CSC Blog

But I’ve never seen wild pigs here.  I’ve been out for wild boar twice in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia, but all I ever got was poison oak.   I sure would like to get out again, and one of my resolutions for 2017 is to do exactly that with a new Model 70 Winchester I’m picking up later today.  Probably not in California, though.  The hunting laws here are too restrictive and the prohibition on lead bullets is just plain weird.  I’m going to chase pigs next year, probably in the southeastern United States, where the wild pig population is (I’m told) out of control.  2017 is going to be a great year.

Anyway, that rather unusual pig crossing sign you see in the photo above is the real deal, and it was posted just south of Monterey, California, along the Pacific Coast Highway.   I grabbed that photo yesterday morning.  I didn’t see any pigs, but the sign caught my attention.  I did see a few zebras later in the day (no kidding), and I’ll tell you about those later.

If you’re on the Pacific Coast Highway and you’re riding through the little fishing village of Moss Landing, it’s nearly impossible to miss the moto art at the J&S Eagle Iron and Leather Shop, although that’s exactly what I did on the trek north (no doubt because it was raining so hard).  On the way back, though, the sun was out and I when I saw these I knew I had to stop for a few photos.

Ernie Buck, the store manager, told me these gigantic bike sculptures are Hecho en Mexico and go for about $20K each.   Wowee!   But I guess that’s not that far fetched considering what a new Harley or BMW costs these days, and these things are easily three times the size of those bikes!   They are enormous, they sure are interesting, and they were worthy of a spot on the CSC blog!

The first moto gigante was constructed mostly of license plates.  Bear in mind that all three of these sculptures use giant tractor tires (that will give you a sense of their size).  Like I said above, they’re huge!

The next one  was fabricated from horseshoes.   Horseshoes!  Imagine that!   Where do artists get their ideas?

It was cool.  I liked the gangster whitewalls.  I had a set of those on my ’92 Softail.    You know, the tops of those tires were about the same height as me!

The third bike was what I guess the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act might call a shovel-ready project.  Yep, it was fabricated almost entirely of shovels…

Maybe the bike above is a Shovelhead.  You know, like the one that came after the Panhead.    Anyway, it was cool.

You know, the bikes above make for interesting displays, but I wondered where I would put such a thing if I owned it.  You’d need a huge lawn or a spacious home in which to display this kind of art, and even then, I’m pretty sure Sue would have none of it.  They sure were interesting and they made for cool photos, though.

The Pacific Coast Highway is an amazing road.  The best parts are between Cambria and Carmel.  I’ll put some photos of that stretch up a little later.  It would be a cool two- or three-day CSC ride.   Any takers?

Just got home from a run up to San Francisco, and the scenery on the Pacific Coast Highway was beyond breathtaking.  It was wet, and cold, and sometimes both, but it sure was great!

More to follow after I warm up!

I’ve probably watched the China video 20 times already, and I’ll probably watch it again after I finish this blog.   The China expedition was one hell of a ride and I find myself thinking about it a lot.   It’s almost as if I don’t even need the video…I can still see the scenes from the Tibetan Plateau, the Gobi Desert, Lanzhou, Ping Yao, Liqian, Qufu, Qingdao, and elsewhere vividly in my mind.  It was the ride of lifetime, and I did it on the world’s most perfect motorcycle.

I sure had a great weekend.  It started on Friday for me when I saw my good buddy Willie with his fully accessorized TT250.   Willie rode with us in Baja twice (don’t forget that he’s the world’s most interesting man).  I had not seen Willie’s TT250 since the Tecate run, and he had a couple of new mods he’s added since then.  One was the RX3 headlight guard; the other was swapping the stock footpegs for those from the RX3.  Both look like they were designed for the TT250.

Saturday morning saw me running around getting tires for our Subie Crosstrek (the original tires went over 61,000 miles and I probably could have made it to 70,000, but I don’t like to take chances on tires).   The shop that works on my cars (Scooter Patrick’s in Montclair, California) always does a great job for me.  They get to work on interesting cars.   While I was at Scooter’s I spotted a dynamite ’71 Vette and it brought back a lot of memories…

I love Vettes, and I really like the Coke-bottle C3 Corvette design.   The C3 came on the scene in 1968, and I wanted one so bad back then I could taste it.  I was just a teenager and there was no way I could afford a Corvette in those days.  I had to wait another 36 years before I finally pulled the trigger on one, and I can tell you it was worth the wait.  I love my Corvette.

More cool stuff…I took a ride in the Vette and visited my good friends Art, Jeremy, and the rest of the crew out at Doug Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino.   I don’t ride big bikes any more, but there’s nothing that says I can’t look.  And if I did ride a big bike, you can bet it would be a Triumph.  There are two models I especially like…the new 900cc Street Cup and the 1200cc Thruxton…I’d like to have both just so I could sit in my garage and stare at them!

Triumph sure nailed it with the styling on those bikes, and the folks at Douglas Motorcycles are good people.  I knew Doug Douglas, and he had a keenly-developed sense of humor.   I bought a new Triumph Tiger from Doug personally in late 2005 (it was love at first sight when I saw that bike).  Here’s a shot of it at the Old Mill Hotel in Baja a decade ago…

When I first spotted that Tiger 10 years back in the Douglas Motorcycles showroom, Doug saw the look in my eye and he told me I could get it for some price.  I don’t remember the number he named, and I was way beyond caring what the number was at that point.  I simply said, “okay.”   When Sue took me back to pick up the Tiger, she told Doug he must be an incredible salesman to get me to agree to a price without making a counteroffer.   Doug just smiled and told her that he was a pretty good motorcycle salesman, but where he really excelled (according to Doug) was in selling living room and bedroom furniture.  Both Sue and I gave Doug a quizzical look.   “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I can’t tell you how many bedroom suites and how much living room furniture got sold because I sold somebody’s husband a motorcycle…”

Old Doug has gone on to his reward (RIP, Doug), but the atmosphere he created at Douglas Motorcycles lives on.  He sure was a character.

More good times continued earlier today when the crew got together to send some copper-jacketed lead downrange at the West End Gun Club (followed by a great Mexican lunch at Rancho Las Magueys).   Half the crew that shows up for our informal range sessions these days consists of CSC motorcycle riders, including guys like my good buddies Duane, Fathi, and Willie.   It’s fun getting together to shoot and it’s as much fun getting together for lunch afterward….

The c0nversations at lunch are always great.  It’s mostly motorcycles, guns, and politics.   We solve all of the world’s problems at these get-togethers.   We realized at the end of our meal that the problem is this:   All the people who know how to run the country are out riding motorcycles and hanging around at the rifle range!

Joe Gresh previously prepared a magnificent video about our ride through China last summer, and now Zongshen posted the video their film crew shot while they accompanied us. It’s awesome!

My stop later today was in Singapore’s Muslim Quarter, which isn’t actually a full quarter of the city, but its size notwithstanding, it sure was a photographer’s dream.   The area is anchored by the Masjid Sultan mosque, which is an elegant house of worship.   Take a look…

I enjoyed photographing the Masjid Sultan mosque, and I enjoyed walking around the neighborhood.  I was surprised to see a handful of very large ADV bikes, including a GS1200 BMW and a Honda Africa Twin.   I thought the motorcycle parking situation was interesting, too.   Check this out…it’s 65 Singaporean cents per day to park your motorcycle!  That’s got to be chump change to a guy on a GS1200!

There was a Honda Africa Twin parked across the street from the restaurant where I had lunch.  It got my attention because it was the first Africa Twin I’ve ever seen, other than on the Internet or in magazines.   I think the license plate on the Africa Twin was Singaporean, but I’m not sure.  The bike looks like it has an aftermarket skid plate and crash bars.

I wanted to talk to the Africa Twin’s owner to see how he liked it (I’m assuming the owner was a guy), but I didn’t get a chance to do so.   I was enjoying my lunch too much, I guess.  I looked up and the bike was gone.  It must be very quiet.  I thought I would hear it start, but I never did.   I’m not interested in buying one; I just wanted to hear what the owner had to say about it.   When I saw the Africa Twin and the BMW, I had the same reaction I always do when seeing these large roadburners.  Who would actually want to ride something that monstrous off road?

There was another aspect of the Muslim Quarter I enjoyed seeing:  The Turkish carpet stores.   I love these things and our home is fully stocked with Turkish carpets.  I bought all of them 25 years ago on a gig in Turkey (my first visit there was to a Turkish carpet manufacturing facility), and I’ve had an interest in these carpets ever since.   The guys who sell them in these little stores are amazing; they could teach Donald Trump how to negotiate (people from the Middle East, and in particular carpet salesmen, are the best negotiators I’ve ever met).   I wasn’t interested in buying a carpet (we don’t have any more floor space in my home), but I always enjoy looking at them.   Some of the carpets have amazing designs.

You might wonder how you get things like a Turkish carpet home when you buy them overseas.  I did it by rolling up the four carpets I bought in Turkey and checking them as baggage.   One of the carpets I bought was 5 meters long (that’s more than 15 feet!) and you can imagine what it was like lugging it into the airport and checking it as baggage.  On that flight, we flew from Istanbul to Tel Aviv (I had a few days business in Israel), and going through the drill of checking and then reclaiming the carpets at Ben Gurion Airport was something else.   In Israel, getting back on the flight was a serious challenge.  The Israeli security people made me unroll all four of the carpets I was taking home to Los Angeles.  Then when I arrived in Los Angeles, the US Customs dude gave me a hard time because he thought the carpets were textiles.  He wanted to hit me up with a huge import tariff.  I was the first guy off that 747 to get to the Customs point, and I was still arguing with the Customs guy after all of the other passengers had passed through.  I finally told the Customs guy that I basically thought he was stupid and he was abusing his power (I used pretty much those exact words), and I asked him to call for a supervisor.   I could tell that infuriated him, but he did what I asked.   The supervisor listened to the story for all of 60 seconds and allowed me through.   That Customs guy is probably still mad at me (or not; hell, it was 25 years ago and he’s probably retired by now).

So, back to Singapore’s Muslim district and my adventure today.  I picked a Turkish restaurant for lunch and I had a chicken doner plate.   I’m not sure what “doner” means in Turkish, but whenever I’ve had a dish with that word in its name it’s always been great, and today was no exception.

After lunch, I experienced a special treat when I left the restaurant.   I spotted a very clean mid-1960’s Honda CB160 parked in among all of the other bikes at the curb.  It wasn’t there when I went into the restaurant, so it must have snuck in while I was eating.

The CB160 holds a special place in my heart.  It’s the first motorcycle my Dad ever owned.   In those days, Honda referred to the CB160 as a baby Super Hawk.  The Super Hawk was a 305cc motorcycle that was ahead of its time; the CB160 was basically a scaled-down version of the larger Super Hawk.  Like the full-sized Super Hawk, it had twin carbs, electric starting, and a host of other features.  Dad’s bike was black, just like the one you see here.   Seeing it today really brought back a lot of memories.  I hung around for a little bit hoping the owner would show up, but he (or she) didn’t.   That’s too bad; I would have really enjoyed a conversation about the bike.

And folks, that’s it for now.   The jet lag is catching up with me.  I’m going to read a bit and then call it a night.

About those photos I promised earlier…here’s the first batch.  It’s Sunday here and it is a quiet day, so I walked a couple of miles along the river after enjoying the typical morning feast featured in every 5-star Asian hotel…

There was way more food in the breakfast buffet this morning than what I’m showing you above.   I only shot photos of what I sampled.  I suppose I could have a little fun and tell you that the upper left photo is something exotic like slices of shark intestines.   Nope, they are just onion rings (and they were good).   I had a very early breakfast, I read a bit (I’m on to Jeremy Kroeker’s Motorcycle Messengers book now), and I just kicked back and enjoyed my morning meal.  Like I always say, life’s tough and this is a tough job, but hey, somebody’s gotta do it!

A heads up here, folks:  I didn’t bring my Nikon with me on this trip.  Everything you’ll see on here today is from my iPhone.   I’ve had guys tell me that you can get photos from an iPhone as good as the ones you get from a Nikon.  I’m here to tell you that just ain’t so.  I can see the difference.   I had to try it, though.  On my next trip, it’s back to the Nikon for me!

I shot all of the photos in this post along the Singapore River, except for this one.   Take a look at this, my friends.   It’s a vintage mid-’60s CB160 Honda, and it’s still doing its duty as a daily driver!  It was parked in the Muslim Quarter on Arab Street here in Singapore.  Wow!  I’ll have more photos of it for you in the next blog.

Okay, so back to the Singapore River.  I grabbed a cab down to Clarke Quay (the Singaporeans pronounce “Quay” as “Key”)…

As near as I can tell, there are three or four of these “Quay” areas in Singpore, and I think the term means something like “dock area.”   The only boats that hang out there now are tourist river cruise affairs, and the entire area is basically a restaurant river walk sort of arrangement.  I imagine the place really hops at night.

So, how do you read this sign?  Does it require the folks in Clarke Quay to consume the entire booze inventory by the posted times?

More photos along the Singapore River…

This guy was out for a Sunday morning bike ride with his dog…

Yep.  Mi casa es su casa.  Just like home…

I even saw a Mexican restaurant that was advertising Taco Tuesday.  In Singapore.  Go figure.  I’m tempted to try one of these places just to see how their Mexican food compares to the real thing.   I’m convinced that the best Mexican food is to be found in a few spots in California and most of Texas.  Mexico has a few good spots, too.  But Tex-Mex is the best.

Here’s a motor officer.   The engine looks like a CG derivative of some sort, similar in design to our TT250.

There are four languages in Singapore:   Malay, Mandarin, Hindi, and English, mostly reflecting the ethnicities I saw here this morning.   Singapore is a multicultural city.  One of the cab drivers told me the dominant religions also reflect the population (Buddhism, Chistianity, Hindu, and Islam).

In some places the walk along the Singapore River has steps that go right down to the water.   This sign was at the edge of the last step.   I wondered about the story that led to a sign like this.   Maybe some guy fell in the river and told folks he didn’t realize he was on the last step.   It could happen, I suppose.

Here’s my obligatory selfie.   There were these huge polished domes outside the Museum of Asian Civilizations.  Singapore has a lot of museums.

The Cavenagh Bridge, and another interesting sign.   The bridge made me think about our good buddy Jim Cavanaugh, a key guy in helping Steve resurrect the old Mustang motorcycle.

More bright colors.  Singapore is the cleanest city I’ve ever experienced.   You can’t chew gum here, and the sidewalks show that (they’re spotless).   The city has lots of color.   It’s a very green place (I’m not trying to be politically correct here; the place actually is very green with many parks, trees, and other plant life).   Many of the buildings are painted in vivid pastel colors.   There doesn’t appear to be any air pollution, and the sky is a vivid bright blue.  It’s a great place for taking photos.

A motorcycle with a sidecar used as a food cart.   That little bike was hauling a lot of weight!

One more photo of one of the many night spots along the river.   I liked it….a P51 Mustang mockup outside a bar…very cool indeed.

After I walked along the river in in the Clarke Quay area for a couple of hours, I grabbed a cab and went to Singapore’s Muslim Quarter.  I wanted Middle Eastern food for lunch, and I got what I wanted.  But that’s a topic for the next blog post (which I’ll get to later today or tomorrow).   As always, stay tuned!

16 hours…that’s the time difference between Los Angeles and Singapore.  It’s 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning over here and 1:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon back at the plant.   16 hours.  And it took a little over 19 hours to fly here.   So I’m wondering…does that mean it only took 3 hours to get from LA to Singapore? Or that I flew into the future? It’s all so confusing. I know things will clear up as I continue to savor that cup of instant coffee I just brewed in my Singapore hotel room…my very own version of a Singapore Sling. I’ve got a day to kick around before the serious secret mission stuff starts, and I may visit the actual bar where the Singapore Sling was invented. We’ll see.

It certainly has been an interesting 12 months.  Last year at this time I was getting ready to ride in Colombia, and I sure had a fantastic time on that ride with my buddies Juan and Carlos.   Colombia was one hell of a ride, and my RX3 (actually, my loaner bike from AKT Motos) performed magnificently as we rode through Colombia’s Andes Mountains and the coastal lowlands.

It’s amazing how much of the world is out there that I had never heard of, and then once I visit a place, I seem to hear about it on a regular basis.  Sam Manicom, in his excellent book Distant Suns, wrote about his ride through magnificent Colombia and he mentioned the city of Zipaquira (among many other places).  I want to return to Colombia with my wife someday just to explore that city.  Really.  Zipaquira.  It has a magnificent underground cathedral carved out of a salt deposit that I missed on the trip last December, and now I want to return just to see that.  And I had never heard of the cathedral or Zipaquira before my ride with Juan and Carlos.

And yet another Colombian location…Antioquia.   It was another place I never knew existed, but we rode right through it.   There was a special on the TV show 60 Minutes this past weekend about a disease prevalent in Antioquia, and I knew the region when they spoke about it on that show.  I even recognized the architecture and several of the street scenes in the show.  It was indeed amazing.

We had two great Baja rides last year.  One was our normal Spring Break Baja run down to the see the whales.   I think I am either getting used to these tours or I am getting better at organizing them, because that ride was genuinely fun and stress free for me.   We saw and did a lot.  You’ve no doubt seen this video before, but because it is one of my favorites, I’ll show it here just in case you haven’t seen it…

Our second Baja adventure last year was the run through southern California down to Tecate, San Felipe, and Ensenada on the TT250s.   That ride was a hoot and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.   We had a great bunch of guys and we ran a great route on a great new bike…here’s the video from that adventure…

So I’ve got three motorcycles in my garage right now, and the TT250 is the one I am riding the most.  Many of our friends who buy the TT250 own several motorcycles, and I’m hearing the same thing from them…their TT250s are the bike of choice.   There’s something about the TT that makes it special.   I know I love mine, and I’m glad I got the black one (it is the fastest color, you know).  The white ones are fast, too, and I think we are down to less than 10 of them now on our special deal to close out the 2016 models.   I’m guessing by the time I get back to the US they’ll all be gone.

Oh, I can’t forget about the secret mission in Turkey a few months ago when I met with  several Turkish RX3 riders (the “Young Turks,” I call them).   That was a hoot, too.   One of these days we are going to do an RX3 circumnavigation of the Black Sea.   That will be another stellar motorcycle adventure ride.   It’s what owning an RX3 is all about!

Of course, there was the grand-daddy of them all, the magnificent ride across China last summer.

The China ride was the grandest adventure of my life, and I’ve had more than a few grand adventures in the six and a half decades I’ve been on this planet.  I find myself thinking about the ride across China, the Colombia ride, our Baja rides, and more stuff related to my moto adventures these days when I am not on the motorcycle.  Daydreaming, I guess you’d calling it.

China was just incredible.  It was real Indiana Jones stuff.   The recently-discovered Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World (that would be Xi’an’s Terra Cotta soldiers).   The not-so-Asian-appearing folks from Liqian (where the lost Roman legions settled 2000 years ago).   The mystical town of Seda, high up on the Tibetan Plateau.   The lost Buddhist temples carved into the cliffs at Mo Gao.   Camels in the Gobi Desert.   The food in China…spectacular is not a strong enough adjective to describe it.   And lots more.   Those 6000 miles spread across 37 days covered some of the best riding of my life.

The best part of all of the above?   Hey, that one’s easy to answer:  It’s knowing that there’s a lot more coming.  More Baja rides.  Our ride across the US this summer.   Maybe even Africa this summer.   All of it on CSC motorcycles.   Hey, you!   Yeah, you!   Don’t you want to put yourself in this picture?

I’m off to Singapore on another secret mission tomorrow (don’t tell anyone).  Singapore is an interesting place…it’s kind of like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  Fancy stores, exotic cars, fancy hotels, and more.   It’s a quick trip (I’ll be in and out), and hopefully I’ll be out before my body adjusts to Asia time.   Last time after I came back from Asia (after the 6000-mile China ride) I turned right around and flew to Turkey for a few days.   When I returned from those two back-to-back trips, it took a solid 6 weeks for me to adjust to California time.  The insomnia was rough, but I finally got over it.

I’m reading another one of Sam Manicom’s great books (this one is Distant Suns), and I am thoroughly enjoying it.  I’ll finish Distant Suns on the plane tomorrow.  Sam sure tells a great tale.  Part of Sam’s ride was in Colombia (he covered nearly all of South America), and Sam visited many of the same cities I did on my Moto Colombia expedition.   Colombia is an awesome place and Sam’s book is an awesome read.  I recommend you get a copy; I know you will enjoy it.

I spent a little bit of time on the rifle range shooting my .45 70 Marlin earlier this week, and I have the shoulder to prove it.  Wow, that puppy can kick!  After shooting a few groups to get the sights dialed in (I had not fired this rifle in several years), I shot three more 3-shot groups and I am feeling pretty good about my Marlin.  I love the 1895 Marlin and I am a big fan of the .45 70 cartridge.    The .45 70 is nearly 150 years old (it was originally a US Army round starting in the 1870s) and it’s still a great performer.   The story is that if your gun breaks, you can use the cartridge as a club.  Good times.

Back to motorcycles for a minute….we’re down to a handful of 2016 RX3s and TT250s, so if you want one with our no shipping/no setup/no doc fee deal, don’t wait.   Oh, one more cool thing:  The test RZ3s will arrive in California while I am in Asia.  I’ll get photos and a video of the RZ3 up on the blog sometime late next week.

That’s all for now, folks.  Watch for the photos from Singapore!