CSC Blog

It just keeps getting better, folks.   We’re wrapping up discussions on the initial CSC Cyclone deliveries.   Boy oh boy, do I have good news for you!

You guys and gals expressed your preference for the 17-inch rear wheel instead of the 15-inch rear wheel.    We had planned to offer the 17-inch rear wheel an aftermarket accessory and sell it to you at a very reasonable $258.95, but the Boss said:  Hey, why do that if most people want the 17-inch wheel?

You spoke, we heard you, and here’s the deal:   The 17-inch rear wheel will be standard equipment on a new CSC Cyclone!   We’ll include the cush drive, too.   All at no additional cost to you.

Another Cyclone rolls off the line…yours will have the 17-inch rear wheel and cush drive!

The difference in final drive gearing with the new 17-inch rear wheel is trivially small.   The 17-inch rear wheel (with tire) is slightly smaller in diameter than the 15-inch rear wheel (with tire) using the bike’s standard 80/20 dual sport tires.   You read that right…going to the larger rear wheel will actually very slightly lower the final drive ratio.   The difference is that the larger rear wheel will give a final drive ratio that’s about 2.6% lower (but that’s with the stock tires…change to another tire and that will change again).   And if you’re like me and you want to experiment with different gearing to tune the bike to your kind of riding, rest assured:  We’re going to stock a variety of sprockets.   Whatever floats your boat, we’ll have it.

Hey, did you think it stops there?   Not so, my friends.   We know that ADV riders accessorize their bikes, and we know that folks who take motorcycling seriously ride year round.    Cold weather?   Bring it on!

One of my objectives on this trip was to speak directly to the engineers and find out what the Cyclone’s alternator puts out, what it takes to run the motorcycle, and how much was left over for accessories.   There’s good news and more good news here…the Cyclone alternator output is 220 watts, and the bike only needs 160 watts for its standard equipment.    That 220 watts compares pretty favorably to my KLR-650’s output of 187 watts.   Still, real riders need real power…you know, auxiliary lighting, heated vests, heated grips, GPS, and more.    So we asked the chiefs in Chongqing:  Any chance of getting more?

No problem here, either.   More power?   Coming up!  It turns out there’s an 18-pole Cyclone stator available, and it provides a whopping 300 watts!   Wowee, that’s more than the 280-watt high performance upgraded aftermarket alternator you can put in a KLR-650 (and the ticket for that KLR part is over $200, not counting labor).

Wanna know what the 300-watt alternator is going to cost in your new Cyclone?

$0.

Yep, you read that right.   The 300-watt alternator is going to be standard equipment.   No extra charge.   Zero more dollars.   You can argue with us all you want, but we absolutely will not let you pay more for your new CSC Cyclone.  You can thank us over a shot of Tequila, after we’ve put the bikes away for the evening on the Baja ride!

Don’t get me wrong, folks…I’m not badmouthing the KLR.  You know that I own one and I’ve been riding it for close to 10 years now.   And we’ve heard the arguments about how it’s not fair to compare a 250 to a 650.  But the CSC Cyclone doesn’t know that.  It just keeps doing what it does, and it just keeps doing it better!

More interesting tidbits.    Folks asked about the swingarm, and in particular, there was a question about its pivots.   Lower-cost motorcycles often use plastic bushings at this critical point.  Not on this motorcycle, my friends.   The Cyclone swingarm uses four needle bearings…two on each side!

The CSC Cyclone uses four swingarm pivot needle bearings

Another tidbit…the Cyclone has a rev limiter that kicks in at 11,000 rpm.  The tach redline is 9,000 rpm.   I didn’t know that until I talked to the bike’s designers on this trip.    Cool stuff to know.

Oh, the tidbits are tumbling out….

You wanted a shot of the white Cyclone.   Well here you go…

The white CSC Cyclone

I know….I know.   The aluminum luggage on that bike….wow!    The short version…no, we aren’t publishing the price yet (but we will soon).   No, you can’t order it instead of the stock luggage.   Yes, the top bag will take a full face helmet.   Yes, it’s real aluminum.   Yes, it’s quick detach.   Now, don’t be calling the plant and bugging the folks there about this yet.   We’ll post more info on this soon.   But if you drive the guys in the factory nuts with phone calls, they’ll yell at me, and then I’ll have to stop sharing this cool stuff with you.   Hang in there…we’ll let you know soon!

And yet another tidbit…this one was an absolute joy to take in…every single Cyclone motorcycle is dynamometer tested before it leaves the factory.    Listen to this:  The Cyclone has a published top speed of 84 mph.    But that’s not what it’s tested to on the dyno.   Every one of these puppies has to spin that dyno up to 91 mph.  That’s the minimum.   The bikes I watched topped 94 mph on the dyno!   I know that’s not real world (on the dyno, the bike doesn’t have to fight aerodynamic drag), but still, when I saw this my only thought was:   Damn!  (Pardon my language, folks…but this is impressive stuff!)

Getting ready to run up the dyno on a brand new Cyclone

Do the math, folks…that’s 94.4 mph!

Oh, there’s lots more good stuff.    We’ll be publishing prices on some of the accessories we’re bringing to you for your new motorcycle in the near future.   I’ll talk more about the fuel gage and speedometer accuracy issues, too, but those are topics for another blog.

We’ll be in China for another few days.  Serious sightseeing for Susie and yours truly starts tomorrow.   More photos coming your way…along with more news about the exciting new Cyclone.

Stay tuned!

Wow, have I got great stuff to share with you.   Bottom line first…I watched the line from start to finish as the wizards of Chongqing built your favorite motorcycles!   Lots more coming up, but just a teaser photo first…

Another favorite…sharing photos of what it’s like riding in the USA with the tech team at Zongshen…

And let me tell you, here in Chongqing these boys ride their Cyclones hard and put them away wet…

More to follow, boys and girls.   Right now Susie’s telling me to get off the computer ’cause it’s time to eat.

We might do Chinese for dinner tonight…

My Baja Blaster

I guess I’ll start by telling you that riding my CSC-150 Baja Blaster, Steve’s resurrection of the venerable vintage Mustang, has been good practice for me and this visit to Chongqing.   When you ride a CSC motorcycle, you collect stares wherever you go (we call it the rock star syndrome, and we even had a CSC custom in the early days we named the Rock Star).  That’s sure been the situation here in Chongqing.   Susie and I are the only non-Chinese folks everywhere we’ve been, starting with our getting on the airplane in Beijing, and people are naturally curious.   It’s like riding the CSC…we’re drawing the stares.   Like the title of this blog says, we’re well off the tourist trail on this trip!

The view from our 21st floor hotel room…it stays misty in this mystical city!

After a great breakfast this morning (see the blog below), we asked about the things to see and do in Chongqing, and our sights this morning settled firmly on a cable car ride across the Yangtze River.   We started by grabbing a cab…

I hope this guy knows where we want to go, I thought to myself as we got in his cab…

It’s strange…the cabbie spoke no English, so the guy at the hotel had to explain what we wanted.   Then he gave us a card so that when wanted to return, we could show it to the next cab driver.   Another sign of not being in Kansas anymore, I guess…

It’s a bit on the cold side over here, but hey, riders ride and the Chinese are no exception to that rule.   These folks use their motorcycles as transportation, as trucks, as cabs, and more…

This guy would make a good KLR rider…looks like this bike gets washed about as often as my KLR!

If you take a close look at the photo above, you’ll notice something that’s pretty common here in Chongqing…a set of handwarmers.    These are no-fooling-around, guaranteed-to-keep-your-paws-toasty, sure-fire handwarmers, folks! They go way beyond the heated grips that BMW brags about (and that we’ll be offering as options on the Cyclone, by the way).   I’ll show you a few more motorcycle photos; be sure to check out the handwarmers on many of these bikes.

Here’s another shot…a Chinese scooter equipped with what has to be the ultimate luggage rack…

The world’s ultimate luggage rack?

The Yangtze River cable car ride was awesome.   It’s about 4,000 feet across the river, and we were packed into that little box like sardines.   Going up to the cable car in the elevator gave a hint of what was to come…we were squeezed in with folks I’ve never met before, and I was already more intimate with them than I had been on most of my high school dates.   I guess that’s just a natural consequence of being in a city with 34 million inhabitants.

A scene vaguely reminiscent of a James Bond movie…that’s downtown Chongqing in the mist

In the photo above, just to the right of us is where the Yangtze and the Jialing rivers meet.   It’s the downtown area that you’ll see in the following photos.   34 million people live here.  I’m pretty sure we met about half of them this morning.

First, a photo of a Chinese postal service motorcycle.   They paint their postal service vehicles green.   Zongshen is a big supplier of motorcycles to the Chinese postal service.  Check out the handwarmers on this rig!

A postal service motorcycle in downtown Chongqing…check out the handwarmers, and the parcels

Here’s another bike we spotted while walking downtown…

Live to ride…ride to live…and loud pipes save lives (or something like that)

There were a lot of people out and about today.  There were so many people on the sidewalks we were starting to get a little claustrophobic.  It’s way worse than New York City.   You won’t get a sense of that in the photos that follow, mostly because I waited until there were brief instances when the crowds parted to give me a less-obstructed photo.

Fresh fruit delivered the old-fashioned way…

Another fruit transporter…

I grabbed a few more scenes on our walk downtown…

Interesting…this fellow was making and selling necklace pendants from animal teeth…those are skulls on the ground in front of him!

Sidewalk art…

Colors abound in downtown Chongqing…

Here’s a cool shot of a youngster who wasn’t too sure about this old guy in an Indiana Jones hat taking his photograph…they don’t see too many people like Susie and me in this neighborhood!

Why is this guy taking my picture?

And of course, the food vendors.   We did a lot of walking and bumping into people (literally; the sidewalks were jam packed…it was wall-to-wall humanity).   It made me a little hungry.   Check out the food photos, folks…

Feeling hungry?

Top Ramen?

I’ll bet it all tastes good…

Oranges being delivered the hard way…

Chongqing used to be known in the West as Chun King.   The way the Chinese pronounce it, it almost sounds like Chun King.   When I was a kid, my Mom used to buy Chinese noodles and the name of the company on the can was Chun King.   Little did I know that it was a real place and one day more than a half century later I’d be visiting it!

People…lots of people…and motorcycles…lots of motorcycles!

Another Chinese rider in downtown Chongqing!

Just another photo or two, folks.   The Chinese use these three-wheel vehicles that I guess are cars, but they are based on a tricycle design.   I had not encountered this particular model before, so I grabbed a photo…

A three-wheeler…it’s a cool concept!

I looked inside of one of the three wheelers and it actually looked pretty nice in there.   They are used as taxis.   Maybe we’ll grab a ride in one before we leave Chongqing.

I told Susie that I was getting a bit tired (we’re still fighting the time change).  I think I said I wanted to stop monkeying around and head back to the hotel.   That’s when she pointed this scene out to me…

Monkeying around in downtown Chongqing…

I think that’s probably enough for now, folks.   Tomorrow’s the first day of this visit with the good folks from Zongshen.   I’ve been following all the stuff on the forums and in your emails to me, and I’ll address many of the things you’ve written about.   I won’t be able to post all of it here, but keep an eye on the blog and maybe I’ll get a photo or two of the factory.    I’m pumped, and I’m looking forward to our discussions tomorrow.

Later, my friends.

The obligatory Indiana Jones selfie…

Well, not really…but it sure feels like it could be.   It took us over 30 hours of traveling to get here…a 6-hour flight from LAX to Honolulu, a 2-hour layover, almost 13 hours from Honolulu to Beijing, a 2-hour layover in Beijing, and then another 3 hours to Chongqing.   It was a good set of flights, though.   I read Bill O’Reilly’s latest blockbuster Killing Patton (it was excellent; you should read it), and when I finished that, I started re-reading (for about the 5th time) Peter Egan’s Leanings (it’s one of those books every rider should read).   The flights went by quickly, even though we practically needed a calendar (rather than a watch) to measure the length of this journey.   With the help of the international date line, we arrived in Chongqing two days after we left LA!

Our Zongshen point of contact, Bella, was waiting for us at the airport, and then it was another hour to the hotel.   Whew!

Susie and I were on our second wind by the time we arrived in Chongquing.   We didn’t feel tired at all, perhaps because we managed to nap a bit on the flight from Hawaii to Beijing.   But it was that kind of fitful napping when you wake up every 20 minutes trying to find a comfortable position in which to sleep.   And folks, that just doesn’t exist in an airline seat designed for the mythical 98-lb weaklings featured in the Charles Atlas Dynamic Tension ads of yesteryear.    You geezers out there know what I’m talking about.

Susie Q and Bella posing in Chongqing

Chongqing is exactly as I remembered it.   Immense.   Skyscrapers shrouded in mist, peeking up through the green mountains.   Hills.   Valleys.   The Chiang Jiang bisecting the city (Chiang Jiang, in Chinese, means the long river…it runs from western China all the way across the country to Shanghai on the east coast).    We know the Chiang Jiang as the Yangtze.   Like I told Susie…Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.  Susie and I are going to get out to grab a few photos later today and I’ll see if I can capture the mystical nature of this place.

We had a great lunch at a traditional Chinese Sichuan restaurant with Bella.   Chongqing is known for its spicy food.   Good stuff and good food….

Hot, spicy, and (trust me on this) very tasty…

You know, Christmas in China has become a tradition for Susie and me.   I think this is the third or fourth time we’ve been in China over the holiday season.   China officially has no religion, although they celebrate Christmas as much as we do.   There’s Christmas music everywhere, all in English, and all with American artists.   The same goes for Christmas decorations….

A scene in downtown Chongqing, with Frank Sinatra singing a Christmas carol over the PA system…

Say what you will, but I’ve spent a lot of time here and I can tell you the Chinese are not a lot different from us.   They admire the US and I’ve never detected even a hint of animosity.   As is our habit when we are here, we read the China Daily (their English language daily newspaper) over a dynamite breakfast in the hotel a little while ago.   It’s like USA Today, but better written and with more substance.   There’s a political lean to it, but I have to tell you, it’s more pro-American than either the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times (two other papers I like to read with breakfast when I am in the US).    Maybe it’s because of their exposure to us in so many different ways.  Bella told us over lunch that they enjoy most of our TV shows (The Big Bang Theory is a favorite, as I also found it to be in Turkey and in Scotland earlier this year).   And, of course, some of their favorite food spots are distinctly American…

The Colonel, the coffee, the Big Mac, and the DQ….all the comforts and calories of home…

Anyway, the breakfast was awesome.   Like all of the fancy hotels we’ve stayed in while in China, this one has a breakfast buffet to beat the band.   Susie wanted an omelet with egg whites only…try translating that!  One of the guys standing around helped us by explaining this to the chef, and I actually watched that omelet artist extract the yolks, unbroken, from the pan with chopsticks!  Kids, don’t try that at home!

China is a land of many contrasts, and Chongqing’s street scenes fully show that with the contrast of bright colors and gray architecture…

I was going to ask the balloon lady to make a motorcycle, but Susie wouldn’t let me…

More color in Chongqing, and we’ll have more to show you later…

That’s it for now.   We’re going to go down to the hotel gym in a bit where I’ll do my world-famous impersonation of a California gray whale on an exercise bike  (no photos of that, folks…so you’ll have to ride with us to Baja if you want to see it in person).   The work starts tomorrow when I’ll be in the Zongshen plant.

More to follow, so stay tuned…

Evans Brasfield’s stunning Cyclone shot for Motorcycle.com…a magnificent photograph!

When the oldest and biggest online motorcycle magazine gives you a call, you pay attention.   Hell, we pay attention whenever a magazine calls us, but I’ve been following Motorcycle.com for 20 years (yep, they started in 1994).   When they called, it was an especially good feeling.   Tom Roderick (the writer) and Evans Brasfield (the photographer, who also does a lot of writing) visited with us last week and it was a hoot.   Freeway, dirt, twisties…we did it all, and meeting these fellows and watching them work was a special treat.

So, the article…you can read it here.   And when you’ve finished reading it, come on back to the blog so I can share some of the photos I grabbed on our outing last week.   I held off on publishing them on the blog because I didn’t want to jump ahead of the Motorcycle.com guys.

First, my shot of Evans at work…and how about that awesome RX-3 photo above?   Here’s what it looks like when you get to watch two professionals at work.

Evans in the dirt with a wide-angle lens photographing the RX-3

We rode into the little mountain town of Lytle Creek and then I took the guys up to Sheep Canyon for the “in the dirt” photos.    Here’s a few of the photos I grabbed…

Evans and his KTM

This is Bob, another guy on a KTM…I never met him, he was riding in the same area, and he was happy to pose for a photo!

Evans getting dialed in on the road into Lytle Creek

Tom Roderick leaning into a corner

Tom Roderick having fun on the RX-3

Evans setting Tom up for the next series of action photos

After playing on the twisties leading into Lytle Creek and in the dirt, we headed up Lone Pine Road to the Grizzly Café in Wrightwood.

I guess I should mention that I told Tom not to be afraid to push the RX-3.   He was not.   He and Evans passed me (I was riding my KLR) and that was it…those boys were GONE!

I tried to catch up, consoling myself that Evans was on an 1199cc motorcycle and that’s why I couldn’t run in the same league.   Tom, though, was on the 250cc RX-3, and let me tell you, that guy can ride!   I watched him lean into the first corner, and that was the last I saw of either of those guys until they stopped a few miles up the road for more photos.   I’m a little bit embarrassed to tell you that Tom and the 250 Cyclone left me and my 650 KLR in the dust.   It was humbling, but impressive.

Okay, so back to the Grizzly Café part of the story.   I had the world’s best tuna melt (no kidding, like Tom on the RX-3 diving into a corner, it was impressive, too).   If I remember correctly Evans got a burger.   Tom ordered this roast beef and jalapeno chemical weapons sandwich even after the waitress told him it was “pretty hot.”   When she brought the food to our table a few minutes later, it hurt just looking at those peppers hanging out of Tom’s sandwich.  Tom had no problems, though.   This guy eats like he rides!

Tom Roderick, whipping tight corners and weapons-grade jalapeno peppers into submission

Evans Brasfield, photog extraordinaire!

After wrapping up our late lunch, I grabbed a parting shot of the grizzly above the restaurant….

A great spot for lunch…the Grizzly Cafe!

Another fun day, folks.    And Evans and Tom, thanks for the great review!

I’m off to Zongshen in a bit, boys and girls.   Ride safe, watch out for the grizzlies, and keep an eye on the blog!

An expression when I was in high school…if something was very, very cool, we would say it was tough as a moose….

Moose handguards, that is, or those are (in the photo above).   Just playing around with these a bit, folks…

The orange Cyclone is out being fitted with other accessories, or else we would have put the handguards you see above on it.

More to follow.

Oh, yeah…the accessories are going to be awesome!

Just a quick peek at some of the things the Skunkworks guys are putting the final touches on for you!

More to follow, my friends…

And yet another nice photo of a very cool Bobber, this time from my good buddy Twin Peaks Steve…

I’ve ridden with Steve and I can tell you that his bike is awesome.   It’s one of the best-looking customs to ever leave the factory.   Of course, they’re all beautiful.

Hey, Twin Peaks Steve, San Marino Bill, and all the rest of you Mustangers out there…how about a ride up to Mt. Baldy for lunch (along Glendora Ridge Road, of course) when I return from China?

Our good buddy San Marino Bill (aka Bobber Bill) soared with us on several San Gabriel Mountains sorties.   Bill answered the call and sent us several photos of his CSC cycles.    He knows a good thing when he sees it…he bought two CSC-150s!

Here’s a shot of one of Bill’s bikes…it was one of the project bikes when we first developed the Bobber series.   Here’s the first Bobber as we sold it to Bill…

This next one is a beauty shot up in the mountains.   Bill is an artistic sort of guy, as this photo shows…

And here’s a photo of Bill’s second CSC-150 framed by the old art deco bridges in Pasadena…

Awesome shots, Bill…thanks for sharing!

You guys and gals remember Paul H. Smith, our good buddy from ADVMoto Magazine…

Well, Paul had nice things to say about the CSC Cyclone in the next issue of his fine magazine…

We love it!   Paul, thanks very much, and please make sure to keep us in your plans for the Baja ride…we’d love to have you ride with us!