One of the more interesting folding hunter knives I own is a Smith and Wesson Model 6060.
My Model 6060 Smith and Wesson folding hunter. My father gave it to me in 1974.
The Smith and Wesson 6060 entered production in 1974. It’s been out of production for decades. An interesting fact is that it was never manufactured by Smith and Wesson (more on that in a minute).
I’ve been a bad influence most of my life, and one of the guys I influenced most was my father. As a kid and as a young man, I’d get an interest in something and then Dad would, too. The list is long: Slot cars, Lionel trains, archery, motorcycles, handguns, VW Beetles, CB radios, and probably a few other things. Don’t get me wrong; the influence thing was not a one-way street. Marty Berk influenced me a lot, too, and in many different areas (if you doubt this, take a look at the 1,800+ blogs that preceded this one).
In the summer of 1974 I was in the U.S. Army and I had orders to Korea. I was on a Smith and Wesson kick, and my brand loyalty more or less drifted over to my father. Dad had friends in high places in the gun world (he was a world class trapshooter), and one of those friends included a firearms distributor. That gave us access to a lot of the hard-to-obtain Smith and Wessons, such as uber-cool Model 29s (in the wake of Dirty Harry, they were just about impossible to get; we bought three of them). The Smith and Wesson magic dust fell upon us, and in addition to those big revolvers, we picked up a lot of Smith and Wesson branded merchandise. Dad bought a Smith and Wesson folding knife (their Model 6060), and he gave it to me before I shipped out for Korea. It was a nice knife. It came with an embossed leather sheath. I think I still have the original Smith and Wesson box and papers, too (they are around here somewhere, although it would probably take me a day to find them).
Wesson wood scales (as they were called), and that beautiful nickel-plated S&W grip medallion.The Model 6060 and its original sheath, which is still in excellent condition.
Smith and Wesson’s Model 6060 Folding Hunter knife was designed by Blackie Collins in 1972. Walter Wells “Blackie” Collins (1939 – July 20, 2011) was a prolific knife designer who was killed in a single-vehicle North Carolina motorcycle accident. He was an icon in the knife world.
Two Smith and Wessons; two grip medallions two generations apart. The world was a better place in the 1970s, I think.
Smith and Wesson wasn’t set up to make knives and they had no intention of ever doing so (in fact, they couldn’t keep up with demand for their revolvers), so they contracted with three different knife manufacturers to make the Model 6060: Alcas, Bowen, and the Carolina Knife Company. Most of the Model 6060s were made by Alcas, a knife company formed by Alcoa and Case (hence the name, Alcas). I believe my knife was most likely manufactured by Alcas, as the Carolina Knife Company produced only 35 custom knives (with special scale materials, like ivory and such). A few of the standard Model 6060s were made by Bowen, but it would take an expert to determine if mine was (there were differences in the finish of some internal components between Bowen-manufactured knives versus Alcas knives). Bowen didn’t make nearly as many Model 6060s as did Alcas, so I’m sticking with my conclusion that Alcas made my knife.
The Model 6060 went out of production in 1979, after a production run of approximately 35,000 knives. To put that in perspective, Buck has manufactured approximately 15 million Buck 110 knives since it started making them in 1964.
A photo from the Ebay Model 6060. I pulled the trigger on it while writing this blog.
The Model 6060 retailed for a surprisingly high $200 when new, and in the 1970s that was the price was for an N-frame Smith and Wesson revolver (in other words, it was a lot of money). Smith was cruising on their Dirty Harry exclusivity and brand recognition. You can still buy a used Model 6060 on Ebay and from other outlets, with prices starting at $95. I saw a new one listed with the original box and all the papers for $149 while researching the Model 6060 for this blog. Even though I already have a Model 6060, that was too tempting to let go by. Yep, I bought it, and now I have two.
My Model 6060, as explained above, was a gift from Dad. I wore it during most of my tour in Korea. I have an emotional attachment to my Model 6060 and I’ll never part with it.
The Smith and Wesson Model 6060 knives are good; I think every bit as good as a Buck 110 used to be, and better than what is coming off the Buck line today. Owning the Model 6060 has a certain coolness associated with it, but most folks probably don’t know that. I sure do, and now you do, too.
I’m not against Moto Guzzis. I have nothing bad to say about the motorcycles. I just don’t have that burning desire to own one. Nevertheless, the Moto-gods seem to be intent on me owning a Moto Guzzi.
The original rally going on for some 30-odd years.
I had a close call this weekend at the GRIN (Guzzi Riders In New Mexico, I think). The GRIN rally is held annually in Datil, New Mexico. There’s not a whole lot in Datil: a gas station, small-but-clean motel, and a campground behind the store and motel.
The campground is rally headquarters and this year’s attendance was sparse because the rally split into two factions. The original rally was behind the gas station/motel and an offshoot was held about a mile away at the Datil Wells campground.
The rival rally, held on the same day a mile away.
With only 30-35 bikes in the best of times splitting the rally seemed like a dumb idea to me. I’m guessing some sort of rift caused a second rally to be held on the same exact days within walking distance of the original rally. Whatever happened its sort of chickenshit. I hope the two groups can stop the nonsense and get together.
The legendary Dan, hero of many Joe Berk epic rides. He sold his CSC and rides a Guzzi now.
Regardless of the low turnout, the original rally site had a solid core of Guzzi riders to chat with and the day flew by. I re-met Dan, one of the original Zongshen/CSC riders from Joe Berk’s CSC tour days. It took a while but he finally remembered me.
That memory thing isn’t a fluke: the youngest rider award went to a 62- year-old. The oldest was 83! If motorcycling doesn’t get some new blood we’ll be holding annual rallies at graveyards.
One GRIN was running a car tire. He spoke highly of it and claimed a 20,000-mile lifespan.
On that Guzzi ownership near miss: GRIN held a raffle with three Guzzis as prizes. There was a Jackal 1100, an Ambassador and (I think) an 850 Lemans.
$20 Guzzi. Won in the raffle by the leader of the Mudchuckers MC, Mike.Mike’s new Guzzi, home safe and dry.
With only 15 people in the raffle the odds were good, but I missed the Jackal by one number. Instead, the Mudchucker now owns two Moto Guzzis. That was close. Too close.
I stole this photo off the internet. I didn’t shoot many photos at the rally; I was too busy gabbing with the Guzzi riders. A slightly beat up version of this bike was raffled. That was the one I wanted.
Moto Guzzi riders are always fun bunch to hang out with and now that they are old they no longer beat up Buell riders for sport. Several attendees clocked around 1000 miles to camp in Datil. I don’t know the situation or attendance at the rival rally but we saw two or three rogue Guzzis putting around Datil that were not at our camp.
My ride was only 400 miles round trip but the Buell still found time to rattle the key switch out of its bracket. Being loose and beating on the bracket, the fine threads on the switch were fairly well smooshed. A quick stop at tractor supply for some vise grips and I managed to force the nut back onto the boogered key switch. I don’t think it will fall off again as the threads are self-locking now.
There’s going to be another bike raffle at the 2027 GRIN rally. Same time, same place. I guess I’ll have to keep going back until I’m a Guzzi owner.
A Randall knife. Wow! I never thought I’d own a Randall, primarily because the ticket in is so high. Randall knives are the Patek Phillipes of the knife world, and they are priced accordingly. Good buddy Paul collects them, and one recent day, out of the blue, he bought this one for me.
The Randall Model 27 Mini, a gift from Paul. Note the copper accents.
I’ve known Paul my entire life. We were next door neighbors in the early 1950s and then our paths diverged after high school. Paul went to college in Florida, and that’s when his interest in Randall knives emerged (the Randall factory is in Orlando). Paul visited the Randall plant back then, and he explained that there were windows through which you could watch the Randall craftsmen create these knives.
Two knives Paul made for me last year.
Paul couldn’t afford a Randall back then, and that prompted his interest in making knives himself. Paul became a very talented knifemaker. I commissioned him to make a couple of knives for me not too many years ago. As nice as the Randalls are, when I examine the knives Paul made and compare them to my Randall, I think Paul’s craftsmanship and quality is right up there with a Randall-made knife.
The subject of today’s blog is Randall’s Model 27 Mini, and although the knife is small compared to other Randalls, it actually appears to be about the perfect size. I’m not Davy Crockett at the Alamo or Daniel Boone fighting with a bear, so this is really an ideal size for me. Here’s how it is described on the A.G. Russell website:
The Copper Model 27 Mini has a 3-1/2″ blade of 1/8″ stock. The narrow tang handle is Green Linen Micarta® with leather and black fiber spacers, a single copper guard and a copper butt cap. Measures 6-7/8″ tip to butt.
The knife and its copper components are unique. Check out this note on the Russell website:
This is the first time I have seen a Randall knife with copper fittings. As far as I can tell, there has never even been one made as a single for a customer.
I love the Model 27 colors. The copper guard, butt, and spacers, the stacked leather spacers, the green Micarta, and the brushed stainless finish are aesthetically perfect. It’s a visually arresting example of the knifemaker’s art.
The Randall Made stamp. Every Randall knife carries this inscription.
Read this about the Randall backlog and the time required to get one:
Due to Randall’s high volume of orders, if not on our shelves when you order, delivery of Randall knives ordered from A. G. Russell is currently taking 10-12 months. If ordered directly from Randall the wait is currently about 6 years.
The Randall Model 27 comes with a nice sheath, too, although it’s unlikely I’ll ever use it. I can’t see carrying something this exclusive, expensive, and beautiful and using it as a camp tool. My Randall will spend its life in my safe, taken out occasionally so I can admire it.
The Model 27 and its sheath.
Randall knives are incredibly exclusive. General William Westmoreland (whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the early 1970s) carried one in Vietnam.
General Westmoreland and his Randall. He also wore a Rolex watch.
Perhaps influenced by General Westmoreland, I carried a couple of different knives when I was in Korea in the mid-1970s. One was a cheap imitation-stag-handle Bowie that I think I bought for $3. I never had a need to use the Bowie for anything (I just thought it looked cool), and one day when I saw a Republic of Korea soldier eyeing it enviously, I took it off and gave it to him. My other knife was a Smith and Wesson folder (similar to a Buck 110 in size). My father bought it for me before I went overseas, so I wasn’t about to give it away (I still have it). The S&W folder has become somewhat collectible; I’ll write about it in a future blog. I was a lowly second lieutenant when I was in Korea, and if our commanding general or the battalion commander had spotted me wearing either knife, I would have been in deep kimchi. I was lucky; that never happened.
We have quite a few blogs about knives. You can find a quick index here.
I’m going to share Riding China’s last chapter with you here on the ExhaustNotes blog. I think you’ll like the Qingdao story, and I can tell you that the other 26 chapters in Riding China are just as good. Maybe even better. Enjoy, my friends.
Chapter 27: Qingdao, Our Final Destination
Qingdao (pronounced “ching dow”) means “green island” in Chinese. It’s on the eastern edge of China on the Yellow Sea, and it sure is green. It is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen, and it’s one with a storied past. Beaches, seafood, and more, the city has had more owners and rulers than you can shake a stick at. Like a lot of places on the east coast of China, it was controlled by the Germans in the late 1800s (you can see the German influence in the city’s architecture). The Japanese took over after World War I, it reverted back to Chinese control shortly after that, and then the Japanese took it over again during second World War, and then, well…it’s in Chinese hands now. But I’m getting ahead of myself yet again. Back to the ride.
The changing of the guard in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius.
We started our morning in Qufu with a visit to a fort that is evidently a significant Chinese attraction. I didn’t understand too much about the place at the time we visited, but it made for some great photo ops. There was a changing of the guard similar to what might be seen at Buckingham Palace or Arlington National Cemetery, and it was exciting. I enjoyed watching the Chinese tourists take it all in even more. This is their country, and I could tell that what we were all seeing was of great significance to them.
A waterway in Qufu near the fort.A Chinese woman, standing on the pegs of Sergeant Zuo’s motorcycle, photographing the changing of the guard in Qufu.
After the ceremony, it was back to the freeway for the quick 200 kilometer ride to Qingdao. I was very excited about seeing Qingdao for several reasons. It marked the end of our ride. This had been a motorcycle ride like no other, and Qingdao was our final destination. For that reason alone, it was significant.
Riding in China…required absolute and intense concentration. It was stressful, exhausting, and exhilarating.
Qingdao is a city with a rich history, as I mentioned at the start of this chapter. Situated on China’s eastern coast, I was hoping that the temperatures in Qingdao would be a little cooler. On a personal level, Qingdao had a special meaning for me. It was situated directly on the Yellow Sea’s western shore. More than 40 years ago I had been a US Army lieutenant on the eastern shore of the Yellow Sea, in Korea, on a HAWK missile site. Our primary target line (the direction in which our missiles and radars were pointed; the direction from which we anticipated an attack) was not aimed at North Korea. It was instead pointed west, directly across the Yellow Sea, toward the People’s Republic of China. Yes, the spot I would be riding into this fine day was the very spot my US Army missiles pointed to more than four decades ago!
Ling, a great guy and a great rider.
Our freeway ride to Qingdao that morning was largely uneventful except for one thing: Ling’s RX1 ran out of gas. To me, it was amazing that this was the first time any of us had run dry. We routinely rode 50 or more miles after our fuel bingo lights starting blinking. Gresh and I never quite understand our approach for determining when to get fuel, or who called the shots on that topic. We didn’t know if it was Zuo on the lead bike, or Tracy in his car, of Qi and Ma in the chase truck. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Zuo.
Up until the point when Ling’s bike ran out, I thought the RX1 had more range than the RX3, because Zuo (who rode an RX1 on this trip), kept going long after I would have refueled my RX3. But Ling, on an RX1, was the guy whose bike ran dry that morning. Gresh was riding with Ling when it happened. Joe stopped and luckily he found a rope by side of the road, so he towed Ling along until the next gas station.
When the chase truck caught up with us at the gas station, Ma evidently said something to Sergeant Zuo in Chinese about waiting too long to refuel, and Zuo didn’t care for it. Sometimes we weren’t sure if the Chinese were upset with each other (we couldn’t tell from the conversation), but there was no doubt in my mind this time that Zuo was not taking what Ma said very well. A little bit of gasoline later (or oil, as the Chinese refer to it in English) and all was well.
As we approached Qingdao, Zuo was working his magic on his smartphone’s GPS, and we found our way through thickening Chinese traffic to the bay. A ferry ride across the bay was in our plans. This was good. Any motorcycle adventure always goes better with a ferry ride. It adds to the magic.
We took a ferry ride across the bay to downtown Qingdao.
We rode the bikes onto the ferry, parked them, headed topside, and were underway in minutes. I was surprised that we didn’t need to tie the bikes down, but they were still upright when we arrived in downtown Qingdao. Everybody was in high spirits. We were arriving at our destination, the city we had been riding to for the last five weeks. It signified the end of our epic journey. The cameras were out and we were all snapping photos. I took a photo of a Chinese man and his young son, and then the son asked me if his father could take a photo of me with him. He did so with his cell phone, and then I handed him my Nikon and he took the same photo with it. As Americans, Gresh and I were unusual sights on that ferry.
Qingdao has a population of 9 million people. Once again, I thought about how amazing being in this place was. I was the unusual American; I had heard of Qingdao before this ride. I only knew of it because of my Army days 40 years ago. Most Americans have never heard of Qingdao, yet we have only one city (and that’s New York) that has a population comparable to Qingdao.
With my young Chinese friend.Joe Gresh, somewhere on Qingdao Bay, as seen through Deng’s Canon.
We hit downtown Qingdao at rush hour, but the traffic wasn’t too bad on the elevated freeway that ran over the city. It was a Sunday afternoon, and that helped. Once we were into the city, though, it was the usual tuck and roll routine we always did when we blitzed through Chinese urban areas. That meant lots of weaving and bobbing, giving the horns a thorough workout, and a bit of profanity thrown in for good measure, directed at folks who most likely had no idea what we were yelling about.
Riding on an elevated freeway above downtown Qingdao. That’s Gresh and Zuo in front of me.
I realized I had become accustomed to Chinese urban traffic. As I worked more motorcycle miracles keeping up with Zuo and Lu, I thought about what it would be like to ride back in the United States again when I returned to California. I knew I’d have to dial it down substantially. No more missing cars by centimeters passing on the right and the left, no more assuming people will move over when we pass into oncoming traffic, no more passing on blind corners, and much less risk. I wondered if it would be boring. When our Chinese and Colombian friends rode with us last year on the Western America Adventure Ride, they told us the riding in America was less intense than what they were used to in their home countries. It’s only scenery in America, they said. Riding a motorcycle in the United States required no aggressive maneuvering with cars, trucks, buses, other motorcycles, and scooters. They said that the courtesy of American drivers made the riding less exciting. Riding in China, on the other hand (and Colombia, too) required absolute and intense concentration. It was stressful, exhausting, and exhilarating.
The dinner that evening was extravagant and exciting, as you might imagine it would be for a group that had just arrived at their destination after an 8,800-kilometer motorcycle ride across China. When the restaurant realized how many of us they had to feed (and they heard the story of how we made it all the way across China to Qingdao on our motorcycles), they wisely opted to move the tables to the parking lot in front of the restaurant and let us cut loose outside.
It was a grand dinner. The beer flowed freely. Where before our Chinese brothers drank beer from little juice glasses, tonight it was all pitchers of draft beer and mugs. And folks, these Chinese guys can put away the suds. Everybody was in high spirits. Ma and Zuo were good buddies again (they had forgotten all about Ling running out of gas earlier in the day). There was more beer and more toasts. Lu was spilling been all over himself as he chugged mug after mug. Tracy was telling Sean that he should shave off his goatee to be more popular with the ladies (bear in mind that Sean is Tracy’s boss). More beer. More toasts. Did I mention we drank a lot of beer that night?
Lu enjoying a beer, with a bit of help from Dong.
We stayed late and closed the place. It was one of the best dinners I have ever had anywhere. The food was outstanding (as it always was during the entire China adventure ride), but that wasn’t what made it all so grand. We had arrived. We would do a little more riding in and around Qingdao, and then we would all be heading home. Everyone realized that as the evening ended, and there was a palpable note of somberness as we called it a night. Everyone wanted to get back to their families and their normal lives, but no one wanted the ride to end.
A fine celebratory dinner in Qingdao!
That night ended well, and the next morning we were off for a publicity ride to Qingdao’s coastline. We met at the Qingdao Zongshen dealer where five or six guys on other bikes were waiting for us. One was on a Shineray 400cc single that looked more like an original Triumph Bonneville than do the current Triumph Bonnevilles. The company was one I had heard of but didn’t know much about. We say “Shine Ray” because that’s the way it’s spelled; the Chinese pronounce it “shin you way.” There were a couple of 250cc Suzukis and a couple of all-out dirt bikes (with no lights or plates) that used the Zongshen NC250 RX3 engine. The Zongshen dealer rode his 650cc CFMoto street bike (it’s a very large motorcycle that looks a lot like a Honda ST1300). Interesting motorcycles, to be sure.
It was to be one of the best rides of our entire China adventure. We were on the edge of Qingdao headed across the peninsula and there was very little traffic. As we rode, I saw a concrete ribbon off in the distance that snaked over a mountain, and sure enough, that was our road. It was a great ride. Zuo set a sensible pace, we crested the mountain, and then we descended to sea level. Soon we were riding the Qingdao coastline. It was a magnificent road. The road and the location reminded me of Italy’s Amalfi Road below Naples. We stopped for photos in several locations. It was definitely a tourist spot for the Chinese; there were lots of busses and more than a few cars with families. But it was not touristy. It was just fun.
Has China out-Triumphed the British?
At one of the stops I commented to Gresh that this was a great ride and I was enjoying the more relaxed pace. Joe laughed and said, “You’ve gotten too used to riding in China. We’ve been passing busses on blind corners and doing all the things these guys do. If you think this is a relaxed ride, you’ve become a maniac, too.”
I guess maybe I had, but unlike the other times, it wasn’t bothering me that morning. I guess you can get used to anything. I really enjoyed that ride.
Riding along the Yellow Sea coast in Qingdao. It reminded me of Italy’s Amalfi Road.
As we road along the coast, Lu saw an opening on the left that led directly onto the beach. He took it and we all followed. The beach was great, it wasn’t too hot, and it felt wonderful to be there. I parked my RX3 in a spot where there were rocks and the sidestand found decent support. Gresh was in soft sand and his sidestand was just sinking into it; there was no way it would support the bike. Dong was next to Gresh on an RX1 and he said, “No, Arjiu, like this,” and with that, he revved the engine, popped the clutch, and spun the rear wheel. The back of his motorcycle dropped several inches as the rear wheel excavated a hole, and when it was resting on the frame, Dong stopped, killed the engine, and stepped off. The bike remained vertical, held in place by the sand on either side of the rear wheel. Gresh did the same.
I walked up to the edge of the ocean and shot a few photos. Gresh was walking toward the water in a bright green floral pattern bathing suit. It looked brand new. “Where did you get that?” I asked.
“There’s a guy selling them over there,” Joe said, pointing to a shack, “and he’s got a place where you can change.” That was all I needed to know. I wasted no time in buying a bathing suit. I had been hot and sweaty for over a month. A swim in the ocean sounded like it was just what the doctor ordered.
It was wonderful. I was swimming in the Yellow Sea, along with Zuo, Ma, Qi, Gresh, and Dong. The water was warm for the first few inches near the surface and cold below that. The chill felt wonderful. It was lowering my core temperature, and I basked in the wonder of it all. It was the first time I felt that good in quite a while. We cavorted in that water for a good hour. I didn’t want to leave.
Dong demonstrates how to park a motorcycle on the beach.
The Yellow Sea. I thought about where we were, what we were doing, and what we had done. We had ridden across the Tibetan Plateau. We rode in the Gobi Desert. We followed the Silk Road and China’s Great Wall. We rode our Zongshen motorcycles in sweltering heat and in torrential rains. We had been terribly cold at altitudes as high as 14,000 feet. And now we were at sea level, swimming in the Yellow Sea.
This was not my first time being at the edge of the Yellow Sea, but it was the first time I swam in it. As I mentioned at the start of this chapter, four decades earlier as a young US Army lieutenant, I had stood roughly 700 miles due east of this spot on the other side of the Yellow Sea, ready to shoot down any Red Chinese aircraft that violated Korean airspace. Fast forward more than 40 years, and now I’m a senior citizen on a motorcycle adventure ride playing in the water with a bunch of Chinese tourists on the other side of that same body of water. Times change, I guess. In this case, for the better.
Lu grabs a selfie in the surf.
After our swim, we all rode the bikes into a line at the water’s edge so the video guys could do their thing. Our videographer, He, was running the drone and Deng was working his magic with the Canon digital camera. In the maybe 10 minutes we were there on the beach, I watched the tide move the water line up a good 10 feet. We had to keep moving the bikes to not let the water surround us.
The Yellow Sea is an interesting body of water. It was originally more yellow in color due to mineral sediments carried downstream by the rivers that feed it, but it lost its yellowish tinge (according to the experts) due to pollution. To me, the water looked about the same as any other place I’d ever seen the ocean. The most interesting thing about the Yellow Sea, though, is its extreme tidal variation. It has one of the highest tidal movements in the world. When I was in Korea, I was told the water level moved up and down vertically 30 feet every day (I later read it is actually 26 feet). Whether it’s 26 feet or 30 feet, that’s a huge tidal swing. I remember being in Korea and looking at the Yellow Sea when the tide was out. It was stunning. Where before there had been ocean, there were now miles and miles of mud, with the occasional fish flopping on what had been the sea floor an hour or so ago.
On the way back to the hotel on that next-to-last riding day, we were caught in a severe downpour. We were soaked, but nobody cared. We were China-riding veterans. It rains, you get wet. No big deal.
The next day, we all saddled up and rode to the freight forwarder who would ship the bikes back to Chongqing. It was a short ride, and we were in and out of the freight yard in less than 30 minutes. Gresh and I wanted to buy jewelry for our wives, and the Zongshen dealer’s wife accompanied us to downtown Qingdao’s jewelry district. She helped us score great jade necklaces and both Joe’s wife and my Sue loved what we brought back for them. We said goodbye to the Chinese riders at the freight yard, thinking that we would see them at dinner that evening.
When we returned to the hotel late that afternoon, we learned that the goodbyes we said to the other guys at the freight forwarder had really been our final goodbyes. While we were shopping, the Chinese guys left by air to return to their homes. King Kong was still there (he had gone shopping with us); we would drop Kong off at the Qingdao train station the next day. Joe and I flew home after we dropped Kong off. It was a long flight, but it was great to be headed home.
I had mixed emotions about not being able to say a proper goodbye to the other Chinese riders, but I was glad it worked out the way it did. I wanted to say goodbye for real, but I really didn’t want to say goodbye at all. A few days after I arrived home, I received a nice email from Zuo. He told me that he and the other riders had left while we were shopping because they, too, did not want to risk becoming emotional during our goodbyes.
Misery makes for strong memories, and nowhere is that more true than on a motorcycle in cold wet weather. I’ve had times when I’ve been absolutely teeth-chattering cold and couldn’t shake it. Hypothermia, they call it.
We have all experienced cold and wet weather riding experiences. These are the ones that reside in my memory.
My First Big Baja Trip
Back in 1994, Baja John and I did our first big Baja ride, from southern California all the way down to Cabo San Lucas. I met John somewhere on the way down in So Cal (I can’t remember where), but what I do remember is starting out around 4:00 a.m. in a heavy downpour. I must have had some kind of rain gear (in those early days of my big trip rides we didn’t wear the kind of gear that came later), but it was relatively ineffective and before long I was pretty wet and miserable. I remember I was wearing jeans and a heavy leather motorcycle jacket. I was on my ’92 Softail, and John was on his Yamaha Virago.
Our thawing out stop in Vicente Guerrero. We didn’t cover too many miles that first day entering Baja, mostly because of the rain and the cold.
It rained off and on for most of that day. John and I stopped in Ensenada, took a few pictures, stopped again at La Bufadora, and from Bufadora on it was a steady downpour. We were young and dumb, and we just keep going. Somewhere around Vicente Guerrero (about 200 miles south of the border) I saw a hotel and stopped. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably and I felt like I was having a hard time controlling the motorcycle. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon and I was absolutely miserable.
The hotel was a cheap Baja place with concrete floors and no heat. The front desk had a register we both had to sign and I was shaking so badly I couldn’t sign my name, so I just made a big X like a hillbilly (not that there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly). I remember the hotel clerk gave us a roll of toilet paper. We found our room, I stripped down, unrolled my sleeping bag (it had stayed dry, fortunately), and fell asleep in it shaking like a crazy person (not that there’s anything wrong with being a crazy person). I’d wake up every hour or so, check my watch, and realize I was still shivering. Finally, when I woke up at 4:00 a.m. (exactly 12 hours after climbing into my sleeping bag), I had stopped shaking. I slept for another couple of hours and was good to go.
By the next morning, the rain had stopped. The Harley and our clothes took a little longer to dry out. The guy on the BMW snagged the electric heater.
When we checked out that morning, another traveler was doing the same and I watched in surprise as he turned in an electric heater. We could have asked for one to put in our room, but we didn’t know. I remember thinking those BMW riders knew a thing or two.
That first day riding into the Baja El Nino rains was a brutal experience. We had nice weather and a rain-free ride all the way down to Cabo and back.
The Tibetan Plateau
I am a slow learner. Maybe a better description would be a learner who forgets and has to learn all over again.
When we prepared for the big ride circumnavigating China (20 years after the Baja ride described above), I had a very flaky rain suit that I knew would let water penetrate. Prior to getting on the plane for China, I sprayed the hell out of it with Scotchguard and hoped for the best.
Hope is not a strategy, as I again learned riding through another motorcycle trip downpour. This time we were headed to the Tibetan Plateau, with the very capable Sergeant Zuo leading the way (that intro photo above was on the way up to the Tibetan Plateau in that downpour). The rains were oppressive, the mountain roads were curvy and dark, it was cold, my Scotchguard didn’t work worth a damn, and I was wet and cold. Bitter cold. Not quite hypothermic, but cold nonetheless.
The Raiders Tibetan bar scene. Gresh and I lived it.
We finally arrived at our destination late that evening. It was wooden hotel in a tiny town with an adjoining dining area, and both looked like Indiana Jones’ girlfriend’s place from his first movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gresh and I ducked into our room and I changed into dry clothes. The dining area didn’t have a menu. They had but one offering for dinner: Dumplings. All boiling in a big pot that looked like the one you’d see cannibals cooking people in. No kidding…it was that big. There must have been 900 dumplings floating around in that boiling cauldron. It was an all you can eat arrangement, and I ate plenty. They were great, and they were hot, both attributes that were perfect for my low-temperature condition.
We filled a smaller serving bowl with just a few of the dumplings from the giant dumpling cauldron. They really hit the spot.
Back to the “freeze your butt off” aspect of this blog. The room had some sort of a heater in the bathroom (complete with a Chinese style squat toilet, which was good for a few laughs). Gresh and I could not figure out how to get the heater to work. I’m not that smart, so I wasn’t surprised I couldn’t find the path to enlightenment. Gresh…he’s pretty smart, and his similar inability to crack the code made me feel not quite so dumb. We could get it to give us hot water, but we couldn’t get it to throw any heat. Being an engineer, I finally said screw it: We’ll just let the hot shower run all night and hope that’s enough to keep the room a degree or two above the outside temperature.
I woke up a few times during the night to the sound of the shower running. The room was like a sauna. Steamy, zero visibility, but warm. That hot water worked great.
A Cold Night In Tangke
When we were coming down off the Tibetan Plateau on the China ride, we rolled into a tiny town called Tangke.
Gresh and I joked about now being able to say “when I rode down off the Tibetan Plateau…”
Tangke was remote and primitive, and it was cold. It felt like it was going to rain as we entered, but it did not. We stayed in another place that had a restaurant with a hotel behind it. The restaurant was kind of fun because one of our riders (a fellow name Lu) saw a Tibetan woman making butter and asked if he could try it. She agreed. The approach was different than what I would have thought. Instead of churning the butter in a circular motion (like I’d seen done in countless Western movies), her approach involved slowly pumping a big stick up and down in a floor-based bucket. Lu was a real cut up. He started pumping the rod in a manner that could only be described as suggestive, which the Tibetan lady thought was hilarious. We did, too.
Good buddy Lu, suggesting unnatural acts with a Tibetan maiden. It was a fun ride, China was.
To get to the hotel behind the restaurant, we had to follow a dirt path and carefully avoid stepping in dog poop (at least I hope it was dog poop). I was thinking the hotel room would be a real disappointment, but it was actually pretty nice. When the hotel guy showed us the room, I looked around and couldn’t find a thermostat, and not wishing to run the shower all night, I asked about it. He didn’t speak English, but I managed to get my point across visually (I was a mime on a radio show in another life), and he showed me how to work the electric bed. It was like an electric blanket, except the heater was built into the mattress.
I was a little leery about sleeping on a toaster, but that electric bed worked wonderfully well. It was cold, real cold, that night, so much so there was frost on the bikes the next morning. But I was snug as a bug.
The Honda Electric Shower Heater
Nope, this has nothing to do with Honda motorcycles. There’s actually a town in Colombia up in the Andes Mountains called Honda.
This was one of my best rides ever.
Like most of the towns we rode through in the Andes, this one was hilly. The hills were so steep you couldn’t park the bike and rely on the kickstand to keep it from rolling away; keeping the bike in gear was necessary. Good buddy Juan, who led our ride, stopped in front of our hotel, which was securely hidden behind a tall wall and gigantic doors. “Security is an issue here,” Juan explained. The big doors had a little door at eye level. I immediately thought of that scene in Romancing the Stone (which was supposed to be in Colombia, but was actually filmed in Mexico).
A scene from Romancing the Stone. Our hotel in Honda had a similar little door in its gates.
Just like in the movie, someone from the hotel opened the eye level little door, conversed with Juan for a minute, and decided to allow us in. We couldn’t leave the bikes on the street (“Too dangerous,” Juan said), so we parked that at a secure warehouse around the corner.
Our hotel in Honda. The big gated doors to the left of our bikes (in the yellow wall) actually had a little door that could be opened to check out whoever wanted to enter before opening the big doors.
Once inside the hotel, I showered before dinner. There was only one faucet in the shower, and the shower was cold. I saw a switch on the showerhead, and what appeared to be an electrical coil that the water flowed through. I nervously tried the switch (standing naked in the icy water pouring through the showerhead), but the water remained icy. Oh well, I thought. I’ve taken cold showers before (no jokes, please).
At dinner in the hotel that night (which was excellent), I asked Juan about the showerhead. He smiled. “The electrical coil is supposed to heat the water as it flows through,” he said. “That’s the theory, anyway. Most of the time they don’t work,” he added, with a weak smile. Maybe that’s a good thing, I remember thinking.
Dad’s Super Hawk Heading to Cooper’s
When I was a 14-year-old kid back in rural New Jersey, I managed to get my Dad interested in motorcycles. In the space of less than 4 months, he bought a used CB 160 Honda (the baby Super Hawk), a new 305cc Super Hawk, and then a ’66 Triumph Bonneville. Cooper’s Cycle Ranch in Hamilton was our dealer, and in the early days, it was a ranch, with a big barn and all the accoutrements that went with it.
Sherm Cooper, a well-known Triumph flat track racer who became a very successful Honda and Triumph dealer in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a nice guy.
One morning (I’m guessing it was in the Spring, after the snow and ice disappeared, but before the temps starting getting reasonable), we left early on a Saturday morning to bring the Super Hawk in for its 500-mile service. The ride was along Route 130, a highway that ran from our area to Hamilton (a distance of about 35 miles).
It didn’t seem like it was going to be that cold on that distant-past Saturday morning, but let me tell you, it sure was. Dad and I both had jackets, but nothing like the motorcycle gear folks wear these days. And we had not counted on the wind chill. It was bitter. I had Dad to shield me from the wind chill; he was out in it. I guess you could say he was a Popsickle (or maybe a Popcycle).
We pulled into a store and bought a couple of newspapers, and we each stuffed them into the front of our jackets to cut the wind chill. It was a good idea, but it didn’t work very well. We still froze our butts off. I was freezing; it must have been terrible for Dad.
Yours truly at age 14 on Dad’s Super Hawk. We were dressed only slightly warmed on that ride to Cooper’s.
When we reached Cooper’s, it was still cold but at least we could warm up in the shop. The techs (they were called mechanics back in the day) had to wait for the engine to cool so they could adjust the valves, but their wait wasn’t very long that morning. When we left, central Jersey had already warmed up a bit and it was a pleasant ride home. But that ride there…wow, that was a cold one.
I should have noticed (and noted) that our previous blog (published on 6 August) was our 1,800th blog. This one is our 1,801st. That’s a lot of blogging.
The Wall Street Journal’s sole photo of the Mo Gao grotto. Notice it is the exterior only. Gresh and I did better. In fact, we did much “Mo” better.
In last week’s weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, there’s an article about the Mo Gao grottos in China’s Gobi Desert. It’s an exotic place few folks outside China (and actually, few folks in China) know about or have visited, so I can understand the Wall Street Journal’s excitement about discovering this hidden gem. I can even understand their complete lack of any photos inside the Buddhist caves (as you will when you read this rerun of our earlier blog on Mo Gao).
Gresh and I rode our Chinese motorcycles there 10 years ago. And unlike the Wall Street Journal, we landed forbidden photos of the caves’ interiors. You see, there was a heavy Chinese police presence at Mo Gao, and signs everywhere prohibited indoor photography. Gresh and I were the only roundeyes there among hundreds of Chinese tourists (is that racist?). I figured it wouldn’t be too long before one or more of the Chinese visitors started taking pictures, and when they did, the police descended on them aggressively. Which they did, and while they did…
Read on, my intrepid blogistas.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about the Indiana Jones aspects of riding a motorcycle across China, and in that blog, I told you about the Roman Legions that had settled in Liqian two thousand years ago. I mentioned that there were other Indiana Jones experiences to be had in China and I said I would write about them. It’s time to keep that promise. This blog is about the abandoned Mo Gao Buddhist grottos in the Gobi Desert. It’s an excerpt from Riding China, and if you want to get the whole story, well, hey, buy the book!
Dun Huang
The day was to be a short one for riding (only a hundred kilometers), but it would be rich with sightseeing in and around Dun Huang. It started with a short ride to Dun Huang’s vendor stalls with all kinds of brightly-colored trinkets, lots of Chinese tourists, and around it all, huge sand dunes. We had arrived at what might possibly be the least known and most inaccessible tourist attraction in the world: The Gobi Desert, up close and personal.
The Lake of the Crescent Moon in the Gobi Desert.
The signs pointed to the Lake of the Crescent Moon (and if that doesn’t sound like an Indiana Jones movie title, I don’t know what does). It was a small bright green crescent lake surrounded by the Gobi’s massive pale white dunes. The city planners in Dun Huang were making good use of it as a tourist attraction. It was amazing. The lake was a bright green arc of still water perhaps 300 meters long, forming a natural arc in the dunes, surrounded by bright green vegetation. I can only imagine how a camel caravan would have felt coming upon this place a thousand or more years ago, slowly drifting through the oven that is the Gobi, long before Dun Huang built its five-star tourist hotels. They must have viewed it as a miracle. A true oasis in the desert. It seemed to be a miracle to me and I had it easy; I had ridden here on my RX3.
Gobi Camel Riding
What really interested me were the camels. I was still feeling smug about seeing camels in the desert the day before, and I had wondered what it would be like to ride one. This was to be my day. There was a large camel riding operation set up specifically for tourists, and I realized I might never have an opportunity like this again. I needed to ride a camel. Yep, I became Joe Tourist, and I’m glad I did. It was fun. The camels took us to the top of one of the dunes, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve heard camels described as ships of the desert, and I realized as I rode along on mine that it was an appropriate description. A camel kind of rocks back and forth as it walks, the same way a ship does as it sails the ocean. The sand dunes, devoid of any vegetation, could be rolling waves. It’s all very calming. The camel behind mine came closer, and closer, and closer until its face was literally right alongside me. Its nose was just an inch from my arm. I could feel its warm dry breath on my arm and my face. It sounds a bit on the strange side, I know, but it was all somehow very soothing, riding along in the hot dry air, gently rocking left and right, with a camel breathing in my ear.
Camels in the Gobi.Quite a sight. I enjoyed Dun Huang enormously. You may have seen this photo before. It’s the cover photo for the ExhaustNotes home page, and it as a two-page spread in RoadRUNNER magazine.The view from the camel cockpit.
We spent the entire morning riding camels, taking photos, and being tourists. As much as I like riding my motorcycle, it was good to be off it for a day. We were all feeling great, even though it as incredibly hot. But it was dry, and that made it bearable.
A very attractive young woman who allowed a photo on our camel caravan. I told her I walked a mile for my camel. She smiled politely. I don’t think she spoke English.
The Mo Gao Grottos
That afternoon, we parked the bikes and rode in air-conditioned buses to the Mo Gao Buddhist grottos. This was more Indiana Jones stuff. It’s another incredible story, and it is one I had never heard until this trip. Listen to this: Ancient Buddhists created a massive temple complex in the grottos along a riverbed canyon wall in a location called Mo Gao. It’s in the desert outside of what is now Dun Huang. It was a thriving Buddhist center a thousand years ago, and then the people living there left. No one really knows why. Time and history forgot about the place. It was only recently rediscovered, and a few years after that, it opened to the public. The place was stunning. I can see it possibly being named the 9th Wonder of the Ancient World, just as Xi’an’s Terra Cotta soldiers (which I’ll describe in a later chapter) became the 8th Wonder of the Ancient World. It’s that wondrous.
The Mo Gao caves consisted of many smaller grottos that were apartments for ancient monks, and larger ones that held majestic statues and ornate decorations. I can only imagine what it must of have been like for the archeologists who uncovered these things. Today, it is all closely managed and Chinese police were there to enforce a photography prohibition.
A small portion of the Mo Gao Buddhist grotto.A forbidden photo inside one the Mo Gao grottos. Once again, the Nikon D810’s low light level capabilities came through for me!The sights and photo ops at Mo Gao were well worth the trip. There were many, many more, but I called it quits after grabbing these photos.
There are two reasons for a photography prohibition in these kinds of places. The first is that flash photography could degrade the statues and artwork. A natural light photo (one shot without flash) would prevent that kind of degradation, but most people wouldn’t understand the distinction and a “natural light only” photo policy would be too hard to enforce. The other reason is that the owner of the place (I assume it would be the Chinese government) probably wants to sell its photos. Allowing people to grab their own pictures would interfere.
The bottom line to all of the above is that the no photography policy only slowed me a little. I waited until somebody else took a photo and the picture police started yelling at them, and then I would discreetly do my natural light thing. I got some good shots, too.
Let me go tangential here for a moment and tell you a quick story about Joe Gresh. He is a great guy to travel with and I’d go anywhere with him. We both have a twisted, extremely wry, and very corny sense of humor. He cringed every time I said something I thought was clever, and I did the same with him. I enjoyed being with him on this trip immensely. The guy just has a way with words, which is readily apparent in his columns for Motorcyclist magazine. Anyway, as we walked along one of the landscaped Mo Gao pathways, I noticed a ground-mounted speaker that was in a plastic case designed to look like one of the naturally-occurring rocks. It blended in well with other real rocks along the path. I pointed to it and said to Joe, “Look at that…even a thousand years ago, these Buddhist monks had electric speakers…”
Gresh, without missing a beat, responded with, “Yeah, they loved their grotto blasters…”
I slept well that night in our unusually upscale hotel. I probably had dreams along the lines of an Indiana Jones movie plot, but I didn’t remember any of them. I was tired when I called it a night and I felt refreshed the next morning. This was the trip of a lifetime, and I was enjoying the hell out of it.
So there you have it. The Mo Gao Grottos. Lost in time nearly a thousand years, only to be discovered again a few years ago. And we were there. Indiana Jones? You bet! And if you want to read the earlier Indy in China blog about the Romans, it’s right here!
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I could have titled this blog “A Swing and a Miss.” That’s how I feel about a Case folder I received a few days ago. It’s going back to the retailer.
Last year, I got on a white bone handled knife kick, and I ordered several. They were all Chinese, and I even wrote a blog about a few.
A few of my white-bone-handle pocketknives, with the Hen and Rooster on the left. All are from China. These are very high quality knives. The second one from the left is the same size as a Buck 110, it is very inexpensive, and it is a beautiful knife.
One of the ones I ordered in that buying binge was the Hen and Rooster HR1341, a large folder with white bone handles. It arrived, it was perfect, and it was beautiful. It has a mirror-polished blade. I know Hen and Rooster is a weird name for a knife company, but I don’t care. I loved that knife as soon as I saw it.
In the back of my mind, though, was the China thing, and the inevitable anti-China comments I knew any blog about things made there would attract. I also knew I wanted what is the same basic design but from a U.S. manufacturer (in this “case,” pardon the literary redundancy, a Case knife). The Case I wanted was out of stock everywhere I looked. I went back to my preferred knife retailer, Smoky Mountain Knife Works, and clicked on their “Notify Me When In Stock” link. And then I forgot about it.
Smoky Mountain didn’t forget, though. A couple of weeks ago an email floated in telling me the Case white bone large folder was in stock. It was three times the cost of the Hen and Rooster, but I had to have it. Buy now, baby, and it was on its way.
The bone handle around the rivets is very poorly done. For a $120 pocketknife, it’s not for me.
I was like a kid on Christmas morning when the Case arrived, but then I opened the box. Big disappointment. The Case knife, for all its vaunted “Made in America” quality, had rivets and scales that looked like a 6-year-old installed them. What a letdown.
The US-made Case knife is on the left; the Chinese Hen and Rooster knife is on the right. Although the Hen and Rooster is from China, it uses German stainless steel (frequently specified as 1.4116 or similar high-quality Solingen stainless steel).
Some of you might wonder: Isn’t the Case a better knife with better steel? To answer your question, I don’t know. But from a cosmetics perspective, this Case is not something I want. And if they couldn’t get the cosmetics right, who’s to say they got the heat treat right? Nope. Not for me. I’ll stick with my Chinese version.
The Model 1917 saga continues. After looking for a variety of ways to replace the front sight with something shorter (the gun shoots low with most every load except the hardball government load, which is probably what these guns were regulated for), I found one in Dawson Sights. But it wouldn’t look authentic, and I wanted this pistol to look like the ones issued to the Army in World War I and II (the color case hardening, highly polished blue, and fancier grips notwithstanding).
My 1917 Smith and Wesson, with star clips, .45 ACP ammo, and 200-grain semi-wadcutters. Did I mention that I love shooting this revolver? It’s my Indiana Jones Special.
I was shooting my standard accuracy load for the 1911 (4.2 grains of Bullseye, and a 200-grain cast semi-wadcutter Missouri bullet). I used the star clips (I was shooting with .45 ACP brass, not AutoRim ammo).
Because the 1917 shot low, I thought about putting a line on the front sight, or painting it. I discarded that idea because paint on a front sight never lasts. Then I went with Elmer Keith’s recommendation: Just hold the front sight higher in the rear sight groove, and keep the target on the top of the front sight. That’s what I did.
A normal sight picture with a 6:00 hold. Note that the front sight is in sharp focus; the target and the rear sight are slightly blurred. Using this sight picture put the bullets from my 1917 several inches low.My adjusted 1917 sight picture. I found that holding the front sight about 2/3 to 3/4 of its height higher within the rear sight (as you see here), and keeping the top of the front sight at 6:00 on the target (so as to not obscure the target) worked well.
Here’s my first target, shot at 45 feet, to sort of get things dialed in and to determine how much the front sight should exceed the rear sight.
Yep, my shots are all over the paper. I was experimenting with front sight height holdover to find the best sight picture.
The first two shots below the center bullseye (on the target above) made me realize I was subconsciously reverting to my old sight picture. I made a conscious effort to keep the front sight high, and I shot the remainder of my shots on the center bullseye and the red stickies. I took a little while to get used to the new sight picture.
The above target gave me a pretty good idea of what I needed to do with respect to the sight picture. The upper 2/3 to 3/4 of the front sight needs to be above the top of the rear sight, and the top of the front sight needs to be at 6:00. I moved a new target to 30 feet and shot the next group (with 18 shots). I think 10 yards is a good distance for dialing in a combat handgun.
Yep, that works. Notwithstanding the two shots that went high (my fault entirely), with the new sight picture I could put my shots where I wanted them to go.
All the above were shot single action. I may try shooting some double action on my next outing. This is a big gun, though, and I think double action shooting won’t be too easy.
You might wonder: Why does the gun not shoot to point of aim with a standard sight picture? Keep in mind that this was a gun designed to shoot military hardball ammunition as an expedient during World War I. That’s a 230-grain full metal jacket moving at about 830 feet per second. I found (see my earlier blog) that when shooting a comparable reload (a 230-grain cast roundnose bullet with 5.6 grains of Unique), this revolver shoots just about to point of aim at 10 yards using a standard sight picture. That’s what the gun was designed for. With a different load (such as the one described above), the point of impact will shift (as it did for me).
I’m going to leave the revolver alone (no change to a newer, lower front sight) and shoot it frequently. I like it a lot. Best to leave things as they are. I feel like I know the gun pretty well now. I sure to do love shooting it.
By any reasonable measure, Rodolfo Fierro was a world class SOB. I know it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, but old Rodolfo shucked this mortal coil more than a hundred years ago and I’m going to take a chance. Bear with me.
I am a big fan of the Colt and Smith and Wesson 1917 .45 ACP revolvers and all their modern derivations. You’ve read my scribblings (or tappings?) here on the ExNotes blog about the virtually new 1917 Colt I scored a couple of years ago, and you know I’m not above bragging about a group or two I’ve shot with my Model 625 Smith. You can read all about that sort of thing on our Tales of the Gun page.
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Anyway, to get back to the main attraction (which is the beautiful nickel-plated and engraved 1917 you see here), a few years ago I bought a very cool Marlin from Collectors Firearms in Houston, Texas. They are good people and as luck would have it, I had a secret mission in Houston a week ago. Hmmm, I thought. As long as I was headed to the Lone Star state it might be a good idea to stop in at Collectors, and before we left the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia I went online to see what Collectors had in stock. That’s when the revolver in these photos appeared.
Wow! My life suddenly somehow felt incomplete. I needed that revolver. Nickel plating. Engraving. Ivory grips. .45 ACP. An Army 1917. Want. Need. Gotta have. I was a dog in heat.
I studied the photos, of which there were many, and I noticed the following on the revolver’s frame:
General Rodolfo Fierro. Who the hell was he? So I Googled the name, and wow, what a mean bastard he was. Turns out old Rodolfo was Pancho Villa’s darker side, and he was the one who handled the dirty work for Villa. I won’t belabor all his dastardly deeds (you can Google the name yourself), but as dastardly bastards go, this guy was as bad as it gets.
But wow, the gun was a 1917 Colt (a favorite), it was highly engraved, it was advertised as being in good shape, and I wanted it. At $4950, the price was way out of my range. But the provenance…the provenance of this Colt was incredible. And the photos…take a look:
Collectors Firearms had a brief description on their website that was even more enticing:
Colt 1917 .45 ACP caliber revolver. Beautifully engraved and chiseled Colt .45 ACP revolver. This revolver is extensively engraved with traditional Colt style scroll work. The right-side of the frame has a relief chiseled figure of the Mexican Seal of an eagle and snake with cactus in the foreground. The left-side of frame is a relief chiseled figure of a puma braced on a rock. Bore is excellent. Action works perfectly. Barrel length is 5½”. The grips are of old mellow ivory. The backstrap is engraved “Gral Rodolfo Fierro” AKA “The Butcher.” Fierro was a known associate of Pancho Villa. Revolver has 100% of its nickel finish. Barrel has a relief chiseled figure of a longhorn steer. Very handsome and striking revolver!
So I was about 80% of the way there, thinking I could probably Presbyterian these guys down (it’s an inside joke shared by Members of the Tribe), sell a bunch of other stuff, and I would ride with Rodolfo. Visiting Collectors Firearms became an imperative and after finishing my secret mission stuff, Sue and I rolled in to that magnificent firearms emporium on that fine Texas morning.
Collectors Firearms is huge, possibly the largest high-end gun store I’ve ever visited. Folks, trust me on this…if you’re ever in Houston and you want to see some really cool stuff, you absotively have to see this place.
It took the kid who attended to us a few minutes to locate the Rodolfo Fierro revolver, and when he did, I was stunned. The nickel plating and engraving were absolutely magnificently executed, far more so than revealed by the website photos above. Somehow, the nickel finish and engraving made the revolver seem even larger than it actually is (and it’s a big gun). I shot a few photos with my iPhone, and I’ll share one with you here:
So I thought about that revolver the rest of the time I was in Texas and then I thought about it more when I returned home, the gears turning with what I might have to sell to get it.
And then it hit me. In researching old Rodolfo and all the evil he brought to those in his orbit, I found out that while there is some uncertainty about his date of birth, there’s none whatsoever about when he died. That was in 1915 when he drowned in quicksand after being thrown from his horse, weighed down by gold he had presumably stolen.
1915. Got it? That’s the year old Rodolfo had to stand before his Maker and answer for all his sins. You see, 1915 was two years before Colt introduced the 1917 Army .45 ACP revolver, and that tells me there’s no way this gun was carried by that bloodthirsty SonuvaYouKnowWhat. Whew! Just saved myself $4950 on that one.
I’ve managed to get the Buell oil leaks slowed down to a few drops per ride so I decided to give that part of the Buell resurrection a rest. This winter I’ll try again on the rocker boxes and I’ve got real H-D umbrella valves to replace the cheap aftermarket ones in there now. A guy can chase oil leaks on a Sportster til the Kawasakis come home.
We’re well into monsoon season here in New Mexico that means rain every day or every couple days. All this rain makes the driveway at The Ranch a muddy mess (dirt bike season) so I spent some time trying to cut down on rattling noises emanating from the Buell.
With the air cleaner spaced outboard and the frame slightly higher the scuffing should stop.
One annoying rattle was the air cleaner housing. The backing plate rubbed the frame very slightly, not enough to wear through the paint but enough to scuff the frame tube. Additionally, the fiberglass fuel tank cover rubbed on the air cleaner cover, wearing away the cool VR1000 orange paint. At some point in the past a groove was cut into the cover in an attempt to stop the erosion.
Working with Starboard material is like carving a bar of soap. I would have used aluminum but I didn’t have any the right thickness.
The fix for both of these problems was the same: move the air cleaner out 1/4″ to clear the frame and line up the cover slot with the tank.
With the spacer installed there is a little breathing room between the frame tube and the air cleaner back-plate.
I used a piece of black Starboard (plastic sheet used in boat building) left over from my working days to cut a spacer. Longer bolts were needed to attach the mess to the carburetor. Hopefully this knocks down the noise a bit.
This acorn nut hitting the faring bracket made a hell of a racket. The photo shows the cluster raised a bit.
The next rattle was the a speedometer acorn nut hitting the faring support frame tube. This was noisy as hell but mostly around 2800 RPM. After 3000 the rattle stopped. The problem was the fiberglass instrument housing. The housing is attached by 3 screws into the faring bracket, the speedometer is cantilevered to the left, beyond the mounting screws so it hangs out there unsupported and bopping into the bracket. The solution was easy: 3 thick rubber grommets under the mounting screws spaced the instrument cluster high enough to stop the noise.
New isolator on right.
While I was in rattle-mode I decided to replace the sagged out rear isolators. This Buell uses two large rubber bagels between the swingarm area and the frame in an attempt to quell the Sportster engine’s vibe. There is an actual Buell-style isolator but the ones that fit a Dyna seem to work ok.
The new isolator in place. They come drilled off-center and sag to center.
After all this tinkering I took the Buell out for (yet) another test ride. The bike was almost civilized! No excessive rattles, no squeaks, just the normal clatter emanating from the antique Sportster mill.
The new isolators jacked the bike up about 1/2″ but I can still reach the ground ok. The vibration characteristics have changed slightly. On the Buell S2 the mirrors stick out a long way. They would shake pretty well, the left one pretty violently, until 3500 RPM where the image would sharpen into tolerable. With the new bagels the right mirrors is sharp at all RPMs and the left is noticeably improved. After 3200 RPM both mirrors are crystal clear.
Over all speeds the bike feels less Vibey, 2800 to 3000 RPM is still the worse spot but it’s not bad at all. After 3500 RPM the Buell is a smooth operator and the faster you go the smoother it gets. Like I say, almost civilized.
The old isolators were sagged out. The Allen bolt rested at the top of this opening. With the new isolators the bolt centers in the pivot/frame.
Handling is slightly different, I imagine due to the .001-degree change in rake from the fresh isolators. Nothing major but the Buell feels the tiniest bit more frisky in the turns. Straight line stability is unchanged: like a rock.
With the stock muffler the Buell is impressively quiet. All you hear at 80 MPH is the wind, vibration is minimal, I’m thinking this is close to how the bike performed as new. A far cry from Japanese excellence but way better than a standard Sportster of the era. I like it.
