Homeward bound…and the Riding Activity!

First, a photo of my two best friends at Zongshen…meet Fan and Bella!

That’s the new 2015 Zongshen Z-1 in the photo above, and I rode it (and a couple of other new models) yesterday.   The Z-1 is great…so much so that I did not want to stop riding it, and I spent a little time rolling around the huge Zongshen manufacturing campus.   What a day, and as my good buddy Reuben would say, what a life!

As I’ve written before, the Zongshen facility is enormous.   Here’s a photo showing their main office building…

I’ve visited some interesting places on the Zongshen campus, including their motorcycle assembly area, their machining centers, their engine assembly areas, and their R&D center.  All of these places were fascinating, but one of the most interesting spots is the R&D center.   Basically, I went behind the green curtain on this visit, and the things I saw were intriguing.    Very, very intriguing.

You might notice something a bit different in the two photos above…the sun was shining!  In all my trips to Chonqging, yesterday was the first time I saw the sun.   Bella told me that happens, and it sure did yesterday.   It was a good day for a motorcycle ride.   It was very hot and the humidity here is off the charts, but it was still a good day for a motorcycle ride.   Any day is a good day for a motorcycle ride.   But yesterday was especially nice.

Back to that Z-1 for a moment…the engine uses new technology and I’ll explain more about it in a future blog.  I’m a mechanical engineer and a motorcyclist, and from both an engineering and a riding perspective, what the good folks at Zongshen have done here is most impressive.  This is an amazing motorcycle.

Okay, on to the Riding Activity I mentioned in the title of this blog.   The Riding Activity: That’s what the Chinese call it.  We call it an epic motorcycle ride.   Five Zongshen guys are flying to the US from China on July 15th, and we’re taking them (and maybe you) on an epic ride around the western US.  It will be an RX3 lollapalooza (and yes, I’m laughing to myself as I picture my Zongshen friends using their iPhone translators to find that word).  You are invited to ride with us on all or any part of the ride.   I’ll be on the entire ride, as will our good buddy and travel director Baja John, and we’ll have a number of journalists popping in for different parts of the trip.   We’ll be publishing the itinerary next week, so keep an eye on us.  I promise you this…it will be epic!