New Zealand, new rifles, and more…

A good weekend and a good Monday today…the containers are being unloaded in Long Beach, and I received a nice letter from my new good buddy Martin in New Zealand.  Martin is a dealer (Belamoto) in New Zealand who’s bringing the RX3 to that beautiful land.   Martin wrote some interesting things and he had a cool photo of the RX3 next to a GS 1200 BMW.

First, the photo…

Seeing that photo says a lot to me.   In US dollars, the CSC RX3 is $3,495.   The GSA is around $23,000.   The RX3 will do 84 mph.  The GSA is faster.   If you drop the RX3, you can pick it up.   If you drop the GSA…well, you know.   If you want to know how to service the RX3, you can go right here for the CSC maintenance tutorials.   If you want BMW’s online service tutorials (or Harley’s, or Honda’s, or…well, you get the idea) search for those links and let me know what you find.   If you want a free Service Manual, buy a CSC RX3.   If you want a BMW service manual (or one from Harley, or Honda, or well, you know…) bring your credit card.

I really like Martin’s photo.  It’s a picture that’s worth a thousand words.

There was some cool stuff in Martin’s letter to me…

…putting aside the fact that we’re used to our 1200s, for what it is, the RX3 is loads of fun to ride. It feels nimble but planted on the road, seated and standing, and I really felt I could throw it into the corners. I can’t wait to see what it’s like once run in and I can really open it up, plus I’m keen to test it on gravel…

…everyone we’ve shown it to has been really impressed so far – it definitely has more ‘presence’ than you would expect for a 250…

And here’s another comment Martin made on one of the Internet forums following  the RX3…

…assembly was no problem. The setup tutorial on CSC’s blog was a big help…

Hey, we’re glad to hear that, Martin, and thanks for the compliment!

More good stuff…we’ve had several instances already of people commenting on the forums about my good buddy Ryan’s professionalism and willingness to take the time necessary to help folks with their purchasing decisions.   Folks, Ryan is a great guy and we really appreciate the compliments!

Sometimes I go tangential on other topics, and here I go again.   More than a few of you tell me you like the gun stuff I occasionally post here, and I have to tell you about two super deals I pulled the trigger on this weekend.  One of my favorite shops is the Gunrunner in Duarte, and he had some interesting rifles in there when I stopped by on Saturday.  One was a custom Ruger No. 1 (Ruger’s ultra classy single-shot rifle) with an exotic stock and fore end….

This Ruger rifle is a custom proposition from the git go, including the cartridge…it’s what we call a wildcat (a custom cartridge that you have to make yourself).   It’s 6mm Improved, which is a real oddball, but I don’t care.  At the price I paid for this, I already have a guy who will put a standard .30 06 barrel on the rifle, and I similarly already have a guy who wants to buy the 6mm Improved barrel.   Sometimes everything just goes the way you want it to.

After I thought I had finished my negotiations on the Ruger, I noticed another rifle…an older .223 Remington Model 700.   It’s a standard (non custom) rifle, but it’s another one with a price that was just too good to walk away from.    And the photos don’t do it justice.  It has a real contrasty bit of walnut with horizontal dark stripes that are unusually nice on a production gun.   I’m still watching Frank and Mike on the American Pickers TV show (I watch that show every chance I get), and I’m still honing my negotiating skills.  As Frank would say, it was time to do some bundling, and I did…

That Remington is going to get a scope and I’m looking forward to seeing how well it does.

You’re probably thinking I sunk a ton of money into these two rifles, but I did not.  The two of them cost what a new set of RX3 Tourfella luggage cost, and folks, that’s a steal (both for the rifles and for the RX3’s aluminum luggage)!

Well, we are a motorcycle company, so I guess I should get back to motorcycle stuff.  I’ll be in the shop tomorrow morning with my Nikon, and I’ll capture some more photos for you.

Steve is talking to the Long Beach Harbor folks, our shipping agent, and everyone else who has any impact on our bikes arriving in Azusa, and we hope to have answers on that question soon (as well as the next big question, which is, of course:  When are we going to Baja?).

You for sure will want to bring your camera on the Baja trip!   Our guy Matt has been doing a magnificent job on the new blog layout, and he’s given me some features I have not had before.  Let’s see if I can do this right…here’s a panoramic shot stitched together from nine photos of the area around Baja’s Guerrero Negro lighthouse…it looks like it’s only 650 pixels wide (the width of the blog column), but click that photo and see what you get, and then click it again!

Baja, folks….it’s coming up!  And you’ll know the dates as soon as we do!