As airport bookstore thrillers go, it doesn’t get too much better than Jack Carr’s The Devil’s Hand. Yeah, it’s a bit formulaic, and yeah, the ending is predictable (spoiler alert: the good guys win), but the plot basics are timely and a bit unusual. Instead of just plain old bad guys, rogue nations, and Middle Eastern terrorists, this one involves unleashing a bioweapon on US soil. The good guy, James Reece (why do they always have such WASPy names?), manages to thwart the effort and limit the death toll to about 5000 people. The parallels between the plot’s Marburg U virus variant and Covid 19 (and the riots and insurrections that follow) are eerily similar to what the world has gone through in the last two years.
Reece checks all the airport bookstore thriller main character boxes: Former special forces operator on a revenge mission, the US president’s personal assassin, martial arts expert, handgun expert, rifle expert, shotgun expert, knife expert, tomahawk expert, and on and on it goes. That’s the formulaic part. The plot basics are where the story diverges from what you might expect, and that makes The Devil’s Hand interesting enough to be worth a read. At 576 pages, you probably won’t get through it on a single flight, but that’s okay. You can finish it on the return leg.
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I recently visited with my good buddy Paul and he let me photograph his Taurus Model 441 .44 Special revolver. Paul and I grew up together in rural New Jersey. We’re both firearms and reloading guys, and I love getting together with Paul and talking about both topics.
Paul told me he purchased the Taurus new in 1986 or 1987 from Harry’s Army & Navy store on Route 130 in Robbinsville, New Jersey. That shop is no longer there, but back in the day it was a major gun store in central Jersey. Paul said he is 98% sure he paid $249 for it.
I know Paul likes this 5-shot .44 Special revolver very much. He used it extensively in monthly defense revolver matches. Those matches required a defense revolver with a barrel length of 4 inches or less and a caliber of .38 or larger. The matches were shot at distances up to 50 yards. Paul did well with the Taurus in the Eastern Regional Defense Pistol matches, taking many medals in his class. The matches attracted over 60 shooters from Maine to Florida and they were held over three days. The awards you see below are just a few Paul won with this handgun.
The frame size is between a Smith & Wesson K and L frame. The grips you see in these photos are from Hogue. Paul has the original grips. He told me the Hogue just feels better in his hand. Paul did all his match shooting with the original grips and changed them for the Hogue grip about two years ago.
Paul is a very competent machinist and gunsmith, and he modified the Taurus to his tastes. He did a trigger job on it and replaced the springs with a Wolf spring kit. He also added the trigger over-travel piece on the back of the trigger. That’s to limit any further rearward trigger movement after the hammer has been released. It helps to minimize gun movement and improves accuracy. I dry fired this gun both single and double action at Paul’s place and the gun is silky smooth. It’s a really nice weapon.
Paul is also a very experienced reloader and he does it all, including casting his own bullets. He’s the guy I call when I have reloading questions. For this gun, Paul uses the 429215 Lyman gas check bullet mould, but he does not use a gas check. Paul’s preferred .44 Special load is the 215-grain Lyman bullet and 7.0 – 7.1 grains of Unique. Paul told me it’s very accurate in this gun and the load has mild recoil.
While handling the Taurus, I was impressed. I was tempted to make Paul an offer on it, but I knew doing so would be pointless. When you have a handgun you shoot well, you modified to fit your tastes, and you have a history with, you keep it. It sure is nice.
With the exception of our blogs on Tecate, most of what we write about Baja is well into the peninsula’s interior, far away from the touristy stuff clustered around Tijuana. Today’s blog on the Rosarito Beach Hotel is an exception. I love this place, and the beauty of it is that it’s only about 20 miles south of the border. It will take you longer to get through Mexican Customs in TJ than it will to drive to the Rosarito Beach Hotel.
You can actually see the Rosarito Beach Hotel from the toll road. It’s a short drive from the US border.
To get there from So Cal, just take I-5 south until you run out of road. Before you cross the border, though, make sure your car or motorcycle has Mexican insurance (we always use BajaBound). After you’ve crossed the border you’ll need to stop at the Mexican Customs office (it’s huge and you can’t miss it), get your paperwork squared away, and continue south. Watch the signs for the toll road to Ensenada; that’s the road you want. Driving through TJ isn’t too bad; once you’re on the toll road it’s a pleasant drive along the Pacific Coast and you’ll soon see signs for Rosarito Beach. Watch for the Rosarito Beach Hotel sign, head east, and after a couple of blocks you will be at the hotel entrance.
The Rosarito Beach Hotel. Susie and I used to ride in the 50-mile fun run bicycle ride from Rosarito Beach to Ensenada when it ran that route. Those were grand times.
The Rosarito Beach Hotel goes back to the 1920s when people like Clark Gable stayed there. The bar is great, the restaurant is surprisingly good, their Sunday brunch is incredible (it’s worth the drive there just for that), and the first meal is on the house. The rooms are modern and they are immaculate. The grounds are beautiful and the hotel has secure parking.
The landscaping and layout of the Rosarito Beach Hotel are well done. The hotel is immaculate.All parking at the Rosarito Beach Hotel is world class. Those two KLRs belonged to yours truly and Baja John. We rode them on several of many rides through Baja. You can read about our Baja adventures here.A member of the wait staff in the Rosarito Beach Hotel. The service was superb.A Rosarito Beach Hotel breakfast. The Sunday morning brunch is exquisite.
Many times when we’re doing group rides, we’ll use the Rosarito Beach Hotel as a rally point after we’ve crossed the border. It’s hard to miss when you’re on the toll road to Ensenada, and if your group gets separated in the complexity that is the Tijuana border area, the Rosarito Beach Hotel is a good place to meet.
As I mentioned above, the restaurant in the Rosarito Beach Hotel is good. If you enjoy world-class fine dining, Susanna’s may well be the best kept secret in Rosarito Beach. It’s just a bit north of the Rosarito Beach Hotel and within walking distance in the Pueblo Plaza courtyard collection of shops at Benito Juárez 4356 (walk north a block or two and turn right). I have at least one dinner there every time I am in Rosarito Beach and I’ve never been disappointed.
Susanna in her world-class restaurant. I love this place.Shrimp and steak in Susanna’s, one of many fine dinners I’ve enjoyed there.
There you have it: The Rosarito Beach Hotel. If you’d like to read more about our favorite spots in Baja and some of the fabulous rides we’ve enjoyed south of the border, please visit our Baja page!
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Zion. The name implies something of biblical proportions, something religious or heavenly. It’s easy to understand that’s what the Mormon settlers thought when they entered this area in the mid-1800s. One of the crown jewels of the National Park system, Zion may be as close to heaven as you can get without a one-way ticket.
Late in the day, entering Zion National Park from the east on Utah SR 9.
I’ve visited Zion many times, and I’d go back again in a heartbeat. Living in So Cal, Zion is only a day’s ride away. I’ve been there in cars and many times on motorcycles ranging from 250cc Chinese imports to Big Twin Harleys. My strong feelings for Zion are personal: It was the destination of my first big motorcycle trip. My riding buddy and departed friend Dick Scott suggested Zion back when we were going through our Harley phase (a phase most of us passed through), and it was beyond beautiful as we rolled into the park on Utah State Route 9. Zion exceeded anything I could have imagined; I remember feeling like I was riding into a Western painting. It has this effect on everyone with whom I’ve ever visited the Park. That big photo above? That’s Mr. Tso, a very likeable visitor from the Peoples Republic of China who rode with us on the CSC Motorcycles/Zongshen 5000 Mile Western America Adventure ride (a publicity effort that sold more than a few RX3 motorcycles worldwide).
Riding into Zion National Park, peering over the windshield. It’s almost a religious experience.
Nestled where the Mojave, the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau meet, Zion requires adjectival adeptness to even approach an accurate description. Pastel pink mountains, verdant vegetation, electric blue skies and emerald pools combine with abundant wildlife to create a surreal collage of seemingly endless picture postcard scenes. As national parks go, it’s small, but the scenery is absolutely over the top. I’ve been to a lot of places on this planet, and I can state with certainty that Zion’s beauty is unsurpassed. The wildlife add to the experience. On one of the CSC rides (the Destinations Deal ride), we hit what I thought was traffic and had to stop in one of Zion’s tunnels. I was frustrated until I lane split to the front of the line and found that the delay was caused by a group of bighorn sheep majestically and casually crossing the highway in front of us. They were magnificent, and no, I did not get a photo.
Stopped by a bighorn sheep herd, with my fellow Zongers in the rearview mirror.Taking in the splendor that is Zion, this group of riders is stopping to takes photos.Tony, who is finding Zion to be a bit different than the Peoples Republic of China.
The folks who know about such things think the first humans inhabited Zion a cool 12,000 years ago, hunting local game including woolly mammoths, camels and giant sloths. As these critters were hunted to extinction, the locals turned to farming and evolved into an agrarian culture known as the Virgin Anasazi. The Paiutes moved in when the Anasazi migrated south, and then the Mormons settled alongside the Paiutes in the mid-1800s (that’s when the area received its biblical moniker). Archeologists are still finding evidence of these earlier civilizations. These earlier folks were moving into Zion around the same time that the indigenous peoples were creating the cave paintings in Baja.
A wide-angle photo of SR 9 winding through Zion National Park.One of the tunnels through Zion’s mountains along Utah SR 9.
The Great Depression brought great change in the 1930s, and Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps built roads and added upgrades to make the park more accessible. The Virgin River cut deeply through sandstone to create magnificent channels and impressive geologic formations, and the CCC work made these areas easier to reach. For most people, a visit to Zion is to see the sights from the valley floor, but you can also take a half-day excursion up the western edge of the park on Kolob Reservoir Road. From there, you can look down into Zion for a completely different and equally magnificent perspective of the area.
Good buddy Rob, Willie, and more on a ride through Zion National Park.
Let’s talk about the ride — more superlatives are in order here. From any direction, you’ll know you are approaching a magical area. Antelope. Deer. Brilliant blue skies. Magnificent forests. Stunning mountains; it’s all here. From Southern California, you’ll experience tantalizing two-wheeled treats as Interstate 15 cuts through the canyons carved by the Virgin River. Riding in from Arizona’s Grand Canyon region southeast of Zion, the roads are similarly magnificent. And if you’re riding in from Bryce Canyon National Park to the northeast, well, you get the idea. This is one destination that has to be on the bucket list.
An easy ride from southern California…just take I-15 north and exit at Utah SR 9.
Zion National Park is an easy one-day freeway ride from southern California. Grab Interstate 10 East, then I-15 North through Nevada into Utah, to Utah Route 9 East (as you see in the above map). From the south, pick up State Route 89 North in Flagstaff and watch for the signs where Route 89 crosses 9 West before Mt. Carmel, Utah. From the northeast, it’s I-70 West and grab the exit for Route 89 South.
Looking up from the floor of Zion National Park. In Zion, you are mostly in the canyons looking up.
As mentioned above, unlike Bryce Canyon or the Grand Canyon (two National Parks in which you look down into the rock formations), at
Zion you are in the canyon looking up. For a different Zion perspective, take the Kolob Reservoir Road from the north to see things looking down into Zion. Check weather conditions first, as the road climbs to over 8,000 feet and may be impassible during the winter months. Kolob Terrace Road begins in Virgin, Utah, about 13 miles west of Springdale. Look for the sign to the Kolob Reservoir.
If you’re looking for a good place to eat, Casa de Amigos Restaurant in Springdale, just before you enter Zion from the south, is a good spot (the shredded chicken burritos are my favorite). It may be a victim of the pandemic, as Google indicated it was closed temporarily. If you enter Zion from the east, Mt. Carmel is the last town before you reach the Park and there are several restaurants and hotels there.
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If you would like to learn more about our 5000-mile christening ride through the American West on Chinese 250cc motorcycles, pick up a copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM.
We’ve featured TJ’s Custom Gunworks a few times here on the ExNotes blog. I’ll take credit for influencing another good buddy who had TJ work his magic on a Colt Combat Commander, and this one is a honey. Colt’s Combat Commander is a 4.25-inch barreled version of the 1911. This TJ custom auto is hard chromed and it is a stunning example of TJ’s workmanship. You can see it in the photos and you can see the results on the range.
The Combat Commander shown here has had the following modifications:
Polished hard chrome finish over stainless steel.
Throated and polished barrel and frame.
Fitted and polished extractor.
New match trigger and action job.
New match hammer.
Smoothed breech face.
Polished full length guide rod.
Satin polish on barrel hood and chamber.
Extended slide catch.
New and rounded steel mainspring housing.
Trigger pull set to 3.0 lbs.
Melted sharp edges.
Reduced strength and smoothed magazine release button.
DayGlo red front sight.
Honduran rosewood burl grips.
I’ve seen this gun in action on the range and it is a thing of beauty. I’ve had a few guns customized by TJ, and I’ve steered a few friends there. 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 a Model 59, a bright stainless Colt 1911, the MacManus Colt 1911, the Rock Island Compact, a Model 60 Smith and Wesson snubbie, a Ruger Mini 14, and a new Colt Python. TJ’s emphasis is on reliability and perfection and on all of my guns he met those objectives in every case. When it comes to custom firearms, it doesn’t get any better than TJ’s Custom Gunworks.
You can read more firearms features on the Tales of the Gun page.
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We don’t do politics here on ExNotes, mostly because we don’t want to lose all our readers. If Gresh expressed his views, we’d lose half of you, and if I expressed my views, we’d lose the other half. That said, what has been happening in the world the over the last week transcends mere politics (von Clausewitz’s definition of war being an extension of politics by other means notwithstanding).
I don’t agree with much of what the current team at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has been doing for the last year, but I think we are taking the prudent course of action regarding Russia. Not the moral course of action or the course of action President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his nation deserve, but the prudent course. What do you do when a madman has his finger on the nuclear trigger? It’s not a time to call his bluff, and for that, I think what’s happening here on the home front is prudent. But if ever a nation and a leader deserved our intervention, this is it. President Zelenskyy’s response when offered US help to flee Ukraine was eloquent: I need ammunition, not a ride. This, my friends, is a leader. A combat commander. The real deal.
People are comparing Zelenskyy to Churchill. The comparisons are valid, but the more appropriate comparison I think of is General Anthony McAuliffe. When surrounded by the Germans at Bastogne, McAuliffe’s response to their surrender demand was similarly eloquent: Nuts. General George S. Patton said that a man so eloquent deserved to be saved. That is certainly the case for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine.
Maybe we are seeing real leadership in Washington. We can only hope. Tightening the screws on the oligarchs and kleptocrats surrounding Putin may well lead to Putin’s demise. I’m guessing that’s the game plan. I hope it happens quickly.
They say time flies and that’s corny-true but I think time accelerates the closer you get to the end. We have been living on Tinfiny Ranch for 6 years now and I have missed the Prairie Dawgs Tarantula 100 desert race each of those years. It seemed like there was always something that needed doing or I was off somewhere else. I usually hear about the race after it has run and say to myself: I’ve got to make it down to mile marker 45 and check it out next year.
This year was the someday year. My old high school chum Greg was in town so we burbled Brumby down Highway 54 early Sunday to catch the second day of Prairie Dawg action. The event is held at a huge off-road playpen about halfway between El Paso and Alamogordo. When we first moved to La Luz I attended a Prairie Dawg club meeting. They were a great bunch of guys and gals (another of those things I keep meaning to do is join The Dawgs). I’m not real big on organized motorcycle events preferring instead to toss about on the floor picking up cat hair like a gigantic sticky lint roller. To enter a race, to pre-run the course, to get in physical shape so that I could hold on to a bucking 1971 Yamaha 360 for 100 miles of desert seems like a lot of effort.
Effort that could be better spent consuming beer and eating beef jerky in the warm February New Mexico sunshine. So that’s what me and Greg did. We arrived on a perfect day just as the riders meeting was ending and wasted no time getting to the start line. The PD riders lined up according to class. The start is dead-engine. When the flagman, who gave no 30-second board or hint of when he was going to drop the flag, gave the signal you had to start your bike and off you go. It was so unexpected I missed several photos. With the dead-engine start, the electric start bikes had a bit of an advantage over the kick start bikes.
The race is run in 50-mile loops. When the riders come back through the pit area they ride underneath a red, pipefitting type of arch where the transponder records their time. We had a bit of a wait after the last class was on their way so we got our chairs, beer and beef jerky and settled down to discuss how old we were getting, the various ailments we were suffering under and to try and remember some long ago event that the other guy was reminiscing about.
One hour later the first of the Pro Class arrived at the transponder. Most everyone took on a gallon of gas, a swig of water and were on their way for the second lap. Some guys pushed their bikes under the yellow pit-tape ribbon and called it a day. Greg and I set up behind a hill at a spot that had a good view of the last mile or so of the course and the red transponder arbor. Some pits were located before the transponder, some after, but I guess it didn’t matter as the second lap was the one that counted. The sun beat down, the early morning chill was long gone, and our world became a balmy 70-degree red dirt sand dune. We shed our jackets and settled into a mellow, New Mexico low simmer.
Greg was heading to Fort Stockton, Texas later in the day so we decided to hang around until the first youth-class rider completed his lap. That came around 2 hours into the race or almost exactly twice the time it took the first pro-class rider. We folded up our chairs, shook the sand off and went back to the Alamogordo Moose Lodge where Greg had left his gigantic motorhome. I read later on the Prairie Dawg’s Facebook page that there was some trouble with the scoring system and I’m not real sure who won. I figure why mess up such a nice day out with accounting issues.
I don’t know if I’ll ever compete in the Tarantula 100. I’m still able to trail ride all day long but can only make about 2 miles at race pace. Staying up to speed for 100 miles would leave me rubbery-armed with blood pooled in my calves. I don’t want to take that helicopter ride. There is a 60+ class but those guys looked pretty fit. Maybe they’ll let me enter the mini-cycle class. Pouring concrete would be easy in comparison.
A wise man once said there comes a time in every man’s life when he decides to hang it up…his riding days are over. Ignoring the sexist tone of that gender-specific comment, I guess the follow-on comment has to be: Or does there?
I turned 71 a few months ago. To a lot of folks, that’s old. The funny part of it is, though, I don’t feel old. A little earlier today I was putzing around in the garage and my Royal Enfield was making me feel guilty. I hadn’t had the 650 twin out on the road in the last few weeks, a character deficiency I promptly corrected. The old girl and I had a nice ride around the neighborhood, I got the oil circulating again (in the Enfield and in yours truly), and I snapped that great photo you see at the top of this blog. That’s snow-covered Big Bear you see off in the distance, a destination I’ve visited many times on a motorcycle.
But to get back on topic: At what age should we think about hanging up our riding gear? Now that I’m a septuagenarian (I had to look it up, so you can, too) I’m wondering about things like that. But then I think about the guys I’ve ridden with and maybe I’ll continue riding for another 20 years or so. Take a look.
Simon Gandolfi, who just turned 90 and is arguably the most interesting man in the world, is a novelist and moto adventurer extraordinaire. He’s ridden around the world on small displacement bikes.Colorado Dan, the man. He cuts a dashing figure and is a great traveling companion. He’s a year or two older than me.Another most interesting man in the world…good buddy Willie. He’s usually riding when he’s not pitching Dos Equis.James, our Texas Ranger and a serious traveler, is in my cohort and he rode Baja with us.
You know, the funny thing is the tone of the conversations during and after a good ride hasn’t changed at all over the nearly six decades I’ve been riding. The topics have changed a bit, but not really that much. We still mostly talk bikes and good roads. But instead of bragging how drunk we were the previous night and who we spent the night with (which was mostly bullshit, anyway) the topics today address different specs. Instead of 0 to 60 times, quarter mile performance, and top ends, now it’s things like our A1C, PSA, and HDL numbers. You fellow geezers know what I’m talking about. But the discussions are just as lively, I think a little more interesting, and probably a bit more truthful. We’ll touch on politics on occasion, but if the conversation gets too heated or goes too far in that direction, I can always get us back on track (and get a good laugh) when I weigh in with a single question:
You guys know what the problem is in politics today? All the guys who really know how to run the country are out screwing around riding their motorcycles.
So, at what age should you hang it up? I’m finding that’s hard to say and most guys my age and older seem to just keep on going. I’ve ridden with guys well into their 70s, 80s, and sometimes even more. Good buddy Dan is heading down to Baja next month to camp on the beach near Gonzaga Bay, and he’s a little older than me. Sim0n Gandolfi, the British novelist and adventure travel writer, rode to Cabo San Lucas and back with us on 150cc CSC Mustangs about a dozen years ago, and he’s about to leave on another epic moto trip at age 90. James from Texas bought a new motorcycle and rode one of the Baja trips with us. He spun off somewhere about halfway down the length of the Baja peninsula to take the ferry across to mainland Mexico, and he was going to ride home to Texas through Mexico. And Willie, another most interesting man in the world, rides every chance he gets when he’s not doing Dos Equis commercials. Like me, all of these guys qualify for that 89-cent cup of coffee at McDonald’s.
Yeah, I think I’m going to stay at it for a while. I think you should, too.
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The best riding in the world? In my opinion, it’s unquestionably Baja. Take a look!
“I’ll be Bach,” of course, is the written Austrian-accent impersonation of the Governator (i.e., Arnold) in what has to be one of the best sci-fi movies ever, Terminator. One of the several guns that received top billing in that movie was an AMT Long Slide Hardballer equipped with a laser sight.
There are a lot of cool things to know about the Terminator movie and its armament, not the least of which is that laser target designators were not yet available for handguns when the movie was released in 1985. Ahnold’s (misspelled intentionally) AMT Hardballer had a custom 10,000-volt laser, and the wiring for all that power was hidden in the future governor’s jacket sleeve. I liked the movie, but I especially liked seeing the Long Slide Hardballer 1911 in it. You see, I own one. It cost just $365 back in the day and it was manufactured by Arcadia Machine and Tool (hence the AMT moniker) just up the road from me in Monrovia, California. It is a stainless steel 1911, it has a 7-inch long slide and barrel, and it is accurate. That’s my gun you see in the phot0 at the top of this blog. One of these guns recently sold for close to $2,000 complete with box and papers. I have the box and papers that came with mine. And no, it’s not for sale.
The Hardballer is surprisingly accurate. The 2-inch longer sight radius really works. Mine has not been tightened up, accurized, or modified in any way. The trigger pull is a bit higher than I would like, but it’s crisp (one of these days, I may get around to having TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks do a trigger job on it). I found the targets you see below in an old reloading notebook; they were all fired by yours truly, standing, at 50 feet. I guess that old saying is true: The older I get, the better I was.
I’ve owned my Hardballer for close to 40 years now. The AMT company is no more, so there won’t be any more of them. It’s a classic, and I need to get out and shoot it more often. Maybe I’ll do that today.
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Not as measured by the compass, mind you, but as measured in dollars. A 1980 Honda CBX recently sold at auction in Las Vegas for a whopping $49,500. Wow.
The CBX originally debuted in 1979, and production continued through 1982. The first two years featured naked bikes (no windshield, no fairing, and no bags); the last two years were equipped with bags, fairings, and a little bit of detuning to make them a bit more reliable. The bikes were (and are) impressive, with wide engines (the engine was a straight six mounted across the frame), six carbs, six headers, and 24 valves. I think those CBX Hondas were and still are beautiful.
When the CBX first came out in 1979, I was living in Fort Worth. I rode my Triumph over to the local Honda dealer, and the guy let me take a silver one out (by myself) for a test ride. I immediately headed to Loop 820. It’s where I used to open up my ’78 Bonneville, which would touch an indicated 109 miles per hour. Naturally, being a wise-beyond-my-years 28, I did a top end run with the brand new CBX. I don’t remember what its speedo went up to, but I do remember running out of resolve at something north of 135 miles per hour (the bike still had more left). The CBX was an impressive motorcycle.
I turned it around and headed back to the dealer, and when I arrived, I leaned the bike over on its side stand and left the engine running. It was leaking oil from the left valve cover, and it was kind of pulsing out like I had nicked an artery. The sales guy came up, eager to close a deal, and asked what I thought of it. “Not for me,” I said, pointing to the oil leak. “It’s already leaking oil.”
But the CBX bug had bitten. About a dozen years later, I had moved to southern California and I rode a ’92 Harley Softail (didn’t everyone back then?), and I saw a pristine ’82 CBX at Bert’s MegaMall in Azusa. It was $4500, and I had to have it. I bought that bike and rode it for another 10 years, and I did some serious touring on it. That’s me you see in the photo at the top of this blog somewhere in Arizona with good buddy Lou and his Goldwing.
The CBX was an amazing machine, and I felt that way the entire time I owned it. I sold it when Honda stopped stocking parts for the CBX because I was worried that if something complicated broke, I’d have a $4500 paperweight. I put it in the CycleTrader and it sold the next day. I thought I had done well because I sold it for what I had paid for it 10 years earlier. If I only knew what they’d be going for today.
The frame size is between a Smith & Wesson K and L frame. The grips you see in these photos are from Hogue. Paul has the original grips. He told me the Hogue just feels better in his hand. Paul did all his match shooting with the original grips and changed them for the Hogue grip about two years ago.
