She’s mine!

Up at 3:30 a.m. today to make a 5:10 flight out of British Columbia, a hop to Vancouver, the long stretch down to LA (flew right over a snow-capped Mt. Saint Helens), back to CSC headquarters, and folks, she’s all mine!   What could be better than putting the first 50 miles on a new RX3 on Glendora Ridge Road?   Putting the first 50 miles on my new RX3 on Glendora Ridge Road…that’s what!

And here she is…

If you click on the photos, they’ll get bigger.   Go ahead…click on each one…the photos are awesome, and so is the bike!

Folks, my bike is awesome.   I’ll put some serious miles on the new Cyclone tomorrow, but let me give you my first impressions:

• The bike feels faster than the three test mules we’ve been riding.   I was keeping it below 5,000 rpm riding along Glendora Ridge Road, but it definitely has more grunt on the bottom end.
• The pipe sounds better than the test mules.   It’s throatier.  It sounds great.
• The orange is way more orange than our orange test bike.   You can see it in the above photos.   I wondered why Zongshen called the bike orange (our test bike is more of a yellow than an orange), but the new ones are definitely orange.  I like it.   A lot.
• The speedometer optimism has been cut in half.   It’s still a bit optimistic, but it’s a lot closer to reality now.
• The 17-inch rear wheel doesn’t change the height of the bike at all.   The handling is crisper with the 17-inch rear wheel than with the 15-inch rear wheel.   I thought both bikes (the 15-inch and the 17-inch rear wheel) rode about the same, but I’ve changed my opinion.   The 17-inch rear wheel makes the bike more responsive.   I’ll make a confession…when all you guys on the Internet were asking for the 17-inch rear wheel, I couldn’t see why you thought it was a good idea.   You were right and I was wrong.   The 17-inch wheel is a significant improvement.

So that’s it for now.   Tomorrow…I’m in the wind!