CSC Blog

Wow, here we are…it’s 2018 already!  Happy New Year, everybody!

I thought we would take a quick look back at 2017 through some of my favorite photos first, and then talk a bit about what 2018 holds for us…

Roland Wheeler campaigned a CSC RC3 and took first place for the year in the F Superstock class! Way to go Roland!

US Army Command Sergeant Major Jerry Jacobitz bought an RX3 in February, becoming the highest ranking NCO ever to ride one of our bikes!

March brought our 3rd Annual CSC Baja Run and good buddy Dan Nibbelink (the most photogenic guy in the world) rode with us!

We announced the Café Racer in April and I posted several cool videos of it.  The colors on the production bikes will be different.  Interest in these bikes continues to be off the charts.   Keep an eye on the blog for more info as we get closer to bringing these bikes to you!

May saw the arrival of the new CSC RXR, a stripped-down, 50-lbs lighter version of the RX3!

A quick visit to Chongqing for a test ride on the new RX4 in June!

Our July CSC ride to Crystal Lake saw triple digit temperatures and an encounter with a friendly bear. That’s good buddy Duane (not the bear) in the photo above!

In August, my good buddy Josh posted this awesome video of his TT250 desert foray…

In September we posted this collage of the CSC staff!

October saw our CSC blog ranked among the Top 15 motorcycle blogs in the world!

Moto Baja! hit the presses in November! It’s great, and you should buy several copies!

Things were super busy in December, and it was the toughest month for me to select a photo to include here. I went with a photo of my RX3’s fuel tank, which was the pic I included with the blog on Motorcycle.com’s story about our Baja rides!

2018 is looking to be another great year.   Consider what we have going…

• The 2018 TT250s are due to arrive within the next couple of weeks (they’re on the water now).
• The Café Racers have been approved by the US EPA.   We’ll be ordering those in the very near term.
• The 2018 RX3s are built and they’ll be hitting the water momentarily.   We’ve got new colors we’ll announce shortly, and they all look great.  One of them I predict will sell out very quickly, but you can be the judge when we post the colors.
• We’ve got a run to see the Owen Collection (the finest collection of vintage motocrossers ever).  Hey, that’s this Saturday!
• The 2018 CSC Baja run (our 8-day, 2,000-mile jaunt around the Baja peninsula) is going to be 10-17 March.   I love all of our rides, and I especially love this one.
• We’ll be offering a complete line of accessories for the new Café Racer, and you’ll here about them right here on the CSC blog first.
• We’ll be posting a complete set of maintenance tutorials on the Café Racer, just as we have done for the TT250, the RC3, and the RX3.   They’ll be posted before the bikes arrive so you’ll be able to perform all required maintenance activities on your new Café Racer.
• We’ll be doing another 4-day TT250 run down to San Felipe.  Watch the blog for our schedule on this ride.
• We’ll be doing another Southwest ride sometime next year.  There’s been some talk about heading all the way to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico on this ride.  Watch the blog for our schedule on this one, too!
• We’ll be doing our dual sports and donuts rides on the first Saturday of every month.   Like I said above, the first one this year is to see the fabulous Owen Collection!
• We’ll keep your favorite blog going strong!

Folks, 2018 is going to be a great year!

Hey, whatever floats your boat!  We’ve got a bunch of ultra-clean used Harleys in stock right now, and we have a bunch of CSC Mustangs here, too!

You know, the funny thing is I’ve ridden both kinds of bikes (as well as a bunch of others) up and down the length of Baja.  Yep, we rode all the way to Cabo San Lucas and back on CSC 150 Mustangs back in 2010, and way back in 1997, I rode a Harley Softail down to Cabo, too.  You can read all about that (as well as the many other bikes I’ve done that trip on) in Moto Baja!, and you can order the book right here from CSC.  My conclusion on this issue of the best bike for Baja is, of course, that the RX3 is the perfect motorcycle for serious adventure travel, and Moto Baja! makes the case for why this is so.

Here’s another RX3 rider I had a nice chat with earlier today…this is Chi from San Diego…

Chi brought his RX3 in for a regular service, and while Carlos was attending to it in the shop, we had a nice chat about motorcycles, the state of the educational system here in the US, statistics, and a whole bunch of other things.  It was grand fun and I greatly enjoyed the conversation.

Good times, good people, and good motorcycles.  This is a great time to be a rider!

One of the most fun parts about being around CSC are meeting the folks who ride our motorcycles.  I was at the plant today and I met Brent and Chris, two brothers (originally from Nebraska) who are taking delivery of matching white RX3s…

Guys, you’re going to love your new motorcycles and you’re going to have grand adventures on them.  What a great way to enter 2018!

We’re at capacity for our ride to the Owen Collection on 6 January (we’re sorry; there’s no room for more riders), but you can get a feel for what we’re going to see during our visit to this fantastic collection in the most recent Motorcycle Classics Destinations piece.  The article is right here!

Folks, check this out…it’s a Christmas card from none other than Clement Salvadori, with  artwork by his wife Sue…

Clem Salvadori is the guy who first inspired me to ride Baja with his great book on motorcycling in Mexico…and I’m sending him a copy of Moto Baja! this week.

Cool stuff, folks.

Wow, another nice note from my good buddy Joe Martin (whose photo appears on Page 109 of Moto Baja!). Joe recently rode his RX3 from Washington down to So Cal, and he assembled several very cool YouTube videos as part of his adventure. Here’s Joe’s note to me, along with his supercool videos!

Joe,

I put together some videos from my trip down there on my RX3 and thought you might be interested in posting one or more of them on the blog

In Washington we don’t allow lane splitting but it’s legal in California. Traffic sucked so I followed another rider to learn the ropes. I survived but it was terrifying! 

Lane splitting:

As I approached Azusa on my way to visit the folks at CSC I came across the brush fire that had jumped the 210 freeway the previous day and closed the highway. I came through right after it was reopened.

Wildfires close by: 

I met up with a friend and his friend for a ride around the Salton Sea. On the first day we did a ride late in the day to check out some of the local trails. Desert riding is pretty new to me. Very different than the Pacific Northwest and our actual dirt, trees, roots and mud.

Dusk ride: 

On our second day at the Salton Sea we did some sightseeing around an area call Salvation Mountain, Slab City and East Jesus. It was an amazingly crazy place but totally worth visiting.

Salvation Mountain (Whoville):

On our way to do some serious trail riding in the Anza-Borrego Desert we did some sightseeing in the town of Borrego Springs where there are dozens of metal sculptures all around the area. Amazing work!

Sculptures:

I rode with a couple guys on Enduros in the Anza Borrego Desert. Not the typical terrain to take the RX3 on but it did fantastic. Fast sand, deep sand, big rocks, awesome and scary climbs and descents were tall handled by the bike.

Anza Borrego Desert big ride: 

Happy Holidays!

Joe

Joe, this is awesome.  Thanks very much for your note and for the videos.  Ride safe, my friend, and enjoy the holidays!

Carlos and his beautiful wife Veronica just posted this video on Facebook. It’s from our Baja adventure and it is one of the best videos I’ve seen from our trip. (You may need to unmute it with the button in the lower right hand corner.)

Nicely done, Carlos and Veronica, and thanks very much for posting this!

One of the grandest things about the adventure riding experience are the cool people you meet, like my good friend Nicole Espinosa.   Nicole posted this very cool video and I thought I would share it with you…