Welcome to the mix!

The sincerest form of flattery…clockwise from top, an original CSC RX3 in Baja on one of our free adventure tours, the Suzuki DL250, the BMW 310 GS, the Kawasaki Versys, and the Honda 250 Rally.

It’s no secret that several manufacturers are playing catchup with CSC and Zongshen.  Imagine that…other companies copying the Chinese!   What I’m referring to, of course, are the several new entries into the 250cc-class ADV bike category.   There’s been a lot on the Internet lately about the Honda 250cc Rally, the Kawasaki Versys, the Suzuki PeeWeeStrom, and BMW’s Mumbai Special, and of course, preproduction versions of these bikes (the only ones that currently exist) put in an appearance at some of the  international motorcycle shows

We’ve had folks ask if the new market entrants make us nervous.  The short answer is absolutely not.  We love it.  You’ll recall we did a blog a couple of years back about 250cc being the perfect size for real-world adventure travel (see our Why a 250? blog), and we still believe that.  It’s  nice to see others thinking the same way.   Our path to market puts us in a very strong position.  And there’s another factor…so far, none of these bikes are actually available….it’s all been smoke and mirrors and Internet postings and show bikes.   They’re coming, though, and that’s a good thing for growing the small adventure bike market.   It can only help us.

Not all of the information is available yet, but based on what’s out there, I assembled a comparison chart this morning…

I estimated the freight and setup fees on the Kawi, the Honda, and the Suzuki based on what I see dealers doing on their other bikes.  Actually, some of the combined freight and setup fees on dealership bikes run up to over $1400, so I’m being conservative with my estimates.  You might be able to negotiate the freight and setup down to $750 (you  might even be able to get these typically inflated fees even lower, but not by much; freight and setup is a major profit center for most dealerships).  BMW’s freight and setup is typically included in their list price, and I don’t know if they’re going to do that with their new 310 GS (so I just left it as a TBD for now).  I showed our freight and setup as “included” because right now it is; we’ll probably add that back to the price in 2017, but it will never be as high as the charges you normally see for these items at typical dealerships.

What surprised me were the motorcycles’ published weights.  We took a little gas from the keyboard commandos when we first published the weight on the RX3, but as you can see from the comparisons above, we slot right in with the rest of the new market entrants.

Where CSC has clear advantages are in the areas of price, our free online maintenance tutorials and service manual, and the freedom from the typical shenanigans you run into when buying a new bike from a dealer.  Plus, you can actually buy our bike today.   You can’t do that with any of the others yet.  There are other things, too, that you can’t really put a price on that come with every RX3:

• The RX3 has a proven world-wide adventure touring reputation (in my case, that includes China, Mexico, Colombia, and the US; others have traveled all over the world on Zongshen motorcycles).
• The solid reputation CSC has for customer support.   As I always say, don’t take my word on this; check out ADVRider.com and ChinaRiders.net to see what others say about us.
• Our free Baja adventure rides.
• Our really cool CSC blog!

As I said above, the new entrants are a welcome addition to the mix.    These bikes will bring other folks’ attention to the small ADV market segment, and anyone who does their homework will soon realize that the RX3 is the best (and least expensive) bike available.