Zongshen – Page 9 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

A CSC Supermoto TT250

I stopped by to visit with the boys at CSC Motorcycles yesterday morning and the TT250 Supermoto setup you see above stopped me in my tracks. This, my friends, is one seriously good looking motorcycle. Seriously good looking, seriously well equipped, and seriously inexpensive. Think new hubs and aluminum wheels, custom tires, new disks, a matching red anodized sprocket, anodized red footpegs, and red grips. Don’t like red? CSC has a bunch of colors you can order the Supermoto package in to suit your tastes. But that red and black is going to be hard to beat.

I own a TT250 (one from the very first shipment) and I like it a lot. I played a minor role in helping to configure and bring that motorcycle to the US, and I’ve toured Baja on it. It’s a grand bike and it sells for just $2,195. And to close out the last of the 2019s, CSC is knocking $200 off that. You’ll make up that amount and a bit more configuring it with the Supermoto option shown above, but you’d still have a brand new motorcycle for something around $3,000 (roughly the price of a set of BMW saddlebags).

A CSC motorcycle is one of the best values in the motorcycle world. I’ve maintained that from Day One, and I’ve got the miles under my belt in Asia, America, South America, and Baja to back it up.

Take a look at some of the details on this bike:

Here’s the tab on all of the above:

Red and black always work for me. Those are my school colors (go Scarlet Knights!), they just look good, and the bike kind of matches my Gear’d Hardware ZX2 wristwatch.

Red and black works on a lot of things, one of them being this Gear’d Hardware ZX2 watch!

Hey, I spoke with good buddy Baja John yesterday. I’m still thinking about a quick run down to his place in Baja next month. I need to get my knees in the Baja breeze. John is like me…he rides a TT250 and an RX3, too. Maybe I can talk Gresh into a ride…that would be fun!

Want to read about the TT250 and other bikes in Baja? Give a click here!

The Perfect Bike?

This was a blog I wrote for CSC about 6 years ago, and it’s still relevant. Earlier this year I posted a photo showing my Harley in Baja and Gresh made a good comment: Any motorcycle you take a trip on is an adventure motorcycle. I agree with that. The earlier blogs on my Harley Softail had me thinking about this question again: What is the perfect motorcycle?

Cruisers. Standards. Sports bikes. Dirt bikes. Dual sports. Big bikes. Small bikes. Whoa, I’m getting dizzy just listing these.

The Good Old Days

In the old days, it was simple. There were motorcycles. Just plain motorcycles. You wanted to ride, you bought a motorcycle. And they were small, mostly. I started on a 90cc Honda (that’s me in that photo to the right). We’d call it a standard today, if such a thing still existed.

Then it got confusing. Bikes got bigger. Stupidly so, in my opinion. In my youth, a 650 was a huge motorcycle, and the streets were ruled by bikes like the Triumph Bonneville and the BSA Lightning. Today, a 650 would be considered small. The biggest Triumph today has a 2300cc engine. I don’t follow the Harley thing anymore, but I think their engines are nearly that big, too. The bikes weigh close to half a ton. Half a ton!

I’ve gone through an evolution of sorts on this topic. Started on standards, migrated into cruisers after a long lapse, went to the rice rockets, then morphed into dual sports.

Cruisers and Adventure Bikes

The ADV bug hit me hard about 15 years ago. I’d been riding in Baja a lot and my forays occasionally took me off road. Like many folks who drifted back into motorcycles in the early 1990s, the uptick in Harley quality bit me. As many of us did, I bought my obligatory yuppie bike (the Heritage Softail) and the accompanying zillion t-shirts (one from every Harley dealer along the path of every trip I ever took). I had everything that went along with this kind of riding except the tattoo (my wife and a modicum of clear thinking on my part drew the line there). Leather fringe, the beanie helmet, complimentary HOG membership, and the pot belly. I was fully engaged.

Unlike a lot of yuppie riders of that era, though, I wasn’t content to squander my bucks on chrome, leather fringe, and the “ride to live, live to ride” schlock. I wanted to ride, and ride I did. All over the southwestern US and deep into Mexico. Those rides were what convinced me that maybe an 800+ lb cruiser was not the best bike in the world for serious riding…

The Harley had a low center of gravity, and I liked that. It was low to the ground, and I didn’t like that. And it was heavy. When that puppy started to drift in the sand, I just hung on and hoped for the best. Someone was looking out for me, because in all of that offroading down there in Baja, I never once dropped it. As I sit here typing this, enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee that Susie just made for me, I realize that’s kind of amazing.

The other thing I didn’t like about the Harley was that I couldn’t carry too much stuff on it without converting that bike into a sort of rolling bungee cord advertisement. The bike’s leather bags didn’t hold very much, the Harley’s vibration required that I constantly watch and tighten their mounting hardware, and the whole arrangement really wasn’t a good setup for what I was doing. The leather bags looked cool, but that was it. It was bungee cords and spare bags to the rescue on those trips…

Sports Bikes

The next phase for me involved sports bikes. They were all the rage in the early 90s and beyond, but to me they basically represent the triumph of marketing hoopla over common sense. I bought a Suzuki TL1000S (fastest bike I ever owned), and I toured Baja with it. It would be hard to find a worse bike for that kind of riding. The whole sports bike thing, in my opinion, was and is stupid. You sit in this ridiculous crouched over, head down position, and if you do any kind of riding at all, by the end of the day your wrists, shoulders, and neck are on fire. My luggage carrying capacity was restricted to a small tankbag and a ridiculous-looking tailbag.

I was pretty hooked on the look, though, and I went through a succession of sports bikes, including the TL1000S, a really racy Triumph Daytona 1200 (rode that one from Mexico to Canada), and a Triumph Speed Triple. Fast, but really dumb as touring solutions, and even dumber for any kind of off road excursion.

Phase III for me, after going through the Harley “ride to live” hoopla and the Ricky Racer phases, was ADV riding and dual sport bikes. The idea here is that the bike is equally at home on the street or in the dirt. Dual purpose…dual sport. I liked the idea, and I thought it would be a winner for my kind of riding.

A BMW GS versus Triumph’s Tiger

The flavor of the month back then was the BMW GS. I could never see myself on a Beemer, but I liked the concept. I was a Triumph man back in those days, and the Triumph Tiger really had my attention. A couple of my friends were riding the big BMW GS, but I knew I didn’t want a Beemer. In my opinion, those bikes are overpriced. The Beemers are heavy (over 600 lbs on the road), they have a terrible reputation for reliability, and I think they looked goofy. The Tiger seemed to be a better deal than the Beemer, and it sure had the right offroad look. Tall, an upright seating position (I had enough of that sports bike nonsense), and integrated luggage. So, I bit the bullet and shelled out something north of $10K back in ’06 for this beauty…

The Triumph had a few things going for it…I liked the detachable luggage, it was fast, it got good gas mileage (I could go 200+ miles between gas stations), and did I mention it was fast?

The Tiger’s Shortfalls

Looks can be deceiving, though, and that Tiger was anything but an off-road bike. It was still well over 600 lbs on the road with a full tank of gas, and in the soft stuff, it was terrifying. I never dropped the Triumph, but I sure came close one time. On a ride out to the Old Mill in Baja (a really cool old hotel right on the coast a couple hundred miles south of the border), the soft sand was bad. Really bad. Getting to the Old Mill involved riding through about 5 miles of soft sand, and it scared the stuffing out of me. I literally tossed and turned all night worrying about the ride out the next morning. It’s not supposed to be like that, folks.

And the Tiger was tall. Too tall, in my opinion. I think all of the current dual sport bikes are too tall. I guess the manufacturers do that because their marketing studies show a lot of basketball players buy dual sports. Me? I don’t play basketball and I never cared for a seat that high. Just getting on the Tiger was scary. After throwing my leg over the seat, I’d fight to lean the bike upright, and not being able to touch the ground on the right side until I had the thing upright was downright unnerving. I never got over that initial “getting on the bike” uneasiness. What were those engineers thinking?
The other thing that surprised me about the Tiger was that it was uncomfortable. The seat was hard (not comfortably hard, like a well designed seat should be, but more like sitting on small beer keg), and the foot pegs were way too high. I think they did that foot peg thing to make the bike lean over more, but all it did for me was make me feel like I was squatting all day. Not a good idea.

Kawasaki’s KLR 650

I rode the Tiger for a few years and then sold it. Even before I sold it, though, I had bought a new KLR 650 Kawasaki. It was a big step down in the power department (I think it has something like 34 or 38 horsepower), but I had been looking at the KLR for years. It seemed to be right…something that was smaller, had a comfortable riding position, and was reasonably priced (back then, anyway).

I had wanted a KLR for a long time, but nobody was willing to let me ride one. That’s a common problem with Japanese motorcycle dealers. And folks, this boy ain’t shelling out anything without a test ride first. I understand why they do it (they probably see 10,000 squids who want a test ride for every serious buyer who walks into a showroom), but I’m old fashioned and crotchety. I won’t buy anything without a test ride. This no-test-ride thing kept me from pulling the trigger on a KLR for years. When I finally found a dealer who was willing to let me ride one (thank you, Art Wood), I wrote the check and got on the road…and the off road…

My buddy John and I have covered a lot of miles on our KLRs through Baja and elsewhere. I still have my KLR, but truth be told, I only fire it up three or four times a year. It’s a big bike. Kawi says the KLR is under 400 lbs, but with a full tank of gas on a certified scale, that thing is actually north of 500 lbs. I was shocked when I saw that on the digital readout. And, like all of the dual sports, the KLR is tall. It still gives me the same tip-over anxiety as the Tiger did when I get on it. And I know if I ever dropped it, I’d need a crew to get it back on its feet.

That thing about dropping a bike is a real consideration. I’ve been lucky and I haven’t dropped a bike very often. But it can happen, and when it does, it would be nice to just be able to pick the bike up.

Muddy Baja

On one of our Baja trips, we had to ride through a puddle that looked more like a small version of Lake Michigan. I got through it, but it was luck, not talent. My buddy Dave was not so lucky…he dropped his pristine Yamaha mid-puddle…

The fall broke the windshield and was probably a bit humiliating for Dave, but the worst part was trying to lift the Yamaha after it went down. Slippery, muddy, wet…knee deep in a Mexican mudbath. Yecchh! It took three of us to get the thing upright and we fell down several times while doing so. Thinking back on it now, we probably looked pretty funny. If we had made a video of it, it probably would have gone viral.

The Perfect Bike: A Specification

So, where is this going…and what would my definition of the perfect touring/dual sport/ADV bike be?

Here’s what I’d like to see:

Something with a 250cc to 500cc single-cylinder engine. My experience with small bikes as a teenager and my more recent experience has convinced me that this is probably the perfect engine size. Big engines mean big bikes, and that kind of gets away from what a motorcycle should be all about. Water cooled would be even better. The Kawi KLR is water cooled, and I like that.

A dual sport style, with a comfortable riding position. No more silly road racing stuff. I’m a grown man, and when I ride, I like to ride hundreds of miles a day. I want my bike to have a riding position that will let me do that.

A windshield. It doesn’t have to be big…just something that will flip the wind over my helmet. The Kawi and the Triumph got it right in that department.

Integrated luggage. The Triumph Tiger got that part right. The KLR, not so much.

Light weight. Folks, it’s a motorcycle…not half a car. Something under 400 lbs works for me. If it gets stuck, I want to be able to pull it out of a puddle. If it drops, I want to be able to pick it up without a hoist or a road crew. None of the current crop of big road bikes meets this requirement.

Something that looks right and is comfortable. I liked the Triumph’s looks. But I want it to be comfortable.

Something under $5K. Again, it’s a motorcycle, not a car. My days of dropping $10K or so on a motorcycle are over. I’ve got the money, but I’ve also got the life experiences that tell me I don’t need to spend stupidly to have fun.

It was maybe a year after that blog that the RX3 came on the scene, and it answered the mail nicely. A year or two after the RX3 hit the scene, BMW, Kawasaki, and one or two others introduced smaller ADV motorcycles. I commented that these guys were copying Zongshen. One snotty newspaper writer told me I was delusional if I thought BMW, Kawi, and others copied Zongshen. I think that’s exactly what happened, but I don’t think they did as good a job as Zongshen did.

If you’ve got an opinion, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!

Never miss an ExhaustNotes blog! Sign up here…

Lunch with Marty and the boys

Marty and his 145,000-mile BMW K1200RS. That’s my RX3 in the background.

I’ve been riding with good buddy Marty since the early 2000s (it’s been close to 20 years now), and we’ve covered miles all over the US, Mexico, and Canada. Marty has owned the BMW K1200RS you see in the above photo since it was new. He owns and has owned a bunch of exotic bikes (Ducatis, Aprilias, Triumphs, other BMWs, and more), but he prefers the K1200RS and he told me he’s keeping it forever.

I’ve got a bunch of good friends I ride and socialize with, and I know all of them through Marty. We all get together for coffee at the Brown’s BMW dealership on Saturday morning. That’s followed by lunch, and maybe we’ll talk about the next big ride. We frequently talk about rides we’ve done in the past. Sometimes the conversation turns to politics, and we all have strong opinions. Some of the guys are right (the ones who agree with me), and some of them are wrong (the ones who don’t), but it doesn’t matter. Every once in a while I inject the thought that the problem in America is that the guys who really know how to run the country are screwing around drinking coffee at Brown’s and riding their motorcycles. It usually gets a laugh, even though the guys have heard that line about 800 times.

I like the get-togethers at Brown’s, although sometimes I’ll go months without getting over there. I don’t know why, because I always enjoy it when I go. And I like riding my RX3 to our Saturday morning meetings. It’s an excuse to get out on my favorite motorcycle (not that anyone needs an excuse to go for a motorcycle ride). Sometimes folks ask about my motorcycle; more than a few motorcycle riders have never seen an RX3. Some folks think it’s a BMW, even though BMW has their own competitor in the small adventure touring motorcycle category (that’s the BMW G 310 GS and you can read our road test of it here). Whatever. My RX3 is slathered with decals denoting some of the big rides I’ve done, and I guess that gets it some credibility in a crowd known for high mileage.

While I’m at the Brown BMW dealership, I like to check out the vintage and new motorcycles. The old bikes are beautiful, and some of the new ones are, too…

A mid-’60s 600cc BMW. Those old bikes are drop dead gorgeous.

A new old stock (that is to say, a leftover) 2017 Boxer café bike. It’s stunning. It’s a hell of a deal, but there’s no package deal for a chiropractor, and I’d need one if I rode this bike. I can dream, though. The styling on this bike really makes it for me.

I tried to show the difference in size between a brand new GS 1250 and the mid-’60s BMW, and I failed. The photo doesn’t do the bikes justice. Side-by-side, the difference in size is shocking. The GS is outrageously huge. The older BMW seems to be the perfect size for me.

So that’s it for today, folks, except to ask a quick question: Do you have a riding buddy like Marty in your life? Hey, we’d love to hear about it, so drop us a comment or two and let us know!

On being a Gym Rat, the RX3, Yoo-Hoo, and Lucas Fuel Treatment

I’ve been drinking my stash of Yoo-Hoo (the review is in the works), but wouldn’t you know it, each of those little containers is 100 calories. To a male model like myself, that means more time at the gym, and that’s what I’ve been doing. Usually I roll over there in the Subie, but today was a bit different. I rode to the gym on my old RX3.

It sounds funny to refer to the RX3 as old. Four years ago, it was the hottest thing since sliced bread, and news of an inexpensive, fully-equipped, adventure touring machine was big news indeed. The RX3 price has gone up since then, but the RX3 is still a hot smoking hot deal. Mine came in on the very first shipment from Chongqing, it has about 20,000 miles on it, and it’s still going strong. I don’t ride my RX3 much these days because I’m usually on someone else’s motorcycle for an ExNotes blog (the RX4, the Royal Enfields, the Janus bikes, the Genuine G400c), but every time I get on my bike I still feel the excitement I first felt when I rode an RX3 for the first time. That was in China. You can badmouth small bikes and Chinese bikes all you want, but I know better. The RX3 is one of the world’s great motorcycles.

I’m going to do a trip on my RX3, most likely up the Pacific Coast, in the next couple of months. I’m thinking something leisurely, around 200 miles each day, with stops at the La Purisima Mission, Jocko’s in Nipomo (best barbeque on the planet), a run up the Pacific Coast Highway to Carmel, and then a jaunt east through Hollister to Pinnacles, Highway 25, and the 198 down the center of California. I’ll probably swing further east for a Del Taco burrito in Barstow (it’s the location of the original Del Taco, and if I had to explain why that’s significant, you might not get it). Yeah, that could work. Lots of photos, lots of meeting new people, and lots of fun.

What would be particularly cool on a trip like that is the RX3’s fuel economy. We’re up around $4 per gallon here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia (about a dollar of that is taxes), and being on a bike that sips fuel always makes me feel like I’m getting away with something. I consistently get better than 70 mpg on my RX3. That’s a good thing. Gresh seems to have stumbled on to something on his B0nneville adventure using Lucas fuel treatment in his Husky. His fuel economy improved significantly after adding Lucas. I’ve always used Lucas fuel treatment in my bike, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the reason I’ve always had great fuel economy.

Anyway, lots more coming up, folks. Stay tuned.

Read about some of our other adventures on the ExhaustNotes Epic Rides page!

My Three Flags Classic RX4

My 3FC19 RX4 motorcycle on the road last night. It’s a great motorcycle.

I’m getting excited about the upcoming Southern California Motorcycle Association’s Three Flags Classic adventure and the CSC RX4 I’ll be riding on this epic rally. I’ve been putting a few miles on the RX4 CSC graciously provided and I thought I would fill you in on a few of the specifics I’m discovering on this bike.

I have a measured mile by my home and I was happy to see that the RX4 clocked it at exactly 1.0 miles. I think that’s pretty much what all the motorcycles do these days for obvious reasons. If the odometer read more miles than you actually covered, the manufacturer would be cheating you out of a portion of the warranty, and if the odometer read fewer miles, they’d be warranting the bike for longer than they intended to. The point is moot with a CSC motorcycle; their bikes are warranted for unlimited miles. But it’s nice to know that whatever distance it says you’ve gone is the real distance.

Command central and my high-tech data bank. The ergos on this bike are good.

The next thing I checked was fuel economy, and I did so based on a mix of freeway, city, and mountain road riding. The bike I rode, with roughly 1200 miles on the clock, returned 66.34 mpg. I think CSC advertises 60 mpg for the RX4; I did 10% better than that with the one I’m riding.

Next up was motorcycle speed indicated by the speedometer versus GPS indicated speed. I found that the speedometer was 15% to 8% optimistic, depending on velocity. At higher speeds, the speedometer error decreased to the 8% range. It’s pretty common for motorcycle speedometers to be about 10% optimistic. It’s also very common for the percentage difference between actual speed and speedometer-indicated speed to not be constant (the error percentage changes with speed).

Indicated versus Actual MPH on the RX4 I’m riding in the 2019 Three Flags Classic. Speedometer error, as a percentage, decreased as velocity increased. The bike will do way more than 80 mph; I just didn’t want to go any faster for this test.

Next up was a quick look at engine RPM versus indicated speed. The RX4 cranks way less RPM at every speed compared to the RX3. Here’s what it looks like on the RX4…

Velocity versus RPM on the RX4. The RX4 engine runs at lower rpm for any given speed than does the RX3.

The RX4 has a torquey motor, and I was surprised at how low the RPM is at any given speed compared to the RX3. I know on my RX3, 80 mph is somewhere near the redline at 9000 RPM. On the RX4, the engine is just loafing along at a meager 6000 RPM. The RX4 engine pulls strongly from anything above 3000 RPM. You can downshift to move away more quickly, but you don’t need to on this bike.

And hey, because I know you’ll ask, here’s what the bike sounds like…

Another area in which the RX4 excels is its lighting. The headlight does a fantastic job; I was impressed riding it at night.

Up above the Pomona Valley with the sun going down. An orange bike photographs well, don’t you think? And hey, Orlando, what’s the fastest color?

That’s it for now. I’ll have a lot more info on the RX4 and the 3FC19 ride, and I’ll be posting from the road every day. Make sure you sign up for our automatic blog updates so you don’t miss anything!

Want to learn more about the RX4 motorcycle? Take a look at our comparisons of the RX4 to the RX3 and the KLR 650 here. And don’t forget to visit CSC’s website, too, for more information on the RX4 and CSC’s other motorcycles.

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 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!

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!

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.

5K@8K

As Gomer Pyle would say: Golllleeeee!

That was my reaction when the photos you see below popped up on my Facebook feed, telling me it had been four years since I posted them. Yep, it was in July of 2015 that yours truly, Joe Gresh, and riders from China and Colombia descended on CSC Motorcycles to christen the RX3 with a ride through the great American West. So Cal to Sturgis, due west to Washington and Oregon, and then a run down the coast home, hitting every National Park and site worth seeing along the way. It was an amazing adventure, and truth be told, I was shocked that it has been four years already. That meant it was about four years ago that CSC brought the RX3 to America, it was four years ago that I first met Joe Gresh in person (a living legend, in my mind), and it was four years ago that we took a ride that made the entire motorcycle world sit up and take notice. A dozen guys, a dozen 250cc motorcycles fresh off the boat from China, 5000 miles, and not a single breakdown. Tell me again about Chinese motorcycles are no good? Nah, don’t waste your breath. I know better.

It was a hell of a ride, and good buddy John Welker did a hell of a job as our very own Ferdinand Magellan, defining the route, making all of the hotel reservations, keeping us entertained with great stories, and more. These are the same photos (I took them all) that popped up on Facebook. They represent only a small portion of the ride, but they give you an idea of what it was like. It was grand.

Somewhere along Highway 89 in Arizona. The guy in the foreground is our very own Baja John Welker. That’s Joe Gresh way at the other end of this row of motorcycles.

Same location, with Hugo out front. Hugo is the Zongshen factory rep. He’s a great guy who kept us constantly entertained.

Mr. Tso, posing for me in Zion National Park. This guy makes for a great photograph. He rode with us in China, too!

We stayed in Panguitch, Utah, the night before we visited Bryce Canyon National Park. Dinner that evening was at the Cowboy’s Smoke House. I liked it so much I later returned with my wife just to have dinner there.

Tony and his mascot inside Cowboy’s. Great times.

Bryce Canyon National Park. Everyone was captivated by this place. It was awesome.

Kyle, one of the Chinese riders, and Big John, our chase vehicle driver. Good guys both.

The crew when we returned to So Cal. From left to right, it’s Juan from Colombia, Joe Gresh, Tony from China, Mr. Tso from China, John Welker, Lester from China, Kong from China, Big John Gallardo, Hugo Liu, Gabriel from Colombia, and Kyle from China.

The obligatory photo at Roy’s in Amboy, somewhere in the Mojave Desert. God Almighty it was hot that day.

The guys at the Grand Canyon…Lester, Kong, Tso, and Hugo.

In Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, at an impromptu photo stop.

I grabbed this photo of Joe Gresh along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It looks like he’s Photoshopped into the picture, but he’s not.

Same spot, different guys: Gabriel and Juan from Colombia. Juan later invited me to ride with him in Colombia, and I went. That, too, was an incredible ride.

So there you have it, or at least snippets of what was one of the greatest rides I’ve ever done. I’m hoping Facebook has more of these anniversary photos pop up for me, as the ride lasted 19 days and I know I posted more on that ride. Good times. Great riders. Superior camaraderie.

As always, there’s more good stuff coming your way. Stay tuned!

Hey, the whole story of that ride is here. You can get the whole nine yards by buying your own copy of 5000 Miles At 8000 RPM. There’s a lot more good information in there, too, like CSC’s no-dealer approach to market, how we dealt with the Internet trolls who tried to hurt the company, the first CSC Baja trip, the RX3’s strengths and weaknesses, and much, much more!

3FC19 and more…

First up today…our good buddy Gary’s Vintage Yamaha Enduro site. Gary alerted me to it a few days ago, I’ve enjoyed poking around on it, and you will, too.

This is a cool site about cool bikes. Spend some time here; you’ll be a better person for doing so!

I’ve always admired those vintage Yamaha enduros. Gresh has one and it’s one his favorite motorcycles. I remember the maroon 360 Yamaha offered back in the early 1970s (I was still in college then). I always wanted one, but it’s an itch I haven’t scratched yet. Maybe someday. I’m still young.

Good buddy Buffalo, a world-class artist who rode with us on one of the Baja rides, created a line art RX3 motorcycle and it’s available in several formats. Buffalo loves riding and he loves his RX3. Hey, what’s not to like?

This is muey cool, and it’s from a muey cool dude.

Buffalo is a very cool guy who’s done some very cool things. We’ve written about Buffalo before here on the ExNotes blog. Buffalo also has a very cool blog (MotoFritz.com), and it’s another I recommend you visit. Buffalo (along with his cousin and niece) recently toured Vietnam on motorcycles, and there are cool videos on the MotoFritz blog from that trip.

I’m going hunting. Deer this time, in Idaho. Good buddy J invited me to head up north with him later this year to chase Bambi, and I’ll be posting about that here on the ExNotes blog.

Good buddy J and the Power Wagon on an earlier Baja expedition.

I mentioned J recently when I described his new website (Sierra Mountain Passes), but J and I go back a few years. We first met when we were involved in manufacturing high performance sails for ocean racing yachts. Think a million bucks for a set of sails for one boat (and the sails are only good for one season). Good times, those were.

But back on the deer quest…I’m starting to research venison recipes (yeah, I know, it’s a little early for that and I am counting my chickens before the eggs have hatched). I’m really looking forward to this adventure. We may get a deer, or we may get skunked. Either way, it’s going to be fun. I’m thinking I’ll take my .300 Weatherby Vanguard. It’s way more power than I’ll need, but we’ll be in some rugged country, the Vanguard is my only composite-stocked rifle, and the thing is a tack driver.

The Weatherby Vanguard in 300 Weatherby Magnum.

More cool stuff…you’ve seen the series we did on the 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally from Mexico to Canada. I rode with good buddy Marty, and it was a hell of an adventure.

Good buddy Marty on the left and yours truly at Lake Louise in Canada during 3FC05. There were signs warning us of grizzlies in the area!

The 3FC is one of the world’s premier motorcycle events, and it’s sponsored by one of the world’s premier motorcycle clubs: The Southern California Motorcycle Association. As it turns out, the SCMA is one of our biggest ExNotes fans. They’ve run our ExNotes stories in the SCMA newsletter and they follow our zany ramblings daily. Good buddy Gonzo, their president, suggested that I join the festivities again this year for the 3FC19 rally, and you know what? I’m going. I’ll be on a new CSC RX4 (one from the very first shipment), and I’ll be blogging the hell out of the ride the entire way from Mexico through the United States and on up into Canada. And then I’ll do the same thing on the way home, for which I’ll take a different (to be determined) route.

The CSC RX4 up in the San Gabriel Mountains.

The CSC RX4 is an exciting motorcycle. There was a recent article on this bike in Adventure Motorcycle magazine, but I thought that review was a bit on the short side. (How about that? A review of a review!) You can read a lot more about the RX4 right here on ExNotes, and you’ll see a whole lot more when I do the 3FC19 on one of the new CSC 450cc RX4 adventure bikes.