CSC Blog

I just received an email from TK…you can’t keep a good man down…and that’s sure been the case with our man TK!   He’s already sold our green-and-yellow custom tractor bike!   Wow!  

I don’t know…is he a super salesman, or do these magnificent modern Mustangs just sell themselves? 

It’s hard to say, but I had a feeling when the photo of the custom tractor bike went on line I wouldn’t be seeing that beautiful bike back at the plant again any time soon.   The photo of this bike is pretty cool, but seeing the bike in person is a real treat.   It’s that pretty.   Steve just keeps outdoing himself with these custom creations, and every new one I see is more beautiful than the last.  Take my word for it…this one truly is special!  

You might be wondering…why the email from TK?   Well, folks, I’m on yet another secret mission.   Yep, the location is indeed a secret.  After blitzing through Baja with my good friends Carlos and Maria to visit Moby Dick and friends, it was a quick run to LAX for another marathon flight.  Landed at 6:00 a.m. this morning, and it was already 80 degrees and humid.   Perfect riding weather! 

So, back to that magnificent green-and-yellow beauty…TK’s final words to me in the email I just received? 

We’re taking orders, boys and girls!

Whoa!  Check out this latest CSC custom…and you tell me what it reminds you of!

The gorgeous green-and-yellow bike you see above is just awesome.  At this instant we plan to put it on the show circuit (unless it sells first).   Like I said, unless it sells first.   Yep, it’s a bike you can buy right now!   It’s the only one we have, and it can be yours for just (get this) $4,795!   Wow!

Here’s another shot of that fab CSC tractor bike…along with a few others in our latest ad.   That good-looking male model you see at the bottom of the ad is none other than Slim Seidiedog, our very own tractor apparel fashionista…

More to follow on this, folks!  And I gotta tell you, Steve did it again…this is the best looking Scooter I’ve ever seen!

We all get them…interesting emails with interesting photos.  Most of the time it’s Delete, Delete, Delete, etc.  You know the drill.  But every once in a while I get some really cool photos, and in the last couple of days that’s happened twice.   The first one is this photo of a crocodile that has to be something right out of a nightmare…or the product of someone who’s really good with Photoshop…

That croc photo came to me from my good buddy Emilio Scotto, a world motorcycle traveler.   Google his name…you might be surprised at what you see.

The rest of the photo treats for today are from my good buddy Carl…interesting vehicles for sure.   Check these out, boys and girls….

All interesting transportation concepts, and more than a few are interesting to me because they are based on three-wheeled designs.   And there’s more to come on that topic from your favorite motorcycle company…

Stay tuned…

Steve and TK just returned from a week up at the Sacramento International Sportsmens Exposition, and it was a hoot.  The guys told me the booth was packed the entire time and the reaction to the CSC motorcycles was (as always) over the top.   Steve grabbed this first shot before the show opened, and it was the only time he was able to get a shot of the bikes by themselves…

There’s lots of cool things at the ISE show, including some pretty wild critters…here’s TK with a couple of fuzzy buddies…

And the people at the show loved our bikes….take a look at the crowd and some of the reactions…

This is the second time we’ve been to the Sacramento show, and you can bet we’ll be back.   It’s a super event!

That’s where we are…back in the USA! 

After a rapid 4-day, 1573-mile jaunt to see the whales in Guerrero Negro, we crossed the border at Tecate around 2:30 this afternoon.  What an exciting 4 days!

You can read the last few blog entries to get a feel for all we saw.  To say it was awesome would be an understatement.  After staying at Santa Rosalia’s magnificent Hotel Frances two nights ago, we pointed the Subie north, and Carl, Mary, and yours truly headed home.   We had a very pleasant drive up the Baja peninsula yesterday and our intent was to stay at the Old Mill on Bahia San Quintin last night, but much to my surprise the Old Mill is another recession victim.  It’s a goner.  And that’s a downer, because it was a cool spot.  But hey, no problem, we just stayed at Don Eddie’s, the hotel next door.

You gotta do this trip yourself sometime (put it on your bucket list!) to get an appreciation for our little adventure…we drove for about 4 miles on a dirt road to get to the Old Mill, and when we saw it was closed, we were pretty lucky to find Don Eddie’s still in business.   I’m pretty sure we were the only guests in that hotel last night, too.  You folks who have motorcycled into Baja with me before know the neighborhood (and yes, Dave, that huge Yamaha-gobbling pothole is still there!).  I was a little disappointed in the accomodations at Don Eddie’s, but Carl and Mary are super adventurers, and they took it all in stride.  We had hot water and a heater, and in last night’s weather, that was good enough!

Today was our last day in Baja, and I was up before dawn.   I grabbed the Nikon and my tripod and walked over to the bay, and the hotel guard dog (a large friendly guy named Toby) was waiting for me in the frigid morning air.  Toby kept me company while I grabbed these first two shots at sunrise…

Bahia San Quintin at sunrise...just awesome, isn't it?

My artsy self-portrait at sunrise...I am supposed to look like I am deep in thought...whaddaya think?

After watching ol’ Toby watching me for a while, I drifted back over to the hotel.   I put the camera on the tripod, set the self timer, and an instant before the shutter tripped, Carl stepped out of his room!  What a shot!

Don Eddie's in San Quintin, the Subie, and Carl waving to the camera!

The weather on this entire trip was beyond awesome.  Not a drop of rain (unusual for Baja), clear driving, and absolutely no traffic anywhere.  I’ve never had a more pleasurable Baja run. 

After leaving Bahia San Quintin, we stopped for gas and coffee, and another 50 miles or so down the road we stopped for breakfast at this very nice restaurant in San Vincente.  Valentina and her husband run it (they’re about the same age as Carl, Mary, and me), and the hospitality was awesome….

The Starship Subaru in San Vincente

Chilequiles con pollo...it doesn't get any better than this, boys and girls!

Our waitress was so pretty I had to ask her name, and she told me it was Paula.   She’s 15 years old.  I asked if I could take her picture. Paula just smiled and said, “Si…”

Paula...our waitress. Like I've always said, this is a tough job, but somebody...ah, you know the rest!

While I was photographing Paula, we noticed a young guy in the kitchen getting a huge kick out of all this…his name is Alex, and he’s Paula’s cousin.   They’re both grandkids of the owners.

Maria and Alex, our chefs...and I gotta tell ya, they know how to serve up a fine breakfast!

After a great breakfast it was a buzz to the border…and it was a magnificent drive.  Folks, Baja is beautiful. There’s no other way to describe it. Every curve revealed another picture postcard photo op, and we thoroughly enjoyed taking it all in. We stopped well south of Ensenada in northern Baja’s wine country, and I grabbed this shot of Carl and Mary.  I really like it!

Carlos and Maria, who are now officially Bajaenos!

All told, this has been one of the best Baja trips ever….great company, great conversation, great cuisine, great sightseeing, great whale-watching…just a super 4 days. 

And hey, I just got an email from the Boss (Mr. Steve), and he told me the Sacramento show was great, too!  I’m gonna guess he and TK grabbed a few photos up there, and as soon as I get them, they’ll be here on the blog for you to see!

Back to Baja…the whales will be there through the end of March.   So whaddaya say?  Wanna take the California Scooters on another epic adventure? Check out our last ride…and put yourself in the picture!

Let me know, folks. There’s whales, chilequiles, Tecate, and great riding waiting for us!

Folks, this is La Cuesta del Infierno, descending through the Baja mountains down to Santa Rosalia on the Sea of Cortez…

Ishmael? 

Who the heck is Ishmael?

Ah, read on, boys and girls…

My good friends Carl and Mary had dinner with Susie and me a couple of weeks ago (you know, I wrote about it in the blog earlier).   Carl’s an advisor to the California Scooter Company, and during our dinner, we talked about a lot of things, including Baja.   The outcome was entirely predictable…a quick plan, and zoom, we’re off in the Subie to see the whales!

Okay, I know…this is a motorcycle blog.   I gotta at least say something about motorcycles.   So here’s the obligatory moto photo…and it’s a Deusy!

That’s Carl on the right, and Martin on the left.  Martin’s our new friend.  He’s from Ireland.  The photo?  We’re in front of Mama Espinosa’s restaurant in El Rosario, a cool 200+ miles south of the border.  You’ve seen my Baja Blaster CSC Classic in the blog, and you’ve seen the red decal on the windscreen…it says Mama Espinosa’s, and I bought it right here last year on the CSC ride to Cabo San Lucas.  Great food.   You can bet I wasn’t going to miss stopping there for lunch, and that’s where we met Martin on his KLR 650.   On his way back to San Francisco.   From…get this…Panama!  Man, talk about adventure riding!  We had a good chat with Martin…what a ride he was having.

I already had the Nikon out, so I grabbed this great shot of Carl and Mary just outside of Mama Espinosa’s before we entered Baja’s Vizcaino desert…

There’s lots of stuff in that magnificent expanse of pristine land, and lots of things that used to live there.  El Rosario is known for its fossils and prehistoric findings.   I’ve got a pretty good idea this T-Rex outside of Mama Espinosa’s is fake…but I snapped a photo anyway…

I know…you might still be wondering about my opening lines in this blog…who’s Ishmael?

Well, Ishmael was the main character in Herman Melville’s great novel, Moby Dick.   In fact, the opening line of that awesome story was…Call me Ishmael.  Ishmael sort of went whale watching with ol’ Captain Ahab, and you know the rest.  Our story ends better.  We rode down to Guerrero Negro to see the California gray whales.   These awesome animals just completed their migration south from Alaska!   We sure had a great day.   Turns out we weren’t the only ones down here whale watching today…there was another guy out on the water with us…a young fellow named Felipe Calderon.   You may have heard of him.  He’s the President of Mexico.  He’s in town for the same reason we were…to see the greatest show on earth.  

Okay, enough talk about Moby Dick and politicians…check out the next photo of Carl and Mary on our whale watching ponga (that’s a little fiberglass boat about half the size of the whales)…

It sure didn’t take long…thar she blows!  Look out into the water…

That’s the real deal, folks…a California gray whale, and it’s only about 25 yards out!

What a day we had…we probably saw maybe 100 whales in all.  The guys told us there are just under 700 in Scammon’s Lagoon right now.   One came right up alongside the boat and spouted, soaking us all.  Grand fun!  Check out just a couple more photos of my California gray whale friends…

Grand fun indeed! 

Our ponga captain was a nice young fellow named Javier (I kept wanting to call him Ahab).  Javier really knew his stuff…

After spending a couple of hours with the whales, Javier showed us a bunch more…the biggest pelicans I’ve ever seen in my life (think small ostriches and you’ll be in the ball park), several ospreys in their nests (they are magnificent predators), and a bunch of the toughest and loudest seals you’ll ever meet outside of the US Navy…

We watched those guys fight for space on top of the buoy you see above, and I’ll tell you what…they are tough.   Those guys in the photo, though, must have been the alpha seals.  They slept through the buoy turf disputes and the other seals just left them alone. 

When we got back on land, we had fish tacos off my good friend Antonio’s truck (everyone agreed…they are the best on the planet).  I’ve been buying fish tacos from Antonio for nearly 20 years now.  I guess loyalty counts.   I only get down here about once a year, but Antonio always remembers me.   He asked if we were on the bikes today, and I had to tell him…no, we settled for my turbocharged little WRX!

After those great fish tacos, Carl, Mary, and I hopped back in the Subie for a quick 125-mile run south to San Ignacio…and it was great.   Carl and Mary fell in love with San Ignacio immediately, just like I did the first time I came down here.  It’s an awesome little Mexican town.  Check out the photos I took earlier today outside (and then inside) the San Ignacio mission…

The San Ignacio mission is an amazing church.  Built in the mid-1700s, it’s still a working church.  It’s an awesome thing to see.

In fact, the last two days have been entirely awesome.   Yesterday was a long one…we ran a little over 600 miles to make it down to Guerrero Negro in one day.  The whales were (as always) almost surreal.  Seeing living creatures this big, this close, and this friendly was spiritual and inspiring. You make an almost telepathic connection…it just feels like there’s something there.   So, I beamed a mental message to my new aquatic buddies…I asked them to say hi to Felipe.  Hey, why not?   It was cool.  Then on to Antonio’s and the fish tacos.  A great lunch. San Ignacio and the mission.   The lava fields at the foot of Vulcan Las Tres Virgenes.   Yep, we rolled by a real volcano today.   Down La Cuesta del Infierno to the shore of the Sea of Cortez.  And on into Santa Rosalia.

We had a delicious dinner tonight (we decided, of course, to go for Mexican food).  After dinner we stopped by the Santa Rosalia church designed by Gustav Eiffel (the same guy who designed the Eiffel Tower).   We bought cookies from the Boleo Bakery for dessert.  We’re staying in a delightfully old, all wood historic hotel…it’s the Frances Hotel high up on a bluff above Santa Rosalia, looking out over the Sea of Cortez.  Life is good.

I may not have Internet service for a few days (we are, after all, about 700 miles south of the border in Baja), but I promise you we’ll have more good California Scooter stuff coming your way!  Stay tuned, boys and girls.

Here’s a like-brand-new bike we just got in on consignment, folks, and it’s a super deal!  It only has 58 miles on the clock, and it won’t last long when you see the price!

58 miles! This puppy won't last long!

This bike is a CSC Classic, and it includes $1,055 of accessories (a luggage rack, the engine guards, a chrome pipe, saddle bags…and it even comes with the stock exhaust).

The bike is like new…Steve told me the only ding he could find is a little one on the chrome tail light housing.

Now, like they say…the bottom line:  It’s going for $3,800 (plus shipping), including all of the the extras listed above.   Better act quick on this one, and TK is the guy to call at 800 884 4173!

And the shows are awesome!  We’re hitting the trail tomorrow for the International Sportsmen’s Exposition show in Sacramento!

A shot from last year's ISE show in Sacramento...this year will be even better!

We participated in the ISE Sacramento show last year and it was great, so if you are in northern California and you want to get up close and personal with a CSC motorcycle, please visit with us!

You good folks following the blog also know that we now have a presence in the Land of the Rising Sun…that’s right, your favorite motorcycle company is exporting California Scooters to Japan!  Guess what!  We’re at the Tokyo Auto Show this week! 

What’s that like?  Well, I sure wish I could be over there sending photos to you, but the fact of the matter is we’re so busy and having so much fun right here (as I’ll explain in a bit), I just couldn’t get away to Tokyo this week.  But that’s no problem…we’ve got some great photos for you of our bikes being set up at the Tokyo show, and a few eye-poppers from last year’s Tokyo show!

Setting up the CSC Motorcycles display at the Tokyo Auto Show!

And here are a few photos from last year’s Tokyo show…

The Tokyo show looks like tough duty…maybe I’ll volunteer to go next year!

More good stuff coming your way, boys and girls…you may remember me telling you about having dinner with Carl and Mary last week.  Well, at that dinner, I talked about how much fun it was to visit with the whales down in Baja.   You can probably guess where this story is going…one thing led to another, Carl and I talked about Mexico on our ride up in the San Gabriels last week, and…well…we’re off!

Yep, we’re headed south.  We’re not taking the bikes this time, but we’re gonna be tooling down the Transpeninsular Highway in my red hot true blue turbocharged Subie!

The Bajamobile for this trip...mi ballenos, here we come!

It’s gonna be fun, and I’m gonna have photos for you right here!  What will it be like?  Well, feast your eyes on a few photos from prior whale watching trips…

A smiling baby gray whale...that's right...this one's a newby!

Yep, they are that big! Bigger than the boats we'll be on!

Moby Dick on the left...my good buddy Joseph Lee on the right...sharing an intimate moment

A mama and her baby from my 2003 trip...oh, this is gonna be fun!

I’ve got my trusty Nikon all charged up, I’m ready to roll, and I’ll do my best to get some good photos for you!  Stay tuned!

I know Malcolm Smith…and I support his candidacy…