A sweltering summer day, Starbuck’s, stocks, and South America…

Well, the heat is on…both in terms of prepping the TT250s for you, and in the actual temperatures.   I put a lot of miles on my TT250 yesterday, and it was hot….as in over 90 degrees.  That kind of weather is okay on a motorcycle if you keep moving, but it’s sauna-like when you stop.  It’s supposed to hit 100 today.  Steve and I just got back from lunch, and it feels like it’s there already.   The heat notwithstanding, we’re going to ride the San Gabriels this Sunday.  It’s going to be fun.

We’re ramping up on the TT250s in a big way.   Derek (I know you guys love photos of Derek) was the only guy left when I snapped this photo (everyone else was having lunch).   The good news is that we’re shipping bikes in larger quantities every day.   Hang in there…we’ve increased our delivery rate and we’re still getting better.  I wish I could snap my fingers and get everybody their bikes immediately, but we are checking everything on these bikes so you won’t have to.   We’ve picked up on rerouting the front brake line, Loctiting the muffler cap in place, and a bunch of other things.  We put miles on every bike, too, to make sure it is as close to perfect as we can make it.

There’s construction going on across the street from us, and we were wondering who was moving into the new digs.  Today we found out….

As I was sitting in my corner office earlier today, I noticed a couple of cars pull into our parking lot and five folks piled out and started prepping stuff.  Hey, it was none other than the crew of a new Starbuck’s coffee shop, and they’re going to be right across the street from us.   The Starbuck’s team stopped by to give us all free coffee, which I thought was great.  It literally made my day.   Imagine that…a Starbuck’s right across the street!  There’s a joke in there somewhere about BMW GS motorcycles and Starbuck’s (there’s a sentiment often expressed online that BMWs spend more time in front of Starbuck’s than they do on the road).   But so many of the folks who buy our CSC bikes also own BMWs, I won’t say anything because I don’t want to offend anyone.

Next topic:  Stocks (and in particular, a gun stock).   You may recall about a year ago I posted a blog in which I mentioned a rifle I bought.   It was an older Remington 700 BDL in .223 with a bull barrel.   I bought it for cheap at Gunrunner in Duarte.  That’s a cool little gun shop close to CSC and every once in a while I’ll stop in there to see what they have on the used gun rack.  They had a Remington Model 700 and, as the saying goes, I pulled the trigger.   The Remington Model 700 is one of the best rifles in the world.  It has a lightning-fast lock time (the time between the trigger releasing the sear and the firing pin starting the excitement), and because of that, it is a preferred action for many kinds of rifle competition.

I bought the rifle for a scant $400, which I thought was a hell of a deal (I think new ones are about a thousand bucks now).   The Remington was pretty well gummed up with old oil (so much so the firing pin and trigger were stuck), and the standard M-700 BDL high gloss urethane finish was going south in a big way.  This gun was on my project list of things to do and this week I finally made the time to get to it.

I took the barreled action out of the stock and spent hours on the stock with 0000 steel wool.   When I was finished, my reaction was wow!  I was surprised and really pleased at how well it emerged.   The rifle now looks way better than these rifles do with the original high gloss finish (which never really appealed to me…it’s too Hollywood for my tastes).   The stock had a few nicks and scratches before; now, those are completely gone.   It is a thing of great beauty with a nice, subdued, European-style finish.  Last night I was fooling around with my camera and I grabbed a few shots, and then I played with them a bit in Photoshop to subdue the background and highlight the rifle.  I like how the rifle and this photo in particular turned out…

That gun shot into an inch at 100 yards before I did any work on it (which ain’t too shabby) and that was with what I regard as junk .223 ammo.   I’m going to work on developing a load and I’ll bet I can get it to shoot into 1/2-inch.   We’ll see.

So, about now, you’re probably wondering…okay, the sweltering heat, Starbuck’s, and a gunstock…so what’s the South America thing about?  (In case you forgot the title of this blog.)   Well, I sent the above rifle photo to my good buddy Juan Carlos in Colombia last night (Juan and I did the Moto Colombia trip together, and he is a firearms enthusiast, too).  I had a nice message from Juan (complete with photos) this morning…

Hi Joe:

That rifle is beautiful!!!  

I imagine it must shoot with great precision.

Today I was remembering our trip. I am now in Barichara with my girlfriend Eliana (she is a biker, too).   I’m testing a new 200cc AKT bike for the magazine and told her that here you felt the desire to return with your wife someday.

I share a few shots!!  

Juan

As you will recall, Juan and his buddy Carlos showed me a wonderful time in Colombia, and it was indeed the grandest adventure of my life.   That photo above of Juan at the edge of a cliff is near Barichara, and it is a similar photo of that exact spot that I used for the cover of Moto Colombia!, our book about the Colombian expedition.   Fun times for everyone.

That’s it for now, folks.  Ride safe, and stay tuned….as always, there’s more coming on the CSC blog!