CSC Blog

That’s our Dual Sports and Donuts ride this Saturday, folks!  We’re headed up to the Angeles Crest Highway and Newcomb’s Ranch!   For those of you who may not know anything about the Crest and Newcomb’s, here’s an article I wrote a few years ago on this moto destination…

http://www.motorcycleclassics.com/classic-motorcycle-touring/newcombs-ranch-flintridge-california.aspx

It’s great riding and it will be under a hundred miles for the entire run.  We’ll leave the plant around 9:00 a.m., pick up the 210 west, and follow it to Glendale, where we’ll pick up the Angeles Crest Highway.  The riding along the Crest is awesome, as is the scenery.   We’ll have a late breakfast/early lunch at Newcomb’s, take in the sights in the parking lot, and then head back to Azusa.   Bring a camera.    We’ll see lots of exotic bikes, and lots of cool license plates.

Drop us a line (jberk@cscmotorcycles.com) if you’re planning to ride with us on Saturday.  I look forward to seeing you!

I received this nice note from our good buddy Coleman in Fort Worth last night….

I am Coleman from Fort Worth, Texas.  I’m a musician and longtime landscaper who is now semi-retired.  I sold my last motorcycle – a Honda cruiser — four years ago.  Your 2014 announcement caught my eye, and gave me hope of owning a motorcycle once again.  Since placing an early order for an RX3, I have come through a rough time, but I’m doing better now and I’ve been riding my new RX3.  My motorcycle is still in the break-in period — and love it.  I am getting to know the motorcycle.  I had a great ride today, going the speed limits (without getting into fifth or sixth gears yet, hah-hah).  Today, I posted pictures on Facebook, expecting the haters to start in about “Chinese crap,” but instead found some 60 likes and quite a few positive comments.  Your blog inspires me.

Thanks, Coleman.   We’re glad you’re enjoying your new RX3.   I used to live in Fort Worth and I love the area.   Angelo’s Barbeque, the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, and some of the friendliest people on the planet!   Ride safe and one of these days we’ll get together for a ride!

We’re 2500 kilometers into the 9000-kilometer EPA US certification test of our latest new motorcycle, and all indications are positive, folks!   I am going to get out on one of our test bikes a bit more this week, I’ll run it through Sheep Canyon, and we’ll keep you posted as this exciting new development moves along.    It’s what I’m spending most of my time on these days!

There will be much more info coming your way when we’re ready to share it, and that won’t be too far down the road.   If you think we generated some buzz with the RX3, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Stay tuned…

I received a note from my good buddy Justin earlier today with a suggestion for a product improvement…

Hey Joe,

I just wanted to share one of my latest mods with you. One of my few annoyances on the bike has been riding at night, the headlight lights up the windscreen like a fiber optic and the whole thing glows.  It’s not critical, but is slightly distracting. You can see my fix in the picture. I masked off the headlight and windscreen and surrounding area and used some Krylon for plastic spray paint to black out the top area of the headlight. No more lighting up at night, it works like a charm, and unless you knew what you were looking for, you would never notice it.

Hope all is well!

–Justin

I know what you mean, Justin.   The fiber optic effect doesn’t bother me, although I can see how it might.  It’s funny you mention it; I captured the effect on video when we rode up to Yellowstone at 5:00 a.m. on that very cold morning…

Your fix is clever. Folks, note the black edge along the top of the headlight on Justin’s RX3…

Thanks much for sending your headlight mod to us, Justin!

Okay, it’s official:  Our Tech Days will be the first Saturday of every month.  We’re starting in November. We’re leaving our ride days loosely defined for now, but our next ride will be this coming Saturday and it will be a great one.

On November 7th, our first Tech Day will be devoted to chain replacement.  It’s going to be more like a moto party than a garage session…good company, good eats, and good times.  If you want to upgrade the chain on your RX3, let us know and we’ll have one in stock for you.  We’re not restricting this to just the RX3…we’ll guide you through how to do it on any bike, and we’d love it if you joined us on the 7th (whatever you’re riding).

Chain replacement…the focus of our first Tech Day!

Just let us know in advance so that if you want us to sell you the chain, we’ll have it for you when you arrive (you can RSVP to us at info@cscmotorcycles.com).  We need to know how much lunch to bring in, too, so let us know if you’re going to join us.

Our ace service department manager, Gerry Edwards, will guide you through the process of cutting the old chain off, cutting your new chain to the right length, installing the new chain, and adjusting chain slack and aligning your rear wheel.  We’re going to beam it live, too, if I can teach myself how to use Periscope prior to the event.   Yep, you heard that right…even if you can’t make it to the plant, you can tune in and work along with us to replace your chain at home.  But we’ll have the tools you’ll need to do so and we’ll be here to help you if you visit with us.   One more thing…we’ll have lunch for every one who attends!   Whoa!  Donuts, dual sports, and a free lunch!

Our next company ride will be on October 24th (that’s next Saturday), and it’s going to be to Newcomb’s up on Angeles Crest Highway.   This will be a great ride with lots of twisties along what is arguably the most famous motorcycle road in the world.   We’ll see lots of cool motorcycles and have a great lunch at Newcomb’s!

One thing about Newcomb’s on the Angeles Crest Highway…the place always attracts exotic motorcycles.

I’ll post more details later this week.

Here’s another nice note that just arrived a few minutes ago…

Dear Joe,

My name is Chase. I wanted to talk to you about the RX3 a little. I found the RX3 earlier this year. I thought it was such a nice bike, but just like many others, the Chinese part scared me off and I pretty much just forgot about it. Just recently I have been looking into getting an adventure touring bike. I was originally going to sell my current bike and get one of the big brand big bore adventure bikes. After a while of looking, I just didn’t like the thought of selling my bike when I could just get a cheaper 650cc adventure bike for much less and keep my current bike.

Well apparently Facebook decided to use my search history and a CSC RX3 ad popped up on my Facebook page.  I decided to click on it and look at it once again. Then I stumbled onto the forums and saw that pretty much everyone who had one was extremely happy with it, and most had at least one of the many bikes I was interested in.  I asked them if I they would all pitch in about the adventure bikes they have and see if they had any recommendations.  The few that replied recommended the RX3.  One of the RX3 owners that lives a few hours away from me in Texas offered to ride over to meet me so I could take their RX3 for a spin! I couldn’t believe this! I haven’t taken them up on their offer yet because I am so busy at the moment, but I thought it very generous of them. I figured if they loved the RX3 that much and were pushing it that hard, it must be a good bike. So at this point I was about 70% sure I wanted to get one for myself.

After this I decided to buy your book about the bike. I read through it and now I’m 100% sure that I want the bike. I would almost go as far as saying I need it. Haha! I plan to get one next March. I would get one sooner, but I work as an Instrumentation and Electrical Technician in the oilfield and as you probably know, oil prices aren’t doing so well. I’m hoping the job stability will look a little better by March and then I’ll be ok with spending the money.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how you helped influence my decision to get an RX3, and also let you know I really enjoyed your book. I was also glad to hear that you’re an avid shooter and reloader. Those are both big hobbies of mine as well.

Thanks,

Chase

Glad you enjoyed 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM, Chase, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the road on your RX3.   I hope you’ll be able to join us on one of our CSC adventure rides, too!  Thanks so much for taking the time to write to us.

I received a nice note from one of our RX3 riders, Schuyler, this morning.  Schuyler rode his RX3 across the US after picking it up in California.

Hi Folks,

4610 miles on L’il Sparky, and a bucket list item checked off. Riding from California to New Hampshire on this amazing little bike. This picture is from one of the “side trips” to the Tail of the Dragon, in Deal’s Gap, NC.

Thanks to all for the help and support,

Schuyler

That’s an awesome photo, Schuyler! Thanks for the note and the photo, and thanks for sharing your adventure with us! We’re glad you are enjoying your RX3.

Every once in a while I’ll come across an RX3 video I haven’t seen before.   That happened to me today.   Here you go, folks…this first one was shot mostly in Beijing…

And here’s another that was shot in Chongqing, with a lot of it in the Zongshen factory and their manufacturing campus. I’ve ridden Zong motos in these same areas!

Here’s one from, I believe, Belarus…

And another from Belarus…

And finally, this one, which shows one of our friends in South America putting an RX3 through its paces riding the stuff I hate…soft sand!

This maintenance tutorial addresses installing heated grips your RX3 motorcycle.   This is a pretty nifty accessory, and we pleased to be offering them for the RX3.

We believe the best place to electrically tap in to the RX3’s electrical system for your heated grips is the harness that runs to the headlight.   We’re going to show you how to do this so that when you turn the ignition off, power is cut to the heated grips.   If you tap in to the RX3 electrical system elsewhere, you run the risk of leaving your heated grips on after you have turned off the motorcycle, which will rapidly run down the battery.

The first step is to remove the headlight be removing the two 6mm Allen bolts that secure it to the motorcycle.

Cut the zip tie that secures the headlight harness to the motorcycle.

This is the electrical plug that connects the headlight harness to the motorcycle.  Unmate it.

At this point, the headlight and its harness will be electrically and physically disconnected from the motorcycle.  Take the headlight assembly to your workbench and cut open the rubber sheath that surrounds the headlight harness wiring.

We’re interested in gaining access to the power wire (that’s the brown wire) and the ground wire (that’s the green wire).

With a wire stripper, expose the copper wiring inside the green wire.  This is the ground wire.

Do the same thing on the brown wire (this is the power wire).

Next, take the long harness provided with the heated grips and strip the lead coming from this harness’s fuse box.

Do the same thing with the black lead on the heated grip harness.  After you have done this, solder the heated grip harness’s red wire to the headlight harness’s brown wire.

Similarly solder the heated grip harness’s black wire to the headlight harness’s green wire.   After making the solder connections, wrap each connection in electrical tape, and then wrap the joined harnesses with electrical tape as you see below.

Find the heated grip switch, which is shown below.

The heated grips come with both an adhesive patch for mounting the switch on a flat surface, and a handlebar mount for securing the switch to your handlebars.   We’re going to use the handlebar mount, so find the switch side of the handlebar mount and attach it to the switch with the four provided screws, as shown below.

Find the opposite side of the handlebar mount and attach it to the switch, mounting the switch on the left handlebar as shown below.

The handlebar switch harness has three connector plugs.   The largest connector plug will attach to the heated grip harness we attached to the headlight harness (as explained above).  The other two connectors will attach to the harnesses for each of the heated grips (the left one and the right one).

Our approach will secure the connector plugs beneath the ignition switch shroud for a clean installation.   Remove the ignition switch shroud be removing the two Allen bolts that secure the shroud, as shown below.

Mate the connector from the heated grip harness (the one with the red and the black wires we installed earlier, which is now connected to the headlight harness) to the heated grip switch harness.

You will find that the heated grip harness is way longer than we need it to be.   You can either bundle up this wire and stow it, or remove the excess wire.  We recommend doing the latter.   To do so, cut off the excess wire and splice the harness.   Don’t remove too much wire.   You’ll want to remove enough so that the wiring reaches the headlight harness when the headlight is installed.

Remove the existing grip on the left handlebar.   We do this by slitting the grip with a box cutter, as shown below.

Remove the grip on the right handlebar in the same manner.

Note that the heated grips have different inside diameters.  The smaller diameter grip goes on the left handlebar.  The larger diameter grip will go on the right handlebar’s throttle.

We use ProtectAll to ease the grips’ installation onto the handlebar and the throttle.   We sell this; if you wish to order it with your new grips, please let us know.

Before you install the left heated grip on the handlebar, note that the harness exits the heated grip.   You’ll want to orient the heated grip so that after installation, the harness points down and a little forward.

Lube the inside of  the left heated grip and install it on the handlebar.

Install the end cap on the left heated grip.

The finished left heated grip installation should look like this.   Note the orientation of the heated grip’s harness.

Prior to installing the right heated grip, clean up any injection molding flash on the throttle.   We use a box cutter to do this.   Don’t get carried away.   You just want to remove the big stuff that might interfere with installation of the heated grip.

Again, note that the harness exits the right heated grip.   You want to install the right heated grip so that the harness points to the rear, as shown in the photo below.

Install the end cap on the right heated grip.

Leaving a little slack in the right heated grip harness (as shown below), zip tie the right heated grip harness to the throttle cable barrel.  It’s important that you leave enough slack so that throttle movement is not restricted.

At this point, connect the left and right heated grip harness connector plugs to the heated grip switch harness.

Once this is done, zip tie the connectors near the ignition switch, such that they will be covered when the ignition switch shroud is reinstalled.

Reinstall the headlight, and zip tie the heated grip harness to the motorcycle.  We do this to allow access to the heated grip fuse, as shown below.

After the motorcycle is put back together, you’re almost ready to ride.   Before you do so, check the left-to-right travel of the handlebars to make sure your harness installation and tiedown does not restrict the motorcycle’s steering.

The heated grip switch provides for five heating levels.   These are accessed by repeatedly pressing the heated grip switch.

And folks, that’s it!  Time to get out and ride!

I received a nice note from our good buddy Ron in Tennessee yesterday…

Hey Joe,

I just wanted to thank you and your team for the awesome experience my wife and I are having on our new RX3s…

Ron

Awesome shots, Ron, and thanks for the nice note.   The leaves are turning colors back on the east coast…it’s one of the things I miss out here in So Cal.   We’re glad you are enjoying your new motorcycles, and please keep the photos and notes coming!

On another note, everyone, we’re putting together a maintenance tutorial on installing our new heated grips, so keep an eye on the blog for it.

Ride safe, my friends.