Motorcycles, Scooters, Guns, Adventures, Opinions, and More
Here’s a video that popped up on my YouTube this morning…
I have mixed emotions on the topic…I’ve been to Sturgis a couple of times (once, on a Chinese motorcycle), I’ve been in Chinese factories, I’ve managed manufacturing facilities where I had to contend with labor costs, and I’ve owned a couple of Harley-Davidsons. I guess if the answers were easy there wouldn’t be any discussion.
Motorcycle Classics published my latest Destinations piece, this time on New Hope, Pennsylvania. New Hope is a great destination in an historic place, and it’s a ride I used to do regularly back in the early ’70s on my CB750 Honda. Good times, those were. I recently made the trek again to write the story for MC, and the ride to New Hope through New Jersey’s rolling farmlands is as good as it ever was. It’s a good read, and Motorcycle Classics is a great magazine.
I’ve been writing for Motorcycle Classics for 10 years now, and if you’d like to see the complete collection, here you go! Joe Gresh, who is a much better writer than me, has been similarly widely published in Motorcyclist and other magazines, and if you would like to visit the grotto of great Gresh literature, here it is!
It sounds like Dave Dudley’s country western hit (I think that was 6 Days on the Road), but this isn’t about Freightliner fever or 18 wheelers. Nope, this is a suggested itinerary for an 8-day, 2000-mile ride from southern California through some of the best that Baja has to offer. It’s based on the multiple tours I’ve led for CSC Motorcycles, it’s best done sometime in the January/February/March time frame (that’s when the California gray whales are in Scammon’s Lagoon), and it uses Loreto as the turnaround point. Yeah, I know…you could go all the way to Cabo, but I’ve been there, done that, and there’s not much that’s interesting or pretty south of Loreto (unless you have a penchant for overpriced touristy hotels and refrigerator magnets).
To get to the point, here’s what a really great Baja adventure ride might look like…
One of the things you’ll want to make sure of before you start this ride is that you have Mexican insurance for your motorcycle (your regular insurance policy won’t cover you south of the border), and the best I’ve found is BajaBound. We’ll have another blog on BajaBound shortly, but you can trust me on this…I’ve tried several companies and BajaBound is the best. They are the only folks I use.
I can’t explain everything about the trip in one blog, so there are other articles on the ExhaustNotes Baja page about traveling in Baja. And if you have specific questions, please ask them here in the Comments section and I’ll do my best to get you answers. What I thought I might do here is add a few more photos, showing one or two from each day on a ride like this.
Day 1: Enchanted Ensenada
Day 2: The Long Haul to Guerrero Negro
Day 3: Whale Watching!
Day 4: The Sierra San Francisco Cave Paintings, San Ignacio, Mulege, and More!
Day 5: Bahia Concepcion, Loreto, and Santa Rosalia
Day 6: Santa Maria
Day 7: Tantalizing Tecate!
Day 8: The Short Haul Home
No photos here, folks…by Day 8 it’s a beeline home after a fabulous Baja ride! The last day is roughly 250 miles back to the LA area, and it’s an easy run.
I know if you’ve never ridden Baja you might have plenty of questions, so ask away!
Our series on Baja cuisine continues. Previous blogs covered the stretch from Rosarito through Ensenada, and then the stretch south of Ensenada down to El Rosario. In this blog, we’ll cover Catavina and Guerrero Negro.
Catavina
There’s not much in Catavina except rocks, a few structures, and the Desert Inn, but it’s a part of Baja I dearly love. My all time favorite Baja photo (the one that is the ExhaustNotes Baja page banner photo) is one I shot from the saddle of my CSC Mustang on a ride through this region, and it also adorns the cover of Moto Baja. The region has an other-worldly feel to it, with its vibrantly green and pale beige colors (as displayed by huge boulders and gigantic Cardon cactus) contrasting sharply with brilliant blue skies, all bisected by Baja’s Transpeninsular Highway. Amazingly, the boulders were formed by wind erosion (as my geologist buddies tell me). It’s a stark and beautiful land. I love it.
So, back to the topic du jour, and that’s the cuisine in this part of the world. The Desert Inn is a hotel chain spanning nearly the entire length of Baja. The Desert Inns are a bit on the pricey side for Baja (which means they’re still inexpensive by US standards), but the food in these upscale-for-Baja hotels is always good. The restaurant at the Desert Inn in Catavina has a cool arched ceiling tiled with bricks. It’s a cool motif.
The trick is to get arrive before the tour buses do, but even if a crowd gets in before you do, the wait staff is pretty good about attending to your hunger pangs quickly. I’ve tried nearly everything on the Catavina Desert Inn’s menu; the good news is that it’s all good. That statement kind of invites the question: So what’s the bad news? More good news…there is no bad news. I like this place.
Guerrero Negro
It might be part of the Scholastic Aptitude Test: Diamonds are to Tiffany’s like fish tacos are to…well, there can only be one correct answer, and that’s Tony’s El Muelle food truck in Guerrero Negro. Baja is known for fish tacos, and to those in the know, there are none better than those whipped up by my good buddy Tony.
Tony guy was killing it with a gourmet food truck before the gourmet food truck trend caught on in LA, and before that, he was selling fish tacos from a hand cart (I know, because I started enjoying them nearly 30 years ago…a story you can read about in Moto Baja). Just after you’ve crossed into BCS (Baja California Sur, about 500 miles south of the border), hang a right and follow the signs to Guerrero Negro. Tony’s El Muelle fish taco truck will be on the right as you enter town.
You can’t miss Tony’s. Just look for the people with knowing, anticipatory smiles standing in line. This is another one of those places that, all by itself, makes me want to hop on my motorcycle and head south.
Hey, there’s more. Tony is moving up in the world, and his new restaurant is under construction in Guerrero Negro.
Another favored dining stop and watering hole (especially if I’m spending the night in Guerrero Negro) is Malarimmo’s. Their restaurant is tops for breakfast, lunch, or dinner (everything is good), and they have an interesting bar. You’ll see a lot of cool objects hanging on the walls and from the ceiling in Malarimmo’s bar, all things swept south by the Pacific currents and picked up on the giant land hook around Bahia Tortuga. Buoys, driftwood, signs, parts of US Navy test aircraft…you name it, and it’s hanging in that bar. Taking it all in while enjoying any of Malarimmo’s dishes with a Tecate or a shot of Tequila (after the bikes are parked for the night, of course) is a most enjoyable experience.
There’s one more place I like a lot, and that’s the restaurant at the Hotel Don Gus in Guerrero Negro. It’s right across the street from Malarimmo’s, and I’ve stayed at the hotel and dined at the restaurant several times.
The Don Gus restaurant has great food and it’s a little less expensive than Malarimmo’s, which means it’s very inexpensive. I like the place, and I’m betting you will, too.
I thought I would add a few words today about the CSC City Slicker’s wheels and suspension.
First, the suspension. Slick’s front end has a conventional non-adjustable inverted front fork with 4.2 inches of travel, and the rear has a swingarm, pre-load-adjustable monoshock, arrangement with 4.3 inches of travel. Here are a couple of photos showing each:
The City Slicker’s suspension felt good to me, and the handling was razor-sharp. On prior internal combustion bikes from Zongshen (the RX3 and the TT250), we realized a handling improvement changing the fork oil from whatever the bikes shipped with to a 10W oil. The City Slicker did not feel to me like it needed this change. The front suspension feels good right out of the box. The was no bottoming out, nor was there any topping out (when the forks fully extend). The rear suspension felt firmer to me than it needed to be, but I noticed the rear shock had been set with the spring preload adjustment in the middle of the monoshock’s adjustment range. There appears to be plenty of room for adjustment. This can be accomplished by using a spanner to unlock the locknuts and relax the spring a bit (this assumes the spring is already compressed a bit with the adjustment as delivered by the factory). I haven’t tried this yet, but I will the next time I have an opportunity to do so.
The wheels on the City Slicker are 12 inches in diameter, which is the same as most scooters, the Honda Grom, the CSC Mustang replicas, and the original Mustang motorcycles. On one of the many recent forums discussing the new City Slicker, a poster commented that 12-inch wheels are dangerous…you know, you might hit a pothole in the rain and get thrown from the bike. I don’t think that should be a concern. The truth is this: 12-inch wheels are a common design on smaller bikes and they make for incredibly quick handling. When I was on my 150cc CSC Mustang replica, I rediscovered what Walt Fulton proved back in the 1950s (more on that in a second). My CSC 150 had 12-inch wheels (just like the original Mustangs) and it was awesome in the twisties.
Glendora Ridge Road, up in the San Gabriel Mountains, is just few miles from my house. It’s a great road from many perspectives, not the least of which is a set of glorious twisties. It is my favorite ride, and I wrote a story about it for Motorcycle Classics magazine. The point that I’m getting to in my very roundabout way is this: When I was on Glendora Ridge Road on my 150cc Mustang, I could hang with any bike up there, and most other motorcycles of any displacement couldn’t catch me (other than on GRR’s very few short straights). In the corners, my little 150 was king. It was all about wheel diameter and handling. You might not believe me, but there are more than a few riders I’ve met up there who know. They’re not talking about it, but they know. They’ve been humbled.
So, back to Walt Fulton. He was a famous factory racer back in the 1950s who had lost his factory ride with another manufacturer. This was just before the Catalina Grand Prix, and Fulton did not have a ride. At the last minute, the Mustang Motor Corporation offered Fulton a factory spot, he accepted, and he nearly won on his 320cc, 12-inch-wheeled Mustang. Fulton passed 145 other riders on machines with up to four times the displacement (and, of course, larger wheels).
Fulton’s engine failed just a few miles from the finish, but he was on a tack to win that event. To make a long story just a little less long, the other factories complained to the Catalina Grand Prix organizers and delivered an ultimatum: Find a way to outlaw that damned Mustang next year, or we’re picking up our marbles and going home. Whaddya know…there was a sudden change to the rules. As Forrest Gump might say, just like that no one could race with wheels smaller than 16 inches. Yup. It happens.
The bottom line here is this: Slick’s 12-inch wheels make for extremely crisp handling. If you’ve never ridden a bike with 12-inch wheels, you really need to try one. I’ve found the handling is sharper than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Smell is the main reason I bought Harbor Freight’s 700-watt 120-VAC Tailgator generator. Mixing oil and gas for the 63cc prime mover and then burning that gas in the Tailgator is an olfactory Garden of Eden. For motorcyclists of a certain age or anyone who has owned an early 20th century gas-powered clothes washer the Tailgator’s smokey aroma triggers long dormant pleasure centers.
And it’s not a bad generator either. 700-watts isn’t a lot of power but it will run my normal shed load of 11, 4-foot long LED light fixtures with enough power left over to charge 2 Ryobi 18-volt lithium batteries at the same time. If you’re thinking of arc welding or running an air conditioner with the Tailgator disabuse yourself of that idea toot sweet.
The Tailgator is supported by a lively YouTube community and naturally I did some of the modifications the gang recommended. I swapped the standard Torch brand sparkplug for an NGK and replaced the OEM spark plug cap with a much better made NGK cap. I also relocated the foam air filter within the air box to achieve a better seal. After a few weeks I added a digital hour meter to log the run time per tank.
With 140 hours on the Tailgator she’s been stone-ax reliable. Two gentle pulls on the delicate starter rope and the beast settles into a staccato 62 hz, no load. Under the full 900-watt load the rpm’s will drop to a smooth 58 hz but who’s counting?
The gas tank holds one gallon the first time you fill it but only around ¾ gallon from then on. Some you tubers modify the fuel pickup to access that last ¼ gallon. Unmodified, a tank will run 4 hours at 400-watt load so I leave it alone.
The YouTube consensus is that the Tailgator part number ending in #24 is slightly better built than the one ending in #25. I bought a #24 and ran it 5 hours a day for a week to expose any weaknesses while the thing was still under warranty. Nothing went wrong.
The Tailgator is not quiet but it’s not all that loud. From 13 feet away I got 60 decibels on my Cateater App. The sound of a two-stroke engine is energetic and endearing so I don’t mind the racket; it’s a plus in my book. The Tailgator responds poorly to ham-fisted treatment. You’ve got to treat the thing like the finely crafted musical instrument it is. For only 89 dollars with a HF coupon the Tailgator is a fantastic bargain.
One of the guys on an ADVRider forum asked for more information on the City Slicker electric motorcycle, so I put together a list of Slick links on the ExhaustNotes blog. My idea was to include a single place that listed all of the links on the City Slicker covering the testing I’ve done on this bike.
Then I thought…hey, that might be a good thing to post on the blog, too! So, here you go…
An E-bike comparo…Zero and Slick
Getting my kicks, on Route 66…
You’ll get a charge out of this…
This is the most comprehensive info available on the new CSC City Slicker anywhere in the world, and there will be more coming!
One of the coolest parts of visiting Tinfiny Ranch was seeing Joe Gresh’s motorcycles. He sure has interesting toys and great project work lined up. My favorites are his 360 Yamaha and the Z900 Kawi. Joe tells the story better than I can, so here you go…
Wow, we are enjoying our travels here in the Land of Enchantment. Every where we’ve been, the roads have been awesome and the photo ops have been amazing.
Yesterday we were up near the Colorado border in the little town of Aztec, New Mexico, and we came across a National Park Service Native American ruins site. I never heard of Aztec, I certainly never heard of the ruins there, and the roads were amazing. We stopped for a few photos, and then it was on to Colorado.
Mesa Verde is coming up next, but that’s a topic for another blog.
More cool stuff…it seems my friend Dan the K is planning a trip to the northwest territories on his 250cc RX3, I invited myself along, and Dan told me that’s great. It looks like Gresh may ride with us for at least part of the run, too. All adventure motorcycle tours are great; I believe the ones on 250cc bikes are even more so. We’ll include you in the planning for this ride, and you’ll be able to read all about it on the ExhaustNotes.us blog.
Stay tuned!
Tinfiny Acres came completely furnished with a junkyard. There were motorhomes, cars, boats and motorcycles lying about the place, all in a shocked state of disbelief. When the previous owner died it was like a plug had been pulled, freezing the many projects in situ. I’ve been cleaning up for a few years now yet still the twisted piles of scrap metal and softly rotting sheets of oriented strand board found on Tinfiny’s extensive grounds yield surprise and enchantment.
I was working on a two-Harbor-Freight-trailer-load of broken fiberglass garage doors that had been squatted by a company of freeloading pack rats when I first uncovered the Merry Tiller. Previously, I had seen parts of the thing, the handlebars, maybe a transport wheel and had caught a flash of chrome between the thicket of brush that had found much success around this particular pile of trash. But now the full tiller was exposed to daylight.
And what a tiller it was. The first thing I thought was, “That’s a nice chaincase.” Long and thin with an oil filler hole two-thirds the way up the case there was no comparison to the clunky, surface-floating drives found on lesser tillers. No, this chaincase was made to knife through plowed earth like a long board skeg grooving down a mountainous wave. This chaincase has soul, my brothers.
The Merry Tiller is configured engine-over which places the fulcrum directly over the digging tines. This set up allows minor weight shifts at the controls to precisely control forward motion. Sporting a 5-horsepower Briggs & Stratton powerplant this tiller should be able to plow granite, slowed only by the drag bar’s deep bite into the soil.
The engine is a real Briggs & Stratton, the one with the straight carburetor and the diaphragm, crankcase-pressure-operated mini-dip tank inside the gas tank. On the left side is a huge reduction pulley and belt-tension clutch assembly. The frame consists of two heavy angle iron sections bolted together at fortuitous locations.
Having said the above, I’ve never actually started the Merry Tiller. I’ve got a bit more debris to move in order to wheel the tiller out into the open The thing is a classic and might be worth more money in its barn-find trash pile. Maybe I could hire a few archeologists to remove the ground surrounding the Merry Tiller and ship it complete to the new owner.
Who am I kidding? Unconsciously I have shouldered Tinfiny Ranch’s legacy to the world. His projects have become intermixed with my projects. I can’t tell which project belongs to whom. I’ll never sell the Merry Tiller. It’s like a vintage Barbie doll in her original, unmolested packaging, except this one is gas-powered.