As promised, folks, more updates from my good buddy Neftali’s recent run up to Alaska…
I’m in Alberta now but I figured I’d add a photo of when I entered Canada…
I’ve time travelled again. It’s 9:54 here. I haven’t seen a cop on ANY of the roads here and I’ve been looking for them the scenery is changing now and I’ve already seen some bison and an antelope. A lot of hawks and some weird looking birds. People are real friendly. Had a couple pay for my lunch after a short conversation and a guy paid for my tank of petrol. Said he saw me a few times on the road and he was jealous. Total for Day 3 is 1,356.7 kilometers in 12 hours and 29 minutes. Total for the trip is 4,221.3 Kilometers.
I keep getting asked “Where are ya headed?” If you’re not following the Spot Tracker, let me give you a little hint…
Yesterday was like riding through a safari. Except this lasted for over 700 miles. Bears, fox, mountain goats, buffalo, moose, sheep, deer… some of them jumping out a few yards from me in the dark of the night…
Neftali is home now (Brooklyn, New York), but I’ve got more excerpts from his grand adventure and I’ll post more in the days ahead. That’s it for today on the Neftali trip, boys and girls. More to come, I promise.
I just got some great photos and a nice note from my New Jersey buddy Bob on his P-51, and I’ll post those next!
In a few days I’m headed up north to Hollister to see my buddy Pauly B and to visit the Hollister motorcycle rally. I’ll have my camera with me and I’ll post a few photos for you right here.
I don’t have any big road trips on a bike planned for this summer and I am feeling down about that. Next summer I’ll get out there. This year it just hasn’t happened for me…besides, we’re having such a sweltering summer that I just don’t know if I really need to be out there in this heat. Yesterday I heard that it was 119 degrees in Palm Desert and 70 degrees in Malibu…at the same time! Talk about a temperature swing!
Anyway, many of my friends are out on the road (Neftali just returned from his epic north American cruise, Simon is riding across India enroute to London, Arlene is on another one of her cross country cruises, and Russ is about to take off on his CSC P-51 on a major ride). As photos and stories come in I’ll post some of them here for your enjoyment, as I have been doing. I’ve been living vicariously through their adventures, and I’ll post bits and pieces so you can do the same. Better yet, perhaps we’ll all get inspired and get on the road, too!
Neftali is a name you may not recognize…he’s a Facebook buddy from New York who recently completed a major putt through the US and Canada. He’s what I would call a hard core rider…he started out on a high-mileage older model Kawi Concours, encountered and overcame a few mechanical issues along the way, and made it back to tell the tale. I like these stories told by folks who made it through on their wits and mechanical skills. Anybody with a penchant for hoodwinking loan officers or a big checkbook can buy their way into a new uber-cruiser…but it takes a special kind of rider to do it on an older bike, or on a small bike. I remember the trip down to Baja on the California Scooters. That’s what life is all about, folks. There’s just something about a motorcycle adventure that is simultaneously intriguing, appealing, and exciting. I especially like the photos showing the “road warrior” nature of these journeys, like the one of Neftali’s bug-spattered Connie you see up above.
Neftali on his Connie
I’ll be posting more on Neftali, Simon, Arlene, and Russ in the days and weeks ahead.
And speaking of road trips and Russ, I received another nice email from my good buddy Russ just yesterday. As mentioned above, Russ is planning a major ride on his 250cc CSC road burner, and here’s his note to me…
Hi Joe:
For the benefit of those who have no video equipment to use with their CSC bikes, please go over again what it is that you use. I’m always impressed with your pics and I’m considering some form of taking pics while riding, either video or stills.
Buddy Russ in Iowa (where today we are enjoying 70’s temps!!)
Russ, I envy you from many perspectives, including your upcoming trip and the cool weather you are enjoying out there in the Midwest! Thanks for the kind words about my alleged photo skills. I’m really an amateur, but I sure appreciate your saying nice things about the stuff I post here on the blog.
You asked, so here goes…
I have two video cameras. The first is a Flip video that I bought on sale at Costco (one of my favorite places). Flip is out of business now, but they made a great product. I think I paid about $75 or so for mine and I’ll bet you can still find them new if you dug around a bit on the Internet.
The Flip camera has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is the great image quality and the 2-hour battery. The disadvantage is that it is not a wide angle lens, and even though the lens is adjustable, even at the widest angle it is not really good for video from the rider’s perspective. It also doesn’t have a helmet-type mount. The few times I’ve used my Flip camera for riding scenes, I used a jury-rigged mount I conjured up out of an old turn signal bracket and lots of electrical tape. I really like the Flip camera, though. It does great work. Here’s a video I made of Art on the In-N-Out Bobber bike using the Flip…
The next video camera I use is a Midland XTC-300. I’ve written about this one on the blog before, and you can find that story here. The Midland has a cool story behind it…I basically talked my way into getting one for free! A distributor’s rep came into the factory one day to show it to us, and on an impulse I told him he should give one to me because I would write about it on the blog. To make a long story short, that’s exactly what happened.
The Midland has a lot of advantages, including a super-wide angle lens that makes for good riding photography and a reversible helmet mount (you can point the camera either forward or backwards). In this video showing a day in the mountains with my buddies Steve and Mike, I have scenes where the camera is facing forward and then facing rearward. It’s kind of cool and makes for a good flick.
One of the disadvantages of the Midland is that it is susceptible to wind noise. The Midland’s directions advised putting a piece of tape over the microphone to lessen the effect. I did that and it does seem to help, but the wind noise kind of dominates the soundtrack. There’s no wind noise in the above CSC video because I over-wrote it with music. In the video I posted just a day or two ago of my most recent ride I didn’t add any music, and you can sure hear the wind in it…
My buddies J and Simon use the Hero video camera (a competitor product to the Midland). The Hero has built-in software to cancel the wind noise. Here’s a video that J created; you tell me if you can hear the difference….I sure can…
The disadvantage to both cameras (the Midland and the Hero) is that it is difficult to know when the things are on or off. When the camera is on a helmet mount, you have to memorize the switch positions. When I rode with Simon in Mexico, he was constantly asking me if his helmet-mounted Hero was on. I couldn’t tell even looking at the thing. With my Midland, the switch is big enough that I sort of know, but there are times I find myself wondering if I just turned it off or if I just turned it on. These are not cameras you can look at in your hands to see. Maybe it’s mostly due to the helmet mount and my comments aren’t entirely fair to their designers.
Yours truly, with my NIkon D200, as shown in the reflection of a CSC 150 airbox cover
Finally, my regular camera is an older Nikon D200 digital single lens reflex rig. I’ve had it for about 7 years now and I’m probably due for a newer model (Nikon stopped making the D200 some time ago), but the D200 does such a good job I am reluctant to get rid of it. Besides, it’s tough. It’s bounced around in saddlebags on many moto journeys with no complaints whatsoever. It’s been doused with seawater on the whale watching adventures in Baja. It just keeps on ticking, like the old Timex commercials used to say.
A lot of my good luck with the Nikon is based on the lenses and software I use. My favorite lenses are a Sigma 50mm macro lens for general photography (it’s the one I used for that great photo of Lupe in the blog entry below, although Lupe is so pretty it’s about impossible to get a bad photo of her) and a 12-24 Tokina wide angle I use for panoramic shots. The disadvantages to a big Nikon digital single lens reflex camera are its size, weight, and expense. You can expect to pay well over $1000 for a good digital single lens reflex camera and lens. The weight didn’t bother me that much when I was younger, but lugging a heavy camera around has become more of a chore now that I am older and I have the typical geezer stuff old guys have to deal with. I would like to have a small digital camera that is both light weight and takes high quality images. Such a camera probably exists; I just haven’t done the research to locate it yet. You can’t just go by the megapixel count, either. Some cameras with very high megapixel capabilities have very low image quality, and vice versa.
I do get some great photos with my Nikon…here are a couple of my personal favorites…
Carlos and Maria in Baja
The crew on the Sea of Cortez...Simon, Arlene, John, J, and yours truly
I guess the last thing I would mention is that a lot of what you see in the photos is the result of the software I use. I adjust my still photos with a program called Adobe Photoshop, and I use a video editing package called Pinnacle. Photoshop will adjust the light levels and the colors to make the photos really pop. Pinnacle lets you add music and text to your videos (if you don’t do this, all you will have is the raw video). I could write books (and other people have) about just these software packages, so I won’t go into that kind of detail here.
That’s it for now, folks. Keep an eye on the blog…as always, there’s more good CSC stuff coming your way!
During a quick stop at the plant yesterday, I had a nice chat with Lupe while she was building bikes. It’s always fun to get into the factory to watch Lupe and the rest of the crew building the finest bikes in the world.
After my chat with Lupe, I spoke a bit with Long Beach Mike (see the blog entry below) and it really got me in the mood to put a few miles on the Baja Blaster. So that’s what I did!
There’s no music or fancy editing in the video above…it’s just a quick upload to give you an idea of what it’s like to hop on a CSC motorcycle for a summer evening ride! I waited until after dinner for my scoot (it had cooled off a bit from the 100-degree weather we’ve been experiencing) and I had a nice putt along the San Gabriel Mountain foothills. It was grand fun, boys and girls, and if you want to experience it, check out our CSC Motorcycles website. Make sure you take a look at the spectacular blowout deals Steve is offering on some of our earlier project bikes!
It sure was…but that didn’t slow down Long Beach Mike, who rode in on his California Scooter to say hi earlier today…
I had a nice chat with Michael. His CSC 150 is set up exactly like mine…a bike that is basically stock except for the bags, the rack, and the windshield. It’s a combination that works well.
So how hot was it? Well, the day ain’t over yet, but one thermometer outside told me it was 104, and a good friend posted a photo on Facebook from the Palm Desert area showing this…
Hot stuff, folks! I’m going to let it cool down a bit. Susie and the girls are going to the movies tonight (they’re seeing a chic flick, and that’s just not my cup of tea), so I’m going to use that as an excuse to get out on the Baja Blaster…
I was in the factory today and Steve uncovered a lot more stuff in the move from La Verne to Azusa. I took a bunch of photos, and boys and girls, we’ll have a lot of cool stuff coming up for sale in the next day or so. Keep an eye on the CSC motorcycles website (www.CSCMotorcycles.com) Classifieds page!
In the meantime, check out this macro shot of a Military Series P-51 on the line this morning…
Good stuff, folks, and more is coming your way soon!
That note I posted about Mr. H (my 7the grade science teacher) struck a nerve with our good buddy and fellow CSC rider Russ. Take a look at this nice email I received yesterday…
Hi Joe:
Speaking of Morgans…here is our own 1958 DHC (drop head coupe) that we’ve owned for many years. It has been fully restored, driven to all parts of the country, and very reliable. Morgans are true sports cars!!! that is, they ride, drive, and perform like they look. My favorite comment to someone riding with me in a Morgan for the first time is, “get in, sit down, shut-up, and HANG ON!!!”
This car will be for sale, actually, in a few weeks. Watch for it on ebay motors.
Your CSC buddy,
Russ
That’s a fantastic photo, Russ, and an awesome automobile. Thanks very much for sharing it with us!
James Gandolfini was one of the great ones. I was greatly saddened at his passing and I have enjoyed his acting greatly. To say The Sopranos was a masterpiece is an understatement. It was awesome. The show especially resonates with me because I grew up in the same area (New Jersey) and many of the opening scenes are places I know personally. Mr. Gandolfini also went to the same school I did. I liked the show for its story line, the acting, and the accents. I felt like I knew those guys. I’ll admit it: I am a Sopranos junkie.
What I had not known is that James Gandolfini was a rider. Take a look…
It seems that Mr. Gandolfini found a Vespa to be perfect for getting around in New York City. It also seems he was whacked (sorry, couldn’t resist) by a cab in the Big Apple and fortunately, he was able to walk away from that one. I was surprised that a big guy like James Gandolfini rode a little Vespa, so I dug around a little more. I would have guessed that he rode a Harley had I not known about the Vespa, so I Googled it and sure enough, this turned up…
This all piqued my interest, so I looked around a bit more to find other famous folks on bikes. I particularly liked what I found on a site titled The Art of Manliness, mostly because I knew about and was familiar with the riders it listed. Guys like Clark Gable, Steve McQueen, Lawrence of Arabia, and others. Then I Googled “celebrities who ride motorcycles” and wow, was I ever disappointed. Oh, they listed a bunch of folks, but the problem was I had never heard of most of them. I guess I’m old. I could trip over Ryan Gosling, Adam Levine, Ryan Reynolds, and others and not known they were famous. Who are these people?
Anyway, rest in piece, Mr. Gandolfini. You were an original, and I greatly enjoyed your work.
More to follow, folks…I’m firing up my CSC 150 today and I’m going to get some photos for you later this morning.
A couple of weeks ago my good buddy Mike B. was in So Cal visiting his aunt, so Sue and I drove down to San Diego in the Subie for lunch with my lifelong buddy…
A low-res iPhone selfy, with Sue, Mike, and yours truly in the chili shirt
We ate at Andres, a Cuban restaurant. I can’t tell you which was better…the camaraderie, the conversation, or the cuisine. It was all wonderful. We snapped that photo above with my iPhone and I immediately forwarded the photo to my kids. One of them told me she would confiscate my chili shirt if I wore it one more time!
Yesterday morning, I received an email from Mike (now back in New Jersey) with an interesting message. He had bumped into Mr. H., our 7th grade science teacher, at a local mall. Or rather, Mr. H. had bumped into Mike. Neither recognized each other immediately. Hey, do the math: 7th grade for us was exactly 50 years ago! It seems Mr. H. saw Mike in his Corvette and he had a question about the engine. Our former science teacher had shoehorned an LS-2 Chevy engine into a Mazda RX-7 and he wanted some advice on it.
As Mike was telling this story, a lot of memories flooded back. All of us have had great teachers, and Mr. H. was mine. I will tell you up front I was a first class pain-in-the-you-know-what in junior high school (and in high school, too, for that matter), but my 7th grade science class held my interest. Science was cool and so was my teacher.
Mr. H. is a gearhead…the real deal. His daily driver back in those days was a 1953 Morgan, and he was bringing it back to concours condition. I had great interest in that car and I remember it well…the classy styling, the big louvers, and a big leather belt to secure the hood. It was originally a faded and oxidized white, and as one of the final touches Mr. H. painted it a deep burgundy. The car was awesome.
A Morgan sports car
Mike’s message about Mr. H. was intriguing. To make a long story less long, I Googled the name and address and a few minutes later I had Mr. H. on the phone. How about that? Fifty years since I’ve seen this guy, and now I’ve got him on the phone.
You know, a voice is a funny thing. Mr. H. sounded exactly as I remembered him. Strong, firm, and focused on gearhead stuff. He told me that the RX-7 was a good car, but the rotary engines were only good for about 75,000 miles (he’d been through several of them). Dropping a Corvette engine in an RX-7 was the way to go, Mr. H. said. He spoke about it like it was changing from Firestone to Goodyear tires (a classic Mr. H. trait). It was a great conversation. He told me he remembered me, which I kind of doubted until he asked me a question about my father. “Your Dad was the guy who designed and built his own swimming pool, including the filtration system, right? He made it from an old wine vat.” That was so long ago I had forgotten about it. Not Mr. H. To say I was impressed would be a great understatement. Wow!
Okay…changing the subject: As if the above weren’t enough, and to make a great morning even greater, I received another email from my good buddy Jimbo yesterday. Jim told me of a link on the Mustang website to Paul V’s photos, and folks, you have to visit this site. The Mustang Nationals just ended a few days ago, and Paul captured some great photos of the bikes at that event (Mustangs, Cushmans, and more). The photos are awesome. Paul, we had no idea you are such an accomplished photographer. Thanks for posting these great images!
Oh, and one more thing. I received my copy of Motorcycle Classics magazine in the mail yesterday. Motorcycle Classics is unquestionably the best moto mag on the planet. I say that not just because I occasionally write for them, but because they truly are great. The photography and the writing in all of their stories is absolutely first class, as is the editing and story selection by Landon Hall and Richard Backus. If you’re not reading Motorcycle Classics, the fact that you’re reading this blog means you should be. It’s that good. With every issue, I wonder how they are going to do better in the next one, and then they somehow do. Clement Salvadori (one of the world’s all time great writers, a guy who I want to be like when I grow up) has a piece in the current issue about riding a 1948 Indian Chief on California 101. It’s a must read, folks!
That’s it for now, boys and girls. Ride safe and stay tuned!
SG250 San Gabriel Cafe Racer
TT250 Enduro
RX1E Electric Motorcycle