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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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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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Last week I wrote a blog about my .300 Weatherby Magnum Vanguard Safari, and I recently spent a bit of time with it on the range. In a word: Wow! This is a most impressive firearm, as is the .300 Weatherby Magnum cartridge.
Before the rifle arrived, I called both Leupold and Weatherby to ask which rings and mounts I should use to mount a 4X Leupold scope. Both told me they didn’t know because there are so many possible combinations of rifles and scopes (which kind of surprised me; you’d think they would know). The Leupold tech rep suggested I try their dual dovetail mounts and low rings and he gave me the part numbers. (so it was off to Amazon for both). The Leupold guy said he didn’t know if what he suggested would work and if it would clear the scope’s bells, but that’s what I ordered and it worked like a champ. The Leupold scope has a lot of eye relief and it just looks right with the low mounts. The matte finish on the rifle, the mounts, the rings, and the scope looks good.
Good buddy John asked about how I sight in a scope, and I thought I would explain that here. I don’t use a boresighting device. The idea of sticking something in the muzzle doesn’t appeal to me, as it is the most sensitive part of the rifle and any nicks or dings in this area will hurt accuracy significantly. My approach is to:
Set the rifle up on the rest, pointing it at a bullseye downrange.
Remove the bolt.
Look through the barrel and center the bullseye at 50 yards in the bore. I use the rear opening of the barrel and the front opening of the barrel (which visually form two concentric rings) like a peep sight, getting the circles formed by both centered on the bullseye.
Bring the scope’s crosshairs onto the bullseye without moving the rifle on the rest.
Fire the first shot.
Make scope adjustments accordingly for subsequent shots.
I can usually get the first shot within 10 inches of the bullseye using the above approach. A couple of times I’ve got it within 2 inches of the bullseye on the first shot, and this was one of them. I took some photos to make my explanation easier to understand.
First, set the rifle in the rest and have a target at either 25 yards or 50 yards:
Next, center the bullseye in the barrel:
Then (without moving the rifle), bring the scope’s crosshairs onto the target:
At this point, my approach is to fire one shot to see where it hits and then make adjustments. My first shot was the one at the lower right in the target below. I cranked in 15 clicks of elevation and 15 of windage, and my next shot was near the middle of the orange bullseye.
That was close enough to get me started. I then moved a target out to 100 yards and fired a few groups. This was the third group, and it measured 0.865 inch.
Not everything ran as smoothly as that target above suggests, though. About a third of my .300 Weatherby Magnum ammunition (all ammunition I reloaded) had difficulty chambering or would not chamber at all, and the rest of the groups were all much larger than that .865 group shown above. I was pretty sure the chambering difficulties were affecting accuracy, but that one good group showed the rifle had potential.
I recognized that the chambering difficulty was the same problem I had encountered with my .257 Weatherby Magnum Ruger No. 1 rifle. A traditional resizing approach didn’t work on the .257 Weatherby Magnum cartridge, and when I called Sierra about it, they told me turn the resizing die into the press an additional quarter turn after the die contacts the shell holder. I think there’s another issue as well due to case distortion due to the neck expander dragging during the resizing operation. If the cases are not well lubed inside the case neck, the dual-radius Weatherby shoulder is more easily distorted upward when withdrawing the case from the resizing die (more easily distorted, that is, than would be a conventional non-dual-radius case shoulder). The trick is to lube the inside of the case neck and to do the extra quarter turn of the die into the press. This addresses the neck expansion longitudinal distortion, takes out all the clearances in the reloading press’s pivot points, and accounts for any springback in case exterior dimensions.
I went home, pulled the bullets on the .300 Weatherby Magnum cartridges that wouldn’t chamber, resized as described above, cleaned the cases thoroughly, and then reloaded them.
On the next range visit a few days later, every round chambered easily, and wow, the results were good. My first group was the one at the top of the target shown below (it measured 1.452 inches). I dialed in five clicks left the Leupold and fired the next two groups in the two lower targets. The group on the left is 1.191 inches, and the one on the right is 0.871 inch.
Note that these 300 Weatherby Magnum groups were fired with a 4X scope at 100 yards. It’s not easy to get great groups with a rifle that smacks you authoritatively each time you squeeze the trigger (the .300 Weatherby Magnum is one potent SOB). My load was the 180-grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet and IMR 7828 SSC powder a grain or two below max, and I’m not done yet. If my shoulder and my wallet hold out (and I can find components) I’ll bet I can get a ½-inch out of this rifle.
Roy Weatherby in his office in the old South Gate facility. I met Roy in that office and had a nice conversation with him. Click on the photo to get the story.
It was one of those crazy motorcycle adventure moments when a chance encounter leads to a lasting friendship. I was leading a group of maybe 10 guys on CSC RX3 motorcycles in Baja and we stopped to buy bottled gas from the capitalists along the Transpeninsular Highway in Cataviña. It was a crowded scene with two or three Bajaenos pouring gas from plastic water jugs into our motorcycles with bikes and bodies tightly crowded around. That’s when I noticed a tailpack on one of the bikes that looked different from the rest of our RX3s, and suddenly the difference hit me: It was bigger than the others and it had jump wings on the back.
Jump wings? That’s odd, I thought. I didn’t think any of the guys I was riding with was a fellow former paratrooper. That’s when I met Mike Huber. He hadn’t been riding with us; he just happened to get mixed into our group at the Catavina fuel stop.
Mike is a cool guy with a cool lifestyle. Most recently, that included a moto trip across Vietnam with his girlfriend, Bobbie. Mike published a story in ADVMoto, a magazine that has previouly published work by yours truly and Joe Gresh. Mike’s Vietnam adventure is here. I enjoyed reading it and I think you will, too.
One of these days, I keep thinking to myself. Vietnam must be one hell of a motorcycle destination. Good buddies Buffalo and his cousin Tim also rode Vietnam, and you can read that story here. It’s weird…I met both of those guys on a CSC Baja ride, too!
There are just so many things that are cool about this 
