The next ride, good times, and English walnut…

First things first…our next company ride will be on October 18th.  That’s a Friday, and we’ll be leaving from the plant at 9:00 a.m.   It will be about a 50-miler, folks, with most of that up in the San Gabriel Mountains’ legendary twisties.   Yep, you can put yourself in the photo below…

October 18th, folks....or you can show up early for breakfast, too!

I love that photo…it perfectly captures what it’s like to be on a California Scooter carving canyons up in the San Gabriels. I’d like to see you in that photo, and I’ve got the Nikon to do it.  Steve will be there, and so will I.  We want you there, too!

My amigo Marty and me...in my skinny days

I had a real nice day today.  My buddy Marty and I bopped around a bit and hit some great places.   You may remember Marty…I’ve sure talked about our rides on the blog a lot.    We’ve been riding together for about a dozen years, and we’ve had some great ones.   Some of the rides were international, too….from here to Mexico, from here to Canada, from Canada to Mexico…you get the idea.   Awesome fun.  We were in the car today so we had plenty of time to talk, and we relived some of the adventures.   Just awesome stuff.  

Some of those rides I did on unlikely bikes, too…real hardcore sports bikes (tough on the wrists and the back).   One time we ran way down into Mexico and I was on a Suzuki TL1000S (I bought that bike from Steve’s brother Ron).   That was a fun ride…one stretch of two-lane road in Baja’s coastal plains runs straight and level for 25 miles before arriving in Guerrero Negro.  I ran that stretch at 145 mph (don’t try that at home, boys and girls).   What I hadn’t counted on was the TL’s tremendous thirst…it ran out of fuel about two miles before we got to the next fuel stop.   Or maybe I had counted on it…I had a one-gallon gas container strapped to the rear seat, and it sure came in handy that day.

Our first stop today was the stock factory out in the Valley (I mentioned it a blog or two down).   It’s an interesting facility.   I bought my barreled action in so that the nice young lady there could make sure the barrel channel is the right size.  The stock is a select piece of English walnut, and I’m having it made with an ebony forearm tip and an ebony pistol grip cap.   I’ve got to wait another month for them to rough inlet it, fit the ebony pieces and the recoil pad, and then I get to start my work.   It’s going to be awesome.

English walnut, a Howa barreled action in 375 Ruger, and the makings of a masterpiece

Our next stop was at a gunsmith…we had dropped off three handguns there about three weeks ago.   That didn’t go so well.  Like you, I don’t much care for late work or sloppy work.   One gun wasn’t ready, one was, and a third was the bungled effort of a guy calling himself a gunsmith who was a ham-fisted fool.   You can bet I let my feelings be known.  We took all of our toys and left.  Win some…lose some.  Some days you get the bear…and some days the bear gets you.    You’ll never see that kind of work on a CSC product.

After the gunsmith debacle (and trust me on this, I use the word “gunsmith” loosely here), we went to lunch.   We went to a wonderful Italian restaurant…di Pilla’s in Rosemead, a favorite of mine for over 25 years.   Like always, it was a real treat.   Eggplant parmigiani, a pasta side, their pizza-dough bread…wow, I gotta look at the photo of the skinny me above and slow down.  It sure was good, though.

After lunch we rolled over to the CSC plant.   We had a great visit with the crew and looked at the new CSC bikes being built in the manufacturing area.   Awesome stuff, folks.   Steve said we’re getting a lot of calls and sales from folks visiting our website on the Internet.   We’ve made a lot of changes and upgrades to our California Scooter Company website.  If you haven’t visited it recently, please give us a click on www.CSCMotorcycles.com.   You’ll like it.

And, of course, there’s the good news about the next CSC factory ride.   Steve asked me to set up the next ride for the 18th, and that’s what’s going to happen.   I’m excited and I’m looking forward to it.  It’s always fun.  We love getting together with our riders and we love riding.   I hope every one of you can make it on this next adventure.