CSC Blog

Our next Dual Sports and Donuts ride will be on May 5th at 9:00 a.m., and we’ll ride Azusa  Canyon and Glendora Ridge Road, with lunch at the Mt. Baldy Lodge.  This is one of our favorite rides, and we sure hope you can join us.  We welcome all brands, and motor scooters as well as motorcycles!

As a special bonus, we’re running an incredible sale.  Show up for this ride and you’ll quality for any of the deals outlined in the flyer below…

You can sign up for this ride on our Meetup.com page (and we’d sure appreciate it if you would sign up so we’ll have an idea how many folks are coming).  It’s going to be great!

I was enjoying that video of Carlos blipping the CB750 throttle in the blog below, and this popped up as another video I might have an interest in viewing.  It’s well done, and it’s surprising how many of the bikes in it I’ve owned at one time or another…enjoy, folks!

This sounds so cool…

I was in the plant earlier today with my Nikon and several interesting bikes caught my eye.  We sure do see interesting motorcycles.

The first is a custom Baja West BMW that Gerry is modifying into a sort of Café Racer scrambler deal.  It’s an interesting custom and it’s coming along nicely…

Here’s another cool custom Harley.   We do a lot of work on Harley-Davidsons…

My good buddy Joey D is working on this one, and I think I helped him a bit.  I told him the bike’s problem is obvious…the gas tank is in the wrong spot…

Here’s a dynamite Honda CB750 that’s been mildly customized, but it retains the original colors.  I think this one is a ’74…

And here’s a Kawi ZRX 1200, styled to look like the original GPz Kawasaki.  It’s a cool bike..

Cool stuff.   Great bikes.  Lots of fun.

Tomorrow I’m going to show you a few macro shots of a TT250 custom package we’ve put together, and it’s awesome.  The TT250s are flying out of here, and if you want one, don’t wait.    We still have all three colors, but that won’t last long.

More good stuff…we’re resuming our Saturday Dual Sports and Donuts rides next month.  We’ll announce the next ride in the next day or so.

Stay tuned, folks!

On the last day of my most recent trip to Guangzhou, I spotted this amazing building on the Pearl River…

I’d never seen anything like it.  I wish I could tell you these photos were mine (they are not; I just grabbed them off the Internet).   The building is obviously done in the shape of a giant circle (with the accent on giant).  It turns out that it’s an office building, and it is the headquarters of two giant Chinese firms.  It’s called the Guangzhou Circle.  The hole in the middle is nearly 300 feet across.

The idea is that the architects wanted to break from traditional skyscraper design, and I’d say they succeeded.   Some folks think it is supposed to resemble a coin.   Others say that with its reflection on the Pearl River, it resembles a giant 8, and 8 is a lucky number for the Chinese…

There are a lot of impressive buildings in Asian cities.  There’s the Lego building in Bangkok, the floating ship building in Singapore, and many, many more. I’ve got photos of these stashed away on a hard drive someplace; I’ll look for them later and post them in a future blog.  I saw several other interesting buildings on the Guangzhou skyline on my most recent visit.  Someday I’ll be back and I’ll focus (pardon the pun) on skyscraper architectural photography, but that’s a project for another trip.

I occasionally mention a product I like outside the motorcycle realm and I always take it as a compliment when people tell me they purchased a watch, a camera, a firearm, a Subaru, or whatever because I mentioned it here on the CSC blog.  One of the products I mentioned a year or two ago was my mechanical Orient watch…

I love that watch.  Good buddy Pat, who rode with us on one of the Baja trips, bought an Orient watch after I mentioned mine on the blog. Well, somehow YouTube picked up on the fact that I wear an Orient watch (maybe they follow the blog). Anyway, for the last several days every time I fire up a YouTube video, it’s preceded by an Orient commercial for their new Bambino model.  The video, I think, is very well done and it is funny. Check this out…

First things first, I guess.  I’m back in the plant today after my whirlwind Canton Fair visit, and when I walked in, the first I head was my good buddy TK asking, “Hey Joe, are you hungry?”   TK has known me for close to 10 years now and I was surprised he would ask a question like that.  I’m always hungry.   “We’ve got some killer breakfast burritos this morning,” he said.  He was right…

Golly, after a week of Chinese food, that burrito sure was good.  It probably was about 10,000 calories, but it really hit the spot.  They say when you’re doing food photography, you should always take your photos before people start eating.  Maybe they’re right.  Hey, I’m still learning this photo business.

A short while later, Sara told me I had to take a look out front in our parking lot.  I did and it brought a smile.  I could have titled this blog “Seeing double…”

And there’s more orange on site here at CSC.  Check out this gorgeous Ural that came in on consignment…

The Ural is a 2016 and it only has 200 miles on the clock.  Man, I would like to put that puppy in my garage.  But Mrs. Berk has a few opinions on these things, too, so it looks like the Ural will have to find a home someplace else.  Maybe in your garage.

Good to be back, folks, and there’s more good stuff coming.  Watch the blog, and stay away from TK’s breakfast burritos.

This always brings a smile.  Enjoy, folks!

I’m back after a quick 5-day visit to China’s Canton Fair in Guangzhou. It was quick, it was fun, and surprisingly, the time change is not bothering me. I made a conscious decision to not get on China time while I was there. When I came back from the Fair each day, if I was tired, I slept. If I woke up at 3:00 a.m., I got up. And I got lucky on the flight back…I slept the first 6½ hours after we took off, and the rest of the 13-hour flight went quickly after that. I watched the video monitor showing our flight stats, and just as we touched down it showed the total distance traveled to be a cool 10,000 miles.

You know, it’s a cool thing to do…flying halfway around the world to see the latest offerings from the country that makes the most motorcycles. I had a blast. I saw a lot of motorcycles, including a handful of adventure touring motorcycles coming to market from other companies hoping to cash in on the RX3’s success. You always wonder…is there something out there better than the RX3? You can wonder about that, but I’ve taken the trip to make the assessment and the answer is: No, there is not. I saw some interesting ADV and other machines, but nothing I liked as much as the RX3. Zongshen hit a home run with the RX3, and we fell into clover picking it up for the North American market. It’s been, and continues to be, a great ride.

Dajiu and Arjiu making waves in Guangzhou!

Another cool thing was the reaction to my business card. Motorcycle folks in China know CSC and they know what we’ve done to publicize the RX3, the TT250, and the overall quantum leap forward in Chinese motorcycles. “Ah, CSC…” was the reaction I heard more than a few times when exchanging cards with the folks in other booths. It was also very cool to see highlights of the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride and our trek across China prominently featured in the Zongshen booth. Knowing that we’ve made a difference worldwide is a very satisfying feeling. Yeah, I’m bragging a bit. Or maybe not. Facts are facts.

The business end of the City Slicker. Belt drive!

The next big thing for us? We’re diving into electric bikes, and that will start with the Zongshen ZS1500.  It’s a cool bike with cool features, including a very slick instrument panel…

As I mentioned a few blogs down, I was surprised to see so few electric motorcycles at the Canton Fair; in fact, Zongshen was the only manufacturer there with an electric motorcycle. It’s the one we’ve dubbed the City Slicker. Bringing this bike to America is going to be a grand adventure and I am looking forward to it. We’ve got more IC-engine bikes coming to Azusa, too, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Keep an eye on the blog, and we’ll share the details with you in the near future.

Clearly, the boys in Afghanistan have been spending too much time with their accessories catalog…this was unquestionably the most unique bike I saw at the Canton Fair!

That fender ornament is cool, though. Might have to get one of those for my RX3, so I could keep up with my good buddy Rob’s Donkey Hoty!