San Francisco!

We were in San Francisco this morning, and we rolled out early today headed back toward So Cal. Two more days on the road and we’re home!

The bikes have been performing well. I thought I’d take a moment and talk about what’s good and where we could maybe do a little better.

For starters, the bike is (to me) a surprisingly comfortable ride. I have our optional sheepskin cover on my bike and I’m fine with that. It works for some people; others want a different seat. We’ve got one of the new Seat Concepts seats on Baja John’s bike. Both he and Joe Gresh took turns riding with it. They both like it.

If you’re one of the people who don’t like the stock rear seat, you’ll want to consider it. I haven’t ridden with it yet just because I have so much on my mind keeping track of everybody, making sure we stay safe, and everything else that goes with a ride like this that I didn’t want to introduce any more variables. So, for that reason, I stayed with the stock seat for this ride.

You know, in 50+ years of riding motorcycles, I’ve never had a bike with what I considered a comfortable seat. My KLR 650 has unquestionably had the least comfortable seat I’ve ever encountered on a motorcycle, but a sheepskin cover fixed that for me (it’s why I added the sheepskin cover to the RX3 as soon as I got it). But I’m not expecting a Cadillac comfort level from the RX3 or any other motorcycle. My riding style is such that I stop every hour or so for a stretch break. As they say, different strokes for different folks. John and Joe Gresh both like the new seat. A lot. I think it’s a good thing, but I can’t (yet) tell you from personal experience.

The RX3 fuel economy has been great on this trip. I had at least a couple of tanks where I bumped up over 80 mpg, and a few where I was under 70 mpg. We’re running the bikes hard (I mean, really hard…as in hours on end at 7500 rpm). When you are rolling into headwinds with the throttle pegged, fuel economy is going to suffer. But overall, the bike is easy on fuel. We’ve been running the lowest octane we found at every refill. In Utah, that was 85, and the bikes ran fine on it.

We’ve had one flat tire, and that was on Joe Gresh’s bike. He tells me he’s always the guy to get flat tires on all of his rides. I don’t know…maybe the rest of us have just been lucky.

Speaking of tires, I bumped over 8200 miles on the clock today (as of right now I’m at 8500), and I’m still on the original rear tire. I think it will go the distance for this ride. We’ve still got a little over 450 miles to go (188 now, because when I wrote this early this morning, I had poor connectivity and I couldn’t post it). I really don’t want to wrestle with a tire change on the ride home. The original tire will get me home.

Of our 10 to 15 bikes (we’ve had other people join us on the ride, as you know from reading the blog), we’ve had 3 or 4 that have lost their low beam. These have been easy repairs (you just replace the bulb). When you consider that we’ve rolled up close to 50,000 miles on these motorcycles in the last 17 days, I think that’s good. Changing a bulb is not a big deal, so I’m not losing any sleep over that one, and I’ve had headlight bulbs conk out on long trips on Hondas, a Suzuki, Triumphs, and Harleys. No big deal.

We made a decision not to do any valve adjustments during the ride. We adjusted the valves on all of the bikes before the ride, and we’re going to check them when we return to So Cal. If the valves are still in spec, we’ll extend the recommended valve adjustment interval. We’re not doing it yet, though, so for the time being please abide by the inspection frequency we’ve already recommended. But keep an eye on the blog. I think we’re going to be able to extend the interval, and I’ll post that information soon.

The engineers at Zongshen tell us the chain life on these bikes (with the original chains) is about 7500 miles. That’s a pretty accurate prediction. We’re pounding these things, and the chains are showing it on the bikes that have reached that mileage. I had around 3500 miles on my bike when I started this ride, and John and Joe Gresh’s bikes (which had similar mileage on them at the start of the ride) are experiencing the same thing (in fact, we replaced Joe’s chain yesterday). At around the 5000-mile mark, my chain (as well as John and Joe’s) needed daily adjustment (but don’t forget, we’re doing hundreds of miles every day). As I said earlier, I’ve got over 8,000 miles on my bike now and I’m hoping to get home on the original chain. Assuming I do, it’s going to be replaced as soon as I get back to So Cal. When you need a new chain, give us a call. Ryan will help you out.

We are in Santa Maria tonight. It was an easy roll once we got past San Jose, but the traffic on the 101 leaving San Francisco and all the way down past San Jose was rough this morning. After that, we basically put the bikes on cruise control and ran 75 mph all the way down.

Here’s a cool thing…on the 101, just past San Luis Obispo, a couple of guys in a gray pickup truck pulled up alongside our convoy and starting beeping and waving at us. When they were alongside me, one held up a sign that said “Hi, Joe!” Cool stuff. I have no idea who those guys were, but it’s a safe bet they’ll read this. Guys, when you do, shoot me an email. It made my day seeing you today. I had a good laugh over it.

Okay, some photos. They’re all from yesterday. I didn’t take any pictures today.

On the way down the 101 yesterday, our first stop was in Geyserville. It was a cool place. We stayed about 45 minutes and I grabbed some cool photos…

That last photo above is of Willie. Geyserville ran a marathon a few years ago and somehow Willie joined in and ran with the marathoners. Willie actually did more than the standard 26 miles (or whatever it is) because every time he saw a rabbit he spun off to chase it before rejoining the group.

After Geyserville, we were back on the 101 headed south. We stopped in Petaluma to put a new chain and tire on Joe Gresh’s bike (as explained earlier). It always feels like we’re taking too long whenever we stop for anything, but I guess that’s just me. I wanted to get the thing done and get back on the road. The guys wanted to talk with the tech changing the chain. Time’s a wasting, boys, and we want want to get into San Francisco before the heavy traffic hits!

After the chain replacement, we continued south on the 101 to San Franscisco. We stopped for fuel, the traffic got heavier, and then we were on the Golden Gate Bridge!

I know I’m not the first guy to ever ride a motorcycle across the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m kind of hoping I’m the first guy to ever do it on an RX3. But we’ve sold a lot of motorcycles in this neck of the woods, so if any of you folks out there have done it first, please send us an email and let me know.

After getting into town, we walked around for a bit. I grabbed a few non-motorcycle photos. I was doing the typical tourist thing…here’s one of Joe Gresh in front of Ghirardelli Square…

And a few more…