CSC Blog

There are no straight roads in Medellin, there are more motorcycles than cars, the weather is awesome, and the cuisine is incredible.  If that doesn’t sound like heaven to you, well, you need to rethink your concept of fun.   Colombia, folks!  On an RX3!  What an adventure!

So today is Day 1, we put a couple of hundred miles on the AKT Moto RX3 motorcycles, and we haven’t even started our journey yet (it officially begins tomorrow).   My good buddies Juan Carlos and Carlos (there are a lot of guys named Carlos over here) set today aside just to let me get used to riding in Colombia.

Here’s a shot of me with my two moto buddies in a village somewhere in the mountains surrounding Medellin…

Back to the RX3 designation…AKT Moto is one of Zongshen’s largest customers, and they sell a carbureted version of our favorite motorcycle called the RS3.  It’s a cool bike.   Here’s a shot of mine…it’s the one I’ll put 2500 miles on here in Colombia in the next week or so…

And that village?   It’s actually called Mesopotamia.   Folks, I can’t make up stuff this good!

Motorcycling in Colombia is substantially different than what we’re used to.  For starters, there’s the prevalence of motorcycles.   I’m not exaggerating.   I saw far more motorcycles today than cars.   It seems to be the national pastime.   There were thousand (maybe tens of thousands) of riders in the hills this morning.

More interesting facts:

• Motorcycling is predominantly a social activity here in Colombia.   We must have stopped at 4 or 5 coffee houses and restaurants today.  The pattern is you ride for 45 minutes or so, and then stop for coffee.   Hey, is this what café racing is all about?  Juan Carlos knows everybody at these coffee stops, and they all know him.  Juan Carlos founded the only motorcycle magazine in Colombia (DeMotos), and he’s an icon over here.   Any you know what?   Some of these guys recognized me!   Juan Carlos ran a feature story in his magazine on our Western America Adventure Ride, and these guys were all familiar with it.
• The bikes are predominantly in the 100cc to 150cc range, and these folks are all happy with that.   Small bikes rule over here.   We saw people dragging their pegs on these things having as much or more fun as we do on the big bikes in the US.  Nah, scratch that…they were having more fun!
• I asked about freeways and the guys laughed at me.   They pointed to the winding set of twisties just outside the restaurant and told me, “that is our freeway.”  These are my kind of people!
• There are elite riders over here on Triumphs, Ducatis, BMWs, and MotoGuzzis.  There are lots of large Yamahas over here, too (or, is they say in Colombia, Jamahas).    They’re not arrogant.  We had coffee with a bunch of them, and they were all great guys.  The photo below is a typical roadside restaurant, and they all looked like this.   What a place!

The food is awesome.   Here’s a shot of my lunch at that restaurant above.  The dish is called Capresse Buenaventura…

Ah, let’s see, a few more photos from some of the little villages we rode through today…

Juan Carlos picked up his cousin Heronimo (you gotta love their names!) and he rode with us in the afternoon…

After I took that shot above and Juan Carlos and Heronimo pulled out, I saw a cool police bike painted in fluorescent safety yellow (or is it a green?).   I always wondered what a bike would like painted in that color…

Bikes are both sporting propositions and utilitarian vehicles down here.   I saw bikes carrying all kinds of cargo (no photos, but I’ll get some of those later), and I saw a few bikes that had to be 20 or 30 years old and were still doing hard time…

One of the guys I met at one of our coffee stops is a retired US Army Colonel named Miles.   I liked the guy immediately…he’s a dead ringer for Lee Marvin and he even sounds a little like him.   Talk about stories…this guy has been everywhere and when he retired, he decided to hang his hat in Colombia.   Here are a couple of photos of my new buddy Miles…the first one with the guys listening to him in Mesopotamia, and a shot at yet another coffee stop.   I sure drank a lot of coffee today!

Well, I think that’s enough blogging for Day 1.  We’re rolling out at 4:30 tomorrow, and I want to get a good night’s sleep.   The altitude bothered me a bit yesterday and I didn’t sleep too well, but I think I’m used to it now.   The plan tomorrow is to put 300 miles on the bikes, and like I said, there are no straight roads in Colombia.   We’re climbing up over another mountain range and headed for the coast.   It’s going to be fun!

Our good buddy Dan posted this video over on the ADVRider forum, and I liked it so much I wanted to post it here.   Enjoy, folks!

In less than 36 hours, folks, I’m wheels in the wells and bound for Medellin, Colombia, to hook up with my good buddy Juan Carlos for a circumnavigation of that country on an AKT Moto RX3.  Here’s the route we’ll be taking…

To say I’m excited would be an understatement of gigantic proportions.   It’s going to be a hell of an adventure, and I’ve been having a hard time falling asleep at night thinking about it.    Colombia.  On an RX3.   As the guest of AKT Moto and DeMotos magazine (the only motorcycle magazine in Colombia).   I really fell into clover on this one!

I was in the CSC plant this morning just kind of checking things over on the Internet.   You know from reading the blog and following us on Facebook that we have two specials running right now…one is on the TT250 (a steal if ever there was one) and the other on the 2016 RX3.   Both are great deals.   I have an RX3 (as you most certainly know if you read the blog) and I’ve done some serious miles on it.   I love that motorcycle, and so do a lot of other people.   This morning, I fired up the dirty gal Ryan rode on Sunday (the black TT250), and I put a a quick 50 miles on it on the 210 freeway and then around town.   I love the TT250.  It’s light, it’s torquey, and it’s just flat fun to ride.

The TT250 runs with the big dogs on the freeway, and it’s comfortable cruising at around 60-65 mph.   The 34-inch seat height notwithstanding, it’s not that tall when you get on it.   I have a 29-inch inseam, and I can nearly flat foot it when I’m wearing my motorcycle boots.   At $1,895, this bike has to be the deal of the century.   And like they say, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  I’m in the middle of a series of things we’re negotiating with Zongshen right now, and when the bikes start arriving…well, let’s just say the folks who missed the boat are going to feel real bad.  We can’t talk about these things yet, but trust me on this, you are going to like what we are doing.

With our specials running on Facebook and our social media marketing, the Internet comments have been pouring in.  When we first started marketing the RX3, not many people knew about it and when the trolls started spewing their venom we were the only folks responding to them.   Today, we don’t do that too much any more.   Part of it is we are too busy selling motorcycles, and the other part of it is the folks who already own the RX3 and know our company shut down the trolls before we do.   You know, this whole business of trolling and badmouthing something on the Internet (in all cases, with no real knowledge) induced me to write a blog on the topic when we started selling the RX3.   I called it Venom, Viciousness, and Vituperation, and you can read that blog here.   Yesterday, while I was driving to CSC, I heard the radio talking head mention this same concept.   She referred to it as online disinhibitation.   I liked the term and I immediately Googled it when I got to the plant.  I found a good article that reinforced all of my conclusions on the trolls.  It’s a good read and it made me feel good…a team of high-falutin’ psychologists came to the same conclusions we did (and we’re not psychologists).  You can read that article here.  It’s a good read.  It says a lot about the trolls, and none of it is complimentary (but you probably knew that already; these are not well-adjusted people).

Okay, that’s enough for know.   35 hours and I’m on the Avianca flight to Medellin!

We’ve defined the new 2016 RX3 configuration, folks, and this blog explains what it is.

We’re going to have four colors (Sahara Orange, metallic Sierra Silver, metallic Garnet Red, and pearl Ice White).   The red and white colors are the same colors as the 2015 model.  Sierra Silver and Sahara Orange are brand new colors (that’s the silver bike in the photo above).   We’re painting the body panel behind the CSC logo for all of our colors, which gives the bike a much richer appearance.   Here are the two new colors, both up close and showing the entire bike…

Sahara Orange is a much deeper and richer color than the current RX3 orange.   The photos don’t do it justice…it really is stunning, as is the new Sierra Silver.

The bikes you see above are intended only to show the colors.  They don’t have the rest of the 2016 features incorporated yet.  We had the Sahara Orange bike built up just to assess the color, and it sold the first day we brought it to the Long Beach IMS show.   The Sahara Orange bike you see above has a few options (the lowering kit, knobby tires, and the Seat Concepts custom seat); they’re only in the photo because it’s the only Sahara Orange bike I had for the photo.

For 2016, the RX3 will have gold anodized forks (not shown in the above photos), new graphics (not shown in the above photos), adjustable forks (they’ll be adjustable for damping), new satin finish handlebars (not shown in the above photos), and bar end weights (not shown in the above photos).

The price on the 2016 RX3 will be $3,895.   We had ten 2015 RX3s left in stock at the time I posted this blog, and they’re still $3,495.   They’re going fast, so if you want one of the 2015s, call us now at 909 445 0900.   And we’re already taking deposits on the 2016 models (they are going fast, too, so if you want to reserve a new 2016 RX3 in the first shipment, give us call at 909 445 0900).  We’re offering free shipping on RX3 2016 pre-orders (in the continental US only), so give us a call!  To pre-order now, call us at 909 445 0900 or click here!

An osprey in Guerrero Negro…we’ll see a lot of them

This is what I posted for our last Baja trip and it’s relevant for this trip, too.

On the hotel reservations, we’ll have that squared away…you’ll have to pay for your rooms, but we will contact the hotels so they will hold the rooms for us.  You won’t have to contact the hotels to make your reservations except for the night before we leave if you are getting a hotel in the US.   Somebody asked about double occupancy.  That’s up to you.  I’ll be sending out the list of people who are going to the folks on this trip and you can contact each other if you wish to double up.  One more word on the hotels:  These ain’t the Waldorf Astoria (I’ve stayed at the Waldorf, and I like the ones in Baja better).  If you’re expecting 5-star luxury, you might want to lower your sights a bit.

A typical Baja breakfast

The next question you might have is:  How much money should I bring?   I’ll be posting that shortly, too.  Not many places down there take credit cards, so don’t plan on that.   There is an ATM in Santa Rosalia, but I wouldn’t count on it working.

People often ask what other stuff they should bring. Here’s what I’m bringing:

• Cash (I’ll post how much later).
• Digital camera with charger and spare SD card, and my laptop (so I can post to the blog if we have Internet reception).
• Motorcycle gear (helmet, jacket, pants, gloves, boots, and the jacket and pants are rain-proof).
• Two pairs of jeans (one I’ll be wearing on the way down, and an extra pair).
• Two extra pairs of underwear, two extra pairs of socks, two T-shirts and one sweatshirt.
• Deodorant, toilet paper, disposable razor, Immodium, toothbrush, toothpaste and my cholesterol pills.  On that Immodium thing, I don’t get sick down there, but I’ve traveled a lot in Mexico and my stomach is used to their flora.   If you haven’t been in Mexico before, you might want to bring the Immodium just in case.  This isn’t a slam on Mexico; they get the same thing when they come up to the US.  It’s just different bugs that your stomach takes time to get used to.
• Passport, driver’s license, and BajaBound insurance policy (printed proof of Mexican insurance).  I’ll post where to get the insurance later.
• Toolkit (beyond the RX3 toolkit), including 8, 10, 12, 17 mm sockets and ratchet, Allen wrench combi-tool, reversible (slot and Philips) screwdriver, an adjustable spanner, my Gerber pliers combi-tool, duct tape, and tie wraps.
• One spare clutch cable, one quart of oil, one can of chain lube, one mini air pump (we sell these), tire irons, a countershaft sprocket nut, and two tubes (one for the front, one for the rear).  I never use that sealant goop you put in your tires to fix a flat.  All of the other times I’ve seen other people use it, it hasn’t worked.
• One positive attitude (that’s probably the most important thing on this list).

If you are picking up a new RX3 prior to the trip and you plan to change your oil as part of the break-in process while you are in Mexico, you’ll need to bring two quarts of oil, an oil filter, a tray to catch the oil, and the tools you’ll need.  Take a look at our online maintenance tutorial if you’re going to be doing this.   I’ll be there to help you, but I’m not bringing extra stuff for you.   You’ll have to pack what you need.

One of the cave paintings at Sierra San Francisco…these are over 10,000 years old

My observation is that most people pack way more than they need to.   We’re not on an expedition to Mars; we’re going into Mexico for 8 days.   The more stuff you pack, the more stuff you’ll have to load and unload every day, and the more your bike will weigh.   Travel light, folks.

That’s it for now.  If you have any questions, let me know.  Just shoot me an email (jberk@cscmotorcycles.com).