CSC Blog

Found this one over on the ADVRider site….it is a very nicely done video from Subaru of Australia. Enjoy!

I landed at LAX just before lunch yesterday, and on the drive from the airport to my home I was thinking about how cool it would be to fire up my CSC motorcycle and head into the mountains for a ride.   It’s been too long.

Most of my recent travel has involved airplanes and automobiles, which is okay when the distances are great or the weather is bad.   A couple of new things (new to me, at least) that I’m getting used to are the GPS and Bluetooth phone systems.  My new Subie has a built-in GPS and a handsfree phone system.   Progress, I guess.  Or is it?

I haven’t decided if the GPS is a good thing or a bad thing.  It’s cool because it takes a lot of the stress out of driving in strange or new areas.   For example, when I was in Chicago a month or so ago, the rental car GPS came in handy when I landed late at night and I had to drive 70 miles.  Driving through Chicago late at night could have been an adventure, but the GPS made it pain free.   I guess that’s a good thing.  What’s not a good thing it destroys my situational awareness.   I mean, if you think about it, I rode my California Scooter all the way down to Cabo San Lucas and back armed with only a map and my sense of direction.   I was fine with that.   I felt connected to wherever I was.

In the good old days, I used to have to think a lot about where I was and the lay of the land (and I was fine with that).   Now I just put my mind in neutral and wait for the GPS lady to tell me what to do.   Like I said, I‘m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.   I sometimes wonder what this kind of mental emptiness (floating from one destination to the next, waiting for someone to tell us what to do, with no responsibility for determining our own way) will do to us on a longer term basis.  Maybe I’m just thinking too hard.

The other new toy is the Bluetooth phone system.   Let me say at the outset that I hate cell phones.    We’ve become a nation of folks glued to those nasty little things.   I don’t like people who are loud on their cell phones, and it seems like that’s just about everybody.  Folks, we don’t want to hear your half of the conversation (take it outside, please).   Better yet, talk to the people you’re with.  And it bothers me when I see people thumb-diddling away on those little keyboards while ignoring the people they’re with.   Put the cell phone away and have a real conversation, face to face, like a normal person.  Whatever you’re doing on email or Facebook or some other mind-numbing empty-headed activity can’t be as important as looking other folks in the eye and talking with them.

Okay, back to the Bluetooth.  The deal with it is you can use your cell phone without having to hold it…the thing just takes my voice commands and calls whoever I tell it to call.  The good part is that I don’t need to break the law and hold my cell phone when I’m driving.   I hate it when I see people doing that because I know they’re not paying attention, and when you ride a motorcycle, seeing cell phone freaks on the highway is downright scary.   What I find with my car’s new Bluetooth system, though, is that I make a lot more phone calls than I used to just because I can.  It breaks up the drive.   When I used to see folks jabbering away in their cars all the time, I always wondered what in the world they were talking about.   Now I know…it’s mostly nothing.  They’re just killing time.  

Anyway, if it was up to me, I’d do away with cell phones altogether.    They bother me.   I don’t want to be that accessible, and I don’t want to hear other peoples’ cell phone conversations.   The human race seemed to do okay for a long time without cell phones.   I think we would do just fine marching into the future without them.

So….by now you’re probably tired of my rant, and I’ll turn back to motorcycle stuff.   Here’s a quick video of a Baja Blaster ride along the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in my neighborhood (with a brief pop at the end to clear out the carbon).    If you’re new to the blog, the Baja Blaster is my CSC 150 Classic.  I’ve been riding that little hot rod for a little over three years now, and it just keeps getting better and better.

Ah, my knees in the breeze….no Bluetooth, no GPS, no interruptions, and only the sound of the wind rushing by and the CSC 150 engine.   The real deal…just the way life is supposed to be.

And it’s a good one…

My buddy Alan Spears alerted me to this over on the ADVRider board.   It’s well worth a read!

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=874739

Great job, Stan, and thanks for telling us your story!

Wow, the last few months have just been a blur, with no end in sight…I’ve been on the road a lot!  Some of it on motorcycles…

And a lot of it in the air…

Some of it to exotic locales….

With exotic drinks…

And exotic foods…

Some of it in the US…

And some of it to locales overseas with extremely advanced manufacturing capabilities…

And some of it with cool stuff that’s a couple of centuries old, like this cool old mortar referred to as “the Dictator..”

And there’s lots more to come, folks…

I’m off to the windy city and then China next month (hopefully before it gets too hot), on to Baja for another bike trip, and then northern British Columbia (hopefully before it gets too cold).   You can bet that I’ll keep an eye out for cool bike stuff and great photo ops along the way, and I’ll be squeezing in great rides on the Baja Blaster the entire time.    I’m hitting a lot of new places these days, but I sure wish I was riding with my good buddy Simon in India and across Europe!    Wow, is that ever going to be an adventure!  

I’m “wheels in the well” at 0:Dark:30 again tomorrow, and then I’ll be back in the new plant for a few days.

And, I’m happy to tell you that we’ve received a whole bunch of suggested captions for that photo below with TK moving one of the CSC trikes around.   Keep ‘em coming (you can email your suggested captions to me at jberk@californiascooterco.com), and we’ll announce a winner at the end of next week!

Ride safe and stay tuned, my friends…

Here’s our good buddy Simon Gandolfi spreading the word around the world on California Scooter Company.   And when we say spreading the word around the world, that’s what we really mean.  Simon is in the editorial offices of India’s premier bike magazine, xBhp, in Delhi, India!

And here’s a shot of Simon with xBhp’s editorial staff!

Simon’s getting ready to ride from Delhi to London.   This is going to be an awesome adventure!

One of my favorite photos from the move….that’s TK on the forklift!

We’ll take entries for the caption that best goes with this photo through the end of next week, and we’ll give the winner a free CSC T-shirt!   Send them to me at jberk@californiascooterco.com!

You guys will remember our good friend and CSC rider Joel…

Our good buddy Joel at the start of our fuel economy testJoel in the hills above Malibu

Joel is a Cal Poly Pomona mechanical engineering student who is graduating pretty soon.  He recently posted this video on Facebook…it’s an internal combustion engine video created with Solidworks (one of the key engineering design programs our engineers learn at Cal Poly)…

Nice work, Joel, and congratulations on your approaching graduation!

This just in from Alan Spears regarding The Real Cannonball…a small-displacement scooter and motorcycle run from New York City to Redondo Beach…

The Real Cannonball Race Results:  Dr. Hixon won 1st Place Overall on his 70cc kitted Aprilia RS-50! BRAVO! CONGRATS!

Two Ninja 250cc, Bill and Deb, tied for second.

Stan’s Honda Helix 250cc broke in Barstow.

My Gilera 175cc broke just outside of Needles.  

Ryan (250cc) and Arthur (175cc) did not start.

A third 250cc motorcycle (Honda CBR250-R?) did not start, but made it as far as a New Jersey motel.

So three “Loopers” — aka Murar’s Marauders  – were the only ones to finish, taking the top spots.

I have no clue what mechanical ailments Stan’s Helix suffered.  Despite the problems with the exhaust, I probably could have nursed the Gilera to Redondo Beach had I been able to install the spare drive belt. Oh, well. . . that’s racing, eh?

Pix to follow. 

Alan Spears, President/CEO, http://www.motorscooterlandspeedfederation.org 

*****************************************************************************

This is exciting stuff, folks.  

Just imagine…riding across the US on a 70cc bike…and winning!

When I received the above email from our good buddy Alan, I immediately responded and asked for his permission to post his update on the CSC blog. 

Our good buddy Alan Spears at the MSILSF LSR trials

Alan was kind to give us permission to do so, and then a short while later I received a phone message from my good buddy Bill Murar.  You will remember Bill as the fellow who rode a California Scooter in the Lake Erie Loop about three years ago.   That was a 600+ mile one day circumnavigation around Lake Erie on a California Scooter. 

Bill Murar, motorcyclist extraordinaire, in the CSC jacket he wore during The Real Cannonball

Bill wanted us to know that he wore his California Scooter jacket during entire Real Cannonball coast-to-coast run, and I wanted to share that information with you!

Chasing Arlene and TK into Death Valley on the Hell's Loop run

And Alan is one of our great friends…he’s the guy who organized the Death Valley Hell’s Loop run (Arlene, TK, and I rode in that one), the Salton Sea races (Arlene and Joel rode their California Scooters in that event), and the International Land Speed trials (CSC took the trophy in the hybrid 150cc class when Syl Binau rode our specially-prepared LSR bike).  

Syl setting the Land Speed Record on a specially-prepared CSC motorcycle!

All good stuff!   Alan and Bill, a tip of our helmets to you for your great results in The Real Cannonball!  And Alan…a special thanks to you for all the great work you do in organizing these awesome events!

Yep, we’re in the new plant and we’re open for business!   Stop by to see us!

The new facility is awesome.  We’re at 1331 West Foothill Boulevard in Azusa, just off the 210 freeway and right across the street from Costco!

Our phone numbers, email, and everything else stays the same, except we have a more modern and much more accessible plant and showroom now!  We’ll be announcing a grand opening celebration in the near future, but we are in the new plant and we are ready to make a new CSC motorcycle just for you.

I saw the bike above on the Cal Poly campus during a lull in the rainstorms we experienced in So Cal yesterday.   A Duck in the rain…how cool is that?  I don’t know who the rider is, but he must be one hard core dude (or dudette, as the case may be) if he or she was out in that rain yesterday!   You’ll notice that the Ducati above was the only bike out there…normally, that stretch of parking space is grip-to-grip packed with motorcycles.

The sun is gingerly peeking out today, so if I get home early enough I may fire up the old Baja Blaster and grab a few photos.  Keep an eye on the blog tomorrow and you’ll know!