Another Tale of Two .45s…

We’ve done “A Tale of Two Guns” pieces before here on the ExNotes blog, and we’ve specifically done a “Tale of Two .45s.”  That earlier piece was on the Rock Island Compact 1911 and a Smith and Wesson Model 625.  The Rock Island Compact has become my favorite handgun and it’s the one I shoot most often.  I wondered:   How much accuracy am I giving up by shooting a snubbie 1911?

When I call the Compact a snubbie, I’m referring to the fact that it has a shorter barrel. You know, a standard Government Model 1911 has a 5-inch barrel, and the Rock Island Compact has a 3.5-inch barrel.  There’s nothing inherently more or less accurate about a shorter versus longer barrel.  What could make an accuracy difference, though, is the sight radius (the distance between the front and rear sights).  The longer barrel 1911 has a longer sight radius, and that theoretically should make it more accurate.

A Colt bright stainless steel full-sized 1911 Government Model, along with a box of reloaded .45 ACP ammo. The standard 1911 barrel length is 5 inches, and that’s what this handgun has.  This particular 1911 has been extensively customized, with a view toward extreme reliability.
The Rock Island Compact 1911. This inexpensive .45 auto has a 3.5-inch barrel. It’s become my favorite handgun.

I was taught to shoot the 1911 by one of the best. Command Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman, a US Army Marksmanship Training Unit NCO, taught me the basics (you can read about that here). I’ve been shooting the .45 since 1973, and I’ve been reloading ammo for it about that long, too. I used to be pretty good, but I’ve slowed down a bit. Hey, speaking of that…here’s a video of me playing around at the range with the Colt bright stainless .45 auto…

The video above is real time…it’s not been modified from the video that came straight out of the camera. But I couldn’t leave it alone. My choices were to spend about a zillion hours on the range and maybe shoot up another zillion dollars of ammo to get really good, or to just use my video editing software to have a little fun. I went for Door No. 2…

Okay, enough goofing around. Let’s get serious, and get to the real topic of this blog.  I went to the range with the two 1911s shown above with two objectives in mind.  I wanted to test different loads to see which was the most accurate in each gun, and I wanted to see if there really was a difference in accuracy between a standard size 1911 and the Compact.

I brought along different loads with two different propellants (Unique and Bullseye) and several different bullets (a 230-grain moly-coated roundnose, a 230-grain plated roundnose, a 200-grain plated roundnose, and a 200-grain cast semi-wadcutter).  I fired all groups at 50 feet from a two-hand-hold, bench-rest position.   All groups were 5-shot groups.  I then measured the groups and took the average group size for each load.

Different .45 ACP bullet configurations. From left to right: A 200-grain roundnose plated bullet, a 200-grain cast lead semi-wadcutter bullet, and a 230-grain moly coated cast bullet.

I know that using a hand-held approach as I did is not the way to eliminate all variability except that due to the gun and the load, and my inability to hold the gun completely steady was a significant contributor to the size of the groups I shot.  A better approach would have been to use a machine rest (you know, the deal where you bolt the gun into a rigidly mounted support), but like my good buddy Rummy used to say, you go to war with the Army you have.  I don’t have a machine rest, so all you get is me.

Because I introduced so much variability into this accuracy assessment, I thought I would throw out the largest group for each combination of load and gun, and take the average of the four best groups.   I did that, and then I did it again by throwing out the two largest groups for each combination of load and gun.   Doing so predictably made the averages smaller, but the relative ranking of the different loads from an accuracy perspective pretty much stayed the same.   That’s good to know.

Before I get into the results, let me tell you a bit about the two handguns. The Compact 1911 is a stock handgun, as delivered from the factory, with the exception of a Klonimus extractor (which I installed because the factory extractor failed after about 1000 rounds). The Colt has been extensively customized by my gunsmith (TJ’s Custom Gunworks in Redondo Beach), with a view toward 100% reliability with any ammo.  That handgun is probably worth $2500 as it sits now. The Compact 1911 can be had for a little over $400.

Okay, that’s enough background.  Let’s get to the bottom line…

Interesting stuff, to be sure.  Most of the variability you see in the above table (and you can see that there’s a lot) was me.  A machine rest would have provided for better groups, but you get what you get, and what you get here is me.

As I expected, the 5-inch 1911 is a bit more accurate than the Compact. The best average group with the full size Colt 1911 was 2.018 inches.  The best average group with the Compact was 2.851 inches.   Okay, so at 50 feet that’s 8/10 of an inch difference, and as they say, that’s close enough for government work.  What was surprising was how accurate the Compact is.  You really don’t give up much in accuracy between the two guns.  And, look at the last row of the above table.  I fired one group with the Compact (and what is now my preferred load) that hung right in there with the Government Model.  More on that in a second.

In the Rock Island 1911, the 230-grain moly bullet was the most accurate load I tested.  After I did the five groups to get an average group size, I fired one more group with this load in the Compact and it was a scant 2.083 inches.   Yeah, this gun is accurate enough.

In the Colt, the most accurate load was with the 200-grain semi-wadcutter bullets over 6.0 grains of Unique.   This load fed flawlessly in both the Rock Island Compact and the Colt.  My Colt has been throated to feed semi-wadcutter bullets; the Rock Island has not been (usually, a 1911 requires that the feed ramp be opened up and polished, or throated as we say, to feed semi-wadcutter bullets).  But the 200-grain semi-wadcutter load failed to eject twice in the Compact.  The Compact is fussy about ejection, and the two failures convinced me that this load won’t work reliably in the Rock Island without additional work.  For now, I’m sticking with the 230-grain roundnose load.  It’s completely reliable for both feeding and ejection.

You’ll notice that one of the Government Model five-shot groups with the 230-grain moly coated bullet and 5.8 grains of Unique was a tight 0.960 inches.  The bottom line is that this load is a good one.  Yeah, the other groups with that load were larger: It’s that shooter variability thing again. Both the Compact and the Colt are capable of greater accuracy than what I could do.

The moly-coated 230-grain bullets shot tighter groups in the Colt than did the plated 230-grain Extreme plated bullets.  That’s consistent with my observations over the years.  Cast bullets seem to be more accurate than plated bullets in any of the .45 autos I’ve shot.  But, the 200-grain roundnose plated bullet did pretty well in the Government Model, too.   I didn’t test that load in the Compact.

The bottom line to all of the above:  My standard .45 Auto load is going to be 5.8 gr of Unique with the 230-grain moly coated cast roundnose bullet.  It fired the best overall group (at 0.960 inches) in the Colt, and it was the best load for the Compact.  This load functions well in both guns, with no anomalies in feed or ejection, and it’s accurate.  The only problem I may have is that moly coating fell out of favor some time ago, and I don’t know if any one is still offering moly-coated bullets. I have a stash of the 230-grain moly bullets, so I’m good for a little while.  After that, it’s back to the loading bench and the range to find the next favorite load.

Regarding the two handguns, I love them both.  That bright stainless Colt Government Model has had a lot of work done to it (a Les Baer barrel, custom fitting, porting and polishing, engine turning, and Millet Hi-Viz sights).  The Rock Island Compact can be had new for something a little north of $400.  It’s a phenomenal value.  The Compact is a lot more concealable, and surprisingly the recoil is only very slightly more than the bigger Colt.  And, as I showed above, it’s accurate.   The Rock Island is a hell of a 1911 at any price, but at it’s current price, the Rock Island is an absolute steal.  I like the look of the Compact, too.  The Parkerized finish, simple wood grips, and low profile fixed GI sights remind me a lot of the 1911s I carried when I was in the Army, and I like that.

Check out our other Tales of the Gun stories here!

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The plaintive wail of a high performance motorcycle…

As the title implies, there’s nothing quite like the plaintive wail of a high performance motorcycle.  If you’re good enough, you can identify specific bikes just by (dare we say it) their ExhaustNotes.  Harleys have their distinctive rumble, a ’60s Triumph Bonneville sounds like raw power, the Ducati dry clutch rattle, you get the idea.  Do you think you know motors?   Hey, see if you can identify this one before you see it…

A couple of cool videos…

Two cool videos are making waves this week.  One is a recent release by my good buddy Buffalo Bonker about his recent ride across Iowa on his RX3…

I met Buffalo on one of the CSC Baja rides, and the guy is a hoot.  He bought the RX3 to go on the Baja ride (he had never ridden a motorcycle before), and since then he’s completed a number of great adventures, including a ride through Vietnam.  Most impressive, and thanks for allowing us to share your video here on the ExNotes blog, Buffalo!

The other video of note is good buddy Joe Gresh’s review of the Royal Enfield Interceptor, which continues to rack up the views…

Joe Gresh has a number of outstanding videos, and it you’d like to see more, just drift on over to our YouTubby page!  We’ve just updated our video page, with more videos and better organization to make things easier to find.   We have shooting videos, riding videos, motorcycle reviews, and more.  Enjoy!

Hey, you know what?   We think you should sign up for our email updates, and you can do so by adding your email address to the widget on this page.  We’ll never give your email address to anyone else, and you’ll automatically be entered to win a copy of Destinations, our latest moto adventure book!

Ascot AMA Nationals

In San Diego I lived across the street from a Safeway food market. Man, I never ran out of anything. That Safeway is now a West Marine boat supply store. They got nothing to eat in the whole damn place. But back then, around 1980, it was a great food source.

In my pad I had a tiny refrigerator with one of those wine-in-a-carton things inside. My buddy Mark found it in the road, not far from the house. Nobody I knew drank wine, or at least that wine. There was a perforated cardboard section that you knocked out and inside was a hose that connected to the plastic sack of wine. It was practical as hell, like a battery acid container. The hose had a shut off thingy, you kind of rolled the shut off onto a ramp until it pinched the hose closed. The wine tasted bad. Maybe it got hot in the sun out in the street. No telling how long it was there before Mark found it. Whenever anyone would drop by I’d ask if they wanted some wine, that’s what adults do. It was still in the fridge a few years later when I moved away.

I’d leave my one bedroom, one bath rental house on Point Loma’s Locust Street around 5pm. My bike was a 1968 electric-start XLH Sportster converted to kick start. Because electric kickers are for Honda riders, man. From Point Loma I’d reel onto Interstate 5 and roll the throttle on, lane splitting for 15 miles to Gene’s house in Mira Mesa. Back then every subdivision in San Diego sounded like one of the wooden sailing ships that discovered America: The Nina, The Rancho Bernardo and The Santa Antiqua. I guess they still name California things that way. Streets are Calles or Avenidas. Townhouses are called Don Coryells, after a football coach.

Gene had a 1973 Sportster, the one with the crude looking steel bar bent into a U-shape to secure the top shock absorber mounts. The result of AMF cost cutting. My older Sporty had a beautiful cast part welded into the frame tubes performing the same function. You couldn’t see either one once the seat was installed but I knew it was there. Gene knew it too. Gene was my wing man, my BFF. We used to drink in bars and shoot pool after work. It was nothing to stay up late at night, I only needed a few hours sleep. In those years Harley-Davidson motorcycles had a terrible reputation. Their riders were no prize either. We liked the way the bikes sounded and the way they looked.

California traffic was just as bad in 1980 as is today. We lane split all the way to Oceanside where the northbound traffic would thin out for 30 miles or so then lane split to the 405 and past the “Go See Cal” auto dealership. Cal’s dog Spot was a lion. He was featured in Worthington Ford television ads. It was nerve wracking bumper to bumper riding all the way til dusk and the exit for Ascot park Raceway.

I saw my first Ducati Darmah in the parking lot at Ascot. It was the most beautiful bike I’d ever seen. The squared off crankcases were works of art. Our iron-head Harleys looked like civil war relics next to the Darmah. Like Genus Rattus, man. I didn’t envy the Ducati. I was still a hard core Harley guy. Pretty don’t mean nuttin’ to us. Fast, reliable motorcycles are for the weak. I still feel that way.

I may have this wrong but Ascot held two AMA Grand National races each year. Every race I went to was advertised as the final race because the track was closing to be sold. This went on for 12 years until the track really did sell. One National was a standard flat track race and one National was a TT, which is a standard FT track with a bump and a right hand turn. Usually by the time Gene and I got up there the heat races had already started.

Ascot wore its years well. The stands were uncomfortable and crowded. AMA Nationals are big deals. The restrooms were dungeons. We would eat bad food and drink beer and watch the best racing anywhere until 11pm at night. Being part of the hundreds of motorcycles leaving Ascot was a real thrill. The riders were fired up from the racing and we rolled it on to 405 and then 5 to the El Toro Road exit and the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant. Bob’s was a tradition for AMA Nationals. The burgers were small and nearly tasteless, the little triangle salads were frozen and the fries were thin as shim stock. Bob’s was a good place to feed your Genus Rattus.

Because we were riding so late, no matter what the time of year it was always cold on the way home from Ascot. Long, empty stretches of interstate 5 stuffed each gap in your leather jacket with a chilling, low hanging fog. The cold would quiet your mind. Focus on your breathing now, keep still, those iron engines loved the cold. I could see Gene’s Sportster chuffing away in the dark, tiny glints of chrome primary case flashed in sync with my wobbling headlight. Both our Sportsters ran straight pipes and Interstate 5 sounded like the back straight of Ascot. Except we never chopped the throttle.

South of La Jolla the air temperature would rise and dropping off 5 onto Rosecrans Street wrapped sea-warmth around my body. I loved that part of the ride. The shivering was over, I could smell ocean smells. My muscles relaxed. This early in the morning Rosecrans is deserted, I have to run the red lights because the sensors in the pavement cannot pick up motorcycles. The only sound is my 900cc Sportster slowly rowing through the gearbox, rumbling home.

Making Scents of things..

I started writing this bit thinking that I had a good idea for a series of men’s colognes.  Then I realized:  In my entire 68+ years on this planet, I’ve never used cologne, and I can’t remember hanging around any guys who ever did.  So I started thinking…my thoughts for this blog hovered around aromas I enjoy, so maybe these should be women’s colognes.   Whatever.  There’s a request at the end:  We’d like to know your thoughts, too.  Got any suggestions?

In-N-Out.  I can’t drive by an In-N-Out Burger during business hours without inhaling that delightfully inviting aroma of grilled onions, beef, French fries, and the other good things the In-N-Out folks have assembled into what is unquestionably the best meal in town.  And every time I do, I have to fight the temptation to pull in and get an Animal Style burger.  A perfume capturing this fragrance might be the best advertising for In-N-Out ever.   It would drive me nuts.  Here’s my vote for the name:  Oil of In-N-Out.  Or maybe Eau de In-N-Out. Whaddaya think?

WD-40.  Ah, another great fragrance.   It actually stands for Water Displacement No. 40, and that’s because it’s the 40th formulation the WD-40 company tried before they arrived at the perfect compound for displacing water, acting as a lubricant (no emails, please; I know it’s not a replacement for gun oil), a cleaner, and Lord only knows what else.  WD-40 is the kiss of death around any kind of epoxy bonding, soldering, or welding operation (in fact, many of my failure analysis activities centered on getting WD-40 out of high-tech cleanroom environments), but it’s perfect for just about anything else.  And, as is the point of this blog, it smells good. It would make a great perfume, I think.  WD-40 is a silicone-based lubricant, so somehow silicone has to figure into the name.  Help me out here, folks!

Sausage and Peppers.   This has got to be another classic aroma.  Who has ever smelled sausage and peppers (maybe with a little onion thrown in) on the grill without getting hungry?  I love that smell and I find it inviting.   As a cologne?   Yeah, it would work.  I don’t know that I could get Sue to use it, but ladies, take my word on this….that aroma works.  The only problem might be finding the right name.  Maybe we could go Italian and call it Salcicci y Peperoni, you know, to give it a Continental flair.  Yeah, that could work.  Salcicci y Peperoni, sold in fine stores everywhere.

Hoppes No. 9.  I love that smell.  I would probably have become a gun nut even if I wasn’t fascinated by guns just to have a reason to use Hoppes No. 9.  It hints of good times past and present, and it’s an aroma that reaches back decades.   If there are any perfume or cologne companies out there reading this, pay attention to this one, folks.   You don’t need to spend big bucks on market studies or focus groups…I’m telling you, this is the one.  All I ask is that if you bring a Hoppes cologne to market, tell me about it a few weeks before you do.  I’ll buy as many shares of your stock as I can.   Eau de Hoppes.   That’s great.   Oh, yeah, I’ve used the Eau de thing already for In-N-Out.  Here’s one that’s even better:  Love Potion No. 9.  I can hear the advertising jingle already.

Fresh Cut Grass and Gasoline.   This is a weird one, but it works.  I’m remembering east coast summer evenings when I had to mow the grass back on the ranch.  The smell of gasoline and fresh cut grass somehow just works.  Maybe it’s because of the memories I have of those pleasant New Jersey summer evenings, fireflies, and mowing the lawn.   The trick was to wait until well after dinner when things cooled off, and to start early enough to get the whole thing done before it got too dark.   To twist a phrase from Robert Duvall, I love the smell of gasoline and fresh cut grass in the evening.   I’m having a bit of a problem coming up with a catchy name, though.  Any suggestions?

Two Stroke Exhaust.   I already have the perfect name for this one:  Blue Smoke.  I think it’s perfect.  Admittedly, it would have to be an acquired taste; folks either love that smell or they hate it.  I’m in the former camp.  I’ve only ever had one ring-dinger my entire life, but I remember going to the half-mile dirt track races when the 250s were running, and in those days, the 250s were all ring-dingers.  You could smell the exhaust as soon as you entered the parking lot outside the stadium back then, and it was exciting.   It promised good things to come. Yeah, this could work.

Bacon.  Hey, who doesn’t like bacon?   The challenge here is a name that doesn’t make the person wearing it sound like a porker.  Hmmm.  The Italian word for bacon is, well, bacon.  And the Italian word for lard is lardo.  Nope, neither one of those will work.  Ah, but the Spanish.  Bacon becomes tocino.   I can hear it now.  Adorn yourself with the gentle yet intoxicating and inviting fragrance of Tocino.  Indeed, that works well.

Chili.  This one is a maybe.   Personally, I love the aroma of a well-seasoned chili, especially if it’s done in a slow cooker and the flavor fills the house.  It could be beef, venison, a decent cut of wild boar, elk, whatever.  The meat is almost secondary to making a great chili.  Red chili flakes, tomatoes, onions, Anaheim chili peppers, and cumin.  Cumin’s the thing that makes a good chili great.   Maybe that could be the name.  Cumin.   Yeah, I like it.   Cumin.  Put a little spice in your life.  What do you think?

Coffee.  The best coffee in the world comes from Puerto Rico.  If you don’t believe me on this, I don’t care.  I know.  Two Popes ago, Pope John (that’s right, the guy in the Vatican) used to send his jet to Puerto Rico regularly to pick up coffee.  I’ve been in Colombia, and while their coffee is good, it’s not Puerto Rican coffee (no offense, Juan Valdez).   But any coffee will do first thing in the morning (even Gresh’s powdered Nescafe), and I think everyone can agree (regardless of where you fall on the political or geographic spectrum) that a strong coffee fragrance early in the morning has to be one of the best aromas on the planet.  They wouldn’t make coffee-flavored ice cream if coffee wasn’t a good idea.  And (get this) if you came out with a coffee perfume, the distribution network is already in place. It’s called Starbucks.

So there you have it.  Did I miss any?  Hey, let me know in the comments section below.  Operators are standing by…

Dropped bikes…

This is a blog I wrote maybe 15 years ago for a  friend who dropped a very expensive motorcycle while putting it on the sidestand. He was really upset with himself and I thought he might enjoy hearing about the times I dropped my bikes. I stopped writing after the fifth or sixth memory because I was laughing so hard I thought I might hurt myself.  This particular blog has made the rounds…it’s been on my original photosite (motofoto.cc, which went by the wayside a long time ago), and the CSC Motorcycles blog, and now this one.

So, here goes….

Drop Number 1 – Impromptu Stargazing

My friend Louie and I were wrapping up a hard 500-mile day through Arizona back in the 1990s. I know what you are thinking….500 miles is not that much for a solid day’s riding, but it was brutally hot in the way that only Arizona can be in the summertime. I was on my vintage Honda CBX and Lou was on his Gold Wing. We stopped for gas and Louis filled up first. While I was filling up the CBX, Lou rode over to the air hose to top off his tires. I filled my tank, fired up the CBX, and rode over to Lou, paralleling the sidewalk.  I put my kickstand down and started to lean the CBX over.

The next thing I knew I was staring at the stars. I had no idea what happened for a few seconds, and then I realized:  I had fallen off my motorcycle, and I was laying on my back looking up at the evening sky!

The first thought that went through my mind was: “Did anyone see me do this?”

I hadn’t even been drinking! How could that have happened?

Well, what happened was this: When I extended the sidestand, the sidestand hit the curb before it fully extended and it didn’t go all the way forward. And then, when I leaned the CBX over, it just kept on going.

Total damage? One turn signal lens cover, one scratched fairing, and lots of lost pride.

Drop Number 2 – Lock-to-Lock Has Meaning

This time, I was easing into my own driveway on my 2-week-old Suzuki TL1000S. Gorgeous bike. Bright red. A real rocketship. As I made the sharp turn into the driveway, I turned the forks to keep my balance. Lock-to-lock turning (you know, how far you can push the bars from one side to the other) on the Suzuki is waaaay less than any motorcycle I had ever ridden.   And as it turns out (pardon the pun), that really makes a difference when you’re trying to balance a bike at low speeds.

The bottom line? I couldn’t turn the bars far enough to keep my balance at low speed.

The results? BAM! Suddenly, the TL and I were both on our sides in my own driveway!

The first thought that went through my mind was “Did anyone see me do this?”

Total damage? One scratched fairing and lots of lost pride. Lots and lots of lost pride.

Drop Number 3 – Them Darn Sidestands Again

A couple of weeks after Drop Number 2, I was letting my now 4-week-old, slightly-scratched TL1000S warm up in the driveway. The bike was on its sidestand, facing south. Just past my garage door, the driveway slopes down ever so slightly. Really slightly. I mean, hardly any slope at all. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the Suzuki move forward a bit. Nah, I thought, it’s gotta be an optical illusion.

Two seconds later: BAM! The Suzuki was on its side!

Wow, I thought, this thing sure likes laying down in my driveway.

My next thought: “Did anyone see me do this?”

The results? I couldn’t tell. The fairing was scratched, but maybe it was the same scratch from 2 weeks ago. No lost pride this time, but lots of cussing about Suzuki engineering and lousy sidestands.

Drop Number 4 – Dismounting As An Olympic Event

This time I was winding out my 4-month old TL1000S on the road from my brother-in-law’s place. Wowee, I thought, this thing is fast. I must have hit 80 miles an hour when I realized I gotta slow down. That Suzuki slipper clutch works great, I thought…. just keep downshifting and it’s almost like an ABS system on the rear wheel. Hmmh, that curve is coming up awful fast. Maybe I’ll just give it a touch of front brake.

Uh oh, I thought as I unloaded the rear wheel when I got on the front brake. That corner is really coming up fast now, and the back end is fishtailing all over the place. I almost had that sucker stopped when the front wheel just touched the curb. Down we both went, again. I executed a precision somersault as I departed controlled flight and rolled up into a sitting position.

The first thought that went through my mind was “Did anyone see me?”

This time, the answer was yes. There was a lady in a station wagon, who stopped and asked “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, lady, I did that on purpose.” I didn’t know what else to say.

The results? I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was just the same scratched fairing. Again, lots and lots of lost pride. No injuries, though. My lucky day.

Drop Number 5 – The Prize Winner

This time I was changing the front tire on the CBX in my garage. I put the bike on the center stand and removed the front wheel. Bikes with center stands are great, I thought. Once I had the front wheel off I started thinking about the replacement tire. I used Bridgestone Spitfires on that bike and they were great. I decided I would get the raised white letter Spitfire tires this time. That would really look cool.

Well, I thought, if I do that I have to get the back tire to match. So, I thought, I might as well take the back wheel off, too. I’ll just get them both changed at the same time.

This is the point at which things took a decided turn for the worse. And, I’ll admit to having already had a few beers. What could I have possibly been thinking?

Well, I guess I was still thinking about how cool raised white letter tires would look on my pearl white CBX, and I started to remove the rear wheel. The rear axle bolt was on really tight. I decided I needed to get a bigger wrench, you know, more leverage, that sort of thing. I thought I might as well get another beer while I was up, too. I grabbed another beer, got the longer wrench, found the leverage I was looking for…and…..and…

Uh, oh, the CBX started to roll forward off the center stand, and, whoa, there was no front wheel there….funny how everything seemed to be happening in slow motion at that point.

The moral of this one? If you’re gonna screw up, screw up big time. Why just drop a bike when can find a way to drop it so that it falls over into your wife’s brand new car?  Yep, that’s what it did.  Creased it nicely.   “That won’t polish out,” I remember thinking.

The bottom line? One dinged-up sports sedan, one thoroughly upset wife, one busted and cracked CBX oil pan (an item no longer made by Honda), oil all over the garage floor, and the certain knowledge that while center stands are good, they are not that good….

So, if you’ve ever dropped your bike, don’t feel too bad. It happens to all of us.  Sometimes more than once.

If you’ve got a story about dropping your bike, please add it to the comments section.  We’d love to hear from you!

Canon S100 Review

The only camera that survived our 40-day, Zongshen RX3 China tour was the one inside my cell phone. My Canon 5D, that weighs a ton, broke its battery door and the 28-135 zoom lens actually fractured and stopped zooming. It sounds like the gears inside are broken. Both were inside a padded camera bag and the bag was wrapped in extra clothing. Don’t let anyone tell you we didn’t pound on those Zongshen RX3’s.

My go-to travel camera, a little Canon S95, also could not survive the rough Chinese trails we explored. The S95 suffered a broken screen and refused to boot up due to a broken top plate. Again, this camera was in my jacket pocket and not rattling around in a bag. We ride hard, you know?

Back in the USA the 5D battery door was an easy $7 fix. The 28-135 zoom lens is still broken and the parts to fix it are nearly as much as a used lens. I may not even replace it as I’ve gotten away from hauling the big 5D on motorcycle trips. It’s a great camera that takes beautiful pictures but magazines and web sites do not require technically perfect photos, only interesting subjects.

The Little S95, by dint of its size was harder to fix. I bought a new top switch plate for $14 and using a microscope, replaced the part without damaging a lot of other parts in the process. To my surprise the little camera booted up and would take photos. The broken screen was slightly annoying but the worse problem was that the front ring did not work anymore. The S95 really needs that ring to operate correctly. I’m pretty sure I broke the ring in the process of installing the top switch. These tiny digital cameras pack a lot of components into a tiny space. Fixing them is nothing at all like concrete work. The S95 was consigned to the busted camera drawer.

Joe Berk and I recently went to Mexico to road test the new Royal Enfield 650 and that trip convinced me that I needed a decent point and shoot camera. The cell phone camera is great but there were times I needed zoom but didn’t feel like digging out the big camera. I wanted a pocket DSLR.

Back to the busted camera drawer and the S95 I went. The parts to fix the screen and the front ring switch cost around $50. Add to that the $14 I had already spent, and the fact that I would probably end up breaking something else while fixing the S95, and things were looking glum for my S95. The little beat up Canon is a great shooter and I’ve had two-page spreads published in magazines with it, so while I hated to give up on an old friend I began to look for a used, working S95.

Prices for used S95’s hover around $100 for a fairly straight, functioning example. The funny thing is the next generation model, the S100, was the same price as the older unit. With a wider and longer lens and a much faster processor than the S95 the only thing making me hesitate was the S100’s bad reputation for a lens error glitch. When the glitch hits the lens stays extended and the machine refuses to take photos. So it’s kind of a major glitch, you know? Here you can see the extra bit of S100 (left) vs S95 (right) wide angle.

Here you can see the extra bit of zoom. S100 on left.

I researched the camera forums and found some S100 owners never have the lens error and of those that did a ribbon wire falling out of its socket was the cause for most of the failures. So I bit on a sweet 100-dollar, S100 that looks like brand new and seems to function perfectly.

The S100 boots up noticeably faster than the S95 but I am never in that much of a hurry. It will burst a bunch of shots faster than the old model. This may come in handy for action shots. The wide-angle lens is only noticeable when comparing both cameras side by side. When it comes to photography, more is always better. I’m happy with the little S100 and can’t wait to try it out on a motorcycle trip. If I ever go on another motorcycle trip, that is.

The Three Flags Classic: The Run Home

So there we were in Calgary.  Wow.  And we’d ridden there on our motorcycles through all three countries (Mexico, the United States, and Canada).  It had been a grand ride, but it was only half the trip.   Now, it was time after a fun two days in Calgary for the ride home.

Before diving into our ride home, though, you might want to catch up on the ride to Calgary.   Here are the first seven installments of our story on the 2005 Three Flags Classic…

The 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally:  the Intro!
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 1
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 2
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 3
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 4
The Three Flags Classic:  Day 5
The Three Flags Classic:  Calgary

And now, on to the run home!

The plan after the events in Calgary was to select our own route home and ride it at our own pace.  The official portion of the 2005 Three Flags Classic was over.  It had been a blast.  On the run home we would decide where to go, how to get there, and how long to take doing it.   Our plan was to head west across Canada from Calgary toward British Columbia, turn left somewhere above Washington, meander over to the coast somewhere after Portland, and follow the Pacific coast home.   It was to be another grand adventure, and wow, we were having fun!

On the first morning out of Calgary, we stopped in Banff and had a great breakfast. Smoked salmon and eggs, as I recall.  It was delicious.

The road through Banff. It was a crisp morning and the riding was great.
We walked around in Banff a bit after breakfast. This bear skull was for sale in a store window.
Good buddy Marty posing with the 1200 Daytona in Banff.

The ride that morning was beyond glorious.  Crisp, clean air, cool temperatures, and all was well with the world.   The big 1200 Daytona was running superbly well and the scenery was magnificent.  Every scene was a picture postcard, and I caught a lot of them.  Incidentally, all of the photos you see in this story were shot with film.  I had my Nikon N70 with me and just two lenses (the 24-120 Nikon, and a 17-35 Sigma).  Great scenery, great photo gear, a great motorcycle, and great photo ops.  Life was good.  It still is.

After that great breakfast in Banff and a bit of walking around, were back on the road headed west across Canada.  Our next stop was Lake Louise.

The Lake Louise Hotel.
The Lake Louise Hotel lobby, courtesy of the 17-35 Sigma lens. This place looked very expensive. In our dead-bug-encrusted road gear, we looked out of place.
A statue near Lake Louise, erected by the Canadian Pacific Railway, honoring the Swiss Mountain guides.  When building the railroad through the Rockies, the Canadian Pacific Railroad needed guys who knew how to find their way around in this kind of terrain. They bought mountain guides in from Switzerland.
Lake Louise. It gets its greenish hue from glacial silt.
The road crew in front of Lake Louise.
There were signs around Lake Louise advising us to be on the lookout for grizzlies. Wow!

We continued heading west and then south through Canada, and we spent the night in Penticton, about an hour north of the border. Penticton is an interesting resort town, complete with a large lake and a casino. I had a smoked salmon pizza for dinner. Love that smoked salmon.

We crossed the border early and re-entered the U.S. into Washington. We were honking along pretty good, not 30 minutes into the U.S., when a Washington State Patrol officer pulled us over for speeding.  It was early, maybe 6:30 in the morning, and the officer was heading north when we were heading south.  He lit us up as he passed by, I saw him do a “Smokey and the Bandit” u turn in my rear view mirror, and we pulled over immediately.  The officer pulled up behind us.  When we took our helmets off, he looked at us and said, “Ah, old guys,” while shaking his head.  He told us to slow down.  The trooper was an old guy, too.  I think he felt a connection.  No citation.  We chatted a bit.  We were lucky.  Yeah, I’m an old guy, but riding that Triumph always made me feel like I was 18 years old.  “I don’t know why you boys aren’t getting tickets today,” the trooper said and then he told us to ride safely.  His strategy worked. We rode across Washington at a sedate 60 mph for the rest of the day. It took forever.

Somewhere north of Yakima, Washington.

We stopped in Goldendale, Washington, for a cup of coffee in a local bar, chatted with the locals for a while, and then we had one of the most scenic rides I’ve ever taken.  It was to be one of the best parts of the ride, and it was through the Columbia River Gorge.  The roads and the scenery were incredible.  It was the first time I’d ever seen it, and I’ve been back there several times since.  It was an area I knew I had to include when we hosted the Chinese for the ride through the American West, and I wrote a piece about the region for Motorcycle Classics magazine.  The Colombia River Gorge is one of my favorite places in the world.

Marty, headed into the Columbia River Gorge.

We rode along the north side of the Columbia River for about half the length of Washington, and then we crossed into Oregon on the Bridge of the Gods. It was probably 300 feet above the river, and it was one of those iron mesh bridges that you can look down and see all the way to the river.  It looked and felt like I was flying, and it was unnerving.  I looked down once and that was enough for me.  We then found our way into Portland, and checked into a hotel I knew from a previous business trip.

Portland, looking out over the Willamette River.

Portland is a very cool town.  Marty and I had fun exploring it, and in particular, stopping for lunch at the Olympian.  I later did a story on the Olympian, too, for Motorcycle Classics.  The Olympian has a fantastic vintage motorcycle collection.

Kelly’s Olympian Bar. This is a cool place to have a drink.
Inside the Olympian. It’s a “must see” spot on any ride through Portland.

We left Portland before sunrise early the next morning and headed southeast toward the coast.  Oregon is a wet state. We had a lot of mist in the morning riding through the rain forest, and it was eerie.  I half expected to see Sasquatch jump out and grab me every time I wiped my face shield.  Then, we arrived at the Oregon Coast Highway, and yep, that ultimately became a story gracing the pages of Motorcycle Classics, too.

Sasquatch is down there somewhere.
Hippy Bob, who we met on Oregon’s Pacific Coast Highway.

The people you meet are the best part of any motorcycle ride, and on the Oregon Coast Highway, we met a guy who introduced himself as Hippy Bob.  Hippy Bob had hit the Oregon lottery for $5,000 and he immediately bought a Harley basket case for $4,500.  Bob was taking his time working his way down the coast from Portland on that motorcycle (Bob had been on the road for two days when we met him, and he had only traveled about 200 miles south of Portland in that time).  I was really interested in Hippy Bob’s motorcycle, as I hadn’t seen a Shovelhead Harley on the road in years.  His was a 1981 model. I used to own a 1979 Electra-Glide (with the Shovelhead motor), and I called it an optical illusion because it only looked like a motorcycle.  Things were constantly breaking on my Harley.  I asked Bob if he had any problems with his Shovelhead, and that opened the floodgates.  Bob just went on and on about the nonstop challenges he had faced keeping his Harley running.  He was still talking about it when we left.

We rode the Coast Highway all the way south to Highway 138, and someone told us to watch for the elk further east.  We did, and wow, were we ever impressed.

Wow.
Wow again!
A bambino.

We spent the next night in Roseburg. The hotel was literally next door to the Roseburg Harley-Davidson dealer. We looked at the new 2006 Harleys (it was the first time I had seen them, and they looked good). I bought a Roseburg Harley T-shirt.  There’s that old joke…you know, for a T-shirt company, they make a pretty good motorcycle…

Our destination the next morning was Crater Lake. Was it ever cold that morning!  We rode through more beautiful scenery, but the temperatures were damn near debilitating.  I need to tell you that we had been seeing signs warning of elk crossings for much of our time through Washington in Oregon, but the only elk was had seen so far were the ones off Highway 138.  I had mentally dismissed the elk warning signs until what happened that morning.  We saw another elk warning sign, I was trying to stay warm with my electric vest cranked up all the way, and then all of a sudden about 300 yards further up the road, the largest elk I ever saw stepped in front of us.  I stopped, Marty stopped, and the elk stood broadside, just staring at us.  He was daring us to proceed.  That bull owned the road.  He knew it, and he wanted to make sure we knew it, too.

Now, you have to picture this scene.  We were the only ones out there, having a staring contest with this elk that was the size of a house, on a bright sunny freezing morning.  Steam was coming out of the elk’s nostrils, and mine, too.   I flipped my visor up because it was fogging over.  The elk stared at me.  I stared at it, wondering if I could get the bike turned around if the elk charged.  I could see the headlines:  Motorcyclist Gored to Death By Enraged Elk.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the elk looked away from us, crossed the highway, and disappeared into the forest on the other side.   I started to let my clutch out, and then a female bounded out of the forest on the right and followed the bull into the forest on the left.  I stopped and waited a second, and then started to roll forward.  Then another female elk appeared.  We stopped again.   They just kept coming. Big ones, little ones, more big ones, more little ones, and well, you get the idea. I realized: Those elk crossing signs are for real.

Then it was on up to Crater Lake.  It was beautiful, and it would become yet another Motorcycle Classics article.

My Daytona parked along the road circling Crater Lake.
Yep, that’s snow.  It was cold up there!

The area around Crater Lake was downright scary. There are steep drops on the side of the road, no shoulder to speak of, and no guard rails. There are lots of signs warning that you could get seriously hurt or killed up here.  On the way down, we encountered ice on the road.  I love riding; I hate riding on ice.  I was concentrating intensely when out of the corner of my eye I saw a yellow motorcycle closing in on my right rear and I remember wondering who else would be nutty enough to be up here riding on the ice, and who in the world would try passing under these conditions?  Then I realized: It wasn’t another motorcycle.  It was my motorcycle, and the ass end was sliding around.   The back end of my Triumph wasn’t going in the same direction as the front end.  That was a close one.

After Crater Lake, we buzzed down to the California border, almost got stopped for speeding again (the CHP cruiser going the other way hit us with the lights but didn’t come after us), and we made it to Davis, California. We had dinner with Marty’s son, and then headed home the next day.

A trip like this is one of life’s grand events. It’s hard to say what part of it I liked best: The camaraderie, the people we met along the way, the scenery, the riding, the wildlife, the memories, the photo opportunities, the sense of adventure, or just the sheer pleasure of being alive and out in the world.

Here’s a summary of the miles that Marty assembled:

• 9/1/05 Upland, CA to Tijuana, BC: 139
• 9/2/05 Tijuana, BC to Gallup, NM: 657
• 9/3/05 Gallup, NM to Grand Junction, CO: 419
• 9/4/05 Grand Junction, CO to Driggs, ID: 569
• 9/5/05 Driggs, ID to Whitefish, MT: 526
• 9/6/05 Whitefish, MT to Calgary, AB: 366
• Total for Three Flags: 2,676
• Miles ridden within Calgary, AB: 6
• 9/8/05 Calgary, AB to Penticton, BC: 430
• 9/9/05 Penticton, BC to Portland, OR: 468
• 9/10/05 Portland, OR to Roseburg, OR: 288
• 9/11/05 Roseburg, OR to Davis, CA: 469
• 9/12/05 Davis, CA to Upland, CA: 427
• Total for return trip: 2,082
• Total for round trip: 4,764

The Three Flags Classic Rally is one of the world’s great motorcycle rides, and if you’ve never experienced it, you might consider signing up for one of these rides.  You can get more information on the Three Flags Classic on the Southern California Motorcycle Association website.   I’ve done some great rides in my life; the Three Flags Classic was one of the best.

The 375 H&H at 100 yards…

Here’s a quick update on the .375 H&H that I promised a few posts ago.  In that post, I mentioned that I had been shooting the Remington Model 700 Safari Grade at 50 yards for my load development work, and I mentioned that I wanted to try it at 100 yards.

The Remington Safari Grade Model 700, chambered in .375 H&H Magnum.

I did, and the bottom line is that I shot the tightest groups I’ve ever shot at 100 yards using iron sights (i.e., not a scope).   Take a look.

Two 3-shot groups fired at 100 yards, with iron sights, off the bench. The first round fired through a cold and lubricated barrel hit almost exactly to point of aim (it’s a little hard to see in the photo). Once the bore was fouled, the rifle grouped very tightly a couple of inches to the right.

My point of aim was at 6:00 on the bullseye, and the groups I shot were worthy of a scoped rifle.   I may need to adjust the rear sight to bring the group over to the left a couple of inches or so (which is a bit funny, because at 50 yards the windage seemed perfect).  The elevation is perfect; the point of impact is even with the point of aim for elevation.  When I shot those groups it was overcast, and that could account for the rifle printing a bit to the right.  Our range is aligned such that in the morning the sun is to the left, and that makes the left side of the front site a bit brighter than the right side.   Because it was overcast the day I shot the target you see above, the sunlight-induced bias wasn’t present.  That could account for the groups offset to the right.  I’ll wait and shoot it again when the sun’s out to see where the rifle hits.

I am enjoying this rifle more and more.  It’s got it all…good looks, power, and it groups like a target grade rifle.

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The Wall

Here at ExhaustNotes.us we are all about the motorcycle, with a smattering of gunplay and interesting adventure destinations thrown in to keep the place hopping. But what if there were no bikes, adventures or bullets? What then? Keep reading and I’ll tell you what then, Bubba.

Concrete, my friends, and the mixing of it is the solution to a lackluster moto-life. Dusty and powder soft with an aggregate backbone, believe in it and concrete will provide. Trust in it and it will repay you a thousand times. The grey dust keeps me going because lately I haven’t been riding motorcycles or watching Emma Peel on YouTube so there’s nothing to write about except the grey dust. The grey dust keeps me hoping for some far-off, much better two-wheeled days.  Think of this as an ExhaustedNotes blog.

Situated in the steep-ish foothills of the Sacramento Mountains, Tinfiny Ranch is slowly bleeding into the arroyo, you know? You put down your cold, frosty beer and the next thing you know your Stella is halfway to White Sands National Monument. On the lee side of The Carriage House we’ve lost a good 18-inches of mother earth because while it doesn’t rain often in New Mexico when it does rain it comes down in buckets. This sudden influx of water tears through Tinfiny Ranch like freshly woken kittens and sweeps everything in its path down, down, down, into the arroyo and from there on to the wide, Tularosa Valley 7 miles and 1500 feet below. Claiming dominion over the land is not as easy as they make it sound.

So I put the motorcycles away and took a cudgel to Tinfiny. I pounded, I dug, I formed and I poured. I am building a wall and Mexico has not stepped up to the plate with the promised assistance. The thing has grown to 70 feet long and varies in elevation from a foot to 4 feet high. Repetition has honed my skills: I can do 8-feet of wall every two days and the days stretch on and on. I figure I’ll stop when I run into the Pacific Ocean.

After the wall is up the resulting divot will require filling with dirt. I have lots of dirt on Tinfiny Ranch; the conundrum is where to borrow it from without causing even more erosion. I’m hoping that leveling the back yard will provide most of the needed fill.

I’ve made the wall porous to keep water from backing up behind it and poured L braces in an attempt to keep the wall from toppling over. The beauty of the wall is that it will work in any orientation. I’m nearly ready to start the slow process of dumping dirt and compacting it 6-inch layer by 6-inch layer until the land is even with the top of the wall. At that point the floodwaters should flow over the wall spilling into the arroyo. Unless, of course, the hill becomes so saturated that the entire wall slips into the arroyo. And I become one of those questing specters drifting the canyons wailing my banshee wail, never resting, never finding peace.