The ExhaustNotes Blog

Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 6

By Mike Huber

Exposure is one of the greatest thrills when traveling by motorcycle. You feel every drop of rain and every cold or warm front you move through, experiencing each second by second. There is no better way to experience the present, except for maybe exiting an aircraft in flight. Being a motorcyclist and embracing that exposure allows the most beautiful moments. During these moments I sometimes close my eyes for an instant to ensure my mind has a vivid snapshot that can be stored deep within and recalled for the rest of my life. With this beauty at times there comes a price, though, and at times that price can be death.

We were almost wrapping up our journey, having decided not to ride to the Vietnamese North Pole due to time constraints caused by our meandering travels. Instead, I chose local mountain roads I found while planning our trip. This made for relaxed riding and and easy return to our Home Stay in Mai Chau. The roads were incredible, some just dirt half covered by avalanches that barely allowed scooting the little 150cc motorcycles through. Every so often we would enter a village where pigs and water buffalo blocked the roads as children came out to honk the horn prominently taped to my handlebars.

After returning to the main road, just a few mountain passes away from Mai Chau, we decided to break for lunch. There were older locals drinking what looked like a Vietnamese vodka. Being ever curious about local drinks I attempted to order a bottle (or two) to go. This took more than a few minutes. Vietnam has so many dialects that many revert to English as the communication platform, but not here. It took about five minutes and included several charades imitating the drunken locals we had just seen to obtain the right beverage. No question about it: My performance would be the talk of that local watering hole for some time.

As I loaded the vodka bottles carefully into the plastic side panniers, we synced up the headsets and fired up the motos. The narrow two-lane highway was stunning. There were beautiful mountain views and sheer cliffs to our right where we could overlook the vistas and still see lingering fog far below us in a mystical valley. Traffic was light that day, but we were alert for Terminators (oncoming trucks barreling around blind corners) and we were still cautious.

Suddenly, a female with a pink Hello Kitty plastic helmet zinged by me on her scooter. I waved to her as we do to all riders and glanced again to look at the mountain views. I took a deep breath as I knew this would be one of those snapshot moments I wanted to remember forever. I didn’t realize how right I was. In the very next moment, a Terminator was barreling directly at me in my lane, and I had no escape with the cliff on my right. Before I could react to anything I heard plastic crunching and witnessed a body fly into the air 50 meters in front of me. The entire world stopped for a moment as the crescendo of a full orchestra built and screamed in my head. Then it suddenly stopped and the silence became the quiet sound of a gentle wind.

“Rider down!!” I screamed into the headset to Bobbie. I parked the bike and ran over. The female rider was still breathing, but there was nothing that could be done. With traffic stopped I knew that on these mountain roads this scene would just get worse. I attempted to tell the driver to call 911 knowing that most of these countries don’t have emergency services, but also knowing he wouldn’t need to read my charades to know what action to take. I flipped my moto around and drove up a quarter mile to meet Bobbie, and I explained that I would pull road guard detail and for her to go to the accident scene.

Road guard duty was not an easy task on that foggy mountain highway in Vietnam. I remembered I had downloaded the Google Translator after being pulled over and quickly looked up “Stop bad accident ahead,” but even with using Google Translator the trucks continued to ignore me to the point they were jeopardizing Bobbie and others at the scene. They continued to speed toward the horrific situation ahead. Some vehicles were even going off the road to the left to avoid the accident or the cliffs after ignoring my warnings.

Still wearing my helmet and headset I shouted several times to Bobbie that there was an incoming vehicle but to no avail. She was doing what she could to assist the downed female rider, and she didn’t have her helmet on. With no other option I physically walked into the middle of the road using myself as a barrier to force each vehicle to stop (I hoped). I wanted them to realize the accident they were about to encounter. This action ultimately worked and the threat of new vehicles incoming to the accident site stopped.

Sometime between 45 minutes and a lifetime later authorities arrived on the scene, but only in the form of a traffic officer on the back of a civilian moped. At this juncture it was time for us to depart. There was nothing else we could do, the female rider had died, and it was time for us to leave. We slowly continued our ride down the pass and neither of us spoke for the remainder of the ride other than my continued warnings on the lowering mountain switchbacks into the fog of Mai Chau Valley. After 45 minutes of riding an ambulance passed us heading to the accident. Still not saying a word, we knew there was no rush for the ambulance at this point.

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If you missed earlier installments of the Vietnam ride, here they are:

Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 1
Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 2
Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 3
Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 4
Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 5

Lee’s Modern Reloading Manual

By Joe Berk

Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit includes their Modern Reloading manual. It’s written by the late Richard Lee (the founder of Lee Precision), it’s the second edition, and Lee’s retail price is $40.98. By way of comparison, on Hornady’s site their reloading manual is $59.99, on Sierra’s site their reloading manual is $39.99, on the Lyman site their reloading manual is $34.98, and on the Speer site you get the load data for free (it’s published on their site). You can also purchase the Lee manual on Amazon; oddly, the price on Amazon is higher than it is on the Lee website.

The Lee reloading manual is comparable in heft and contents to other big reloading manuals. It’s a hardcover book with 692 pages and several chapters on various reloading topics, including basic instructions and more in-depth discussions of advanced reloading topics. Richard Lee wrote the first parts covering various topics including the company’s history, Lee’s reloading equipment, primers and primer sensitivity (this was extremely interesting), how to reload, reloading for best accuracy, rifle reloading, handgun relaoding, measuring powder, powder safety, pressure issues, matching bullet metal to chamber pressure, hardness testing, bullet casting and sizing, shotgun reloading, and muzzle loading. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lee’s articles. They are written in a folksy, technical, and easy to follow manner. It’s like having a conversation with one of my shooting buddies. That, all by itself, is a good reason to buy the Lee reloading manual.

A load table inside the Lee reloading manual showing some of the date it contains that other reloading manuals do not. This includes the starting charge volume, the Lee dipper number, the Lee Auto-Disk number, and the 1 Grain Factors.

The load data tables start on Page 161 and continue to Page 686 (the load tables comprise most of the book). These are interesting and they include several bits of data not found in other reloading manuals. There’s the usual dimensioned cartridge drawings, starting load and max loads, the pressure, and the velocities, and then there’s more. These additional pieces of information not usually found in other reloading manuals are:

- Useful Case Capacity. On each of the load table cartridge drawings, Lee includes the useful case volume in cubic centimeters. Why this is useful will be apparent when you read the next bulleted statement.
- Volume cc. This table entry, immediately to the right of the starting load, shows the volume occupied by the starting charge. You can compare this to the useful case capacity info (see above) included in the cartridge drawing to get an idea of how full the cartridge case will be at the starting charge. Usually, a cartridge will perform better if the case is full or nearly full. I’ve not seen this information in other reloading manuals. I think it’s a good thing to know when selecting which powder to use.
- Lee Dipper. Lee manufactures different size powder dippers. The powder dipper is basically a yellow plastic spoon used to scoop a known volume of powder. Some reloaders use this approach rather than using a powder dispenser or a scale, but others do. Dippers are included with Lee dies, and you can also buy a set of different sized dippers separately. It’s not the powder measurement and dispensing approach I used, but I found the data interesting. I’ve never seen this data in other load manuals.
- Auto-Disk. Lee makes an Auto-Disk Powder Measure. It’s a device that uses a sliding disk with different volume chambers (or cavities) in it to control the volume of powder dispensed by their Auto-Disk Powder Measure. These cavities are denoted by decimal numbers. The Lee reloading manual tables identify the appropriate Auto-Disk to use with charges included in the table. I’ve never seen this data in other manuals.
- 1 Grain Factor. This is another bit of data not included in any other reloading manual I’ve ever seen. The 1 Grain Factor can be used to show velocity reduction if the maximum powder charge is decreased by one grain. You take the maximum velocity, multiply it by the 1 Grain Factor, and it will show the decrease in velocity that will be realized by reducing the powder charge 1 grain. There’s a similar 1 Grain Factor included that can be used to calculate pressure reduction for a 1 grain powder reduction The 1 Grain Factors are not included for every cartridge (they are included for the hotter magnum cartridges such as .44 Magnum and 7mm Remington Magnum).

A Lee dipper included with a set of Lee reloading dies. The dipper is a powder scoop. You can also buy the dippers separately.

An earlier Lee Auto-Disk Powder dispenser. This powder dispensing approach used disks (see lower arrow) installed in the dispenser (see upper arrow). The disks contained different cavities that dispensed different powder volumes.

A Lee Auto-Disk powder disk, as seen from below. The cylindrical openings collect different volumes of powder from the Auto-Disk hopper. Selecting different openings will dispense different charges.

Lee Auto-Disk powder disk as seen from above. The volume designator for each cavity is identified on the disk top. The Lee reloading manual shows which opening to use for a selected powder charge. No other reloading manual contains this information.

The Lee manual breaks with typical reloading manuals on the order in which loads are shown. In other manuals, the cartridge sequence is organized by bullet diameter, and then within each bullet diameter category, by cartridge maximum velocity. There is a table of contents in the Lee manual (it’s on Pages 159-160) showing all the cartridges included in the Lee manual and where their load data appears.

If you are a reloader who enjoys getting into the more technical aspects of load development (and what reloader isn’t?) I believe you will thoroughly enjoy Lee’s Modern Reloading. I think it’s a first-class work as good as or better than the manuals from Lyman, Sierra, Hornady, and other reloading manual publishers. It’s money well spent, and when you purchase Lee’s Classic Turret Press Kit, you basically get it for free.

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The Wayback Machine: Mr. Bray

By Joe Gresh

I didn’t start out working for Mr. Bray. He was a deep red construction foreman who had been baking in the Florida sun all his life. His nose looked like Bob Hope’s except God had pressed his thumb into Mr. Bray’s right nostril and kind of smooshed the thing to the side. Mr. Bray ran projects all around Miami. I was a laborer helping my dad who was an equipment operator. The main job of labor for an equipment operator is to never let the operator get off the machine. Anything that needed to be done in order to keep him in his seat was my responsibility.

Mr. Bray had hired my dad to do the earthwork on a shopping center he was building in North Miami. I was a hard worker because I wanted to make some seed money and go back to California. I was taking growth hormones and steroids at the time. It was all I could do not to tear the footings out of the ground with my bare hands. The meds were prescription: Starting with a 5-foot tall, 98-pound body the pills added 6 inches in height and 27 pounds in acne over 3 years. I had abundance of energy, man. I tore around the construction site like a banshee. Mr. Bray liked a hard worker, drug-induced or not, so he hired me away from my dad just by offering twice the money.

The job was Union, which meant I had to join one. Mr. Bray had connections at the carpenter’s local so he arraigned for my union card. This was a big deal because normally you’d have to wait in line to join and then you’d have to wait in line until the Union sent you out on a job. It might take several years to clear the backlog. I was a First Period Apprentice without missing a paycheck.

When I got that paycheck it was a disappointment. The Union dues sapped a lot, then the federal and state deductions sapped some more. My dad paid cash, you know? I ended up making less money than before. Mr. Bray had pulled strings to get me in but I showed him my pay stub anyway. “That’s not so good, is it?” Mr. Bray said. I told him that it wasn’t but that I would carry on. I mean I had taken the deal; I felt obligated. “Lemme see what I can do about it,” Mr. Bray told me.

The next paycheck I received my rating was Third Period Apprentice (equivalent to 1-1/2 years of experience and passing several written tests) and I was making 8 dollars an hour. This was more money than I had ever made in my lifetime. From then on my loyalties were clear. I was Mr. Bray’s boy. If he needed a body buried on the site I would do it faster and better than anyone else.

Mr. Bray’s crew consisted of a journeyman carpenter, a mid-level carpenter, a laborer and me. In practice, we weren’t tied to a trade. I might have to do a little wiring, relocate pipe or dig a foundation. We formed all the foundations, then the steel workers would tie the steel and we would pour the concrete. These were non-cosmetic jobs. For slabs we hired a crew of finishers.

It didn’t set well with the other guys when Mr. Bray made me the foreman the few times he had to go off site. I only had like two months of construction experience but had absorbed a lot more knowledge just by being around my dad. The journeyman carpenter got sulky taking orders from a third period apprentice.

I have never been a leader of men. My approach to management is to tell everyone to stay the hell out of my way and I’ll do it myself. Surprisingly it worked in this instance because these guys still had remnants of a conscience. We usually got more done when Mr. Bray was gone.

Mr. Bray used my size to motivate the crew. Whenever there was something heavy to move the guys would bitch and want a crane. “Gresh, put that plank on the roof.” That was all I needed to hear. I was a greyhound shot out of a gate. I’d shoulder the 10-inch wide, 20-footer, run full tilt at the building, spear the end of the board into the ground like a pole vaulter and walk the board vertical onto the wall. While the rest of the crew shook their heads in pity I’d run up the ladder and grab the board, hand-over-handing the thing until I could rest it onto my shoulder. Putting the wood onto the roof took about 45 seconds.

The whole thing had a creepy, Cool-Hand-Luke-when-he-was-acting-broken vibe but I wasn’t acting. It was more an act of unreasonable anger. I wanted to get stuff done. It was all that mattered to me. Mr. Bray would turn to the guys and say “Look at Gresh, he did it easy. You don’t need a crane. Now put the rest of those damn boards up there.” Picturing the guys pole-vaulting the boards up one by one I’ll never understand why they didn’t beat the crap out of me when Mr. Bray turned his back.

Another Union trade on a construction job are the bricklayers. They would put up walls on the foundations we poured. The floors were left dirt to allow new tenants to choose the interior layout. After they put up the walls we would tie the steel and form the gaps between sections of wall then pour them full of concrete. The poured columns made a sturdy wall. Unfortunately, being only 8 inches wide, the wall is very fragile until the concrete columns are in.

Mr. Bray was always looking for ways to save the company money and as my dad’s equipment was still on site he would have me do small operator jobs rather than have my dad drive to the site and charge him. We needed a trench for something, I can’t remember what but since we only had a 14-inch bucket it didn’t matter. I was digging inches away from a wall with the backhoe at 45 degrees to allow the bucket to dump the spoil. I could only put one outrigger down because the wall was too close. The whole setup was wobbly and when a return swing ran a bit wide the boom tapped the wall. Not hard, it didn’t even chip the blocks.

It happened so slowly. The wall teetered. I pulled the boom away. I was wishing it to settle down. The wall tottered. More thoughts and prayers were directed at the wall. Slowly the wall went over and smashed into pieces. After checking to see that I didn’t kill anyone I went to Mr. Bray. “Um…we have a problem, Mr. Bray.”

He was marking stuff on his critical path chart. “What is it, Gresh?”

“You better come take a look.”

We walked over to the crushed wall. I explained everything like I just did. Mr. Bray was fighting some inner demons for sure. Finally his face relaxed and he said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll tell the bricklayers the wind blew it over.” Man, I loved that guy.

From my dad I learned a perfectionism that I have rarely been able to equal. From Mr. Bray I learned that perfection is a great goal but the job needs to get done because another trade is waiting on you. Mr. Bray would let a lot of things slide that my dad would obsess over. Working for Mr. Bray was much less stressful and customers inside the finished shoe store could not tell the difference.

The shopping center was nearly done. I had worked for Mr. Bray 6 months. I had a couple thousand dollars saved and told him I was going back to California. “Why don’t you stay on? I’ll train you in construction management, you’ll be a journeyman carpenter in 5 years and you’ll be running jobs like this.”

Mr. Bray was offering me his most valuable gift. He was offering me everything he had: To pass his lifetime of knowledge on to me. I had to go back to California though and I left feeling like I had let Mr. Bray down in the end. And even today I’m not settled. I’m still trying to finish the damn job.

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From all of us to all of you: Merry Christmas!

Chinese Diesel Heat: Part 1

By Joe Gresh

It’s starting to get a little cold here at Tinfiny Ranch. Our nights drop to the mid 20’s and the sunny days top out somewhere in the mid 50’s. That’s not very cold compared to the northern states but it’s still cold enough to make working in the shed less than comfortable. Part of the problem is the shed itself: Made of thin sheet metal with zero insulation, the inside of the shed tends to mirror the outside temperature within a few degrees. Before you tell me to insulate the shed know that it costs nearly as much as the shed to insulate the thing and that I am thrifty.

I suffer in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer. Summer isn’t as bad because I can open the four big roll-up doors and get some air moving through the building. Winter is harder to deal with so I bought one of those Chinese diesel heaters that you’ve read about in all the larger heater-centric publications like “Chinese Heater Digest” or “Hot Asians!” magazines. I took the plunge into oil burning and am here to tell you about it.

Chinese diesel heaters have a huge YouTube community. There are hundreds of videos describing installation, modification, how to burn waste oil, hydraulic oil and any other type of oil. The phrase “Chinese heater” encompasses dozens of factories producing hundreds of Webasco and Espar clones. The price difference is incredible: A real Webasco 2000-watt diesel heater will cost around $1300 while I picked up the 8kw Vevor clone version for $119 with shipping included. You have to really dislike China to pay $1200 more for essentially the same item. The build quality is slightly better on the brand name units but functionally they are the same. You can find comparison videos on YouTube if you are interested in the minor differences.

Normally I buy a lot of junk from Amazon. I know I shouldn’t because Bezos has all the money and maybe it would be better if we spread it around a bit. For the Chinese heater purchase I decided to try EBay and give a different multi-billionaire my money. Unfortunately, the ultra low price I paid blinded me to some important control module downgrades. Anyway, Bezos gave Dolly Parton 100 million dollars for her charity work so he’s back in my good graces.

My EBay heater came securely packed with only minor damage to one of the mounting flanges. Everything you need for installation was included except for two triple A batteries for the remote control and diesel fuel for the tank.

The instruction manual’s translation was in the style of a 1960’s Japanese motorcycle owner’s manual and if anything was even more cryptic. I found it easier to watch several YouTube videos as the manual was nearly useless.

The cheaper, cheap Vevor Chinese version I bought came with the simplest control. A large push button turned the heater on and off. A remote control allows for changing power output by speeding up or slowing down the fuel pump (measured in pump-cycle hz). The startup and shutdown sequence is fully automated and several steps long. This is where I wish I had the better control panel as it shows each step of the process. I am kind of in the dark with the controller supplied. I’m never sure what the thing is doing or where in the sequence we are. It costs $30 for the good controller, negating any money I saved getting the cheaper, cheap Chinese model. I should have bitten the bullet and bought this one from Amazon.

Like the good chair at your house, the good controller does everything better. It shows fan speed in RPM, glow plug status, combustion cycle, and displays any error codes in alphanumeric format instead of blinking lights. You can also prime the fuel pump a little easier with the good controller. The heater works exactly the same but you feel better about it.

You get a couple feet of exhaust tubing and a little muffler for the combustion gas exhaust. If you are installing the heater in a van or RV you’ll probably need a longer pipe.

For combustion air intake you get a coarse, plastic air filter that will stop large animals from climbing inside the air intake pipe. Also included are a duct pipe, a register, and a bunch of clamps, screws and small parts.

In Chinese Diesel Heat Part 2 we will assemble and install the diesel heater and see how it performs. Internet reviews on these heaters are all over the map. Some people say they are junk, some say they are equal to the expensive units. With the variations of quality coming out of various Chinese factories, both camps may be right. I’ve found any product that requires installation or mechanical ability to use seems to garner more negative reviews. I suspect some of those bad reviews are installer created problems.

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The Wayback Machine: Why a 250?

By Joe Berk

This is a blog I wrote for CSC Motorcycles several years ago (time sure flies when you’re having fun). The topic was as timely then as it is today. I like big bikes, but I like small bikes more, and I’m convinced that a small bike makes way more sense than a big bike for real world adventure touring. I thought I would post the blog again, as we are having way too much fun with CSC, BMW, Janus, and other companies who have seen the light. Here’s the blog from way back.

A 250cc bike seems too small to many riders. Is it?

The motorcycle craze in the US really started in the mid-1960s. I know motorcycling goes back way before that, but motorcycling was essentially a fringe endeavor until Honda came on the scene. We met the nicest people on Hondas, if you remember, and that ad tagline was a winner (so is “Don’t Miss The Boat,” by the way). (Note: “Don’t Miss The Boat” was CSC’s tagline for the US RX3 introduction, and those who didn’t miss the boat participated in one of the best deals in the history of motorcycling.)

Honda’s sales model was a good one. They pulled us in with small bikes and then convinced us we needed larger and larger bikes. Many of us started with a Honda Cub (the 50cc step-through), we progressed to the Super 90 (that was my jump in), then the 160cc baby Super Hawk, then the 305cc Super Hawk, and at that point in about 1967 that was it for Honda. They didn’t have anything bigger (yet). After the 305cc Super Hawk, the next step for most folks was either a Harley or a Triumph.

Yours Truly, on a Honda Super 90 in the mid-’60s.

You know, back in those days, a 650cc motorcycle was a BIG motorcycle. And it was.

But Honda kept on trucking…they offered a 450 that sort of flopped, and then in 1969 they delivered the CB-750. That bike was so far out in front of everyone else it killed the British motorcycle industry and (with a lot of self-inflicted wounds) it almost killed Harley.

The Japanese manufacturers piled on. Kawasaki one-upped Honda with a 900. (Another note…it’s one of those early Kawi 900s that Gobi Gresh is restoring in the Zed’s Not Dead series.) Honda came back with a 1000cc Gold Wing (which subsequently grew to 1100cc, then 1500cc, and is now an 1800cc). Triumph has a 2300cc road bike. Harley gave up on cubic centimeters and now describes their bikes with cubic inches. And on and on it went. It seems to keep on going. The bikes keep on getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger. And taller. And heavier. And bigger. In a society where everything was being supersized (burgers, bikes, and unfortunately, our beltlines), bigger bikes have ruled the roost for a long time. Too long, in my opinion.

LBMC06-0 — Is this where it’s going? (Note: I shot this photo at the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show about 15 years ago.)

Weirdly, today many folks think of a 750 as a small bike. It’s a world gone nuts. But I digress…

I’ve done a lot of riding. Real riding. My bikes get used. A lot. I don’t much care for the idea of bikes as driveway jewelry, and on a lot of my rides in the US, Mexico, and Canada, I kind of realized that this “bigger is better” mentality is just flat wrong. It worked as a motorcycle marketing strategy for a while, but when you’re wrestling with a 700-lb bike in the soft stuff, you realize it doesn’t make any sense.

I’ve had some killer big bikes. A Triumph Daytona 1200. A Harley Softail. A TL1000S Suzuki. A Triumph Speed Triple (often called the Speed Cripple, which in my case sort of turned out to be true). All the while I was riding these monsters, I’d see guys on Gold Wings and other 2-liter leviathans and wonder…what are these folks thinking?

I’d always wanted a KLR-650 for a lot of reasons. The biggest reasons were the bikes were inexpensive back then and they were lighter than the armored vehicles I had been riding. I liked the idea of a bike I could travel on, take off road, and lift by myself if I dropped it. To make a long story short, I bought the KLR and I liked it. I still have it. But it’s tall, and it’s heavy (well over 500 lbs fully fueled). But it was a better deal than the bigger bikes for real world riding. Nobody buys a KLR to be a poser, nobody chromes out a KLR, and nobody buys leather fringe for a KLR, but if that’s what you want in a motorcycle, hey, more power to you.

More background…if you’ve been on this blog for more than 10 minutes you know I love riding in Baja. I talk about it all the time. My friends tell me I should be on the Baja Tourism Board. Whatever. It is some of the best riding in the world. I’ll get down there the first week I take delivery on my CSC Cyclone, and if you want to ride with me, you’re more than welcome. (Note: And I did. We did a lot of CSC Baja tours, and CSC introduced a lot of folks to riding and to Baja. That one innocent little sentence became a cornerstone of CSC’s marketing strategy.)

I was talking up Baja one day at the First Church of Bob (the BMW dealership where me and some of my buddies hang out on Saturday mornings). There I was, talking about the road to San Felipe through Tecate, when my good buddy Bob said “let’s do it.” Baja it was…the other guys were on their Harleys and uber-Beemers, and I was on my “small bore” KLR. The next weekend we pointed the bars south, wicked it up, and rode to San Felipe.

DSC_1629-650 — The Boys…bound for San Felipe with my KLR leading the pack

That was a fun trip. I took a lot of ribbing about the KLR, but the funny thing was I had no problem keeping up with the monster motos. In fact, most of the time, I was in the lead. And Bob? Well, he just kept studying the KLR. On Saturday night, he opened up a bit. Bob is the real deal…he rode the length of Baja before there was a road. That’s why he was enjoying this trip so much, and it’s why he was so interested in my smaller bike. In fact, he announced his intent to buy a smaller bike, which surprised everybody at the table.

Holding court on the Sea of Cortez. That’s Bob on the right.

Bob told us about a months-long moto trip he made to Alaska decades ago, and his dream about someday riding to Tierra del Fuego. That’s the southernmost tip of South America. He’d been to the Arctic Circle, and he wanted to be able to say that he’d been all the way south, too.

I thought all of this was incredibly interesting. Bob is usually a very quiet guy. He’s the best rider I’ve ever known, and I’ve watched him smoke Ricky Racers on the Angeles Crest Highway with what appeared to be no effort whatsoever. Sometimes he’d do it on a BMW trade-in police bike standing straight up on the pegs passing youngsters on Gixxers and Ducksters. Those kids had bikes with twice the horsepower and two-thirds the weight of Bob’s bike, and he could still out ride them. Awesome stuff. Anyway, Bob usually doesn’t talk much, but during dinner that night on the Sea of Cortez he was opening up about some of his epic rides. It was good stuff.

Finally, I asked: Bob, what bike would you use for a trip through South America?

Bob’s answer was immediate: A 250.

That surprised me, but only for an instant. I asked why and he told me, but I kind of knew the answer already. Bob’s take on why a 250: It’s light, it’s fast enough, it’s small enough that you can pick it up when it falls, you can change tires on it easily, you can take it off road, you can get across streams, and it gets good gas mileage.

Bob’s answer about a 250 really stuck in my mind. This guy knows more about motorcycles than I ever will, he is the best rider I’ve ever known, and he didn’t blink an eye before immediately answering that a 250 is the best bike for serious world travel.

It all made a lot of sense to me. I had ridden my liter-sized Triumph Tiger in Mexico, but when I took it off road the thing was terrifying. The bike weighed north of 600 lbs, it was way too tall, and I had nearly dropped it several times in soft sand. It was not fun. I remembered another ride with my friend Dave when he dropped his FJR in an ocean-sized puddle. It took three of us to get the thing upright, and we dropped it a couple of more times in our attempt to do so. John and I had taken my Harley and his Virago on some fun trips, but folks, those bikes made no sense at all for the kind of riding we did.

Upright in this photo, but it was like wrestling a pig in mud a few minutes earlier.

You might be wondering…what about the other so-called adventure bikes, like the BMW GS series, the Yamaha Tenere, or the Triumph Tiger? Good bikes, to be sure, but truth be told, they’re really street bikes dressed up like dirt bikes. Big street bikes dressed up like dirt bikes. Two things to keep in mind…seat height and weight. I can’t touch the ground when I get on a BMW GS, and as you’ve heard me say before, my days of spending $20K or $30K on a motorcycle are over. Nice bikes and super nice for freeway travel, but for around town or off road or long trips into unknown territory, these bikes are just too big, too heavy, and too tall.

There’s one other benefit to a small bike. Remember that stuff above about Honda’s 1960s marketing strategy? You know, starting on smaller bikes? Call me crazy, but when I get on bikes this size, I feel like a kid again. It’s fun.

I’ve thought about this long and hard. For my kind of riding, a 250 makes perfect sense. My invitation to you is to do the same kind of thinking.

So there you have it. That was the blog that helped to get the RX3 rolling, and CSC sold a lot of RX3 motorcycles. Back in the day, CSC was way out in front of everybody on the Internet publicizing the Zongshen 250cc ADV bikes, and other countries took notice. Colombia ordered several thousand RX3s based on what they saw CSC doing, other countries followed, and things just kept getting better and better. The central premise is still there, and it still makes sense. A 250 may well be the perfect motorcycle.

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Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 5

By Mike Huber

We awoke in Khe Sanh and felt well rested, semi warmed up, and ready to ride the 270 kilometers to Phong Nha. Phong Nha is home to an elaborate cave system we planned to spend a few days exploring. As we rode it wasn’t long before the concrete jungle of Khe Sanh morphed into jungle. The road we chose was a narrow two way street for most the ride with no traffic. In fact, on one stretch we didn’t see another car for 100 kilometers. There was nothing but jungle encroaching onto the roads and waterfalls splattering off the pavement, creating little rainbows. As we whizzed past the rainbows their light patterns would change to create a magical view into the dense lush jungle that surrounded us. Although we never saw anyone along this section our rule of having an exit path never stopped in the rare event a Terminator would come barreling at us around a blind corner. Other than being alert for that possible occurrence this stretch of the Hoh Chi Minh Trail was a rider’s dream. It was so isolated and quiet outside the sounds of our motorbikes humming but even that sound was overtaken by the hungry jungle which ate everything it could, including sounds.

The mountain roads provided beautiful switchbacks. We saw patchy rain clouds below us eerily floating by before they were consumed by the jungle. This part of the Trail is so remote we filled up water bottles with gas to ensure our bikes wouldn’t go thirsty since there were no gas stations. Continuing up and down through mountain passes until the sunlight faded, we finally dropped into a beautiful green valley. Water buffalo wandered into our paths as the roads straightened and the jungles were replaced with open rice fields and farmers.

After a short bit we saw beautiful mountains so steep and high they were giant green anthills surrounding us. As we stopped to check and confirm our directions to our Home Stay, we heard Buddhist chanting echoing in the mountains. The chanting reverberated off the mountains and it was impossible to tell where it came from. It fully engulfed us to the point it was vibrating through our motorcycles and even our own bodies. It was incredible.

The beauty of Phong Nha was beyond description so there was really no option but to extend our stay there by a day just to have an opportunity to tour the Buddhist temple during their Moon ceremony. We explored and hiked many caves, including Paradise Cave (one of the largest in the world). The extra day provided a much-needed break from riding. Even 150 miles made for quite a day when you factor in researching the best routes, watching for Terminators, and taking in the culture and sights.

After three days in this magical location, it was time to load the motos and roar (as much as our little 150cc motorcycles could roar) in our northerly direction. With no defined stopping point on this day it was exciting to just see where the day would take us. This is never a bad way to travel and rarely fails to provide excitement. This case was no different as we stumbled on a beautiful eco lodge where we toured island tea fields by boat. At this lodge there were German riders going in the opposite direction. This started a great conversation on where to stay for us going north, and for them going south. They showed a video of a rickety old bridge on which you could see the bamboo flipping up in all directions from the weight of the motorcycle. This bridge would be added to our route north. It also worked as it took us through a more isolated area including Pu Luong National Forest, which had beautiful jungle mountain switchbacks. As a much smaller road, it would have fewer Terminators.

We arrived at the bridge late in the day and zipped across it several times. We laughed as we heard the boards clacking one by one when we crossed. It sounds silly but this may have been our favorite part of the entire adventure to this point. The German riders gave us not only great advice on the bridge, they also recommended a Home Stay next to the nature preserve. It had great food and all you can drink rice wine included. The beers were a bit bland but the rice wine was just the change I needed to unwind, loosen up to chat (maybe too much) with the other guests, and enjoy the evening in a hammock after a fabulous Vietnamese dinner. This wonderful hidden gem of the world led us to extend our stay longer to explore the national forest and its lush waterfalls and our new friends.

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The Wayback Machine: That’s Not How We Do It In China

By Joe Gresh

See that gap? That narrow space between the semi-truck hauling 20-foot long, 6-inch diameter solid aluminum rods and the BMW M6? I’m taking it, man, riding the horn button and twisting the throttle: zoom-zoom. See that intersection? The one with a whirlpool of scooters, three-wheeled single-cylinder diesel trucks and at least a hundred cars spinning left leaving eddys of pedestrians lapping at the edges? I’m a Hurricane Hunter riding straight into the maelstrom buffeted from side to side, tip-toeing around, swerving, cussing, sweating and focused, man, focused.

China’s city traffic requires all your intensity, taxes all your ability and is like nothing I have ever seen on the planet. There is no respite. There is no pause, You must lock on and track hundreds of individual trajectories from every point on the compass, constantly. Insane traffic scenarios unfold at a lightning pace, there’s no time to marvel at the stupidity. There’s only time to act.

The chaos is cultural: Chinese motorists drive like they’re riding a bicycle because they were only a few years ago. In less than one generation the Chinese have gone from pedals to 125cc Honda clones to driving millions of air-conditioned automobiles on surface streets designed for a sleepy agricultural nation. At any given moment dozens of traffic rules are being broken within 50 feet of your motorcycle. It’s a traffic cop’s dream.

Except that there aren’t any. For a Police State there are not many police in China. I’ve ridden entire days and not seen one Po-Po. My Chinese friends tell me the police show up for collisions but otherwise stay low-key. Because of this hands-off approach stop signs are ignored. Red lights mean slow down. You can make a left turn from the far right lane and no one bats an eye.

China uses the drive-on-the-right system but in reality left-side driving is popular with large trucks and speeding German sedans. Get out of the way or die, sucker. Painted lane-stripes are mere suggestions: Drive anywhere you like. Of course, sidewalks and breakdown lanes are fair game for cutting to the front of the cue.

China’s modernization process has happened so fast that the leap from two-wheeled utility vehicle to motorcycles as powersports fun never really occurred. In China there are millions of people riding motorcycles but relatively few motorcyclists.

If the cars don’t get you there are other strange rules that serve to dampen the popularity of Chinese motorcycling as a hobby. Motorcycles are banned on most major toll ways between cities. Law-abiding motorcyclists are shunted off to the old, meandering side roads. Which would be fun if they weren’t so infested with heavy, slow moving semi-trucks and near certain construction delays. In practice, since tollbooths have no ability to charge motorcyclists, Chinese riders blow through the far right lane, swerving to avoid the tollgate’s swinging arm. Ignore the bells, shouting and wild gestures of the toll-takers and roll the throttle on, brother.

Being banned from the highway is not a deal breaker, but being banned from entire cities is. In response to crimes committed by bad guys on motorcycles many cities remedied the problem by eliminating motorcycles altogether. Sales of new motorcycles in these forbidden cities is non-existent.

Rules designed to discourage motorcycling abound. Vehicles over 10 years old are not allowed to be registered, thus killing the used and vintage scene. Gasoline stations require motorcyclists to park far from the gas pumps and ferry fuel to their bikes in open-topped gas cans. Add to that the general opinion of the public that motorcycle riders are shifty losers too poor to afford a car.

So why do Chinese motorcyclists bother to ride at all? It’s not the thrill of speed; 250cc is considered a big bike in China and it’s really all you need to keep up with the slow moving traffic. I’ve spent a lot of time with Chinese riders and even with the language barrier I get that they ride for the same reasons we do: The road, the rain, the wind. After being cooped up in a high rise apartment (very few Chinese live in single-family homes) I imagine the wide-open spaces between crowded cities must seem like heaven. They did to me. Chinese motorcyclists and Low Riders ride a little slower, taking long breaks to smoke a cigarette, drink in the scenery or just nap. Every motorcyclist you meet is instantly your dear friend because we share this passion and despite all the minor regulatory hassles everybody knows love conquers all.

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TJ’s Latest Custom Handguns

By Joe Berk

I had lunch with good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) recently and he showed me an LAR Grizzly .45 Winchester Magnum handgun he recently completed. It’s wild. It’s the one you see in the photo above and in the additional photos below. Here’s TJ’s description:

The Path of Bushido, a custom L.A.R. Grizzly .45 Winchester Magnum (it’s a supersized 1911). This handgun is Duracoated with Skulls of Death and Kanji characters depicting the seven Samurai virtues of the Bushido. This magnum features the typical 1911 match action, trigger, and reliability work, as well as barrel and bushing clearance reduction. The gun also has melted edges, a speckled Duracoat finish, a Bullet-guide rod, and Millett target sights with orange DayGlo on the front.

The photos can only begin to the do justice to this stunning handgun (trust me, I’ve seen it in person). And that .45 Win Mag cartridge…think of it as the illegitimate offspring of the already-powerful .45 ACP cartridge (my favorite, by the way) and the .44 Magnum. It’s a very impressive hand cannon.

One of the things I like best about TJ’s latest creation is the Millett sights. In my opinion, there are none better. I have these on both my Rock Island Compact 1911 and my bright stainless Colt 1911, and TJ is the pistolsmith who installed them on both guns.

If you were wondering about the Bushido emblems on the Grizzly, here’s an explanation:

I asked TJ what the Grizzly looked like before he worked his magic, and TJ shared this photo with me:

At the end of our visit, I asked TJ what else he’s been up to lately. Take a look. These are magnificent. This first one is a SIG P239 with black camo treatment, a jeweled hammer, a rounded trigger, and lots of internal smoothing and reliability enhancement.

This next one is compact Colt Agent 1911 with Tiger Duracoat and a matching a matching TJ’s knife.

This is another compact 1911 (a Colt Defender) with a camo surface treatment and all the internal reliability action work. It’s not easy to get a compact 1911 to perform, but TJ sure did it on mine. I’ve put thousands of rounds through my TJ-customized Rock Island Compact. TJ took what was a relatively unreliable gun and turned it into a masterpiece.

Here’s a TJ-modded Ruger Match Champion revolver, with jeweled bits, recontoured trigger, and an action job.

One last photo…this is a SIG P220 grip in which TJ custom inlayed the US government insignia. TJ does a lot of work for senior government folks here and abroad. It’s cool stuff.

I’ve had six handguns and a rifle customized by TJ, and every one of them is a stellar example of his craftsmanship. These include my Model 59, a bright stainless Colt 1911, my MacManus Colt 1911, the Rock Island Compact, a Model 60 Smith and Wesson snubbie, a Ruger Mini 14, and my new Colt Python. In addition to my guns, folks who follow the ExNotes blog took my advice and had TJ work on their guns, like Marty with his custom Colt Combat Commander, Bob with his Beretta 92, and others who are not listed here. You might have noticed that TJ advertises here on ExNotes. If you want to reach the folks who follow the blog, you might consider doing so, too. You can contact us at info@ExhaustNotes.us and you can reach TJ by clicking on the link below.

Lee Classic Turret Press Kit Part 2: The Lee Safety Powder Scale

By Joe Berk

This is the next installment of our Lee Classic Turret Press Kit series, and this article focuses on Lee’s Safety Powder Scale. It’s the scale you see in the above photo and in the photos that follow. I haven’t assembled the turret press yet (that’s coming). Before I get to that, I’m doing this blog on the Lee scale, and then others on the Lee reloading manual and the Lee bench plate. These will be followed by blogs on the Lee turret press, the powder dispenser, the priming tool, and the 9mm dies I’ll use with this equipment.

My new Lee Safety Powder Scale. I used a .223 caliber 62-grain Hornady full metal jacket bullet to check my zero and the scale’s accuracy. Yep. It’s good.

Packaging

The box you see below was inside the Classic Turret Press Kit, and the Turret Press Kit’s box was inside a bigger box. It’s a box in a box (you know, Russian doll packaging, like I mentioned in the first blog on the Turret Press Kit). The Lee packaging is good. Everything arrived undamaged.

The Lee Safety Powder Scale box. It’s well packaged.

What’s inside the Lee Safety Powder Scale box. You get the scale base, the balance beam, and the pan.

Lee Safety Scale Components

As mentioned in the photo above, there are three components in the Lee Safety Scale. These are the scale base (that’s the cast red frame in the photo below), the beam (I call it a balance beam; it’s the black subassembly in the photo below), and the pan (that’s where the material to be weighed is placed). The pan has an attached hook on it (it’s the bar extending up in the photo below) that hooks onto the right end of the beam.

The red base has a machined groove on the piece that extends up on the right side. The beam is placed over this, and it balances on a knife edge in this groove. There are magnets in the base to dampen the beam’s movement as it balances. The photo below shows the scale with everything in place.

The assembled Lee Safety Powder scale. The left arrow points to the index mark (the beam should point to it when weighing), the bottom arrow points to the 10-grain poise (more on it below), the center top arrow points to the 10-grain increments and markings on the balance beam, and the right arrow points to the 1-grain/.01-grain poise.

The magnetic beam dampers in the scale base work. When weighing powder charges with the Lee scale, the beam balanced in just a couple of oscillations.

The Lee balance beam is a molded phenolic subassembly with two poises. “Poise” an engineering term for the movable weights that balance the beam. It’s a term Lee uses in their documentation.

When I was Director of Engineering at Aerojet (we designed and manufactured munitions…big stuff, 2000-pound bombs, anti-armor munitions, and other things I can’t tell you about), we used plastic on as many parts as possible (rather than metal) because plastic was less expensive, it does not not corrode, it can be molded to exact dimensions, and moving parts are less likely to jam. Lee makes some of these same points in their literature. My point here is this: Don’t dismiss the Lee balance beam because it is a phenolic part. From an engineering perspective, it is the right choice. As Richard Lee (Lee Precision Products founder) stated in his excellent reloading manual, Modern Reloading:

Lee Safety Scale has a phenolic beam. Like a glass thermometer, if it is not broken it is still accurate.

Incidentally, the next blog in this series will be on Lee’s Modern Reloading book. I’m reading it now and it’s good.

The Lee pan is a one-piece subassembly that consists of an arm (the pan hangs from it on the right side of the beam) and the pan. The pan can be a bit difficult to get under a powder dispenser because the arm gets in the way. That’s not a big deal, and when I was weighing .357 Magnum charges with the Lee scale (so I could adjust my powder dispenser to drop the correct charge), it didn’t affect my ability to catch and weigh the powder.

The arm on the Lee pan interfered with getting the pan directly underneath the powder dispenser, but it was a minor inconvenience. That’s 8.0 grains of Unique you see above.

Measurement Range

The Lee scale can measure up to 110 grains. That’s good news and bad news. Most of us use powder scales for measuring powder, and if that’s your purpose, the Lee scale is the right tool. The 110-grain measurement range gives superior sensitivity for detecting slight weight differences. Other balance beam reloading scales can weigh up to 510 grains, but they do so with the same range of motion as the Lee scale, and that means they don’t provide the same sensitivity.

Sometimes we wish to weigh bullets (competitive bench rest shooters and cast bullet shooters might want to sort bullets by weight). On the Lee scale, you can only weigh bullets that are 110 grains or less. I’m what I would call a serious reloader, and in the last 50 years, I might have weighed bullets maybe a half dozen times. I’m happy to lose the ability to weigh bullets in exhange for the increased sensitivity I’ll get when weighing powder charges with the Lee scale. Your mileage may vary.

The bottom line is this: For weighing powder, the Lee scale does a superior job within its measurement range, and that range is adequate for any thing I shoot (that includes .22 Hornet, .416 Rigby, .458 Win Mag, and many handgun and rifle cartridges in between). For weighing bullets over 110 grains, you would be better served with scales offering a greater range than the Lee scale, but you give up accuracy with those scales. Do you really need the increased weight range? Most of us do not.

Zeroing the Scale

Like all scales, the Lee Safety Scale requires zeroing before use. Lee incorporates a threaded brass weight (in the form of a wheel) in the balance beam to move the beam up or down on its pivot in the base.

The idea is you set the both poises to zero (see below). To set the 10-grain poise to zero, you roll it all the way to the right, and it comes to rest on the zero marker. The balance beam has ridges that will position the 10-grain poise ball bearing in 10-grain increments, starting at 0 and going up to 100 grains. To set the 1-grain poise to zero, you slide it all the way to the right, and lock the poise in the zero position with a little locking button on the bottom of the poise.

The 1-grain poise in the 0 position. The lower left red arrow points to the poise locking button (you push it in to lock the poise in place). The lower right arrow points to the 0 grains reading. The upper red arrow points to a protuberance that can be used as a little handle to move the poise. The “.1 grain” marking denotes the Vernier lines and windows used for reading tenths of a grain.

When the two poises are set to zero (as explained above), the brass wheel in the balance beam can be rotated to zero the scale. As the brass wheel is rotated, it moves to either the left or right along its threaded shaft depending on which way the wheel is turned. The idea is to turn the wheel until the balance beam is aligned with the index mark on the scale base as shown below.

The balance beam’s brass wheel. It’s used for zeroing the scale.

The lower black arrow points to the 10-grain poise. It’s a captured ball bearing that can be moved in 10-grain increments. In this photo, it’s in the 0 grains position. The right arrow points to the 1-grain poise. The left black arrow points to the balance beam aligned with the base index mark.

Using the Lee Safety Scale

Using the scale after it has been zeroed when setting up a powder dispenser involves setting the desired powder charge with the 10-grain and 1-grain poises, and then adjusting the dispenser to provide an amount of powder that matches the scale adjustment. It’s fairly straightforward, although using the 1-grain poise with its Vernier tenth-grain readings may be new to some people.

Or, you may have an item you wish to weigh. Reading the scale is the same in either case. It involves setting the 10-grain poise in the appropriate notch, and then moving the 1-grain poise to the appropriate place.

After I had zeroed the scale, I wanted to check its accuracy. I weighed a .224-inch diameter, 62-grain Hornady jacketed boattail bullet to do this. I put the bullet in the pan, moved the 10-grain poise to the 60-grain position, and then moved the 1-grain poise laterally along the balance beam until the beam was aligned with the base index mark.

A 62-grain Hornady bullet in the Lee scale pan.

The balance beam is balanced, with the pointed aligned to the base index marrk. The 10-grain poise is in the 60-grain notch.

Using the 1-grain poise is a bit tricky. In the photo below you can see that the poise shows 2 grains in the lower window. The Vernier windows on top of the 1-grain poise show that the 0 and .9 grain windows are aligned with visible lines, and a window is just a bit aligned with the .1 grain windows above and below the 0 and 9 windows. Like I said, interpreting the Vernier approach is a bit complicated, but the Lee instructions contain several photos explaining how to do it. What you see below for this measurement is interpreted to mean that the weight in tenths of a grain around the 2 grains in the lower window is somewhere between 1.9, 2.0, and 2.1 grains, and I interpolated that as 0.0 grains away from 2.0 grains. Stated differently, the measured bullet weight is 62.0 grains, which is exactly what it is supposed to be.

The Lee 1-grain poise. This sliding weight (or poise) is used for reading grains and tenths of a grain. Grains are read in the window denoted by the right arrow. Tenths of a grain are interpolated with a Vernier-based set of lines and windows denoted by the left arrow.

As a check, I also measured the bullet’s weight with the RCBS scale I’ve been using for the last 50 years, and it returned the same weight: 62.0 grains.

Cost

Lee did their usual outstanding job here: The Lee Safety Scale price is significantly lower than the competition. The Lee scale lists for $46.98 on the Lee website (interestingly, they also list factory second scales for $31.32). You can also purchase the Lee scale from Amazon and other retail outlets, and Lee tells you on their website that their retailers typically have lower prices than Lee advertises.

The nearest competitor to the Lee scale is the RCBS M500 mechanical scale, and that lists for $125.99 on the RCBS website. From a cost perspective, Lee is the clear winner here.

Documentation

The Lee scale includes a single-sheet, two-page instruction sheet. It’s good, and it provides all the information you need to set up and use the Lee scale. As mentioned above, the Lee instructions include information on using the Vernier feature on the 1-grain poise.

The Bottom Line

The Lee Safety Scale is accurate, inexpensive (less than half the cost of competitor products), and well built. Reading the Vernier scale to get tenths of a grain takes a little bit of study and practice, but once you get it, you’ll find it quick and easy to use. This is a good scale, it will serve any reloader well, and it should last a lifetime (and then some).

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Charlie Don’t Wheelie – A Vietnam Motorcycle Adventure: Part 4

By Mike Huber

By Day 3 we were fully acclimated to the roads, food, and culture and it was now time to start taking on more challenging rides. The next day entailed leaving Hoi An to continue north to Hue for a couple days. Along the way we detoured to experience riding across the Hai Van Pass. According to locals this was one of the best motorcycle roads in the country if not all of Asia.

As we entered the Pass there was a police road stop and I was waved over instantly. “Ahhh, I’ve got this” I thought, thinking I would just play the dumb tourist and skate out of any ticket. Well…it half worked. As soon as I began performing my best “sad tourist, I don’t speak Vietnamese” act the officer pulled out his phone with Google Translator. “Shit,” I thought, this isn’t going to turn out too great. Within a couple minutes another officer was called over. “Dammit!” I now thought, this definitely isn’t how it is supposed to go down. It turns out I simply meandered into a lane that wasn’t designated for motos. The other reason was that the officers wanted to honk the pink horn attached to my moto and take some photos with me. That was pretty cool.

Once our introductions to the local authorities were wrapped up we continued to the base of the Hai Van Pass. By this time, we felt very comfortable in our abilities riding in Vietnam. It was just like riding a local road in the US: Leaning, feeling, and embracing each moment while blasting (blasting for a 150cc bike, by the way) into the corners while traversing the mountain passes. As soon as we gained our confidence in riding in this country, we received a big wake up call. This was in the form of trucks passing recklessly on blind corners. I labeled these trucks “Terminators” based on my experience driving Humvees near the DMZ in Korea. It didn’t take long before I took the lead and would shout over our Sena headsets to forewarn what was around the next turn: “Clear,” or in many cases “Get to the side of the road, NOW!”

After completing the Hoi An Pass, we hit a new alertness level. A rule of thumb became that around every corner expect a Terminator to be coming at you head on and always have a sure path of egress when (not if) they did. This stayed with us as our Hondas continued winding north to the Hoh Chi Minh Trail.

These cautionary actions didn’t mean we weren’t having fun. As we entered the city of Hue, I noticed the bike was riding quite rough as if the shock was just gone. It turns out that my showing off for the locals in traffic by performing wheelies and endos had caused the shock to go a bit sooner than anticipated and fluid was leaking out. It was time to find a repair shop as this wasn’t something that would be tolerable for another 900+ miles. Fortunately, Hue is a large city and while working with our rental company, Tigit, they quickly referred us to a local mechanic named Mr. Kim. As I explained the situation to him (I left out the wheelie part) I could hear all the mechanics honking the pink horn on my bike in the back. One thing about Vietnam: They get things done, and fast. Within two hours Mr. Kim had rebuilt the shock and “bike all fixed, Mr. Hooba, no more bouncy bouncy.” Upon arrival to pick up the bike I continued to hear the honking of my horn in the back of the shop prior to them rolling it out. The shock was repaired, and we could continue the ride with a few less wheelies along the way.

With another obstacle (self-induced) behind us we continued to Khe Sanh. Khe Sanh looks as though it hasn’t changed one bit since the war. Gray concrete buildings line the streets, the smell of smoke from trash burning hung in the air, there were very few shops, and there were even fewer people along the main street through the center of town. To add to this gloomy scenario, it was a dark cloudy day, and we were freezing from the ride. The hotel we stayed in even had a chill that refused to leave and stayed with us all evening. I began thinking about the soldiers that fought here 50 years ago and what their opinion of this town was, both then and now. Our night was short and after eating a warm bowl of pho we returned to the hotel. We planned a longer ride the next day, and we wanted to be fully rested as we wandered deeper into this country of never-ending adventure.