The ExhaustNotes Blog

The Norge

By Joe Gresh

Winter has finally arrived here at The Ranch. This year it seems like we got a late start to winter in New Mexico. I was riding my motorcycle in 70-degree weather just a few days ago. The avocado plants have been brought in to protect them from the 20-degree nights and I have installed insulated faucet covers over the outside plumbing fixtures so that we don’t burst a pipe.

Wintertime in New Mexico is beef stew time. The best way to make beef stew is with a crockpot and I couldn’t find our crockpot. Actually that’s not true, I know where the crockpot is: it’s buried under a giant mound of Amazon cardboard boxes I’m saving for my future eBay business.

Having no traditional kitchen stove at the ranch I decided to utilize the Isiler inductive hot plate as a heat source for the stew. The isiler is a sleek looking, single burner, and inductive-heat unit. It only works with magnetic-metal cookware meaning aluminum and stainless steel pots won’t get hot. I bought a whole set of inductive, stainless steel pots to use on the thing. These pots have iron or steel cast into the base so they will work with the Isiler.

The iSiler is only a couple years old. I cooked breakfast with the hot plate two or three times before, a cast iron skillet works great on the thing. The inductive heat is really efficient as no heat is wasted heating the cooktop or surrounding atmosphere. Only the metal pot gets hot and it will boil water in a few seconds on high settings. I like to cook my beef stew slowly. I toss in all the ingredients raw, meat included, and let it stew on low heat for half a day or more.

Apparently the iSiler doesn’t like being left on for long periods of time at a low (180 degrees) setting. The thing kept shutting itself off. I would come in from the Big Dig to check the stew and the iSiler was not heating. A red H was displayed on the digital control panel. Turning the unit off then on restored the iSiler and it would start cooking the stew. The shutdowns were random. If you watched the iSiler it never shut down. It was like trying to cook on Schrodinger’s hot plate: go outside to dig a foundation for a greenhouse and the unit would die but you would never know it until you observed.

Luckily, I was in the house when smoke started pouring out of the ventilation openings of the iSiler. The whole cooktop was hot and I needed a couple paper towels to pick it up without burning my hands. I unplugged the cooktop and took the stinking wreck outside. The house reeked of burnt electrical components.

And this isn’t unusual for modern appliances. In the last few years we’ve burned up three Krieg coffee makers. The fan went out on our refrigerator. Our washing machine started leaking water and then mysteriously stopped leaking. It’s hard to find new stuff that holds up over time.

Which brings us to the Norge. In the 1970’s I bought a little house on Chamoune Avenue in East San Diego. Back then funds were tight and East San Diego was a cheap place to buy a house. The house came with no appliances; I bought a used Norge refrigerator for 50 dollars. In my tatty old neighborhood there were appliance stores that sold nothing but used or repaired equipment. At least three vacuum cleaner repair shops were within walking distance of my house along with mattress rebuilders, typewriter repair shops, TV repair shops, radiator repair shops and at least 10 Chinese restaurants. You could buy cigarettes one at a time. East San Diego in the 1970s was a hive of industry captained by small e entrepreneurs.

The Norge had a thick, heavy, single door opened by a gigantic pull handle with a ruby red emblem that looked like a royal warrant. The handle would not look out of place drawing cold, foamy Bass Ale at your local pub. Unlike new idiot proof, safety-first refers the Norge door latched closed and if you found yourself stuffed inside of the thing you would surly die because from the inside the door would not open. Even with dynamite. And no one could hear you scream. It was a solid refrigerator, man.

There was no fan to circulate air inside the Norge. The top freezer section had a small, plastic interior door and uneven distribution was accomplished by cold air falling to the bottom of the fridge. You could turn the entire interior of the Norge into a freezer by cranking the temperature knob down to its lowest setting.

I don’t know the exact year the Norge was constructed but it looked just like the ones built in the 1940’s. The only thing I could complain about is that the Norge needed to be defrosted occasionally, failing to do so would trap frozen items in the freezer compartment like woolly mammoths were trapped in Siberian ice thousands of years ago.

I used the Norge for 10 years or so and it was running fine when I sold the house with the Norge still in it. Still keeping food fresh, still cold, still deadly to small children. It was probably 40 years old last time I saw it. And I can’t get a hot plate to last more than 4 meals.

Maybe I have a skewed view of the situation. Did the Norge represent standard 1940 quality or was it a one-off, Hyperon refrigerator? So much of our industrial energy today is expended on items that are junk. It seems like a waste of resources. Worthless and uneconomically fixable items clog our landfills, where the iSiler hot plate is heading. You may note we didn’t include the regulation Amazon link to the iSiler. That’s because we don’t want ExhaustNotes readers to buy the thing and set themselves on fire.

I bought a new, analog hot plate from Amazon, the kind with the resistance coil that will heat all types of cookware. Sometimes I can fix things because it’s cheaper than buying new. But that’s almost never the case if you include your time. No, I fix things just to stick a finger in the gears of our throwaway society. Sure, it’s painful. You rarely come out ahead and you can lose a finger. I won’t be tinkering with the iSiler hot plate, though. I don’t want to know if the cat is dead or alive if it means burning down the house.

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ARX Bullets In Two 9mm Pistols

By Joe Berk

About three years ago I had dinner with good buddy Robby at a Mexican restaurant outside of Atlanta. Robby bought some sample bullets for me and one of the flavors was a 65-grain 9mm ARX bullet. It was something I had not seen or heard of before.

These are frangible lightweight bullets designed to inflict a lot of damage without penetrating walls. The bullets are called a fluted design, and they are a composite copper/polymer material. They are a very high velocity bullet. There are a number of reloading admonitions with these, including not to overcrimp because doing so will break up the bullet. I’m talking like I’m an expert on these; I am not. This is the first time I’ve played with them.

I loaded these with 5.2 grains of Winchester 231. That powder is the same as HP 38, and I found a load for HP 38. I’m thought I would get something like 1400 fps with this load based on what I saw on the Hodgdon site. Other powders provide more velocity, but I loaded with what I had on hand (and that was Winchester 231).

I loaded on Thursday and fired these the next day, testing for velocity, reliability, and accuracy in two 9mm handguns. Those were a 1911 (with a 5-inch barrel) and a Smith and Wesson Shield (with a 3.1-inch barrel). From what I had read in online reviews, the ARX bullets are supposed to be relatively accurate. I expected them to shoot way low (as lighter bullets in handguns generally do). The loaded ammo looks cool, and the ARX bullets are relatively inexpensive at $39/500.

At the range, I set up a couple of targets at 25 yards. I had only loaded 25 rounds, so I shot the first 10 in the Shield. The Shield functioned perfectly with all 10 rounds (I shot two magazines with 5 rounds each). There were no failures to feed or eject. As I had read, the load was accurate (in fact, it was more accurate than anything else I’ve shot before in the Shield). Recoil was very light. I held at 6:00 on a standard 25-yard pistol target; the rounds hit low left (but not as low as I expected). This ain’t half bad with a little belly gun like the Shield. If I needed to, I could slide the Shield’s rear sight to the right to correct for the bias you see below.

The Shield’s velocities were high, and the standard deviation was low. I am impressed. There are better results than I had previously seen in the Shield.

I next fired my remaining 15 rounds in the Springfield 1911. The load was at the top end of what Hodgdon lists for these bullets using HP38 powder (which is the same propellant as Winchester 231).

In the 1911, I had one failure to eject. You can see that below.

Also, on the last round for each of the three mags I fired in the Springfield 1911, the pistol did not hold the slide back (it functioned okay for the first four shots). This load apparently has just enough energy to cycle the 1911 slide, but not enough to drive it all the way back. I could probably address this with a lighter recoil spring. Subsequent testing proved to me that the above-described failures were related to how I was holding the 1911 during this test. I used a two-hand hold and I bench rested the pistol on a rest. When I fired with a two-hand hold without bench resting the pistol, it functioned flawlessly.

Here are the chrono results in the 1911. As expected, velocities were higher due to the 1911’s 5-inch barrel. There are other powders will give more velocity with the ARX bullets, but I loaded with what I had on hand. Like Donald Rumsfeld used to say, you go to war with the Army you have.

Like I found with the Shield, the 1911’s accuracy was similarly good at 25 yards (again, with a 6:00 hold on the target). I could probably do better. I didn’t make any sight adjustments, so I was surprised that the gun was pretty much on target.

Another pleasant finding was that the both the Shield and the 1911 dropped the brass right next to the gun. With the 1911, the brass just plopped out and came to rest on the table next to the gun. The Shield dropped most of the brass on the table; three pieces fell off the bench. Where you see the brass in the photo below is where it landed; I didn’t scoop it up and put it there.

The ARX bullets are a little trickier to reload than regular 9mm bullets. Inceptor, the manufacturer, advises against a heavy crimp as it will crush the bullet. The one time I blew up a gun two or three years ago I’m now convinced was the result of bullet setback when feeding due to a light crimp and a slippery powder coated bullet. Setback would be more of a concern here with the light crimp.

I could probably load these bullets a bit hotter to get them to hold the slide back after the last round in the 1911 (or, as mentioned above, go to a lighter spring). I don’t think I want to go above the 5.2 grains of Winchester 231. Also, as noted above, the issue disappeared when I fired normally without bench resting the pistol. This was intended to be a quick look. I learned what I wanted to. The ARX bullets are very good. I ordered a thousand of them, which should last for a while.

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Apocalypse Now

By Joe Berk

No, it’s not another movie review. It’s what’s been occurring here in the Southland since Wednesday night.

We’ve had our share of forest fires in the 50 years I’ve been living in this part of the world, but nothing like this. Apocalyptic is not too strong a word. I think everyone who lives in southern California knows someone who lost their home.

This all started on Wednesday evening with the Santa Ana winds. We get them every year. They are usually strong, but this year they were something out of a disaster movie. In southern California, our normal daily winds predictably blow from west to east starting around 2:00 p.m. and going to approximately sundown. There’s an atmospheric/geologic reason for it I won’t pretend to understand or explain. The Santa Ana winds do just the opposite; they below from east to west, and they blow hard. Throw a fire into the mix, and you get what we have been experiencing for the last few days.

I can see the smokey skies from my house. The Eaton fire (the closest one to us) is about 30 miles to the west, but other than that, we were lucky. We’ve had lots of forest fires before in the 50 years I’ve lived here and we could see the flames on many of those fires, but they were always up in the mountains. This time, the fires jumped into residential neighborhoods.

I appreciate all the texts, emails, and phone calls from people checking in on us. We’re fine. The air quality is poor, but that’s trivial compared to what the other people in southern California have suffered. I feel for them, and I hope their situations get resolved quickly.

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Green Bay’s National Rail Museum

By Joe Berk

That picture above? It’s a Big Boy steam locomotive cockpit! Look at all those valves!

Green Bay, Wisconsin. Say that name, and most people think of Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers. And why not? It’s what the town is known for. But I’ll let you in on a secret: Green Bay has one of the best rail museums I’ve ever visited. I like rail museums, and if there’s one anywhere near where I’m traveling, I’ll stop. Susie and I wrapped up a trip to Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and the National Rail Museum made our list. It’s easy to find, and Green Bay is a fun little town.

The National Rail Museum has a bunch of small items on display after entering the first building (track maintenance hand tools and the like). Then it’s on to a hall where the big stuff is kept. One of the first trains is General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s European train, the one he used as the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II. It’s big, it’s impressive, and it’s fit for a 5-star general.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower train. It’s dark green and it’s imposing.

The Eisenhower train was built by the British with a number of features to keep it low key (or so some of the signage said). The name on the locomotive and the exotic paint theme indicated otherwise.

Not very subtle, I would say. General Eisenhower used this train for getting around the European Theatre of Operations.

The Eisenhower train was built by British Railways. That, my friends, is a cool logo.

A photo of General Eisenhower leaving his train.

The National Rail Museum has one of the very few surviving Big Boy locomotives. I’ve seen three (well, actually two, but I saw one of them twice). One was at the National Steam Locomotive Museum in Scranton, and another was parked at the Pomona Fairgrounds (it’s that one I saw twice). The first time was when it went from Ogden, Utah, to Pomona under its own power. It stopped in Pomona, and it was an amazing thing to see.

Big Boy No. 4017. I wish that Halloween decoration wasn’t there. I didn’t want to risk moving it.

It’s hard to put into words just how big a Big Boy is. Photos don’t really do its size justice.

Signs at the museum told us the temperature in the engineer’s compartment was typically 93 degrees even with the windows open.

A peek into the coal tender. Big Boy locomotives consumed so much coal that a man couldn’t keep up with it, so instead of shoveling coal into the engine, the tender had a worm gear that drove it in.

A locomotive that caught my attention was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG-1 electric locomotive. When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s main tracks were only a half mile from my home. We loved watching those trains scream by, always pulled by a GG-1. They are gorgeous locomotives.

A magnificent Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 locomotive. These are beautiful machines. The GG-1 was entirely electric. They drew power from high voltage overhead wires with their pantograph.

From the engineer’s position, the view forward is through one small window. You really can’t see much of what’s ahead. That would make me nervous.

By the 1950s, passenger rail travel was losing favor with the American public. Airplanes were faster, and with the advent of the Interstate Highway System, most people drove. The railroads wanted to turn that around. One attempt involved General Motors designing an aerodynamic locomotive and less expensive rail cars. GM designed the “Aerotrain” drawing on their styling talents, but the effort flopped. I’d seen pictures of that locomotive (there were only ever two made), but I’d never seen one in person until this visit.

The General Motors Aerotrain locomotive. It was a beautiful design but a commercial flop.

The Aerotrain story is a fascinating one. This video explains it.

There are plenty of great railroad stories and more than a few great movies. You might remember the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor hit from the 1970s, Silver Streak. It you ever wondered where the last car of that famed train came to rest, wonder no more.

If you haven’t seen the Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder movie of the same name, you need to. You can thank me later.

I’ve been to the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, Golden Spike National Historic Park (where the Transcontinental Railroad was completed), and now, the National Rail Museum in Green Bay. All are great stops, and all have great storyies. I once did a story on Big Boy 4014 when it was in Pomona, California. Gresh has a couple of rail blogs, too, including the Nevada Northern and the Cumbres and Toltec lines. Rail stuff is cool.

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The New Year Comes with New Adventures

By Mike Huber

Having spent 11 months abroad and successfully (I am the one gauging the definition of success, by the way) traveling through 7 countries (some multiple times) returning to my home country of the United States of America was a welcome way to round out 2024. The past month has been filled with catching up with family and friends, as well as catching 3 mice and 12 flying squirrels that seem to have filled my vacancy in my parent’s house in Maine. The break was also filled with replacing some of my gear and clothes that were “gently used” throughout my travels in Oceania and Southeast Asia. Outside the occasional waking up at 3:00 a.m. and freaking out that I am sleeping in my old bedroom at my parents’ house, homeless and unemployed (clearly, that should be my intro if I ever join a dating site), it’s been a really productive month.

With the New Year approaching my plan was to begin traveling through South America for the entire year by motorcycle. In November that plan quickly changed (imagine that) when a fellow rider I had camped with four years ago in Death Valley National Park messaged me and stated that he and another rider were about to embark on a 1-month motorcycle journey through India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh in February on Royal Enfield Himalayans. I wasn’t too impressed as I figured it would be some BS tour with a guide and not really count as a motorcycle adventure. He replied stating that was not the case and it was just the two of them. It took me about 15 minutes to reply stating that I was in. He promptly let me know that he wasn’t inviting me and was just discussing the trip with me. At any rate I invited myself and they seemed okay with that. I mean, who wouldn’t be? I am an absolute joy to be around.

This will surely be one of the more challenging adventures for me in quite some time. It really began to hit me while packing my gear in freezing cold Maine. Even though this nomadic lifestyle has been my life for the past eight years, there always is some anxiety that comes when the reality of the adventure begins to sink in. After India, per my usual I have no plan and must mentally prepare to face isolation yet again for an unknown amount of time. Of course, that is until I meet 100 new beautiful friends, which is sure to happen. Another issue I am concerned with is I sold my BMW GS1250 to my friend who was babysitting it and fell in love with the bike (that’s not hard to do as it’s a great motorcycle). Well, he sold it, and with it my helmet, jacket, etc. So, riding these countries with rental gear is something I am apprehensive about. Buying new gear really isn’t an option as once this trip is wrapped up there is still no definitive plan for my next location or activities. As in the past, I place that as a problem for “Future Mike Huber,” and he is pretty good at figuring these things out.

In the meantime, there are still a few weeks to kill prior to motorcycling India. I thought scuba diving Mexico would fill that void. Mexico will also serve as a solid way to ease back into traveling and rebuilding my confidence for what is sure to be an adventurous New Year with plenty of stories to come.

Happy New Year to all.

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ExNotes Review: A Complete Unknown

By Joe Berk

I don’t go to the movies too much anymore, although the theatres have dramatically improved their seating and some even sell complete meals you can eat while watching the movie. We have Netflix, Prime, and Max at home, once in a while I’ll watch something on regular TV besides Fox News, and we pretty much have all the home entertainment needs covered with our TV and the aforementioned subscriptions. Susie wanted to see the new Bob Dylan show, though, and I thought it might be good to get out for a bit.

A fake Dylan filming a fake motorcycle scene.

As movies go, A Complete Unknown was not too bad. The Joan Baez sound tracks were great, as was Zimmerman’s music (I’ll bet you didn’t know Bobby Zimmerman was beatnikized into Bob Dylan, did you?).

I have to comment on the motorcycle scenes, though…after all, this is a motorcycle website.

In the very first Dylan motorcycle scene, he’s riding an early Norton Atlas. You don’t see too many of those with their black trapezoidal fuel tanks and huge chrome valanced fenders, so it had my attention. In all the remaining motorcycle scenes, Dylan is on a mid-’60s Triumph Tiger. He didn’t wear a helmet in any of those scenes, and the action was ostensibly set in New York City. Seeing a helmetless Dylan slicing through Manhattan traffic made me uneasy, even though I knew it was all Hollywood tomfoolery. The really goofy parts were the closeup riding scenes in which Dylan’s ample curls were unruffled by cruising speed winds, and the 500cc Triumph starting without Dylan using the Triumph’s sole wakeruppery mechanism (i.e., a kickstarter). Nope, the moto scenes were as fake as a Joe Biden promise, and that made me put A Complete Unknown in the Complete Fake column.

Like I said above, the music was good. Somewhere there’s a probably a Scriptwriting for Dummies guide that says a movie has to have conflict injected into the plot, so in this flick it was Dylan doing “his music” at the Newport Folk Festival instead of their desired folk music. Dylan and Pete Seeger almost started a fist fight over that (I know, it’s silly, but I’m just reporting here, folks). At the concert’s end Dylan sang one folk song, so all was forgiven.

I can’t leave out the best part: Johnny Cash (played by a real complete unknown, Boyd Holbrook) was in the movie and he was superb. If anyone ever does another Johnny Cash movie, casting anyone other than Holbrook in that role would be a crime against nature.

If you can ignore the motorcycle phoniness, A Complete Unknown is worth the price of admission. The motorcycle inaccuracies notwithstanding, I enjoyed it and I think you will, too.

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Ponce de León, the Bisley, and 100-Yard Revolver Results

By Joe Berk

Fifty years ago I used to be a pretty good metallic silhouette shooter. I would like to return to that game. It would be nice to be 25 years old again, too, but that’s not in the cards. Metallic silhouette shooting, though…I think I can turn the clock back on that one.

Participating in a Fort Bliss metallic silhouette competition in 1976. One of the revolvers I shot in those days was a .44 Magnum Ruger Super Blackhawk (shown above); the other was a .357 Magnum Model 27 Smith and Wesson.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s where this story is going. Ponce de León went looking for his fountain of youth. Me? I just want to knock over a few metal chickens, pigs, turkeys, and rams. Like I did 50 years ago.

My friends at the range are surprised when I shoot at 100 yards with a revolver. That’s because they’ve never shot a handgun metallic silhouette course. In that game, there are four courses of fire:

- - Chickens at 50 yards (10 shots)
  - Pigs at 100 yards (10 shots)
  - Turkeys at 150 yards (10 shots)
  - Rams at 200 yards (10 shots)

The targets are sized so that each subtends about the same angle. That means the pigs (actually, they are supposed to be javelinas) are bigger than the chickens, the turkeys are bigger than the pigs, and the rams are bigger than the turkeys.

The hardest target to hit is the turkey (it is narrower than the other targets); the hardest target to knock over is the ram (it is big and heavy). Simply hitting doesn’t count; you have to knock the targets over. The 200-yard ram weighs about 55 pounds. Back in the day, I used to be able to knock them over with a .357 Magnum. My load was a 200-grain cast bullet and 13.0 grains of Winchester 296. It was more reliable than a 240-grain 44 Magnum load because the .357 bullet is more aerodynamic and it retained more energy downrange.

I’ve been evaluating loads for the .357 Ruger Bisley for metallic silhouette competition, and load development is progressing. I’ve mostly been playing with Hornady’s 158-grain jacketed hollowpoint XTP bullet, but I’ve also tried their 180-grain XTP. In my Bisley the 180-grain Hornady is a very accurate load.

Hornady’s 158-grain XTP bullet (left) and 180-grain XTP bullet (right).

The two bullets are identical above the cannelure. The difference is bullet length behind the cannelure.

Two .357 Magnum cartridges loaded with the 158-grain XTP bullet (top) and 180-grain bullet (bottom). After loading, the cartridges appear to be identical.

I’ve been keeping track of the loads, the velocities, and the accuracy on 100-yard targets. The Bisley shoots best with the 180-grain Hornady XTP bullets and 13.6 grains of 296 powder. I used small rifle primers. I’ll try the same load with small pistol magnum primers to see if I get a velocity gain and if the groups get better. In prior tests with the 158-grain Hornady bullets, there didn’t seem to be a velocity increase in going from small rifle to small pistol magnum primers. We’ll see if the same holds true for the 180-grain bullets.

Here’s a 100-yard target with the actual size of the 100-yard pig overlayed on it. That silhouette is one I grabbed off the Internet. It is smaller than what I remember (and certainly smaller than any javelina I’ve ever seen, other than babies). But it’s useful for assessing my progress in getting a useable Bisley load. I used the 180-grain bullets for the group you see below.

A target shot at 100 yards, with a pig imposed on it. I think the actual target is a little larger. This isn’t a bad 100-yard revolver group, but I want to tighten it up.

Real javelinas are not quite that small, and they’re mean as hell. You don’t want to tangle with a javelina.

The real deal: Mamá Javelina con su bebé. Folks tell me I was in a bad spot when I took this photo. It was dark and I couldn’t see the javelina except when the flash fired. I didn’t know where to focus, so I just kept twisting the lens and firing successive shots. Only one was in focus. I didn’t know this lady was with her baby until I saw the photo later.

Winchester’s 296 powder is my preferred propellant as it usually gives great velocity and accuracy. Winchester 296 is prone to gas cutting, though. That’s what occurs on the underside of the revolver’s top strap (the part of the frame that goes over the cylinder). Hot gases and powder escape between the barrel and cylinder gap and cut into the frame. From what I’ve read, it tends to cut as you see in the photo below, and then it doesn’t get any worse. I think that’s because as the cutting gets deeper, the distance to the bottom of the cut increases.

Flame cutting on the Bisley top strap induced by hot 296 loads.

I’ve seen gas cutting in handguns after putting lots of 296-powered rounds through them (and that’s what I intend to continue to do with the Bisley). We’ll find out if it is self-limiting.

The plan is to continue to practice (a lot) and continue the load development effort. So far, 13.6 grains of 296 and the 180-grain Hornady bullet get the nod. Then I have to zero the revolver at 50, 100, 150, and 200 yards. Fortunately, my club (the West End Gun Club) has a range that goes out that far. Then I’m going to find someplace that has handgun metallic silhouette shooting and knock down a few targets. It’s going to be fun.

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ADV Cannonball Press Release

By Joe Berk

This press release came in the mail a few days ago and I thought I would share it here.

ADV Cannonball Rally

A mix of curated motorcycle roads and a checkpoint rally for the ultimate cannonball rally, ADV moto style.

Port Angeles, WA — A new kind of annual adventure motorcycle event is in the works. It will take riders across the United States on amazing roads hand-selected specifically for riders. But this isn’t a tour – it’s a competitive GPS-based rally. Go for glory. Go for adventure.

The 2025 ADV Cannonball Rally will take place October 6-14, 2025. This year it will start in historic Kittyhawk, North Carolina on the Outer Banks and ends in Redondo Beach, California at the famous Portofino Hotel & Marina – a staple finish line for many cannonball rallies throughout history. This unique 3,550-mile experience is open to motorcycles of all types, will include nine days of riding, and has GPS-based checkpoint competitions located at epic places.

This coast-to-coast rally will have an emphasis on overland GPS navigation, endurance, preparedness, self-reliance, and rider skill. Aaron Pufal, the event’s organizer, says, “Each day, participants will leave the official hotel at specific times. Navigating by provided GPX tracks, competitors will ride on paved and optional unpaved roads to checkpoints, electronically earning points while experiencing a highly curated and painstakingly vetted motorcycle route.”

Pufal, an experienced rally planner and ADV moto enthusiast believes there’s a secret sauce to a good motorcycle road, and this route is carefully crafted by motorcycle enthusiasts for enthusiasts. The event will take riders through iconic, amazing locations—all with remarkable riding roads as the backbone. “This route isn’t for the faint of heart,” Pufal states, “but riders will appreciate the hundreds of hours of planning and prerunning.”

This isn’t a race; It’s a rally; and it’s self-supported. No team chase vehicles. No support crews. No whining. Riders must rely on themselves or any public resources available to any competitor to stay the course on the road to victory.

The ADV Cannonball Rally is a friendly competition. Here, riders are scored on their ability to reach specific checkpoints. Bonus points are awarded for the first rider to arrive at the next official hotel each day of the rally. Special achievements and separate extreme checkpoints revealed throughout the event will allow the chance to get a leg up on the competition with some extra points. The event is scored via a GPS app. The rider with the most points at the end is the winner.

Trophies will be awarded at the rally’s banquet for various achievements. The overall winner will have their name embossed on the ADV Cannonball perpetual trophy in perpetuity.

Entrants can be as competitive as they’d like—go for glory, adventure, or a bit of both. No rally experience? There will be opportunities for learning and guidance before the starting gun is fired, ensuring entrants understand how the competition aspect works.

Entries Are Limited: This event is open to the public. Anyone is welcome on any motorcycle. Current entries are exactly what you’d expect, big ADV bikes, but, we’d surely welcome the wacky, brave, or oddball entry!

Currently, we have enough paid signups to proceed with the event but we are limiting the entries to 30 hotel rooms for the 2025 rally.

Learn More: Complete info is available at the rally website, ADVCannonball.com. There, visitors will find the rules and regulations, interactive route map, FAQs, ADV Cannonball Podcast Links, and the official entry form. The ADV Cannonball Motorcycle Rally is sure to be an amazing journey. “Come have a good time,” says Pufal. “This is going to be for like-minded riders who are sick of sitting behind the computer and ordering accessories for their bikes—and definitely not for ADV Weenies.”

We’re seeking: Press interactions, sponsors, and partnerships in the ADV-Biz and motorcycle social media. We feel the inaugural running of the ADV Cannonball is a great story that deserves to be told.

It looks exciting. It’s worth considering. I checked out the website and it’s interesting reading.

Happy New Year, folks. I’m looking forward to a great 2025. We’ll keep the stories and the photos coming. You keep clicking on those popup ads and please consider making a donation via the Donate buttons below!

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ExNotes Product Review: Yonligonju Compression Tester

By Joe Gresh

If you’ve been keeping up with us here at ExhaustNotes you’ll know I had a lot of trouble getting Zed, my 1975 Kawasaki Z1 900, running correctly.

In between rebuilding the carbs and tinkering with most everything I could think of it dawned on me that maybe the engine was just tired. After all, it wouldn’t be unusual for a 50-year-old, air-cooled engine to wear out after 46,000 miles.

I used to have a nice compression tester that was at least 40 years old. In the big move west I can’t seem to find it. Maybe it got tossed after one of the many floods that inundated our house in the Florida Keys. I forget the brand but it had a flex hose and several adaptors for different size spark plugs.

I don’t need a pro-level compression tester as I’m not in the mechanical business anymore. This cheap, cheerful Yonligonju (say it three times fast!) Chinese kit on Amazon looked like the goods for less than 20 dollars.

The Yonligonju comes with a nice, blow molded plastic case that keeps all the little bits in order.

It amazes me how China can build such a nice kit for so little money. Including the quick release flex hose, this kit comes with adaptors to fit 5 different spark plug sizes.

In addition, the set came with two of the rubber bung type connectors. To use these, you just hold the compression tester tightly in the spark plug hole. It speeds things up on a multi cylinder engine. This works well enough if you’ve got enough hands for the job.

My Yonligonju worked well, showing 80-ish psi on all four Kawasaki cylinders. This isn’t great compression but the cylinder pressures were nearly even and Zed might have done better if the engine wasn’t cold. My Kawasaki manual claims 85 psi as the lower limit and Zed may get there warm. What do you want after 46,000 miles?

Besides compression, what you’re looking for with a compression tester is one cylinder being much lower than the others. This indicates a problem in the cylinder. The actual psi number is less important. Unless they are all really low…

Anyway, the Yonligonju gauge proved compression wasn’t the reason my Kawasaki was fouling plugs. See the latest Zed update for the full story.

The compression gauge held the reading without bleeding off for the few minutes it took me to look at it. There’s a pressure release valve on the side of the gauge that also worked as it should.

This isn’t a kit that will see a lot of usage. If you’re like me, a home-shop tinkerer, the thing will do the job for not much money. Hell, just taking your bike to a motorcycle shop once to test the compression would cost five times what the tool cost.

I think people rebuild old motorcycle engines more than is needed. Two-strokes especially get the piston, ring and bore because it’s so easy to do. Most likely the bike would have run fine the way it was.

For classic bikes that don’t see everyday use it’s enough that the engine runs well. There’s no need for a ton of compression with today’s crappy fuel anyway. I’m guessing the Yonligonju will last a while sitting in my toolbox waiting for another engine to test.

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One Up, Three Down

Those of you who subscribe to Motorcycle Classics magazine may have seen my article on good buddy Andrew’s Norton P11. I was very proud of that piece and its photos, until I found out that I got a few things wrong. The most significant faux pas was my description of the shift pattern, which I mistakenly assumed was the same as a Triumph’s. All my ‘60s and ‘70s Triumphs were one down, a half click up for neutral, and all the rest up (just like on most of today’s motorcycles). BSA was the same way. When I rode good buddy Steve’s Norton Commando of the same era it was one down and three up. That’s the natural order of things, right?

The shift lever on the right side of Andrew’s P11A. It’s one up and three down. They even stamped it for me at the factory, and I still got it wrong. Andrew owns British Motorcycle Gear.

Ah, not so fast. Norton did it differently. On a Norton, it’s one up and three down. Just like it’s marked on the transmission. Just like my photo above shows.

So why did I get it wrong in the MC article? Chalk it up to old age and carelessness, I guess. I sure am embarrassed about it. I should stick to things that are harder to get wrong (maybe I should be a presidential election pollster for the New York Times).

Steve’s Norton Commando in the San Gabriel Mountains. It’s one down and three up, as God intended.

You might be wondering: What about Steve’s Norton Commando, which had the conventional one down and three up shift pattern? As it turns out, more than a few Norton owners reversed the shift pattern on their bikes to make them like the rest of the world, which can be accomplished by installing a mirror image cam plate in the Norton’s AMC gearbox. That’s evidently what happened to Steve’s bike way before he owned it, and way before I rode it.

Guys who have the original Norton gearbox pattern write that it’s the more natural of the two shift patterns. When you want to go faster, you push down on the shift lever. It’s kind of like stepping on the gas, I guess. Foot down, go faster. Thinking about it, it makes sense.

You know, I didn’t think too much about the Norton’s controls layout when I wrote the P11 article (and obviously, what little thinking I did was not enough). I wrote another MC story about a 1913 Thor several issues back, and if I would have made a mistake, I would have thought it would be in that article. On that one, I had to study my photographs and think about what each lever, pedal, valve, and twist grip did (and there were a lot of each); there was no one to explain it all. After I had done that, I actually found a guy who owned a 1914 Thor (how many of them can there be?) and he told me I had it right. But on that Norton…I’ve ridden a Norton, I’ve owned a bunch of Triumphs and one BSA, and I just never thought I’d get it wrong. But I did. Mea culpa.

Oh, two more things:

1. 1. Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah. They’re both on the same day this year, which is very unusual.
  2. That photo at the top of this blog? That’s the P11A, Andrew (on the left), and good buddy Harry (aka the Norton Whisperer).

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