CSC Blog

A set of different topics this morning, folks.  Some moto-related, others not, and all interesting (at least in my opinion!), so here goes…

We’re up to 11 riders for the March Baja expedition, which leaves 4 slots open.  It you want to ride with us, let me know at info@cscmotorcycles.com.   It’s going to be another grand adventure.  I can’t wait to get down there again.

We’re back to having wacky weather here in La La Land.   It was bitter cold and wet for us all last week (with the emphasis on “for us,” which means it was down in the mid 30-degree range), and the forecast was for clear weather on Saturday.  That was supposed to be the day of our ride on Angeles Crest Highway.   I was going to change the route to Glendora Ridge Road because the Crest was blocked due to the snow we had on Thursday and Friday.   But it was not to be.   It was pouring katz and dawgs Saturday morning (and it was cold).  So, no ride, but by noon the sun was out and by Sunday, we had sunshine and the more normal 70-degree weather we’re used to here in So Cal.   I would have gone for a motorcycle ride on Sunday, but this Sunday was our monthly shooting get-together, and the boys and I all converged on the West End Gun Club to send steel downrange.   That was grand fun.   It’s always great getting together with the guys for a few hours at the range and a Mexican lunch afterwards.   Several of my shooting buddies ride CSC motorcycles, so there’s always plenty of good conversation.

After Sunday’s beautiful weather, it turned cold and wet again, which brings us to this week.   When I arrived at the plant this morning, I saw a bunch of non-CSC motorcycles in the service area (we work on all bikes), with BMW being the dominant marque.  Our Gerry has a reputation for excellence in the BMW community (as he has earned in the CSC community), and we see a lot of Beemers here.

Steve’s good buddy Paul (our Pro-One rep; Pro-One is our sister company) was in the plant this morning.

I’d heard of Paul before, but today was the first day I actually met him.  Being a watch guy (one of my many weaknesses), I immediately noticed Paul’s really cool wristwatch.  You’ll notice he’s not wearing it in the above photo.   That’s because I asked about it and Paul took it off so I could see it.   Check this out…

It’s a Nicky Hayden commemorative watch and Paul received it because of his connection to the industry.   It’s very cool, including the disk-brake-inspired bezel.  I like orange on a watch, and that one really stands out.  I like it.

Okay, one more watch story…40+ years ago when I was a young second lieutenant in Korea, some of the guys purchased Japanese Orient watches.   Orient was the brand name.   That would have been in the mid 1970s, and those were the good old days when you could buy a Rolex at the Post Exchange for $300.  Who in their right mind, I remember thinking back then, would spend $300 for a watch?  Anyway, I never heard of the Orient brand again until somebody posted a photo of a really cool Orient diver’s watch on the ADVRider.com “Shiny Things” thread.   That lit up a long-lost memory neuron or two, and I looked for Orient watches on Google.  I didn’t want another diver’s watch, but I saw another really cool Orient watch on the OrientUSA website.  I sent an email to Orient, they responded to my question and included a discount code in case I decided to order a watch, one thing led to another, and my new Orient arrived via UPS last night.   I really like it…

It’s a self winding mechanical watch (as a mechanical engineer, that appeals greatly to me), it’s rose gold (which I like a lot), and it’s just cool.  It’s beautiful, actually.  It’s even got a feature that tells me whether the sun or the moon is out.   A short while ago when I shot the above photo, it told me the sun was out (it’s not, because it’s raining bigly out here, but you get the idea).

Keep an eye on the blog, folks.   I’ll have more info up shortly about our rescheduled Saturday ride.   Several of you have asked about the ride I mentioned up the Pacific Coast Highway from Cambria to Carmel, and I’ll have more info about that one, too.

That’s all for now.  Ride safe and stay warm!

Rain, rain, more rain, and road conditions in the mountains make cancelling today’s ride to Newcomb’s the right thing to do. We’ll be at the plant, though, if you want to stop by for coffee and donuts.

We’ll announce a reschedule on the ride shortly.

Wow, check out my good buddy Josh’s TT250 video!

This is awesome stuff, folks! And Josh, thanks for a great video!

Hey, we’re starting a new video series called “Shop Talk” in which Gerry and I will discuss some of the more-frequent questions we get from our customers about maintaining their bikes.   We’re going to be launching these at a rate of about one or two each month.  Here’s our first Shop Talk video, and it’s on prepping your bike for storage…

Do you have a suggestion for a Shop Talk topic?   If you want to add your idea to those we are considering, drop us a note at info@cscsmotorcycles.com!

I read this piece a short while ago on the Fox News website (no comments necessary about my preferred news outlet, folks).  Check this out, as quoted from the Fox News story…

Motorcycle racer struck by lightning during event, finishes anyway

Motorcycle racer Ivan Jakes isn’t faster than lighting, but he’s tough as nails.

The Slovakian rider was competing in the grueling Dakar rally in Argentina on Wednesday when he was struck by a bolt of lightning as he sped through the Salar Centenario region….and he just kept going.

Jakes was barely past the midway point of the 485-mile-long stage when he got jolted, but managed to finish the third day of the 12-day-long endurance event in 15th place with just a pain in his arm, according to Motorsport.com.

Upon arrival at base camp, Jakes was checked out by medical professionals, and his team credited the insulating effect of the motorcycle’s rubber tires for limiting injuries, saying that if he’d had his feet on the ground at the time of the hit it would’ve been a much different story.

After taking blood tests and putting him through a period of observation, the doctors cleared him to continue on Thursday with stage four — just a short 318-mile route into Bolivia that he finished in 11th place.

The race winds its way through the wilds of Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, finishing in Buenos Aires on January 14.

This is Jakes’ 10th try at the Dakar rally. His best result was 4th in 2013.

I just can’t make up stuff this good.   Imagine that…struck by lightning, but he kept going anyway!

I’ve been reading about unrest in Mexico in the last few days as a result of the Mexican government bumping the price of gasoline 20%.  From a cost perspective, it would be no big deal to us for the Baja ride (even at the increased prices, it’s still about the same as what we pay for gas here in California), but it’s a big jump for the Mexicans.  The Mexican government has subsidized the price of fuel in Mexico for decades and now that’s changing (old Maggie Thatcher had it right…socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money).  I think it should all be smoothed over by the time we ride into Baja in March, but we’ll be keeping our eyes on the situation down there.

Sue and I were caught in a Mexican labor riot on one of our CSC ride scouting expeditions in April 2015 (you can read my blog about that here), and I can tell you it’s no fun.

We’ll keep you posted on developments south of the border and how it might affect our ride.   If things look rough, we’ll just divert to someplace here in the western US.

Hey, we created a riding group on Meetup.com, and you can see it here.   We’ll be posting future company rides on the Meetup.com site as well as our blog and company calendar.    And, just to remind everyone, we’re riding this Saturday either in the San Gabriels or up Angeles Crest Highway.   We hope to see you at the CSC plant prior to 8:30 a.m. (that’s our departure time).   Make sure you have a full tank of gas when you get here!

A familiar bike and familiar roads….these two videos popped up in my YouTube feed earlier today, and I thought you might enjoy them!

Weather and road conditions permitting, we’re headed for Angeles Crest Highway (known the world over as “The Crest”) and Newcomb’s to take in the exotic bikes always present at that iconic location and to have lunch.  We’re leaving the CSC plant in Azusa at 8:30 a.m. (we’ll have a pot of coffee going and I think I can talk the Boss into stopping at The Donut Man on his way in).   The Crest is one of So Cal’s great rides, and we’d sure like to see you there!

You don’t have to be on a CSC motorcycle to ride with us (in fact, we encourage you stop by if you’re on another bike…it will be a good opportunity to see what all the excitement is about, check us out, and see the RX3, the RC3, and the TT250).   You don’t have to RSVP, but if you want to, drop us a line at info@cscmotorcycles.com.

I’ll call ahead, and if The Crest is icy, we’ll divert instead to our Glendora Ridge Road run…it’s another great ride.  Either way, join us and you’re in for some of the best riding in southern California!

And here we are…off to the start of 2017.   Wow, time sure does fly.

It’s cold and damp out here in southern California on this second day of the New Year.  I’m kicking back with a hot cup of coffee and I’m catching up on things.  I just read about the 450cc Zongshen Dakar bikes finishing the first stage of that event (you can see how they fared here).  It will be exciting to see how the 450 Zongshen race bikes finish each stage.  What Zongshen is doing here is gutsy.   The Big Z is introducing a new engine in a new bike in one of the world’s toughest competitive events, with the results out there for all to see.

The Zongshen 450cc Dakar Rally bike.

That brings me to the next topic:  The RX4.  We’ve had mixed emotions about publicizing the RX4 for a number of reasons, the most dominant of which is product cannibalization.   Any time a new product is introduced, it will cannibalize sales of the existing product (in our case, the RX3).   We think that hasn’t happened to us.  RX3 sales were great last year.  But pushing the RX4 at you well before it is available is still a concern.

The RX4…don’t look for it any sooner than 2018, and don’t hold off pulling the trigger on an RX3 waiting for this bike.

The earliest we’ll see the RX4 here in the US is no sooner than January 2018, and I personally doubt it will happen that soon.  For starters, the RX4 design has not been finalized by Zongshen (the RX4 is not yet available anywhere in the world), nor have we defined our North American configuration with Zongshen.   Zongshen tells us the RX4 design will be finalized in the second quarter of 2017, but I’ve spent my entire professional life around engineering development efforts in a variety of industries and I can tell you that the word most frequently coupled with “schedule” is “slip” (as in “schedule slip”).   After the RX4 design is finalized, we have to send a product description to the EPA and request permission to bring sample RX4s in for testing (there goes another month to get the request approved).  After we get permission from the EPA to bring the samples in, we have to get 3 or 4 bikes shipped to us so we can begin the testing process.  You can figure on 6 weeks of transit time, and anywhere from 3 days to 3 months for the bikes to sit in Customs.  That’s another 2 to 4 months.   Then we get to shell out something north of $60K for the emissions testing and DOT evaluations (figure another 1 to 2 months), and then there’s the delay as EPA, CARB, and the DOT ponder the test results (and that can take another 1 to 3 months).  Once we order the bikes, it’s another month to produce them, and then another 6 weeks for them to make the trip down the Yangzte and across the Pacific, and then once again there’s the time to get though Customs.  And, to compound the challenge, the times I’m sketching out here assume everything goes smoothly and there are no problems or required design changes.  You get the idea.  This isn’t something that happens quickly.

The above RX4 concerns notwithstanding, we’ve been blessed.  The RX3 continues to sell well, and our TT250 has done extremely well.   It really is amazing.   In a down year for the motorcycle industry (an industry that has been obsessed for more than five decades with ever-larger and increasingly-expensive bikes), we’ve done well with 250cc singles priced appropriately.  A big part of our shared success has been the stellar nature of both the RX3 and the TT250, the extreme value both products bring to the market, our unique path to market (no dealers, free maintenance tutorials, free service manuals, our adventure rides, and our customer support), and the enlightened nature of our customers.  Yep, our customers….folks like you.  Folks who aren’t afraid to pick up a wrench, folks who make their own decisions, and folks who spend more time on the road then they do on Internet forums.  We’re on to something here.  You can see it in our results, and you can see it in the fact that no fewer than four other manufacturers are now copying us by planning to bring small ADV bikes to the US market.  Like I said earlier, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Letting the good times roll…lobster burritos at Mama Espinoza’s on the 2016 CSC Baja Run!

2017 is going to be a banner year.  We’ve got new RX3s and TT250s inbound.   The new 2017 TT250s will have tachs and digital speedos (and the price will stay at $2195).   The RZ3 (the naked RC3) evaluation bikes are in port and we’ll sell a ton of those.  We’re going racing with Roland Wheeler and the RC3.  We’ll have weekend rides every month (the first one is this Saturday), and we’re doing rides up the Pacific Coast Highway, deep into Baja, across the US to the east coast, and I may even get to ride in Africa this year.  Stay tuned, folks…it’s going to be a fun year!