CSC Blog

If you’re a gearhead in southern California, the title of this blog entry says it all.  Glendora Ridge Road is one of those secret roads that not too many people know about…mostly because there’s no real reason for it to exist other than to bring lots of smiles to folks who enjoy a twisty mountain trail.  It runs behind the first ridge of the San Gabriel mountains, just out of sight of the Pomona and San Gabriel valleys.   Folks who ride it for the first time are amazed that a road this desolate and this lightly traveled is so close to a major population center.  I’ve been riding it for years, and it is literally minutes away from my front door.  

Steve and everyone else at California Scooter have heard me talking about Glendora Ridge Road for months, and how the CSC bikes would be perfect for a ride through its twisties.  Yesterday, Steve asked Tony to put some gas in a couple of bikes, and he said to me “let’s go ride Glendora Ridge Road.”    He sure didn’t have to ask me twice.  The weather was perfect, and even though the phones are ringing off the hooks with folks calling about buying new Scooters, it’s not a good idea to say no when the boss wants to go for a ride (that’s Steve in the photo to the right).   Come to think of it, it’s not a good idea to say no when anyone wants to go for a motorcycle ride…

Tony fired up the Van Halen bike for Steve (it’s a custom bike designed by Sandy), and I grabbed a brand new black Classic with only 4 miles on the clock. 

We first wound our way up to Padua, which is a very cool little town nestled in the foothills.   Padua has a great dinner theatre, and I had to stop to grab a few photos for you.   This is the black Classic Tony set up for me.  It’s bone stock, and it is a runner!

Here’s Steve’s Van Halen custom in front of the theatre entrance…

After Padua, we headed up Shinn Road for the long climb to Mt. Baldy Village.    The single-cylinder CSC engines were earning their pay as we climbed into the San Gabriels.   There are a couple of tunnels the WPA guys cut through the mountains during the Great Depression…here’s a shot I grabbed going through one of them, beeping my horn to hear it reverberate off the tunnel walls…hey, it was a great day and I was on a great bike…why not be a little kid again?

Steve and I stopped for lunch at the Mt. Baldy Lodge.    Rustic to an exponent, this is a nice place to grab a bite.  We both opted for the tuna melt.   Have you ever noticed that everything tastes better on a motorcycle ride?   The psychologists have a term for it (I think it’s called pleasure transferrance or something), but whatever it is, that sandwich was good!  Maybe it was because I knew we were only a few hundred feet from the start of Glendora Ridge Road, maybe it was because the weather was so nice, or maybe it was because I was on a new California Scooter.  Or maybe it was the nice lady who waited on us.  Whatever was going on, it was all good.  The Mt. Baldy Lodge is where a lot of motorcyclists stop before riding Glendora Ridge Road, and our California Scooters looked right at home parked out front.

We fired up the Scooters’ 150cc engines, and we were on our way! 

I really like this next photo.   This is what Glendora Ridge Road is all about…the road follows a ridge, and the guys who cut it didn’t try to follow a straight line.  Folks talk about the Dragon back east and how many curves it has…but I’ll bet this road has it beat! 

Look at those twisties up ahead!  I’ll tell you, it felt like Glendora Ridge Road was designed with California Scooter Company motorcycles in mind.   The bikes’ power and handling match the road perfectly.   Steve can scoot along pretty well, too.  I was in front for a little while, and to borrow a line from my good friend Bob, I told Steve if I was going too fast he could just pass me.  Which he did…

You see all kinds of interesting bikes up on Glendora Ridge Road.   Here’s a guy playing supermoto on a Yamaha…

And here’s a cool shot of a Honda CBX I grabbed on an earlier visit…these are interesting machines that Honda made from 1979 to 1982.   This one is either a ’79 or an ’80.    The Honda CBX bikes had 6 cylinders, 6 carbs, lots of weight, and tons of complexity.  I had an ’82 that I liked a lot, but it didn’t handle nearly as well as the California Scooters.   I’ve had both machines on this road, and the California Scooter gets through the twisties waaay better.

Speaking of which, here’s a shot I grabbed of the black Classic (with the San Gabriel mountains as a backdrop) along Glendora Ridge Road…

And here’s another that Steve shot of me…that smile’s real, folks…this was fun!

You see a fair amount of bikes of all kinds up on Glendora Ridge Road…here’s a hot dogger on a Honda sports bike…

Glendora Ridge Road ends way up in the mountains where it intersects with the East Fork Road (which drops down to Azusa) and Glendora Mountain Road (which winds its way down to Glendora).   There’s a wide spot in the road here in the wilderness, and it’s a place where riders stop to chat.   Our California Scooters got a warm reception.    We’re the newest thing, and even guys on high end, liter-class sports bikes came over and wanted to know what these California Scooters are all about…

I asked one of the liter-bike pilots if I could get a shot of his helmet…this is fancy headgear, guys!

And this is Natalie, a very nice young lady we met on Glendora Ridge Road.  She asked if she could sit on the Van Halen bike (the California Scooters just have that effect on people).  I told her she could if I could get a smile and a photo, and here’s the result……

I chatted with Natalie for a while.  It’s part of my job.  Hey, riding motorcycles on Glendora Ridge Road, meeting folks like Natalie, taking pictures…it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it! 

Steve and I took Glendora Mountain Road back down to the Pomona Valley…and I chased him all the way down trying to get a decent photo…here’s the best I could do…

We had a great time, and a great ride…but there’s a lot more to come, folks. 

You’re probably wondering…could it get any better?

Well, yes, it can.  

Ever hear of the Cannonball Rally?   The coast-to-coast Cannonball Rally?  Oh, this is gonna be a good one…stayed tuned, Blog Readers, ’cause California Scooter is gonna be in it!

That’s certainly a true saying…and we want every detail on every California Scooter to be perfect.   That’s where Lupe enters the picture…she’s been with Pro-One and California Scooter for a little more than 4 years, and Lupe’s job is the same as everyone else’s:  Making sure every bike that leaves the facility is perfect.

You might think we measure how good our bikes are by how well Lupe does her job, but we don’t.  We measure how good we are by how little Lupe has to do to each bike.   Every bike builder is focused on doing things right the first time, and our quality philosophy is not to have someone at the end of the line point out what we’ve done wrong.  Our approach is to “get it right” in production.   Lupe’s job consists primarily of cleaning the bikes and making them glisten after production, the road test, our intense final inspection, and before they ship.   She does it well, too!

Check out this red Classic with with the Greaser’s gangster whitewalls.  Along with a CSC performance exhaust, the whitewalls are the only departure from an otherwise completely stock bike.   It looks great!

I mentioned in our blog on the Hansen Dam vintage bike meet that my new friend Jim shared some photos with me just before we left.  I struck up a conversation with Jim about his beautiful dog, and when I asked, he told me that it was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier.  The dog was magnificent.   Jim admired the California Scooters we brought with us, and I was taken with his show dog. 

Jim is from Scotland, he’s maybe a year or two older than me, he wanted to know all about the California Scooters, and he told me about some of the vintage bikes he’s owned.   He used to ride and race in the United Kingdom.    It was fascinating stuff, and soon Jim was showing me photos of himself and his friends from the 1950s and 1960s.   I love seeing old photos, and I told Jim about our blog.  I asked if he had the photos in digital format because I wanted to post them here for you to see.   Jim simply handed me all of his photos, and he asked me to mail them back to him when I was done.   I guess trust is a character trait in Scotland, or maybe I just look like an honest guy.   I don’t have all of the details, but several of Jim’s photos had writing on the back….so here we go.   These are Jim’s photos with his captions…

BSA Shooting Star at Brassie...1958

Croy Shore, L to R, Ewart Paton, Knapp, Scoular, Candlish, Archie

Another hard day at the office...judging by the muck on us, we weren't in front!!!

At Symington 1963 (remember the Cotton?)

Symington (check who is pushing my bike in the background)

Far Right - "Rocket Man!"

Matchless CSR650 1962 (check the crazy driver)

Irvine Merry Mass Moto X 1963 - Jock 3rd from right No. 130 - Myself next to him No. 126

My First "Big" Bike - 1956 T100

2nd T100 - 1959

Linlithgow Scramble 1964 - from left Jock, his cousin, myself, and Liz supervising

Jim, thanks very much for sharing these photos with us.  This is really cool stuff.   Please stop by and visit us the next time you are in La Verne – we’d love to get a photo of you on one of our bikes!

We’ve had a great week here at the California Scooter Company, and as I promised a day or two ago, we have a couple of really special bikes to show you.

I stopped by on Tuesday morning and met John.   John is a real artist…he’s the man who does our custom paint work.   John showed us a tank he was preparing for Alvin’s bike (more on this in a second), and even though it hadn’t been clear coated yet, it was awesome.   Alvin wanted an orange bike, and he wanted the Mustang logo on the tank.   Wow, did John ever come through!  Folks, what you see below is not a decal…it’s hand-painted!  John, your work is incredible.

John wanted to make sure Steve was satisfied with his work before he applied the clear coat.   I was blown away.  I kept thinking about that tank all day long.  I wish I had that kind of talent.

So, that was Tuesday.  Thursday morning I stopped by again, and Carlos and Tony had just saddled up to put a couple of Greasers through their production test ride.   Those lucky guys.  They told me they’d be taking bikes out most of the morning. 

Every California Scooter gets a thorough road test before it ships.   I asked the guys what kinds of things they evaluate, and the answer was “everything…handling, braking, acceleration, shifting, turn signals, suspension, lights, brake lights, the horn, starting, the works…”  In short, they’re making sure your bike is perfect.   I asked the guys what kinds of problems they typically find on these test rides, and both guys told me they very seldom find anything.   The production process is dialed in, and when the bikes come off the line, they’re good.   Our guys just want to make sure that’s the case.   Plus, they get to ride motorcycles for a living!

Earlier in the week, Carlos mentioned to me that we had a special order for red Classic with the Greaser model’s red wheels.  As soon as he said that, I knew it would be slick.   Carlos was eager to build it, because he, too, knew it would be special.   I think he was right.  What do you think?

This bike is going to our good friend Don, and it is a dazzler.  It looked good in the shop, but when we pushed it out into the sunlight, it stopped traffic.  Literally.  People driving by saw it and stopped to get a better look.  Don’s bike has the red Greaser wheels, a CSC performance exhaust system, and a chrome luggage rack.  It’s stunning.

The guys were calling Don’s bike the Radio Flyer because of its red paint scheme, and I thought that was pretty neat, but I had forgotten about Alvin’s bike.   When I saw it, I was blown away all over again…take a look at this, folks!

Like every California Scooter, this is a very special motorcycle.  After taking a few photos, I asked the guys to push Steve’s ’53 Pony (the very bike that inspired creation of the California Scooter Company) outside.  I wanted to grab a side-by-side shot…

This is really cool stuff, and it was made even cooler when I had a chance to chat with Alvin.   He’s a very interesting guy who told me that he used to deliver newspapers on an original Mustang in the 1940s.   Alvin, my guess is you are at a position in life where you’re not delivering newspapers anymore, but if you ever wanted to, your new California Scooter would help you deliver the goods in style!

I stopped by the California Scooter manufacturing facility this morning to photograph a couple of beautiful new Classics (Alvin and Don, you will be more than pleased!).   I’m going to wait until tomorrow to post their photos, mostly because Steve told me about a couple of photos he grabbed of several Australia-bound Pro-One bikes the day before, and I thought I’d show them to you first.  

Pro-One, California Scooter’s sister company, finished six new performance V-twins for Magnum Performance in Victoria, Australia.   Magnum Performance has been a great Pro-One distributor and dealer for years, and we know their lucky customers will be blown away by these motorcycles.  Ian, we appreciate your business!

Take a look at some of the most exotic motorcycles in the world… 

The Pro-One bikes have huge V-twin engines (114, 121, and 124 cubic inches), and Steve tells me they really rock.  Tony gets to test ride each bike (what a job!).  I’ve been waiting to find one with the keys still in the ignition when the boss isn’t around, but so far, no luck.   It’s probably a good thing.  If I rode one I’d have to start talking to my other boss about buying a Pro-One.  She’s already told me there are enough motorcycles in the garage (but I always thought the right number was one more than what I already own…).

Ian, your customers in Australia are going to love these motorcycles.   They’re shipping in the  next day or so.  When you get them, if you notice one has a few more miles on it than the rest…it wasn’t me!

Steve, Joe, Ben, and I took several California Scooters to the BSA Owners Club Hansen Dam meet Sunday.    The weather was perfect, and giving the California Scooters a chance to mix it up with classic British, Italian, German, and US bikes was a great way to spend the morning.   We arrived early, but interest was high as soon as we took the bikes out of Steve’s trailer. 

This is what the event is all about…classic BSA 650 twins made in England.  The one in the foreground is one of the last Beezers made in the early 1970s, with the oil-in-the-frame configuration.  The one behind it is from the 1960s.  I love those big chrome tank panels.

I caught a bit of shade under the EZ-up and watched the crowd checking out all of the vintage bikes… 

I had a lot of fun watching folks discovering the California Scooters.  The bikes were barely off the trailer when people had their cameras out snapping photos of these unique machines.

While folks were taking pictures of our bikes, I wandered around a bit and grabbed a few photos of the vintage machines…here’s one of a Vincent, which was the fastest motorcycle in the world in its day…

Take a look at this gorgeous, fully-faired Norton twin…this bike is 50 years old, but it looks brand new…

 And here’s a Velocette, a big single-cylinder performance bike from the 1950s and 1960s…

I didn’t want to stray too far from the California Scooter area, mostly because I enjoyed watching folks’ reactions to these modern classics.   This fellow asked if he could sit on a CSC Greaser, and he really lit up when Steve told him to fire it up and take it for a spin (which he did)…

Then another Vincent parked right next to us.   These are very cool, very exotic high performance machines.  Check out the size of the speedometer, just above the headlight…that thing probably serves as a fairing!

Another California Scooter test rider on a CSC Classic…just think…in another 50 years people will be bringing California Scooters to events like these!

I took a break and watched the folks taking it all in…that red California Scooter Classic looks right at home in this ritzy neighborhood, doesn’t it ?

And yet another Vincent…and this one I knew I’d seen before at one of the earlier Hansen Dam events.   Check out the airbrush painting on the tank… 

Rollie Free set the motorcycle land speed record on the Bonneville salt flats on a Vincent back in the day at a cool 150 mph…he stripped down to a bathing suit and rode the bike stretched out in the prone position to do it, too…just like this Vincent’s tank art shows… 

If you’ve seen the movie, “The World’s Fastest Indian,” there’s a scene in which a guy comes up to Anthony Hopkins at Bonneville and offers to help him.   He introduced himself as Rollie Free.   I thought it was a nice touch in that movie, which is one of my favorites.  I’ll bet less than 1% of the folks who watched that outstanding movie realized the significance of that name, but I’ll bet quite a few of the people reading this blog know exactly who Rollie Free was.

You know, the feat was duplicated on a Mustang that hit 100 mph at Rosemont Dry Lake, piloted by Walt Fulton.  There’s a fascinating history behind the Mustang ‘s racing adventures.   Don Cook, of the Mustang Motorcycle Club of America, was kind enough to send this photo to us of Walt setting the Mustang record…

We’ll come back to the Mustang’s racing lineage in another post, but when I saw that airbrushed Vincent tank, Walt Fulton’s 100 mph record was the first thing I thought of, and I wanted to let you all see the photo Don provided. 

So, back to 2010…here’s another cool vintage bike at Hansen Dam, a British Norton…

More folks checking out the California Scooters…

I kept drifting back to that red Norton.  A sleek Matchless parked right next to it.   Matchless was another British bike.   This one is a big single.

Cindy from Century Cycles wanted to check out the blue Classic.  She looks good on it!

Another Hansen Dam rider on the blue Classic…

A couple of riders rolled in on Indians.   This one is a bike that Royal Enfield (in the UK) actually made for Indian, and Indian rebadged it near the end of their company’s existence.   During World War II, the Army told Harley and Indian that they had to focus all of their production on meeting the military’s needs.  Indian did so.  Harley didn’t, and they kept making civilian bikes along with their military bikes.  Indian lost most of their civilian customers, and they never fully regained their place in the market.

I grabbed this shot of another Matchless as it rolled by…

This one was of the more stunning vintage bikes at the show…a Norton configured as one of the original cafe racers…

Here’s an Italian Moto Guzzi with a sidecar.  Its rider demonstrated his ability to “lift the chair” (get the sidecar off the ground) making tight turns in the parking lot, but I wasn’t fast enough to catch it with my camera…

And finally, more people checking out that beautiful bright red California Scooter Classic at Hansen Dam.  I told this young lady she already had the leathers to match the bike, too…

The Southern California Norton Owners Club hosts a Hansen Dam vintage bike event in November, and the BSA Owners Club does the same thing in April.   The meet starts around 8:30 or so, and then the vintage bikes roll out for a ride through the San Gabriel Mountains.  We stayed until the vintage iron left (an impressive departure!), and then we headed back to La Verne.  We had a great day, and I hope you enjoy viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. 

Oh, one more thing…I met a very interesting guy from Scotland (my new friend Jim) who was admiring the California Scooters.   As we were leaving, Jim showed me a bunch of black-and-white photos of his riding adventures in the 1960s in the UK.  I asked Jim if he had the photos in digital form, and I told him I wanted to share them with the fine motorcycle enthusiasts who read our blog.   To my surprise, Jim gave me the photos, asked me to scan them, and he’s trusting me to mail them back to him (which I will).   So, keep an eye on your California Scooter blog, because I’ll post Jim’s incredible photos here for you to enjoy in the next week or so…

I spent a good portion of the day yesterday working with Carlos building a new CSC Classic, and after lunch, I fired up my old KLR 650.  I hadn’t been on the KLR in several months, and when I took it back to the plant I was amazed at the similarity between it and the California Scooters.  They’re both torquey singles, and they’re both a lot of fun to ride. 

Last night I found this video of Lee Ermey talking about the Marine Corps’ version of the KLR.   I’m a big fan of Lee Ermey, and I’ve always been interested in military motorcycles.   This is a pretty cool video…take a look and see if you agree…  

I spent a couple of days last week in the factory to learn more about the California Scooters manufacturing process.  I wanted to see how the bikes are built and my good friend Carlos was just the guy to show me.  Carlos usually handles the company’s outside processing and purchasing activities, but the rest of the guys are very busy building production bikes and Carlos graciously agreed to walk me through the build cycle.  He’s a patient teacher who answered all of my questions. 

Here’s a shot of Carlos in action…

Carlos has been with California Scooter and Pro-One Performance for an incredible 19 years.  The man is a motorcycle professional and a genuine nice guy, and I sure learned a lot hanging around with him yesterday.  I was so focused on what Carlos was teaching me, I didn’t notice the customizing my KLR was undergoing…

That California Scooter logo dresses up the KLR nicely, don’t you think?  I like it!

Tomorrow we’re going to have a great time at the Hansen Dam vintage British bike meet…and we’ll have some photos for you of the classic motorcycle crowd checking out our modern Classics.  This event attracts BSAs, Triumphs, Nortons, Vincents, Velocettes, Moto Guzzis, and now, California Scooters.   It’s going to be fun.

Ride safe.

I just saw this video, and I thought I would share it with you…it’s another cool trials video, this time with a Vespa scooter.   You have to check it out.

And speaking of checking things out, I came across a few photos on my hard drive from the Springfield Mile a short while ago.  My good friends Dave and Bob took me to Springfield, and while we were there, Dave grabbed this very cool shot of a restored Mustang…

After admiring Dave’s Mustang photo, I started looking at some of the photos I grabbed that weekend.  If you’ve never been to the Springfield Mile, it’s something you need to do.  I love flat track racing (I grew up when Gary Nixon and Bart Markel dominated the sport).  Dave and Bob told me Springfield was special, but I had no idea.  On a half -mile dirt oval (the kind I used to see when I was a kid), the bikes get around pretty good, but on a mile track…well, that’s something altogether different.   On the big mile, the bikes hit 140 mph on the straights, and in the corners they slide along together, sideways, bumping shoulders at around 100 mph.  It’s an incredible sight.

Here are a few of the Springfield boys barreling out of Turn 4 on their way up to 140 mph in front of the stands…

And here’s a bunch more in Turns 1 and 2.   These guys are awesome.   My camera has a feature that lets it track moving objects and adjust the autofocus to account for the range change, but these boys were flying so fast my Nikon couldn’t keep up with them.  I put the camera on manual focus, picked a spot and focused on it, and then pulled the trigger when the pack entered the field of view…

After just a lap or two, Kenny Coolbeth and Chris Carr were so far out in front they had the track to themselves.   These guys are the best of the best.  They’re sliding sideways at over 100 mph in this shot.

These photos are cool, but they don’t really convey the thunder and lightning that accompanies a race like this.   It’s incredible racing, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.

We’re off to the Hansen Dam British Bike Meet here in southern California this weekend, so watch for photos of some cool vintage iron early next week.   We’re bringing a bunch of California Scooters, and if you can make the event, stop by and we’ll let you fire one up…but no sliding around sideways at 100 mph…at least not until we come out with our Springfield model!

California Scooter Company made the May 2010 issue of Friction Zone magazine, an outstanding national publication available at no charge in over 650 motorcycle dealers.   Ace writer and rider Kate Edwards interviewed us a week ago, and she did a marvelous job with a feature story on your favorite motorcycle company.   I was enjoying a cup of coffee with my friends at Bob Brown’s BMW dealership in Pomona, California this morning when a pile of new magazines suddenly appeared in front of me.   There we were!  Nicely done, Kate Edwards!

We have a special relationship with Cal Poly Pomona, one of the premier engineering schools in the world, and today the California Scooter Company hosted a group of first year engineering students who wanted to learn more about designing and manufacturing motorcycles.   Cal Poly’s College of Engineering is just a few minutes from our plant, and it’s a great source of engineering talent.

What a great opportunity for these young folks…a chance to learn first hand what goes into designing and manufacturing motorcycles!   Visiting a motorcycle factory (and meeting Steve Seidner, the entrepreneur who created it) sure beats sitting in a classroom listening to stuffy old professors talk about engineering theory.   These young folks, the future of our sport, learned what it really takes to succeed from a guy who’s actually done it.  

The Cal Poly engineering students all showed up early (who’d want miss to any of this?), and they had a lot of fun in the showroom playing with the new California Scooters.    Steve addressed the group and told them about the new CSC motorcycles, and then he led them into the manufacturing area…

The questions from these guys and gals were great….they wanted to know how the company developed its new motorcycles, the manufacturing approach, how long it takes to make a bike, how they are tested, how Steve decides to make parts in-house versus subcontracting the work…really good stuff, and the kinds of questions that made me feel our visitors understood the rare opportunity they enjoyed today.

The Cal Poly engineers asked Steve how he got into the business, and in the process of answering that question, Steve mentioned the Pro-One Performance V-twins.   Naturally, that led to a discussion about those bikes, and Steve asked if anyone wanted to see a few of the newest Pro-One machines.    Who could say no to that?

Most engineering students are gearheads (hey, I’m a gearhead…and you probably are, too, if you’re reading this) and this part of the visit was icing on the cake.   The Pro-One bikes are some of the most exotic motorcycles in the world, and the great questions started all over again.   These young folks knew this was a special visit, and they were using the time well.

Steve Seidner, totally at ease, answering questions from sharp young minds…

One of the Cal Poly engineers asked the question everyone wanted to…what do these bikes sound like?  Well, our master bike builder Tony fired one up, and we all had an opportunity to listen to the answer…spoken in an unmistakable tone by a 121-cubic-inch V-twin engine…

These big Pro-One bikes and their 150cc California Scooter cousins both sound great, and the engineering students really enjoyed hearing them, but not as much as what Steve said next….California Scooter Company will soon announce a motorcycle design competition open to Cal Poly College of Engineering students!  Stay tuned, and we’ll post more about this exciting new opportunity right here!