We sure had a great company ride Saturday, even though the flowers are holding back blooming a little longer than we anticipated. The weather was absolutely perfect.
So, what about the next one? We have our CSC company rides the first Saturday of each month, and I’m looking for ideas on the next ride. If you’d like to nominate a route, well hey, shoot us an email (info@cscmotorcycles.com) and we’ll take a look at it. We’re looking forward to your ideas!
And that would have to be our good buddy Carlos, who has absolutely mastered the art of selfie photography on Facebook. It got to where everybody on the recent Baja trip was trying to get into one of Carlos’ selfie photos. Carlos is a great guy with a great sense of humor and a beautiful family, and getting to know him a little better was one of the many high points of the Baja ride for me. I was really happy to receive an email and accompanying photos from my good buddy Carlos today…
First of all, I would like to thank CSC for allowing me to join them on this incredible journey. It had always been a dream of mine to go on an adventure motorcycle ride. I am usually accustomed to travel by myself or with my family, never as a part of a group. This experience opened me up to be part of a team of amazing people who I am very grateful for. I enjoyed the company, the conversations, the food, and the scenery. Everyone that I talked to was very wise and always had something interesting to share with the group. I was able to connect to everyone and to exchange stories. This experience was amazing and it will be engraved in my memory forever. Thank you all!
Carlos E. Vazquez, Baja Signs, Owner
I forgot one picture from the person that made me laugh the most!
Carlos, thanks so much for writing to us, and for riding with us in Baja! You made the trip fun for all of us, and your expert translation skills helped enormously. I hope you’ll ride with us again!
I sold my KLR yesterday. I had given up on the idea of selling the bike because every time someone came in the plant and compared it to a new RX3, they went with the RX3. That’s okay. That’s basically the same decision I made every time I went for a motorcycle ride.
The KLR was a good bike and I had a lot of fun on it, but the fact is I just wasn’t riding it any more. I don’t think I put even 200 miles on the KLR in the last couple of years, and that’s entirely due to my RX3 and TT250 motorcycles. I just find that, to me, a 250 is the perfect size bike for the kind of riding I do. Don’t get me wrong…I enjoyed owning the KLR over the last 11 years and it never let me down. I had a lot of fun with it both here in the US and in Baja (that photo above is from a trip into the Vizcaino Desert several years ago). I feel good about sending the KLR down the road because I know its new owner is going to have a lot of fun with it, and I know that the bike is in excellent condition.
So how did all this come about? Well, during our recent CSC Baja ride, Tuan told me that his friend wanted a KLR, and he asked if I was interested in selling mine. Yep, I said, I am. And a few short days later, Daniel arrived at my home, paid for the KLR, and it was gone. Just like that. Dan and I both felt we struck a great deal, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Best wishes with your new KLR, Dan. Tuan, thanks for setting up the deal. The next beer is on me, boys, and of course, it will have to be in Baja.
We enjoyed a great ride today in the San Gabriel Mountains with our Meetup buddies, and like always, we enjoyed making new friends and connecting again with old ones. The weather was stunning and so was the riding…
Let me share a few photos with you and introduce our friends from this morning’s ride!
The obligatory selfie, with Joseph, Joe, Marty, and Richard, as seen in the air filter cover of Joseph’s Honda Shadow.
A quick stop for coffee at the Camp Williams Café and General Store on the East Fork Road.
Good buddy Joseph, a guy with whom I’ve covered many miles. Joseph owns a lot of bikes. He rode his Honda Shadow today. Glad you could make it, Joseph!
A view from my RX3 headed up Glendora Mountain Road from the East Fork Road in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Good buddy Marty on a loaner RX3. Marty usually rides his BMW sport touring bike, but he wanted to try the RX3 today.
Steve on his Triumph Street Twin. I’ve got a better photo of Steve below.
Gary, a guy we met for the first time today. Gary rides a stunning Honda Gold Wing with a matt black finish. That color really works; Gary’s Gold Wing is beautiful. Glad to see you today, Gary!
Another new friend, our good buddy Anthony. Anthony rides a big touring BMW. Thanks for joining us today, Anthony!
Good buddy Marty, a guy I’ve been riding with for 15 years. Marty rode an RX3 today.
Steve, a Triumph rider whom I met for the first time today. He’s a fun guy and his new Triumph is just awesome! My friends over at Douglas Motorcycles sold it to him.
Twin Peaks Steve, a great guy who owns a CSC Bobber and an RX3. Steve frequently rides with us. It’s always great seeing you, Steve!
Richard, a great rider and all around cool guy who has ridden with us before on our CSC monthly outings. Great seeing you again, Richard!
Martin, a media specialist who rides a KLR 650. I met Marty for the first time today…he’s a great guy!
Dan and Duane, two CSC riders. Dan rides a TT250 and Duane rides both a CSC-250 Mustang and an RX3. I’ve been on quite a few rides with Duane.
The beautiful weather attracted everybody today, including about a zillion bicycle riders up in the mountains. We had planned to stop at the Mt. Baldy Lodge for lunch, but there was a line of bicyclists waiting to get in when we arrived, so we opted to ride down the mountain for a Mexican lunch. Well, it was Strike 2 at the Mexican restaurant (they were closed), so we walked across the parking lot and had lunch at Legends, a ’50s-style cruiser restaurant. It was great, and Legends might just become our “go to” lunch location for future rides.
We sure had a great time today, even though we didn’t get to see any wildflowers (I guess they are still a week or two away from blooming). Next time, maybe, so keep an eye on the CSC blog for information on the next get together. Like always, it will be the first Saturday of the month!
No, this is not an April Fool’s thing.
Somebody actually published a list of the best 100 motorcycle blogs (oh, I’ll bet you can guess where this is going), and it seems the CSC blog made the list (we’re No. 36). It’s a little goofy, I think, and when you click on it the link they provide for us the link takes you to the older CSC site (the one for our Mustang replicas), and then you have to click on the blog link to get to the CSC blog. But you ultimately get to the right place, and as they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I have to admit, though, that I wondered how many motorcycle blogs there are in total (maybe there are only, say, 102, and in that case, making a list of the best 100 would not be such a big deal). Whatever. In any event, we made the list, and you can read it here.
We do have interesting bikes come in for service by Gerry and his motorcycle maestros here at CSC. How about this one…a 1939 BSA 496cc single-cylinder M20!
Manufactured from 1937 to 1955, the M20 was the mainstay of British military motorcycling during World War II, and it became the most widely used military motorcycle during the war.
Interestingly, the BSA firm originally started as a rifle manufacturer (BSA is the abbreviation for Birmingham Small Arms). You can see the three crossed rifles emblem just above the crank on these iconic motorcycles…
The connection between motorcycling and armament is more common than you might imagine. Royal Enfield is another motorcycle manufacturer that originally came to life as a rifle manufacturer. And in an earlier life when I worked in the munitions business, bomb components here in the good old USA were manufactured by none other than Harley-Davidson.
These early British bikes featured both rebound and compression damping of sorts. Damping adjustment was achieved by tightening or loosening the large knobs on either side of the girder forks (you can see the knob in the photo below). This increased or decreased the friction on the hinged fork components. Very clever, very simple, and it worked. Harley had a similar setup on its earlier front suspension systems.
Like nearly all early British bikes, the M20 had Amal carburetion. These carbs typically featured external float bowls with a “tickler” to get things underway. My old Triumphs had the same deal. You pushed down on the tickler two or three times, and that filled the float enough to prime the pump (so to speak), which made starting the bike a little easier. The tickler is that little bronze-colored button sticking up from the float bowl in the photo below.
Here’s one last shot, this one showing the M20’s horn. I didn’t have the keys (it’s a customer’s bike) or I would have tried the horn just to hear what it sounds like. I’ll bet it sounds cool…
Britain’s M20 was a serious wartime motorcycle, so much so that Hitler’s Luftwaffe specifically targeted BSA plants during the war. BSA lost 53 employees killed during bombing raids along with 89 folks who were wounded.
The M20 produced a whopping 13 horsepower, but it must have had gobs of torque as these motorcycles frequently pulled sidecars. Like the one in the photo above, many of these are still being ridden today.
That’s Dan above (the most photogenic man in the world) somewhere in Baja. Dan’s been on three Baja rides with us now, and he just sent a nice note to me about our most recent Baja adventure…
Joe,
Another great Baja trip. Great weather, great people, great food, great riding. The camaraderie was outstanding. I think the choice of buying a RX3 is a process of natural selection. The type of person who is willing and wants to ride a small displacement adventure bike is in it for the fun and not for the status, and they are practical people. It’s a different sub-culture of the motorcycle world.
I decided to send you high res photos so I put them here:
https://redhawk47.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Baja-2017/i-H8FwZk7
My favorite is the last one of the desert plants. Next choice is the Bahia Concepcion panorama.
Dan
Thanks for your nice note, Dan. I went to that link and your photos are awesome. I enjoyed riding with you on all three of the Baja rides mentioned above, and I hope you’ll be able to ride with us on future Baja (and other) adventures. We going to do a multi-day ride or two elsewhere in the US this year, and hopefully you’ll be able to join us on those, too. Ride safe, my friend!
Yep, we’re riding Glendora Ridge Road tomorrow on our monthly CSC company ride, and you don’t have to be on a CSC motorcycle to ride with us (we welcome all motorcycles and motor scooters on our monthly Saturday morning rides). Just be at the CSC plant no later than 8:45 a.m. tomorrow with a full tank of gas. We’ll have the coffee ready!
Here’s an interesting article that popped up in my Facebook feed today (you can get to the article here). It’s Honda’s list of their Top 5 motorbike adventurers. Interestingly, 3 of the top 5 accomplished their world explorations on bikes of 250cc or less, supporting our contention that you don’t need a large-displacement bike for serious world exploration (indeed, smaller bikes offer real advantages for this kind of travel). More interestingly, one of Honda’s Top 5 is none other than Simon Gandolfi, who was with us when we rode CSC 150 Mustangs to Cabo San Lucas and back!
My photo of Simon Gandolfi on the 2010 CSC Baja Ride. Simon rode a CSC 150 Mustang, as did the other four riders (including me).
TT250 Enduro
SG250 San Gabriel Cafe Racer
RX1E Electric Motorcycle