Yep, today is a milestone…it’s our 500th CSC blog!
I wouldn’t have guessed the CSC blog would be so well received, but apparently you guys and gals out there in the motorcycle world enjoy reading it. We get a lot of compliments on the blog, and we’ve had more than a fair number of positive comments float in from many of you. My mission in writing the blog, as I see it, is to provide entertainment and to inform. The entertainment aspect of it is pretty easy to understand. The informational aspect is little more abstract. I write the blog to explain what it’s like to be a part of the California Scooter family and to convey to you just how much fun it is to ride these little motorcycles.
CSC Motorcycles...the Military Series (available in OD green and Desert Camo), the BabyDoll, the Greaser, and the Classic (available in six dynamite gloss colors)
We’ve actually done very well, especially measured against the economy. California Scooter started production at what many might view as the worst possible time….in the middle of a terrible industry-wide motorcycle sales slump and during the worst recession since the Great Depression. That’s the bad news.
The good news: We’re selling fun transportation, a motorcycle that is becoming a real cult bike…a bike that gets over 90 mpg when gas is approaching $5 per gallon. We’ve sold a lot of these great motorcycles and we put a lot of smiles on our riders’ faces.
Let’s turn to a new topic. You might wonder…how did the CSC blog get started?
My old Speed Triple
Well, as the saying goes, there’s a silver lining in every cloud. It actually started, sort of, with a motorcycle crash.
Back in November 2009, I was on my way to Cal Poly Pomona one morning (I’m a teacher there in the College of Engineering). It was just another normal morning for me. Up early, check my email, coffee, breakfast, push the Triumph out of the garage, and I’m on my way.
What started as a normal morning went south pretty quickly, I guess. I say “I guess” because I don’t remember hardly any of it. One minute I’m cruising in to school, and the next thing I knew I’m being loaded onto a helicopter. I thought I was having a bad dream, except I remember thinking the helo noise and rotor wash seemed pretty real for a dream. I remember the pilot looking back down at me as I was being hoisted up into the Huey, and then the next week was pretty much a drugged-out blur. I had what you might call a pretty bad day. I either ran a red light on my Speed Triple, or somebody rear-ended me. To this day, I don’t what happened. I don’t remember anything (it’s called event amnesia, and I’m told it’s fairly common in these kinds of events). I do know the results, though. My left hip was busted in two places, I broke my back, I had a severe concussion, and I had a few loose teeth. Yikes.
Yours truly...you can just make out the lower fracture line starting between the 6th and 7th screws from the top...this was the one that required a second surgery
So what could possibly be the silver lining in what was admittedly a pretty dark cloud?
After the accident, I spent a month in different hospitals. About a week after I got home, my good buddy and riding partner, Joe Lee, called me about a brand new motorcycle company called California Scooter. Joe knew that I ran a couple of websites and that I posted a lot on a site called ADVRider. Joe Lee used to work for Steve at Pro-One Performance, and he’s friends with Steve and Maureen.
Steve and Maureen are the Pro-One owners, and they are the folks who started the California Scooter Company. Steve and Maureen needed somebody who know his way around the Internet and could respond to posts on various Internet forums about our bikes, with a view toward starting the blog. I told Joe that I was interested, but I was in a wheel chair and I would be for some time. I couldn’t get in for an interview, but once I regained enough of my mobility, I’d sure be interested in talking to these folks. Joe just smiled.
Joe Lee, on a ride with me somewhere deep in the Baja peninsula
In a few days, the doorbell rang, and there stood Joe and Maureen. Maureen, Joe, and I had a nice chat, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was working for the California Scooter Company. For the first several meetings, Maureen drove to my house. It was a good month or so before I graduated from the wheelchair to a walker, and when I did, Maureen drove me over to the plant. I remember putting lots of scratches in the new floor with that walker hobbling around the office and the production area. Maureen pretended not to notice.
Maureen, as it turned out, became my real boss at California Scooter (we let Steve think he is in charge, but trust me on this, I know who really calls the shots).
One of the nuttiest things I ever did in those early days? I actually had Tony help me get on a California Scooter while I was still in the walker. I once knew a one-legged guy who rode a Gold Wing, and I figured if he could do it, I could, too (as long as I didn’t need to get off the bike). It was the first time I had been on a motorcycle since the accident. I thought I’d be scared, but I wasn’t. Fact is, it felt pretty darn good to get my knees in the breeze. I rode a cool 50 miles. I couldn’t walk yet, but I sure could ride. I even did a blog entry about that one.
My first ride on a CSC motorcycle...my walker was just outside the photo's field of view!
You’re reading the blog, so you know I am a Baja nut. The first time I ever saw a California Scooter, I had two crystal clear thoughts:
- This is a cool bike (especially in red), and
- Riding a CSC motorcycle to Cabo San Lucas and back would be a very, very cool thing to do.
You know how that trip went…I and four of my best friends rode our CSC motorcycles all the way to the tip of the Baja Peninsula and back. We used to get calls all the time from people wanting to know if the bikes are street legal, and the Baja ride put that question to rest forever. You gotta read the story. It was awesome.
The CSC Baja crew...Simon, Arlene, J, John, and me. That's the Sea of Cortez in the background. We were about 700 miles south of the border in this shot, and it was the hottest time of the year in Baja.
A few serious motorcyclists make the Baja trip, but we may very well have been the first people to ever do it on 150cc bikes. Maybe others did…I don’t know. For sure, we were the first ones to ever do it on California Scooters. And although I didn’t know it at the time, I was almost certainly the only guy to ever do it with a broken leg. Yep, all 2,000 miles, riding with a broken leg. I just didn’t know it at the time.
As it turns out, my leg had been giving me a lot of grief (ever since the accident that had occurred nine months prior to going “wheels in the wells” on our CSC adventure in Mexico). I figured the pain was just part of the deal, but a few months after my return from Baja, the pain increased big time. A trip to Doc Bones confirmed what I had feared…one of the fractures never healed. My leg was basically being held together by the metal plate and screws you see in that photo up above, and when that let go, I sure knew it. In a weird sort of way, I was actually glad when that happened. I knew things weren’t right; I just didn’t know why. Now I knew. That called for another surgery about 14 months ago, and I believe the guys got it right this time. They pulled out all of the metal you see in my “I got screwed” photo above and stuck a steel rod through the length of my femur. Kind of like our trip to Cabo…all the way down and back. And it worked. I am doing great now.
I bounced back from the second surgery very quickly, the pain is gone, and I am (as the saying goes) back in the saddle again. We’ve had some fabulous rides, and there are a lot more good ones coming up. Hell’s Loop was awesome. We’re going to do Baja again. We had a great company ride a couple of weekends ago.
So, back to the original premise of this, our 500th CSC blog: Getting the word out. If you’d like to help us, please spread the word. Tell your friends about us, send them the link to the blog so they can get a feel for what it’s all about. If they’re on Facebook, send them to our Facebook page.
And if you’re one of those folks who follow the blog but you haven’t pulled the trigger yet…there’s no time like the present. Give us a call.
SG250 San Gabriel Cafe Racer
TT250 Enduro