Wi-fi, anywhere on earth

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Iridium has just released the GO! (their way to write it, not mine!), a satellite-based device that can create a 100-foot-radius wi-fi hot spot anywhere within transmitting range of one of the 66 low-earth-orbit Iridium satellites—in other words, just about anywhere on the planet.

Yes, you've guessed what this means: Now a group of people on a remote expedition can get on their smart phones or iPads and ignore each other just as if they were at a downtown restaurant.

Okay—the practical applications of this device are apparent, and, more significantly, it moves us one step closer to universally accessible communication. Whether or not that is a good thing I'll leave you to decide.

For more information, go the the Ocens website here.

Improving a KLR650 with a Seat Concepts custom seat

I first met Lendon of Seat Concepts when the office was in a small warehouse in San Jacinto, California. At that time, the company had just started manufacturing molded foam replacements for motorcycle seats. Since most of its employees come from a motocross background, the company has a vested interest in creating comfortable seats.

Eighteen months later, I saw Lendon again at the Overland Expo in Flagstaff, AZ and was able to catch up on how the business has grown. Seat Concepts has moved to a larger warehouse and now manufactures not only the foam and seat covers, but the seat pans as well, for some of the most popular models of adventure motorcycle (such as the KLR650). He is swamped with orders these days, so I appreciate even more the time he spent with me during the installation of my custom Seat Concepts seat back in October 2012. I had visited the shop with my 2003 Kawasaki KLR650 just before leaving on a 16,000-mile journey from southern California to the tip of South America.

Ergonomics are a big part of preparing your motorcycle for long stretches of miles or lengths of time. Dialing in the right set-up is critical. Adjusting where your hands grip on the handlebars, where your feet rest on the footpegs, or where your rear end sits on the seat, is a personal venture. But you will know when it’s uncomfortable and needs to be changed. Your butt is most likely the first place to let you know. I have tried the stock seat, which my mass molded to its shape instead of the other way around. I have tried a Corbin flat seat, which was like vinyl wrapped plank of wood. Neither was very comfortable for longer than half a day. In searching for an auxiliary cushion, the only supplement I found was a sheepskin seat cover by Alaska Leather. Out of habit more than function, the sheepskin came with me to South America. It did not last to the end of the trip because it was worn thin by so many years of use.

Having a custom seat built was probably the best (and most comfort-conscious) decision I made for the journey. Read more >

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From Ethiopia to Arizona—two travelers meet again

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The Overland Expo has developed a reputation for bringing people together—both those making new friends and those reuniting with old ones. However, few such stories we’ve heard match this one from Mario Donovan, of AT Overland, who ran into an acquaintance at the 2014 Overland Expo WEST he last met 40 years previously . . . and 8,000 miles away.

"I was a teenager growing up in Ethiopia in the 1970s. At the time my mother worked for the Ethiopian Ministry of Tourism as a publication consultant. Many a traveler, hitchhiker and overlander came through her office, and sometimes they’d end up crashing on the floor of our apartment. I was maybe fourteen or fifteen at the time, and at the height of adolescent reverie.  I lusted over motorcycles every waking moment, even more than girls. 

I remember my mom introducing me to a British fellow who was on hiatus from his journalism job so he could ride around the world on his motorcycle and write about it. It was a super cool bike because it was a twin, not a single-cylinder as most of the bikes were there. What a dream of independence and freedom for a young man. At the time I was still without my driver’s license, but learning how to pop wheelies on my friend’s bike, and occasionally hot-wiring my neighbor’s bike when he was out of town. 

Although I only met the British rider briefly, I thought he was stud for doing what he was doing. Then, maybe five years ago, I read Ted Simon’s book Jupiter’s Travels, and when I got to the short section about his time in Ethiopia it hit me: That was the guy! Not much of a story but a happy coincidence—the Kevin Bacon thing. When I shared it with Ted he seemed rather moved by it, and I was honored to have met him again nearly 40 years later—and to share a drink with him no less!"

A Marv in the palm of your hand

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I once knew a mechanic named Marv. (Could there be a better name for a mechanic? Picture him: Brylcreemed black hair combed back in a bit of a pompadour; grey trousers and shirt with “Marv” on a shoulder patch, oil-stained loafers, and perfect white socks. That’s Marv.)

Marv had a shop in which he built hot rods for fun while doing ordinary mechanical work to pay bills. He had the contract to maintain J.C. Penney’s furniture-delivery trucks when I was driving them after high school.

The thing about Marv was, vehicles talked to him. I don’t think I ever saw him have to do more than listen to a truck or car for a few seconds before perfectly diagnosing its issue. “Throwout bearing,” he said into my window when I pulled up in a truck that was making a strange noise during shifts—before I even parked or mentioned the specific complaint. “Front U-joint,” “Water pump,” “Burned exhaust valve”—those are Marv diagnoses off the top of my memory. I once brought in a truck that had started running rough, and he said, “The timing’s slipped.” Did he go fetch his timing light? Nope—he pulled out a half-inch wrench, loosened the nut on the V8’s distributor, turned it with his head cocked to the side, revved it a couple of times, tightened the nut, and said, “There you go.” That time, one of my co-drivers (Vern—could there be a better name for a furniture-delivery man?) was with me. He knew Marv well, but not well enough. 

“What’s the timing supposed to be?” Vern asked. 

“About seven degrees before top dead center.”

“And how close do you think you got to that?”

Marv said nothing, just fetched his timing light and, well, I bet you can guess the rest by this point. Some time after that I was summarily fired for rapelling off the J.C. Penney warehouse roof (just for fun—a story for another time), and I lost track of Marv and his preternatural skill.

Today? Today any rookie with 20 bucks, an Amazon account, and a smart phone can enjoy a near-Marv-like mind-meld with an OBDII-equipped vehicle two days after clicking “Add to cart.” I know, because I finally ordered a KingMansion ELM 327 wi-fi-enabled OBDII reader that sends all sorts of interesting and useful information to my iPhone, including stuff even Marv couldn’t have determined (although I doubt it could identify a faulty throwout bearing). The only catch is, you’ll also need a compatible app for the phone—cheap if you buy something like the $10 OBD Fusion in the iTunes app store, more expensive if, like me, you don’t pay attention and wind up with one that also synchs with the phone’s accelerometer to record 0-to-60, G-force, and lap times. If I ever decide to try for a new Tacoma/Four-Wheel-Camper lap record at Riverside, I’m all set.

In case you don’t pay attention to such things, OBDII (for On Board Diagnostics) is a standardized system and port (in the U.S.), mandatory on all passenger vehicles since 1996. It allows the vehicle’s CPU (central processing unit) to communicate information about the engine’s emissions (the original intent), instantaneous fuel usage, actual engine temperature, engine load, air intake temperature, and much more, depending on what the vehicle’s manufacturer chooses to make available.

Most useful for owners, however, is the ability to read trouble codes when the dashboard energizes that annoying and oh-so-vague “Check engine” light, which could indicate anything from imminent disaster to something utterly harmless such as a failed reverse lockout switch (this happened on our old Tacoma). 

I followed the instructions on the absurdly inconsequential-looking ELM, and within minutes the Tacoma was assuring me all was well fault-code-wise. Other functions such as instantaneous fuel mileage (full throttle in first gear with a camper = 7.142 mpg) also popped up and worked perfectly.

If you do hook up an OBD scanner in response to the check-engine light, don’t expect a little pompadoured Marv to pop up on the screen and tell you what’s wrong and how to fix it. All you’re going to see is an alphanumeric code (or perhaps several). You need a guide to tell you which of a mind-boggling array of faults you are experiencing. It might be, say, code P0812, indicating a reverse switch malfunction, which you can ignore if you’re in the middle of nowhere, or, say, P0304, indicating a misfire in cylinder four, which you would not want to ignore. Codes that begin with a P0, P2, or P3 are universal codes; those that begin with P1 are manufacturer-specific. Many websites have been created solely to list and explain OBDII codes. (Toyota has a professional site here that caters mostly to mechanics, but you can apparently buy a temporary subscription to retrieve current technical bulletins and OBD codes. I write “apparently” because it’s only compatible with PCs—and only using Internet Explorer, for God’s sake. C’mon, Toyota.)

By far the most likely scenario is that even after you look up the code you’ll be presented with some utterly incomprehensible diagnosis, such as P0608, “Control Module VSS output A malfunction.” The reason for this is that, when the people in charge were programming what the standardized OBDII sensor would monitor and flag, they decided they wanted it to be the equivalent of the most hypochondriac human being on the planet—just to be safe, and to give car dealers plenty of work. So—I have no proof of this yet, but I’ll get to the bottom of it—I’m virtually certain they kidnapped my mother, hooked up electrodes to her in a secret research facility in Detroit, and remarked admiringly, “Wow—we need at least 360 potential fault codes.”

Whatever the case, you’ll have to decide whether one of these obscure codes is reason to abandon a trip and head to a mechanic. My own reaction, if the truck were running well with no outward signs of trouble, would probably be to mutter, “Yes, mom, whatever you say,” and keep right on driving.

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How to sell aftermarket brakes

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The stock brakes on our 2012 Tacoma are . . . adequate . . . with the Four Wheel Camper mounted. On long, twisty downhill roads—I'm talking six, eight, ten miles here—I can feel the pedal begin to get mushy and brake effort increase. When Roseann was hauling a full cargo trailer north to Flagstaff this spring, on the descent into the Salt River Canyon she kept the six-speed (manual) transmission in third to maximize engine braking, but still described brake feel as "Decidedly mushy."

So I've been shopping for potential upgrades to the front discs (Tacomas, to Toyota's discredit, still come with rear drum brakes, which incorporate technology that reached its peak sometime in the 1950s and which are impossible to modify effectively).

One obvious possibility is Toyota's own TRD (Toyota Racing Development), but they didn't list a kit for the 4X4 Tacoma. Next up was Brembo, legendary supplier to such marques as Porsche and Ferrari. I Googled "Tacoma Brembo brakes," and indeed found what appeared to be a source for a Brembo kit. Rather eagerly I looked to the description for technical details, to determine just how the Brembos would improve on the stock brakes.

And here is the entire pitch for this ($1,600) kit from this company:

Brembo GT Slotted Brake Kit Features

• You won't find a cooler looking or operating brake kit than the Brembo GT Slotted Brake Kit.
• Nothing accents a vehicles wheels better than a trick looking Slotted brembo rotor and painted brembo caliper.
• Do yourself and your vehicle a favor and bolt-on a Brembo GT Slotted Brake Kit and give your friends something new to envy.

Words fail . . .

(And never mind the spelling and grammar . . .)

They don't make 'em like they used to

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It’s futile to compare modern vehicles with those manufactured 40 years ago. A good ole boy can look at, say, a current Ford F150, with its plastic front bumper, compare it to the steel counterpart on his 1970 predecessor, and drawl, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” And he’s correct—but not in the way he thinks. That modern truck will protect its passengers in a wreck that would have left the occupants of the earlier one dead. 

Credit a Mercedes Benz engineer named Béla Barényi, who in the 1950s first questioned the prevailing wisdom that a vehicle had to be rigid to be safe. He realized what now seems obvious: that the forces in a collision have to be absorbed somewhere, and if they are not absorbed by the vehicle they will be absorbed by its occupants. This led to the development of front and rear crumple zones, which sacrificed part of the vehicle’s integrity to safeguard the rigid cell containing the driver and passengers. With the further advent of, first, lap and then shoulder belts, and then air bags, injury and fatality rates in collisions plummeted. 

(If you’re still not convinced, take a look at this revealing video of a test collision between a 2009 Chevy Malibu and a 1959 Chevy Belair, then tell me which car you’d pick to crash in.)

But. Still . . .

The photo above shows me holding up the entire outer “bumper” assembly of our 2012 Toyota Tacoma—including fog lights—with one finger.

Trust me that I have zero doubt as to whether I’d rather be in the Tacoma or my solid-steel 1973 FJ40 in any kind of collision. I remember a tiny misapplication of throttle in the latter that once sent me into a concrete parking bollard at perhaps two miles per hour. I felt the result right down into my spine. The 40 was of course unscratched.

Nevertheless, it seems to me the thing I’m holding has lost the right to even be called a “bumper.” I’m convinced a two-mile-per-hour tap on a parking bollard would necessitate replacing the entire assembly. Imagine the result if you innocently stuck the tongue of a Hi-Lift jack into that front opening and started cranking. This “bumper” is really nothing more than a bumper-like facade.

I realize that wishful thinking along these lines will have as much effect as hoping Toyota will start importing Hiluxes equipped with three-liter turbodiesels, but wouldn’t it be nice if manufacturers offered a front bumper in their “off-road” packages that was stout enough to withstand jacking (and perhaps even bumping), while still conforming to crash standards?

Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide: fourth edition?

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I remember waiting in line to pay for my first copy of Tom Sheppard’s Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide, at the decidedly upscale Land Rover dealership in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was 1998, the first, hardbound edition of the book had recently been released, and I’d driven 120 miles with the express purpose of securing a copy. At the counter in front of me, a woman was agonizing (trust me, that’s the right word) over whether to buy the giraffe or rhino-illustrated spare tire cover for her new Discovery II. She vacillated for at least five minutes while I flipped through the thick book, skimming Sheppard’s exhaustive sections on vehicle selection and modification, communications, loading and lashing, navigation, and team selection. I had decided I would definitely not select Disco woman for any team I led, and was about to suggest aloud that, since she had dropped $40,000 on the vehicle, why not buy both the stupid $30 tire covers, when the giraffe won out. (“He’s cuter.”) The gulf between her universe and that in the book I held could have been measured in parsecs.

Back home, I discovered that within the 500-plus pages of the VDEG (say “Veedeg”if you wish to be counted among the cognoscenti) was virtually everything one might need to know to plan, organize, and conduct a vehicle-dependent expedition, whether of 100 or 10,000 miles duration. The stunning level of detail was what one would expect if the author were, say, a former test pilot for the Royal Air Force, or had, for example, led the first lateral crossing of the Sahara Desert in prototype Forward-control Land Rovers, or had driven a further several tens of thousands of miles in that same desert, much of it solo and completely off-tracks. All of which was true of Squadron Leader Tom Sheppard, whose articles I’d been reading for almost two decades. Random example from Section 2.6: two full-page spreads on engine oil characteristics, service categories, and labeling. It seemed excessive—until you realized that oil is quite literally the blood of your vehicle’s engine. There were similar in-depth investigations into wicking fabrics, camping stoves, high-frequency radios, electrical loads, water purification—on and on—plus extensive sections on shipping, 4WD systems, provisioning and cooking, and navigation.

But it wasn’t all technical jargon. The book was liberally sprinkled with personal anecdotes and photos from four decades of exploration. For several weeks my writing schedule suffered as I detoured into Tom Sheppard’s world, and learned as much as I ever did from any university textbook—while having much more fun. 

Copies of the original VDEG now sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay (a fact that rankles Tom, who has since become a friend). Through his one-man publishing company, Desert Winds, he has since produced a second and third edition, bound in paperback and printed in black and white to keep them affordable for both Tom and readers. Each was subjected to meticulous updating to reflect advances in vehicles, communications, GPS technology, and countless other details—and even these have been subject to price-gouging. (The original was also published in association with Land Rover; succeeding editions have been independent efforts, arguably allowing Tom more scope when discussing vehicles.)

The third edition of Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide recently sold out. Tom originally thought (swore!) it would be the last, but now he is considering a fourth edition, which would once again be thoroughly updated. If, like me, you own every previous edition, you’ll certainly want this one. If you don’t have a copy of any of them, your overlanding library is tragically incomplete. 

Now, here’s the thing: Whether a fourth edition comes to pass is entirely up to you. Tom is tallying the number of people on his email waiting list to determine if he can commit the substantial time and energy to another round of test-pilot-level scrutiny and revisions. You can bet I’m on the list; if you wish to be as well, send an email to him at mail@desertwinds.co.uk. Use a suitably pleading tone, but gently remind him of his duty to the worldwide overlanding community. That works really well on retired RAF squadron leaders.

Desert Winds—i.e. Tom—also publishes several other books, some useful, some merely lovely. You can order them directly from him here. 

And an update: It seems Tom's printer found a box of VDEG ed. 3 in a corner. Available while supplies last, probably not long. Then it's on to VDEG ed.4!

Bogert Manufacturing wheel chocks

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Chocking your vehicle’s tires is one of the most basic and critical safety procedures you can follow before changing a tire, winching, or working underneath it. Yet how many of us ever use anything but nearby rocks or logs to do so? Not only are you at the mercy of what’s available (Will this work, or do I need that bigger one over there?), but if you happen to be leading a trip or are otherwise in a position of some assumed authority, it lends a rookie taint to your otherwise faultless command presence to be seen looking around for rocks.

I thought about this recently while looking around for rocks.

To make matters worse, I had a good set of chocks with me—the clever folding units made by Land Rover—but they were inconveniently stashed in a compartment under the rear jump seat of the Tacoma, which itself was under several layers of Pelican cases. So I took the lazy route.

Lessons learned: a) Have stuff like this easily accessible, and if it isn’t, b) Follow Graham Jackson’s First Rule of What to Do When There’s Trouble, which is, Slow down and brew a cup of tea, and then Jonathan Hanson’s First Rule of What to Do When There’s Trouble, which is Use the right tools. Sorry Graham. And me.

As much as I like the Land Rover chocks, their lightweight, folding construction pretty much relegated them to tire-changing and working-under duties. Thanks to the fertile mind of Richard Bogert of Bogert Manufacturing, I now have a set of heavy-duty, winching-compatible chocks.

Constructed of 3/16ths-inch steel and heavily powder-coated, the Bogert chocks take up virtually no more room than the folding ones if you stand them on edge in the corner of a cargo box. A set of them comprises not two but, properly, four, so you can anchor two wheels on both sides, or four wheels on one side if you’re on a hill. Additionally, a set of holes and slots in each chock allows you to chain two together on either end of the wheel to prevent shifting if the truck jerks back and forth under a load—nice. Each set of chocks comes with four chains, so you can anchor each pair of chocks on the inside and outside of the wheel if needed. The result is one solidly immobile truck.

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The set is now stored in the “Camper Setup” Wolf Pack box that rides just inside the door of the JATAC's Four Wheel Camper. So accessing proper chocks will be as easy as picking up a rock, and my faultless command presence can remain intact.

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From now until the end of June, Bogert is offering a 15 percent discount on all their superb recovery tools and accessories. Please use code K7E. Bogert Manufacturing is here.