The ExhaustNotes Blog

The War Wagon in Baja

By Joe Berk

I’ve traveled extensively in Baja and I want to get down there again as soon as possible. It’s the best riding on the planet, the food is amazing, the scenery is incredible, and the people are great. The whale watching is a religious experience. I know Baja is almost indescribably awesome and you do, too, if you’ve been there. When I talk about Baja with folks who haven’t been there, though, the question always emerges: Is it safe?

The short answer is yes. But one time, we came pretty close to it not being safe. On one trip out of many over the last 30+ years in Baja, Susie and I had a bad experience. I almost didn’t write this blog because I didn’t want to scare anyone away from Baja. I’ve been to Baja many times since, and I plan to keep visiting Baja.

The best bike for Baja…my CSC RX3 on the malecon in Loreto, BCS.

So, with that as an introduction, let me add a bit more. I was setting up the first CSC Baja expedition, with the idea being that we would offer free tours to Baja with the purchase of a CSC motorcycle. That idea worked fabulously well and we successfully ran the CSC tours for years, treating people to the ride of their life, selling a lot of motorcycles, and generally having an inordinate amount of fun. It convinced me that the RX3 motorcycle was possibly the best bike ever for exploring Baja, and I still feel that way. You may disagree, but hey, it’s okay to be wrong.

But I digress. To get back on topic, I hadn’t been to Baja in a while and I was taking a big group down, so Susie and I rolled south in my Subie on a pre-ride scouting expedition. With the intro stuff done, here’s the blog I wrote for CSC on that trip.

Susie and I are down in Baja scouting the locations for the Inaugural Baja run, and it sure has been an interesting two days. I didn’t have any Internet access in Catavina yesterday, but I have a spotty connection in Santa Rosalia tonight, right on the Sea of Cortez, and we’ll see how much of this gets through.

First, a few quick photos of our first couple of stops…

Rolling across the US border into Mexico…

Jesus, a giant statue on the way to Ensenada.

Breakfast in Velero’s in Ensenada…worth the trip into Mexico all by itself!

After we rolled through Ensenada, it was on through the mountains south and Baja’s agricultural district. Boy oh boy, did we have an adventure. All that stuff I’ve been telling you about how safe it is down here? Well, I still believe it, but my confidence (and Susie’s) was sorely tested yesterday. See that guy in the photo below? FYI, you’re not supposed to take photos at these roadblocks, and I want you to keep that in mind on our CSC Baja trip…but I never have done too well following rules. I’m talking about the infantryman talking to the car in front of us at our first military roadblock (one of many Puesto Militars) on the way down. He’s the dude standing to the left of the white car.

Well, things got very interesting after that. That photo was about 175 miles south of the border, just north of San Quintin, where we got caught in a mini-labor riot. Turns out the migrant workers down here are not happy with their wages on the farms. A lot of them come from mainland Mexico with their families, including their kids, whom they evidently put to work picking whatever crops they pick in the fields north of San Quintin. The Mexican government is clamping down on child labor, so that affects these people and they are plenty angry about it. Real angry, apparently.

One of the military checkpoint guys told us the road was closed (that dude in the photo above) about 80 km ahead but he didn’t speak English and he didn’t tell us why. I thought it was because they were working on the road, which happens frequently in Baja, and when that happens the road is closed for about 20 minutes. Then you can proceed. Happens all the time. Amazingly (based on what we found out a few miles down the road) that young soldier let the car in front of us proceed, and then he let us proceed.

About 30 miles later, we started seeing what we thought were small piles of asphalt on the road with lots of wires (you know, like for fixing potholes, which they have a lot of in Baja, but I couldn’t figure out what the wires were). We saw this for about the next 15 miles. We saw hundreds of people milling around, too; far more than I’ve ever seen in these little farming towns.

It turns out that we what thought were piles of asphalt were actually the remains of burning tires. As in “let’s light a fire and shut the main highway down burning tires.” The ag workers have been having demonstrations (actually, labor riots) in the San Quintin area, and we found out (the hard way) that this had been going on for 2 days.

We went a few more miles and encountered a roadblock (more burning tire remnants and boulders blocking the road) with about 50 men milling about who immediately surrounded us. They wouldn’t let us go forward or turn around. One of them threatened us and the Subaru with a 2×4. They were all over the car. Susie had the presence of mind to lock the doors. These guys were mad at the world, and we were the world at that instant. I didn’t know what to do, so I fell back on what always seemed to work elsewhere in the world: I asked the guy who seemed to be in charge if I could pay the toll to get through. He seemed genuinely surprised at that, he thought about it for maybe 5 seconds (duly observed by his subordinate seditionists), and then he realized this might be a viable alternative income stream (Sue designs and manages automated toll roads in the US; it seems to work for us). Our Mexican revolutionary said, “hokay,” I gave him a ten dollar bill, and he told the insurrectionists “let them pass.” Crisis averted. Whew!

The tire remnants continued for another 5 miles, but there were no more roadblocks. While we were stopped at the impromptu toll plaza, one of the seditionists keyed my car door on Susie’s side with initials, presumably the initials of their labor movement (LPS or something like that). I’ll guess I’ll get my body shop guy to repaint it when I get home. That little Subie is going to end up having more bodywork than Joan Rivers. A couple of months ago I dropped one of the RX3s into it. This week it was the Nuevo Mexican Revolution. I’m keeping the body shop business alive in California. Or maybe not. I might leave those initials there as a war wound. At the very minimum, I am re-christening the Subie. She’s no longer the Starship Subaru (sorry, Carl, that was a good moniker, but its time has come and gone). My car is now known as the War Wagon.

We found out from a busload of people in El Rosario (next town down the before getting into the mountains) that they expect the demonstrations to continue for a couple more days and then it should be over. One guy had his windows shattered, probably by the same guy we saw with the 2×4.

Folks, all the tourists down here (and there are lots of us) were talking about this. No one had ever experienced anything like it before, and most of us have been coming down here for decades. It’s a blip, and I’m guessing it is already over. It sure was exciting, though.

We continued south after that… and that meant it was time for a few more photos.

Mama Espinosa’s in El Rosario…great burritos!

At one point on our way to Guerrero Negro, I spotted several vultures fighting over a dead rabbit. Time to put the 70-300 on the Nikon and see how close I could get.

The Baja Department of Sanitation hard at work.

When you roll into Guerrero Negro, there’s a giant Mexican flag flying in front of a giant metal structure (an artist’s interpretation of the Mexican Eagle). You’re not supposed to take pictures here (it’s a military installation), but I still had the 300mm lens on the camera and I got sneaky.

That point is right on the 28th Parallel, which marks the border between Baja and Baja Sur (the two Mexican states in Baja).

You know, being anywhere near the 28th Parallel and not stopping for a fish taco or two at Tony’s would be a crime. I’ve been stopping at his truck for the last 21 years…every time I come down here. What’s cool about it is Tony always recognizes me, even though sometimes it’s a year or more since I’ve seen him!

My good buddy Tony Lopez, who is a fish taco chef extraordinaire!

Tony told me he’s been in business for 22 years. I bought my first fish taco from him 21 years ago.

We stopped in San Ignacio next and I grabbed a couple of photos of (and in) the mission there.

The San Ignacio Mission, built by the Jesuits in the 1700s…it’s still in use as a working church

One of the figures inside the San Ignacio Mission

That’s it for tonight, my friends. Time to sign off and get some shuteye. We’re headed south again tomorrow. Watch for more photos!

So there you have it. With more than three decades of exploring Mexico under my belt, this was my one negative Baja experience. I communicated the above to all the followers we had on the CSC blog and asked if they wanted to change the trip to someplace else here in the US, and everyone answered with a resounding No! We did the Baja trip with 15 or so riders, and we did several more CSC Baja rides after that. Every one of those trips was a blast. Here’s a video I prepared from the first CSC ride:

You can read more about Baja and our adventures down there in Moto Baja.

I made a lot of good friends on those Baja rides, many of whom still ride their CSC motorcycles and many of whom regularly follow the ExNotes blog. You’ve seen their comments here over the last four or five years.

To me, Baja is the best riding there is. If you’re headed into Baja, make sure you get insurance. It’s not likely you’ll need it, but the Mexican government requires that you be insured and your regular insurance won’t cover you in Mexico. The insurance provider we always go with is BajaBound.

Want more Baja content? You can find more ExNotes Baja stuff here.

ExNotes Movie Review: The Highwaymen

The Highwaymen, starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, is not a new movie and maybe you’ve seen it already. But if you haven’t, it’s worth watching. In my case, it was worth watching again. I’d seen it twice already when it popped up on the Netflix menu last night, and I watched it a third time. It was great. There have been a few movies and a lot written about Bonnie and Clyde; in my opinion, this movie stands way above the other stories.

The real Frank Hamer was a hell of a man (as was Maney Gault), although one of the earlier Bonnie and Clyde movies portrayed him as a bumbler and a buffoon. His widow sued Warner Brothers over that and the studio settled out of court. This movie sets that record straight.

Maney Gault (left) and Frank Hamer (right).

The story is about two Texas Rangers (Frank Hamer and Maney Gault) coming out of retirement to track down and kill Bonnie and Clyde. I don’t know how close it adheres to what actually happened, but that doesn’t matter (at least to me). From what I’ve previously known and the research I did online, I think The Highwaymen stays pretty close to the truth. It’s a hell of a story and it’s extremely well done. It hits home for me, too. I’m an old guy and I can sympathize with the two geezers played well by Costner and Harrelson. Their aches and pains made me laugh. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a bad movie with Harrelson in it; I have seen one or two turkeys with Costner. But in this film both actors were superb (as was the writing) and I appreciated the attention to getting the firearm details right. There’s a gunstore scene that’s awesome. In one of the opening scenes, Hamer is shown to have a pet wild boar. I tried to find out if that was true and what popped up on Google was inconclusive. There are references to his having a pet javelina.

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Trust me on this: The Highwaymen is a wonderful flick. Watch it and you can thank me later.

Fat Chance

By Joe Gresh

Here at ExNotes we cover a wide variety of topics. Some relate to motorcycles or outdoorsy type of activities. Some are about ways of telling time or shooting a bull’s-eye with great precision. This ExNotes story stretches our genre as tight as my t-shirts stretched around my belly. I wouldn’t have written this story had it not been for Berk’s suggestion. So don’t complain to me. It’s all Berk’s fault.

I have a bad relationship with food. I’ve always had a bad relationship with food. When I was a tiny, undersized kid my Pops used to harangue me to eat more food. He would pound his fist on the table point at my plate and yell, “You’re never gonna get big unless you eat!” Mealtimes were misery for me. Mom wasn’t that great a cook and with the old man badgering me to eat more the whole dinnertime affair was something to be endured and gotten over with.

For years I dreaded mealtime, there was always such a stupid drama over my food. I wanted to throw the food against the wall and tell him, “You eat the crap, I’m done!” I used to hide food under my plate to show him I’d eaten everything. I just wasn’t hungry, man. I can’t really blame my dad. He came from a poor family and food was scarce. It must have galled him to see me rearranging food around my plate in an attempt to make it look eaten. Wasting food was the ultimate sin in our house.

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As I grew older and slightly larger my appetite increased. I could tuck into some fried chicken and collard greens, you know? For most of my life I never had to worry about being fat. I kept busy working and ate whatever I wanted. My dad would beam with pride as I polished off two helpings of stew beef washed down with a quart of sweet iced tea.

We made our iced tea so sweet the sugar would drop out of solution. The water simply couldn’t hold any more sugar. You had to stir it before taking a slug. The tea was at maximum saturation and by some mysterious combination of temperature and barometric pressure the sugar fell to the bottom like morning dew. And that banana pudding was divine, I tell you.

My weight stayed around 174 pounds for decades. It didn’t matter what or how much I ate and believe me, I wasn’t too discerning about what I shoved into my mouth. It was all just food. Some food-stuff tasted better than other food-stuff but never good enough to wash a dish for. I frequented fast food places because their offerings were paper wrapped, disposable and filled the void. I was just going to eat it, man, it’s not like I was going to put it on display in my trophy cabinet.

Things stayed that way until the last five or so years. My clothes started fitting tight. My stomach required copious quantities of Tums to keep the acid from gurgling into my throat and burning the back of my mouth. I kept eating like always even though my activity level went down. I was no longer working 6 days a week crawling in and out of boats.

My belly grew larger and larger until I hit 195 pounds. For a modern American male 195 pounds isn’t all that surprising but hang all that meat and blubber on a 5-foot, 6-inch frame and you’ve got a fat little bastard. My dad would have been proud. Nothing fit anymore. Even my shoes were tight. My riding gear became coat rack decorations. I puffed going uphill, my fiberglass filled, burnt out COPD lungs struggling to supply oxygen and my heart pounded to circulate blood through all that fat.

And I was fine with it.

CT is the one who decided it was time to slim down. She started watching her food intake and I began to follow along. We don’t really have a diet we just stopped eating food. I began to lose weight. Both of us urged the other on. Just how little food did it take to stay alive? Turns out, the answer is very little food. I probably eat about a quarter of the calories I used to eat. Some days we have only toast and unsalted peanuts.

I’m hungry and miserable but in a strange way I feel liberated. Eating is a trap; I had to get angry at food to break the eat-reward cycle. Now I despise food for what it did to me. I look at food as poison. This is probably not a healthy relationship with food either but I figure food needs me more than I need it.

I no longer care if it’s feeding time. I eat whenever I can’t stand the hunger. I never eat until I’m full because satisfaction is the opiate of the people. I don’t want to be full and I stay hungry because it’s righteous and I am striving to be a righteous man. CT and I recently went on a 1000-mile jaunt through Arizona and since neither of us eat much we never worried about stopping for lunch or going out to dinner. You can save a lot of money starving to death.

Beyond nutrition, food has always played an important social purpose. I imagine the earliest proto-humans gathered around the fire pit to grunt in a rudimentary language about their lives. Even hyenas share their kill, kind of. Social gatherings are tough but I get through them with a doggie bag and sparkling conversation. Hopefully no one notices I’m not eating much or that I pity their food-centric lives.

This dietary change made me aware of how much eating had become a part of motorcycle riding for me. In retrospect, all I ever did on a motorcycle was ride to restaurants and eat. The other day I rode down to my favorite taco place in Alamogordo and just kept riding past. I don’t need an excuse to ride. I carry a thermos of hot, robust Dancing Goats® coffee and stop my cycle to have a sip now and then.

I’m down to 172 pounds. I’m shooting for 170 but the ounces are coming off very slowly. My buddy Ren gave me the best advice on how to lose weight. He said, “It’s making 1000 small, right decisions each day.” I’d like to say I feel better but I really don’t. I can get up the hill a little better and I don’t eat tums like candy anymore. With my stomach empty the acid can stay put where it belongs, not sloshing over my back teeth. CT tells me I’m breathing easier at night. I can even wear my old leather motorcycle jacket; it’s been a few years since I could. But truthfully I’m not any happier. If I could eat all that junk food without gaining weight I would.

As a for-instance, this morning I ate tortilla chips with guacamole and a small container of Motts applesauce. For lunch I had some unsalted peanuts. I don’t know what I’ll have for dinner and I don’t care. I don’t want to anticipate food. Each meal must stand on its own. I’m kind of lucky that I was never a foodie-type person. I get no thrill from a well-prepared meal and just eat it for fuel. Exxon or Texaco, makes no difference to me, it’s all gasoline.

Anyway, being hungry isn’t the worst thing in the world. I guess a large percentage of humans on earth go through their entire lives like that. The longer I keep at this starvation diet the less desire I have to eat. Like right now as I type this I’m hungry but I’m making a small, right decision to ignore the feeling. Maybe after a while it will go away.

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ExNotes Review: Viking Momentum Tail Bag

Two or three years ago Joe Gresh and I provided product reviews on our Viking motorcycle jackets. We like them a lot and you may have noticed that Viking advertises on our website. Both jackets have given us good service and I’ll provide links to those reviews at the end of this blog.

The topic today is the Viking Momentum small street and sportbike tail bag. I’ve found bags like this to be ideal for my travels through Baja and elsewhere. I used similar equipment on my KLR 650 and I found that I could carry more than I needed in Baja and elsewhere. Gresh suggested the Viking bag and I ordered one. It arrived quickly and it was well packaged.

The Viking Momentum bag arrived in a robust cardboard box.

After taking the Viking bag out of the box, I put it on my Royal Enfield. The size was about perfect. What I especially like is that I can swing my left over it when getting on and off the motorcycle. With larger tail bags, getting on and off the motorcycle becomes a problem, but not with the Viking bag.

The Viking bag has a hinged lid and lots of mounting points. I’ve not used the slotted deal on top of the lid yet. It looks cool. The bag also has a carrying handle. It’s a well-designed and well-built motorcycle accessory. I examined the bag closely and I am impressed with the build quality. I could not find any defects and no indications of sloppy workmanship.

The Momentum has a carrying handle and two zipper handles for opening an expanding the bag.

Before I installed the bag on my Royal Enfield, I opened it to see the interior. The Momentum comes with a rain liner, a set of straps, and spare nylon web bungee cord attach points. You can rivet these to the bag (in addition to the four already present) or you can use them as replacements if the ones on the bag detach.

Inside the Momentum I found a rain liner and extra straps. You can use the extra straps for additional tie down points. I think I could use the straps to turn the Momentum bag into a backpack.

Extra straps and spare D-ring attachments.

The Viking Momentum bag has four Velcro straps on the bottom. These pass under the seat, stick to each other, and secure the bag to the seat.

The Momentum upside down. The Velcro straps pass under the motorcycle seat and attach to each other.

To mount the bag, I took the seat off the Enfield. The Enfield and Viking designs makes this easy. On the Enfield, the ignition key unlocks the right side panel, it comes off, and that reveals a cable pull button that unlocks the seat. Easy peasy.

Unlocking the Enfield side panel to gain access to the seat release.

The Enfield seat removed from the motorcycle.

Once the seat was off the bike, it was a simple matter to mate the Viking Momentum’s mounting straps underneath.

The Momentum tail bag strapped to the Enfield seat.

I first mounted the seat so its carrying handle faced forward, as shown below. Then I reversed it. I’ll say more about that in a bit.

The Viking bag has two zippers around the exterior. The upper one is for the lid; it provides access to the bag’s interior. There’s another zipper around the bag’s base; unzipping it allows the bag to expand and approximately doubles its volume.

With the bottom seat unzipped, allowing the Momentum to expand.

I thought it would be cool if the expanded bag would hold a full-face helmet, but it did not. That’s okay. If I put my helmet inside, there wouldn’t be room for anything else.

There are a couple of zippers inside the Viking bag. One is on the bag’s inner walls. The other is on the underside of the lid. You can store things in the lid compartment like your phone, a map, a Baja tourist visa, your BajaBound insurance paperwork, and other stuff.

The underside of the Momentum lid. You can unzip the zipper and store small items inside the lid’s pocket.

Like most motorcycle apparel and many luggage items, the Momentum is manufactured in Pakistan.

The Viking Momentum includes a rain liner. It packs up compactly. You can keep your stuff dry in the rain liner inside the Momentum bag. It’s a nice touch.

With the Momentum bag’s handle facing forward, I didn’t like how the bag was positioned on the seat. It provided adequate room, but no extra room. The Enfield has a hard seat. I’m getting older and my butt is aging along with the rest of me. I need extra room to move around on a motorcycle seat, and with the bag mounted with the carrying handle forward I didn’t have any extra room. I also noticed that the base zipper (the one you unzip to expand the bag) pull was digging into the Enfield’s Naugahyde surface. I didn’t want to disrespect the Nauga that gave up its hyde for my seat, so I turned the bag around and moved it more toward the rear.

With the Momentum mounted with the handle facing forward, the expansion zipper toggle is against the seat surface. I turned the bag around to eliminate this issue.

When I did that, the Velcro straps are still captured by the seat’s base mounting points (the bag won’t slide off), and I eliminated the zipper-to-Naugahyde interference.

The Velcro straps secured on the motorcycle seat after reversing the bag.

Cosmetically, the seat looks great in either orientation.

The Momentum mounted in the reverse position. The expansion zipper handle is off the seat.

I once led a bunch of guys on a short Baja weekend ride about 15 years ago. One had a Harley, he was new to motorcycling, and he had never done an overnight ride. We met at a Denny’s before heading for Mexico, and when he rolled up on his Electra-Fried, he and that Harley looked like they escaped from the opening scene on the old Beverly Hillbillies show. The only thing missing was Granny in her rocking chair. He told me his saddlebags and his Tour Pak were stuffed, and he also had two or three gym bags bungied to the bike. This was a weekend trip to San Felipe, about 130 south of the border, and we were only staying two nights. My KLR had a medium tank bag and nothing else (and that tank bag also held a camera). “I’m ready for a week down there,” my friend announced from his adventure Glide.

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got my Nikon and a spare set of underwear, so I guess I’m good for a week, too.”

My boat anchor Nikon D810 and a Nikkor 24-120 lens in the Momentum. I really like this. The camera and the lens cost almost as much as the Enfield.

I guess I shouldn’t make fun of that guy. I get it; he was at the front end of the learning curve, and we’ve all been there. I once took an overpacked Harley into Baja, too. We were going to Cabo, taking the ferry to mainland Mexico, heading down to Guadalajara, and coming back through Sinaloa cartel country (you can read about that trip here). I did not yet know about the virtues of traveling light and good ballistic nylon gear like the Viking Momentum bag.

How not to pack a motorcycle. The Momentum tail bag is a much better approach.

The point is this: You don’t need to carry a lot on a motorcycle trip (even if you write a blog), and you can get a lot of stuff in the Viking Momentum. I like it. The Momentum tail bag is a good deal; on the Viking website it retails for $99.99.

So there you go: My take on the Viking Momentum tail bag. It’s a good thing to have for your motorcycle but don’t take my word for it. Listen to what Bernadette has to say.

I mentioned above I would provide links to the Viking motorcycle jacket reviews. Here’s mine, and here’s Joe Gresh’s.

More ExNotes product reviews are here.

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Fallingwater, Pennsylvania

By Joe Berk

Fallingwater, a famous Frank Lloyd Wright structure in southwestern Pennsylvania, is a place we have long wanted to visit. We finally checked that box late last year and it was well worth the trip. It’s one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous architectural accomplishments, designed in 1935 and completed in 1939 for the wealthy Kaufman family. The Kaufmans owned a large department store empire in nearby Pittsburgh, and Fallingwater was their vacation home. The Kaufman family turned the estate over to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and it now operates as an area open to the public.

The Kaufman family’s request to Wright was straightforward: They wanted something unique, something that merged the mountains’ natural beauty with the architecture, and they wanted the local stream to run through the home. The resulting home became one of Wright’s best known accomplishments. Frank Lloyd Wright had a distinguished career and he is arguably one of the most famous architects who ever lived. Fallingwater is the only Wright home open to the public.

A river runs through it…the view from one of the balconies at Fallingwater. Check out the leaves turning color.

Note the layered sandstone construction.

The Kaufmans asked Wright to use natural materials from the area and he did. Much of the home is constructed of local sandstone. They also asked Wright to design the interior furnishings and decor. It all works well together.

Wright also designed the interior and its furnishings.

This looks southwestern, but it works with the sandstone walls.

In 2019, Fallingwater was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is also a National Historic Landmark, it is a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Treasure, the American Institute of Architects named it the best all time work of American Architecture. All that’s great, but take it from us, the ride and the place are awesome. As a destination, Fallingwater is tough to beat.

A photo from the exterior, showing the balconies and the surrounding woodlands.

Fallingwater is in the Laurel Highlands area about 70 miles outside of Pittsburgh. It’s a mountainous area, and because of that, the roads are perfect for great riding. The scenery, the roads, and the riding in this area are pretty much what good motorcycle riding is all about in all but the winter months. Fall is one of the best times to take it in as the leave turning colors add a further visual treat to what is already a delight to the senses. The trick is to do it late enough in the year that the leaves are turning, but not so late that the temps are too low or the roads are too icy. We were lucky; our timing was perfect.

You can’t just show up at Fallingwater. You have to make a reservation and pay for your tickets online. Trust me on this: The tour is money well spent.

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If You’re Gonna Be Stupid You’ve Got To Be Tough

By Joe Gresh

I recently hurt my back feeding a 5-pound log into our wood stove. It’s been cold here in New Mexico, like in the 20’s at night. In the morning CT likes to get a roaring fire going to take the chill off the Carriage House’s unheated living room. The place is only 600 square feet so burning two or three logs makes it nice and toasty for her as she gets ready to go to work. When I finally roll out of bed I enjoy the heat also.

It’s strange to me that I can lift thousands of pounds of concrete without any pain to speak of yet the slightest movement can cause such a heavy thud to my lower back. I was just doing my part to make CT’s life even more comfortable when I opened the stove door, reached in with the log and cried out with pain. It was pretty bad. I couldn’t walk or stand up. I doped myself up on Wal-Mart’s finest stomach-bleeding, generic painkillers and settled in for a day of agony.

One thing I’ve learned about my back in the 65 years I’ve owned it is that rest is no way to improve a sore back. To sit down or lie in bed may feel better at the moment but in the end it just makes it worse. You have to keep moving. Obviously concrete work was out of the question so after the pain killers kicked in I walked (slowly) up to the shed to tinker around with the Husqvarna.

The Carrizozo Mudchuckers, who I ride with on occasion, are transitioning to harder core off road motorcycles. One guy has a Honda XR350. Mudchucker Mike bought a Husaberg 400, which is basically a dirt bike with the bare minimum of lighting necessary to be street-legal. I figured if I was going to keep up with these full-on offroad bikes I needed to make the Husqvarna 510 less of a Supermotard and more like Husqvarna’s TE-type dirt bikes.

Even though it looks like a dirt bike the 510 Husky is rigged to be a street bike. It has slightly shorter suspension, wide, 17’ radial tires with a giant front disc brake that I am madly in love with. The bike can stop on a dime and return a dollar three eighty-five. You actually earn money every time you squeeze the front brake lever. Unfortunately that tiny doughnut front wheel is not so good in the dirt. Tire choices for serious off work are limited and I’ve found nothing that works even ok off road. In mud the tire loads up after just a few revolutions turning into a greasy slick. In sand it steers poorly and doesn’t dig in around corners well. About the only place it’s good is on ½ mile flat tracks.

I was pretty sure a 21-inch front wheel would work much better. There’s a reason almost every dirt bike comes with a 21-inch front wheel. First, you’ve got hundreds of tire choices. Every conceivable condition has a tire specifically designed for it. To me, a skinny 21-inch cuts through mud better and loads up less allowing more steering control. The same can be said for sandy conditions. The larger diameter wheel rolls over obstacles easier due to the less abrupt approach angle. Plus, a 21-inch front wheel just looks better on a dirt bike.

I bought a slightly bent, $100 21-inch TE Husqvarna front wheel complete from eBay a few years ago. It was one of those modifications I planned on doing and since my back was shot I figured, what better time? It’s good light duty work. The rim was pretty wobbly so I removed a bunch of spoke nipples and pounded on the thing with a sledgehammer. Those aluminum rims are stronger that you think. I managed to get the wheel a little straighter but it really needs a new rim.

The eBay TE hub looked exactly like the original hub on the 510 except the SMR axle was larger than the TE axle, probably due to the higher stresses asphalt puts on the long forks. The larger axle meant I had to swap the 17-inch wheel bearings into the 21-inch wheel hub. Along with the larger axle the SMR has a larger disc rotor so that part had to be swapped over to the 21-inch wheel also.

The disc rotor is secured to the hub by allen-head bolts and they were tight. I tried heat, I tried penetrating oil, and I tried an impact tool. Through all this monkey motion I managed to round out the hex in the rotor bolts and several allen sockets. Too easily, I fell back on my old reliable cold chisel to remove the rotor bolts. Needless to say the bolt are now unusable.

The old (smaller) rotor came off easily on the 21-inch wheel and it was then that I realized the TE rotor bolts were smaller. In fact, the TE rotor mounting-bosses were smaller than the SMR mounting bosses. The rotor bolt-hole centers were the same and the SMR rotor mated up to the TE hub. I used the smaller TE bolts as they were a countersunk type and self centered in the larger SMR rotor holes. I made a mental note to add spacers or drill and tap the TE hub for the larger SMR bolts at some undefined later date. Shoddy as it was, the 21-inch front wheel bolted into the SMR forks and seemed to fit perfectly. I spun the wheel: it was bent but not that bent.

The original 17-inch rim is so small and the disc rotor is so large that you have to remove the caliper to remove the wheel from the forks. And this is when things started to go pear-shaped. I bolted the caliper on and gave the 21-incher a spin. It didn’t spin well at all.

The spokes on the Husky SMR510 were always close to the caliper even with the stock setup. What I didn’t foresee was that the smaller wheel located the caliper very near the rim where the spokes were centered and farthest away from the spokes. With the 21-incher’s less-steep spoke angle and the caliper having moved closer to the hub in relation to the rim edge the spokes hit the caliper. They weren’t hitting hard, mind you, the wheel still spun. But they were hitting.

Not one to take a hint that something was critically wrong with the idea, I used a 4-inch grinder with a 60-grit flap wheel to knock the backside of the caliper down a bit. It was working. The spokes hit the caliper less each time I sanded the Brembo caliper. I was almost there. The spokes were barely brushing against the caliper and the wheel was spinning nicely. It needed just a bit more grinding. And then the brake fluid started leaking. I had sanded completely through the caliper into the piston chamber.

At that very moment the entire situation became clear to me. To make the 21-incher work I would need to use the small rotor that came with the used wheel. To use the small rotor I would need the lower fork leg from a TE because the radial caliper mounting bolts would be too far from center and the brake pads would miss the rotor. To use the lower fork leg I would need both sides because the TE has longer travel suspension. Finally, I would need the TE type caliper to clear the spokes. In a matter of seconds I realized that everything was wrong and that I was well and truly screwed.

I found a new Brembo caliper on eBay for 200 dollars and I bought a new set of wheel bearings just because pounding on them to remove them is not good once much less twice. I guess the Husqvarna is going to stay a Supermotard. I’m about 400 dollars and a couple days labor into this daisy chain of stupid decisions and I just want to make it stop. When the parts show up I’ll be putting the 17-incher back on the Husky and try to find a more aggressive tire.

Unless I find a complete set of TE forks, brakes and wheel on eBay…

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The Casio Marlin

By Joe Berk

I’ve mentioned my Casio Marlin (also known as the Duro) a few times in previous blogs. I love this watch for any number of reasons: It’s accurate, it’s rugged, it’s waterproof, it’s comfortable, and it’s inexpensive. It’s a diver’s watch, but I’m not a diver. I just like the look of thing. I’ve worn it on a few big moto trips including the ride around the Andes Mountains in Colombia. It poured cats and dogs on that trip. The Marlin was unfazed.

At about $50, this watch has to be the deal of the century. Just for grins I grabbed a picture of the Rolex Sea Dweller and put it along side the Casio. If you own a Rolex don’t get your shorts in a knot ((I own one, too). But the comparison has to make you wonder: Let’s see, $50 for the Casio and $16,500 (or whatever it is these days) for the Sea Dweller (if you can find one and in today’s market that’s not easy). As Aristotle would say….hmmmmm.

Yeah, you can go a little deeper with the Rolex (they say down to 3,900 meters). My Casio says it’s good for 200 meters. That’s over 600 feet down. It’s not likely I’ll ever visit those regions and if I ever do I can guarantee you the time of day is not what will be on my mind.

I’ve owned my Marlin for about 10 years now. I think I’ve had to replace the battery twice. My guy charges me $3.25 to install a new battery (parts and labor). The strap got stiff and cracked, so I’ve replaced that once (I think it was $10). I checked and the cost of a replacement resin Rolex band is close to $300. On the other hand, the Rolex is self-winding, so it never needs a battery. Again….hmmmm.

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On that comfort thing…the Casio Marlin is about the right size for a man’s watch and the resin band is very comfortable. I always forget I have it on and on more than a few occasions I’ve gone into the water wearing it (swimming, showering, and most recently, almost being swept away in my Subaru going to the gun club). It doesn’t matter to the Casio. I’d say it’s indestructable, but some Internet weenie would want to get into a urinating contest about that.

Boarding the ferry in *Magangué* on the Magdelena River. Even there, the Casio’s good looks and functionality appealed to an onlooker.

When I rode Colombia with Juan and Carlos, one time we had to wait a couple of hours on a hot and humid afternoon for the ferry to come in and carry us down the Magdalena River to Mompos. While we were waiting in what little shade we could find in Magangué, a young Colombian boy came over and touched the Casio, nodding his approval. If I had another watch with me I would have given it to him. I still think about that on occasion and wish I had given it to that kid. I think when I bought my Marlin, they were $39. That young fellow most likely would have cherished the Casio the rest of his life (as I will). Maybe I need another ride in Colombia. If I go again I’ll throw an extra Marlin in one of the panniers. You know, just to be prepared.

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Dream Bikes: Honda Super Hawk

By Joe Berk

That’s me, age 15, in the photo above. I’m on my Dad’s Honda Super Hawk, and no, I wasn’t getting ready to do my best impression of Rollie Free or Walt Fulton (even though I was apparently wearing the same swim trunks as ol’ Rollie). I wasn’t getting ready for a high speed run at all…it was summer, and we spent a lot of time in the water in those days. And when Dad said it was okay (and sometimes when he didn’t), I rode the Super Hawk in the fields behind our house.

We didn’t know as much about photography back in the mid-’60s. But you get the idea. That Super Hawk was a lot of fun. That’s me in the summer of 1966.

Rollie Free at Bonneville in 1948, on his way to a romping 150.313 mph land speed record. Check out the swim trunks.

Walt Fulton breaking 100 mph in 1952 at El Mirage, California, on a Mustang motorcycle.

The Honda fascination started with me as a 13-year-old kid. We weren’t motorcycle people. Yet. I was mesmerized by a ’64 Triumph 500cc Tiger a guy at school owned. That started a slew of snail mail requests to the motorcycle companies (snail mail was all we had back then, but we never felt communications deprived), and pretty soon I had a collection of moto sales literature. Dad started looking at it. Then we saw a Honda Dream at a McDonald’s (I wrote about that a few blogs back). A short while later, Dad’s trapshooting buddy Cliff Leutholt (one of those nicest people who rode a Honda) visited us on his Super Hawk. Jet black, chrome, silver paint, twin carbs, electric start, it was stunning. Cliff said it was good for 100 mph. Dad rode it (a first for my father) and he was hooked. The 1960s were good times.

Me, with Dad’s CB 160, in February 1966. No snow, but it was cold that time of year in New Jersey.

The bug bit hard. Dad started looking at the classifieds (remember those?), and in 1965, he bought the Baby Super Hawk, a scaled down, 160cc version of the 305. Dad owned that bike for only a few months, and then he traded it in on a Super Hawk. Sherm Cooper (of Cooper’s Cycle Ranch) offered Dad $450 for the 160 against the Super Hawk’s $730 (it was $50 more than Dad had paid for the 160), and just like that, we had a Super Hawk. Boy, that was a blast.

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The Honda Super Hawk emerged from a vibrant and dazzlingly successful Honda Motor Company. Honda first brought its motorcycles to the US in 1959, and, well, you know the rest. 1961 saw the creation of the 250cc Honda Hawk, which quickly evolved into the Super Hawk. The Super Hawk bumped displacement to 305cc, and its 180-degree parallel twin was good for 28 horsepower at 9200 rpm (unheard of engine speeds back in the early 1960s). The Hondas had 12-volt electrics, twin 26 mm Keihin carbs, a single overhead cam, a 4-speed transmission, and a wet sump lubrication system.

Like the Honda Dream in our recent blog, the Super Hawk had an electric starter, along with a kickstarter that oddly rotated forward (it was hard to look like Marlon Brando kick starting a Super Hawk, but I did my best). The instrumentation was a cool touch. Instead of the more conventional (i.e., British) separate cans for the tach and the speedo, both were contained in a single panel atop the headlight. The Super Hawk had a tubular steel frame and front forks, but no front frame downtube (the engine was a stressed member). The electric starter occupied the space where front downtube would be. It was a clever engineering solution and that electric starter made life easier, but the Super Hawk didn’t look as cool as the 305cc CL 77 Scrambler (more on the Scrambler in a future blog).

The Super Hawk was a runner. A road test in Cycle World magazine had the top speed at 104.6 mph and the bike ran a respectable 16.8-second quarter mile at 83 mph. Super Hawks had twin leading shoe front brakes (something special in the pre-disk-brake era). The motorcycle weighed 335 pounds. The Super Hawk could be had in the same blue, black, white, or red color choices as the Honda Dreams, but unlike the Dream, all the Super Hawks had silver frames, side covers, and fenders. I remember that nearly all Super Hawks were black; it was very unusual to see one in any other color unless you were an Elvis fan.

The Super Hawk had good starring roles, too, before product placement became the mega-industry it is today. There were pop songs about Hondas. Elvis Presley rode a red Honda Super Hawk in the 1964 movie Roustabout. And a fellow named Robert Pirsig rode across the US on one with his son and wrote a book about it (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance); that book has become something of a bible in the travelogue and motorcycle deep think genres. Pirsig’s Super Hawk currently resides in the Smithsonian.

So, back to my early days and my turning Dad into a rider: As awesome as the Super Hawk was, it didn’t last long. The progression back in those days was a small Honda, a bigger Honda, and then (before the advent of the Honda CB 750 Four), a jump to a Triumph or BSA. Dad had been bitten by the bug big time, and in 1966, he bought a new Triumph Bonneville. But that’s a story for another blog.

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More Dream Bikes!

Our previous blog on the Honda Dream is here. And here’s our blog on riding a Honda Scrambler in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens: Jerry and the Jersey Devil.

The Wayback Machine: Welcome to the Show

By Joe Gresh

I’ve been so busy with home-nesting projects my motorcycles have succumbed to time’s crumbling embrace. I parked the ZRX1100 Kawasaki after the carburetors clogged up and it began running on three cylinders. Since it has been sitting a few years naturally the brake pistons seized. Followed by fluid leaking out of the calipers. Followed by me robbing the battery to start the generator that powers the nest. In any event, it needed tires, a chain and sprockets and the throttle cable repaired. So the big green Eddie Lawson lookalike has suffered the indignity of being dragged across the countryside on a two-hundred-dollar Harbor Freight trailer.

Even worse, the mini bike my pops built for me when I was a wee lad is on the injured reserve list. Forty-eight years idle, Mini has untold issues although the Briggs and Stratton engine still turns over. I’ve lost a few critical, hand-made parts and since the Old Man has shuffled off I’ll have to re-make the stuff myself. It’s not easy handling such a precious thing. The mini is lousy with my father’s engineering and artistic skills. The welds and frame geometry are a direct, tangible link to happy times working together in the garage.

The 1965 Honda 50cc went under water in one of Florida’s many hurricanes so I took it apart and threw everything into boxes and plastic tubs. It’s been apart so long the tubs have crystalized into the finest, most fragile parts bins in existence. The slightest touch turns them to dust. Dry, chalky plastic oxide mingles with 4mm JIC screws and yellowed wings. The sheet-metal swing arm rusted completely in half so I’ll have to rig something in aluminum to secure the rear wheel to the frame and lower shock eyes. I do have a good engine for the Honda: a fire breathing 140cc Lifan clone that clears the front fender by a quarter-inch.

The newest dead-bike I own is a Husqvarna. On the last, long-ish motorcycle ride I took to Big Bend Park way down in south Texas the Husqvarna SMR510 lost its clutch release. Bit by bit, little by little the clutch action faded away until finally pulling the clutch lever had no effect on events. The headlight also broke off but on a dirt bike that’s hardly worth mentioning. We were doing some trail riding down there and the Husky did ok shifting motocross style. Starting out was the main problem as you had to push the thing, jump on, and pop it into first. The bike would either stall or roar off on a wheelie. On the ride home I would circle the backfield waiting for traffic lights to change. Sorry, everyone in El Paso.

At least the Z1 Kawasaki never ran for me. I bought it from the owner of the property we now live on. I had to get it out of there because things were disappearing and I felt someone was going to pilfer the Z before I could. The Z needs all sorts of stuff but I get the feeling this bike will be a keeper. The lines are so clean and simple compared to modern bikes. It sits damn near perfect, doesn’t feel heavy and I know from following David Howell through the Everglades, Z’s do well in the dirt.

Which leaves us with the only motorcycle I own that works: a 360cc, 1971 Yamaha RT1B. Fondly known as Godzilla to dirt riders far and wide, the old Yamaha just keeps popping along. Analog everything, smoky, noisy, sweating petroleum from every pore, this is the bike that will not die. Even with me maintaining it.

Everything around us is constantly falling apart. Even the Great Pyramid in Egypt will be a sand dune one day. I just hope that when it finally falls to the ground replacement parts will still be available on Ebay.

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Bobbie’s Solo Baja Ride: Part 3

By Bobbie Surber

Do you ever have those moments when you wake up unsure of where you are? I awoke to the sound of birds, more specifically, parrots, and the smell of fresh tortillas and knew instantly that this was not home; I was in Baja in Mulege and wholly smitten with my room with her stone walls, comfy bed, and protective mosquito netting. I didn’t want to get out of bed until I remembered that I had made plans to go horseback riding to the bay.

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Throwing on my clothes and double-timing it to the restaurant, I had just enough time for a cup of coffee and water before my guide arrived to take me to the ranch, which was less of a ranch and more of a lean-to along the highway with both our horses tied and already saddled. I met my girl for the day, Lupita. She had enough spunk to whinny at our arrival and appreciate the carrots I brought to help form this new friendship. Our saddlebag were loaded with swimwear and lunch, and we set off for a leisurely ride to the bay.

Muscle memory took over from riding horses in my youth, and I gave in to the morning’s joy and the view of Conception Bay. Riding down the beach at a slow gallop letting our horses have their lead and finding a bit of shade, we stopped for an early lunch of fresh fruit, good tequila, and some freshly made empanadas. After lunch, I asked if I could take off the saddle and ride bareback, something I had not done since childhood. It seemed a perfect idea for this glorious morning. Surprisingly my guide said yes and permitted me to ride Lupita bareback into the bay to enjoy a good swim. I had forgotten the thrill of entering a body of water on horseback; Lupita seemed to enjoy the experience as she left the security of the ocean bottom and took us further out into the bay. The morning flew by and soon it was time to return to the beach and make our way back to the corral.

A river runs through it…the Rio Mulege in Mulege.

Returning to Historica Casita in the heat of the early afternoon, I did what any sensible local would do. I retreated to the coolness of my room for a proper afternoon siesta. After a cold shower and fresh clothes, I headed out to explore. With the help of a newfound local friend and a Google search, I learned that the Mulege indigenous population has a long and rich history that dates back centuries. It is believed that the region’s first inhabitants were hunter-gatherers who lived in small bands, but the arrival of the Mission changed their lives forever. Spanish missionaries established the mission in 1730, teaching the local population how to farm and build adobe structures and simple homes. I was also happy to learn there has been an effort to preserve their history by preserving ancient artifacts and teaching younger generations about their heritage.

While the Mission was closed, I could still walk the grounds and view the river from the vantage point of the Mission, as it is built on one of the highest points in Mulege. Wandering back down the hill, I walked the river’s edge, exploring the town and the small community of locals and ex-pats. As I made my way back to the hotel, I realized how hungry I was and looked forward to an evening in the hotel courtyard, a good dinner, and a freshly squeezed margarita. The evening did not disappoint as I sat visiting with locals and a young family visiting from the mainland. Soon I was off to bed with the promise of an early rise and the chance to explore the many beaches along Conception Bay.

The following day I was back on my bike and headed towards my next stop, Playa Santispac, a short 25 kilometers south on Highway 1. I knew I only had a few hours before the oppressive heat and humidity would force me back to the room, and I was determined to make the most of the day. Cresting the ridge, I was overlooking the bay with her teal-colored water inviting a closer look. Santispac beach has a restaurant and several palapas stationed along the beach; as I rode my bike down the beach, I decided a swim was in order, followed by a hearty breakfast at the modest beachside restaurant.

Swim and breakfast completed, I headed further south, stopping at each beach I passed and settling on what has become one of my favorite beaches, Playa el Requeson. The white sand and sand spit at low tide, taking you to a small island, was more than I could resist. Setting up my camp chair, I soon made friends with an overlander couple from England. Borrowing their snorkeling gear I enjoyed a quick swim out to the island, enjoying the starfish and rockfish along the shore. I reluctantly returned for one last night in Mulege with a new plan for the following day, to ride to Loreto for lunch and then return to Playa el Requeson to camp for two nights.

Loreto has a rich history that dates back to the 16th century when Spanish missionaries established the first mission in the area. Indigenous people then populated the area, and over time, it became an important fishing port for the region. Today Loreto is a popular tourist destination complete with a Malecon along her waterfront. Loreto has an historic town square with a well-preserved mission and museum. With a population of around 25,000, finding lodging at every price point is easy, as are the town’s many services.

After a lovely day sightseeing, I headed about an hour and a half back north to Playa el Requeson to find a bit of shade and a good place for my tent. The afternoon was blazing hot as I headed inland along Hwy 1, as I once again cursed myself for selecting June to make this ride. Complaining aside, I arrived and indulged in a long swim to take the sting out of the day’s heat. I found my new friends in the overlanding vehicle who gave me the gift of a cold drink with ice and offered the shade of their massive vehicle to pitch my tent. The day gave way to a glorious sunset, and soon, we had a modest fire complete with fresh fish for dinner. With a million stars out for our pleasure, full bellies, and the delight of margaritas on the beach, the night was spent with storytelling of our past adventures. Both Stephen and Shelly’s stories surpassed mine as they shared their adventures traveling through three continents over the past several years.

The two days camping on the beach flew by, and it was sadly time to make my way back north. I planned to head to San Felipe, but the reality of the heat made heading back to the Pacific side an easy choice. Retracing my ride through Baja allowed me to revisit a few of my favorite places and discover a few new ones to ensure this would not be my last ride there!

Part 1 of my Baja adventure is here. Part 2 is here.

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