Project bikes, forest fires, hot VWs, and more…

Wow, there’s lots of cool stuff (and hot stuff, too) to share with you today.  For starters, the last of our project bikes sold this week….

As soon as Lupe finished polishing the bike above, the boys crated it up and put it on a truck headed to Michigan.  Cool stuff, and the project bikes were awesome deals for those who jumped on them.   As you’ll remember, the project bikes were the ones we used for engineering development projects.   The blue one that Lupe is detailing was our Euro project bike…it has features needed for European motorcycles.

Our regular bikes are awesome deals, too.   In fact, I’m firing Baja Blaster up as soon as I’m done with the blog this morning.   I’ve owned my CSC 150 for three years now and I still get excited about getting on it.   Maybe I’ll grab some video on this morning’s ride and share that with you later.

This week has certainly been exciting.  As you know, our new California Scooter plant is right at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains (one of our favorite riding areas).   If you’ve been watching the news, you know we get forest fires up there, and this year is no exception.   We had one this week that was a real Deusy.   I live 20 miles from the plant, and we knew about it late Monday evening because we could smell it in the night air.  By the next morning our California fire fighters had mostly beaten it down, but they were still working on the hot spots the next day.

All of the following shots are from the back of the California Scooter factory looking north…

That’s Azusa Canyon, exactly where we’ve ridden up to Glendora Ridge Road and many of our other favorite spots.

These next shots show the fire fighting planes and helicopters dropping water and fire retardant…

After grabbing the above photos I was about to leave when I noticed an ultra cool 1963 VW Notchback in the parking lot.   Over on the Pro-One side of the house we sell VW accessories and we get to see some pretty cool cars.   This one is one of the best…

The 1500 Notchback above is owned by Tommy.   I had a nice conversation with him.   Tommy bought the car from his son.   It looked pretty good to me.   I like old stuff and I like meeting the folks who enjoy using it.

Tommy’s car and the story behind it brought back some good memories for me.  I had a ’73 Beetle back in the day that my Dad drove when I went overseas in the Army.   Dad loved that car and he didn’t want to give it up when I got home (those little air-cooled VWs can get to you that way).   Tommy’s story of getting the VW from his son reminded me of my experience.

That’s it for now, folks.   The Baja Blaster beckons.   It’s time to get my knees in the breeze…