Those of you who are old enough will remember this Wendy’s commercial…
Parts is parts. It was good for a laugh back then, but it’s a serious topic in the motorcycle world…especially when you can’t get the parts you need to keep your motorcycle rolling.
When Steve Seidner made the decision to import the RX3 to North America, he knew at the outset that keeping an appropriate parts inventory would be critical to our success. Our market research indicated that one of the major criticisms leveled at prior attempts to bring Chinese motorcycles to America was an inability to get parts. Steve was not going to let that happen with CSC and the world-class motorcycles we bring in from Zongshen. We actually keep enough parts on hand to build the motorcycles here (we’re not going to do that, but we could). It’s worked well for us and for you, and two minutes of Internet research will reveal a trove of customer comments about our stellar ability to provide parts very, very quickly. It’s been one of the cornerstones of our approach to doing business (and if you want to learn more about that topic, pick up a copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM).
Good buddy Fan, the main man in Chongqing, at the CSC plant in Azusa!
When we visited with our good buddy Fan yesterday, we talked about the approaches other importers use elsewhere in the world, and he told us that more than a few don’t stock any spare parts. We’ve read similar comments on the forums and on the various Facebook RX3 pages. That’s actually been a good thing for us. We do a brisk business in providing replacement parts to Zongshen riders all over in the world. We know the CSC blog is followed internationally, and if you are an RX3 or TT250 rider and you need parts (or any of our accessories), look no further than right here. We can take care of you.
You know, the funny thing is this inability to maintain an adequate inventory of spare parts is not a Chinese problem. I used to ride Triumphs. Their business model has the dealers stocking a much smaller spares inventory and maintaining the main inventories in Atlanta and the UK. There were times I needed parts I felt the dealer should have had in stock, but they had to have the parts FedExed in from Georgia or from England (and guess who paid the FedEx fees). If you ride a Moto Guzzi or a Ural, you’ve probably experienced waits of several months to get parts (we’ve actually had Ural owners buy our CSC-150 Mustang seats because they couldn’t get the Ural item). My buddy J told me a story on the Baja ride about a dealer scheduling a routine service on his Yamaha, but not being able to complete it because he didn’t have the air cleaner in stock. An air cleaner, on a service that had been scheduled for weeks! And when I purchased my brand new KLR 650 several years ago, after paying the dealer’s larcenous setup fee the windshield fell off on my ride home. I went back and the dealer did not have the nuts and bolts required to secure the windshield. Parts is parts. Indeed.
Nope, you are not going to experience any of that silliness with CSC. Parts is parts and we’ve got them. All of them. Right here in Azusa. If you need them, let us know.
While we were on our Baja expedition earlier this month, much of our discussion during dinner and our after hours get-togethers was on the cave paintings and the missions. Baja is one of the primo places on the planet to take these in, and we were all excited about seeing them. We visited the cave paintings in the Sierra San Francisco mountains about 650 miles south of the border on the eastern edge of the Baja peninsula, and getting there involved a rough ride on an unimproved dirt road. It’s real Indiana Jones stuff.
I’d like to mention another book I had talked about a few years ago, and that’s Burckhalter’s awesome work: Baja’s California Missions. Here’s what I said about it in a CSC blog entry back in 2015:
And here’s another magnificent book I think any motorcycle rider will enjoy…it’s Clem Salvadori’s great work on riding in Baja: Motorcycle Journeys Through Baja. If you’ve never ridden Baja on a motorcycle, this book will make you want to do so. It’s what happened to me when I first read it.
SG250 San Gabriel Cafe Racer
RX1E Electric Motorcycle
TT250 Enduro