CSC Blog

Our good buddy Joe B from Texas (not me, although I dearly miss living in the Lone Star State) sent this photo of his and four of his buddies’ TT250s just before they left on a ride…

Good times that I know well…riding a motorcycle in Texas is one of life’s great treats!

Thanks for the photo, Joe…I’m headed out to do exactly the same thing on my TT250 as soon as I’m done with this post!

My good buddy Juan Carlos Posada, editor and publisher of Colombia’s Numero Uno motorcycle magazine, published his account of our Colombian moto adventure in the latest issue of De Motos magazine!

Juan’s article is awesome, and he captured the adventure well.  I cut and pasted each section of text into the Google translator, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.   There are lots of color photos in the story, and that one you see above is Carlos, yours truly, and Juan in front of the Volcan Nevado del Ruiz (an active volcano high in the Andes Mountains).  It was a hoot!  That trip was the grandest moto adventure I’d ever been on…Juan, Carlos, and Enrique (of AKT Motos), thank you again.

Well done, Juan!

Folks, I’m riding.  I got my new TT today and I’m racking up the kilometers.   I’d like to say I’m racking up the miles, but you already know that story.  We’re delivering bikes, too.   The guys were in yesterday (we’re normally closed on Mondays) and we’re running flat out getting the new bikes prepped, tested, and on the way.

I rode my bike around Azusa for a bit this afternoon, I took it back in to Gerry’s guys to adjust the clutch cable and the lever angles, and then I was back out on the road.  I rode city streets and I rode the freeways.   My TT has less than 100 kilometers on it (again, I wish I was telling you that in miles) and all is well.   The TT is a torquey little thing, and it rolls away from a stop with authority.   The shifting was a little notchy initially and it was a little hard to find neutral, but pulling the slack out of the clutch cable made that better.  I still want to futz with it a bit later on tonight to get it where I want it.  It’s shifting better as the kilometers roll up.

The bike is still tight and it’s not broken in yet, so I didn’t want to beat it up too bad.  I rode my TT from the CSC plant to the University this afternoon and then I rode it home.  I saw 60 mph on one stretch of the San Berdoo Freeway when the evening rush hour traffic opened up to that speed.   The bike will do better once she’s fully broken in.  What I really liked about my new bike was sitting up tall, seeing all that was around me, and how light and maneuverable it was splitting lanes on the way home.   The TT250 is not an RX3…it doesn’t have the same high end rush, it’s not fuel injected or water cooled, it’s a 5-speed, and it costs less than half of what an RX3 does.  It’s a hell of a bike, though, and I’m having no regrets with mine (other than that kilometer thing).   I’m going to adjust the angle of the levers again after dinner and get back up in the mountains to put a few more kilometers on it.

We’re working a half dozen quality details with Zongshen on the TT250 right now.   It’s one thing to evaluate a few prototypes; it’s an altogether different challenge when multiple shipping containers arrive with tons of new motorcycles in them.   There are a few things we’re giving the Zong factory a tuneup on, we’re making sure the bikes are right for you, and they are shipping out of Azusa sharply.

You’re probably asking…what, no photos?   Not yet, but stay tuned.

I picked up my new TT250 this morning and I was hoping I’d be able to get on the blog and brag about it nonstop…but I can’t.  The good news is that the speedometer is indeed calibrated in miles per hour, and when I ran it by one of those “your speed is” electric signs it was right on the money.   The sign said 39 mph (I was in a 40 mph zone), and my speedo said 39 mph.  Wow, I thought…this is more accurate than the RX3 speedo.  Then I looked at the odometer and the tripmeter, and they were whirling.   Uh oh.  Steve told me our good buddy Jim, who picked up his bike on Saturday, questioned the same thing.  I took out my cell phone, got on Google maps, and saw that I was 3.5 miles from the plant.  I reset the tripmeter to 0.0 miles and rode back to the plant.   The tripmeter indicated 5.5.   That’s kilometers, folks.  It looks like the Big Zong got the speedo right, but they neglected to recalibrate the odo and tripmeter.

It’s an annoyance and an engineering change control lapse, and we apologize for that.   We’ll make good on it.  I don’t have the details on what we’re going to do yet as I only just confirmed this today, but I can’t see how it could possibly be anything other than replacing the entire speedometer.   We’re talking to the guys in Chongqing, and I’ll let you know as soon as we know.   But don’t fret.   Like I said above, we’ll make good on it.

Our good buddies Sue and Andrew both bought RX3s, they are both authors, and they are both awesome.  Check out this video Sue just posted on YouTube…

Sue and Andrew are doing Alaska on their RX3s this summer.  I believe they are going to be the first to make that trek, and I’m sure there’s a book in that one.  Guys, sign me up…I want an autographed copy!

I’ve read a number of posts on a couple of Internet forums lately about fuel in the RX3’s crankcase oil.

I had never noticed a fuel smell from the oil before on any of the motorcycles I previously owned, so I asked Zongshen’s engineers about this phenomenon.   They explained to me that it is a normal occurrence.   In fact, they told me a fairly high percentage of fuel in the oil is expected as a normal part of the engine’s operation.

Here’s what’s going on:  In the early stages of the fuel injection cycle, some of the injected fuel does not atomize completely.  When that occurs, a small amount of raw fuel washes down around the rings and finds its way into the crankcase.   Ultimately, as the engine reaches operating temperature, most (but not all) of this fuel will vaporize and either be sucked back through the intake tract, or it will condense and go into the drain tube beneath the oil/air separator.

As a check on the guidance offered by Zongshen, I did a literature search on my own at the California State Polytechnic University (I teach in the College of Engineering there).   There’s not a lot of information on this issue, but what information there is supports what Zongshen tells us.   In particular, here’s the conclusion from a technical paper in which the researchers focused on this topic for both diesel and gasoline engines:

The obtained results are in agreement with the relevant published data for fuel-engine oil mixtures, where amounts of fuels in oils of up to 4 or 5% are foreseen as acceptable levels, while amounts of 7 to 10% of fuels in oils are considered as unacceptable levels.

Someone on one of the forums wondered aloud if my recent blog describing improved smoothness and performance with 20W-50 oil was related to any of the above.  Folks, it was not.   We’re not that devious…if we have a reason for stating something we won’t hide it from you.   Not surprisingly, my literature search indicated there is some viscosity reduction as a result of fuel in the engine oil.  This is acceptable within the fuel-in-the-oil levels indicated above for both 10W-40 and 20W-50 oil.  The literature indicates that a higher viscosity oil (the 20W-50) will have higher remaining viscosity than would a lower viscosity oil (the 10W-40) if fuel is present in the oil.  That’s entirely logical, but it wasn’t the reason I mentioned that my bike runs better with 20W-50 oil.  I mentioned that because, well, the bike runs better with the 20W-50.

The significant point from all of the above is that fuel in the oil is normal, as both Zongshen and the engineering literature tell us.

I stopped by the plant for a bit this morning and things are buzzing.   The guys are on overtime working prep and setup activities on the TT250s and the RX3s…

Derek and Willie mugging for the Nikon

And folks are stopping in to take delivery of their new bikes when their TT250s and RX3s are ready.   I had a nice conversation with our good buddy Jim this morning.   Jim was here to pick up his beautiful white TT250 (I hear that’s the fast color)..

Steve and Jim, after Steve walked Jim through the features on his new CSC TT250…Jim was headed out for a ride in the San Gabriels!

More to follow, folks, so keep an eye on the blog.  I’ll be posting more about the upcoming China ride, too…that’s going to be a hoot!

Wow, I just met Troy Siahaan, one of the motojournalists from Motorcycle.com magazine!   Troy is road testing our RC3 preproduction bike, so watch for the story in Motorcycle.com.

Gerry briefing Troy Siahaan of Motorcycle.com on the CSC RC3 sport bike!

We like Motorcycle.com.  They did one of the very first stories on the RX3 when it first arrived, and it helped us a lot.   You can see that story here.

Evans Brasfield’s awesome photo of Tom Roderick on one of the very first RX3 motorcycles in America

We expect the RC3 story to appear in the near term, and we’ll let you know when that happens!

…without really intending to.  I like the DR650, but when I posted that blog earlier today from an ADVRider post, it sparked a response from my good buddy Tucson Greg.   You’ll remember Greg from our first Baja run…

Here’s what Greg wrote about an hour after my post…

Joe –

In the Spring of 2011, I bought a brand new DR650. The bike was only $6199, but I spent a lot of time & money fixing it up exactly the way I wanted:

• First thing was a Suzuki rear rack for about $120 because it didn’t have one. Or any other carrying capacity of any kind.
• Second thing was a Suzuki skip plate for about $120 because it didn’t have one.
• Third thing was a jet kit for about $70 because DR650’s run so lean that they will die young here in the desert.
• Fourth thing was a Sargent seat for about $350 because the stock seat was possibly the worst seat I have ever had.
• Fifth thing was a set of Rox adjustable handlebar risers for about $180 so I could ride standing up when I wanted to.
• Sixth thing was lowered foot pegs from ProCycle for about $180 because my knees couldn’t bend that way.
• Seventh thing was to lower the bike.  No parts cost except for the $72 for the new, shorter kickstand, but the dealer wanted $300 for the labor, so I did it myself.
• Eighth thing was Progressive springs and Intiminator valves for the front forks for about $300 altogether.
• Ninth thing was to have a guy rebuild the rear shock so that it would work.  That was $200, but I did it twice during the 6500 miles I put on the bike.
• Tenth thing was a 5.1 gallon Clarke gas tank for about $350 because the bike could not be counted on to go 150 miles with the stock tank.
• Eleventh through the 15th things I forgot.

I had the bike for a little over 5 years for a cost of over $10,000 and I loved it for 6500 miles.  I sold it in Spring of 2016 for $4200.

In the Spring of 2015, I bought one of the first RX-3’s off the boat for the introductory price.  CSC added the 12V and USB outlets to the dash and the mudguards for my hands for $150.  The first thing I did with the bike is take it on the inaugural ride with CSC down the Baja. I later lowered the bike with the CSC lowering link for about $100.  I later bought the Seat Concepts seat for it.

I have about 6,500 miles on it.  I have tracked every penny I have ever spent on the bike, gas, oil, tax, registration, insurance, EVERYTHING.  I’ve got $3955 in the bike now.  But more important, it’s my go-to bike.

The DR650 is a great bike and I loved mine.  But I chose to sell it and keep the RX-3.  Do I need help?

Greg

Greg, I don’t think you need any help at all.   Maybe next year you’ll join us on the 3rd Annual CSC Baja Run.   I’m hoping so.   Thanks for writing, Amigo!