a weather eye on Internet sale sites for a cheap, manual transmission, 4X4 GM truck to steal the guts from. I found a late model, 4X4-IFS 1/2-ton truck with a 5-speed and a nice FI engine that ran well but the transfer case and transmission housing were broken and besides everything was on the wrong side for the old straight axle suburban.

The chalky blue, 1974 MG GT came with Tinfiny Ranch and was listed as an out building on the deed. This car was on the chopping block until I started reading about MG’s with Buick 215 cubic-inch aluminum engine swaps. I really have to stay off the internet. The Buick engine triples the horsepower, doesn’t weigh much more than the iron 4-banger it replaces and sounds cool as hell revved up to 6000 RPM. This is one asset I kind of wish was not in my Project Bank as I’ve never been that interested in cars. Still, it’s there waiting on me.

Tinfiny Ranch itself is a huge source of endless work, but beyond the physical plant The Ranch continues to deposit surprises into my Project Bank. This Merry Tiller project revealed itself as I was hauling away two, multi-panel garage doors. The doors sections were stacked with spacers in the popular rat-paradise fashion and I gave chase to a couple fat rats but they got away from me in the thick brush down by the ravine. The Merry Tiller looks like it will come in handy for the raised-bed vegetable garden (yet another deposit in The Project Bank) I’m planning for the back yard. The engine on the tiller is not stuck and being a Briggs & Stratton I’m sure it will run so I’m leaving it in The Bank for safe keeping.

I will never be bored or lonely. My Project Bank is overflowing with cool things that need time and attention. After I level the back yard I’m going to build a shear wall for the shed, then I need to get back on the Zed. After that I’d like to pop a 6-cylinder + AX15 transmission into Brumby the Jeep. The Suburban needs new paint; I’m going to change it from black to white so it will be cooler inside. Better yet I’ll fix the air-conditioner, it’s all there except for the compressor. I really need a second rain barrel, too, as I’m leaving water on the table with only 2500 gallons of storage.

The projects pile one atop the other and the magnitude of the undertaking gives me a great sense of importance. When I die I want to be buried like a Viking in his ship except my grave will be filled with all the unfinished projects that kept me company while I was alive. You really can take it with you, mainly because no one else wants your junk.

Cast Bullets in a 1903A1 Springfield

Yep, by popular demand, it’s another Tales of the Gun piece, this time focused on shooting cast bullets in my 1903A1 Springfield. I like shooting cast bullets in a rifle, and my intent is to use the Springfield with cast bullets only. I have two good buddies who also own ’03 Springfields, and we’ve all been playing with different loads to see what works best. I think I’m out in front here. I’ve been sharing my results with ’03 buddies, and I thought I’d share what I’ve found with you, too.

My Springfield is one that was built up from parts as an ’03, but with the scant stock, so it is sort of a wannabe 1903A1 in essentially as new condition. I bought it from a guy who had it built up but hadn’t fired it. I’ve written about the Springfield before here on the ExNotes blog, but I had not gone into any detail on the loads I am developing for it. The intent today is to talk a bit about some of the cast loads I’m playing with for this rifle.

But first, here’s a look at my rifle. It’s a magnificent old warhorse…

The right side of my Springfield. Folks who know what they’re seeing have stopped to admire this rifle each time I’ve been to the range with it.

The 1903A1’s rear sight. It is a complicated little arrangement, which the government simplified dramatically on the 1903A3 version.

The man who built this rifle from parts knew what he was doing. Check out the cartouche.

The barrel on this rifle was a new old stock 1942 Springfield barrel.

I had reasonably good results in an initial range session with this rifle using 190-grain gas-checked bullets sized to 0.309. I have a local guy who casts these bullets for me. The idea behind using a gas check is to prevent leading the bore.

190-grain cast bullets. I like shooting cast bullets. There’s a story behind that, but it’s one for another blog. The copper thingamabobber on the aft end of these bullets is the gas check. The red stuff is bullet lube, designed to ease the passage of the bullet down the bore. Both the bullet lube and the gas checks serve to prevent leaving deposits of lead in the rifle’s bore.

For the initial range session mentioned above, I had prepared loads ranging from 21.0 grains to 24.0 grains of SR 4759 propellant, and I had the best results (just eyeballing the results) at 24.0 grains. In the first outing with the Springfield I wasn’t being too rigorous in my accuracy and test protocols; I just wanted to get an idea of what worked and what didn’t.

For my next set of accuracy tests, I went from 24.0 grains to 26.0 grains of SR 4759 in half-grain increments. Here are the results…

Test results for SR 4759 propellant and 190-grain cast bullets in the Springfield 1903A1. The yellow-shaded row highlights the best accuracy. 24.5 grains of SR 4759 is the secret sauce here.

The risk in assessing accuracy from any of these tests is that a lot of the variation is my aiming error, and the resulting group sizes may not truly represent how the different loads perform in the rifle. Based on the above data, though, it looks like my Springfield wants to be at 24.5 grains of SR 4759. My Lyman manual says the muzzle velocity at that charge is somewhere around 1750-1800 fps. That’s hotter than I normally would want to be with cast bullets, but the above loads didn’t lead the barrel too badly. Recoil was moderate. For these loads, I did not trim the brass cartridge cases and they were uneven, and because of that, I did not crimp the bullets. I’m pretty sure I can get better accuracy if I trim the brass to a uniform length, weigh each charge, and crimp (I’ve always found cast bullets do better when crimped).

The above results were encouraging. The accuracy with cast bullets was good, but not quite as good as my Mosin or my 1909 Argentine Mauser. The Springfield shot just under an inch at 50 yards, which would be just under two inches at 100 yards, and with cast bullets and iron sights, that ain’t half bad. My Mosin and my Argentine Mauser will sometimes shoot into a half-inch at 50 yards. The Springfield might do that, too, if I trimmed the brass and employed all of the other accuracy tricks mentioned above. The good news is that I’m getting there. It took a while to get everything right for the Mosin and the Mauser. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say.

Encouraged by the above results, I reloaded more ammo with the 190-grain cast bullets to confirm the SR 4759 propellant results and to evaluate a few additional powders, including IMR 3031, IMR 4227, IMR 4198, 5744, Trail Boss, and Unique. The reason I wanted to explore using other propellants is that SR 4759 is a discontinued powder. I have a stash of it, but my two Springfield buddies do not, and someday I’ll run out of 4759.

I was able to repeat the 4759 results (it’s a good propellant for cast bullets), and I found the other propellants show potential for great accuracy, too. Here are the results (all at 50 yards) with the other powders…

IMR 3031 and IMR 4198 are looking good. IMR 4227 is good, too.

It was raining when I shot the above loads and I got my targets and loads mixed up a bit (eh, it happens). I got enough out of the range session, though, to form some general impressions. The loads generally seem to fall into two categories:

Hotter loads. These loads were roughly 70%-80% of what jacketed loads would be (with recoil nearly like a jacketed load). Surprisingly, these had very little leading with the cast bullets. In particular, IMR 3031 worked well and it nearly had the recoil of a regular 30 06 jacketed load.

Milder loads. These were in the 1500 fps range. These have lighter recoil and were moderately accurate, but they drop significantly at 50 yards compared to the hotter loads. These are easy on the shoulder, but the drop put them off the target and they would require flipping the elevated ladder sight up on the ’03 to get back on target. For that reason, I’m not doing any more work with these. In this group, though, 13.0 gr of Unique gave decent (not great, but decent) groups. Trail Boss did okay, too. The Trail Boss loads were super light. Recoil was about like a .22.

The good news is that IMR 4227 works well in the 30 06 Springfield with the 190 grain bullets. (The reason it’s good news is that one of my Springfield buddies has a lot of 4227 on hand.) The bad news is that 4227 is not in the current Lyman reloading manual. I have older manuals from the 1970s that list 4227, and that’s where the load data came from.

In cleaning the Springfield after the above range sessions, I checked the action screws (the two that secure the barreled action in the stock) and while they were snug, they were not fully tightened. I tightened them and it’s likely accuracy will improve. Next time, folks. A properly-secured action, trimmed brass, crimped bullets, and good weather with no wind at the range…those half-inch Springfield groups are out there. I just need to find them.

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Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part VI

Ah, here we are…the final installment of the 2009 KLR Baja ride. It was a great ride, and if you want to catch up on the first five installments, you can do so here. Read on, my friends…

Ensenada, like Rosarito Beach, was an empty town, struggling with the impact of the 2008 Great Recession and the media’s obsession with demonizing Mexico. The streets were empty, devoid of tourists. We saw some cool cars, though, and I asked the guys around this one if I could take a photo.

The car club. They looked intimidating, but when I asked about their cars and if I could take a few photos, they warmed up immediately.

The club was friendly and we had a good conversation. The car in the background (the one shown above) belonged to Reynaldo, the guy with the Southeast sweatshirt. He explained that Ensenada had an active car club.

The guys asked me to grab a shotof the artwork on Robert’s car (he’s the tallest guy in the photo above), and here it is.

Ensenada in the early evening. It was as if a neutron bomb had struck the place. That neutron bomb was the LA Times.

I awoke early the next morning and took a few more shots walking around Ensenada. I like getting up early, and it seems that I always get great photos on these early-morning walks.

This is Edgar, whom I saw playing with a very energetic puppy in Ensenada’s La Patria park early that morning.

Three of Mexico’s great patriots in La Patria Square…Benito Juarez, Miguel Hidalgo, and Venustiano Carranza.

I found out Edgar’s name by doing my usual “Como se llama usted?” routine. After introducing himself, Edgar also introduced Brittany. It was nice meeting a dog in Mexico that appeared to have no interest in having me for dinner.

So, there you have it…four days and 1300 miles of KLR riding in a round trip blitz down to Guerrero Negro, with a few off-road excursions that resulted in more than a few interesting photos. The ride had been a blast, the Kawasaki KLRs performed flawlessly, and we visited places only accessible via dirt roads. And it was safe, at least as far as all the negative publicity about the narco-terroristas goes. The dogs (and maybe the odd tarantula or two), well, that’s another story…

If you are thinking of going into Baja, don’t let anybody scare you away. It’s a great place to ride, it’s safe, and it’s fun.

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Our Epic Motorcycle Rides page is up and we’re quite pleased with its appearance and its popularity. It’s become one of our two most frequently visited pages (the other is the Tales of the Gun page). We’d encourage you to visit both, and in particular, take a look at the videos from Colombia and China. They are a hoot!

Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part V

Read Parts I, II, III, and IV of the 2009 KLR Baja foray here!

Our planned stop for the evening (and our turnaround point) was Guerrero Negro. It’s a town just south of the 28th Parallel, which forms the border between Baja California and Baja California Sur, the two states in Baja. It’s about halfway down the Baja peninsula.

Guerrero Negro is an interesting town. It’s named for the Black Warrior (Guerrero Negro in Spanish), a sailing ship that sank off the Baja coast a long time ago. It’s one of the best spots to see the whales in Mexico (you can read about that here). The whales hang out in Laguna de Ojo Liebre (the Eye of the Jackrabbit), also known as Scammon’s Lagoon. I’ve been down there many times to see the whales, and it is one of life’s main events. That’s a strong statement, and if you’ve never seen the whales in Baja, you’ll think I’m exaggerating. If you’ve seen them, though, you’ll know I’m not. It’s a surreal and awe-inspiring experience. The whales are in town from January through March, so we wouldn’t be seeing them on this visit.

We usually stay at Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro. It’s a great hotel with a great restaurant. I had a cup of coffee that morning that was just perfect.

The little town of Guerrero Negro has another distinction: It’s one of the biggest salt producing regions in the world. The area has hundreds of square miles of shallow flats that the Mexicans flood with sea water. They let the water evaporate and then they bulldoze up the salt. Mitsubishi owns 49% of the production operation; the Mexican government owns the other 51%.

We stopped for fish tacos in Guerrero Negro’s Baja Mision restaurant. These were the only two dogs we saw on this trip that didn’t chase us.

Laura, our waitress in Guerrero Negro when we ate at the restaurant in the above photo.

John saw this Chinese restaurant in Guerrero Negro, which seems kind of funny. We had dinner there.

Chicken chow mein in Guerrero Negro. It was great.

I got up early the next morning and rode around for a bit, exploring Guerrero Negro. With all of the luggage off the KLR, it felt much lighter and faster. I grabbed a few shots around town. I rode through all of Guerrero Negro, including its residential areas. Another 8 or 10 dogs chased me, intending to do me serious harm. None succeeded. By this time itwas almost funny. See a dog, go like hell, hope for the best. It was grand sport.

This is a mural on Guerrero Negro’s supermarket wall.

This is one of the salt flats. When this area dries, the salt company will scrape up the salt, flood it again, and repeat the process.

As I mentioned above, Guerrero Negro was our turn-around point on this trip. Here’s a shot on the way home, in the desert headed north.

We stopped again in El Rosario, this time for a lunch at Mama Espinoza’s. This is their take on fish tacos. They were excellent.

Fish tacos at Mama Espinoza’s. Life doesn’t get any better.

Maria, our waitress in Mama Espinoza’s. There are a lot of ladies named Maria in Mexico.

After Mama Espinoza’s, we topped off at the Pemex station in El Rosario and continued north.

On the Transpeninsular Highway, south of Ensenada. I had to stop and grab a shot of this cactus path.

We rolled into Ensenada well after dark and decided to call it a day. That night we stayed in the Best Western in Ensenada’s tourist district, and it was nothing like any US Best Western. It was a really nice place. We unpacked and parked the KLRs right next to the entrance, and a guy who worked at the hotel put a rope barricade around them. We didn’t know if it was to keep people from touching the bikes, or if it was to isolate them for another reason…John’s KLR’s fuel petcock had developed a drip, and because of that, the area soon reeked of gasoline.

To be continued…

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Motoracism

Hugo, Joe, Tony and Zuo near Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota.

My good buddy Joe Gresh is an astute observer of the human condition and he writes about it well. This is a piece he did after the 5,000-mile Western America Adventure Ride, when we rode 250cc Chinese motorcycles from LA to Sturgis to Portland and back to LA. We had about a dozen riders and not a single motorcycle breakdown. The bikes’ stellar performance notwithstanding, we sure caught flak on the Internet about riding Chinese bikes (and it was only on the Internet; no one we met in person had anything but compliments for us and the bikes). Joe wrote a column titled “Motoracism” in the now-defunct Motorcyclist magazine about that trip (along with an outstanding story about the ride). Joe’s adept at stirring the pot by telling the truth, and the keyboard commandos crawled out in droves from under their bridges when “Motoracism” was published. Here’s the original article. Take a look…

Motoracism and Brand-Bashing in the Moto World
Are you offended by a Chinese-built bike?
Joe Gresh January 11, 2016

Look out! An army of strange bikes aimed at our heartland! Or is it just a line of motorcycles like any other, except this time they’re made in China?

We all suffer from racism’s influence. It’s an off-key loop playing from an early age, a low frequency rumble of dislike for the “other.” It’s ancient and tribal, a rotted pet forever scratching at the door because we keep tossing it scraps of our fear. Racism gives the weak succor and the strong an excuse for bad behavior. We work hard to become less racist, but exclusion is a powerful medicine.

Especially when it comes to motorcycles. Brand bashing is ancient, part of what motorcyclists do. It’s our way of hazing new riders and pointing out the absurdity of our own transportation choice. Unlike more virulent forms of racism, motoracism doesn’t prevent us from enjoying each other’s company or even becoming friends.

In web life, we are much less tolerant. Whenever I test a bike for Motorcyclist I spend time lurking on motorcycle forums. This is partly to gather owner-generated data, stuff I may miss in the short time I have with a testbike. Mostly I do it because it’s a way to rack up thousands of surrogate road test miles without having to actually ride the bike. Think of yourselves as unpaid interns slogging through the hard work of living with your motorcycle choice while I skim the cream of your observations into my Batdorf & Bronson coffee.

Every motorcycle brand has fans and detractors, and I enjoy the smack talk among riders. Check out the rekindled Indian/Harley-Davidson rivalry: They picked up right where they left off in 1953. Then there’s this Chinese-built Zongshen (CSC) RX3 I recently rode. Man, what a reaction that one got. Along with generally favorable opinions from Zong owners I saw lots of irrational anger over this motorcycle.

All because it was built in China.

To give the motoracists their due, until Zongshen came along Chinese-built bikes were pretty much crap. (I read that on the Internet.) Except for the Chinese-built bikes rebadged for the major manufacturers. I guess if you don’t know that your engine and suspension were built in China it won’t hurt you.

Mirroring traditional racism, the more successful the Chinese become at building motorcycles the more motoracists feel aggrieved. The modest goodness of the Zongshen has caused motoracists to redirect their ire at US/China trade relations, our looming military conflict in the South China Sea, and working conditions on the Chinese mainland.

Like Japanese motorcycles in the 1960s, buying a Chinese motorcycle today reflects poorly on your patriotism. You’ll be accused of condoning child slavery or helping to sling shovelfuls of kittens into the furnaces of sinister ChiCom factories. Participate in a Zongshen forum discussion long enough and someone inevitably asks why you hate America. I’ve had Facebook friends tell me I shouldn’t post information about the Zongshen—that I must be on their payroll. I’m just testing a bike, man. This reaction doesn’t happen with any other brand and they all pay me the same amount: zilch.

So if you’re angry about working conditions in a Chinese motorcycle factory, but not about similar conditions in a USA-based Amazon fulfillment warehouse (selling mostly Chinese products) you might be a motoracist. If you type moral outrage on your Chinese-built computer complaining about China’s poor quality control while sitting in your Chinese-built chair and answering your Chinese-built cell phone you might be a motoracist. If you’re outraged that the Zongshen 250 can’t match the performance of a motorcycle five times its displacement and five times its cost you might be a motoracist. I want you to take a thoughtful moment and ask yourself if your motoracism isn’t just plain old racism hiding behind mechanical toys. If it is, stop doing it, and let’s get back to bashing other motorcycles for the right reasons: the goofy jerks who ride them.

Good stuff, and great writing. If you’d like to read Joe’s piece about the ride, just click here. And if you’d like to know more about the RX3 motorcycles we rode on our ride through the American West, just click here.

Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part IV

The view, peeking out from the Mission San Velicata de Espana ruins.

Read Parts I, II, and III of the 2009 KLR Baja foray here!

When the Transpeninsular Highway continues south after leaving El Rosario, it crosses a long bridge across the dry Rio El Rosario and then winds into the mountains on the northern edge of the Valle de los Cirios. The wilderness starts here, and it is awesome. I love this area. It’s the first place you encounter cardon cactus and the cirios. These things grow only in Baja (you won’t find them anywhere else on the planet). The Cardon are the giant cactus that look something like the saguaro cactus in Arizona, but the cardon are much, much larger. The cirios are the weird-looking thin shoots that grow to heights of around 30 or 40 feet (maybe even more). Someone once wrote that they look like a plant that Dr. Suess would have designed, and I think that’s a good description. They have this kind of weird, whimsical, goofy look…the kind of thing one might create when under the influence of, well, whatever your preferred mind-altering substance is.

I grabbed a few shots of our KLRs a few miles into the mountains. You can see the cardon and the cirios in the background.

My KLR 650. I had the Kawi soft luggage on it and a Nelson-Rigg tank bag.

John’s KLR. These bikes just keep going and going. They’re perfect for this kind of ride.

Baja cacti. It’s one photo op after another in Baja.

A shot along the Transpeninsular Highway in the Valle de los Cirios.

Baja John standing by my KLR. The background almost looks like it’s been painted into this scene.

After rolling along the highway a few more miles, I saw something out of the corner of my eye on the road. At first I wasn’t sure, and then as I was playing back the image mentally, I decided I needed to turn around and take another look…

Yep, my eyes weren’t playing tricks. I had seen what I thought I saw. Is that correct grammatically? Whatever. The spider was huge.

Wow, that was one monstrous tarantula! We parked the bikes and started taking photos. This spider was easily double the size of the tarantulas I’ve seen in California.

John got down in front of the tarantula. He squatted to get a closer look, and then something wild happened. The spider ran straight at John. We were both shocked at its speed. They normally seem very deliberate and slow, but I have to tell you, that one moved terrifyingly fast.

John jumped up, screamed, and propelled himself backwards faster than a Democrat mistakenly wandering into a Trump rally. John was paddling backward so fast he looked like an old Warner Brothers roadrunner cartoon.

We both laughed after it happened. Here we were, two guys old enough to know better, screwing around with a ginormous tarantula in the middle of the Baja peninsula, laughing like a couple of kids. Baja does that to you.

Look at this fellow’s little beady eyes. And his hairy butt. That’s quite a hairdo. It kind of reminds me of Beavis and Butthead. Come to think of it, those might be appropriate names for John and me.

The tarantula crawled under a plant, I took a few more photos, and we were on our way.

I think I already mentioned that I had my Nikon D200 on this trip and an older (non-VR) 24-120 Nikon lens. I mostly shot at f/8 (the 24-120’s sweet spot) in the aperture mode, which is a mode that works well for me. I also had the 12-24 Tokina wide angle lens along for the ride, but I never even mounted it on the camera. The 24-120 is not a macro lens, but it did an acceptable job here. The Tokina lens does a good job, too, but the 24-120 Nikon was handling everything for me on this ride.

Our next planned stop was the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata. We almost didn’t go. I had been spooked by the dogs, and I told John the night before that I wasn’t too keen on rolling through any more little villages with dogs. John waited awhile and casually mentioned that he really wanted to see some of the sights accessible only by dirt roads. I acquiesced and I’m glad I did. We saw some amazing things…things we wouldn’t have seen if we hadn’t wandered off road.

Further down the Transpeninsular Highway, we saw the sign for the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata and a dirt road veering off to the west. I took the turn first, and son of a gun, a dog materialized out of nowhere and started chasing me. This time the dog was so small it was funny. It was a little Chihuahua, and he looked anything but threatening. The little guy was behind me yapping up a storm and I was enjoying the chase. Those little legs were pumping for all they were worth and he still couldn’t keep up. It was me, the Chihuahua, and John (in that order) rolling down this dirt road. The pup was struggling to keep up, barking all the while and trying his best to be intimidating. I could hear John laughing behind me. I should have grabbed a picture.

On the road to the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata

The Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata was the only one in Baja founded by the Franciscans (the Jesuits did all the others). It only lasted from 1769 to 1818. It was built to convert the local Cochimi Indians to Catholicism (that was how it was advertised; basically, the missions were labor camps with a touch of that old time religion). Unfortunately, the Spaniards brought diseases for which the indigenous people had no immunity, and disease soon ravaged the area. The entire mission system in Mexico ended in the early 1800s, when Mexico gained its independence from Spain. It’s not a pretty story, but there’s a history here and it’s intriguing to visit these ancient places (especially when they are well off the beaten path).

The Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata. This is all that’s left of it.

Our KLRs parked in front of the mission ruins.

The place was amazing. I’d seen the sign and the dirt road to get to the mission on each of my prior Baja visits, but I had never been to see it. Getting there and taking it all in was fun.

After visiting the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana Velicata, we rolled south along the Transpeninsular Highway a few more miles and took another dirt road (this time to the east) to see the ruins at El Marmol. El Marmol was a world-famous marble and onyx quarry 50 years ago. Like the mission, we’d seen the signs for it on our earlier travels through Baja, but we had never made the trip out there to see it. I always wanted to see what El Marmol was all about, especially after reading about it in several Baja references. Carole Lombard had a bathtub made from El Marmol marble, you know.

The ride out to El Marmol was exciting. The road was rough and had deep sand in several spots. My friend Bob had previously told me that the best way to take this stuff was at high speed, and that’s what we did. It made an enormous difference. I could see the rough road beneath me, but the KLR’s long-travel suspension let me fly over it. It was almost an out-of-body experience. I enjoyed it. I was in the zone, and suddenly, we were there.

El Marmol. There isn’t much to it, other than a pile of big rocks. Folks still come out here to get the marble. We saw a few Mexicans loading some into a tiny pickup truck.

I bottomed the suspension in a few spots on the ride out to El Marmol, and this is what it did to my KLR’s license plate. Many first-gen KLR owners relocate their license plate up on top of the rear fender. Now I know why.

Two KLRistas at El Marmol. That’s my yellow riding jacket on my KLR. It seemed to aggravate any dog who saw it.

We stopped for a break on the way out of El Marmol where the dirt road rejoined the Transpeninsular Highway. We had a good conversation with Jose, a police officer from Catavina who consented to a photo.

There were two dogs hanging around the place watching John, Jose, and me. They seemed friendly enough when John gave one of them a snack. Then we got on the motorcycles and it was as if someone had flipped a switch. The dogs instantly turned mean, snarling and going after John, who was accelerating sharply way (a relative term, to be sure, when you’re on a KLR). There’s a rule in Mexico, I guess. If you’re a dog and you see a guy on a motorcycle, you’ve got a reputation to maintain. This time, though, both dogs went after John and ignored me. They chased John all the way back to the highway, with me following. Hey, that’s was okay by me. I’d already earned my combat pay.

The dogs chasing John, though, didn’t seem to have their hearts in it. They were chasing John like it was part of their job description and the boss was watching. Going through the motions. Phoning it in. You know the drill.

I thought about that as we continued south. I reasoned and hoped that as went further into Mexico (and we were about 350 miles into Baja at this point), the dogs might be nicer. Our next destination was Guerrero Negro, 500 miles south of the border. We would soon find out.

Check out our other Epic Motorcycle Rides, and watch the ExNotes blog for the next installment of the Baja KLR Khronicles!

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Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part III

When I left off with the last post about our 2009 KLR Baja trip, I had a dog hanging onto my leg on a dirt road just north of San Jacinto. It was terrifying, and what I was mostly scared of was that the thing might have managed to sink its teeth into me. If that had happened, there was no question but that I would have to undergo the rabies shots. In order to avoid doing that, I’d either have to know that it hadn’t penetrated my leg or I’d have to kill the dog and get its head to a lab to be tested for rabies (gruesome, I know, and don’t ask me how I know about such things). That second option wasn’t going to happen, and in any event, I had no idea where I could go in Baja to get the head tested. Nope, all my bets had to be on no penetration, or I’d have to go for the abdominal rabies shots.

When the dog finally released its grip, John and I slid to a stop a half mile further down the road and I frantically stopped to check my leg. I didn’t know if the thing had actually bitten me or if it had just got a mouth full of denim and boot leather. I didn’t feel the dog’s teeth penetrate me, but I was too adrenalized to feel anything.

It’s a good thing we were out in the boonies, and it’s a good thing no one was there to see what happened next. And what that was, well, let’s just say it was picturesque. It was me frantically undoing my motorcycle pants, and then my blue jeans, and dropping both, with John kneeling in front of me to look for bite marks. Anyone seeing this might get the wrong idea. I know, we’re close, but not that close.

I checked my leg and I didn’t see any bite marks. John examined me and it was official: I was unharmed. Had I not been wearing boots and my motorcycle pants, that probably would not have been the case. All the gear, all the time. It’s an adage that holds true. Dodged a bullet, I did.

So, toothmark-and-rabies-free, we rolled past another little cluster of dwellings, made a sweeping right turn as the dirt road followed the coast, and there it was…

The Isla Del Carmen, off the Pacific Coast near San Jacinto, after confirming I was not going to become a rabid motorcyclist.

We hung out by the Isla Del Carmen for a while and I took a bunch of photographs. The Isla Del Carmen sank right off the San Jacinto coast during a storm in 1984. I’d seen the wreck in another photograph, and now I was seeing it in person. It was awesome being there.

I like these photos, partly because of what we had gone through to get them (the rough roads and the canine assault), but mostly because it was a shot I had framed in my mind before we arrived and the actual photos turned out better than I had imagined. Indulge me. I’ll show you a few.

The KLRs in front of the Isla Del Carmen. That’s the Pacific in the background.

John’s is green. Mine was red. Loved those bikes. Simple, fast enough, and fun.

Baja John, at ease along the Pacific coast.

Leave something in salt water long enough…

After spending a while taking photos, we took the direct route out of San Jacinto heading east. It was another sandy dirt road, but it was hard packed and it ran relatively straight to the Transpeninsular Highway north of Camalu.

We stopped in Camalu for lunch. John and I opted for the chicken fajitas at the Las Brisas, a small restaurant, and our mid-day meal was amazing. Octavio, the owner and chef extraordinaire, took good care of us. We had a two-hour lunch, and we spent a lot of that time chatting with Octavio. It was fun.

John enjoying Octavio’s chicken fajitas.

This is Octavio, the propriet0r and Camalu’s philosopher-in-chief. He patiently explained to us that Camalu is the best place in the world. Who knew?

America and Palmyra, two young ladies in Camalu.

We got as far as El Rosario that second night, and we stayed in the El Sinahi hotel. It was an inexpensive, no-frills kind of place (exactly what I like in Baja).

We ate at a restaurant adjacent to the El Sinahi, and it was great. I don’t think it had a name, other than “Restaurant.” It didn’t need one. It was wonderful. You know, folks tell me I spend a lot of time talking about the cuisine in Baja. Guilty as charged. I love that aspect of exploring the peninsula. I guess there are bad restaurants in Baja. In 30 years of exploring the place, though, I haven’t found them.

Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat!

John had fish tacos, the quintessential Baja dish. They look great, don’t they?

I didn’t know it yet, but the rear window to my El Sinahi hotel room faced a neighbor’s yard. A neighbor with roosters. Lots of roosters. The kind that start cock-a-doodle-doodling at 4:30 a.m. Right into my window.
I had visions of making rooster fajitas, but I decided not to. Truth is, those things sounded so strong I didn’t know if I could take them in a fight.

There’s another abandoned mission west of El Rosario about three miles down a dirt road that winds through more small villages. We tried to find it that next morning, but we couldn’t. While rolling down that road, we encountered more Mexican dogs, and sure enough, the dogs came after us again. We outran them that time. We could have poked around longer trying to find the mission, but the dogs unnerved me. I reckoned that we had gone far enough to pass where the mission should have been, we never saw it, and I turned around. On our return through the area where the dogs chased us, we blitzed by at 60 mph. No dogs, no bites, and no problems.

Ah, but the day was just starting. A little further down the Transpeninsular Highway, in Baja’s Valle de los Cirios, we would be chased yet again. But this time, it would be by a titanic tarantula. But that’s a story for the next installment of our Baja KLR Khronicles.

Stay tuned!

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Bonnier Kills Motorcyclist Magazine

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. I’m not happy about it. In fact, I’m well pissed-off. Over 100 years of print publication down the tubes. I was a part of that glorious history for 10 years. MC mag was always my favorite. They had Burns, they had Boehm, they had Frank and they had that crazy kid that kept crashing GSXR’s. MC mag was way cooler and funnier than stodgy old corporate-Cycle World. When I first decided to submit motorcycle stories for publication MC mag was the only place I submitted to.

Bonnier bought most of the USA’s larger motorcycle magazines a few years back and instead of finding a way they have shuttered magazine after magazine. They’ve managed to turn the largest motorcycle enthusiast’s print group into a damn Internet blog. What a stunning waste of money. Bonnier is supposed to be the experts. The much-touted single-source vertical integration has become a major horizontal screw-up. Thanks guys. Thanks for screwing up nearly everything I liked about your books.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a blog (you’re reading this one), but a hard copy is forever and we motorcyclists need a permanent record of our existence. Besides, Motorcycle.com does the Internet better than anyone and they have Burns to boot. Vendor sites like Revzilla and Twisted Throttle are doing a great job reviewing what they sell and in-house sites like Indian, Hog and BMW keep us up to date on the latest models. I’m saying we’re covered: The world does not need a rump-Motorcyclist magazine spewing cheesy sponsored content on the Internet. The world needs the real thing.

Bonnier’s press release tries to spin the magazine’s closure in the best possible light citing MC’s huge social media reach. Most of those puffy numbers are a direct result of Brian Hatano’s work years ago and Ari/Zack’s well done YouTube channel. Anyway, as Berk and I have learned, Facebook friends do not equal views. When a page with a million-plus followers puts up an interesting post and gets two comments, I’m telling you the reach is just not there. I get more response from a post about adobe blocks.

Yeah, I’m angry at Bonnier. Not only for firing Jack Lewis and me (in their defense, we weren’t exactly killing it) but also for doggedly sticking with a failed process. Chris Cantle and the new crew were doing a good job with the magazine’s content but the masthead was bloated with salaries and middlemen making it a struggle to pay off the ossified blob smothering their best efforts. You could have given Cantle three guys, an art director and one ad salesman and they would have done just as well, and maybe even turned a profit.

Mixing Cycle World and Motorcyclist diluted both brands and the titles became a slurry of interchangeable writers. Competition between the two formal rivals became cooperation: It didn’t seem to matter who wrote what. The magazines lost their personality and sense of humor. They wrote like they knew they were doomed.

Instead of charging what it costs to produce the magazine like American Iron and other smaller operations, Bonnier stuck with trying to pay for the magazine with advertising and giving the book away free to create a large subscriber base. This stupid-ass method changes the customer base from the reader to the advertiser. And the readers knew it. Charge $29 a year for 12 issues and write to me, damnit!

I don’t know. Maybe nothing would have worked. To me it seems like Bonnier gave up. Instead of raising rates they gave up. Instead of publishing 12 times a year no matter what they gave up. Instead of building reader loyalty with old school give-away items like stuff bags, key fobs and T-shirts they gave up. Readers, just like writers, love to see their stuff in print. That positive interaction was killed when they got rid of the letters to the editor page. If Bonnier group doesn’t care what we think, why should we care what they think?

Nimble, focused magazines that charge what they cost to produce seem to be doing ok for the moment. Their subscriber numbers might be lower but the numbers are real and they make money. It might be as simple as charging more for the product. The hated Cycle World is still publishing today, barely, and what they are doing is not working. Unlike Motorcyclist, it’s not too late for Cycle World. The question is whether Bonnier Corp has the will power to attempt something different and well proven, or give up like they have done so many times in the past.

Baja 2009: The KLR Khronicles Part II

This is a story about a 2009 Baja KLR ride. In Part I, we covered the ride from southern California to Rosarito Beach.

The breakfast at Velero’s in Ensenada was impressive (it always is), and it was a glorious morning as we rolled south.

Two KLRs headed south in Baja. John forgot his toothbrush, and I wasn’t going to let him use mine, so we stopped at a farmacia so he could buy a new one.

We had several offroad explorations in mind as we rode deeper into Baja that morning, but our first stop was at a farmacia. I like Mexican pharmacies. Here in the US in 2009, all the stories in the news media were about the drug wars in Mexico. Right church, wrong pew, as they say: The US news media had the wrong story. The real drug story in Mexico was (and still is) how cheap prescriptions are down there. You don’t need a prescription in Mexico for many of the drugs that require prescriptions in the US (like penicillin, and prednisone, and Lord knows what else), and meds are trivially inexpensive. The drugs are the same as what we get in the US (literally, the same, from the same US manufacturers in many cases). I wish our so-called “investigative journalists” would write an expose on that topic, but they were too focused in 2009 on killing the tourism industry in Mexico with distorted news about the drug wars. Go figure.

We continued south on the Transpeninsular Highway. There’s about a dozen miles of traffic leaving Ensenada, and then Baja switches suddenly from squalor to splendor as the road climbs into the mountains and descends into Baja’s wine country. It really is spectacular. If you’ve never made this ride, or if you’re idea of going into Mexico is TJ or Ensenada, you need to venture further south to start to get a feel for the real Baja. Trust me on this.

John and his KLR on the Transpeninsular Highway in Baja’s wine country. This is where the beauty of Baja begins to emerge.

Ah, Baja. It was beautiful. It always is.

Our first excursion in the dirt would be to the abandoned mission in San Vincente, well into the desert and well south of mountains. We saw a sign for the mission and took a dirt road heading west from the Transpeninsular Highway. As it turned out, there was a lot more out there than just an abandoned mission.

The sign pointing to the Camino Real mission ruins.

We first saw a building we initially mistook for the mission. It was a private home (one of several). We were stunned. The homes were magnificent, tucked away in the hills down a rough, soft sand road. I’d been by San Vincente on many prior Baja rides, but I had no idea the hills held such secrets.

We saw a young lady and asked her for directions to the mission. She pointed and told us to go over a hill. We did, and the first thing we found was a well-maintained rural cemetery.

I’m in no hurry to be buried, but when it’s time, this might be nice. If there’s such a thing as elegance in a graveyard, this place had it.

There was something about the cemetery that was simultaneously captivating and tranquil. It seemed to come from another era, and after reading the headstones we saw that it did. It was meticulously maintained. It’s always nice to see that.

Impressive. A family plot. The wife lived to be 100. Imagine that.

Magnificent. I shot all the photos in this series with my old Nikon D200 and the first-generation 24-120 lens. It was state-of-the-art in 2009. I took a lot of pictures with that camera.

After the cemetery, we found the San Vincente Mission. The local folks are restoring it. I’d seen signs for the mission on the Transpeninsular Highway, but this is the first time I’d ventured off the asphalt to see it. John and I were the only folks out there that day.

The San Vincente Mission was built about 300 years ago. It’s one of several that run the length of the Baja peninsula. I’ve been to several, and a few are still working churches. What’s left of the San Vincente Mission is not.

What’s left of the San Vincente Mission. The restoration was a labor of love. The mission’s adobe walls were being resurfaced. I need to get back there to see how it looks today.

The mission walls underneath the restoration.

We rode through the soft sand back toward the Transpeninsular Highway to the town of San Vincente’s contemporary church (which is visible from the highway). It offered great photo opportunities and we took a bunch. We wanted to enter the church, but it was locked.

John relaxing in front of the San Vincente church.

John yanked on the cord, and that bell was loud. We stopped. We didn’t want the San Vincente residents to think they were being summoned.

It was fun being out in these remote areas on the KLRs. The experience was a lot different than seeing Baja from pavement only, and John and I were enjoying it. I’m normally not a guy who likes riding dirt, but John had talked me into getting off the highway and I’m glad he did.

Shortly after leaving San Vincente, it was time to check off another item on our wish list, and that was seeing the Isla Del Carmen shipwreck. I wanted to see it, but I didn’t know exactly where the wreck was other than that it was somewhere off the coast near San Jacinto, so we took another dirt road due west for about 8 miles and hit the Pacific coast. Our plan was to intersect the coast several miles north of San Jacinto, follow it south, and find what was left of the Isla Del Carmen.

The dirt road along the coast was rough, and I’m being charitable when I call it a road. It was mostly soft sand. At one point the sand was so deep it was nearly impossible to control the KLR, so I wrestled the Kawasaki up into the weeds. It was a marginal improvement. I couldn’t see where the wheel was going, but at least the sand wasn’t calling the shots anymore. And before you tell me the trick is to get up to speed and float on top of the soft stuff, all I can say is hey, I was there. You weren’t.

Then we encountered something we hadn’t expected: Dogs. A pack of dogs, actually. And they were pissed. At us.

Well, that’s not quite accurate. Their anger was focused on me. Specifically, me. At least that’s how I felt.

In California, you almost never see a dog off a leash. In rural Mexico, you almost never see a dog on a leash. Those things are aggressive, too. We were chased by more dogs on this trip than I have been chased by in my entire life. They weren’t just interested in scaring us or getting a good laugh. Those things wanted us for dinner. Or rather, they wanted me for dinner. I’ll tell you more about the angry dogs of Baja as this story progresses, but one dog story at a time for now. And this one was enough.

I don’t like dogs. I was mauled pretty badly by one when I was kid, and I still have the scars to prove it. I know that those of you who have taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course or who have read about such things are thinking that being chased by a dog is no big deal. I know about slowing down, letting the dog calibrate his intercept based on your reduced speed, and then accelerating to confuse the cantankerous canine. That works on pavement if there is one dog. Try doing it in soft sand when there’s pack of four or five that are fanned out along your flank. In that situation, you are not just a motorcyclist. You are a potential meal. And that was the situation I found myself in that fine Baja afternoon.

A tranquil scene, don’t you think? It was right after I shot this photo that the dogs descended on us.

We were approaching a rinky-dink little fishing village, eyeballing the coast for the shipwreck, when the pack of dogs came after me. I think it might have been my green fluorescent riding jacket. Maybe they had an unhappy childhood. Maybe someone unfriended them on Facebook. Who knows. Whatever the reason, they were snarling and spitting and literally smacking their jaws as I tried to fool them with the slow-down-speed-up maneuver. In soft sand. Trying to keep the motorcycle vertical. Wondering what the hell I was doing down there.

Then it happened. One of the dogs got me.

I felt him crash into my right leg, and when I looked down, the thing had clamped down on my motorcycle pants just above my ankle. The dog was literally being dragged along for what seemed like an eternity. It locked eyes with me, and if there’s such a thing as telepathic communication, or maybe interspecies body language, the dog’s eyes said it all. It was not a pleasant message in either direction. The dog might have thought I was a sonofabitch; I had no doubts about him being one. I’ve known some SOBs in my life, but this bastard was the real deal. I didn’t feel any pain, but that’s normal in a traumatic situation. I didn’t know if the dog’s teeth broke the skin around my ankle, but I knew what it would portend if it had.

“Not good,” I thought.

I could see it all the while that miserable sonofabitch was clamped down on my leg, as he was being pulled along at 30 mph. What I saw was me making a beeline for the border to get medical treatment. Rabies shots, and who knows what else.

To be continued…

Hey, check out our other Epic Motorcycle Rides, and watch the ExNotes blog for the next installment of the Baja KLR Khronicles!