Rock Star On A Ride…

If you read my post a couple of days ago, you know that I thought it would be a good idea to take one of the CSC bikes out for a spin with the wonderful weather we’ve been having here in southern California.  I did, and it was great.  I put another 6o miles or so on one of the early California Scooter prototypes (a bike Steve painted root beer brown) and I had a blast blitzing around in the foothills. 

For starters, I should tell you that I wasn’t trying to optimize my fuel mileage, but I was really surprised at what the bike returned.   I did a few top end runs, I wound the bike out through the gears to see what it felt like throughout the rpm range, I charged up into the hills, I rode in 5:00 p.m. Friday rush hour traffic along Route 66, and I played Ricky Racer through the twisties.  In short, I probably did everything possible to hurt fuel efficiency, and I was blown away at how efficiently this little cycle sipped the go juice.   We’re doing a couple of tests to assess fuel efficiency in the next couple of weeks, so I won’t publicize my results, but I will tell you the miles per gallon is substantially better than what we’ve been publishing.

The bike just felt right to me.  On rough roads, the Scooter’s straightline stability is seriously good.  I intentionally took a couple of rough roads, and the bike never attempted to follow surface imperfections in these neglected stretches of the San Gabriel foothills.   The bike tracked straight as an arrow.  And on these rough roads, I couldn’t tell I was riding a hardtail.  Those seat springs work!  So do the front and rear disk brakes.   I found myself pretty much using only the front brake (just like I do on my other street bikes); it is strong enough to do the job all by itself.   I never felt like I was on a small bike.  From the saddle, the ergonomics and overall feel are those of a much larger machine without the weight and ridiculously-high seat heights of most other street machines.   The whole package is well integrated.

I next took a run up Duncan Canyon Road to see what the bike feels like in the twisties.  Boys and girls, this machine rocks!   My recent road bikes have been Triumphs (the modern ones), a Suzuki TL1000S (that was a great machine), and other similar canyon carvers.  The California Scooter doesn’t have that kind of power (hey, it’s a 150!), but diving into the corners revealed how planted these little CSC motorcycles are when leaned waaaaay over.    There’s something to this concept of a short wheelbase and 12-inch diameter wheels.   You guys and gals have probably heard the story of what happened when Mustangs competed in the Catalina Grand Prix in the 1950s.  Back then, the Mustang’s handling was so superior that the big boys threatened to pick up their marbles and go home if the rules committee didn’t exclude Mustangs, and the rules committee caved.  The flickability of the California Scooter in the switchbacks impressed me greatly.  The bike took whatever line I wanted, it changed lines instantly when I wanted it to, but it never felt twitchy.  It was impressive.

The Cal Scooter engine is a single, and it wants to be ridden like a single.  The power is in the lower two-thirds of the rev range, and it likes shifting early.   There’s no need to wind it into the stratosphere.   It’s a bit like riding my KLR 650 (another single), or maybe a Triumph 650 twin or a Harley.  It doesn’t need high rpm to do well because it has serious low end grunt.

The California Scooter “Wow!” factor was off the charts.   About one in every 10 cars gave me a thumbs up, or rode alongside me for a bit to get a closer look.  Some of these folks were my age (that’s a soft way of saying they’re old enough to remember the original Mustang), but most were younger people who just liked the bike for what it is.  I felt like a rock star.

What’s interesting to me is that the bike I rode is one of the first preproduction prototypes, and it doesn’t have all of the improvements incorporated on the production machines.  This particular bike doesn’t have but a 120 miles on it, so it’s not even fully run in yet.  In the next week or two I’ll grab some seat time on a newer CSC machine with a few more miles under its belt just to see how good it can get…and I’ll let you know what I find!