Zed Plays Dead: 1975 Kawasaki Z1 Woes

To really understand the cloud of confusion surrounding my brain you’ll have to go back to the very beginning. Back when Zed was left for dead. We don’t have time for that now so I’ll cut to the chase: Zed ran fine for 3000 miles and then the carbs started puking gas from the overflow tubes. The bike was running rich and fluffy as hell. Idle was hit and miss.

My natural assumption was that the old float needles had worn a groove into the sealing surface preventing the cone-shaped needle tip from seating. I purchased a cheap but shoddy set of needles/seats on eBay and with my deft touch soon had them fitted into Zed’s 4 carburetors.

And one of the carbs still puked fuel. If you’ve followed this saga online you’ll know that the brass seat was punched with some tiny, elfin numbers. This punching deformed the seat so that the fuel kept leaking into the float bowl and then overflowed onto the ground. I replaced the new seat with the best looking seat out of the old batch.

This cured the fuel leaking issue. I could leave the petcock in the “on” position and the bike stayed nice and dry.

Yet Zed was still running poorly, cylinders would cut out randomly and the idle was inconsistent. Further investigation revealed that the rubber, year-old vacuum port plugs had dry rotted allowing air to seep past and upsetting the tenuous air/fuel ratio. I ordered new vacuum plugs and was sure the running problems would go away.

They didn’t. In fact, fixing the air leak seemed to make things worse. The bike would run on 3 cylinders and then 4 as your road speed increased. It seemed the longer it ran the worse it ran. I checked the ignition points. They were the original points that came with Zed and had served me well but now they were pitted badly. I filed the points back to good smooth contacts and now the filed points were so thin I couldn’t rotate the mounting plate enough to set the timing correctly.

And so it continued. I ordered new points and reset everything. I had fat, blue spark. The Kawasaki ran terrible. I checked battery voltage, changed fuel filters and nothing worked. In my befuddled state I hit on the float level as a potential cause of the problem and ordered the cool little bowl drain fitting and clear tube tool used to set the float levels.

The float levels were all high. I reset the float levels to spec and now I was truly sure I had the bike problems licked. It ran worse each test ride. I could go about 10 miles before the bike would start missing. It seemed like cylinder 1 was the most likely culprit as removing the plug wire on #1 had no effect on the engine. Pulling the #1 sparkplug revealed a flooded cylinder. Cylinder #4 was also sort of weak, not exactly shouldering the load if you know what I mean and I think you do.

I checked coil resistance and coil 1&4 were exactly the same as coil 2&3. Must be the condensers, I told myself. Condensers are typically replaced along with points: they come as a set. I didn’t buy them that way because in my entire life I’ve only found one bad condenser. Anyway, the way reproduction parts are made you want to keep the original stuff if it still works.

My frustration was growing. Instead of nickel and diming my way through the ignition system I bought new coils and an entire ignition backing plate with new points, condensers and fresh screws the heads of which were not stripped out. It was a whole new ignition system. I was sure something was heating up and fouling the plugs.

My $114 dollar ignition system bought me nothing but clarity. But it was a glorious clarity. The bike ran worse than ever. I didn’t get out of the shed before the #1 cylinder fouled. I was smiling; the odds were narrowing rapidly and in my favor. What are the chances of two completely different ignition systems having the exact same fault? Nearly zero, my brothers. You’ll not hear me complaining about blowing $114 on an ignition system I didn’t need because I was sure then that the problem was carburation. I re-checked the float level in the #1 carburetor. It was fine but I knew now that the only thing I had changed in that carburetor was that damn needle and seat.

I picked through the old needles and seats and selected the best looking set. I removed the eBay needle and seat and reinstalled the old ones. That was it. Zed ran on all four cylinders. I took the bike out for a test ride keeping my fingers crossed at the dreaded 10-mile mark but the bike kept running. I lugged the motor in high gear. The motor pulled cleanly without missing.

I know better than to assume anything was fixed without putting a few miles on the bike so I did a loop to Capitan, out to Roswell and then through Ruidoso to home, a trip right at 300 miles. At my first gas stop in Capitan I was astounded at the fuel mileage. Previously Zed was a steady 40 miles per gallon bike. That first fill-up netted 50 miles per gallon.

From Capitan to Roswell was a nice, winding, 4000 rpm tootle enjoying the breeze and the smooth running Kawasaki. I filled up again and the old Z1 returned 59 miles per gallon. Almost a 50% increase in fuel mileage.

In Roswell’s hot, stop-and-go road construction traffic Zed started to stumble. Crap, I was 100 miles from home and the problem had returned. One cylinder started dropping out and then another. The bike was dying in the middle of the road. Out of instinct I reached down and found the fuel petcock in the off position. Zed ran all the way home on 4 cylinders.

I can’t explain why it took so long to figure out the problem. There were so many distractions on the way to that moment of clarity. I’ll be looking for some OEM Mikuni needles and seats. They say the cheap man pays the most but I’ve found that value is very subjective. For example, what would I be writing about if I bought the correct parts the first time around?

Hey, you need to read the complete Kawasaki Z1 resurrection story!

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A New BajaBound Atlas

Wow, check this out…a new Baja road and recreation atlas brought to us by the folks who know Baja best:  BajaBound Insurance!

I ordered mine already and I’m looking forward to getting it.   You can be sure I’ll put it to good use.  If you want to order yours, you can do so here!

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TJ’s Bulldog

What does a professional, world-class pistolsmith use for his personal weapon of choice?

I asked good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) that question, and the answer was surprising.  This is a man who knows handguns inside and out, and a guy who is one of the top men in the world for custom-crafted combat handguns.  SIGs, 1911s, Colt and Smith revolvers and autos, and more.  A guy who could have just about anything he wanted.  His guns are carried by law enforcement officers, special agents, and others the world over.  So what is TJ’s personal sidearm?

It’s a highly-customized Charter Arms Bulldog, chambered in the mighty .44 Special cartridge.  It’s the one you see here and in the photo above:

As you might imagine, TJ did not leave the gun stock.  These are the custom features TJ’s personal .44 carries:

      • Satin brushed hard chrome finish
      • 1.5-inch barrel (cutdown from stock barrel)
      • Radiused and polished trigger
      • “Melted” (rounded – sharp edges removed) contours throughout
      • Night sights with orange DayGlo highlighting
      • Custom-contoured front sight
      • Level 1 action work
      • Action modified to double action only
      • MagNaPorted barrel
      • Bobbed hammer
      • TJ custom prototype laser grips (modified from Crimson Trace S&W grips)

TJ explained that double action is the only way he uses revolvers.  You know, there’s a school of thought that a good man with a double action revolver can fire faster than can one with a semi-auto handgun.  You can read more about that in Ed McGivern’s Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting, a good read for anyone interested in improving their handgun shooting with a double action revolver.

TJ’s Charter Arms custom Bulldog is a very impressive weapon.  You can see more photos of it, and a few of TJ’s other custom guns, on the TJ’s Custom Gunworks website.

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Tough Rides: Brazil

We recently wrote a review of Tough Rides China, and as it turns out, that was one of three rides Ryan Pyle did that are available on Amazon Prime.  A couple of days ago I watched Tough Rides Brazil, one of the other two.  It was a six-part series about a circumnavigation around Brazil, and Ryan did this one without his brother Colin.

Although I enjoyed it, I didn’t think Tough Rides China was as good as the Himalaya Calling series about going overland from Germany to India, and I said so in my earlier review.  Tough Rides Brazil, however, was stellar, and it was every bit the equal of Himalaya Calling.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A gold-lined church in one of the mining towns in Brazil. Pyle took us into many worthy destinations on his Tough Rides Brazil series.

You know, it’s a funny thing.  I’ve been down on motorcycle adventure stories that focus too much on mysticism, philosophy, and other wordcount-inflating bullhockey and not enough on motorcycle riding (which is why I didn’t think much of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but I loved Dave Barr’s Riding the Edge).  Somehow in Tough Rides Brazil, Pyle focused only a bit on the riding and spent most of his time on the things he did in each of perhaps a dozen destinations on his 14,000 kilometer journey around Brazil, and it worked.  I watched all six Tough Rides Brazil episodes in a single sitting (it was that good).   It’s easy to do; they are each not that long and the story line and photography are superior.

You might check out Tough Rides Brazil on either Amazon Prime (by buying each episode) or by joining Amazon Prime and watching it on your TV or your computer.  Tough Rides Brazil is included with Amazon Prime.  Trust me on this:  I think you will enjoy it.  It’s got me thinking about visiting Brazil.  This is heresy, but I don’t think I’d want to do it on a motorcycle.  I’d like to fly there and see the place as a regular non-moto-borne tourist.  Brazil looks like a fascinating place and the Tough Rides Brazil series has me thinking deep thoughts in that direction.

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Let My Turtles Go

Hey, it’s a guest Baja blog from good buddy and fellow former US Army paratrooper Mike!  Check this out, folks.

As you travel through Baja Mexico and encounter so many beautiful and unique experiences that you just won’t find anywhere else in the world you really begin to appreciate all this area has to offer. This beauty arrives in the form of not only the people and their culture, but the form of raw nature that thrives on this magical peninsula. This rugged and hostile environment at first glance may not seem that inspiring but once you look closer and begin to absorb your surroundings you quickly realize how fragile, yet adaptable this ecosystem is.

This is true from plant life surviving in the driest of deserts to the sea life along the rugged Pacific Coast having to overcome predators and violent ocean conditions. It seems the challenges of nature never cease here. The encounter I am about to share with you highlights these conditions as well as the resiliency of nature in Baja.

Every day from around the 1st of December through the end of February there is a small, greenhouse-looking hut along the beach just north of Todo Santos, where the waves from the Pacific Ocean crash with such a concussion you almost feel nauseous from the vibration off this massive surf relentlessly slamming into the white sand beaches. This remote beach is where you can experience a magical wonder of life, baby sea turtles crawling into this violent ecosystem as their first test in their new world.

The turtles hatch in the early evening and four or five are placed into plastic buckets to await their release just after sunset. Timing is critical here as any earlier predatory birds are still out and will likely swoop in to gobble them up.

Once the sun begins to set it is time to set these little creatures free. We each take a bucket and walk about 20 feet away from where the surf is crashing and tip the bucket, thus releasing the sea turtles to crawl out onto the still sun-warmed sands.

Once these little guys exit the bucket it is difficult to imagine what they are thinking as they scurry towards the water with waves between 6-12 feet pummeling towards them. Some are fortunate and will hit the tide correctly and the water will suck them out to safety in the ocean, while others miss the tide, and it will toss them back violently 10-20 feet where they will start over. When this happens, you can hear a collective “Awwwww nooooo!!” from the group of us releasing them.

Ultimately (after three or four tries for some) all the baby sea turtles make it into the mighty Pacific Ocean just as the sun is fully dipping below the horizon. This is a beautiful piece of Baja life that should not be missed. We are very thankful to the Todos Tortugueos Volunteer organization for making this nightly event possible for the public.

Mike, that’s just awesome!  Thanks very much.  As always, we enjoy reading about your Baja adventures.  You wrote a fabulous story with amazing photos.  Ride safe, my friend.

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New Shoes for the Model 60

I visited with good buddy Paul up north last week, and while I was there he showed me a set of Altamont grips he had for his Smith and Wesson snubnose handgun.  When I saw the grips it was love at first sight, and I had to have them for my TJ-customized Model 60.  Paul was happy to oblige (thanks, Paul!), I came home with a new set of Altamont‘s finest, and they promptly went on the Model 60.  The Model 60 now looks like a scaled-down version of the big .45 ACP Smith & Wesson Performance Center Model 625, and I had to grab the shot you see above.   The 625 wears custom grips, too, but that’s a story for another blog.

There’s no question I’ve gone overboard in getting grips for the Model 60.  It came with the stock checkered walnut grips (the original equipment on this handgun), as well as a set of Pachmayr rubber grips.  The Pachmayrs would have been better for shooting, but I wanted a set of smooth rosewood grips and I found them on Ebay.  They looked great, but they were painful to shoot.

The Model 60’s OEM checkered walnut grips. Photo by TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks.
Smith and Wesson J-frame uncheckered rosewood grips. These are the same size as the walnut grips shown above.
The problem with both the OEM walnut grips and the replacement rosewood grips is that they are too small. My pinkie wraps around beneath the frame and takes a pounding with each shot.

The problem with the stock walnut grips and the Ebay rosewood grips is that my little finger gets under the grip.  The recoil from the little Model 60 is significant (as we engineers like to say, f = ma), and it would pound my pinkie every time I fired it.  Think about putting your pinkie sideways on a table and having someone whack it with a hammer, and you’ll have a pretty good idea what shooting this little snubbie was like.

All that’s changed with the Altamont grips Paul provided.  Take a look.  They’re beautiful.

Custom Altamont grips for the Model 60. Note the stippling (a crocodile pattern!) and the laser-engraved S&W logo.
The Altamont grips installed on the Model 60.

The new Altamont grips are extended just a bit below the frame and they have finger grooves.  It keeps my pinkie from getting underneath the frame, and with the new grips the Model 60 just feels right in my hand.

The Altamont grips provide a much better ergonomic hold. I like them a lot.

These new Altamont grips have a much better feel to them.  The wood-to-metal fit is way better than with the stock grips (the grips exactly contour to the Model 60’s frame, unlike the OEM grips).   The next obvious question, and the one that really matters is this:  How did the Model 60 shoot with the new grips?

In a word, it was amazing.  The new Altamont grips completely changed the character of the Model 60.  First, a couple of shots of the Model 60 on the range:

The Model 60 became an entirely different animal with the Altamont grips. It’s much easier to shoot now.
Good buddy TJ reworked my Model 60 extensively. It has an action job, selective polishing (ejector rod, cylinder, trigger, hammer, and cylinder release), and a red ramp front sight. TJ’s Custom Gunworks is the place to go if you want a bespoke handgun.

And here are two targets I shot at 15 yards (45 feet).  One has 10 shots on it; the other has 12 (each had two cylinders of 5 cartridges, and I had a couple left over to finish the box).

Two targets on the 15-yard line. That little Model 60 has near-target grade accuracy with the Altamont grips. If you have a snubbie, you need these grips!

Several things are amazing about the above targets.  The first is that it was windy as hell out on the range this morning, and even though I was shooting with both hands from a bench, I could see the sights swimming around as the wind gusted.  The second is that the groups are dramatically tighter than they had ever been before with this handgun.  And the third is that the revolver shot almost exactly to point of aim.  I was holding at 6:00 on the 50-foot slow-fire NRA targets you see above.  My load was the tried and true .38 Special target load:  2.7 grains of Bullseye propellant with the 148-grain Hornady hollow base wadcutter.  Before, with the OEM and rosewood grips shown above, this same load shot a good 12 inches to the right of the point of aim, and the groups were huge.  Evidently, as the revolver discharged, it was rotating to the right in my hands with those much smaller grips (and beating the hell out of me in the process).  The Altamont grips brought the point of impact essentially in line with the point of aim and just a bit high, which is what I want in a handgun.

You may recall from a recent blog that I have a load development test planned for the Model 60, and I’ll be firing the cartridges I loaded for it within the week.  I was up north on a secret mission last week and I didn’t get to shoot during that time.  I recently read that if you go 72 hours without firing a handgun your skills deteriorate.  I believe that, and I wanted to get in a little shooting before I shoot for group size.  Hopefully, the Santa Ana winds through the Cajon Pass will die down, conditions will be right, and I’ll get to do some real accuracy testing in the next few days.  You’ll get the full report right here.  Stay tuned, my friends.

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Exhaustnotes Product Review: Gdrasuya 80-amp Battery Charger

You win some and you lose some on Amazon and with the Gdrasuya 80-amp battery charger I lost some. One of the few issues I have with my off-grid shed is snow. Here at normally sunny Tinfiny Ranch snow is infrequent which is not to say “never.” It does snow a few times each winter at 6000 feet and those times are when my solar panels get covered up and my batteries slowly lose power. Coincidently, when its cold and snowy I run pipe heaters to keep the shed’s PVC water pipes from freezing and splitting in the un-insulated space. It’s a double whammy: no power from the panels and a constant drain from the pipe heaters.

The system can go a few days like this but eventually the inverter shuts off and my pipes are left to live or die in New Mexico. To combat this I run a small 24-volt battery charger off my Harbor Freight Tailgator generator during the day to help resupply the batteries with precious electrons. I have an old Dayton 24-volt charger that puts out around 5 amps. With 12 batteries to charge it takes quite a while to bump them up.

Enter the Gdrasuya 80-amp charger. The Gdrasuya is 6v-12v-24v selectable and I assumed the 80-amp output was at 6 volts. That would mean the 12-volt setting would put out 40 amps and the 24-volt setting 20 amps. 20 amps charging is 4 times faster than the Dayton! I liked what I saw.

The charger arrived neatly packed and undamaged. The machine looked well made with beautiful glossy yellow paint and everything written in Chinese. No matter, battery chargers are easy to operate.

The first thing that gave me pause was the small diameter charge leads. The clamps looked pretty robust but no way was that small wire going to tote 80 amps without getting warm.

The small wires led me to investigate the inside of the charger to see how difficult it would be to install heavier wires. Once open I realized I didn’t need heavier wires because no way were these internals going to output 80 amps at any voltage.

The Gdrasuya uses a doughnut shaped transformer with various taps taken off the windings to select current to the battery. The wires are just a wee bit bigger than a human hair and the switching is very lightweight. Ok, I thought maybe they meant 8 amps instead of 80.

The main output breaker is rated 15 amps so no matter what you did to the thing 15 amps is all that’s passing through the breaker.

Worse than the misleading advertisement was the 120-volt AC input wiring. The green wire, or ground, from the plug was cut inside leaving the shiny yellow metal box in an ungrounded state. If the metal housing managed to short out to line voltage, a user touching the metal would receive a nasty shock.

Ok, the Gdrasuya 80-amp charger is dangerous and restricted on rated power by a 15- amp output breaker, but how does it work?

Turns out not too well. At 12-volt, max charging rate, the kilowatt showed the charger drawing 1 amp from the outlet, or 120 watts. On the DC charging side things looked bleaker. The Gdrasuya amp meter was reading 50 amps but my inline digital meter said 3.08 amps at a claimed 15 volts, a measly 46 watts. So not only was the Gdrasuya charger weak and dangerous, it was inefficient to boot.

In the description for the charger the 80-amp claim is made again along with a “power for 12V is 10A, for 24-v is 7A.” It does neither.

I haven’t tried it on 24-volts yet but you can figure maybe 2 amps tops or as we like to say in the electrical business, nothing. I was going to fix the ground issue but now that I’ve tested the charger it doesn’t seem like it’s worth the bother. That old Dayton putting out 5 amps looks like a champ in comparison.

It’s odd that someone would go through all this trouble to manufacture a charger that is pretty much useless. The thing consists of quite a few parts the sum of which is almost zero.

My recommendation is don’t buy the Gdrasuya. I’m not going to put an Amazon link in this story because I don’t want you to accidently buy one. I’ll put it back together and try to return the thing to Amazon. It serves no useful purpose in Tinfiny Ranch’s suite of electrical power products.

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Favorite Baja Hotels: Tecate’s Hacienda

Tecate, not ordinarily a tourist destination, is more than just an entry point into Baja.  This little town has a lot to offer, and when I stay there, I usually opt for the Hotel Hacienda.  The Hacienda is easy to get to, it’s comfortable, it’s inexpensive, and it’s next door to one of the best restaurants in all of Tecate.

The Hotel Hacienda is at 861 Avenida Benito Juarez. Turn right after crossing the border and ride west about a mile. The Hacienda will be on your right.

As the map above indicates, the Hacienda is easy to get to.  You just go south into Mexico about two blocks after crossing the border, hang a right to head west on Avenida Benito Juarez, and ride about a mile.  The Hacienda will be on your right.

The Hacienda isn’t fancy, but it’s comfortable and clean, and the parking is secure (you park in a courtyard and you won’t have to worry about your motorcycle).  The last time I was there, a room was about $35, and they always have hot coffee available in the oficina.   What’s great about the Hacienda is that Malinalli’s is next door.  Malinalli’s is absolutely one of the best ever for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  I’ll tell you more about Malinalli’s in a minute.

There’s just no telling what (or who) you might run into in the Hacienda’s courtyard parking lot.
A couple of Royal Enfields put away for the evening at the Hotel Hacienda.

Tecate is home to the beer company of the same name, and most folks think of Tecate as a gritty industrial town.   Trust me on this:  There’s a lot more to Tecate than just a beer company.

The Tecate brewery, located in the middle of town, is visible from just about anywhere in Tecate.

On the U.S. side, Tecate is not much more than the U.S. Customs and Immigration station; on the Mexican side, Tecate (population 102,000) is a much larger and far more intriguing place. Founded in 1892, Tecate’s history reaches back 12,000 years when the region was settled by the Kumeyaay Native Americans who still inhabit the area.

Getting to Tecate is a beautiful ride in itself. California SR 94 winds its way through the mountains just north of the border. Roughly 25 miles east of where 94 originates near San Diego, take a right on 2-mile-long SR 188 and you’re there. There’s a sign warning you not to bring guns into Mexico (duh), and suddenly, you’re crossing the border. There are no Mexican officials or inspections as you enter; you just ride right in. You can do that going south; don’t try it going north.

Crossing the border into Mexico at Tecate.
As soon as you cross the border, you’re in Tecate, Mexico. The road you see at the intersection ahead is Benito Juarez. Make a right, and the Hotel Hacienda is about a mile up the road.

Even if your plans are for a longer and deeper Baja visit, my advice is to spend at least one night in Tecate and enjoy the town’s best kept secret, which is the cuisine. Two restaurants that stand out are Amores for dinner and Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Malinalli Sabores Autóctonos, right next to the Hotel Hacienda, has exquisite regional Mexican recipes, all prepared with fresh ingredients. Don’t think salsa and chips; this is the real deal and the cuisine is both exceptional and inexpensive.   When Gresh and I did the Enfield trip a couple of years ago, we parked our bikes directly in front of Malinalli’s (as you can see in the big photo at the top of this blog) and we ate there both on the way into Mexico and on the way.  Sue loves this place, too.

Just a few of the selections at Malinalli’s. Trust me on this: Malinalli’s is superb.
Blue corn tortillas and other Kamayeey cuisines make Malinalli’s stand out.

Amores, nestled between the central plaza and the Tecate brewery, features local foods and wines.  It’s a dinner spot, it’s what you might call haute cuisine, and it is absolutely outstanding.  It’s prices are higher than what you might ordinarily encounter in Tecate, but it’s still inexpensive by US standards.  They offer a choice of how many courses you might have for dinner, but the choices are what the staff feels like cooking that day. You won’t be disappointed; this is a memorable dining experience.

Two of several staff members at Amores. The dining was world class.
One of the five dinner courses we enjoyed…grilled octopus.

If your tastes run to simpler dining experiences, Tecate has you covered there, too.  There are numerous taco stands along Benito Juarez, and if there’s a bad one, I haven’t found it yet.  Watching the chefs prepare tacos is a treat unto itself, and they are absolutely delicious.

A taco chef at work in a Benito Juarez taco stand.
Taco taste tester extraordinaire Joe Gresh.

I usually try to work my Baja visits such that Tecate is my point of entry and my point of exit.  I like staying in the Hotel Hacienda and enjoying what Tecate has to offer, and bookending a Baja visit with a stay in this cool little town always works well for me.

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The best budget bikes for Baja?  You might be surprised!

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Read about our other favorite hotels in Baja!

Santa Rosalia’s Frances Hotel
Mulege’s Historico Las Casitas
Bahia San Quintin’s Old Mill

The One: A Bianchi L’Una!

Maybe 15 years ago Sue and I were on vacation in Calistoga (where the bottled water comes from).  We had our bicycles with us and we were enjoying the Silverado Trail and other choice bicycling roads in Napa Valley.  I had an aluminum-framed Giant roadbike in those days with entry-level componentry (if I recall, they branded it the Tiagra line).  There was a bike shop in Calistoga, and like gun shops, I can’t pass a bicycle store without stopping to see what they have.

In the Calistoga shop, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks.  It was a Bianchi L’Una (“the One” in Italian), and it was the most visually-arresting bicycle I’d ever seen.

Riding an inexpensive aluminum bike, I lusted for a carbon fiber bike.  I managed a plant back then that manufactured carbon fiber aviation components, and a carbon fiber bike was something I knew I needed.

The Bianchi wasn’t just carbon fiber, though.  The bike had top-of-the-line Campagnolo components (Campy’s Record line, which is expensive stuff).  Bicycle guys are elitists (although I’ve found they are not nearly as obnoxious as Facebook and motorcycle forum experts; I swear, some of these guys could be featured on the cover of Modern Proctology).  But bicycle guys also have strong opinions, two of which are that carbon fiber and Campy Record componentry are as good as it gets.

Just about everything on the L’Una that could be carbon fiber was, and most of it was white carbon fiber (the frame, the stem, the seatpost, the forks, and the forks).  The levers were conventional carbon, as were selected bits and pieces on the front and rear derailleurs.  The brakes calipers and a few other machined bits and pieces were titanium.   That’s expensive stuff.  I knew from my aerospace job that the lead time on titanium in those days was a whopping 72 weeks. It was a stunning and stunningly-expensive bicycle.  Everything about the bike was exotic. I had never seen anything like it.

I had to ask, and the Calistoga bike shop guy told me the L’Una was $5700.  I’d never heard of a bicycle being that expensive, although today (15 years later), that would not be an unusually high price.  Back then, though, you could have knocked me over with a feather.  $5700.  For a bicycle.  Wow.

I continued to look at the L’Una for another half hour, but I told the sales dude not to get too excited.  I was a looky-lou, I explained.  There was no way I was going to spend that kind of money on a bicycle.  But the bike was mesmerizing.  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.  I asked if there was any room in the price, and the guy told me no.  “Bianchi is only bringing a few of these in from Italy,” he said, “and they are what they are.”

The L’Una continued to dance around in my mind for months after that encounter. It was a vision that wouldn’t go away.  I wanted it.

One day about a year later, I was poking around on E-Bay and I saw another L’Una for sale, brand new, at a bike store in Iowa somewhere.  It was posted at $3700.  That was still a pretty damn silly price for a bicycle, but it was $2,000 below what it I had seen in Calistoga.  I called the shop, introduced myself, and asked the owner what the deal was.

“The deal is there’s two feet of snow outside my front door, I have another 25 Orbeas (that’s another high-end bike) coming in, and I need to make room,” he told me.

“What’s the frame size?” I asked, knowing there was little chance it would be my size.  I’d have an easy out.

“It’s a 55,” he answered.

Hmmm.  55 centimeters is my frame size.

“Are there any marks or scratches on the bike?” I asked.  “From the E-Bay photos, it looks like it’s on display in your store.”   If it was scratched up or dinged, I’d have another out.

“Joe, I don’t know,” he answered.  “Let me check it out and I’ll call you right back.”

A half hour later the phone rang.  “I’ve gone over that bike with a magnifying glass,” came the report, “and it’s perfect.”

Hmmm.  I thought about the L’Una all night.  I talked to Sue and she said okay (and there went my last out).  So I called the Iowa bike shop guy the next morning and offered $3400.  “How’s that sound?” I asked.

“It sounds about $300 too light,” was his answer.

You can see from the photos here that I pulled the trigger, and even though I am one cheap SOB and I know spending $3700 on a bicycle is crazy, I’ve never regretted it.  The L’Una is the most exorbitant purchase I ever made, and I own (and have owned) some pretty cool toys.  But my L’Una is in a class all by itself.   I still look at it and just think, “wow.”  The bike fits me perfectly and it’s two miles per hour faster no matter what I’m doing (cruising, climbing, top end, whatever).  In the bicycle world, that’s a  lot.  The fit and feel of the thing is just incredible.

You know, most bicycles, including Bianchi bicycles, are made in China today.  And if you know anything about Gresh and me, and our travels here and overseas, you know that we think Chinese motorcycles are as good as any made anywhere in the world.  You may have a different opinion, but hey, it’s okay for you to be wrong.  But when it comes to my L’Una, it’s one of the original Italian Bianchi bicycles, and I like that.

You can read our blog about a steel-framed, Celeste green Bianchi bicycle here.

Read about Harrison Ford’s bike ride in Baja!

Hey, how about Gresh’s motorized bicycle!

Bicycles, motorcycles, guns, reloading, construction, living off the grid, and more!  Never miss an ExNotes blog:  Sign up here for free!

2022 KLR 650 Video

This flew into my mailbox last week from Kawasaki.  I’m still on their mailing list (I purchased a new KLR 650 in 2006).  I’ll let the video do the talking.

I had good times on my KLR. I don’t see another KLR in my future, but if the new model is as good as my 2006 KLR was, I think Kawasaki will do well with this motorcycle.   Both Gresh and I had thoughts about what the new model might feature; you can read those blogs here.

If I were going to buy a new KLR (I’m not, but if I were), I would probably wait until the 2023 models were out.  When Kawasaki introduced the Gen II KLR back in 2008, the 2008 bikes had oil consumption issues.  Kawasaki had a recall (if I recall correctly) and they fixed the problem in the 2009 model.  I think it’s best to let others work through the new model teething issues.

I’m guessing the full-freight new KLRs (luggage, ABS, etc.) will push $10K, which is roughly twice what a new CSC RX4 costs, and for me, selecting the RX4 over the Kawasaki would be a no-brainer.  For that kind of money, you could almost buy a new Sportster.

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Want to see our predictions on what the new KLR would be?  Just click here.