I had my RX3 out this Memorial Day weekend. It’s an iconic motorcycle, and it’s one I’ve ridden on three continents. I hadn’t ridden the RX3 in a few months, and it felt good to be on it again. Light, responsive, fully equipped, and five years old, my RX3 can and has gone the distance.
I’m thinking about a motorcycle ride up the Pacific Coast Highway to Hearst Castle, and Hearst Castle is a bucket list destination on a bucket list road. I’d like to do it on my RX3. Trust me on this: It doesn’t get much better than the Pacific Coast Highway and Hearst Castle.
The Pacific Coast Highway. Life doesn’t get much better than this, folks. Any motorcycle ride on the PCH is magnificent, and a stop at Hearst Castle makes it even better.
What’s Hearst Castle all about? Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: William Randolph Hearst is a dude who had more money than God. His dad came to California during the Gold Rush and somehow managed not to find any gold, but he went a few hills over and hit it big with silver. Ever hear of the Comstock Lode? Well, that was George Hearst back in the 1800s. Father George was a mining guy, and he sort of fell into the newspaper business when he accepted the San Francisco Examiner as payment for a gambling debt. While all this was going on, young William Randolph Hearst (George’s son) got himself expelled from Harvard, and somehow after that landed a job on the Examiner (ah, nepotism in action). And while all that was occurring, George bought 40,000 acres in the Santa Lucia Mountains (on the central California coast) so the family had a place to go camping.
I guess some folks run out of things to do when they’re rich, but not young William. He decided to he needed a castle. So he built one. On the family property (which he inherited in 1919) in San Simeon. It’s one hell of story, and there’s more to it than I can cover here in the blog, but it will soon be in a major motorcycle magazine (and when that happens, I’ll give you the link here). In advance of that, though, I’ll share a few Hearst Castle photos with you.
The front door to Casa Grande. Bill Hearst liked big doors.Art, tapestries, ceilings, and more…all this stuff is the result of Hearst’s agents scouring the castles and churches of Europe, and returning the good stuff to California. It’s good to be the king.One of two Olympic-sized pools at Hearst Castle. This is the first one Hearst built, but guests complained they could hear the staff working upstairs. Undaunted, Old Bill designated this pool for staff only, and built an even larger one outdoors for his guests. The indoor pool makes for a stunning photo op, I think. The blue tiles are custom crafted. It really is amazing.Dinner was a big deal when Bill held the Hearst Corporation reins. The word “impressive” just isn’t adequate here.The view from La Cuesta Encantada (the Enchanted Hill) looking west to the Pacific Ocean.
So there you have it. But there’s more…lots more. You have to see Hearst Castle to believe it, and it is a stellar thing to see. Hearst Castle and the Pacific Coast Highway make for a great motorcycle ride.
Our Colombian adventure continues…this is the blog from the third day on the road in beautiful Colombia. It was a ride sponsored by CSC Motorcycles and AKT Motos (one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers in Colombia). Our destination was La Playa de Belem and it was awesome. Juan and Carlos were taking good care of me, proudly guiding me through their beautiful country, and I was loving every minute of it.
They tell me la playa means beach in Spanish, and Belem means Bethlehem. There was no beach, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
La Playa de Belem was our destination on the third day of our Colombian moto adventure, and it was indeed awesome. We did a cool 260 miles to get to the evening’s destination, and I have to tell you that 260 miles in Colombia is a long day. What I didn’t realize when we started in the morning is that a good 40 miles of it would be on dirt. And sand. And mud. And I’d even get a chance to play cowboy, except I was mounted on an RX3 instead of a horse.
No kidding, folks, those are cows, and they were on the road. This was something new to me. I mean, when you’re on a 250cc motorcycle, how do you make cows get out of the way? Even if you’re on a big bike, what’s the protocol? These questions were on my mind, when like always, Juan Carlos took the lead. Our bovine buddies just kind of moved aside to let him move through the herd. I wasn’t too sure about that, and then a guy on a little 100cc something-or-other did the same. In for a penny, in for a pound. As I got closer, the sea of cows parted, and I was through. Amazing stuff.
As was the case the day before, it was sweltering, so we stopped to get a juice drink. They have a lot of juices in Colombia, and I’ve been trying them all. I haven’t found one I didn’t like yet.
This little gal was fascinated by us. She let me take her picture.
What I missed getting a photo of were the dinosaurs. No kidding. I looked over at a tree and there were three or four iguanas that were huge. As in 2 1/2 or 3 feet long. They startled me. We ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. I jumped up and fumbled around putting the 70-300 lens on the D3300, but by the time I was ready the lizards were gone. Maybe I’ll see more of them again on this trip. Who knows? Things like that are incredible. I’m enjoying the hell out of this trip.
Ah, a few more “watching the world go by in Colombia” photos…all the gear, all the time.
After dodging and dicing through traffic (and there’s lots of traffic in these Colombian towns, and it’s mostly motorcycles), we finally hit a highway that ran straight. Yippee! We accelerated up to about 70 mph and cruised, and then Juan pulled over. What he pointed out to me was amazing. Ant hills. Not the little kind we are used to, but big monsters that are as hard as concrete. Check this stuff out, folks.
And then, much to my surprise, the animal signs started popping up.
Okay, that one was easy. Fox. I get it. I never saw a sign before warning about a fox crossing, but I can wrap my mind around that one.
What came next…well, that wasn’t so easy to surround with the old gray matter.
Anteaters. Wow. The image quality isn’t so great, but hey, we were zooming along and that one crept up on me. And how about this next one?
Okay, enough monkeying around. Back to the journey.
We entered the eastern arm of the Andes Mountains and started to climb. It was a two-lane road, and we rode it for a good 150 miles. It’s like the Angeles Crest Highway, but it goes on forever, and there were construction stops every 10 miles or so. These next few shots were taken at one of the construction stops. Juan Carlos told me we were very close to the Venezuelan border at this point.
A shot of Juan Carlos.
A Colombian taxi driver.
I’m seeing medium-sized trucks that are 60 years old nearly every day on these roads. The ’56 Ford seems to be especially popular.
Our next stop was in another Andean town at a cool little restaurant. This was our waiter.
I had chicken and mushrooms. It was awesome. I ate maybe half of it.
Carlos and Juan Carlos both ordered something in Spanish (naturally), and they were excited to get it. I thought it was beef, or maybe pork. Nope. It was pig stomach lining. Very tasty, according to them. They offered a taste, but I declined.
A word or two on the riding is in order, I guess, at this point. It is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. In the cities and towns, it’s a free for all. It’s like one of the YouTube videos you see of city intersections with tons of scooters in Asia. Here, it’s scooters, motorcycles, cars, and trucks. There are few traffic lights, and Juan told me nobody pays attention to the stop signs or speed limits. “They are like suggestions,” he said.
I’m a big fan of the twisties, but in Colombia, they take on a new meaning. The national sport seems to be passing everyone you can everywhere you can. It’s tense. Juan Carlos and Carlos are totally used to it. I’m getting there, but it is unnerving. It’s also weird just how good every rider seems to be. I’m riding at my limits (not the bike’s limits, but mine) too often, and while I’m doing this taking a corner way faster than I ever would in the US, some Colombian will pass me on a 125cc Suzuki cruiser or something with his girlfriend on the back, leaned way over, like it was the most natural thing in the world. They look totally at ease doing it, too. These folks are natural riders, and they’re good.
We arrived in La Playa de Belem about an hour before sunset, and immediately split for a one of many Colombian national parks. It was kind of like Bryce. I grabbed a few shots there, including one of my AKT RX3.
Getting in was interesting. We had to ride a pretty rough dirt road that had a stream running down it because it had been raining. The RX3 took it in stride.
So, back to the Bethlehem thing (as I said at the start of this blog, Belem means Bethlehem in Spanish). La Playa de Belem is a beautiful little town dominated by the town square and a magnificent church (like many little towns in Colombia), and it turns out we arrived at a special time. The Colombians start celebrating Christmas nine days before Christmas, and this was that day. The town was buzzing. We hung out and watched kids singing at an outdoor service, we saw fireworks, we watched the service in the church, and then we got to see the vaca loca. I recorded it, so I won’t tell you the vaca loca story now, but if this Internet connection holds I’ll upload the video and tell you about it later.
Two more quick photos in La Playa de Belem, a video, and that’s all for now.
There’s lots more coming, folks. You probably already know this, but I’ll say it anyway: I’m having fun.
If you want to catch up on the Colombia ride, or explore any of the other exotic rides we’ve had, click on over to our Epic Rides page!
The Colombia adventure continues. For those of you just joining us, this is a series of blogs I wrote four years ago for CSC Motorcycles when I was rode an AKT Moto RS3 (the carbureted Colombian version of the RX3) through the Andes Mountains. Day 2 of that ride was absolutely awesome, ending with a visit to an enchanted town after a ferry ride down the Magdalena River.
Our second day on the road in Colombia started in Coveñas, and the humidity was oppressive. It was going to get worse as the day went on. We’re in the tropics, not too far from the equator, and hot and humid is the normal way of things here. On the plus side, you don’t care if it rains because you’re already drenched. It actually helps because it’s cooling.
Anyway, back to the morning in Coveñas. We ate in the hotel, and while we were waiting for breakfast, this dude was selling some kind of yams or roots, and Juan Carlos pointed out the scale he was using. It’s about as crude a scale as I’ve ever seen, but it’s sound technically, and it sure makes for an interesting photo.
Here’s a typical Colombian breakfast: Scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, bread, and a corn or flour tortilla with cheese (that’s called arrepo). The Colombians are big on cheeses, with different regions producing unique cheeses. It’s quite good.
The guys pointed out this car as we packed the bikes. This probably didn’t end well for the passenger, who most likely was not wearing a seat belt. The riding in Colombia is glorious, but it is stressful. Juan and Carlos said when they ride anywhere else (other than Colombia), it makes them sleepy because there’s only scenery. In Colombia, there’s scenery, but you have to watch out for everyone else. It’s intense. In a country full of twisties, people pass on blind corners routinely. I guess the theory is you pray a lot. People think nothing of passing if the oncoming traffic has room to move over, or if the oncoming traffic is a motorcycle. It’s weird, but you kind of get used to it. But it is intense (just like the heat and the humidity).
When we got on the road after breakfast, we only went maybe a mile when Carlos had a flat tire. Watching the guy repair it was interesting, and so was hanging out watching the world go by in Colombia.
And here are some of those watching the world go by in Colombia photos.
Here’s a photo of our RX3s somewhere on the road, headed to the ferry that would take us to Mompos, a remote town 45 minutes down the Magdalena River.
This church was across the street and just down the road from the ferry loading spot.
I only grabbed a few photos while we were boarding the ferry. The heat and humidity were getting to me at this point. It was about 4:00 in the in the afternoon, and it was sweltering.
Once we were underway, it got a little cooler on the river. You probably saw my video of that ride.
We arrived in Mompos and it was impressive. It’s the oldest town in Colombia, and to say it is off the beaten path would be an understatement. We had dinner in a restaurant run by an Austrian, where I had the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life.
After dinner, we chatted with the owner for a bit, and then we walked along the river front…I grabbed a bunch of photos there.
Folks, that’s about it for now. I’m a day behind in keeping you up to date on this trip, but Internet connectivity is dicey in these remote locations. As always, more to follow, if not today, then in a day or two (or three). Stay tuned.
If you’d like to see our earlier blogs in Colombia, please click here.
Our Colombia adventure continues…a circumnavigation of the Colombian Andes on a 250cc motorcycle. For those of you just joining in, I’m reposting a series of blogs I did for CSC Motorcycles describing my ride through the Andes Mountains in December 2015. After spending the previous day tearing around Medellin and its surroundings, I had become acclimatized to the mile-high altitudes. As the adventure continued, we would head even higher, all the way up to 14,000 feet, but that’s all coming later. On this, my second day in Colombia, we headed into the Andes and then down to the Caribbean. Our real journey had started, and here is that story.
Wow! I never thought I’d been typing this, but here I am. I just rode across the northernmost range of the Andes Mountains. On an RX3. Here they are: The Andes!
I took that shot from a cool little spot where we stopped for a typical Colombian breakfast…hot chocolate, scrambled eggs, and arrepa. More on that later…here’s a shot of the bikes at what has to be one of the coolest biker restaurants I’ve ever enjoyed.
And here’s another shot of my AKT Motos RS3 (the RS3 is the carbureted version of the RX3).
I liked that restaurant a lot. They painted it to match my jacket.
We rode about 370 miles yesterday, and about half of it was in the Andes. 370 miles may not seem like a lot, but picture riding Glendora Ridge for 6 or 8 hours. The Andes are a motorcycling paradise. The Andes Mountains.
Wow!
I guess you never know what you’re going to see in the Andes. This old goat was kind of cool…and I had to grab a shot.
We stopped to take a break and some of the local paramilitary/police guys came over to check out the bikes. The RX3 is a prestige motorcycle in Colombia (just like it is in the USA) and these boys wanted a closer look. They gladly consented to a photo. They are most definitely well armed. You see police and military units everywhere.
These next photos are from the saddle after we descended from the Andes. Good times, my friends.
These next photos are of young ladies who are gas station attendants. When they saw our 250cc RX3 motos, they wanted to know what it was like riding such huge motorcycles. That’s a bit different from what you might hear in the USA, I suppose.
It was a long day, and it ended in a town called Covenas, right on the Caribbean. We stopped for a few shots with the sea in the background.
Keep an eye on the blog, folks. I won’t be able to post every day, but I’ll do my best.
And that wrapped up the second day of my time in Colombia, and the first day of our ride through the Andes. We’re going to make it a little easier to track this adventure for our blog readers. You can get all of the good stuff from our Colombian ride here. I’ll post the next blog from our Colombia adventure in a few days, so stay tuned!
My ride through Colombia started on 13 December 2015 (it’s hard to believe it was more than 4 years ago; it feels like it was last year). What started this trip down memory lane for me was the Netflix TV series Narcos, and yeah, Susie and I binge-watched the first two seasons (which culminated in the Colombian forces taking down Pablo Escobar). It was an awesome series, filmed in Colombia, and the scenery took me back to that awesome adventure ride with my good buddies Juan and Carlos. Like I said in the last blog, I wanted to treat you to the blogs I wrote for CSC when I was on that trip, and this was the first one I did upon my arrival in Colombia.
There are no straight roads in Medellin, there are more motorcycles than cars, the weather is awesome, and the cuisine is incredible. If that doesn’t sound like heaven to you, well, you need to rethink your concept of fun. Colombia, folks! On an RX3! What an adventure!
So today is Day 1, we put a couple of hundred miles on the AKT Moto RX3 motorcycles, and we haven’t even started our journey yet (it officially begins tomorrow). My good buddies Juan Carlos and Carlos (there are a lot of guys named Carlos over here) set today aside just to let me get used to riding in Colombia.
Here’s a shot of me with my two moto buddies in a village somewhere in the mountains surrounding Medellin.
Back to the RX3 designation…AKT Moto is one of Zongshen’s largest customers, and they sell a carbureted version of our favorite motorcycle called the RS3. It’s a cool bike. Here’s a shot of mine…it’s the one I’ll put 2500 miles on here in Colombia in the next week or so.
And that village? It’s actually called Mesopotamia. Folks, I can’t make up stuff this good!
Motorcycling in Colombia is substantially different than what we’re used to. For starters, there’s the prevalence of motorcycles. I’m not exaggerating. I saw far more motorcycles today than cars. It seems to be the national pastime. There were thousand (maybe tens of thousands) of riders in the hills this morning.
More interesting facts:
Motorcycling is predominantly a social activity here in Colombia. We must have stopped at 4 or 5 coffee houses and restaurants today. The pattern is you ride for 45 minutes or so, and then stop for coffee. Hey, is this what café racing is all about? Juan Carlos knows everybody at these coffee stops, and they all know him. Juan Carlos founded the only motorcycle magazine in Colombia (DeMotos), and he’s an icon over here. Any you know what? Some of these guys recognized me! Juan Carlos ran a feature story in his magazine on our Western America Adventure Ride, and these guys were all familiar with it.
The bikes are predominantly in the 100cc to 150cc range, and these folks are all happy with that. Small bikes rule over here. We saw people dragging their pegs on these things having as much or more fun as we do on the big bikes in the US. Nah, scratch that…they were having more fun!
I asked about freeways and the guys laughed at me. They pointed to the winding set of twisties just outside the restaurant and told me, “that is our freeway.” These are my kind of people!
There are elite riders over here on Triumphs, Ducatis, BMWs, and MotoGuzzis. There are lots of large Yamahas over here, too (or, is they say in Colombia, Jamahas). They’re not arrogant. We had coffee with a bunch of them, and they were all great guys. The photo below is a typical roadside restaurant, and they all looked like this. What a place!
The food is awesome. Here’s a shot of my lunch at that restaurant above. The dish is called Capresse Buenaventura.
Ah, let’s see, a few more photos from some of the little villages we rode through today.
Juan Carlos picked up his cousin Heronimo (you gotta love their names!) and he rode with us in the afternoon.
After I took that shot above and Juan Carlos and Heronimo pulled out, I saw a cool police bike painted in fluorescent safety yellow (or is it a green?). I always wondered what a bike would like painted in that color.
Bikes are both sporting propositions and utilitarian vehicles down here. I saw bikes carrying all kinds of cargo (no photos, but I’ll get some of those later), and I saw a few bikes that had to be 20 or 30 years old and were still doing hard time.
One of the guys I met at one of our coffee stops is a retired US Army Colonel named Miles. I liked the guy immediately…he’s a dead ringer for Lee Marvin and he even sounds a little like him. Talk about stories…this guy has been everywhere and when he retired, he decided to hang his hat in Colombia. Here are a couple of photos of my new buddy Miles…the first one with the guys listening to him in Mesopotamia, and a shot at yet another coffee stop. I sure drank a lot of coffee today!
Well, I think that’s enough blogging for Day 1. We’re rolling out at 4:30 tomorrow, and I want to get a good night’s sleep. The altitude bothered me a bit yesterday and I didn’t sleep too well, but I think I’m used to it now. The plan tomorrow is to put 300 miles on the bikes, and like I said, there are no straight roads in Colombia. We’re climbing up over another mountain range and headed for the coast. It’s going to be fun!
So there you have it. The above was my first day in Colombia, and it was sort of a “get acquainted” bit of tearing up the roads around Medellin. The real journey, our romp through the Andes Mountains, would start the next day. Stay tuned, folks. There’s a lot more to this story.
If you’d like to see the entire Colombia ride, just click here!
Susie and I are hanging out at home, getting out for our daily walk or two, and generally obeying our fearless, fiercely-partisan, and fear-mongering leaders as we wait for them to declare a CV19 victory. We’ve been watching a lot of TV while under house arrest, and it’s a big deal when we find a series we haven’t seen before. We had one such discovery last week with Narcos, a series on Netflix about the drug wars in Colombia.
Silver or Lead, Amigos y Amigas. Or in this case, a Model 625’s stainless steel and six full metal jacket .45 ACP rounds. That hat is one of my favorites.
Somehow we missed Narcos the first time around, although I was vaguely aware of its existence from a hat I picked up at an International Association of Chiefs of Police convention in San Diego two or three years ago. Good buddy and retired police chief Mike was going to the IACP convention and he invited me along as his official “Assistant to the Director.” I was even issued an official laminated ID card, but Mike drew the line when I asked him if I would get a gun, too. His answer was immediate and clear: No. That’s okay, I already had a gun.
Mike and I had a good time at the IACP show and we came home with a lot of swag. One bit of that haul was a Narcos hat embroidered with the show’s tagline: Plata O Plomo. If your Spanish is a bit rusty, it means Silver or Lead, with the premise being (if you were a Colombian cop or politician) your choice was either a bribe or a bullet.
The Narcos Netflix series is the story of Pablo Escobar, the activities involved in taking him down, and the drug wars in Colombia. From the first episode, I thought the scenery was stunning. I mentioned to Sue that it looked exactly the way I remembered Colombia from my Andean adventure. We started in Medellin’s Antioquia neighborhood (which, by the way, was Pablo Escobar’s old stomping grounds). Sue checked it out on her cell phone and, sure enough, Narcos was indeed filmed in Colombia.
Riding with good buddy Carlos in Colombia. That’s me in the green jacket. Photo by good buddy Juan DeMotos.
We’ve been binge-watching Narcos and every scene brings back a memory for me. Colombia is a magnificent place, and I loved every minute of that adventure. I’m going to recreate that ride by posting some of the photos (the one above is but a sample) of one of the grandest adventures I’ve ever enjoyed. I’ll post a series of blogs from our Colombia trip over the next two weeks.
I stopped by CSC Motorcycles last week to visit with my friend Steve and see the new TT250, San Gabriel, and RX3 colors. I and my camera will try to do justice to the new CSC paint themes, and hey, while we here, we’ll share a few videos.
The TT250 line has an entirely new set of colors, and I like the new look.
There’s a cool decal on the TT250 side panel, too, which i like a lot. It reminds me a bit of what new Triumphs had in the 1960s, when every one of their bikes had a “world’s fastest motorcycle” decal on the tank.
As you know, I have a TT250, and mine is from the very first shipment that came into CSC a few years ago. Mine is black with bold TT lettering on the tank and side panels. I like that bike, I’ve ridden it in Baja (the video below is taking it through the Rumarosa Grade in northern Baja), and I’m going to fire it up and ride it around a bit today.
Next up is a photo of the San Gabriels. The new colors on the SG250 work well, too.
You know, I did one of the very first San Gabriel videos when those bikes first came to America. It, too, was a hoot.
And here are a few photos of the CSC RX3, a bike that has generated lots of smiles and lots of miles since its introduction to the United States in 2015. The new colors are much more interesting and maybe a little more subtle than what we’ve seen on RX3 motorcycles in the past. There’s a gray and turquoise theme, and a silver and red alternative. They both look good.
I like the new RX3 paint themes, and I like the original ones, too. I ride an RX3. Mine’s a 2015 model and, like my TT250, it’s one from the very first shipment to the US. My RX3 is orange (the fastest color, as good buddy Orlando knows), and it’s one of the early ones that faded to a kind of subdued yellow (that’s before Zongshen started adding color stabilizers to the paint). I like that look and I’ve had a lot of great rides on RX3 motorcycles, starting with our initial CSC Baja run. That ride was a hoot and a half. Imagine that: A brand new shipment of RX3 motorcycles (the first in the US), and yours truly and 15 other intrepid CSC riders did 1700 miles in Baja on these bikes. Take a look:
Our next big RX3 ride was the Western America Adventure Ride…5000 miles across the Western US, from So Cal to Sturgis to Portland and then down the Pacific coast to home. I didn’t do a video on that ride, but good buddy Joe Gresh sure did!
We did several more CSC Baja rides, a bunch of rides in the US, and our absolutely amazing 6000-mile ride across the ancient kingdom on RX3 motorcycles:
Not enough? Hey, how about a ride through magical Colombia on RS3 motorcycles? The RS3 is the carbureted version of the RX3, and it, too, was an amazing adventure:
If you enjoy watching YouTube videos, we have quite a few more on our YouTubby page. Grab a cup of coffee, click on the YouTubby link, and have fun. I sure did.
I recently heard from good buddy Steve Seidner over at alma mater CSC Motorcycles that the new 2020 RX3 colors have arrived, and the colors are sharp! Take a look:
Steve told me that the new 2020 RX3 includes substantial refinements and that the bike has steadily improved since its 2015 introduction. I thought the 2015 version (the one I ride) was impressive; to hear that it has improved makes the RX3 even more desirable. The 2020 RX3 motorcycles are in stock now, and the price has dropped to $3995. That’s a hell of a deal.
The RX3 story makes for an interesting read and if you’d like to know more about these motorcycles, pick up a copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM.
When you don’t run a carbureted bike for a while and it runs rough or won’t idle, it’s probably because the slow jet is clogged. It’s not from dirt or contaminants getting into the fuel; it’s from the fuel itself. The fuel congeals when the bike sits for an extended period (we’re talking months here), the jet clogs, and your bike just won’t idle or run well at small throttle openings. That often occurs if you let your bike sit over the winter. One way to potentially avoid this is to close the petcock and run the bike out of fuel when you’re done riding. I don’t do that, though, mostly because I don’t want to let the bike idle for an extended period and, truth be told, I’m lazy.
I wrote the CSC maintenance tutorials for the TT250, so I had a bit of a leg up doing this myself on my TT250 when I had the problem recently. I hadn’t ridden my TT250 in a few months, it was hard starting and I couldn’t get it to idle when I finally did get it to start. I knew what was going on immediately: It was the slow jet clogging. All carbed bikes will do this (it’s not a problem unique to the TT250).
Everything I’m showing you here is right out of the CSC TT250 carb maintenance tutorial. That tutorial covers everything about the carb. This blog is specifically focused on cleaning the slow speed jet to address the idling and slow speed roughness issue.
I find the best way to do this is to pull the carb off the engine. To do that, you’ll need to remove the bike’s side panels. Close the fuel petcock and remove the fuel line from it to the carb (you’ll spill a little gas, so don’t do this around open flame or heat). Like a lot of maintenance actions on modern motorcycles, half the job is just removing stuff that’s in the way first.
Disconnect the duct that goes to the airbox and pull it off the carb.You don’t have to disconnect the duct at the airbox end; just take off the end that attaches the carb.Unscrew the top of the carb.Remove the slide from the carb.Working from the left side of the bike (opposite the carb) remove the bolt securing the rear brake fluid reservoir and let it hang free. You need to do this to get to the carb mounting bolt on the left side.Unbolt the carb from the cylinder head. The nut on the right is easy to get to; the nut on the left side of the carb is a bitch to get to, which is why we moved the brake fluid reservoir out of the way.
At this point, you can remove the carb from the bike, and then the float bowl from the carburetor. This will provide access to the jets. Some folks might think that you can remove the float bowl with the carb still on the bike, but I’ve not found a way to do that. It’s best to do it the way I describe here.
Undo the three screws securing the float bowl to the carb.Remove the float bowl. You’ll spill a little gas here, so be careful.
After have removed the float bowl, you’ll be able to see the jets. The one we’re interested in here is the slow jet. Remove it with a flat-bladed screwdriver.
The slow speed jet is the main character in this “won’t idle worth a damn” story.
After removing the slow jet, clean it thoroughly. This involves cleaning all the orifice holes on the sides of the jet, and the main hole through the inside diameter of the jet. You need to use a thin wire to do this. Just blowing it out with carb cleaner or WD 40 won’t dislodge the tiny bits of congealed fuel. There are tools to do this (CSC Motorcycles sells them). I used a small diameter brass wire and it got the job done.
Use a wire to clean the slow jet and then blow it out with carb cleaner or WD40.Looking down the bore of the slow jet.Make sure you use the wire to get everything out of all the holes.
Once the slow jet is clean, reinstall the jet in the carb. There’s no adjustment here; just screw it in taking care not to overtighten it.
After you’ve done the above, assembly is the reverse of disassembly. Your bike should start easily, idle, and run well at small throttle openings.
Man, we are through the looking glass, living in what feels like a bad science fiction movie. The freeways and malls are empty, parking lots are empty, and we are sheltered in place. To top it all off, Susie and I are recovering from two of the worst colds we’ve ever had, and you can imagine what we’ve been imagining. And it may have all started because some dude in Wuhan wanted to eat a bat. A bat!
This current situation will bring out the worst in us, and it will bring out the best in us. We’re already seeing some of the worst, with the accusations flying back and forth about where the virus originated, who did what to who (or who failed to do what and when), and on and on it goes. But we’ll get through it, and we’ll come out on the other side better. We always do.
I have good friends in China, and I feel for them. I think I feel for us, too, with the COVID-19 virus emerging here. The market is way down, on paper we’ve lost a ton of wealth, and people are losing jobs. I had a gig in Singapore and I would have been heading over there. Nope. Not now.
All the above aside, I find myself thinking more and more about my friends in China, and the ride Joe Gresh and I took across China. And the food we ate (we ate a lot of strange stuff, and a lot of watermelon). And the pretty girls. And the roads and the people. This summer it will be four years since that ride. It was the grandest ride I’ve ever done and the greatest adventure I’ve ever had. With that as an introduction and without a lot of narrative, I’ve got a ton of photos to share with you from that epic road trip. Enjoy, my friends…
Riding China was a good ride. I’d like to do it again someday. In the meantime, keep the faith, folks. Things will get better.
You know, I did one of the very first San Gabriel videos when those bikes first came to America. It, too, was a hoot.
