CSC Blog

I know what you’re thinking, and no, I didn’t put another thousand miles on my RX3.   This was a Subie trip with Susie and my youngest daughter Erica.   We pointed Il Tangerino north along the coast, and headed up to San Francisco.  Good times and good scenery, although the traffic on the PCH was grindingly grueling.   Still, we had fun, and spending time with the girls on the road is always a hoot.

Here are a few quick scenes along the PCH, Cambria, Hearst Castle, San Francisco, and more…

On the way back, we didn’t want to slug it out with the LA traffic and Susie wanted to stop for Mexican food at the Barstow Del Taco.   We steered east along Highway 58 about halfway down the state from San Francisco and headed toward the original Del Taco restaurant.   Their tacos are awesome and we had a fine dinner!

Along the way during our road trip and for the last few days, my good buddy Paul has been sending me photos of a black powder rifle he’s been building.  It’s just about finished now, and it’s looking good.  Really good.

I’m a sucker for a niece piece of lumber on a rifle, and this one has a nice fiddleback pattern that is a show stopper!   But it’s not just the stock that makes this rifle…its overall proportions and looks are stunning.   Paul literally made the entire rifle…as they say, lock, stock, and barrel!

Beautiful work, Paul!

That’s about it for now…I’ve got a bunch of stuff to catch up on here at the ranch, not the least of which is working on 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM.   It’s coming along nicely and I am having a lot of fun writing it (in fact, it doesn’t feel like work at all, but truth be told nothing I have ever done with CSC has ever felt like work to me).

I want to get out on my RX3, too.  I’ve been following your posts on Facebook and elsewhere about your RX3 adventures, and I’m going to put more miles on mine tomorrow.

One last thing…several of you want to know if I know of anybody you can hook up with to take advantage of our Good Buddy free shipping offer.   I do not, but I want to suggest four sites where you can post a request and I’ll bet you get responses.

• The first is our Facebook page. We have a post on there about the Good Buddy program and people are asking the same question. The link for that is https://www.facebook.com/pages/CSC-Motorcycles/114098438079.
• The next is the Cyclone RX3 Facebook page.   The link for it is https://www.facebook.com/groups/412630818887109/.
• There’s a long-running thread on ADVRider about the RX3; that link is at http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/csc-250cc-rx-3-cyclone.1007040/page-45.
• Finally, you can also find us on Chinariders.net at http://www.chinariders.net/showthread.php?t=13440.

My advice if you want to find somebody to hook up with for the Good Buddy program is to post your interest on any or all of these sites.   Somebody (or several somebodies) will respond.

Later, my friends.

More good stuff, folks!   Motorcycle.com just listed the CSC RX3 as one of the best values in all of motorcycling!   You can read that article here:  Best Value Motorcycle of 2015.

Motorcycle.com published a piece about our “Good Buddy” program yesterday, and they wrote about us again today when they identified the RX3 as being a great value.   It’s good stuff and we’re grateful for the coverage.  Our advice is to read both articles and weigh in with your comments.

Our next shipment of RX3s is due the first week of September.    If you want to get a red one or a white one (two colors that sell out quickly), you might want to call us now.  These two colors will be the first to go.

More good stuff…my good buddy California Mike stopped by the plant yesterday and he had great stories to tell us about his trip from California up through Nevada, Idaho, and Washington.

Mike was on the road the same time we were on the Western American Adventure Ride, and he did it right.  Mike camped all the way, he did a little prospecting (and he found a couple of cool garnets), and he just had a grand time.  It really sounded like fun.

Good stuff, Mike, and thanks for sharing your time and your photos with us!

Motorcycle.com ran a story about our Good Buddy program yesterday, and the comments are coming in.  You can get to it by clicking on the link in the sentence above.

The guys at Motorcycle.com are awesome, and they’ve treated us well.   They were one of the first magazines to give the RX3 a thorough test, and they scored it highly.   The comments are entertaining.

Once in a while I’ll throw a little gas on the fire just to feed the Internet trolls (you know, the folks who use the Internet to spread their venom).  There are some folks who are incredibly threatened by the RX3.  Or maybe they are threatened by us.  Or maybe they are just mean.   I don’t know.   I wrote about it a few months ago in my Venom, Viciousness, and Vituperation blog entry.   You have to wonder why they do it.   More than few, I suspect, don’t ride at all.  It’s the Internet, I guess.  It brings out the worst in some folks.   But it is entertaining.

There are several places on the Internet to get good information about the CSC RX3.   There are a number of forums (some good, some not so good) and there’s actually a thriving board or two on Facebook.  Here’s a quick rundown of the ones I know….

The CSC Facebook Page.   This is our page on Facebook.  You can find out the latest on CSC here.  Steve and I maintain this page.  It has good info, but the CSC blog (what you are reading now) usually has the breaking news.  We’ll get some whackos (you know, the haters) posting occasionally on our FB page, but unless their comments contain profanity we just leave their comments on the page.

The IBAR Facebook Page.   This is the Facebook page for the International Brotherhood of Adventure Riders.    It has good discussions on it on all kinds of adventure bikes.

The Cyclone RX3 Zongshen Owners Facebook Page.   This is Jim McMains’ Facebook page and it’s focused on our favorite motorcycle.  It is a good page.  I read it daily.   Their photo at the top is one I took way back when.

MyChinaMoto.com.   This is a great forum, and it has a fair amount of stuff on it about the RX3.   You’ll see a comment or two from me on this board under my real name.  It has the story about the guy who rode an RX3 from China to Istanbul.

ADVRider.com.   This is a forum that I’ve been a member of for a long time.   It has a number of active threads on the RX3.  The link I’ve provided here is the most active one.  If you have an RX3 and want to share your experiences, we’d like you to weigh in here.  I post on this board under the screen name Gatling.

ChinaRiders.net.   The ChinaRiders forum is one of the more active ones devoted exclusively to Chinese motorcycles, and there is a very active RX3 thread here.  I post under the screen name CSCDude on this board.  It attracts the odd whacko or two, but their whackiness is easily discernible and as I mentioned above, I suspect the one or two haters who lurk here don’t even own a motorcycle.   There’s a lot of good information on this board.

RX3Forums.com.   This forum started right after we introduced the bike.   My observation when I used to read it was that it was generally free of haters.  We don’t follow this forum, but you might want to take a look at it.

Cyclone RX Forums.   We don’t follow this one, either.  The owner sells RX3-themed trinkets.   He wanted us to endorse his stuff, but he wouldn’t tell us his real name.   That’s all we needed to know to pass on that opportunity.

I think that’s about it.  If you know of other forums I’ve missed, let me know.

So, how about this?   At the tail end of our Western America Adventure Ride, our good buddy Allen from northern California saw us heading south on US 101 somewhere north of San Francisco.   Allen was so intrigued by the RX3 that he looked us up on the Internet, flew down to Azusa, bought the bike, and rode it home!

Well done, Allen, and best wishes with your new motorcycle!   You are our kind of rider!

I came across this on Facebook…it’s the new S1000RR BMW engine (a cutaway, of course) spinning at a cool 14,200 rpm!

And speaking of rpm, I spent a good chunk of today working on 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM.   It’s fun writing it, and I’m including chapters up front about how CSC came to be, my joining the company, the story behind the original Mustang motorcycle, and how all that led us to Zongshen.   All good stuff, and the book is progressing quickly.   It’s been about three years since I wrote a book, and I had forgotten how much fun it is to burn into a project like this.

It’s hot out here today.   I rode the RX3 yesterday when I went to lunch with the geezers over at the BMW place, and I looked at BMW’s S1000RR motorcycle (the bike with the engine in the YouTube above).   The bike is beautiful and it has nearly 200 hp, but it costs $20,000.    That’s six RX3s.

Anyway, I was going to ride today, but it was just too hot.  I went to the range instead and punched holes in paper a hundred yards downrange with the .30 06 and .300 H&H rifles.  Good times.

There’s a ton of interest in the Good Buddy program, folks.   You can read about it a blog post or two down.   Don’t wait.  It won’t go on too much longer.

…than my good buddy Joe Gresh!

Baja John (on the left) and Ar Jiu Joe Gresh (on the right). Joe has a piece of cheese John gave him for riding for 2 weeks without doing a single burnout.   Alas, we had to take it away a few days later.   It’s a story for another time.

You know from reading the blog that Joe Gresh is the Motorcyclist magazine columnist who rode the entire Western America Adventure Ride with us.   He’s a hell of a writer and an enormously entertaining guy to be around.   Joe Gresh is one of many things that made the ride a lot of fun.

I just read one of Joe’s Cranked columns, and it really hit home.  I think he absolutely nailed it, and I urge you to read this latest posting…

Total Recall: Taking Your Motorcycle Back To the Dealer For a Zip-Tie?

You might be wondering what that Ar Jiu business is all about in the caption above.   You’ll have to buy 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM to find out!  The book is in work now, and I’m having a lot of fun writing it.   I’m going to include a chapter for each portion of the ride, one on the people, and a lot of background info on what was involved in bringing the RX3 to America and changing people’s perceptions of Chinese motorcycles.

That’s it for now.  I’m going to lunch with the geezers today, and I’m riding my RX3 there.    Later, my friends!

For a very limited time, if you and a good buddy each order an RX3 motorcycle and have the bikes shipped to the same location (at the same time), we’ll pay the freight.

Folks, it’s not going to get any better than that, it’s not retroactive, and there’s no guarantee on how long we’re going to run this special (other than that it won’t be for too long).  Depending on where you live, this could be up to $500 in freight avoidance costs on each bike.

You know, the RX3 truly is a world class bike.   Think about what we’ve done so far in the 4 months since we’ve been selling these bikes in America.   We’ve sold more motorcycles than most dealerships do in two or three years.   We did a 1700-mile trip through Baja with 15 of our good buddies.   We just finished a 5000-mile ride around America with 10 bikes, we ran them hard for 18 days straight in temperatures ranging from the mid-30s to well over 100 degrees, and the engines never missed a beat.   Four magazine tests, and four thumbs up.   84 mph.   70+ mpg.   Electric starting.  Luggage.  Engine guards.  Liquid cooling.   6 speeds.  Windshield.   Full instrumentation.  Handlebar-mounted accessories switches and built-in accessories outlets.   300-watt alternator.   Free online maintenance tutorials.  A free service manual with each bike.  Parts availability and customer service that people are bragging about on the Internet.   A complete accessories line.  Yeah, we’re bragging a little bit.  Or maybe not.   Like that guy said…no brag, just fact.

Don’t wait on this one. If you were thinking about buying an RX3, do the right thing and convince one or more of your friends to do the same.  Give us a call at 909 445 0900, but act fast.

My Baja Blaster, the little engine that could, the one that I rode all the way down to Cabo San Lucas and back, is on the block.

To be honest, I don’t ride it any more now that I have my RX3.   I wasn’t sure if I wanted to sell it, and I thought about that a lot on the recent Western America Adventure Ride.   It’s one of the things that happens when you spend hours and days (weeks, actually) on a motorcycle without things to distract your thinking.    Things started moving in that direction a few weeks ago when I noticed several CSC-150 and CSC-250 owners trading their bikes in on a new RX3.     I love the bike; I just don’t ride it.   She’s never missed a beat, she’s never failed to start, and she’s gorgeous.

You know, we’re out of Mustangs, and we get calls for them.   Ryan mentioned that the other day.  Maybe you want one.   This could be that bike.

I have three bikes in my garage (my RX3, my 10-year-old KLR 650, and the Baja Blaster).   That little lipstick red puppy will fire right up, just like she always does, and I’m rolling into the plant on her later this morning.   Steve and Ryan will sell the Baja Blaster for me.   It’s time for someone else to make new history on it.  Me, I’m going to apply whatever I get to my next bike, which most likely will be a TT Special.   If you’re looking for a Mustang with a story to tell, this could be your next bike.

We shipped a bike out for brake testing last week, we have a couple more documents to submit, and then it’s all over except for what we believe will be a short administrative wait.   Folks, we’re predicting we’ll be approved to sell the RX3 in Canada by the end of September (if not sooner).  We’ll keep you posted right here.

One of the three Western America Adventure Ride bikes sold a few minutes ago…the only white one we had.   That didn’t take long!   There are two left now.   You can still choose red, blue, or orange!