Starting today and running for 10 days, we’re having our RX3 Labor Day sale. Here’s the deal:
It’s only going to run for 10 days, folks. The time to act is now.
Yep, it is. We’re cancelling the Meetup ride we had previously planned for this Saturday. It’s just too hot, folks.
Watch for our planned October ride!
Every once in a while we get a bike come in that’s so noteworthy I need to, well, note it on the blog. One of the CSC-150 models we had when we were producing the Mustangs was a model we called the Sarge. That one you see above is one of the very few we built, and it’s amazing. It only has 280 miles on it. These little modern Mustangs are the bikes we rode all the way to Cabo San Lucas and back, so they will go the distance. At $3995, this one won’t last long.
You know, I don’t spend too much time on the Internet forums any more. It’s mostly because there’s so just much drivel out there that seeing it bothers me. Every once in a while, though, I’ll check in and sometimes I find some really cool things.
This weekend, I found two cool threads. One is the ADVRider thread on the guys who got together in Marlinton, West Virginia. It’s cool and it includes a lot of great photos showing your favorite motorcycles in action. That thread starts here. I wanted to ride out to participate in that event, but I just had too many things going on to make my planned cross-country ride this summer.
The next is another great thread on the ChinaRiders.net forum. It’s about a retired engineer named Joe who is a world motorcycle traveler (and no, it’s not written by me, although with “Olegeezer’s” background you can understand why I enjoyed reading it so much). Joe flew to Medellin, bought an AKT Adventour (Colombia’s version of the RX3), and rode South America.
OleGeezer’s bike taking on fuel somewhere in South America
I rode an AKT motorcycle around the Andes in Colombia, so I really had an interest in Joe’s ride. I’ve thought about this a lot, folks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the world needs more old geezers named Joe riding around on Zongshen motorcycles. Joe’s thread starts here, and I found it so intriguing that I wrote to Joe to ask if I could mention him on the CSC blog. Here’s his answer…
It would be fine if you post the link, Joe.
On me: I’m a 66 year ole phart. Retarred engineer (mining). I currently live in Beckley WV. I retired in 2004 and started riding after a 30 year lull. I have 4 Moto’s, 2003 Honda ST1300, 2008 Kawi Versys at home. I have an old Yamaha Fazer600 that I’m now riding in Europe. And last but not least my AKT250TT that is stored in Cusco, Peru until I return in winter 2018. That’s all for now as I just rode from Brescia, Italy to Rimini on the Adriatic coast and I’m in terrible need of a nap.
Cheers
Olegeezer
Joe, great report and thanks for allowing me to mention you here. I enjoyed reading that thread. Ride safe and stay in touch!
We take two newspapers on the weekends – The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Both are hopelessly left-leaning and (in my opinion) both have degenerated into little more than propaganda machines. But I need to read a newspaper on Sunday mornings, and like that old saying goes, halitosis is better than no breath at all.
The New York Times has good pieces on occasion, and I found one this morning while skipping through that paper’s daily dose of endless hand-wringing on the outcome of the last presidential election. It’s written from the perspective of a female passenger on the back of a Triumph Bonneville. The author, Joyce Maynard, tells the story well and I’m including a link here. You should read it.
Spoiler alert…there’s a sad ending. But I still think Ms. Maynard’s article is worth a read. The message is this: Get out and live. If you’re thinking of riding and exploring the world, do it now. And hey, the Destinations Deal ride is coming up (click here to learn more). We’ve got four people signed up so far, with not too many openings left. I’d sure love it if you bought a new RX3 and rode with us. Laughlin. Oatman. Death Valley. Zion. The Grand Canyon. The ExtraTerrestrial Highway. It’s going to be great.
You may remember be writing about Kirby and Nolan, a very nice young couple we met in Yellowstone a week ago…
Kirby and Nolan took a year from their jobs and they are traveling the world. Man, I wish I had done that when I was their age. Anyway, like us, they were in Wyoming to witness the eclipse. I didn’t get any photos of the eclipse, but these two sure did. Kirby and Nolan sent their photos to me a few days ago, and they said it was okay to share them with you…
Kirby and Nolan hiked 8 miles up Paintbrush Divide in Grand Teton National Park to get to their vantage piont and they viewed the eclipse at 11,000 feet. These are absolutely awesome photographs. Kirby and Nolan, thanks very much for sharing them with us, and folks, if you want to see more of this young couple’s photography, you can do so here!
Our next company ride will be on 2 September, and we’re going to do our run up to Crystal Lake. That’s where we saw the bear a couple of rides ago, and I’m kind of hoping we are that lucky again (and I’ll be wearing my camera this time). We’d like you to ride with us, and if you want to do so, please sign up on our Meetup.com page!
Just to give you an idea of what’s in the works, folks…and if you think you want one, get on the list now! Give us a call at 909 445 0900.
The colors are not finalized but we’re close. These are great motorcycles, and judging by the number of phone calls and emails we’re getting on the new Cafe Racer, interest on this exciting new motorcycle is off the charts! We don’t have a firm delivery date yet, but we’ll be announcing it soon. We’ll keep you posted, and hey, if you have ideas on a color theme, please let us know.
On the way home from Denver on our epic eclipse road trip, I received a nice note from the other Joe (Joe Martin), an avid RX3 rider who rode with us in Baja. We’ve featured Joe on the CSC blog previously. Joe and his RX3 buddies did the last sections of the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route and he sent us an amazing, fully-photo-documented story of his trip. Here you go, folks…I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I did!
Hey Joe and Crew,
In July, I sent you a note about riding the first half of the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route which was over 300 miles of dirt from the Oregon border of Washington to the middle of the state along the Cascades. Well, this past weekend 3 RX3’s met up in Cashmere, WA to ride north and do the final 3 sections of the WABDR to end up at the Canadian border just north of the ghost town of Nighthawk, WA. Another 300 miles. As before this is a primarily dirt route with stops about every 100 miles into a town that has services (food, water, gas, camping, lodging). Each of these 3 sections had combinations of smooth and fast forest roads but also had some bigger climbs and descents with some technical stuff thrown in for a bit of a “pucker factor” to make it a real adventure.
Day 1 started in Cashmere, WA and went to Chelan, WA. On this route, we worked our way up to Chumstick Mountain with some fantastic views but wind that was close to blowing over the parked bikes.
After the big climb, we worked our way down the next valley to the one-horse town of Ardenvoir, WA. Ardenvoir used to be very busy with many campgrounds in the area but a fire a few years ago destroyed them and this Coopers General Store is about all that left in the area. It’s a combo store, gas station and post office.
After Coopers, we headed back up and got some great views of the valley and the old fires along with distant views of Lake Chelan.
Coming down again into the next valley we did some very scary descending on steep, cliff sided rocky stuff that left me in a pool of sweat and coming out at the ghost town of Ruby, WA. Though other than a sign and a stone there isn’t anything to see of Ruby.
We had a little road and then came into the little town of Conconully, WA which has a beautiful lake, campground, general store/gas station and a couple of nice bars/restaurants.
After a great night’s rest camping at the state park we headed north on Section 6 to finish up the WABDR at the Canadian border but along the way we rode through an older forest fire where the new growth of tree and wildflowers were a great contrast with the burn.
We then turned off the primary WABDR route to head up to where these is supposed to be a WABDR geo-cache. We stopped and ate lunch there and searched around but couldn’t find it. It looked like the area had been recently clear cut so we’re guessing the cache is gone…bummer!
We eventually came down into the final valley where we’d hit some road to get to the border.
But before we arrived at the border there was the Nighthawk ghost town.
Then we stopped for our photo-op at the border.
At this point we parted ways. The others had to get back quickly as they had to work the next day but as an old retired guy I decided to head to one of my favorite little towns, Winthrop, WA which is cowboy themed with a great brewery, candy store and close by camping for the night.
The next morning was the eclipse so I rolled out with hopes to make it to the Ross Lake and Diablo Lake lookouts on the very scenic HWY 20 to watch it….I made it!
I also took pictures of the gorgeous Diablo Lake.
While watching the eclipse a couple of Harley riders pulled in. I chatted with them, shared my solar glasses and found out they shipped their bikes from Florida to Washington and came up to tour around. Great guys and they bought me a nice lunch to boot! We parted ways and from here it was just a couple hundred miles to get home.
Had a great time on this half of the BDR just like the first. Made a couple of new friends as Matthew, Steve and myself had never met. Just found each other on a CSC owners page on Facebook. Cory was supposed to ride with us and was the organizer and ride leader but he ended up getting a stomach bug and had to miss out. Luckily, I had all the route info in my GPX so I got to take the reins and lead the others on this adventure. I liked it as being up front meant no dust!!!
We didn’t have any issues with our bikes even though we did each have a few minor offs and spills.
We also got to see a variety of wildlife from the small squirrels, chipmunks, quail, pheasant and turkeys up to the larger deer, including the one that wanted to crash me out on the highway to a small black bear that I coaxed off into the woods.
Well, that was the end of this adventure and the making of new friends. Take care!
Awesome report, Joe, and thanks very much for sending to us! I know our readers love reading about your adventures, and hey, if any of you out there has a ride you’d like to see featured here on the CSC blog, please send it to us!
It’s been an exciting 8 days on the road and like that rockabilly song goes, we’re going to make it home tomorrow. We did a long 525 miles of freeway slogging today made worse by having to duke it out with the inbound Denver traffic headed south on I-25 this morning, but once we were through that, it was an easy run west on I-70 through the Colorado Rockies at elevations as high as 11,000 feet. Before we knew it we were in Utah, and the scenery in that state is (in my opinion) the best in the country. This is typical of what you can see from I-70 in Utah….
Utah is awesome…beautiful combinations of red rock, green grasses and trees, and yellow, gray, and white formations. I have never had a bad time traveling in Utah, and I am looking forward to our October Destinations Deal tour. If you’re thinking of joining our ride, the time to act is now. Don’t wait, or your slot may be occupied. I’m trying to keep this group smaller than our Baja runs, as we’ll be covering some serious miles.
We decided to call it a day today in Richfield, Utah, which means we have another 518 miles to go tomorrow. We won’t have the Denver traffic to fight so it should be a lot easier drive than what we experienced this morning. And Richfield (population 7,700) is a nice little town. We found a small barbeque place for dinner (Big Daddy’s) and I think it was the best meal of our trip. I had the smoked chicken sandwich and it was great. I need to find an excuse to get back here, and if you ever pass through this way, Big Daddy’s is worth a stop.
After dinner, we rode around town a bit to get a feel for Richfield. Like I said above, with 7,700 people it’s a small town, but we saw a sign for a motorcycle dealer who carries a lot of brands and we stopped to take a look.
I thought I wanted to take a look at the Honda Africa Twin just because I’d never seen one, but I was really surprised when we walked up to the entrance…
At first I thought I simply had the good fortune of finding a motorcycle dealer located next to a gun dealer, but when we walked into the motorcycle dealer I was in for a real surprise. Jorgensen’s (the name of this outfit) sells motorcycles, high end bicycles, guns, and reloading stuff. They even have an adjoining bowling alley and restaurant. I looked at their guns and they have a fantastic selection (more than most dealers). They had more reloading components than most gun stores in So Cal. Motorcycles, guns, reloading gear, bicycles…I could maybe spend the rest of my life in Jorgensen’s and die a happy man. Sue and I chatted with the owner a bit, I sat on the Africa Twin (it’s enormous, but not nearly as ponderous as a GS1200), and we finally had to leave. It was tough walking out that door, though.
Tomorrow we’ll be wheels in the wells early, homeward bound. It’s been fun.
SG250 San Gabriel Cafe Racer
TT250 Enduro