Product Review: Black Rifle Coffee

Good buddy Mike was in town for a few days, and what better way to spend it than on the range ringing the gongs that good buddy Duane built for me.  We had a blast.  We’ve known each other since the 7th grade. Mike and I joke about who’s the better shot, and after our session at the West End Gun Club, that’s still an open question.  The man can shoot (and so can I).

Mike wanted to stop at a nearby 5-11 outlet to pick up a few clothing items, and while we were there he pointed out the Black Rifle coffee.  If you read the blog you know that I’m not a member of the Mattel crowd and I have negative interest in so-called black rifles.  In fact, the closest thing I have to a black rifle is my Ruger GSR (it’s what you see Mike ringing gongs with above).  It has a green and black laminate stock that Ruger calls black laminate, so I guess maybe it could be called a black rifle.  The GSR is a fine weapon, and Mike and I were both making the gongs sing with those big 173 grain full metal jacket .308 bullets.

But I diverge.  This blog is about Black Rifle Coffee and the company that makes it.

In a word, Black Rifle Coffee is great.  I wish we had it when we rode across China, but like they say, better late than never.  You know, they don’t drink coffee in other than the big cities in China, and staying awake on the bike was a challenge for me on that ride.   But here at home I start every day with a cup of black coffee (the only way to drink it), and Black Rifle Coffee was rings my gong well.

Black Rifle Coffee is veteran owned and a portion of the profits go to veterans’ groups, police, and other first responders.  That’s a good thing.  And Black Rifle Coffee is a U.S. company.  Reading the labels tells me that the owners have a sense of humor, too.  That’s good.  Good coffee and a good sense of humor make the world more fun, I think.

It’s good stuff, and it became my coffee of choice as soon as I had my first taste.  Give Black Rifle Coffee a try.  You can thank me later.

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Yamaha RD350 Part 4: Stealing Moments

I’ve been on a tear lately. The shed floor is nearly done and I’m laying down some slabs, man. That doesn’t mean I haven’t managed to sneak in a little tinkering on the 1974 Yamaha Rd350. I mean, once the slab is poured and finished you’ve got to let it cure for a day. Green concrete is very fragile.

I wanted to drain the RD 350’s fluids before getting too far along. Which was kind of good because I discovered the oil tank wasn’t slotted into the rubber frame peg correctly. That meant taking out the battery to access the oil tank bolts.

It was no trouble at all to pull the tank, drain it and re-slot it onto the frame peg. The original feed hose drooped underneath the carburetors then rose over the clutch cover forming a trap. I didn’t like the looks of the trap so I shortened the feed hose a bit and routed it without a loop.

When I pulled out the battery to fix the oil tank I noticed the top of the battery had a melted spot. This melted spot corresponded with a melted positive wire to the battery. I suspect the battery is the wrong one. It looks too tall and there was a section of old inner tube covering the battery. I see no evidence of arcing on the seat pan but something melted the positive wire as it has been wrapped with electrical tape.

After refilling the oil tank I needed to bleed out any air in the feed line to the autolube pump. The pump area was shockingly clean. It looked like a new motorcycle inside.

I sent Deet photos of the pump as I was well pleased and wanted to show the thing off. Zooming in on my photo Deet noticed that the autolube pump was not adjusted correctly. The pin and dot are supposed to line up at idle.

The oil pump cable was adjusted as loose as the lock nuts would allow. This RD is near perfect except where mechanics have fouled it up. Resetting the pump was quick and now the pin lines up with the mark at idle.

The chain guard was sort of floppy because the front mount was missing its bolt and the rubber bushing, along with the spacer. I cobbled one together from bits and pieces; it will work until I find the correct parts.

The more I mess with the RD350 the more amazed I am at how unmolested it is. All the case screws look perfect (except for the ignition and pump screws).  Opening things reveals factory fresh assembly. It’s almost too perfect: I’ve got to up my mechanical game to treat this motorcycle with the care it deserves.

More on the RD350 story and other Joe Gresh Resurrections is here!

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Book Review: The Director

As a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s I only heard good stuff about J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.  One example is a classic movie most folks my age have seen called The FBI Story. It starred Jimmy Stewart and featured a cameo appearance by J. Edgar Hoover:

Then the 1970s came and with it the protest era.   Everything that was good was now bad, and there were a string of books (mostly written by disgruntled former FBI execs) about J. Edgar Hoover.  I’ve read them all, and I pretty much dismissed them as the whinings of guys who had an agenda.  After college and the Army, I spent a few years in the US defense industry, and the security manager in one of the companies was a retired FBI agent.  I asked him if all the negative J. Edgar Hoover stuff had any truth to it and his answer was an emphatic no.  “J. Edgar Hoover was a charismatic guy and a real gentleman,” he said.  “We all thought the world of him.”

When I saw a Wall Street Journal review of The Director (written by Paul Letersky, who was a personal assistant to J. Edgar Hoover), I knew I wanted to read it.  I bought The Director on Amazon and thoroughly enjoyed the book. It countered the propaganda previously published about Hoover (and what motivated the urchins who wrote those lies) and told an interesting story.  Some things I found fascinating included:

    • Hoover didn’t carry a gun.  I thought that was interesting.  I knew that Hoover received one of the very first Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolvers in the 1930s, but he didn’t personally carry a gun.
    • Hoover was never big on personal security.  He didn’t keep a security contingent at his home, he dined out nearly every day, and he frequently went for walks around his neighborhood on his own.
    • Contrary to what most folks think, Hoover deplored wiretaps and worked hard to minimize them.  He knew they could backfire, and his principal concern was avoiding anything that could embarass the FBI.
    • Hoover didn’t “blackmail” U.S. Presidents.   The story about Hoover informing John F. Kennedy that the FBI knew about his affair with a Mafia kingpin’s mistress is true, but Hoover did it to protect Kennedy (who broke off the affair the next day).  Hoover never used that information to his advantage, nor did he ever reveal it.

There’s a lot more, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.  Trust me on this…if you want a good read, pick up a copy of The Director.

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The Buck Stops Here

No, I’m not going all Joe Biden (God forbid) or Harry Truman on you.  The “buck” in this case refers to Buck Knives, the big folders that seem to be standard issue for bros worldwide.  Not that there’s anything wrong with being a bro, mind you.

Talk about impulse buys and effective advertising:  I need another folding knife like I need another gun, but the ad from Buck Knives popped up and before I knew it I had customized my Buck 110 and placed my order.  It was a Facebook ad and it did what it was intended to do (it got me).  I already have four other big folders (all of those were similarly impulse purchases), but I don’t wear or carry any.  If I want to go armed it will be with my 1911 (never bring a knife to a gunfight).  But I like these big Bucks.  I didn’t know Buck offered custom knives or about their online customizing configurator (in fact, I had never even been to the Buck website), but when I saw it I had to click and start fooling around.  It was fun, and before I realized it, my wallet (figuratively speaking) was a lot lighter.

Buck lets you change the handle material (about a dozen different materials), the bolsters (brass or nickel), rivets (yes or no), finger grooves (yes or no), the blade material (different types of steel, polished or brushed), the blade configuration (drop point or regular), serrations (several options), and engraving (potentially infinite options).  Woweee!

I chose no rivets, no finger grooves, nickel bolsters, mirror-polished blade, and elk grips (it will match my 1917 Colt).  It’s the one you see at the top of this blog, and the ticket in is $161.50 plus freight.  It will be here in about two and a half months.  Be a bro and don’t tell Susie.

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A Kawasaki Indian Wannabe

Fuel injected, shaft driven, water cooled, and startlingly reminiscent of a 1940 Indian Chief:  The Kawasaki 1500cc Drifter is one of those bikes I always wanted.  They were only made from 1999 to 2005, I think, and other than what I’ve read on the Internet, I have no idea if they were any good.  The most common complaint seems to be that the plastic gear that drove the water pump was prone to failure (Kawasaki used a plastic gear on at least one other model that was also problematic; these guys were slow learners, I guess).  But in my eyes, they hit a home run in the styling department.  They just look cool.

I spotted this one in a San Francisco Bay marina parking lot, and I instantly wanted it.  Don’t get me wrong:  Doug Bingham notwithstanding, I have absolutely zero desire to own a sidecar.  If I had this bike, the first thing I’d do is lose the sidecar and sell it.  But ah, that motorcycle.  That I would keep.  And ride, and ride, and ride.

The later years had different colors; the first year, I think, got it right with the deep burgundy, red pinstriping, and those beautifully valanced fenders.  Kawasaki got a little weird from what I’ve read with the rear fender design; it pivots up and down with the rear suspension.   Ah, what’s a little unsprung weight between friends, especially on a motorcycle that no one bought because of the handling.  I also read that the fuel economy was abysmal on these bikes, but other folks said it was okay.  Whatever.  I wouldn’t buy this bike to save fuel.  But I would buy it if the price was right, even though I could get a used Sportster for the same kind of money.  I like it.

Kawasaki made both a 1500cc and an 800cc Drifters.  The 800cc version came in a pastel blue that was stunning.  When one of my friends first saw these photos, he asked if the bike was a 1500 or the smaller 800.  I was pretty sure it was the 1500, but I wasn’t sure.  Then I remembered one of my photos caught the VIN label and I was able to zoom in enough to know.

I shot these with my phone, and I guess that iPhone 12 does a good job.  It’s a 1500cc Drifter, as you can see above.

If I owned this bike, I think the only thing I’d do (other than a regular service and a good detailing) is to maybe get the seat redone.  It looks just perfect to me as is.

We dream about motorcycles all the time.  You can read about some of them here!

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Hey, how about this supercool World War II US Navy Indian 30-50?

You can see the Indian 741 featured in the above video in person at the Chino Planes of Fame Museum, and you can read our feature story on it in Motorcycle Classics magazine.

Spotted: The Rivian

We were in northern California last week on another secret mission.  During a long and boring drive through the central valley, we took a quick break at one of those truck stop/gas station/everything stores spaced every 50 miles or so along what has to be one of the most boring roads in America.  To my surprise, I spotted a pickup just ahead of us that was something new.  I had only read about the new Rivian electric pickup in The Wall Street Journal the day before. They’re not for sale yet, and this one (with manufacturer plates) was obviously on a test drive of some sort.  On Interstate 5.   Where they evidently wanted to keep it secret.

The guy in the truck was not too happy I was there with my Nikon, but hey, it is what it is.   After the first shot, he kept moving between me and the Rivian.  To the honchos at Rivian:  Your guy tried.  So did I.

The truck was a sharp-looking vehicle and I was impressed.  I looked up a bit more about the company and the initial claims are impressive…a range of something like 300 miles, and a 0-60 time of 3 seconds.  The price is going to be $70K or $75K, with no dealers to jack that up.  The Rivian is being sold direct to the consumer, similar to what CSC does with its motorcycles.  The dealers won’t be able to get their snouts in the trough, and that’s a good thing.

Anyway, that’s my close encounter of the 3rd kind with the first Rivian I’ve seen.  I like it.

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Yamaha RD350 Part 3: Possession is Nine-Tenths of The Law

The RD350 made a convoluted journey but at last it has arrived at Tinfiny Ranch. Originally I was going to fly out to my buddy Deet’s house in North Carolina and spend time there getting the bike in top shape for the ride back to New Mexico. That was a good plan but I’ve been stretched pretty thin around the ranch and the incomplete projects have been outnumbering the completed ones by a wide margin. Did I really want to take another motorcycle apart? Now? Not to mention that my New Mexico tag lady cannot issue temporary tags since some kind of rule change in August. That meant I would have to ride across most of the southern states with a license plate borrowed from one of the other bikes. Scenes from the movie Deliverance played in the theater of my mind.

Hunter (left) and Deet (right).

Plan B was for me to drive out to North Carolina and retrieve the RD350, pile Deet into the truck and have a grand adventure on the way to New Mexico. This seemed like a solid plan until Deet started thinking about being stuck in a truck with me for three days and then sleeping on the concrete shed floor until I took him to El Paso for a flight home. He’s kinda funny in a George Thorogood way.

Plan C was for Deet to load the bike into his truck and drive it out to Tinfiny Ranch. “I’ve got to have my own wheels.” Deet told me over the phone, “I want to go when I feel like going.” Plan C-1 came about because it had been a while since we Messed With Hunter in real life. Videos are fine but nothing beats hand-to-hand smack talk.  Plan C-1 had Deet driving to Hunter’s new house in Oklahoma with the RD350 in his truck and me driving to Hunter’s. There, the two of us would mercilessly tag-team harass the old sodturner.

And that’s how it went. We unloaded the RD at Hunter’s and loaded it into my truck. Deet took back Hunter’s 1968 DT-1 for a full restoration job back at Enduro Central and I dragged the RD back to Tinfiny Ranch.

It’s tempting to put off the concrete floor project and mess with the RD350 but long time readers will remember that I also have the Z1 carbs apart on the work bench. It’s time I finished something. I can’t just keep taking things apart.

The RD is in beautiful condition considering its age. At $4,250 this is the most expensive motorcycle I’ve ever bought. The paintwork has a few small scratches and some fading but I’ll be leaving it as is. From 10 feet away it looks practically new. Everything looks stock, if not original. The gas tank is clean inside and may have been replaced some years ago. The paint matches well but the decals look a bit newer than the decals on the side covers.

There is a bit of confusion on the mileage. The title says 20,000 but the odometer says 4,000. I imagine the speedometer was replaced at some point in the distant past. The seller, a Flipper, was not sure how many miles were on the thing. The RD350 certainly looks low mileage.

The Flipper put a new battery in the RD350 and the lights and switches seem to work ok. I think there may be a bulb out in the speedometer backlighting. The battery seems to charge, even the blinkers work! This bike still has a headlamp switch unlike modern bikes that have the lights on all the time. I have a key, too!

Being original is less important to me than having all the stock parts. Over 47 years it would not be unusual for repairs to be made on a motorcycle. Normal wear items like foot pegs and the seat cover look in good condition. This bike has not been beat up. The engine starts first kick, revs and idles well with no unusual rattles or knocks. The chrome is in very good condition and will polish up like nobodies’ business. In a first for me, the stock tool kit is still under the seat in its original, thin, black plastic pouch.

A few things I’ll be doing on the RD350 when I get tucked in are a new air filter as they tend to crumble and clog the carbs, new tires and tubes, fix the front hydraulic brake, grease the wheel bearings, adjust the clutch, change all the fluids, replace the outer crank seals, clean the carbs, clean the exhaust baffles, re-grease the steering head bearings, lube all the cables, add inline fuel filters and whatever else I come up with. It sounds like a lot but this is typical for old bikes needing to be made street worthy after sitting. Really, you can hop on the bike and ride it right now.

Most of the vintage bikes I’ve had in my life were in terrible condition when I got them. This Rd350 breaks that mold. I paid more at the onset but I have much more to work with than usual. I’m amazed at how little I have to do to get it running and cosmetically the thing just needs a bath and a polish.

The concrete floor and the Z1 carbs come first but that doesn’t mean I won’t be ordering parts for the RD350. Watch this space for Hasty Conclusion reviews and further updates on the RD’s progress.

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Phavorite Photos: Wenchuan Man

It was the fourth or fifth day Joe and I had been on the road in China, and we were headed up to the Tibetan Plateau.  I think I can safely say that Gresh and I were the only two Americans in Wenchuan that day based on the fact that we were taken to the city’s police department to fill out forms and let them know we were there (it was the only place in China we had to do that).

Wenchuan is a lively town, and the next morning we were enjoying what had already become a routine breakfast of hardboiled eggs and Chinese fry bread on the sidewalk when a bus stopped in front of us.  The fellow you see above stepped off and looked at us quizzically (we didn’t quite look like Wenchuanians).  I asked if I could take a photo by holding up my Nikon.  He nodded his head, I shot the photo you see above, and he was gone.  The entire encounter lasted maybe two seconds, but that photo is one of my China ride favorites.  His expression could be used in a book on body language.

Three earlier favorite photos, one in Bangkok, one in Death Valley, and one in Guangzhou.  Click on them to get to their story.

A 1%er Moon Watch

In line with our editorial policy featuring luxury goods with outlandish prices, a few weeks ago we posted a blog on the Longines perpetual moon phase automatic watch.  That’s an item with what is euphemistically referred to as “prestige” pricing, which most folks would simply call overpricing (you know, like most motorcycle dealers’ freight and setup fees).  The Longines is a lofty $3550, although our blog post pointed out you could find them for less if you poked around on the Internet.  I did, and my best price so far was a scant $2250, which is still way too rich for my blood.  Hell, you could buy a used Sportster for that kind of money.

Now, don’t get me wrong…if you want to buy the Longines watch, by all means we think you should.  In fact, we think you should buy it through this Amazon Longines link, because then Gresh and I would get a cut.   I have no idea how much (we’ve never helped to sell anything that pricey through our Amazon affiliates program), but it would be cool to find out.

Terry, the Prince of Tides.

But that’s not the point of this blog.  If you read that earlier Longines blog and the comments that you, or esteemed readership, posted to it, you will see that none other than our good buddy Terry commented that he might consider the watch if it also showed the tides.

The tides.

Hmmm.  That tickled a long-dormant neuron buried among the other neurons between my ears.  They’re mostly focused on Weatherbys, Royal Enfields, SIGs, RCBS reloading gear, Baja, Michelle Pfeiffer, and God only knows what else is swimming around in there.  The tides.  I vaguely remembered seeing something about a watch that does, indeed, show the tides, so I went on Amazon, looked, and what do you know:  The Casio moon phase and tides digital watch you see at the top of this blog appeared.  Wowee!

What got my attention immediately was the price:  $22.50.  Could it be? A Casio watch that actually does way more than the Longines watch, but sells for a scant $22.50?   That’s exactly one percent of the lowest discounted price I could find for the Longines watch!  $22.50!

Hey, I couldn’t resist.  I’m wearing my new Casio moon phase and tides watch as I type this blog.  $22.50, and because I’m an Amazon Prime member, I didn’t even have to pay for shipping!  Go Bezos!

There are just so many things that are cool about this Casio watch I almost don’t know where to begin.   Yep, it shows you the tides.  That waveform in the lower left quadrant of the watch face has a darkened section that shows you were the tide is at that instant.  It goes through a complete cycle every 24 hours, just like the real tides do.   And there’s the moon phase.  That’s the little circle in the lower right quadrant (it darkens in arcs to show you what the moon is doing that day).   All this for $22.50.  And the Casio has a dual time feature…you can set a different time zone and switch to it instantly, although this feature is kind of weird…the “other” time is whatever you want it to be, not some exact number of hours different from where you are.  It kind of reminded of a Chinese hotel we stayed in once where they had a bunch of clocks on the back wall showing different times at other locations in the world, but nobody had maintained them and they were comically different.

Ah, but I digress…back to the Casio.  It has a stopwatch and a countdown feature.  I can set it to military time or a normal 12-hour time.  It has an alarm clock.  And a backlight, so I can use it to find my way to the bathroom at night without waking up my wife or tripping on the way there.  And (get this) it has a 10-year battery!  Did I mention it goes for only $22.50?

More good news:  As you have already seen in the photo a few paragraphs up, you can get the same Casio watch in blue, and the blue Casio goes for only $20.48.  I’m tempted to buy one, but hey, I’m not made out of money.

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A Conspiracy

The story goes something like this:  I tend not to upgrade things until I have to.  I’m convinced there’s conspiracy at the highest levels between the software companies, the computer companies, and maybe the government to force us into upgrading things that 25 or 30 years ago we didn’t even need.  I thought I had taken a huge leap into the future when I bought my first cell phone. It quickly was obsoleted numerous times and then I thought I was absolutely state of the art when I bought an iPhone 6s just a few years ago.  Wow, that thing had features.   A phone like that, I thought, might last me the rest of my life.

You read the blog a ways back about me getting down to one motorcycle.  I sold the RX3 and the TT250 and got good money for them.  Geico, my insurance company, told me I would get a refund for the unused portion of my policy because I had sold the two bikes.  I knew it wouldn’t be much, because my annual premium for all three bikes (the RX3, the TT250, and my Royal Enfield) was only $77.  It wasn’t; I received a check in the mail for $25.

You might wonder why I switched from talking about conspiracies and cell phones to motorcycles.  Bear with me; this is where it gets interesting.  A couple of years ago I started depositing checks using my iPhone 6s.  It had a cool banking app that basically took a picture of your check and saved a trip to the bank.  The 6s did that well, although the last time I used it, it told me I needed to update my software.  I didn’t.  Screw this upgrade stuff.  It was working okay and I don’t intimidate easily.

Except when I tried to deposit this last check from Geico, the phone wouldn’t do it.  It told me who’s the boss.  Time’s up. You need to update your software from ios 12.5 to ios 13.0.  So I tried, but then when I went into the 6s settings, it told me I already had the latest software.  A bit more digging, and the conspiracy I alluded to above became obvious.  A 6s can only go up to ios 12.5  I needed to get a new phone to go to ios 13.0.  Sonuvabitch.  They got me again.

Okay, so I shopped around online, which is pretty much how I do everything these days, and within minutes I was confused by all the iPhone options.  Gresh did a blog last year about upgrading his iPhone and at the time, I think he got whatever was the latest and greatest from Apple.  I did the same and I ended up with an iPhone 12 Pro, which is about the same size as my old 6s but a little heavier.  After screwing around backing everything up to the Cloud (it was the first time I ever used the Cloud) and then downloading it to my new phone, I was in business again.  I tried the banking app, it worked, and that’s when it hit me:  I had just spent $1300 for a new phone so I could deposit a $25 check.

The 12 Pro has more features than I’ll ever need, or use, and you and I both know that within another two or three years it will be obsolete.   But the new camera feature is kind of cool.  It has a wide angle, a portrait, and a close up lens (which they designate as 0.5, 1.0, and 2.5 on the camera app).   I’ve just started playing with it.

On a walk around the neighborhood, I grabbed that wide-angle shot of the ’54 Caddy Fleetwood you see at the top of this blog, and I shot another with the portrait lens of my Colt Python and five rounds of hollow-point .357 Mag ammo below.

The camera in the 12 Pro is good, and it looks like it might be a little better than the camera in the 6s I retired.  The images are still only 72 dpi, which is okay for blogging and other Internet stuff, but not for print publication.  But it’s not bad, and it might eliminate the need to lug my Nikon around. I like using the Nikon, though, so I’ll probably still take it with me on my adventures.

I suppose I could start studying all the new features on my iPhone, but I’m not going to bother.  By the time I make a dent in doping out everything on the 12 Pro, it will be obsolete.

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