CSC Blog

Baja is coming up, folks, with our departure just a few weeks away.   You’ll need to make sure you have your passport and Mexican insurance.

We use BajaBound insurance and it’s been good for us (you can get your Mexican insurance online at BajaBound.com).   I always buy my Baja insurance to start the day I am arriving in Mexico and to finish the day after I return to the US.  You can buy the policy online and print it (you need to carry proof of insurance for Mexico with you on this trip). We don’t have a business relationship with BajaBound; I just like the company.

You don’t need a passport to get into Mexico, but you’ll need one to get back into the US.  Your driver’s license by itself is not enough.

Because our trip is more than 7 days long, we will need Mexican visas.   I think I found a way that will allow us to do this online through BajaBound; I’m checking on that now and I’ll post that information in the next day or two.  The Mexican visas cost about $24.

It’s going to be a great trip, folks, and we still have a few openings.  Let us know if you would like to ride with us!

With that title above, I might have grabbed your attention…if you know us you know we never waste one precious second trying to be politically correct.   Nope, the reference here is to Honda’s Pacific Coast, something of a cult bike that is absolutely adored by those who ride them.  We have one here now, and it’s a beauty…

The bike you see above is a 1996, 800cc, V-twin Honda Pacific Coast with 39,000 miles, and it’s awesome.  Give us a call at 909 445 0900 and this motorcycle could be yours!

To those of you who responded to our request for inputs yesterday, thanks very much.

You’ll want to keep an eye on the blog, folks.  Exciting things are happening.

This came into the store a few days ago, folks, and it’s awesome…

This bike only has 3200 miles on it and the price is right.   I love the Triumph triples, the way they handle, the way they look, and the way they sound.   This one won’t last long.  It’s a clean bike and the price is right.   Give us a call at 909 445 09oo for more info.

Our good buddy Bill stopped by the plant yesterday to check out the current inventory of CSC scooters (our Mustang replicas) and to pick up a copy of Moto Baja!  Bill has been riding our scooters ever since Steve resurrected the Mustang way back in 2009 and he owns several.  Bill has ridden with us up in the San Gabriel Mountains and you’ve seen him here on the CSC blog many times.

This nice note came to us the day before from Bill’s son, Brian…

Dear Gents,

It was a chance occurrence, many years ago, that my father came across your scooters at the Father’s Day Car Show at the Pomona Fair Grounds.

Roughly 35 years ago my father shared with me his memories of the legendary Mustang scooter. I could not have known what would have become of our first encounter with your company and the cherished memories it would provide. 4 scooters later and countless miles on them, CSC has provided hearty smiles and endless photo opportunities for those lucky enough to see our scooter gang roll down the road.

Every Christmas my father dresses-up as Santa and my brother and I as his merry helpers as we cruise through the suburbs of Los Angeles. Each New Year’s Eve we proudly cruise our CSC creations down the Rose Parade route in Pasadena.

It is with great gratitude and appreciation that I wish you a prosperous and profitable 2018. Here’s to new CSC customers and the memories yet to be made.

Sincerely,

Brian 

Brian, thanks for your nice note and thanks for being a loyal friend.  Ride safe and continue to enjoy your modern Mustangs with our best wishes!

There are no firm plans or prices yet, folks, but I thought I might share with you a couple of Zongshen electric bikes we are evaluating for the US market.  I rode both of these on a recent Chongqing secret mission, and we’ve been thinking about them ever since.

The first looks a bit like a Honda Grom, and it is incredibly cool…

…and the second is an electric scooter styled like a conventional gasoline-powered, step-through scooter…

I rode a lot of the new Zong bikes when I last visited Chonqing (including the RX4), and I liked the electric bikes the best.  I especially like the first one you see above (the one that looks like a Grom).  It was stable, it was sure-footed, it was very fast, and it was just flat cool.  I liked it a lot.

These electric bikes are not cross country or freeway bikes.  The top speeds are under 50 mph, and the range between recharges is well under 100 miles.  They are city and town bikes…bikes for folks who take short trips and who have opportunities to recharge.   I think they are also bikes for people who want something different and something cool.  Ordinarily, we would probably not go after these bikes, but…

• When I rode across China, I was surprised to see that electric bikes dominated the city scooter scene in every city we visited.  Everywhere we went, we saw 20 or 30 electric bikes for every gas scooter.  We also saw electric scooters plugged in and recharging in many places, much the same way as we all plug in our iPhones wherever we go.  It all just looked right to me, and it made sense.  It was an amazing thing to see.
• When I rode the electric scooters at the Zongshen plant, their “off the line” performance was (pardon the pun) shocking.   The bikes literally felt like they were trying to squirt out from under me…they were incredibly quick off the line.  I guess that’s because an electric motor makes all of its torque at low rpm (or so I’ve been told).  It was a cool experience.  My strong feeling when I rode them was “I have got to get me one of these!”
• My daughter bought a Prius last year (no, not to drag race my RX3) and her car is the model that is mostly electric.   She lives 15 or 16 miles from where she works, and she plugs the car in every night when she gets home.  My daughter last bought gasoline more than 6 months ago.  That impressed me.

The two bikes you see here are not your typical, cheap, sub-$1000 Chinese scooters.  They are designed and manufactured by Zongshen, and that means the quality, the fit and finish, and the overall feel is first class.   These are high quality products.

We don’t know much about the market for electric scooters here in the US, mostly because the data doesn’t really exist yet.  We’d be making the market if we imported these, but we have some experience in doing that sort of thing (there wasn’t a market for a 250cc adventure touring motorcycle in the US when we brought the RX3 to America, and you all know how that story unfolded).

We’d like to hear from you.  What do you think?  Please write and let me know your thoughts (you can reach me directly at jberk@cscmotorcycles.com).  I’d love to hear from you.

Wow, check this out, folks.  It’s a consignment bike we just took in…a 2015 RX3 with only 5200 miles on the clock and a cool $1500 worth of accessories.   I’ll let the photos do the talking on this puppy…

If you’d like to get a superbly-equipped beautiful red RX3 at a very reasonable price, give us a call at 909 445 0900 and ask to speak with Steve or TK.  This one won’t last long.

Our 2018 RX3 motorcycles are headed east on the Yangzte River this week, folks.   It’s going to be another 6 weeks or so before they are in our showroom, and I sure am looking forward to their arrival.  The 2018 RX3s will have ABS braking and a 19-inch front wheel as standard equipment, and we’re offering four new colors (yellow, copper, gold, and matt black).   The ABS and the 19-inch front wheel add significantly to the value of these great motorcycles, but we’re adding only $300 to the price (the 2018 RX3s will be $4195).   That’s a hell of a deal.

Here’s the 2018 RX3 in matt black…

Here’s the bike in gold…

This is the copper color…

And here’s the yellow RX3…

The 2018 RX3s will be posted on the CSC website later this week, but you’re seeing them here on the blog first.   We’re taking $500 deposits on the bikes starting tomorrow (give us a call at 909 445 0900).

My good buddy Paul H. Smith over at ADVMoto magazine posted this very cool video on Facebook earlier. I liked it and I thought I would share it with you (you may have to unmute the video to hear the music)…

I once knew a guy who put a piece of plate glass on top of a Jaguar V-12 engine to make a coffee table. I liked it and asked him for the story behind it (something like that had to have a story). He told me that he had owned the car the engine came out of and he wanted to find something that a Jag V-12 engine could do well…