CSC Blog

When I rolled into the CSC plant yesterday, Steve asked me to come along with him to visit a shop a short distance away to meet Shinya Kimura, a man who builds custom bikes.  Our interest was in getting Shinya and his friends to ride our sample Café Racers for a photo shoot.  Steve  thought it might be fun to grab a few photos of Mr. Kimura’s shop, and I was all for that.  Little did I know about what I would see.

From the outside, all I could see was a small shop (at least it appeared that way initially), but when I entered, I was immediately stopped dead in my tracks by one of the most beautiful custom motorcycles I had ever seen.  It was a CB750 Honda (one of the very early ones) with an incredibly beautiful sculpted aluminum fuel tank.  The overall effect was visually arresting.   I had never seen anything like it.  The lens cap came off my Nikon, I dialed the ISO up to 800, and I had started snapping away.

Steve introduced me to Shinya, and he invited to look around the shop and photograph whatever I wanted.   And I did just that, not really knowing who this guy was.  But the shop…wowee!  It was more of a studio than a shop, and it was amazing.

Later that day I Googled Shinya Kimura.  It’s good I did this later, as I might have spent more time asking him questions than taking photos, and the photos are amazing.  I didn’t know anything about Mr. Kimura, but my quick Google search showed me that this man is the real deal.   Allow me to share this video with you, which I thoroughly enjoyed watching each of the times I viewed it (and I’ve done so many times since yesterday)…

Last night I went through the raw files I had captured with my little D3300 and I processed them in Photoshop.   I think they are some of the best photos I’ve ever taken, but that’s not me bragging about my photography or my Photoshop skills.  It was what I was shooting that made the photos what they are.

Enjoy, folks…

Steve and Shinya were having a nice conversation.  Me?  I was lost in the wonder of this little slice of motorcycle Nirvana.   I guess it was obvious.   Shinya smiled at me and asked me what I thought about his place.  “I’d like to live here,” I said.  It was that cool.

I grabbed one last photo, and I think it was a good one…

You’ll be hearing more about Mr. Kimura on this blog, folks.  It was a grand morning.

You know my good buddy Jim from the Baja ride last month…

I grabbed the photo above in the Mulege mission about 700 miles south of the border.  It’s a great shot (if I do say so myself) and Jim is a great guy.

Like many CSC riders, Jim owns more than one motorcycle, and yesterday he rode to the CSC plant on his Enfield.   I always liked the idea of the Royal Enfield.   It’s got a rich culture, it’s a good-looking motorcycle, and it’s a single (all good things, in my opinion).  I like the military color theme, too.  It looks good.

Jim let me ride his Enfield yesterday and I enjoyed the experience.  Both the RX3 and the Enfield are singles, and it was interesting comparing them.  The Enfield has more bottom end grunt and the RX3 has more top end.  The Enfield vibrates quite a bit more, but it felt good and the sound was intoxicating (it’s what a motorcycle should sound like).  If I was to buy another bike, this would probably be it.  It might be fun to do a Baja ride on an Enfield, too.

It was a fun ride, and thanks for trusting me with your bike, Jim!

Building a custom bike?  Hey, you could be like everyone else and go the potato-potato-potato route.  Or, you could start with a 1914 Excelsior V-twin…

There’s lots more to come on this story, folks.  Let’s just say my Nikon was earning its keep this morning!  And you’ll see it all right here on the CSC blog, so stay tuned…

It’s not just the name of one of the best moto magazines on the planet…it also describes a lot of the ultracool motorcycles we service here at the CSC plant, like this 1973 Kawi 100cc two-stroke…

As a guy who grew up drooling over bikes like these, it’s always a treat when they come into the shop.   And the miles on this one?  Check this out, folks…

Gerry tells me this bike runs real well now that it’s been given some of the CSC crew’s tender loving care.   It is just a very cool motorcycle.

Do you have a classic you’d like to return to tip-top condition?  Hey, give us a call at 909 445 0900 and ask to speak with Gerry.  We’re motorcycle people and we can work wonders on your bike!

My blog about a CSC event on the east coast (specifically, New Hope on the Delaware River) struck a nerve, both here at home and in our CSC blog readership. There’s been a lot of interest in this and a few great suggestions (thanks for sending them to us, folks).

The thinking here is we might structure such an event along the lines of a sale, a chance to pick up your new CSC motorcycle on the east coast, and a ride along and across the majestic Delaware River. My preference is for a single-day ride on the weekend.

Some of the ideas we’re discussing include:

• East coast customers could take delivery of their new bikes at the event.
• We might bring along a few new bikes to sell at the event (we find that when people see these bikes, they tend to reach for their credit cards or checkbooks).
• We would need to hook up with a hotel as a staging area, or maybe even an independent shop or dealer.
• I’d take my bike out there, and it would probably be my TT250 (the TT250 is perfect for the rural roads in Pennsy and central Jersey).

You can bet that the Jersey shore and lots of fine dining would figure into this ride, too, as the cuisine we enjoyed during my visit to the east coast this past week was just off the charts. Say what you want about the Garden State, but know this: When it comes to Italian food and seafood, nobody does it better than the restaurants in New Jersey. To my surprise, the Mexican food in New Jersey is world class, too.  Everything we had there was great!

Chips. Lots of chips. They look good!

Pizza on the boardwalk in Pt. Pleasant. Wow!

42 lbs! The seafood on the Jersey shore is the best in the world!

Chocolate covered bacon. They had fried Oreos, too.  As my NJ buddies would say…Hey, you got a problem with that?

Bagels and lox. Nobody does it better. Trust me on this.

Guacamole and cheese nachos. In New Jersey. Who knew?

Shrimp fajitas. Just incredible.

So anyway, that’s where our thinking is today.   We’re tossing around ideas, and if you want yours thrown into the mix, now is the time to be heard.  If you have ideas on our East Coast get-together, let me know at jberk@cscmotorcycles.com.

Here’s another interesting article that floated in (I forget where I saw it; maybe it was Facebook) and the topic was one that caught my attention:  How to write a motorcycle adventure touring blog.   Hmmmm….maybe I should read this, I thought when I saw the title.  So I did, and I enjoyed it.  It’s a well-written piece and it has three or four blogs listed that I enjoyed visiting.  I think you might, too.

You know, we sailed right through 2500 blog entries here on the CSC blog last week.  I had thought I would do a blog on that, but I was so into actually doing the blog that I forgot all about it.  I think this is something like Blog No. 2508 or 2509.   That’s a lot of blogging.  But it’s fun.

My philosophy on writing the blog has always been pretty simple, and the people I work for have never tried to influence what I write one way or the other.  The approach for me has always been to include lots of pictures, and to just tell folks what we’ve been up to (whether it pertains to stuff at the plant or on the road).   If something in the motorcycle world strikes me as interesting, I figure you’ll find it to be, too.  We post stuff on the blog nearly every day (and sometimes more than once a day).

People occasionally ask me if it’s hard coming up with stuff to write about.  Nope, it’s not, and it has never been.   There’s always something interesting happening in our world and I like sharing it with you.  It’s relaxing, actually.  I used to mention politics on occasion, but I’ve decided that no matter what I say in that arena I’m going to insult half of our readers (so I stay away from that altogether). Once in a while I’ll go tangential and write about other stuff I find interesting, like cameras or guns.  Speaking of which, I scored big time last week when I found a new-in-the-box, made-in-1991, hard-to-find Remington 700 Classic in 7mm Weatherby Magnum.   And the one I found has super-nice walnut…

I’m a major fan of the Remington 700 rifle and I love the 7mm Weatherby Magnum cartridge (I actually met Roy Weatherby about 35 years ago and he was one hell of a man), so I jumped on the rifle you see above when it became available.  I’ll give you a range report after I fire it.   If things go the way I’m thinking they will with this one, I feel another wild boar hunt coming up!

So what’s 0n the horizon in the motorcycle business?   Well, there’s lots happening, including the new tariff on Chinese goods that’s been dominating the headlines.  Yep, if it actually goes through it will pertain to motorcycles, and yep, if it goes through, it will pertain to electric bikes, too.  It’s not slowing us down one whit, though, and we’re pressing ahead with all of the irons we have in the fire (and there are many, including three or four new bikes we’ll be telling you about soon).   And I’ve got a few trips in mind after I get back from New Jersey.   I’m most likely going to the Canton Fair later this month (as in Canton, China, or Guangzhou as it’s known these days).  The Canton Fair is the world’s most major motorcycle show, so watch for good info and photos right here on the CSC blog.  There’s the trip I told you about a day or two ago…the CSC Revolutionary War Run.   I’ve had a few inquiries about that already after I mentioned it on the blog and I think it’s time for us to do an event on the east coast.   And there’s that California Highway 198 and Highway 25 ride I mentioned a few months back, running right up the center of California to Pinnacles National Park (I haven’t forgotten about those magnificent roads and I haven’t stopped thinking about what it would be like to ride them on my TT250 along with you).  And more.  Lots more.

Stay tuned, folks.  There’s good stuff coming down the road, and this is the place to read about it!

I saw this float in a few days ago…it’s another story on riding Baja by motorcycle.  The title is a bit confusing (it includes a tagline that says “no motorcycle required”), but the intent apparently was to push the idea of renting a motorcycle from Eagle Rider in San Diego.   That’s not a bad suggestion, but if you did that you’d be halfway to the price of a new RX3 (and that’s the best deal, in my opinion).  I did a Baja trip about 10 years ago with one of my friends who rented a Harley from these folks (I rode my old ’92 Softail). It was pricey, but we had a good time.   We rode through a lot of rain on that Baja run.

And speaking of rain, it’s been coming down nearly nonstop here in the Garden State for the last couple of days.   We saw this lonely blue heron in Farrington Lake yesterday, and I had to stop for a photo…

This is a ride I had not ridden in a long time (as in roughly 50 years), but it was as good yesterday as it was back in the late ’60s and early ’70s.   It’s a run from central Jersey to New Hope, Pennsylvania, across the mighty Delaware River.   It was awesome…

Speeds tend to be a bit lower along these country roads, and as I passed through the bucolic New Jersey towns of Kingston, Rocky Hill, Hopewell, and Lambertville, I thought that my TT250 would have been perfect for this ride.  I never got above 55 mph, and that’s the TT250’s sweet spot.

The bridge across the might Delaware is one of those with a grated roadway that allows you to see the river below.  I photographed it extensively…

The bridge’s road surface is an iron grate.  It’s one of those deals where you can look down and see the river directly beneath you…

I stopped and at one point stood directly in the roadway (that’s how I got the two photos above), and then I heard this voice saying “Sir, you can’t stand in the roadway to photograph the bridge.”  I looked all around me and I couldn’t see anybody, until I finally noticed a little brick guardhouse kind of deal just behind me.  The police officer was standing on a platform several feet above me.  Oops!

Then I took a few photos from the walkway, including this panoramic shot I stitched together from several photos…

It’s a fascinating area.  It wasn’t too far from this very spot that George Washington had his headquarters, and it wasn’t too far from here that he crossed the Delaware.

The town of New Hope is a cool place.  It has lots of old buildings, lots of shops, a theatre, cool restaurants, a couple of interesting historic hotels, and more.  The last time I rode a motorcycle here I was still a teenager.

From time to time we’ve talked about organizing a ride along the lines of our Destinations Deal run (you know, all in the US) on the east coast, and the ride yesterday brought that together in my mind.  If you would like to do a CSC TT250 and RX3 ride retracing some of the key American Revolution spots (and maybe a bit of the Jersey shore), well hey, let me know and we’ll start setting it up.  It would be fun!

…and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the title of good buddy Joe Gresh’s latest story on Daytona, with writing and insights that only Joe can provide.   You can (and should) read it here!

Typical outstanding Joe Gresh photography, this time at Daytona. Great work, Joe!

Yeah, I do stuff like this on my TT250 all the time…take a look at this video my goody buddy Burt sent…