CSC Blog

We see some very interesting paint artistry on the bikes that come through CSC.   Take a look at this custom Harley-Davidson…

You have to really look closely at the paintwork to see the forms and the art.  It’s fascinating.   By the way, this is another bike for sale here at CSC.  Interesting stuff.

We do get exotic bikes on the CSC showroom floor, folks.   Check this one out…it’s an Aprilia V4R APRC…a four-cylinder, fire-breathing, magnificent, and beautiful roadburner. It is perhaps the ultimate naked sport bike…

The Aprilia makes a little bit more power at the rear wheel than my RX3 (Cycle World dyno tested it at 154 hp) and it has a little more top end (the wizards at Cycle World clocked 166 mph), but the suspension travel is about the same as my RX3 at just over 5 inches and it actually is quite a bit heavier.  I expect that keyboard commandos all over the Internet will be setting their hair on fire over that.

This particular Aprilia is a 2013 model with (get this) less than a thousand miles on the clock, and yes, it’s available.  I’m tempted, but my 250cc RX3 is fast enough for me!  If you want something with a bit more power, though, this could be just your ticket. Give us a call at 909 445 0900 if you want to make this thoroughbred yours.

Ever wonder what’s on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains?   Well, it’s the Mojave Desert, and the roads running along the northern edge of the San Gabriels (between the desert and the mountains) are great.  They’re just what the doctor ordered for a great motorcycle ride, and this ride is one of my favorites.

I took a scouting run this weekend just to make sure everything was as I remembered it.  I’ve done this ride before, but it has been a couple of years and I wanted to see if it was feasible for our next Dual Sports and Donuts ride.  Our next CSC ride will be on 3 February (weather permitting).  It’s a 160-mile trek, with stops in Wrightwood for breakfast and the Devil’s Punchbowl County Park in Juniper Hills.

Here’s hint of what we’ll get to see on our next ride…

We’ll pass through Valyermo, a nice spot to stop for a photo…

Ever wonder what the San Andreas Fault actually looks like?  Well, here it is, and we’ll get to ride right over it…

And of course, there’s the Devil’s Punchbowl County Park. It’s a very cool rock formation with a great hiking trail (although we won’t take the time to hike it on our ride).   The Devil’s Punchbowl is a great spot to grab a few photos…

The Devil’s Punchbowl County Park has a few interesting critters you can photograph, too, like my good buddy Squinty, and a few others…

If you would like to ride with us on the 3rd of February, you can sign up on our Meetup.com page.   It’s going to be a great ride!

Baja is coming up, folks, with our departure just a few weeks away.   You’ll need to make sure you have your passport and Mexican insurance.

We use BajaBound insurance and it’s been good for us (you can get your Mexican insurance online at BajaBound.com).   I always buy my Baja insurance to start the day I am arriving in Mexico and to finish the day after I return to the US.  You can buy the policy online and print it (you need to carry proof of insurance for Mexico with you on this trip). We don’t have a business relationship with BajaBound; I just like the company.

You don’t need a passport to get into Mexico, but you’ll need one to get back into the US.  Your driver’s license by itself is not enough.

Because our trip is more than 7 days long, we will need Mexican visas.   I think I found a way that will allow us to do this online through BajaBound; I’m checking on that now and I’ll post that information in the next day or two.  The Mexican visas cost about $24.

It’s going to be a great trip, folks, and we still have a few openings.  Let us know if you would like to ride with us!

With that title above, I might have grabbed your attention…if you know us you know we never waste one precious second trying to be politically correct.   Nope, the reference here is to Honda’s Pacific Coast, something of a cult bike that is absolutely adored by those who ride them.  We have one here now, and it’s a beauty…

The bike you see above is a 1996, 800cc, V-twin Honda Pacific Coast with 39,000 miles, and it’s awesome.  Give us a call at 909 445 0900 and this motorcycle could be yours!

To those of you who responded to our request for inputs yesterday, thanks very much.

You’ll want to keep an eye on the blog, folks.  Exciting things are happening.

This came into the store a few days ago, folks, and it’s awesome…

This bike only has 3200 miles on it and the price is right.   I love the Triumph triples, the way they handle, the way they look, and the way they sound.   This one won’t last long.  It’s a clean bike and the price is right.   Give us a call at 909 445 09oo for more info.

Our good buddy Bill stopped by the plant yesterday to check out the current inventory of CSC scooters (our Mustang replicas) and to pick up a copy of Moto Baja!  Bill has been riding our scooters ever since Steve resurrected the Mustang way back in 2009 and he owns several.  Bill has ridden with us up in the San Gabriel Mountains and you’ve seen him here on the CSC blog many times.

This nice note came to us the day before from Bill’s son, Brian…

Dear Gents,

It was a chance occurrence, many years ago, that my father came across your scooters at the Father’s Day Car Show at the Pomona Fair Grounds.

Roughly 35 years ago my father shared with me his memories of the legendary Mustang scooter. I could not have known what would have become of our first encounter with your company and the cherished memories it would provide. 4 scooters later and countless miles on them, CSC has provided hearty smiles and endless photo opportunities for those lucky enough to see our scooter gang roll down the road.

Every Christmas my father dresses-up as Santa and my brother and I as his merry helpers as we cruise through the suburbs of Los Angeles. Each New Year’s Eve we proudly cruise our CSC creations down the Rose Parade route in Pasadena.

It is with great gratitude and appreciation that I wish you a prosperous and profitable 2018. Here’s to new CSC customers and the memories yet to be made.

Sincerely,

Brian 

Brian, thanks for your nice note and thanks for being a loyal friend.  Ride safe and continue to enjoy your modern Mustangs with our best wishes!

There are no firm plans or prices yet, folks, but I thought I might share with you a couple of Zongshen electric bikes we are evaluating for the US market.  I rode both of these on a recent Chongqing secret mission, and we’ve been thinking about them ever since.

The first looks a bit like a Honda Grom, and it is incredibly cool…

…and the second is an electric scooter styled like a conventional gasoline-powered, step-through scooter…

I rode a lot of the new Zong bikes when I last visited Chonqing (including the RX4), and I liked the electric bikes the best.  I especially like the first one you see above (the one that looks like a Grom).  It was stable, it was sure-footed, it was very fast, and it was just flat cool.  I liked it a lot.

These electric bikes are not cross country or freeway bikes.  The top speeds are under 50 mph, and the range between recharges is well under 100 miles.  They are city and town bikes…bikes for folks who take short trips and who have opportunities to recharge.   I think they are also bikes for people who want something different and something cool.  Ordinarily, we would probably not go after these bikes, but…

• When I rode across China, I was surprised to see that electric bikes dominated the city scooter scene in every city we visited.  Everywhere we went, we saw 20 or 30 electric bikes for every gas scooter.  We also saw electric scooters plugged in and recharging in many places, much the same way as we all plug in our iPhones wherever we go.  It all just looked right to me, and it made sense.  It was an amazing thing to see.
• When I rode the electric scooters at the Zongshen plant, their “off the line” performance was (pardon the pun) shocking.   The bikes literally felt like they were trying to squirt out from under me…they were incredibly quick off the line.  I guess that’s because an electric motor makes all of its torque at low rpm (or so I’ve been told).  It was a cool experience.  My strong feeling when I rode them was “I have got to get me one of these!”
• My daughter bought a Prius last year (no, not to drag race my RX3) and her car is the model that is mostly electric.   She lives 15 or 16 miles from where she works, and she plugs the car in every night when she gets home.  My daughter last bought gasoline more than 6 months ago.  That impressed me.

The two bikes you see here are not your typical, cheap, sub-$1000 Chinese scooters.  They are designed and manufactured by Zongshen, and that means the quality, the fit and finish, and the overall feel is first class.   These are high quality products.

We don’t know much about the market for electric scooters here in the US, mostly because the data doesn’t really exist yet.  We’d be making the market if we imported these, but we have some experience in doing that sort of thing (there wasn’t a market for a 250cc adventure touring motorcycle in the US when we brought the RX3 to America, and you all know how that story unfolded).

We’d like to hear from you.  What do you think?  Please write and let me know your thoughts (you can reach me directly at jberk@cscmotorcycles.com).  I’d love to hear from you.