CSC Blog

Detailed planning is underway for the Destinations Deal Tour and the excitement is building.   There are seven of us on this ride.  Some of the guys are folks I’ve ridden with before on our CSC adventures, and some are new to the CSC world.  It’s great; old friends and new friends.   I sure am having fun.

I received a nice note from my good buddy Stan yesterday (complete with a couple of killer vintage photos) and I thought I would share it with you…

Joe,

Enjoy reading your blog and just wanted to share a few things that might enhance your upcoming tour. I see you plan to ride through Death Valley which is one of my favorite places (beauty, history, desolation) and recalling the record rainfall 2 years ago and the damage to roads that I think still exists, (Scotty’s Junction entry..)  At Scotty’s Junction there’s a B&B ‘Shady Lady’ that was formerly a brothel with themed rooms…check out their website).  Also in this area and used in a unique promotion with ‘Airbnb and Audi’ (enter Airbnb and Audi into YouTube to see the commercial) is another unique B&B…. Your likely entry into Death Valley is through Beatty, NV (Hwy 374).

Right before you pull into Beatty, stop at the crash-landed airplane right in front of the former Angels Ladies brothel… 4 brothels in this region have gone ‘belly-up.’

100+ years ago, Beatty had a rival city called ‘Rhyolite’ (once being hyped as ‘The Chicago of the West’). Well, that didn’t quite pan-out, as you’ll notice this recurring theme passing through what’s left of the boom and bust towns on your way south on Hwy 95.

Both photos above are from Rhyolite (just a few miles west of Beatty) and both the Cook Bank building and Porter Bros store (the circus elephants are right in front of it) have ruins that still stand.

Walter ‘Death Valley Scotty’ Scott, seen above eating his lunch next to the Cook Bank with a Chinese businessman he owed money to (Scotty loved to spend other peoples’ money) was a huge part of the history of this region (after being fired by Buffalo Bill Cody).  There’s a ‘Castle’ named after him in DVNP (well worth checking out once they get it reopened after the flash flood damage).

You must attend an organ concert at Scotty’s Castle once they reopen. A one weekend per year happening, where a human being plays the theatre organ live (played by computer during tours of the Castle, on every other day).  A unique venue to say the least. Check the DVNHA website for updates…(don’t fret, I’ll be sure and give you a heads-up).

Here’s an historical event you might not be aware of from back in his day; quite the celebrity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Special

Next to Rhyolite you can’t miss some unusual sculptures (Goldwell Outdoor Museum) and some great photo-ops.  The statue of the miner swinging the pick, standing next to the penguin is Frank ‘Shorty’ Harris; 1 of 2 men to find the gold that made this area boom.

Not in the cards for this run, but a road you’ll pass by and must take another time is the 266/168 that connects Hwy 95 (the junction where The Cottontail brothel used to take lonely truckers money) and Hwy 395 in Big Pine (where Yelp! #1 rated restaurant in the USA for 2015, Copper Top BBQ is located). What a hoot this road is, either by car or motorcycle. And at night? Wow! I’ve done it at night solo on 4 wheels and that was weird enough…and this was while camping in the Eastern Sierra (west of Bishop) and the contrast of being high in the mountains and in the heat of the summer in Death Valley in the same day was awesome (the Death Valley run was to see the organ concert mentioned above and it always seems to be scheduled during the summer…).

And off the 168 out of Big Pine is The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest (home to the oldest trees, some predating the Great Pyramid of Giza) get your hiking legs on…   

Have fun,

Stan

Stan, thanks very much for your note, the photos, and your suggestions.   We’re going to have a great time, and we appreciate the inputs!

The open road…our Destinations Deal Tour is going to be great!

The names are in for the Destinations Deal tour, and it looks like it’s going to be six of us…Willie, Orlando and his wife, Dan, Leighton, and me.  That’s a right-sized group, and I’m looking forward to this adventure.  Keep an eye on the blog, as we’ll be posting more information on this upcoming adventure ride as our planning continues.   It’s wheels up on 22 October and we’ll be returning on 27 October.

Hey, next topic up…we’re moving out on our CSC rifle postal match, and the rules are simple:  50 yards, 20 shots at the standard SR-1 target, any centerfire rifle, any sighting system, any shooting position (including shooting from the bench), and you have to own a CSC motorcycle to participate.

The SR-1 target

If  you want to participate, drop us a note at info@cscmotorcycles.com, and we’ll send your target to you.  You’ll have to get your target back to us by 15 November 2017.

I’m back in California at the CSC plant and the new showroom is coming along nicely.   My guess is that all of the work will be finished next week.   Things are still under construction so I don’t have any cool photos to share with you, but watch for new ones in the next week or so.

We’re finalizing plans for the Destinations Deal Tour, and we have a couple of openings left.  If you want to ride with us, please send an email to us at info@cscmotorcycles.com with your name, your phone number, and your email.   We’re making hotel reservations on Monday of next week, and at this point we need your confirmation.

That’s it for now, folks.  Keep an eye on the blog.   Like always, we’ll have more good stuff to share with you, and you’ll see it here first.

Now this is cool…a Turkish photography contest!It’s going on right now on Facebook (here’s the link), and it’s pretty cool in that the photo they are using for the Facebook group title page (and on that poster above) is one I shot…it shows RX3s in front of the CSC plant in Azusa, California!  It sure would be cool if you join that group and post photos of your RX3s here in the US.

I met with some of the Turkish RX3 riders on my last secret mission to that beautiful country.  Some day I hope to ride Turkey; it really is an amazing land.  Istanbul, Kayseri, Cappadocia, Ankara, Pergamon, Ephusus, Izmir, the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Grand Bazaar, the Straits of Bosphorus…there’s just so much to see and do over there.  And the food…all I can say is wow!  Yeah, we have to do a ride through Turkey some day…

Our good buddy Angel, a TT250 rider, recently posted these awesome photos on Facebook.  With his permission, I’m sharing them here on the CSC blog…

The vintage bikes are in the Talbott museum here in California.

Angel, your photography is amazing!   Thanks for letting us share your talent with the rest of the CSC community.

Wow, what an action-packed 24 hours this has been!   Our guide has an awesome truck that’s a Jeep body on top of a Chevy Blazer chassis with a 350 cubic inch V8, 35-inch wheels, and the goodies it needs to get up and down the goat trails we covered last night…

We arrived at the ranch in Arizona yesterday and we hunted last night and this morning.  To cut to the chase, we had a successful hunt.  Paul nailed a monster boar last night, and I got mine this morning.  I’m not one for posting gory “kill” photos, so you won’t see any of that here. But I will tell you Paul’s .270 Winchester did the job, and so did my .30-06.  We both used our own reloaded ammo, and everything worked the way it was supposed to.

We’re up in the mountains above Kingman, where both the temperature and the scenery are cool.

This trip was a big deal for both of us.  I like hunting (I’ll make no apologies for that), and it’s been way too long since I’ve been on a trip like this.  This was my third time chasing hogs, and it’s the first time I got one.  It’s a pretty cool feeling.

Paul and I are both having the meat processed and I imagine we’ll both be hosting pork BBQs in the near future.   I’m told wild boar is much better tasting than farm-raised pork because the meat is a lot leaner.  We’ll see.

So we’re heading back to California later today, and then it will be time to start preparing for the next adventures…Singapore, Thailand, and then later in October, the CSC Destinations Deal Tour.  I’m really looking forward to it!

After an all-day drive, we’re here in the bunkhouse of our Arizona hunting lodge.   There are a  lot of cool trophies inside.

For us, the action starts later this afternoon.  The game is Russian boar, just like that mount you see at the top of this post.

Stay tuned…

Gerry Edwards, motorcycle maestro.

Last  year I had a Chevy dealer service my Corvette with predictable results.  The steering wheel was tilted to the left after an alignment, they told me the battery was fine (but I needed a new one a couple of months later), and they charged me for lubing the door hinges (I could see they had not).   The follow on interactions pretty much followed most of the experiences I’ve had with dealers…several trips back to fix the things they screwed up (it took three returns to get the steering wheel pointing straight ahead).  I was most bothered by the fact that they charged me for labor to lube the door hinges (I mean, who charges for such things?) without having done the work.  When I asked about that and showed them that the hinges had not been lubricated, the service manager explained that they didn’t have the required lubricant.  I don’t know what was more disturbing:  The fact that they charged me for something they had not done, or the service manager’s belief that not having the required materials somehow justified that bit of fraud.   Why, I wondered, couldn’t I find a service outfit for my Z06 with the same competence level as Gerry Edwards and his guys?  That’s that I wanted; a automotive technician with the skills and honesty that we have in our CSC motorcycle maintenance staff.

Well, I found one, but I got to it in a roundabout way.   We stopped going to the BMW dealer as soon as our 4 years of “free” maintenance ended on my wife’s car (what a joke that “free” maintenance was, but that’s a story for another time).   My buddy Marty (whose wife also drives an Uber-mobile) alerted me to an independent shop in our neighborhood.  Taylor BMW, to be precise.   We’ve always been happy with the work Taylor did for us (far more so than we ever were with the U-boat captains at the BMW dealership).

Taylor branched out, or expanded, or whatever you want to call it.  They opened another independent service place right next to their BMW shop, and this one focuses on American cars.   One day last week while driving home from CSC, I could feel the front brakes pulsating in the Vette.   I was due for a brake job.  There’s no way I would return to the Chevy dealer (I could hear them already…yeah, we charged you for pads, but we didn’t have any), so I thought I would try the new US option at Taylor’s.

When I stopped at Taylor’s with my Corvette, I noticed a very cool (and very old) Opel station wagon with a racing number on the side.  Mike (the manager) came out to meet me.  I told him what I needed and how I wanted to make sure the service tech didn’t sit in my car with screwdrivers sticking out of his pocket and….

Before I got any further, Mike (with a German accent, no less) told me, “Joe, see that Opel?  It’s mine, and I know exactly what you want.  I race autocross and the guys who work here work on my car.  Nobody here will do anything that hurts your car.  We are car people.”

Mike, in his 47-year old Autocross Opel.

Wow.  There’s something about an auto tech with a German accent that automatically instills a sense of confidence.  I liked the guy immediately.

When I returned later that day, my car was ready, it had been washed, and it was perfect.   Mike and I spoke a little more, and he told me about his Opel.  It has custom, period correct magnesium racing wheels (he found three wheels in one country and one in another).  It has a super-rare Steinmetz intake manifold and a custom carburetor.  It looked to me like it had new paint, but Mike explained that he spent a lot of time buffing it.   He took me inside the shop and showed me the ventilated disks that came off my car (they were way heavier than I would have thought).  Mike told me he put ceramic pads on my Z06 instead of the stock pads because “it’s what a car like yours should have.”

A very clean engine engine compartment showcasing a Steinmetz intake, a custom carb, and more.

On the drive home, the Corvette did the same thing both of my CSC motorcycles do every time I ride them.  It brought a smile to my face.  I am one happy camper.

I’m headed to Arizona to chase pigs very early Tuesday morning, so today I was out and about running errands.  The weather has taken a decided turn for the better here in the Peoples’ Republik of Kalifornia (no rain and the heat wave seems to be over), and it was just perfect for running around town on my TT250.   I do love my TT, and I love getting my knees in the breeze on that motorcycle.

I’m doing lots of travel these days.  After the boar hunt, I’m off to Singapore and Thailand (more secret mission stuff), and then a few days after I return, we’re starting our CSC Destinations Deal Tour.

I’m eager to get out on the next road trip, and that’s our RX3 run from 22 October to 27 October.   You can read our press release on it below.  This ride is going to be grand.   California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada.  I can’t wait.

The new showroom is coming along nicely.  I was in the plant on Saturday and there’s lots happening.   Stop by when you get a chance, and I’ll post some photos when our new showroom is complete.

Busy, busy, busy…just the way we like it!

No, I’m not talking about the old Colt .45 sixgun, but I am reaching back a few years.  The Peacemaker in question is the United States Air Force B-36.   Quite an airplane, the B-36 was.   It was the world’s largest piston-engined combat aircraft, and it had a wingspan larger than a Boeing 747.  Six radial piston engines, four jet engines, and engineering that was something right out of science fiction movie.   I came across this YouTube video a little while ago and I thought I would share it with you.

The above scene was filmed at Carswell Air Force Base just outside of Fort Worth, Texas.  The B-36 was built by Convair (which became General Dynamics, which became Lockheed, which became Lockheed Martin), and they shared the runway with Carswell AFB.  I worked at General Dynamics when I got out of the Army (I was on the engineering team that designed the F-16) and I really got excited when I watched the video…the buildings you see in the background during the B-36 takeoff are the General Dynamics plant.   It’s a pretty cool airplane and General Dynamics was a great place to start an engineering career.  The guy I worked for there (an old timer named Lou Rackley) had actually been on the B-36 design team.  The old guys had a lot of cool B-36 stories, and ultimately, General Dynamics restored a B-36 and parked it along the expressway leading into the factory.  That plane was enormous.  Good times.