Month: August 2019

Salt 2

I like going camping with a truck. You’ve got plenty of space to load your gear and when you get there you can set up a nice little spot. I guess I’ve already told you how much I hate carrying camping gear on a motorcycle and that motels near Bonneville, Utah are expensive. But it seems I can’t stop myself, I just keep complaining. I see those BMW earth-roamer types with all the gear piled up over their heads and I think, “Oh, Hell no! I’m cool as an ice cube, that’s not me.”

Yet here I am. Here I am piling camping junk over my head like a Starbucks-sipping, Hi-Vis wearing, midlevel manager-who-mistakenly-thinks-corporate-values-his-efforts, Beemer rider. The shame, it burns hot.

That’s not the worst of it. I just know the flimsy aluminum sub-frame on the Husqvarna is going to break. It has to. This bike was designed with two things in mind: to pop wheelies and flee from the Po-Po. Because I don’t have a running street bike I’ve turned the Husky into a single cylinder Gold Wing. It burns, man.

No way was I going to get all the camping stuff onto the Trophy Rack that the Husky was wearing. I had to dramatically expand capacity and the only way to do that was with saddlebags. To do bags I needed some infrastructure in place that would prevent the bags from tangling in the rear wheel and melting to the high mount, noisy, life saving, public opinion destroying, Arrow exhaust can.

I have no way to weld stainless steel but I have a lot of stainless tubing so I chopped it up and took the sticks to Roy’s welding (out by the mini goat farm) and the fine crew at Roy’s stuck it all together.

Next I needed a few plastic bits to fit the existing rack and give my U-bolts something to tighten against without bending the metal straps. I knocked these out of some thick plastic I had left over from a boat job 35 years ago.

My Safety Exhaust on the Husqvarna is high and tight so I riveted a metal heat shield on the left side of the Super MoTour bike. My buddy Mike loaned me the saddlebags, I don’t want them to catch fire in front of him. You’ll be hearing more about Mike, as this Bonneville ride is his idea. All told, I’ve probably doubled the poundage of the featherweight Husky with this jungle gym hanging off the back.

Unrelated to the luggage situation but still needing sorting was the Husky’s headlight. The normal bulb is an incandescent 35-watt, both high and low beam. The bulb works ok in the daytime but it casts a feeble light for night use. It’s like having a Black Hole on the front of your motorcycle. The pattern reaches only a few feet into the gloom. On moonless nights it struggles to illuminate the front fender. It’s so dim bugs fly away from it. Hey, I’m here all week, invite your friends.

The other problem with the stock bulb is that it constantly blows out. The tiny filament shatters and when that happens you get an intermittent headlight that turns on and off as the filament shakes around making contact now and then. Sometimes the bulb will self-heal, the wire re-welds itself and the light may stay on a few hundred miles. Despite all this, the inside of the bulb is usually broken into a million pieces by the time 1000 miles rolls past.

I tried a bunch of different bulbs. LED, Halogen, HID, and incandescent; most of them ran too hot for the Husqvarna’s plastic reflector. For this trip I’ve settled on a cheap LED bulb with no watt rating or any information stamped into the metal housing. It is a very crummy bulb, perhaps even weaker than the incandescent bulb but I’m hoping it stands up to vibration better. A strange side effect of the LED electronics is that the high beam indicator light stays on all the time. I’m sure the bulb won’t short out and fry my electrical system.  What could go wrong?

That’s it. I’m leaving in a few days so I’ll be blogging from the road like Berk taught me to do. See you in Bonneville.

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Indiana Jones: Part II (The Mo Gao Grottos)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about the Indiana Jones aspects of riding a motorcycle across China, and in that blog, I told you about the Roman Legions that had settled in Liqian two thousand years ago. I mentioned that there were other Indiana Jones experiences to be had in China and I said I would write about them.  It’s time to keep that promise. This blog is about the abandoned Mo Gao Buddhist grottos in the Gobi Desert. It’s an excerpt from Riding China, and if you want to get the whole story, well, hey, buy the book!

Dun Huang

The day was to be a short one for riding (only a hundred kilometers), but it would be rich with sightseeing in and around Dun Huang. It started with a short ride to Dun Huang’s vendor stalls with all kinds of brightly-colored trinkets, lots of Chinese tourists, and around it all, huge sand dunes. We had arrived at what might possibly be the least known and most inaccessible tourist attraction in the world: The Gobi Desert, up close and personal.

The Lake of the Crescent Moon in the Gobi Desert.

The signs pointed to the Lake of the Crescent Moon (and if that doesn’t sound like an Indiana Jones movie title, I don’t know what does). It was a small bright green crescent lake surrounded by the Gobi’s massive pale white dunes. The city planners in Dun Huang were making good use of it as a tourist attraction. It was amazing. The lake was a bright green arc of still water perhaps 300 meters long, forming a natural arc in the dunes, surrounded by bright green vegetation. I can only imagine how a camel caravan would have felt coming upon this place a thousand or more years ago, slowly drifting through the oven that is the Gobi, long before Dun Huang built its five-star tourist hotels. They must have viewed it as a miracle. A true oasis in the desert. It seemed to be a miracle to me and I had it easy; I had ridden here on my RX3.

Gobi Camel Riding

What really interested me were the camels. I was still feeling smug about seeing camels in the desert the day before, and I had wondered what it would be like to ride one. This was to be my day. There was a large camel riding operation set up specifically for tourists, and I realized I might never have an opportunity like this again. I needed to ride a camel. Yep, I became Joe Tourist, and I’m glad I did. It was fun. The camels took us to the top of one of the dunes, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve heard camels described as ships of the desert, and I realized as I rode along on mine that it was an appropriate description. A camel kind of rocks back and forth as it walks, the same way a ship does as it sails the ocean. The sand dunes, devoid of any vegetation, could be rolling waves. It’s all very calming. The camel behind mine came closer, and closer, and closer until its face was literally right alongside me. Its nose was just an inch from my arm. I could feel its warm dry breath on my arm and my face. It sounds a bit on the strange side, I know, but it was all somehow very soothing, riding along in the hot dry air, gently rocking left and right, with a camel breathing in my ear.

Camels in the Gobi.
Quite a sight. I enjoyed Dun Huang enormously. You may have seen this photo before. It’s the cover photo for the ExhaustNotes home page, and it as a two-page spread in RoadRUNNER magazine.
The view from the camel cockpit.

We spent the entire morning riding camels, taking photos, and being tourists. As much as I like riding my motorcycle, it was good to be off it for a day. We were all feeling great, even though it as incredibly hot. But it was dry, and that made it bearable.

A very attractive young woman who allowed a photo on our camel caravan. I told her I walked a mile for my camel. She smiled politely. I don’t think she spoke English.

The Mo Gao Grottos

That afternoon, we parked the bikes and rode in air-conditioned buses to the Mo Gao Buddhist grottos. This was more Indiana Jones stuff. It’s another incredible story, and it is one I had never heard until this trip. Listen to this: Ancient Buddhists created a massive temple complex in the grottos along a riverbed canyon wall in a location called Mo Gao. It’s in the desert outside of what is now Dun Huang. It was a thriving Buddhist center a thousand years ago, and then the people living there left. No one really knows why. Time and history forgot about the place. It was only recently rediscovered, and a few years after that, it opened to the public. The place was stunning. I can see it possibly being named the 9th Wonder of the Ancient World, just as Xi’an’s Terra Cotta soldiers (which I’ll describe in a later chapter) became the 8th Wonder of the Ancient World. It’s that wondrous.

The Mo Gao caves consisted of many smaller grottos that were apartments for ancient monks, and larger ones that held majestic statues and ornate decorations. I can only imagine what it must of have been like for the archeologists who uncovered these things. Today, it is all closely managed and Chinese police were there to enforce a photography prohibition.

A small portion of the Mo Gao Buddhist grotto.
A forbidden photo inside one the Mo Gao grottos. Once again, the Nikon D810’s low light level capabilities came through for me!
The sights and photo ops at Mo Gao were well worth the trip. There were many, many more, but I called it quits after grabbing these photos.

There are two reasons for a photography prohibition in these kinds of places. The first is that flash photography could degrade the statues and artwork. A natural light photo (one shot without flash) would prevent that kind of degradation, but most people wouldn’t understand the distinction and a “natural light only” photo policy would be too hard to enforce. The other reason is that the owner of the place (I assume it would be the Chinese government) probably wants to sell its photos. Allowing people to grab their own pictures would interfere.

The bottom line to all of the above is that the no photography policy only slowed me a little. I waited until somebody else took a photo and the picture police started yelling at them, and then I would discreetly do my natural light thing. I got some good shots, too.

Let me go tangential here for a moment and tell you a quick story about Joe Gresh. He is a great guy to travel with and I’d go anywhere with him. We both have a twisted, extremely wry, and very corny sense of humor. He cringed every time I said something I thought was clever, and I did the same with him. I enjoyed being with him on this trip immensely. The guy just has a way with words, which is readily apparent in his columns for Motorcyclist magazine. Anyway, as we walked along one of the landscaped Mo Gao pathways, I noticed a ground-mounted speaker that was in a plastic case designed to look like one of the naturally-occurring rocks. It blended in well with other real rocks along the path. I pointed to it and said to Joe, “Look at that…even a thousand years ago, these Buddhist monks had electric speakers…”

Gresh, without missing a beat, responded with, “Yeah, they loved their grotto blasters…”

I slept well that night in our unusually upscale hotel. I probably had dreams along the lines of an Indiana Jones movie plot, but I didn’t remember any of them. I was tired when I called it a night and I felt refreshed the next morning. This was the trip of a lifetime, and I was enjoying the hell out of it.

So there you have it. The Mo Gao Grottos. Lost in time nearly a thousand years, only to be discovered again a few years ago. And we were there. Indiana Jones? You bet! And if you want to read the earlier Indy in China blog about the Romans, it’s right here!

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My 3FC19 Scooter

Yep, it’s going to be the CSC RX4, and I’m pumped about the ride.  There’s not a lot of information out there on this bike yet other than here on the ExNotes site, and I’ll give you the link for that at the end of this post.

Steve Seidner (President and CEO of CSC Motorcycles) and good buddy Matt (motorcycle maestro extraordinaire), the two guys who are prepping my RX4 for the 3FC19 ride.

I’ll be the first guy to take the RX4 on a major road trip in the US, and I’ll be the first guy to ride it internationally on a single ride.  I think that’s pretty cool.

Steve and Matt prepped the bike for me by changing the oil, adjusting the valves, installing spotlights, installing the cell phone holder so I can use Waze to navigate, and more.  It was cool visit, and I enjoyed seeing the guys at CSC again.

Down to the frame, just to make sure everything is ready for my 4,500-mile epic international journey. It wasn’t necessary. The guys found nothing wrong.
These are going to turn night into day for me. I like them!
Check out the double disks, and hey, Orlando…look, it’s orange…the fastest color!
A subfender. Cool!
A new rear tire and chain lube. It’s going to be a great ride.
I spec’d out the Tourfella aluminum luggage on this bike…I’ll be carrying my laptop and all my camera gear, and like always, I’ll be blogging from the road every night. You’ll be able to follow the entire trip right here on the ExNotes blog. Hey, do you think the top dawgs at Harley or Honda personally prep bikes for their rally riders?

So, about that additional RX4 information…you can find it right here on our RX4 page!  And hey, check out the CSC Motorcycles site, too!

What?  You haven’t signed up for our automatic email blog updates yet?  Hey, you can do that right here!

Want to read about some of our other epic rides on CSC motorcycles, Royal Enfield motorcycles, Janus motorcycles, and the odd Harley or two?   Take a look at our Epic Rides page!

Loaded for bear…

Good buddy Jason, a Ruger No. 1 in .338 Win Mag, and a 400-lb, 7-ft Alaskan black bear.

As the title of this blog implies and in this case, my good buddy Jason was literally loaded for bear. For several years I had owned a Ruger No. 1 single-shot rifle in .338 Win Mag.  That’s a monster of a magnum.  I had never fired the rifle and I sold it to Jason. He told me he was going on a bear hunt in Alaska (something I’ve always wanted to do), and I was happy to the see the rifle go to a good home. Most recently, Jason sent the photo you see above and a recap of his hunt to me to share here on the ExNotes blog. Here you go, folks!

It all started in 2016 when I purchased my first Ruger No. 1 in 338 Win Mag from Joe.  I’ve always wanted a Ruger No. 1, but I already had a Winchester Model 70 in 338 Win Mag. I planned to go on a bear hunt in 2018, so what I did was sell my Winchester Model 70 to my best friend, who went on the bear hunt, too. I would be using my Ruger No. 1. So this is a story about me and my new rifle and our quest for a big Southeast Alaskan black bear. It was a guided hunt through Alaskan Coastal Outfitters.

Our base camp was on a boat and in the evening we would take a skiff and cruise around all the little islands and bays looking for the right bear. We saw lots of bears (a lot of sows with cubs). We also saw a lot of boars. On Day 4 of our hunt we saw a really nice bear. We got as close as we could without spooking him. My guide told me to get out of the boat and he held the boat still for me. Then, as I was pulling my leg over the side of the boat I got hooked on to the edge of the boat and I fell face down in 8 inches of water.

The bear ran off and my beautiful Ruger No.1 was laying in 8 inches of salt water, so we raced back to the boat, took the rifle apart, and cleaned it up so it was like new.

The next day we went out again and this time I was extra cautious not to fall in when we came across the bear you see in the picture. He was about 300 yards from the skiff when we spotted him. We got as close as we could without spooking him, which was about 140 yards, and my guide kept on asking me if I could make the shot. I always answered “yes, no problem.” I lay down and rested my rifle on my pack. Wouldn’t you know it, I had to lay down in a little creek so I got wet again. We lay there for what seemed to be an eternity. My guide made sure it was a boar and not a sow. Finally, he gave me the OK.

Just then, the bear turned so he had his back to me (so I couldn’t shoot). It gave me an opportunity to situate my follow-up shot. I decided the quickest way to get a follow-up shot (if I needed one) was to shoot with the next round in my hand.

The bear finally turned broadside and I dropped the hammer. I hit him just behind the shoulder and he dropped. My guide backed me up with a 375 H&H rifle, but he didn’t need to fire it. The bear went down, and when we reached him, we saw he was the monster he appeared to be from a distance. The bear measured 7 feet and weighed about 400 lbs.

Jason, that’s an awesome story and a magnificent photograph.  I was sorry to see that rifle go, but it obviously went to a good home and you sure put it to good use.  You know, it takes a real sportsman to do what you did…going after bear with a single-shot rifle.   Congratulations on a successful hunt, and thanks much for sharing your adventure with us here on the ExhaustNotes blog!

Read our other Tales of the Gun stories!

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Would you like to write a guest blog for ExNotes?  It could be a gun story, a hunting story, a motorcycle story, or any other idea you think might work for our audience.  If you have an idea, please let us know at info@exhaustnotes.us.   If we publish your story, you’ll get a signed copy of Destinations with our compliments and gratitude!

Back in the saddle again…

Yep, just like that song, we’re back in the saddle again.  We’ve got the email thing on the road to being fully squared away, and we’ve had a bunch of new folks sign up in the last day.   Things are looking good.

Automatic Email Notifications

If you haven’t heard the word already, we’re having a limited time contest for folks who sign up for our automatic email notifications.  Just add your email to the list, and for every 50 folks who sign up (even if you are already signed up), we’re going to give away a free copy of Destinations.  You can sign up here:

The CSC RX4

I’m stopping by CSC Motorcycles tomorrow to get a photo of the RX4 I’ll be riding in the SCMA Three Flags Classic.  Good buddy Steve asked how I wanted the bike configured and I told him what he already knew:  Spotlights, the big Tourfella luggage, a phone mount, and I’m good to go.  This is going to be one hell of a ride.  Mexico to Canada on a CSC RX4.  I’ll be the first to do this.  More good times.  I’m pumped and I’m eager to get on the road.

It’s going to be hot on the southern part of the ride, as the temps will be above 110 degrees.  But as they say, it’s a dry heat. I’ve ridden in that kind of heat before, and I have a few strategies for dealing with it.  I’ll be blogging the entire ride, so be sure to follow us right here on ExhaustNotes!  And hey, if there are questions you want me to answer or things you want my opinion on related to the RX4, please post your questions here in the blog’s comments section.

The Triple Deuce

Nope, it’s not a car and it’s not a US Army truck.  I’m talking about my .222 Remington Savage 340, a used rifle I picked up on the consignment gun rack at a local store 2 1/2 years ago for the whopping sum of $180.  The Triple Deuce (as the .222 Remington cartridge is known) is one of those inherently accurate cartridges that just groups great without a lot of work (three others are the .308 Winchester, the .375 H&H, and the relatively new 6.5 Creedmoor).   These are rounds that are just flat accurate.  My .222 certainly groups way better than any $180 rifle has a right to do.  I’m having a lot of fun with it.

I had the Savage out this past Sunday and it was shooting sub-minute-of-angle at 100 yards, and that’s close enough for government work.  The stock has a few surface finish scratches (but no gouges that reach into the wood) and I’m going to refinish it.  Before any of you get your shorts in a knot, the rifle is not an uber-collectible piece (so I’m not destroying its value with a refinish).  I’m going to do my TruOil-to-perfection number on it.  I may add a little stain to darken the walnut a bit.  Or not.  We’ll see.  All the metal work on this rifle is perfect and I want the lumber to match. I’ll be posting the step-by-step project here on the ExhaustNotes blog, and you’ll be able to follow along as this labor of love progresses.    And hey, if you want to read our other gun stories, take a look at our Tales of the Gun page!

Good times straight ahead, folks!

And yet more likes and dislikes…

We like seeing big numbers of folks on the ExhaustNotes site.  We can tell how many people are on the site at any given time, which pages they’re viewing, and where they’re located (to the city or town level).  We see folks from literally all over the world, and it’s cool seeing folks in really out of the way (for us, anyway) places.

Take a peek at the blog below about our email signup contest.   You could win a free copy of Destinations just by signing up, even if you are already on the list.  And yeah, we already had a healthy response, and yeah, we already randomly selected our first contest winner from the first group of 50.   That’s good buddy Colorado Dan, and Dan, your copy of Destinations is going in the mail today.  Sign up here, folks, and you might win a copy, too!

More likes and dislikes…

The good news is that it looks like we have this email thing fixed!  Whew, we’re software geniuses!  Who knew?

Okay, back to our likes and dislikes:  We like giving stuff away, and we need to get our email list updated again, so here’s what we’re going to do.   Whether you’re on the email list or not, sign up for our automatic email updates.   For every 50 signups, even if you are already signed up, we’re going to give away a copy of Destinations, our latest book, to one person drawn randomly from each group of 50.  Hey, that gives you a 2% chance of winning, and that’s damn near a sure thing!

Likes and dislikes…

I needed to do a blog to see if this nutty automatic email program is working again, and even though Joe G. and I have a rich repertoire to draw from as far as blog topics go, I thought I’d briefly hit a few likes and dislikes to check out the email notification system. We usually try to limit ourselves to one blog a day to keep your email inbox from getting overwhelmed, so bear with me while I test this system.

I’ll do two or three blogs today to see if I can get this thing sorted. Patience, my friends.

The first is a dislike. I dislike mindless software updates, as apparently occurred with the Icegram software (that’s the plug-in we use for the auto email update feature). Something updated, it stopped working, and then it dumped half the names on our list. I could tell you if you haven’t received an email from us and you should have to let us know, but that would be like asking all the kids who aren’t in class to raise their hands, and that would be about as mindless as a software update when everything was working fine before the update. Ah, here we go.

Hey, if you want to be on the list for automatic email updates, please add your email here:

Stand by, there’s more to follow in a subsequent blog or two.

Pioneer Day in Idaho…

Here’s another great day from the Western America Adventure Ride back in 2015 when we rode across the US with our guests from China and Colombia. It was an interesting day for many reasons, but what happened in Carey, Idaho, will stay with me for a long time.

Craters of the Moon

Baja John, our navigator and lodging consultant on the Western America Adventure Ride.

We had left the Craters of the Moon (a National Monument in the middle of nowhere in Idaho) earlier that morning and ridden another 50 miles or so (with literally nothing in between except open plains, rolling hills, and beautiful scenery) when we entered Carey. You have to understand that Carey is basically a wide spot in the road with maybe 40 or 50 buildings along the way. I was focused on getting there, filling the bikes, and getting back on the road.

Pioneer Day and a Parade

When we pulled into Carey, it was like my home town in the early afternoon on the 4th of July.  You know, everybody was sitting on lawn chairs, lining the street, waving American flags, and waiting for the parade.  That’s literally what we encountered.  The good citizens of Carey were waiting for the parade, except it wasn’t the 4th of July.

Gresh and I were leading the pack at about 15 miles an hour when we rode into town, and everybody starting cheering and waving when they saw us.  We didn’t know what was going on.   I had been blogging every night and Gresh had been kidding me about that.   Gresh lifted his face shield and looked at me while we were still rolling.   “Boy, a lot of people are following the blog,” he said.

Okay, so we rolled into town on our RX3s.  All of us, on RX3 motorcycles, with the town cheering.  You can guess where this is going…the good people of Carey thought we were the start of the parade.   The Carey people waved and welcomed us.  What the Chinese and the Colombian guys were thinking I can only guess.

The Pioneer Day Parade followed us into town.

We pulled into a Shell station (the only one in town).  I wanted to get gas and get going.   I went into the station and asked what was going on.  The girl behind the counter looked at me like I was crazy.  I didn’t know it, but it was Pioneer Day in Idaho.  It’s a holiday they take very seriously.  I imagine everybody in town was out there on both sides of the street.

A Pioneer Day parade pickup.
A lady driving a horse-drawn cart asked Hugo where he was from, and when he said China she told him, “Well, hop on up here with us, honey!”

Like I said, I wanted to get gas and get out of town before the parade hit.  The Chinese guys and the Colombians wanted to stay and watch the parade.
You can guess which way it went.

The Wild West, on the Western America Adventure Ride.

We had a pretty good time in Carey. Our Chinese and Colombian visitors were seeing a good old fashioned American parade, and the good folks in Carey met folks from the other side of the world.  I can only imagine the stories our visitors took home.  I sure landed a good story to share with you!

Want to read more about our Epic Rides?  Just click here!

Hi Joe

Wow, was I ever surprised when a young guy in a pickup truck held up this note as we rode south on Highway 101!

The photo you see above popped up in my Facebook feed this morning letting me know it was 4 years ago that I posted it, and that meant it was four years ago that we finished the 5000-mile Western America Adventure Ride.  Here’s what I originally posted on the CSC blog about that “Hi Joe” sign:

We are in Santa Maria tonight. It was an easy roll once we got past San Jose, but the traffic on the 101 leaving San Francisco and all the way down past San Jose was rough this morning. After that, we basically put the bikes on cruise control and ran 75 mph all the way down.

Here’s a cool thing…on the 101, just past San Luis Obispo, a couple of guys in a gray pickup truck pulled up alongside our convoy and starting beeping and waving at us. When they were alongside me, one held up a sign that said “Hi, Joe!” Cool stuff. I have no idea who those guys were, but it’s a safe bet they’ll read this. Guys, when you do, shoot me an email. It made my day seeing you today. I had a good laugh over it.

I mentioned the above in the CSC blog, and later that same day I received this email from my good buddy San Marino Bill:

Joe:

My son just called me (3 pm) from the Paso Robles area and wanted to know where the CSC group was riding today. He is up there picking up his son. He was following a group of good looking bikes (10 or 12). I told him to make a sign that said HI JOE and show it to the leader. I hope it was you.

Bill

That was a pretty cool experience, and it kind of wrapped up how well the ride was received and how much good it did for the RX3 motorcycle and our efforts to show the world it is a great motorcycle.  You can read more about that in 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM, the book about bringing the RX3 to America and the Western America Adventure Ride.

My 4-year-old RX3, with its Western America Adventure Ride decal. I still own the bike. It’s in my garage right now, just a few feet from where I sit typing this blog.

We sure had a blast on that ride, and people were following it on the CSC blog all over the world.  I remember Pioneer Day in Idaho on that ride, where we literally rode in a parade and people lined the streets awaiting our arrival on the CSC motorcycles.  I’ll post that story in another day or two.

Another grand adventure is a little less than a month away.  I’ll be riding the new RX4 from Mexico to Canada in the Southern California Motorcycle Association’s 2019 Three Flags Classic.  I last did that ride in 2005 (you can read the story about that here), and I’m looking forward to doing it again on the RX4.  I’ll be blogging the ride daily, I have a commission for two magazine articles on it, and I’m toying with the idea of a short book on the ride, the RX4 bike, the SCMA, CSC, and Zongshen.  That’s going to be good for CSC, Zongshen, the SCMA, and the Three Flags Classic event.  It will be another grand adventure.  Stay tuned, because I’ll be posting much more here on the ExNotes blog.

My 2019 3FC ride: The CSC RX4. You can read more about the bike here.