CSC Blog

With an extra set of Cyclone saddlebags hanging around, I may have stumbled onto the next project…

The colors even match.   Let’s see…a set of brackets…a few bolts…and hey, all you KLRistas out there…don’t start calling us on this yet.   It’s just a thought…

I’m firing up the KLR and riding over to the plant around 8:00 a.m., and I’ll be there until noon or so.  You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this…and here’s the deal…

If you show up with your helmet, jacket, and motorcycle license, there’s a real good chance you’ll get to ride the RX-3!

After three days of steady rain, the heavens relented today.  I love riding after a rainstorm, and I especially love doing so in the mountains.   I promised more photos, and here you go…

On the East Fork bridge, crossing the origins of the San Gabriel River…

All you folks who are putting your trust in us, we won’t let you down…this is what it will be like for you, too!

Driving while shooting…with the D200, a 24-120 at 24mm, and a polarizer…a glorious day indeed!

I’m ready to ride Baja right now!

Another RX-3 beauty shot…the blue bike photographs really well!

Climbing up Glendora Mountain Road at the East Fork end…what a day, what a road, and what a motorcycle!

My favorite intersection with what has become my favorite motorcycle!

Looking out over the San Gabriel Valley from the cockpit…

Your buddy Joe signing off…

Yes, folks, they pay me to do this.   I’d do it for free, but don’t tell the Boss…

The boss has this uncanny ability to find obscure threads that mention the new CSC Cyclone.   Recently, another such thread joined the mix, no doubt inspired by the recent articles in ADVPulse and ADVMoto magazines.   What’s intriguing is that this thread is from the Roam Africa forum.   Wow, talk about serious world travel!

Check out these excerpts from the folks on the other side of the world…

What I really like about the approach of CSC is that they put a lot of emphasis on equipping the Cyclone owner to look after bike himself.  As an after-market accessory you will be able to buy (or rent) a diagnostic computer to simplify maintenance and tuning and the full shop manual is shipped with the bike as standard. They’re also putting in quite bit of effort to ready tutorials that show how to do common maintenance tasks on the Cyclone.

– Mr. Big

My goodness – a motorcycle manufacturer that actually wants the owner of the bike to save money and effort on maintenance?  That is impressive.

– Eisbein

Yip, this “small engine touring” does indeed bring its own mindset.  Maybe we’re so accustomed to our “behemoths” because there weren’t any small ones with luggage carrying capability? And admittedly the looks, this bike looks awesome!

– OomD

It’s all good stuff…more of the Internet buzz surrounding the most exciting new motorcycle on the planet!

Stay tuned, folks…there’s lots more coming your way.

We sure are having fun reading about ourselves and your next motorcycle in the recent ADVPulse and ADVMoto articles….

Great photography and great writing by Paul H. Smith of ADVMoto (he’s the guy carving Angeles Crest Highway canyons in the photo on the left) and Rob Dabney of ADVPulse (he’s the guy putting the Cyclone through its paces in Sheep Canyon in the photo on the right).    There will be many more articles on this fine motorcycle, and we’ll keep you posted on all of them right here!

We’ve got lots of rain here in So Cal.   It started on our Sunday ride and except for brief periods, it just hasn’t let up.  It’s been steady all day.   It gave me a chance to evaluate my new Tourmaster jacket, and I’m happy to report that it worked well.   I stayed dry and warm all day long on the Sunday excursion, even in a pretty serious downpour.

I’m in the shop today (had a great Mexican lunch with Steve a short while ago), and I’m headed out to  the University in a bit.   I only have one class today, but it’s a good one in the Manufacturing Engineering department.  I love that stuff.

I’m really looking forward to visiting Zongshen later this month.   Their manufacturing techniques and process management are among the best in the world, and I always pick up a few new practices I can share with my engineering students when I visit Chongqing.  It’s pretty funny reading some of the comments on the various Internet forums in which the armchair generals criticize Chinese quality…these guys just don’t know of what they speak.  If willingness to wax eloquent without knowledge could be converted to cash, some of the haters posting negative comments would be rich.

That’s it for now.   More stuff to do related to the RX-3.   Later, my friends…

When knowledgeable experts who are paid to be critical tell you something is good, it feels good.   Really, really good!  Folks, behold the latest independent review of the critically-acclaimed CSC Cyclone!

Paul H. Smith, editor of ADVMoto Magazine, wringing out the CSC Cyclone on world-famous Angeles Crest Highway!

Great times and great fun!    And it’s just getting started!

Hey, if you’re on our Cyclone pre-order list and you’re waiting for a call from us, why wait?   Just give us a call at 909 445 0900 to make a deposit and confirm your order.   We have a huge number of pre-orders on this bike and we’re calling everyone on the list, but if you don’t want to wait, just give us a call during the week.

Tom, Steve, and J…the Tourmaster Triplets

We had an interesting ride this morning.   The weather, in a word, was bad.    Tom, Steve, J, and I rode Sheep Canyon again, running the RX-3 through its paces in the rough stuff, and then we rolled into Wrightwood for a great breakfast at the Grizzly Café.   Sheep Canyon was great…it was overcast and cold, and it almost seemed like we were in another state on a hunting expedition.   It was desolate, we were way out in the boonies, and I half expected to have a close encounter with a bear.   The closest we came to seeing a bear, though, was the wooden one at the Grizzly Café (where we had a super breakfast).

It started raining while we were having breakfast.   We thought maybe it would stop, so we headed deeper into the mountains on Angeles Crest Highway.   That was a bad move.   It just got colder and it started raining harder, so we turned around and headed back to the ranch.   We stopped at my place for coffee and to warm up a bit, and then we rolled the rest of the way in the rain back to the shop.

The good news is we did about 100 miles in heavy rain, and the bags and the trunk on the RX-3 were bone dry.  Well, almost.   The left saddlebag had just a little water at the bottom in one of the corners, but I couldn’t tell if that had leaked in or if it fell in when I opened the bag.   They worked well enough, I think.   The factory bags on my Triumph Tiger leaked like a sieve, as did the bags on my old Honda CBX.

To me, it’s all moot.  I never depended on the saddlebags to keep stuff dry on any of my other bikes.  I always put all of the stuff going into the saddlebags into a Hefty trash bag, and then I folded that over to keep everything dry.     The Cyclone bags are as good as or better than the bags on any other bike I’ve ever ridden in the rain, and that’s good enough for me.

J, Steve, and I rolled J’s KLR back into his Dodge Power Wagon, and I picked up my KLR from last week to ride it home (as you remember from our ride last week, the rear caliper bolts fell out of the KLR).   The ride home in the rain on the KLR was dicey.   J was following me in his big Dodge.   I felt the KLR sashaying around in the rain and I thought it was my imagination, but J told me he saw the bike moving around a bit.   Say what you will, but I rode the Cyclone and the KLR back to back in the rain, and the Cyclone was much better behaved in the wet stuff.

And those bolts that I had ordered from the Kawasaki dealer…you know, the ones that fell off my KLR and were supposed to be delivered the next day?  Well, they didn’t make it the next day, or the next day after that, or the Friday after Thanksgiving.   I called the dealer on Saturday morning to find out what was going on, and the bolts never made it at all.   The dealer just forgot to ship them.   Just as well, I guess.   30 cents for the bolt at a hardware store versus $4.00 at the Kawi dealer…it’s a no brainer.

As it worked out, J and I bopped around So Cal in the Vette yesterday, and we actually stopped at the dealer mentioned above just to look at their new bikes.   Here’s something that’s real interesting…check out the freight and setup these guys are charging on a new KLR…

That’s some mighty fancy setting up and freighting, I guess.    You’ll see none of that kind of nonsense on a CSC Cyclone.

On to December, friends.   Ride safe and stay dry…

And it’s our good buddy James!  Take a look…

Joe:

I think the record you mention breaking might be the number of blog entries in a month. I check for new entries almost daily, find them interesting, and hope you continue doing them.

Re: Your upcoming trip to Chongqing next month: Did you know that the famous Flying Tigers flew out of an airstrip there during WWII? There is a museum in the city which documents their accomplishments.

My cousin, in San Angelo, TX had a Mustang and I was looking for information about them when I found your site.

The last time I did any riding was in high school.  My brother came home from a hitch in the navy during the Korean War riding a Matchless and let me ride it to school some.

I doubt that I shall ever become an active rider, however, for I am to celebrate my eightieth birthday in January, but I still have the itch.

I wish CSC success in their endeavors.

James

Check out the number under “Archives”

Yep, you got it, James!   Thanks very much for sending your entry to us and for your kind words. And thanks for the heads up about the Flying Tigers museum…we’ll definitely visit it while we are there.  Oh, and one more thing…about that 80-years-old business.   Congrats to you, but you might consider our exploits with good buddy Simon Gandolfi…who is now 80 and he’s still out there putting around…

James, send us your address and shirt size and we’ll send your prize to you!

You can bet I’ll keep writing for the blog, folks.   It’s a lot of fun.   Keep an eye on us…we’re going riding tomorrow and I’ll probably get one or two more entries in here before the end of the month.

Changing gears, let me move on to a new topic.   I saw this photo on Facebook earlier this morning…

I don’t know, Leo…ya think?

This is Power Ranger Joe signing off…

We set a record yesterday.    Can anybody tell us what it was?

We’re at info@cscmotorcycles.com if you think you know the record we broke.

Beautiful day today here in So Cal.   I’m going riding.

We’re getting lots of questions on the Baja Cyclone trip, with the two most frequent being:

• When are we going?
• What’s it going to cost?

When we go on the first trip depends on when the bikes arrive, and at this point, all indications point to sometime in January.   For planning purposes, we’re thinking sometime in February or March for the first trip.   That can move in or out, though, depending on when the bikes actually arrive, when you all want to leave, and maybe a few other factors.   As we know more, we’ll let you know.

Put yourself in this picture on your CSC Cyclone!

On to the next question:   What’s it going to cost?  On this first trip only, we’re not going to charge you anything.   That doesn’t mean it’s going to be free; it only means that we’re providing the travel planning, booking, and guide service at no cost to you.   You’ll be on your own for fuel, insurance, lodging, meals, and the $35 travel fee the Mexican immigration service might hit us up for at the border between Baja California and Baja California Sur (the states of northern Baja and southern Baja).    Sometimes the Mexican immigration guy is there and charges the fee, sometimes they just wave us through with a big hello, and sometimes they are on siesta.   Things are kind of laid back down there.

We’ll stay at Malarrimo’s in Guerrero Negro…where they have the best whale tours

Lobster…pineapple…lime…it all works

The Baja sanitation crew

More lobster…the food in Baja is incredible

You will need insurance.  Or, stated differently, we hope you won’t need it, but you should have it.  It’s the law in Mexico.   I always buy a policy just for the time I’m down there from Baja Bound (a good insurance company; the one I always use when I visit Baja).    I’ve never had to use it.   The problem is if you get pulled over or have an accident and you don’t have insurance, you’re going to jail.   It’s not like it is up here where you can talk your way out of things.

The oasis in San Ignacio…that, my friends, is a real volcano in the background

The Jesuits introduced date farming to the San Ignacio oasis (one of our stops) in the 1700s

You’ll need a passport, too.   Not to get into Mexico, but if you want to get back into the Estados Unidos, you’ll need it.

There are a couple of other things I should tell you about:  Drugs and guns.   Bring either one into Mexico and the above admonitions about insurance and a passport become peripheral to our discussion because you’re going to jail.    I don’t want to scare you away (I’ve always found the Mexican folks and the Mexican public safety officials to be real nice people), but I need you to understand this isn’t a topic for debate.    They take these things very seriously.

With the above in mind, I did a rough estimate based on being in country for 6 days with lodging for 5 nights.   I think that’s one more day than we’ll actually need, but I estimated everything on the high side just to be sure.   My good buddy J is going to go with us, and he’ll work his magic like he did on the CSC-150 Baja ride a few years ago.   That means he’ll probably be able to negotiate lower hotel fees in advance, lower insurance fees, and maybe a few other discounts (those predicted lower rates are not included here, though; I estimated everything on the high side).   I did the estimate two ways:  One figuring on everybody having their own room, and another based on you and your buddy doubling up.   That’s up to you.

Here’s what I’m predicting…

The above doesn’t include an oil change in Guerrero Negro; you might want to include those costs in your computations.   We’ll be bringing along everything you’ll need in the support vehicle.

I can’t over-emphasize the importance of bringing a camera with you, too.  You might want to factor that into your planning.   These trips are epic, and for me the photos make the adventure last.

If you’re even remotely thinking about going, my advice is to do it.    I’ll show you a whale of a time.

A whale of a time…

I’ll keep you posted as we get closer.