CSC Blog

A quick weekend road trip with Susie…1200 miles in 36 hours from here to Bisbee and back, in a roundabout sort of a rolling trip.   I had originally planned to take the Cyclone on this trip, but I came back from China with a wicked flu and I didn’t want to tempt fate with a long distance motorcycle ride in what could be questionable weather.   It was a good decision on many levels…it got down to 33 degrees the night we were in Bisbee, and the Corvette is a dynamite way to cover major miles in style.     Okay, so…on to the photos!

We rolled into Bisbee at about 8:00 p.m. on Friday, and after checking in to the Grand Bisbee Hotel (with real room keys, no less!), they pointed us to the Café Roka a few doors down.   It was awesome!

I was up early the next morning to grab a shot of the Lavender Pit, the area’s scenic open pit copper mine…

This was my third visit to Bisbee, and it was everything I remembered and more.   I first blew through Bisbee in ’92 on my old Softail (it was new back then) with my good buddy Dick Scott.   Dick and I both rode Harleys in those days, and we had some grand adventures together.

Bisbee is a cool little Arizona town, and the ride into it is awesome….

The town is motorcycle friendly, and it’s likely that this will be one of our CSC adventure tours within the next year.  All of the old hotels looked very cool, and every one had a bike or three parked out front…

We stayed at the Grand Bisbee Hotel.   It was fun.  It was the real old West, like I remembered from all the old movies and TV shows I watched as a kid.  The Grand Bisbee had a real saloon downstairs.   I woke up in the middle of the night and I was certain I could hear a piano playing “Buffalo Gal” but Susie told me I had been dreaming.

Bisbee is kind of an old hippy town.   Lots of cool folks and lots of guys my age with pony tails.   I remember George Carlin used to do a comedy routine about old guys with pony tails.   It was funny stuff.   Anyway, Susie and I were riding around town when I spotted this door.   I stopped the car, the owner was just leaving the building, and I asked if I could photograph the door.   His answer, of course, was yes…

Another cool photo…the counterculture is alive and well in Bisbee, and when I spotted this RV, I knew I needed a photo.   I sent it to my good buddy Robbie (he and I used to work together at Alfa, an RV manufacturer).   Robbie’s immediate comment was that we’d have to offer a 10-year warranty if we put this puppy into production…

And another photo op…a KLR done up in a military motif.    I like it.   I’m thinking about the Cyclone in a similar scheme.   Hmmm….

And that’s about it, folks.   One last shot blowing out of Bisbee on Arizona Highway 80, where we pulled over for a beauty shot of the mighty Z-06 against an Arizona sky…

The Vette is a nice touring car.   I’ve owned it for almost 12 years now and it’s still an exciting ride.  I imagine it’s what the Italians had in mind when they coined the term “Grand Touring” (or, as they would say, “Gran Turismo”).    The Z-06 is a bit noisy (Chevy removed most of the sound insulation to keep the weight down and the car’s gigondo tires make a lot of road noise), but it’s a comfortable ride.   We were doing 75 to 79 mph on cruise control for most of the trip, and even at those speeds, the Chevy averaged 25.3 mpg overall for the entire trip.    Good times.

That’s it for now.   More stuff on the Cyclone coming up, folks, so stay tuned!

You might remember a blog from 2011 when we sold 18 CSC-150 motorcycles to a dealer in Lebanon.   If you follow world affairs, you know things in the Middle East have not been good.   And because of the political situation over there, these bikes never made it to the showroom floor.   Literally…they’ve never been offered for sale.   I imagine it’s tough to sell motorcycles when the bullets and bombs are flying.

Well, we’ve got those bikes back.   They’re brand new 2011 motorcycles, and as you know if you’ve been following CSC, the only difference from year to year has been the paint themes.   Folks, we’re dealing on these, and if you want to get a brand new CSC-150, these are going to sell out quickly.   Two are gone already just from folks who called when I mentioned that we would be offering a good deal without any of the specifics.   Other than that brief mention on the blog, this is the first time we’re publicizing these bikes.   We have a variety of colors, including several Military Series motorcycles that are drop dead gorgeous.   The desert camo paint theme, in particular, really works for me.

Another cool deal…we’ve got a very rare Bobber in Satin Blue with $700 wire wheels, the performance exhaust pipe, and of course, the Bobber package.   This is a consignment bike with a scant 40 miles on the clock!

There’s no time like the present, folks, so give us a call at 909 445 0900.   You won’t see another deal like this!

The topic today is how to adjust your CSC Cyclone’s valves, but before we dive into the details, a bit of background is in order.   We’ll start with a discussion of the CSC Cyclone’s engine, then we’ll talk about what valve adjustment is and why it is necessary, and then we’ll cover how to do the adjustment on the Cyclone.

We used our EPA test mule bike for this adjustment because it had about 8,000 miles on it, and we wanted to get a feel for where the valve gaps were after accumulating that kind of mileage.  It’s also the bike to which we applied our camo theme (just in case you were wondering about the paint job).

Your CSC Cyclone has a high performance, single overhead cam, 4-valve engine.   There are two exhaust valves and two intake valves. The reason the engine has four valves is that it provides for more flow through the engine, which is another way of saying the engine makes more power than it would if it only had two valves.

Cyclone valve train

The Cyclone has a single camshaft with two lobes, and two rocker arms.  One rocker arm actuates both intake valves; the other rocker arm actuates both exhaust valves.   The cam’s lobes are what actuate the rocker arms.  As the cam lobe lifts the rocker arm, the rocker arm pivots on its shaft.   The rocker arm has one arm that follows the cam lobe up and down, and two arms that actuate its two valves.We want the engine to open the intake valves to admit the fuel/air mixture, and we want the engine to open the exhaust valves to expel the exhaust.   When the engine is at the top of its compression stroke, we want all of the valves closed.   That’s because we want to compress the fuel air mixture, ignite it, and then allow the resulting high combustion pressures to drive the piston down.   If any leakage occurs around any of the valves while this is occurring, the engine will lose power and it could “burn” a valve if the combusting fuel/air mix escapes around the valve while it is still burning.

When engineers design an engine, they want it to do the above, but they have to account for the thermal expansion that occurs as engine temperature increases during normal operation.  In order to compensate for this thermal expansion, the engineers design in a gap in the cam lobe/rocker arm/valve train.   As the engine warms, this gap approaches zero, and everything works the way it is supposed to.

You might be wondering at this point why the engineers can’t just build in a gap and then leave everything alone.   The problem with that is that the valves close against a seat every time they go up and down.   Think of the large diameter of the actual valve, and the cylinder head port against which it forms a seat.  Here’s the problem:  As the valve pounds against the seat zillions of times as the engine runs, very small amounts of deformation occur in both the valve and the valve seat.   It’s microscopic, but it grows over time as the engine runs.

As the wear described above increases, it has the effect of reducing the valve gap (i.e., the clearance built into the valve train to account for the thermal expansion as the engine warms up).   What happens is that as this wear occurs, the valve actually moves higher into the cylinder head and the valve gap decreases.   If this wear goes beyond acceptable limits without adjusting the valves, the valve gap grows smaller and smaller.  Ultimately, this wear will result in the valve being held off the seat when combustion occurs.   This is bad, because when this condition exists, hot burning gases escape around the valve sealing area.  Ultimately, these burning gases will destroy the valve and the seat.   That’s what happens when we “burn a valve.”

If the above sounds really bad, relax.  We avoid it by adjusting the valves.  All we are really doing is keeping the gap in the valve train within an acceptable range over the life of an engine.  As the valve and the valve seat wear, we keep everything adjusted so that when the engine is at operating temperature we still form a good seal around the valve seat.   That’s the whole idea behind this valve adjustment business.

Different engines use different approaches for adjusting the valves.   Your Cyclone engine uses the best approach for easy maintenance and high performance:  It uses a threaded adjustor shaft with a lock nut to set and lock the valve gap.   These adjustors are located in the ends of the rocker arms that interface directly with the valve stem.   You can see these in the sketch above, and in the photos we’ll be showing you shortly.

So, with all that theory behind us, let’s consider what we’re going to do here:

1. We want to gain access to the valve rocker arms and their adjustment screws.
2. We want the engine to be at a point in its rotation such that the rocker arm is on the cam’s base circle.  This means the cam is not actuating the rocker arm.   We want the engine to have the piston at (or very near) top dead center, which means the valves should be closed (which is another way of saying the rocker arm is on the cam’s base circle).
3. With the engine in this position, we want to loosen the threaded adjustor lock nuts, we want to set the valve gaps to the specified gap of 0.04mm to 0.06mm, and we want to tighten the lock nuts to lock the threaded adjustors at this gap.
4. When we’ve completed the above, we want to put everything back together.

Got that?   Okay, here we go….

Most of the work in adjusting the valves is associated with just getting access to the adjustors.   The adjustment operation (once we have access) takes only a few minutes.

When you adjust the valves, you have to start with a cold engine.  Dead cold.   Let your Cyclone cool down completely.    Don’t cheat on this part.   I always let the bike not run for a day.   If it’s even a bit warm from running, your adjustment will be wrong, and all of your work will be for nothing.  Let your Cyclone cool down completely.

Remove the rear seat with the key lock, the front seat with its two 8mm bolts, all of the bodywork around the fuel tanks, and the fuel tank.  Like I said above, this is the bulk of the labor.  It works a lot better if you’ve run the fuel tank down (so it won’t be as heavy).   Make sure you don’t spill any fuel, and make sure you put the fuel tank in a location where there are no ignition sources.   And make sure you don’t scratch any of the body work.    This may seem like a lot of work, but it’s pretty common on modern motorcycles, and after you’ve done this the first time, you’ll find that this all comes off in about 15 or 20 minutes.

Use the key to unlock the rear seat

Remove the rear seat

With the rear seat off you can next remove the forward potion of the seat

Remove the forward part of the seat

The body work around the tank comes off

The tank also has to be removed to gain access to the valves

All of the body panels around the tank have to be removed, both on the right side…

…and the left.

The next step is to unbolt the Cyclone’s twin radiators.  You don’t have to disconnect the hoses or remove the radiators; you just want the radiators to be loose so that you’ll have access to the valve covers on top of the cylinder head.

Unbolt the radiators but leave them in place…don’t disconnect the hoses

After you’ve done the above actions, remove the access port on the left side of the engine crankcase.  It comes off with a  10mm Allen wrench, and inside of it, you’ll see another Allen receptacle.   This is connected directly to the crankshaft, and it’s what we’ll use  to manually rotate the engine.

The crankshaft access port

Next, remove the view cap on the left front of the engine crankcase, just forward of the port described above.

This is the view port for viewing the stator cover…more on this later

The next step is to remove the spark plug wire and then the spark plug.

Pull the wire off of the spark plug

Remove the spark plug

Finally, remove the intake and exhaust valve covers.   Each cover is secured with two 8mm bolts.    Note that the covers are not interchangeable.

The valve covers are secured with two 8mm bolts

The rear valve cover is removed with a ratchet and an extension; the front valve cover is removed without the ratchet extension

The intake valve cover and the exhaust valve cover are not interchangeable

What we’ve been working to get to…the valves

You know, when I got to this point on the Cyclone, I was pretty impressed.  The casting and machining quality on these engines is very, very high.   This is a quality product.

Once the bike is “opened up” for valve adjustment, the next step is to position the piston at top dead center.   With the motorcycle in neutral, insert a 10mm Allen wrench through the crankcase port and turn the crankshaft until the alternator scribe line is aligned with the index register in the viewing port, as shown below.

Finding the scribe line on the alternator cover may be a bit challenging, as you have to get down low enough to see it.   Wear safety glasses when you do this; you don’t want to get oil spitting into your eye!   It’s further complicated by the fact that even though you’ve removed the sparkplug, the sparkplug hole into the combustion chamber is tiny and it’s difficult for the air to escape when you turn the crankshaft.  You’ll still feel a little compression as you rotate the crankshaft.  Don’t worry; it’s a normal occurrence on the Cyclone engine.

The alternator scribe line doesn’t have to be exactly in the center of the viewing port.   What we are really interested in accomplishing with this action is to get the rocker arms on the cam profiles’ base circle (that is, off the lobes).   We want this so that the valves are closed (they’re not being held open).   We want the valves closed when we adjust the gap.

Once we have positioned the engine as described above, we can insert a feeler gage between the valve and the threaded adjustor.   This gap should be 0.04mm to 0.06mm.   If the 0.06mm leaf slides in too easily, the valve gap is too large.   That can result in noisy valves (valve tap).  If the 0.04mm shim does not slide into this gap, the valve gap is too tight.  Ride around like that too long and you’ll burn a valve (as described earlier).

The shim goes right where you see it in this photo

Personally, a little bit of valve tap noise is okay with me (“tappy valves are happy valves”), because it tells me the valves are fully closing.  If there’s too much gap, though, the valves may not be lifting far enough off the seat when it is supposed to, and power will be reduced.   But a little bit of noise is okay, as long as the power is there.

The valves are adjusted by loosening the lock nut on each threaded adjustor (like a lot of nuts and bolts on the Cyclone, the lock nut is an 8mm).   Back the threaded adjustor out a bit with a flat blade screwdriver (see the photo below), insert the 0.06mm shim, and then screw in the adjustor until it’s just snug against the shim.   You want there to be just a bit of drag on the shim when you slide it in and out.  It’s the kind of thing you get a feel for after you’ve done it a couple of times.

When the adjustor is where you want it to be, tighten the lock nut.   Then check the gap with the shim again.   Sometimes I’ll have to do this two or three times to get the gap to be where I want it after tightening the lock nut.  It’s all part of the process.   Take your time and get it right.

Loosening the lock nut and adusting the threaded adjustor to get the required valve gap

You need to do the same adjustment (and set each valve at the same gap) for all four of the Cyclone’s valves.  When I think I’m done, I crank the engine through a couple of revolutions by hand, and check the valve gap again.  It’s usually right where I want it, but if it’s not, I’ll repeat the above process until it is.

What you’ve just accomplished can set you back a thousand bucks or more on some motorcycles when you take them to the dealer to have the valves adjusted.   You’ll probably take two or three hours to do this job the first time you do it, but after you’ve done it a couple of times, you’ll get it down to under an hour.

Folks, that’s it.    All you need to do now is put everything back together, and get out and ride!

When we were at the Sacramento ISE show last week, a local dealer had a few Honda and KTM motorcycles on display.   Now, before you go getting your shorts in a knot, I know that a direct comparison is not fair.  Ours comes with luggage and theirs does not.    But hey, who said life is fair?

Valve Adjustments 101 coming up, folks…

We’ve had a lot of questions about the RX-3 centerstand I showed you on the yellow Cyclone…you know, the bike we had at the Sacramento International Sportsmen’s Exposition last week.   Here’s a couple of shots of that bike again…

The new CSC centerstand is $129.95, and that includes all mounting hardware and the return spring.

Incidentally, the guys in that photo above are Steve Seidner, our CEO and a good buddy of mine (he’s sitting on the bike), and J Brandon, my good friend and Baja riding buddy.

A few of you correctly observed that the bike rests on the rear wheel when it is on the new centerstand.   As is frequently the case with stuff on the Internet, the comments started flying.   Folks, relax.  If you want to spin rear wheel when the bike is on the centerstand, just put a little downward pressure on the tank or the bars (or a little upward pressure on the rear of the bike), and the bike will tilt forward for as long as you keep the pressure there.  It’s close to being balanced fore and aft when the bike is on the centerstand.   You’ll have no problems lubing your chain with the bike on the new centerstand.

Okay, next topic.   A lot of folks saw the Zongshen assembly line picture I posted (nothing gets by you guys), and you asked about it.   You properly noticed the centerstand on the bike as it was moving down the assembly line….

The centerstand that you see in the photo above is not available, and you wouldn’t want it to be.  It’s only used as an assembly aid during production, and when the bikes get to the end of the line, it’s removed.

Hey, we’re not done yet.   This gets a little confusing, because there’s one more centerstand (of sorts).  We also offer a two-piece Cyclone maintenance centerstand, like you see in the photo below…

The maintenance centerstand is a maintenance-only proposition.  It doesn’t stay with the bike.    The price for this puppy is $79.95.

One more thing…if you install the centerstand shown in the first photo above (the one that stays on the bike), you can’t use the maintenance stand shown here because it uses the same mounting holes.

That’s it for now.   Stay tuned for our valve adjustment tutorial…it’s coming up next!

Good morning, folks.   Just a short entry with a few photos from Day 3.    This first one is our good buddy Ben checking out the fastest Cyclone in Sacramento…

And here’s our good buddy Tim doing the same on the other fastest Cyclone in Sacramento…who no doubt will see this photo shortly after we post it…

Tim told us he reads the blog every day, and he’s read everything there is to read on the CSC Cyclone.

We had a fun time yesterday, and the high point was a visit from our new good buddy Diane.  She drove 6 hours from northern California to get to the show, and the only reason she made the drive was to see the Cyclone.  Diane, we enjoyed meeting you and we know you’ll enjoy your new motorcycle!

More good photos, my friends, of some of the good grub here at the ISE….

I know what you’re thinking, and no, they did not have Lipitor at the condiments bar!

Here are a few photos of colorful fishing gear…

And of course, the fish themselves…as you might imagine, the fishing hall was jam-packed yesterday.   It was literally shoulder-to-shoulder.   I knew it was going to be that way based on what we had seen the previous two days, so I was out and about early yesterday before the ISE opened its gates to the public.   There’s a lot of people in Sacramento who like to fish!

That’s it for this morning, folks.   Today is the last day of the International Sportsmen’s Expo.

If you’re around, swing on by!

Day 2 at the International Sportsmen’s Expo went well yesterday.   We sold several bikes, we made new friends, our good buddy J Brandon joined us, and I grabbed a few more photos for the blog.

The CSC Stalker drew a lot of attention.  It’s camo theme is perfect for the International Sportsmen’s Expo…

The CSC Stalker. This bike uses a camo wrap; the production version will feature several camo paint themes.

A macro shot of the Stalker’s right saddlebag

I wandered around a bit at various times during the day (the ISE show ran until 8:00 p.m. last night).  One of the exhibitors featured metal-framed apparently indestructible sunglasses.  The guy whacked these hard enough on a metal block that folks across the room jumped.  I’m not in the market for expensive sunglasses, but I asked if I could get a photo and the guy told me to go for it.

Another day, another selfie…

The ISE features hunting and fishing stuff, and the displays are impressive.  One entire hall is devoted to hunting, and half of it featured trophies (that’s what we call stuffed animal heads).

Check this out…

A stuffed elk…there were lots of these guys on display at the ISE

This business of stuffing things holds a special attraction for me.  Whenever I get into a conversation about what’s going to happen when I kick the bucket, I always tell people to forget cremation, burial, and all that.   Don’t get an undertaker for me, I always say.  Find a good taxidermist.   Stuff me.   With baloney (well, I actually use another word that starts with a “b,” but I can’t write that here).   Stuff me with baloney, put me in front of a laptop, and I’ll keep on writing the blog…

I’m not a hunter any more (I used to hunt a lot, and I loved it).   I’ve kind of got this notion that it would be cool to get a rattlesnake and make a belt out of it, but I think that’s an idea that will never come to fruition with me.

One time when my buddy Jim and I were chasing jackrabbits in the west Texas desert about 45 years ago, I heard Jim scream like a school girl.   That grabbed my attention, of course, as Jim was a big macho guy with a deep voice.   When I looked over, Jim was up in the air and his feet we’re pedaling like something out of a roadrunner cartoon.   I knew what had happened, and when I looked down, I confirmed it.   Jim had stepped on a west Texas sidewinder.   Hence the scream.  And his current airborne condition.

The whole thing was pretty funny thinking about it in retrospect.   Jim was carrying a big .45-70 Ruger (basically, a buffalo gun), and he fired it straight down while he was up in the air screaming.  By the grace of God, ol’ Jim nailed that sidewinder and didn’t blow his foot off.   The snake had struck Jim, but it was so little its fangs failed to penetrate Jim’s shoe leather.  It’s a good thing, too (that old joke about “the doc says you gonna die” comes to mind).

After Jim de-adrenalized, he skinned the thing.  Jim said he wanted to make a belt out of it, but he was at least a size 44 and that snake was maybe 10 inches long.   We both looked at each other and started laughing.   “Maybe a hat band,” Jim said, but that poor rattler was even too tiny for that!

Okay, enough about baby sidewinders.   Take a look at this booth, and those tusks!

Visions of Karamojo Bell…check out the ivory!

There were a lot of exhibits featuring African safaris.   I guess people have money to do this sort of thing.   The booths were interesting and I’ll probably get back over there to poke around a bit more.

I had walked over to the hunting exhibits in the morning, and it was cold.   I saw a booth selling camo jackets at super low prices.   One thing led to another, and, well, can you find me in the photo below?

Where’s Waldo?

If I could return to the topic of inane Internet comments for a moment, a couple of guys actually posted somewhere that they didn’t like the Stalker’s camo theme.  The reason?   If the bike fell on you and you couldn’t pick it up, they conjectured, no one would be able to find you.   Seriously, folks.   I can’t make this stuff up.  Charles Darwin had the right idea, but the wrong direction!   Anyway, we kind of joked around a bit about that when I came back with my $40 camo coat.   It’s reversible, with International Orange on the inside, so if the Stalker fell on me and no one could find me, I could just turn my new jacket inside out to up my survivability odds!

Hey, another highlight of the ISE show:  The food!   We’ve been sticking with the ISE barbeque offerings, we’ve trying different things, and it’s all been great!   I liked standing in line just talking to folks and taking in the pleasant aroma of sausage, onions, and peppers on the grill.   That fragrance would make a hell of a men’s cologne, I think.

The food is incredible…good times, great conversation, and making new friends while standing in line

Back to the CSC booth, and few more photos…meet Hannah, who told me she is not a model, but I think she should be…

America’s next supermodel!

And meet Matthew, a young fellow who was quite taken by the Stalker…

A young man with excellent taste in attire and motorcycles!

One or two more goofy shots, folks, and then I’m off to breakfast and Day 3.

These little stuffed frogs were $5.   I almost bought one, too.   Almost.   Then I had a thought:   I wonder if anyone makes a wrap that looks like frog skin.   Maybe the next bike could be the CSC Bullfrog.   We could do a horn that goes “ribbit…ribbit….ribbit…”

The CSC Bullfrog? Nah, probably not…

There was a fellow doing a fly casting exhibit that was pretty impressive.  He could drop that fly just about any place he wanted with astounding accuracy..

A cool photo catching the line in mid air…

Like I mentioned earlier, our good buddy J showed up in the afternoon (he rode over the Sierras from the Carson Valley in Nevada).   This photo is kind of interesting.  I grabbed it late in the day, the lights were way down, and I had the Nikon’s ISO cranked nearly all the way up.   There’s lots of post-processing in Photoshop in this one, folks, but it brought in a useable image…

Steve and J talking travel…

That’s it for this morning.  Keep an eye on the blog for our next ISE report, and for you Bajaenos, we’ll have more details on the Baja trip posted next week!

Up at 0:Dark:30 yesterday, a quick flight up to Sacramento, and wow, what a wonderful first day at the International Sportsman’s Expo!    You know, one of the things I like best about these events are the photo ops.   The absolute best part is meeting new people and making new friends, but the photo ops are cool, too.

So, before things got really rolling and the show opened to the public, I wandered around a bit and grabbed a few photos…all of these are natural light (no flash) pics using a 28mm Nikon 2.8 lens, just in case you were wondering.   It’s a set of circumstances that really pushes the camera’s capabilities…and I was having a blast!

Wood carvings…nothing I’d ever buy, but a great photo subject!

The technology on fishing gear sure has changed from when I was a kid!

The colors on these bottles just worked (they reminded me of the orange RX-3), and I grabbed a photo…

A fish. I asked. Her name was Wanda.

I was having a good time.   There are big exhibit halls up here for hunting, fishing, ATVs, and other goodies.   I was working the Nikon overtime, but the show was about to open.   I grabbed one more shot before returning to the CSC booth…

After this photo, Steve told me to quit horsing around and get back to work!

We had a great time, and Steve’s new styling study, the CSC Stalker, drew a crowd all day long.  As you might imagine, quite a few folks arrived in matching attire…

Where’s is everyone? I can’t see you!

Are you there?

And how about this next shot!

Recognize this man?

Hey, what a cool evening!  That’s none other than Stan Morris, a nationally renown flat track champion who’s graced tracks all over the United States!    And here he is, gracing our very own CSC Stalker at the Sacramento ISE show!

Stan the Man, a motorcycle flat tracker of national renown!

Lots of fun, folks, and hey, the Cyclone speaks for itself.   Check out this cool shot of our good buddy Mitch, who got on the boat early!

Mitch and his motorcycle!

Mitch ordered an orange RX-3 just like the one we had on display, and I couldn’t resist getting a shot of him on the bike!

All of the colors are popular, and we had a lot of inquiries about the Stalker.   We’re working through the details on it now, folks, and we’ll be publishing a price on that bike in the near future.  Sacramento was just kind of a test to gage the public’s reaction, and it was extremely positive!

I know everybody is joking around on the Internet forums about which color is faster.   Personally, I’m getting an orange RX-3, but I thought I would ask this guy which one he thought was the fastest…

It’s orange! Don’t ask me again!

Oh, and one last teaser photo, boys and girls…

Give us a few days, and we’ll announce a price!

If you’re in NorCal, folks, the ISE show is awesome.    We’re in Booth 4023, so be sure to stop by and say hi!

We’re here…up in Sacramento for the International Sportsmen’s Exposition!   The action starts tomorrow (Thursday) at 11:00, and we’ll be here through Sunday.

We’re in Booth 4023, so if you want to see the Cyclone and the Stalker up close and personal, please stop by!

When I woke up at 3:00 a.m. today (which is what typically happens for a couple of weeks after I return from Asia), I started surfing the Internet and I came across this little gem.  15 seconds into it and I knew I had to share it with my blog buddies…

That park where these boys ended their trip (the Statue of Liberty Park) is about 35 miles from where I grew up.

Cool stuff, and it definitely has me thinking about joining these guys on the Baja Blaster on the next trip.

I’m on an airplane again tomorrow morning for the run up to Sacramento. We’ll be at the International Sportsmen’s Expo in Booth 4023, so if you’re in the area, please stop by!