CSC Blog

Guys and gals, I’ll email the Baja hotel info to you tomorrow or Friday.  As you might imagine, things have been busy around here!  But busy or not, I left a bit early today because I wanted to put a few more break-in miles on my RX3.  As you know, I have the fast one (that is to say, mine is orange).  I say that in jest, of course.   Everybody thinks their color is faster.   I picked orange because I like it.   But I like the blue, too.  And the white.   And the red.   You just can’t go wrong with any of these colors.

So, on to my ride.   My favorite spot outside of Baja is…you guessed it…Glendora Ridge Road!   You’ve heard me brag about Glendora Ridge Road many times, but what you may not know is that GRR is one of the premier wildflower spots in the entire United States.  Hey, it’s April, everything is in bloom, and I figured I’d go for a few RX3 beauty shots in wildflower heaven.   This blog entry might load a bit slower because I sized the photos at 900 pixels (they’re bigger than usual).  If you click on any of them, you’ll see the larger version.

A shot in front of the rock pile just past the start of Glendora Ridge Road. It’s Rattlesnake City in those rocks…you don’t want to go poking around in there!

Red wildflowers just in front of the RX3. I was going to do this big botanical study and find all of these flowers’ scientific names, but I think I’ll just give them my own names. These are called red wildflowers.

Yellow wildflowers.

Purple wildflowers. These are pretty cool.

I think these purple flowers are a poppy of some sort.

More yellow wildflowers, with some purple thrown in.

A view from the RX3 cockpit along Glendora Ridge Road.

More yellow wildflowers…yellow is the dominant color up there, with at least three different kinds of flowers.

At the junction of Glendora Mountain Road and Glendora Ridge Road.

Yours truly, living large and thinking about Baja…we leave in one week!

All of the above photos were with my little Nikon D3300 and its kit 18-55 lens.  It’s a small camera, and it’s what I’m bringing with me next week when we ride Baja.   That package (the D3300 camera and the lens) is ideal for the kind of riding we’ll be doing.   Trust me on this…you don’t want to ride Baja without a camera!

Adios for now, amigos and amiga!

We received this nice note from our good buddy Rob just a short while ago…

Steve, Joe, Ryan and everybody else there at CSC-

Here’s a pic from today’s ride, the first taste of twisties for my RX-3.

Feel free to use it, share it, whatever you like. Including this email.

I’ve got about 150 miles on the RX-3. It’s breaking in nicely!

Today was the canyon run. From Los Angeles to Malibu and up Las Flores/Rambla Pacifica over the mountains. Then onto Malibu Canyon/Las Virgenes to Mulholland, and up The Snake.

From there, down Kanan Dume for a half mile to Latigo Canyon and down to the coast.

We started with a breakfast burrito at the Malibu Country Store, which is right there at Las Flores. And then the rest of the ride was twisties!

I have to tell you, of all five bikes I have in my garage, this one is the most fun in the twisties. It’s far lighter than anything else I ride, and is an absolute joy in very tight, technical curves. It’s light enough to easily adjust your line while cornering, without bad results. And I find that as it breaks in, it develops a nice power band above 5000 rpm. In tight stuff, the Cyclone has more than enough power to give you a very spirited ride! I’m really impressed. I left my buddy (on an F800GT) in the dust.

Now, part of this experience comes from me getting off my 600 lb. GS and onto a Cyclone. But still, I also have two sport-touring bikes (a ’92 K75S, and an ’08 K1200GT) that are almost magical to ride in the canyons, but neither can compare to the handling of this lightweight adventure bike.

I’m really loving it.

And I’m riding more tomorrow.

I’ll see you folks soon,

Rob

That’s an awesome story and an awesome photo, Rob.  Thanks very much for sharing it with us.

For our riders who are not here in So Cal, the Rock Store is an iconic motorcycle stop high up in the mountains above Malibu.  We’ve done runs there on the little CSC-150 Mustangs (you can read about that here), and there’s always a crowd on the weekends.   I even wrote a piece on the place for Motorcycle Classics magazine (that story is here).

Rob, we’re amazed you managed to grab a photo of your beautiful white RX3 with nobody else around…the place is usually packed!

This is fun, watching new owners meeting their new RX3 motorcycles.    We’re not able to grab photos of everyone, but we managed to catch a few of the folks at the plant yesterday…

Here’s Ernest from Sacramento…

Keith from Monterey…

Tim from San Diego…

Serge and his wife from Arizona….

And Jim…yet another rider from Sacramento…

If you have a photo of you and your RX3 you’d like to share, send it to us and we’ll add it to the blog!

We’re gearheads, and if you’re reading this blog, so are you.   If you’re like me, you liked being a gearhead ever since you were a kid.  I’ll bet you enjoyed taking things apart.   Do you remember that funny feeling you would get when you put something back together and there were pieces left over?

Well, that’s the subject of this blog, my friends.

We’re continuously improving, and what we’re showing you here is info we’re also sending to the Zong.   We’ve discovered (as have those of you who are setting up your bikes yourself) that Zongshen sent extra parts in each container.   In some cases lots of extra parts.   I guess it’s better to have parts and not need them than it is to need parts and not have them, but it is a little unnerving to finish assembling a bike and have parts left over.   Lots of parts, in some cases.

To address this problem, we laid out all of the nuts, bolts, washers, and other goodies by setup installation subassembly.   We’re providing photos with this blog so you can see what goes where.   Here we go…

We’ve had a couple of calls and emails from you about having parts left over, and we’re finding the same thing on the bikes we set up here.   It varies from bike to bike and it’s always been an overage.

Here’s a photo of the extra bits we had left over on a bike we set up this morning…

So if you find you have a few parts left over when you’re assembling your bike, don’t be alarmed.   If you should happen to be missing a nut or bolt, give us a yell.   We’ll have plenty of extras.

These hardware overages are an improvement opportunity we’ll have squared away on the next big lot of RX3 motorcycles we’re bringing in to the US (which, by the way, we ordered this week).   Yep, the response has been that good, thanks to all of you!

I thought I would add a few comments to the blog today on things you might consider bringing with you to Baja.  Folks, this is an adventure ride, and not everything is going to go perfectly.   Right now we have 16 folks (including me) riding with us.   There are going to be some things go wrong.   Hey, that’s when the adventure begins, so don’t get all wound up thinking about what might happen.

One of my buddies at the plant asked me a day or two ago what are we going to do if someone gets bit by a rattlesnake.   The question immediately reminded me of that old joke with a punchline that goes “the doc said you’re gonna die…”

I can’t put that joke on the blog, but on the off chance you’re one of the three people in the world who hasn’t heard it, I might be tempted to tell the story on our Baja ride.   But the question is a serious one…and the answer is this.   That rattlesnake you see above is the only one I’ve ever seen in Baja in 20+ years of riding the peninsula.   It’s not like they’re all over.   If we happen to see one, just don’t mess with it.   They say they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.   I guess that could be true, but when I saw that Mexican diamondback in the photo above a few weeks ago, I’ll confess:   I was plenty scared.   I mean, look at that thing!

On to other stuff.   With 16 bikes, it’s possible one of us might pick up a nail or something and get a flat.   We stock the tubes you’ll need if that happens, and you might want to pick up a pair before we leave….

A more real concern is the motorcycle phenomenon called monkey butt.   If you spend hours and hours in the saddle on any motorcycle, you’re going to get a sore butt.   It doesn’t matter what kind of motorcycle you ride.   I’ve struggled with it on Harleys, Triumphs, the KLR (particularly bad), my CBX, my TL1000S, and a bunch of other bikes.   The RX3 is no exception.   My answer is a sheepskin seat cover.   We’ve got them in stock and I would advise you to get one.  It’s the first thing I added to my bike…

If you’re going to change your oil in Baja, you’ll want oil (10W-40 weight), the tools you need for the oil change, a filter, and a drip tray and funnel.   We’ve got all of that, too.   Just give us a call.

Make sure you bring raingear.   Like I said earlier, I’ve never been through Baja without seeing some rain.   It’s raining here today, by the way.

And one last thing…if you think you need a new helmet, Ryan brought in a bunch of really nice HJC full-face helmets in red, blue, orange, and black.   And get this:  They’re just $99!  I’m tempted to buy one myself, but I’ll probably stick with my old HJC.   HJC makes good helmets.   It’s what I wear, and I’ve been wearing HJC helmets for years.   I’ve gone through three of them (you should replace a helmet every few years).

That’s it for now…more to follow on Baja and all of the other exciting things we’re doing here at CSC!

We have a fix for the breaking centerstand spring, and we’ll be shipping new springs out to those who purchased the RX3 accessory centerstand early next week.   If you’re riding to Baja with us, we’ll have the spring here to put on your bike before we leave.

One or two guys were going all kerblooey on the Internet worrying about the sidestand spring.   No need to panic, folks.   The centerstand spring was an aftermarket US part (it was our design, not Zongshen’s) and it is a different part than the Zongshen sidestand spring.   We’ve had no sidestand springs break.

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience the centerstand spring failures have caused.   As always, we’ll make it right.   We’re doing our best to make the bike as close to perfect as we can for you, our riders.   When we hit a speed bump in that quest, we’ll get over it and make things right.   You can count on us being upfront with you on every issue as we encounter them.

I insured my RX3 with Geico early this morning (this is my regular motorcycle insurance, not the insurance I’m getting for Baja).  I tried to do it online but the online form wouldn’t let me, so I called the nice young lady on Geico’s 800 number and it was a snap.   My annual policy is a whopping $77 (the silver lining to being an old man, I guess).

For the Baja insurance, the place to go is BajaBound, and you’ll want to get it from 29 April through 3 May (the 5 days we’ll be in Mexico).   The link for BajaBound insurance is:  www.bajabound.com/buy.    I’m buying my BajaBound insurance later today.   They make it real easy, and you can print the form you’ll need to keep with you when we go into Mexico.

Our good buddy Ruben picked up his white RX3 last week and immediately commenced a four corners trot around the US!

Somewhere in the middle of his four corners adventure, Ruben is headed back to LA in time to ride with us on the Baja Run.   This man is a serious roadburner!

Ruben has a blog on his adventures and you can follow it here.

If you have a blog or a photo and you’d like us to mention it here, just drop us a line and we’ll do so!

Folks, we have a problem with the springs on our accessory centerstands.    We’ve had reports of several breaking, and our advice is this:

• Remove the centerstand if it is already on your bike.
• Do not install the centerstand if you purchased one but have not yet installed it.

We’re sourcing a new spring and we’ll be providing a replacement as soon as we get them.     We’ll keep you posted right here.

We apologize for this, and we’re working to fix the problem as quickly as we can.

As the title says, that’s what I’m doing today.   I stopped at the Planes of Fame Museum this morning in Chino and grabbed a few shots…

I’m going out on the bike again later.   This is fun!