It's that time of year again ~ The annual Vintage Japanese Motocycle Club's jaunt to Death Valley is next week , this year I'l be driving my trusty 1976 GMC C-2500......... I'll toss my old Honda in the bed as I can no longer ride all day long...
Sounds good! Have fun! Im hauling two jet skis to the coast next weekend with my blazer for a little weekend of fun... hopefully.
The End Result You can count on me always having fun ~ that's why I work : to enjoy my road time . I'm hoping The Panamint Valley will have good flowers this year , I always enjoy traveling lonely Desert roads , more so in my old 6 cylinder trucks , windows down , tappets merrily clattering away and I breath the fresh clean air . At the far end will by my mates and Motos , cold drinks , cameraderie , too much food , dubious stories of derring - do etc. , etc. . Most years I also get to do field repairs o other people's machines .
Locked & Loaded I worked on the 1971 Honda CT90 most of to -day , upgraded the original Selenium rectifier , carby rebuild , minor tune up stuff and so on , took it for a nice test ride , it runs fine but the Autoclutch slips a bit when kick starting so I'll rebuild that after I get back . it's not tied down in the bed . I was looking in my garage and ran across an item from when I had a side business rehabbing & reselling old highway dept. trucks 13 years ago..... A brandy new Saddleman seat cover in " wine " ~ just the thing to cover my sticky plastic seat for this weekends hot Desert jaunt . it's forecasted to be 100° F and windy , this is actually cool for Death Valley . I can hardly wait , I plan to hit the road @ 0-Dark:30 to - morrow morning .
So how did it go? I drove the blazer loaded down and a trailer with two jetskis down to the coast over the weekend. The truck made it down there and back without a single problem, well unless you count 8mpg there and 9mpg back a problem.
Home Again I had a blast ! the truck of course , ran *flawlessly* the whole way there and back , as I was puttering along fairly slowly (compared to my usual driving) it got terrific fuel mileage too ~ had I realized it'd be this good , I'da noted the miles before leaving . The temp. gauge never went over 1/2 way and it breezed all the hills in top gear , including the 9 % grade ! . I was trying to copy the link to pictures someone else provided but no joy there . Mostly Moto pix in any case . All the folks liked my truck and didn't realize it wasn't factory equipped with gull gauges . Both Death Valley and The Panamint Valley were very green but not many Desert flowers this time . The temps never exceeded 85° F .
Death Valley Pix First we have the snack stop in Randsburg , Ca. where you can still get a killer good malt with real malt powder and the 1/3 full metal cup , for $6 . lots of cool old junk / antique shops too . Next pic is the Eastern Entry Point for Death Valley , near Rhyolite , Nev.
