CSC Blog

That kind of day, I guess.   I thought I’d ride the KLR 650 today but it just wasn’t in the cards.    When I went to crank it over, even though I keep it on a battery tender, that thing was deader than Julius Caesar.

The battery in that Kawi just doesn’t last as long as my California Scooter battery…I pulled about 3 years on my first CSC-150 battery before I needed a new one.   I’m lucky if I can get a year out of the KLR battery.   I guess I just don’t ride it enough now that I have the CSC motorcycle.

So, it was off to my local parts dude, the Cycle Rider store, where I had a nice conversation that culminated in a $93 KLR battery.  I hope it lasts longer than the one it replaced (I sprung for a better battery this time).  I’ve got to give a first charge on the battery tender, and then I’ll install it in the Kawi (most likely tomorrow).

You probably noticed that bent license plate on the Kawi.   That’s from the last time I ran down through Baja with it.   My buddy John and rode a bunch of dirt on that trip in a quest to find some of Baja’s abandoned missions, and we did.   Very cool stuff.   The only downside of that trip was that the Kawi’s rear suspension travel and fender arrangement are not terribly well designed…the Kawi design lets the rear tire smack into the license plate when it bottoms, and that’s what I did.  I thought about getting a new plate, but I kind of like the look of the one that’s on there…well worn, well used, and not pampered.

While I was doing my best imitation of a motorcycle mechanic, I pushed the Baja Blaster out of the garage after taking it off of its battery tender.  I hadn’t ridden it in several weeks.  Sure enough, with a little bit of choke and a single touch of the starter button, that puppy fired right up.    I spent a bit of time going over all of the nuts and bolts making sure everything is tight, and my Scooter is ready to rock.  I’m going to get out on it this Monday, and I’ll grab some video while I’m at it.

Another interesting photo, folks…while I was picking up the KLR battery, this fellow pulled into the parking lot in a very interesting rat rod.  It was cool.   The guy driving and the car both could have come directly off the set of American Pickers.   It sure sounded good, too…

The afternoon got away from me…I was in a wrenching mood and the next bit of work was on my air compressor.   The air release on the bottom broke several months ago, and I kind of made do with a bicycle pump (and yes, I have strong arms now).    After playing with the fitting for an hour, I finally got the thing off the tank.   I’ll visit Harbor Freight tomorrow for a new fitting.   It’s not easy pumping up motorcycle and car tires with a bicycle pump, but after tomorrow, I’ll be back in business with a real air compressor.   Before I realized it, though, it was getting dark out.   Enough wrenching for today.   Time to get back on the blog….what with Christmas and all, I haven’t posted anything in a few days.  So…

More cool stuff…

Yesterday, Susie, my good buddy Greg, and yours truly pointed the Subie (aka Il Tangerino) north at 4:00 a.m. and we headed toward Death Valley.   Greg and I had been talking about a mini photo safari, and he and Susie had never been to Death Valley.   Greg and Susie are both California natives.   Their never having been to Death Valley just didn’t seem like a situation that I could allow to continue.

It was sure a fun day…the temperature got as low as  28 degrees on the way in, and it was as high as 80 degrees in the afternoon.   We had a great breakfast at The Mad Greek in Baker (you’ve got to try it if you’ve never been there), and then we headed into 20 mule team country.  The cameras were doing double duty.    It was great.

It was fun.   The scenery was incredible.   In addition to the regular photos, I also put together a few panorama shots using Photoshop.   We had some great photo ops, and there was even had a friendly roadrunner (the real one…not the Plymouth) hanging around our table when we had lunch at the Furnace Creek Inn.   Fun times, and I think I grabbed some good shots (take a look and tell me if you agree).

I really like the roadrunner photos.   Roadrunners are hard to get close to and this one was almost tame.  My guess is he was used to folks feeding him.   Beep beep, and all that.   I didn’t have the heart to warn him about Wile E. Coyote, whom I had photographed just up the road.

Death Valley is an awesome ride.  You may remember when TK, Arlene, and yours truly rode our CSC motorcycles there for the Hell’s Loop Endurance Rally.   Here’s a shot from that event…

…and here’s another shot of our good buddy Howard on his P-51 California Scooter in Death Valley…

I’d like to do another Death Valley CSC ride, and if any of you would like to join in, just let me know….

That’s it for now, friends…ride safe and stay warm!

My good buddy Brad went past the “end of the road” gate up on Highway 39, got caught, and captured the whole thing on video…

Cool stuff, boys and girls!

Want a cool winter project…something for which you can claim personal bragging rights?

Check this out, folks…our latest way for you to get a bike you can truly make your own…the CSC Bike In A Box!

We’ve had a lot of requests for this, and we’re going to give it an initial run on a limited basis.  This latest way to own a CSC motorcycle includes everything (and we do mean everything) you need to make your own motorcycle except the primer, the paint, and the fluids.  It’s a complete CSC 150 with bare metal tank and fenders (and everything else you’ll need) to build your own bike.   You won’t need any special tools, and every part you’ll need is here….every single nut, bolt, wire, washer, and even the zip ties to make this your personal motorcycle.

And the best part?   For a very limited time, this Bike in a Box is being offered at a substantial discount…it’s just $2,899 (plus freight) delivered to your doorstep!

Give TK a call (800 884 4173) and one of these puppies can be yours in just a few days!   We’re only offering a few bikes in a box, so don’t let this offer slip away!

You’ve seen this awesome ’63 on the blog before, folks, but Steve had it down off the lift this week and I thought I’d grab another photo…

It’s an awesome car, and I thought I’d have a little fun making everything behind and around it black and white, and kicking up the vibrance on the car.

If you think that photo is sharp, wait ’til you see the package CSC will be offering in the very near future.   We’re finalizing details on it now, so keep watching the blog, boys and girls!

Ride safe and stay warm, especially our friends up there in Reno!

And this one occurred a long time ago…1981, to be exact.  I spotted this post over the ADVRider web site last night, and folks, the vintage film photography alone makes this worth a read.  You can get to it by clicking here.

I sent the above link to the folks who rode with us on the CSC Baja ride (John, J, Arlene, and Simon), and we’ve been exchanging emails on it all day.   My good buddy John Welker and I, in particular, talked a lot about our 1997 Mexico trip.   That story is here.  It’s kind of funny to look at the bike I rode on that first big foray into Mexico, especially the way I packed it…

And of course, there’s the CSC Baja ride.   You can read that one here.     The California Scooter Baja ride was one of the best ones ever, and for a lot of reasons.    I knew we’d have bragging rights, and the camaraderie on that one was a lot of fun.   Good times, folks…

So, this new product I’ve been hinting at…is it something you could use in Baja?

You bet…but you wouldn’t be restricted to just Baja!

It’s going to be a good one, boys and girls!

Stay tuned!

TK visited our good buddy and custom painter Doug over at Starside Designs and he caught a glimpse of Doug’s personal ride…one of the original Honda import cars!  It’s their 600 model…and it’s very cool.

Honda started bringing these little jewels into the US in the late 1960s.   They had a 600cc twin-cylinder engine…that’s 36 cubic inches and 36 horsepower.

Cool stuff, and as you might imagine, Doug’s ride is immaculate.

Oh, and I just got off the phone with Steve, and we’re putting a few final touches on the exciting new product I mentioned in our last blog entry.  (It’s totally unrelated to Doug’s 600cc Honda, in case you were trying to make a connection.)   Folks, you are going to love it!

Folks, keep an eye on the blog…in the next day or so we’re going to be announcing something very exciting…a new CSC concept!   Trust me on this…if you’ve been thinking about us and your next toy, you’ll want to keep an eye on the blog!

Our good buddy Carol posted this photo of her CSC motorcycle on Facebook in a message to Simon Gandolfi yesterday and I spotted it right away…

That is a beautiful bike, Carol.   I ride a CSC-150, too, and I sure have had a ton of fun on mine.   Thanks for posting the photo and our best holiday wishes to you!

Sure, I ride a road bike…and I do this kind of stuff all the time….

This is a good one to watch with a cup of coffee and a strong sense of amazement. I found myself wondering how many bent spokes, blisters, bruises, and broken bones went into making that video!

Mostly photos today, folks, from my Subie trip a couple of days ago with Marty up to Lake Isabella.

First, a word or two about that photo you see above…it’s an awesome Lake Isabella panorama shot!    There’s more to that photo…if you click on it, it will open in a new window and you’ll see it all.   I can only stick photos here in the blog that are 650 pixels wide, but this one is 900 pixels and part of it gets covered up by whatever is off to the right in the blog margin.   So click on it with your mouse and you’ll see it full size.

The Isabella panorama shot is an interesting picture…I took 11 photos of nearly the entire lake, and then I stitched them together digitally.   Photoshop (the program I use for editing my photos) lets you do this, and the effect is pretty cool.

There’s a lot going on in the photo above…you’re seeing a 270-degree sweep.   The left side of the photo is the south end of the lake, it sweeps through to the north shore, end then it heads south again to the side I’m standing on.   The intense colors are due to the polarizer I used on my Tokina wide angle lens.   And then, of course, there are the mountains reflected in the lake.  Cool stuff!

This is a story about a ride I’ve done a few times on the Bodfish-Caliente Road, one of California’s jewels.   The road is absolutely awesome…an incredible putt through beautiful country.   It’s a trek…the round trip is about 400 miles from my place and back, but it’s worth it.

In planning this trip, my first decision was what to take.   We’re in a cold snap and I knew I’d be headed up above 5,000 feet, so the bikes were out.   It would have been a nice Corvette ride, but I knew I’d be taking a lot of pictures and getting in and out of the Z-06 is tough (and the older I get, the tougher that gets).   That left Il Tangerino (my much-loved Subie), which turned out to be the perfect vehicle for this ride (especially since we’d be hitting some snow, but more on that later).

So it was a short jaunt east on the 210, a run up the 15 through Cajon Pass into the Mojave Desert, north on 395 to Highway 58, and then west on 58 for a few miles.   Sounds quick, but I just talked you through the first 140 miles.   At that point, 58 climbs up into the mountains, the temperature dropped into the 30s, and we kept our eyes peeled for the semi-hidden Caliente exit.

The Caliente exit marks the start of the Bodfish-Caliente Road.   That’s when the real fun begins…in the postage-stamp-sized town of Caliente, bisected by the Tehachapi Loop…

The Tehachapi Loop is just what the name implies…it’s a big loop the railroads use to allow trains to spiral up into the mountains.   We were lucky…we got there just as a long freighter was, well, looping up into the mountains.

And folks, make no mistake, the Bodfish-Caliente Road is the star of this trip.   It is a tight, twisty, awesome, climbing route that runs right through the Walker Basin, with some of the best scenery and photo ops in California.

Don’t believe all of my superlatives?

Well…here we go…

First, let’s take a look at some of the road shots…

That sign isn’t kidding.

I’ve described this road to my friends as a paved goat trail.

In some places where it winds through the mountains that’s what it feels like.   It’s just awesome.

Put this road on the bucket list, folks…it’s one we’ve all got to ride at least once!

The Bodfish-Caliente Road is great, but it’s only part of the story.   What’s on either side is even more fun.   There are some fascinating photo-ops along this road.

Take a look at the folks in this 1927 Buick…

Somebody out there has a great sense of humor.

And hey, take a look at this old fire engine by the trading post…

The Bodfish-Caliente Road is one of my all-time favorite rides.   It would be absolutely awesome on a California Scooter, and when it gets a little warmer, this will be one of our next rides.   There’s no traffic and after every corner there’s a picture postcard scene.    The road cuts through the Walker Basin, an awesome region.   The route is lined by ranches offering even more photo opportunities…

That stop sign above was pretty funny.    Like I said, somebody out there has a sense of humor.

One of the ranches had its own cemetery…

You no doubt noticed the snow in these photos, and when we got into the higher elevations, there was a lot of it.   I don’t think they run snow plows up on the Bodfish-Caliente Road (it’s a very remote area).   The snow just gets packed down by the pickups running over it.    And folks, it was cold up there!

The Subie’s all-wheel drive and its seat heaters were much appreciated on this trip…

After descending through the mountains, the first town at the edge of Lake Isabella is Bodfish.   (Get it?  It’s why they call this the Bodfish-Caliente Road.)

Bodfish is followed by the town of Lake Isabella, and I just had to stop to photograph this sign…

When I stopped for gas I asked a nice lady in the gas station where we could get the best lunch in town, and she recommended the El Rio.

That was sound advice, boys and girls.  Marty and I had a great Mexican lunch there.

As usual, I opted for a chile relleno, and we both had our favorite beer…

After lunch, we took the Subie off road to get down to the lake’s edge.   That’s where I grabbed the shots for the Isabella panorama (the one at the start of this blog).

I took a picture of Marty, too…

Continuing west, we headed out through the Walker Pass.   It cuts across the mountains, and it would bring us back to the 395 (our route home).

There’s a little town called Onyx, and of course, it has a general store…

The Onyx store had a sign on its side saying that it has world-famous sausage.   The next time I go through there I’m going to try it.

I mentioned earlier that we were in cattle country, but I didn’t realize exactly what that meant until we passed through Onyx.

Folks,  here’s a scene you don’t see every day down in LA…

The lighting was terrible from a photography perspective (the snow-capped mountains behind the cows made it tough to get a good exposure), but I grabbed a lot of shots and the one you see here is passable.

This was an awesome experience for a guy like me who grew up in New Jersey.    I felt like I was on the set of Lonesome Dove or Rawhide.    There was even a cowboy sitting tall in the saddle somewhere in that herd.   What a day this had turned out to be!

This is going to sound funny, but I knew one cow was giving me the old stink eye, and it was not a good feeling.   Those things are huge!  I’ve been known to enjoy a good hamburger every now and then, so I suppose a bit of payback would have been fair play.   I was actually having too much fun taking pictures, though, to think about it.

A woman in a large banged-up old Dodge pickup (she was wearing a cowboy hat) drove around my Subie and told me that you just have to inch forward and the cattle will get out of your way.  I let her go first.   Marty commented that she sure had a lot of scratches and dents on her Dodge (no doubt put there by driving through cattle).

It was a fun day, folks, and the stuff you see here is going to be part of a “Destinations” piece I’m doing for Motorcycle Classics magazine (so you’ll want to be sure to pick that issue up).

That’s it for our Bodfish-Caliente/Isabella/Walker Pass ride.   Ride safe, shoot straight, stay warm, and stay tuned.   As always, there’s more good stuff coming your way!