CSC Blog

2017 is going to be a great year, and we’re filling in the dates now.   My good buddy Matt activated our CSC website’s calendar feature and it’s a quick place to check on upcoming events.  As a heads up, here’s what we have coming up:

• Every first Saturday of the month will be a company ride, leaving from the CSC plant at 8:30 to points north, south, east, or west, depending on the plan for that month’s ride.
• Our first 2017 company ride will be on the first Saturday of the month (that’s the 7th of January).  I’ll be there, and we’re going to do the Angeles Crest Highway (unless the road is iced over, in which case we’ll pick a different location).    If you’d like to ride with other CSC riders, pencil in 7 January 2017 on your calendar!
• We’re going to have an event at the plant on the third Saturday of each month.  Watch for more information on these in a future blog.
• Our 2017 Big Baja ride will be an 8-day epic event starting on 19 March and finishing on 26 March.  If you’re going, you need to get an email to us (info@cscmotorcycles.com) now.

That’s it for now, folks.   Keep an eye on the blog, and we’ll add more to the calendar as we go.

The sincerest form of flattery…clockwise from top, an original CSC RX3 in Baja on one of our free adventure tours, the Suzuki DL250, the BMW 310 GS, the Kawasaki Versys, and the Honda 250 Rally.

It’s no secret that several manufacturers are playing catchup with CSC and Zongshen.  Imagine that…other companies copying the Chinese!   What I’m referring to, of course, are the several new entries into the 250cc-class ADV bike category.   There’s been a lot on the Internet lately about the Honda 250cc Rally, the Kawasaki Versys, the Suzuki PeeWeeStrom, and BMW’s Mumbai Special, and of course, preproduction versions of these bikes (the only ones that currently exist) put in an appearance at some of the  international motorcycle shows

We’ve had folks ask if the new market entrants make us nervous.  The short answer is absolutely not.  We love it.  You’ll recall we did a blog a couple of years back about 250cc being the perfect size for real-world adventure travel (see our Why a 250? blog), and we still believe that.  It’s  nice to see others thinking the same way.   Our path to market puts us in a very strong position.  And there’s another factor…so far, none of these bikes are actually available….it’s all been smoke and mirrors and Internet postings and show bikes.   They’re coming, though, and that’s a good thing for growing the small adventure bike market.   It can only help us.

Not all of the information is available yet, but based on what’s out there, I assembled a comparison chart this morning…

I estimated the freight and setup fees on the Kawi, the Honda, and the Suzuki based on what I see dealers doing on their other bikes.  Actually, some of the combined freight and setup fees on dealership bikes run up to over $1400, so I’m being conservative with my estimates.  You might be able to negotiate the freight and setup down to $750 (you  might even be able to get these typically inflated fees even lower, but not by much; freight and setup is a major profit center for most dealerships).  BMW’s freight and setup is typically included in their list price, and I don’t know if they’re going to do that with their new 310 GS (so I just left it as a TBD for now).  I showed our freight and setup as “included” because right now it is; we’ll probably add that back to the price in 2017, but it will never be as high as the charges you normally see for these items at typical dealerships.

What surprised me were the motorcycles’ published weights.  We took a little gas from the keyboard commandos when we first published the weight on the RX3, but as you can see from the comparisons above, we slot right in with the rest of the new market entrants.

Where CSC has clear advantages are in the areas of price, our free online maintenance tutorials and service manual, and the freedom from the typical shenanigans you run into when buying a new bike from a dealer.  Plus, you can actually buy our bike today.   You can’t do that with any of the others yet.  There are other things, too, that you can’t really put a price on that come with every RX3:

• The RX3 has a proven world-wide adventure touring reputation (in my case, that includes China, Mexico, Colombia, and the US; others have traveled all over the world on Zongshen motorcycles).
• The solid reputation CSC has for customer support.   As I always say, don’t take my word on this; check out ADVRider.com and ChinaRiders.net to see what others say about us.
• Our free Baja adventure rides.
• Our really cool CSC blog!

As I said above, the new entrants are a welcome addition to the mix.    These bikes will bring other folks’ attention to the small ADV market segment, and anyone who does their homework will soon realize that the RX3 is the best (and least expensive) bike available.

A couple of months ago I recommended a tool kit for the TT250.   This new tool popped up on Facebook and I thought I would show it on the blog…

That looks like a worthwhile addition, but I’m waiting until they offer one with a Whitworth feature.  I used to ride older Triumphs, and their nuts and bolts were all Whitworth sizes…

Y0u’ve probably heard of William Randolph Hearst, and if not, you’ve almost certainly heard of Hearst Castle.  It’s the former private residence of William Randolph Hearst, who was about as eccentric a figure as ever lived.   As I hear it, every US President was in his back pocket during his reign, and the guy had more money than God.   The original family fortune was made in silver mining and then publishing.   Old Hearst built himself a castle along (you guessed it) the Pacific Coast Highway.   We passed right by it yesterday, and I’ve taken the Hearst Castle tour no fewer than four times.  If you’re ever out that way, I think it’s a “must see” part of any inaugural trip along the PCH.  When we do our CSC tour, we’ll take a half-day to do just that.

Anyway, to get to the point, on all of my prior visits I heard from  the tour guides that Hearst’s eccentricities included a world class zoo, and wild animals (including zebra) could still occasionally be spotted running free on the Hearst Castle’s substantial grounds.  I had never seen any of these rumored remnants from the Hearst reign…until yesterday, that is.

Look what we spotted on our way back to So Cal!

I had my Nikon D810 with me, and I brought along the 70-300 lens (the same one I grabbed those dynamite vulture photos with on the RX3 expedition in Colombia).   The zebras were a good 400 to 500 yards from the road, but that 300mm lens with vibration reduction really pulls them in.  It was a lucky break.  I’d never seen the zebras before and I thought the stories about them were baloney, but I was happy to be proven wrong!

That black-and-white paint theme is interesting, and on the way back, I wondered what a TT250 would look like done up in a zebra design.  Hmmm…

But I’ve never seen wild pigs here.  I’ve been out for wild boar twice in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia, but all I ever got was poison oak.   I sure would like to get out again, and one of my resolutions for 2017 is to do exactly that with a new Model 70 Winchester I’m picking up later today.  Probably not in California, though.  The hunting laws here are too restrictive and the prohibition on lead bullets is just plain weird.  I’m going to chase pigs next year, probably in the southeastern United States, where the wild pig population is (I’m told) out of control.  2017 is going to be a great year.

Anyway, that rather unusual pig crossing sign you see in the photo above is the real deal, and it was posted just south of Monterey, California, along the Pacific Coast Highway.   I grabbed that photo yesterday morning.  I didn’t see any pigs, but the sign caught my attention.  I did see a few zebras later in the day (no kidding), and I’ll tell you about those later.

If you’re on the Pacific Coast Highway and you’re riding through the little fishing village of Moss Landing, it’s nearly impossible to miss the moto art at the J&S Eagle Iron and Leather Shop, although that’s exactly what I did on the trek north (no doubt because it was raining so hard).  On the way back, though, the sun was out and I when I saw these I knew I had to stop for a few photos.

Ernie Buck, the store manager, told me these gigantic bike sculptures are Hecho en Mexico and go for about $20K each.   Wowee!   But I guess that’s not that far fetched considering what a new Harley or BMW costs these days, and these things are easily three times the size of those bikes!   They are enormous, they sure are interesting, and they were worthy of a spot on the CSC blog!

The first moto gigante was constructed mostly of license plates.  Bear in mind that all three of these sculptures use giant tractor tires (that will give you a sense of their size).  Like I said above, they’re huge!

The next one  was fabricated from horseshoes.   Horseshoes!  Imagine that!   Where do artists get their ideas?

It was cool.  I liked the gangster whitewalls.  I had a set of those on my ’92 Softail.    You know, the tops of those tires were about the same height as me!

The third bike was what I guess the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act might call a shovel-ready project.  Yep, it was fabricated almost entirely of shovels…

Maybe the bike above is a Shovelhead.  You know, like the one that came after the Panhead.    Anyway, it was cool.

You know, the bikes above make for interesting displays, but I wondered where I would put such a thing if I owned it.  You’d need a huge lawn or a spacious home in which to display this kind of art, and even then, I’m pretty sure Sue would have none of it.  They sure were interesting and they made for cool photos, though.

The Pacific Coast Highway is an amazing road.  The best parts are between Cambria and Carmel.  I’ll put some photos of that stretch up a little later.  It would be a cool two- or three-day CSC ride.   Any takers?

Just got home from a run up to San Francisco, and the scenery on the Pacific Coast Highway was beyond breathtaking.  It was wet, and cold, and sometimes both, but it sure was great!

More to follow after I warm up!

I’ve probably watched the China video 20 times already, and I’ll probably watch it again after I finish this blog.   The China expedition was one hell of a ride and I find myself thinking about it a lot.   It’s almost as if I don’t even need the video…I can still see the scenes from the Tibetan Plateau, the Gobi Desert, Lanzhou, Ping Yao, Liqian, Qufu, Qingdao, and elsewhere vividly in my mind.  It was the ride of lifetime, and I did it on the world’s most perfect motorcycle.

I sure had a great weekend.  It started on Friday for me when I saw my good buddy Willie with his fully accessorized TT250.   Willie rode with us in Baja twice (don’t forget that he’s the world’s most interesting man).  I had not seen Willie’s TT250 since the Tecate run, and he had a couple of new mods he’s added since then.  One was the RX3 headlight guard; the other was swapping the stock footpegs for those from the RX3.  Both look like they were designed for the TT250.

Saturday morning saw me running around getting tires for our Subie Crosstrek (the original tires went over 61,000 miles and I probably could have made it to 70,000, but I don’t like to take chances on tires).   The shop that works on my cars (Scooter Patrick’s in Montclair, California) always does a great job for me.  They get to work on interesting cars.   While I was at Scooter’s I spotted a dynamite ’71 Vette and it brought back a lot of memories…

I love Vettes, and I really like the Coke-bottle C3 Corvette design.   The C3 came on the scene in 1968, and I wanted one so bad back then I could taste it.  I was just a teenager and there was no way I could afford a Corvette in those days.  I had to wait another 36 years before I finally pulled the trigger on one, and I can tell you it was worth the wait.  I love my Corvette.

More cool stuff…I took a ride in the Vette and visited my good friends Art, Jeremy, and the rest of the crew out at Doug Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino.   I don’t ride big bikes any more, but there’s nothing that says I can’t look.  And if I did ride a big bike, you can bet it would be a Triumph.  There are two models I especially like…the new 900cc Street Cup and the 1200cc Thruxton…I’d like to have both just so I could sit in my garage and stare at them!

Triumph sure nailed it with the styling on those bikes, and the folks at Douglas Motorcycles are good people.  I knew Doug Douglas, and he had a keenly-developed sense of humor.   I bought a new Triumph Tiger from Doug personally in late 2005 (it was love at first sight when I saw that bike).  Here’s a shot of it at the Old Mill Hotel in Baja a decade ago…

When I first spotted that Tiger 10 years back in the Douglas Motorcycles showroom, Doug saw the look in my eye and he told me I could get it for some price.  I don’t remember the number he named, and I was way beyond caring what the number was at that point.  I simply said, “okay.”   When Sue took me back to pick up the Tiger, she told Doug he must be an incredible salesman to get me to agree to a price without making a counteroffer.   Doug just smiled and told her that he was a pretty good motorcycle salesman, but where he really excelled (according to Doug) was in selling living room and bedroom furniture.  Both Sue and I gave Doug a quizzical look.   “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I can’t tell you how many bedroom suites and how much living room furniture got sold because I sold somebody’s husband a motorcycle…”

Old Doug has gone on to his reward (RIP, Doug), but the atmosphere he created at Douglas Motorcycles lives on.  He sure was a character.

More good times continued earlier today when the crew got together to send some copper-jacketed lead downrange at the West End Gun Club (followed by a great Mexican lunch at Rancho Las Magueys).   Half the crew that shows up for our informal range sessions these days consists of CSC motorcycle riders, including guys like my good buddies Duane, Fathi, and Willie.   It’s fun getting together to shoot and it’s as much fun getting together for lunch afterward….

The c0nversations at lunch are always great.  It’s mostly motorcycles, guns, and politics.   We solve all of the world’s problems at these get-togethers.   We realized at the end of our meal that the problem is this:   All the people who know how to run the country are out riding motorcycles and hanging around at the rifle range!

Joe Gresh previously prepared a magnificent video about our ride through China last summer, and now Zongshen posted the video their film crew shot while they accompanied us. It’s awesome!