The real deal…a Genuine motorcycle!

Yours truly and the Genuine G400c, patrolling the mean streets of San Francisco!

This is one of those blogs for which I could have used any of several titles.   The Real Deal got the nod, as this is indeed the real deal…a genuine (pardon the pun) motorcycle.   Another contender was The Streets of San Francisco, like that Karl Malden and Michael Douglas show 30 years ago.  And yet another was We Are Living In Interesting Times (read on, and you’ll see what I mean).

Anyway, enough of the trip down memory lane and alternative blog titles. I made a few memories of my own yesterday, riding around downtown San Francisco around good buddy Lunchbox’s San Francisco Scooter Centre.   Barry is the guy who owns and runs the dealership, but Lunchbox is the guy in charge.   He’s about a year old now (I’ve known him since he was a pup), and he’s a cool 82 lbs.    After checking in with Lunchbox, I visited with Barry for a bit.  I always like coming up here.  I like Lunchbox, I like the city, I like the San Francisco Scooter Centre, and I like Barry.

Lunchbox, the man in charge. He’s cool. He lets Barry think he’s the guy running the San Francisco Scooter Centre, but Lunchbox is the one really calling the shots.
Good buddy Barry and the Genuine G400c motorcycle.

Barry and I had a great taco lunch downtown, we talked about the motorcycle market, and we swapped stories about a couple of our other common interests.  Then it was time to get on the G400c.  Barry tossed me the keys and the bike’s registration, and told me to have fun.   Being a guy who aims to please, I did as I was told.  It was easy on the Genuine.

So let me tell you about the Genuine G400c. The first thing I noticed was that it’s a motorcycle.  A real motorcycle.  Tear drop gas tank (where the gas actually goes), a tach and speedo that look like a tach and speedo should, and a long, low, flat seat (good for moving around on when necessary, carrying a passenger, and strapping on soft luggage for longer trips).  Wire wheels.  Chrome fenders.    Chrome handlebars that put the controls in comfortable reach.   It all came together the way it should.   Yessiree, this is a motorcycle that is visually appealing.  None of that Ricky Racer, low bar face on the tank, angry Ninja insect, or giraffesque ADV wannabe silliness or styling.  This is a motorcycle that looks like a motorcycle should.

The next thing I noticed was that the G400c was easy to throw a leg over.  It’s been a while since I’ve been on a bike where I could say that.   I’ll say more on this in a bit.

And another thing I noticed was that the bike sounds like a motorcycle. A real motorcycle.   A Genuine motorcycle.  I like that, too.  I had my big Nikon with me (the D810) and I grabbed a video of the startup sequence…

This bike sounds good.  It has a nice, deep, throaty rumble.   The skyscrapers I darted between in downtown San Francisco amplified the exhaust note, and the reverberations were intoxicating.  There’s something undeniably cool about riding a nimble, throaty motorcycle in a city.  It would have been cool to grab more video of myself riding around San Francisco, but I’m not as talented as Joe Gresh in that regard and besides, I was having too much fun.  You can have a great ride or you can make a great video.  Unless you’re Joe Gresh, you can’t do both at the same time.

So back to that nimble thing.  You’re reading something written by a guy who thinks that somewhere in the 1970s and the 1980s the wheels came off the wagon here in the US with regard to motorcycle size and complexity, and until very recently, things have continued to get nuttier as the years have gone by and advertising guys (who are supposed to be creative people) kept defaulting to bigger has to be better.  My thoughts are in synch with most of the rest of the motorcycle world (not the aforementioned advertising gurus) in that I think a 250cc is the perfect size.   A 400cc single is even better, especially if it comes in a 250cc-sized package, and that’s what the G400c is.

I don’t know the Genuine’s weight.  I could find it in a few seconds with a Google search, but I don’t need to.  I know what I need to know from my ride, and that’s this: The G400c is light and it’s nimble, and that’s all the spec I need.   Hell, you can’t trust what most of the manufacturers tell you about their bikes’ weights, anyway.  And even if you could believe their numbers, what really matters is where a bike’s center of gravity is located.   Make it too high, and a motorcycle will feel unwieldy regardless of its weight.  Make it low, though, and a bike becomes flickable, agile, nimble, and just plain fun to ride.   That’s what this machine is.   I had fun splitting lanes and braaapping around downtown San Francisco.  The G400c is perfect for that, but that’s not the only arena in which I see it excelling.  I think the G400c would be a great bike for a Baja ride, too.  Someday.  We’ll see.

Next up:  Seat height.  It’s the same story here, folks.  Like I said earlier, I could throw my leg over the seat without having to take a yoga class or do any stretching exercises, and you know what?  That’s a good feeling.  The saddle is low enough to make getting on and off the bike easy, and that’s decidedly not the case for a lot of motorcycles these days.

You might ask about suspension travel.  When I was younger and dumber, I used to pour over the spec sheets you’d see in the motorcycle magazines, and then I realized that unless you plan to ride motocross, the only thing a ton of suspension travel does for a street bike is make thing way too tall.   The G400c seat height was just where I needed it to be.   And on that suspension travel topic, I’ll let you in on a little secret:  Even though our taxes in California (and San Francisco in particular) are among the highest in the world, we still have lousy streets with lots of potholes and rough sections.  The G400c was fine being flung around in the city, sloppy streets and road surfaces notwithstanding.  It soaked it all up without a whimper.  I’d like to buttonhole our politicians someday and ask them:  Exactly where does all that tax money go?  In the meantime, though, I know the suspension on the G400c gets the job done.

Mean streets? Bring ’em on. The G400c was just plain fun riding around San Francisco.  It’s a comfortable, right-sized motorcycle.

I didn’t take the G400c on the freeway, although Barry invited me to do so.  Nope, the freeways are typically a mess in San Francisco, and I figured (correctly, as I experienced on the drive out of San Francisco later in the day) I could actually get more miles in and reach higher top speeds on the city streets.  And I did.  Until this guy you see in the photo caught up with me, lit me up, and started casting dirty looks my way.  Then he got in front of me.  Point taken, Officer.  I rode a bit more like a normal person after that.

Another view from the cockpit. I like the instrument layout. It’s what a motorcycle is supposed to look like.

Okay, let’s not ignore the 800-lb gorilla in the room:  The G400c is manufactured in China.   As many of you know, I know a little bit about Chinese motorcycles and I played a tangential role in making the case for Chinese quality when CSC Motorcycles started importing the Zongshen RX3 back in 2015.   You might have trepidations about buying a Chinese motorcycle, and it’s almost a certainty you know people who badmouth Chinese products.   My advice when you hear the inevitable anti-China mush is to remember that God loves stupid people (because He sure made a lot of them).   Yeah, they’ve got their stories about their buddy who worked at a dealer 10 years ago and he told them…well, you get the idea.  Folks, these people just don’t know.

I know a little bit about this topic, I think.  Maybe more than most of the weenies posting opinions on Facebook and the motorcycle forums.

My advice is to blow these weenies off, get yourself to a dealer, and see for yourself.  I know a little bit about quality and manufacturing, I’ve been in several Chinese manufacturing plants, and I’m here to tell you that Chinese motorcycle quality is as good as or better than anything that’s out there.   Consider this:  Automobile and motorcycle companies like BMW, Vespa, Honda, Suzuki, and many others have components, major subassemblies, engines, and complete motorcycles manufactured in China.  These world-class companies wouldn’t be doing that if the quality was low.

You might have a concern about the G400c being a new bike, that is to say, one that doesn’t have a track record.  Actually, that’s not the case.  This motorcycle has been rolling around China for a good three years now (I saw them when I rode across China on the RX3 a few years ago).  The G400c is manufactured for Genuine by Shineray (it’s pronounced Shin-yu-way), and in China, they have been selling two versions of the bike for several years (a street version and an adventure-touring-styled version).   The riding in China is way tougher than it is here.   We tend to use our motorcycles as toys.  In China, motorcycles are work horses.  They are ridden hard and put away wet.

Another thing that’s nice about the G400c motor is that it’s a Honda clone.  The concept (but not the engine) here is the same as the Honda CG clone motors that power the CSC and Janus bikes…an engine based on a Honda design built for an environment where folks don’t take care of their bikes.  It’s a different Honda motor design, but it’s a proven design.  It’s a strong, torquey, fuel injected single.

The G400c’s braking is good.  It’s a single disk in front, and a drum in the rear.   A lot of folks will be grasping their chest and convulsing at the thought of a drum brake in back, but it works, and it works for me.   Again, don’t let some kid writing a magazine article (or worse, someone posting an opinion on Facebook) tell you that you have to have a disk brake in back.   Drum brakes have worked fine for decades.  It’s one of the things keeping the cost down on this bike, and it’s a reasonable tradeoff.  Like it said, it works for me.

What I don’t know yet is the parts availability question, nor do I know about the availability of a shop manual.   Those are fair questions to ask a dealer.  I didn’t, mostly because I was focused on the riding.

Genuine states the top speed is over 80 mph.  I’ve ridden bikes with the same engine in China and I saw indicated speeds on city streets over 90 mph and the bike still had more left (and at that point I thought to myself “Whoa, Bucko…what am I doing here?”).   I think the top end is more than adequate for any real world needs.  And on that note, this is another area in which you hear the keyboard commandos espouse things like “Ah need a bike made in ‘Merica that can do at least a hunnert twenty miles per hour or I’ll get run over…”   You do, huh?  Hey, I rode across China, I’ve been up and down Baja a bunch of times, I circumnavigated the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and I’ve ridden all over the US.  And I did all of this on 250cc motorcycles.  Motorcycles made in China, to be specific.   But what do I know?

You might ask:  Are there any negatives?  I guess to play magazine road test writer I have to find something, and on the G400c it might be that some of the details could be more finely finished.  Maybe the handlebar switchgear castings could be polished a little more, things like that.   Barry told me the bike I rode is one of the very earliest ones to arrive in America, and that Genuine is sweating the cosmetic details like this.  But these are minor points.   The next question would be:   Would I recommend buying this bike?  To that question, the answer is yes.  They retail at about $4600, and with all the fees they go out the door at a notch above $5700.  Barry is one of the few honest dealers I know in that he doesn’t treat setup and freight as a major profit center.  Here’s how he has the bikes priced…

The G400c pricing sheet at the San Francisco Scooter Centre. Freight and setup are honest numbers here, which isn’t the case at many other dealers.

We are living in interesting times.  Just a few years ago the small motorcycle landscape in the US was pretty barren, and what few bikes were out there carried stupid-high prices and obscene dealer freight and setup fees.  Our choices in recent decades have been outrageously tall, fat, and heavy motorcycles with prices in the stratosphere.  Today, the moto menu before us is interesting and intriguing, and it’s rooted in the real world.   There’s the CSC Motorcycles line with several 250cc selections and soon, the 450cc RX4.   There the Janus line of magnificently-handcrafted contemporary classics.   There’s Royal Enfield, with their 400cc Himalayan, 500cc Classic, and soon-to-be-released 650cc Interceptor (at an incredible $5795).   I’ve ridden nearly all of these motorcycles (I haven’t caught a ride on the Himalayan yet, but that’s coming up), and I’ve ridden many of them through Baja (you can read about our Enfield Baja trip, the Janus Baja trip, and any of several CSC Baja trips).  And now, there’s another great bike in the mix:   The Genuine 400c.   For the first time in a long time, we have choices.  Good choices that won’t break the bank.  Life is good, folks.


Check out our related Genuine G400c and San Francisco Scooter Centre posts!

Genuine’s G400c
The San Francisco Scooter Centre

Our newest advertiser: The San Francisco Scooter Centre

We’re proud to announce that our newest ExNotes advertiser is the San Francisco Scooter Centre, and I thought I might take a moment to tell you how we came to know Barry Gwin and his fine shop.

Barry Gwin, San Francisco Scooter Centre proprietor and scooter maestro extraordinaire, with his private collection of vintage Lambrettas.

About 10 years ago when I was a consultant to CSC, the company was  manufacturing the Mustang scooters. I was one of the guys responsible for talking to potential CSC dealers, and one of the dealers I contacted was the San Francisco Scooter Centre. My research indicated that these guys were the “go to” spot for all things scooter-related and that they were the heart of the scooter scene in San Francisco.

CSC ultimately decided not to sell through dealers (you can read all about that in 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM), but when I spoke to Barry Gwin at the San Francisco Scooter Centre, I was impressed for several reasons. I didn’t know Barry from Adam at the time (and he didn’t know me), but he took my cold call and spent an hour on the phone with me. I learned more in that one hour about how a dealer approaches the question of taking on a new line than I had in all of my time with the other prospective dealers. The other dealers I spoke with were condescending and cynical; Barry was polite, patient, and informative.

A year or two later, Sue and I were watching an episode of American Pickers (one of our favorite TV shows) in which Mike and Frank had purchased a very rare Vespa Ape (it’s pronounced “Op Ay” and it’s a Vespa three-wheeled cargo vehicle). On the show, Mike and Frank took the Ape to an expert to get it appraised, and that expert was none other than Barry Gwin at the San Francisco Scooter Centre. “Hey,” I told Sue, “I know that guy!”

The Holy Land for San Francisco scooteristas…the San Francisco Scooter Centre!

Sue and I are in Nor Cal on a fairly regular basis, and I knew I wanted to get into San Francisco and meet Barry in person some day. Well, that some day was back in May of 2018. I sent Barry a note, he said sure, come on in, and we did. It was a hell of a day.

We drove into the city early in the morning and we got lucky (we found a parking spot directly in front of Barry’s dealership). We entered to find a big guy staging scooters for the day’s service activities. That guy was the world-famous Diego, Barry’s premier scooter tech (if you don’t believe me on that, do a search on Google and see what shows up). I asked if Barry was in, Diego told me Barry would be in a little bit later, and when I asked about finding a good coffee shop nearby, he pointed us in the right direction. The coffee in downtown San Francisco was great, and Sue and I shared a WBE chocolate-covered coconut macaroon (as in “world’s best ever”).

A WBE macaroon!

After enjoying our macaroon, we crossed the street to go back to Barry’s shop.  We met Barry, and he immediately introduced us to Lunchbox (his 11-week-old bulldog pup).   Barry gave us the grand tour…the showroom, the service area, the parts and accessories area, and his private collection of Lambrettas and other vintage scooters upstairs. It was really cool stuff.

Meet Lunchbox when he was a youngster back in May 2018, a very cute and friendly pup!
Lunchbox in a more recent photo.

While Barry was busy helping a new scooter rider select a helmet, Sue and I chatted with a guy named Steve and his wife, Debbie, who had just flown in from England. Debbie told us that she had always wanted to visit San Francisco, but Steve did not want to make the 11-hour flight from London until she told him about the San Francisco Scooter Centre (it seems Steve is a vintage scooter enthusiast, too). That sealed the deal for a trek to America. It was a funny story told with a delightful British accent. Imagine that…flying across an ocean and a continent to see a scooter dealer!

New bikes on the showroom floor…that’s Steve and Debbie on the right, who flew in from England!
New Genuine Buddy scooters. We sold these a few years ago. They’re great scooters.

We spent a lot of time with Barry on the second floor, where he keeps the vintage stuff. It was an amazing collection, and it was obvious Barry loves his bikes and all that goes with finding, restoring, and in some cases, hot rodding vintage machines.

A hopped up Lambretta.
Vintage scooters in Barry’s personal collection.  When buying from any dealer, it’s always better if the owner is a rider and an enthusiast.  Barry fits that description.

It was a great day for us, and spending it with Barry at the San Francisco Scooter Centre made it even better. This is a guy who knows his stuff, and it’s obvious why Barry’s dealership has become the epicenter of the San Francisco scooter scene. I was impressed before I met Barry; I’m even more so now.

Yours truly and Sue in the San Franscisco Scooter Centre

But wait, as they say…there’s more. As a Genuine dealer, Barry also sells the new Genuine G400C motorcycle.  That’s an interesting bike to me on many levels.  I first saw it when I rode across China a couple of years ago and the bike was intriguing.  The one I saw was customized to look like a 1960s Triumph, and I think the Chinese manufacturer (Shineray, pronounced Shin-you-way) out-Triumphed Triumph.  To me it was more evocative of the earlier Triumphs I knew as a teenager than are the current Bonneville reproductions, although I’ll tell you I sure like the modern Triumphs (and I’ve been thinking real hard about a new Bonneville).

A Shineray 400 single, with good buddy Lin on board in Qingdao, China.
Another photo of the Shineray in China. It’s a bike that really looks and feels like a Triumph Bonneville. I like the idea and the size makes sense.

So it was that bike you see above that Genuine rebadged and imported with modifications to become their G400C model, and I like the idea of it.  I’m going to be in San Francisco in the near future, and if Barry still has any G400C motorcycles in stock I’ll grab some photos and post them here on the ExNotes blog.

The Genuine G400C motorcycle. I like it.

So there you have it.  If you’re in San Francisco, drop by Barry’s shop and say hi.  Tell him the ExNotes crew sent you and maybe he’ll let you pose for a photo with Lunchbox.  The San Francisco Scooter Center is a fascinating place with great people and I think it’s well worth a visit.  Tell Barry Joe sent you.