Tag: CSC Motorcycles

High end, high class small bikes…

On its face, it seemed like a weak market to target…folks  who want very high end, small displacement, expensive custom motorcycles. But it worked.

When CSC revived the Mustang motorcycle concept 10 years ago, the company didn’t really have a grand plan, a handle on the market, or even a clearly defined name. CSC was originally California Scooter Company, and the original plan was to re-introduce a concept pioneered by the Mustang Motor Company in the postwar 1940s.

Original vintage Mustangs. Both of these bikes, along with more than a dozen others, are in Steve Seidner’s personal Mustang collection (the largest vintage Mustang collection in the world).

The idea was to spin off of Pro-One Performance Manufacturing’s line of very high billet and other accessories (and complete large V-twin custom motorcycles), and apply it to a small, modern version of the Mustang.  Pro-One, CSC’s sister company, was founded by Steve Seidner (the same guy who started CSC).   And boy oh boy, did those little bikes sell. They were beautiful little creations. Jewels, actually. Hand made, and built to extremely high standards. Mirror-like paint. Billet. Chrome. Little choppers. Expensive little jewels you could actually ride.

Ah, but that name…the California Scooter Company. It created confusion. People would see the new California Scooter modern Mustang and ask: Is it a scooter or a motorcycle? They didn’t get that the name was old school. Back in the day, antiques (folks like yours truly) called any bike a scooter. A Harley was a scooter and so was a Triumph…as in “I’m going to ride down to Cabo on my Scooter.”

Me? I wanted to tell anybody who asked that question (is it a motorcycle or a scooter?) that they were too dumb to ride either, but I couldn’t do that. Then one day, the boss hit on the idea of just calling the company CSC Motorcycles. You know, go with the tradition of other world-class marques with three-letter names: BMW, BSA, AJS, KTM, and more. And that worked.  The dumbass scooter or motorcycle questions stopped, and the bikes continued to sell.

Back to the modern Mustangs…the initial thought was that the bikes would sell for $4,995, and they’d be a hit with young folks.

The modern California Scooter Greaser in the San Gabriel Mountains. Folks loved this bike and it was one of the best-selling paint themes.

Ah, what we didn’t know. The market will tell you what it is. Plans and fancy marketing studies mean nothing. A hit with young folks? The problem with young folks is that they don’t have any money and they don’t buy motorcycles. Hell, a lot of them don’t even want driver’s licenses. Just, like, you know, call an Uber.

Good buddy Walter B, back in the day, on his Knucklehead Harley-Davidson.

What we found out at CSC 10 years ago was that our modern Mustang market squarely centered on older folks (who often have a lot of money). Specifically, older folks who wanted a Mustang back in the day, but Dad said no. Or folks who rode big bikes way back when and who still wanted to ride, but they didn’t want to wrestle with 800-lb monsters.  Fast forward 60 years, Dad’s no longer around, an Advil a day is just the ticket, and what do you know, I can buy that Mustang I always wanted and still ride. And they did. In droves.

A near-standard CSC Mustang on the right, and two custom versions on the left. Nearly all California Scooters were extensively optioned with additional chrome, billet, and custom paint.

Almost no one bought the standard, no-accessories, $4,995 CSC 150. They could have (that bike featured a slew of custom high end stuff, like billet and chrome all over the place and a world class finish). But those old guys who were denied an opportunity to scratch that Mustang itch as teenagers wanted more. A lot more. They would call on the phone (“I don’t do the Internet”), option the little California Scooters up to over $10,000 with lots more bling (custom wheels, custom paint, and more), and then put it all on a credit card. They wouldn’t attempt to negotiate price. California Scooter buyers wanted to spend more. Negotiate a lower price? Nope, that would demean the purchasing experience. It was full boat, full freight, and here’s my security code number…

A custom California Scooter. This was the “Bobber” variant. Note the gangster whitewalls, chrome wire wheels, and other custom touches.
Steve Seidner built a personal aviation-themed custom California Scooter he called the P-51 (get it?…the P-51 Mustang).  Steve intended to keep the bike, but I put this photo on the CSC blog and it sold within an hour. Someone called with a godfather offer (a deal Steve couldn’t refuse).

Those little bikes were awesome. I owned one of the very first ones, and I found I was having more fun on 150cc than I had on bikes with ten times the displacement. I rode mine all the way to Cabo San Lucas and back, but that’s a story for another blog.  The Baja trip did a lot for CSC, too.  The 150cc bikes had Honda CG clone engines manufactured in Asia, and the Baja trips showed the bikes were supremely reliable.  We invited famous people to ride with us in Mexico and that was a force multiplier.  The press coverage was off the charts.

Simon Gandolfi, British novelist and world traveler, on the road in Baja with a California Scooter.  He cuts a commanding figure, doesn’t he?
Simon, suspenders flying, at speed on my CSC 150, just north of Cabo San Lucas.
Arlene Battishill, CEO of Go Go Gear, on the Sea of Cortez with her custom California Scooter.  Arlene later appeared on the TV show, Shark Tank, with this motorcycle.

One of the things that sticks in my mind is the uninformed and the ignorant occasionally posting somewhere on an Internet forum that you could get a used Sportster for the kind of money people were happily spending on California Scooters. These keyboard commandos just didn’t get it. You could actually get a new Sportster for that kind of money, but that wasn’t the point. California Scooter buyers didn’t want a Sportster. They wanted, and were happy to pay top dollar for, a custom-crafted bit of motorcycle jewelry that could be both admired and ridden. A current classic.

There’s a market for such a thing. I know. I was there.

Phase III: Climbing Mt. Baldy

Slick, taking a breather at the Mt. Baldy Lodge. My apologies for the mediocre image quality; all I had with me was my iPhone.

Phase III (pardon the electrical pun) of our City Slicker testing involved riding Slick from my home up to Mt. Baldy Village.   It’s a 2,500-foot climb over 9.2 miles, and it’s rough.  It’s a challenging climb on a small IC-engined motorcycle, and it’s really, really rough on a bicycle (as I know from personal experience).  I knew power consumption would be higher based on our Phase I and II testing (see those results here and here), but the earlier tests did not include steep climbs.  Phase III was a fairly steep uphill climb all the way, and then a steep descent all the way down.  Here’s the route I took, up and down…

A satellite map of the test route…north Upland to Mt. Baldy village.

I didn’t know how Slick would do, and I didn’t want to run the bike down more than 50% (you know, to make sure I had the juice to get home).  I decided in advance that if the bike hit the 50% energy remaining mark on the way up, I’d turn around and head back.

I need not have worried, though.  I sailed up to the Mt. Baldy Lodge (that first photo you see above) with 56% power remaining on the charge indicator.   I stopped to take a picture, and then I turned around and rode home.   Here’s what it looks like on a miles versus battery charge plot…

Miles versus Battery Charge, up and down Mt. Baldy Road.  The bike started with a 99% charge and was at 56% remaining after climbing from 1700 ft above sea level to 4193 ft above sea level.  On the way down, power consumption was dramatically lower; I covered the same distance using only 10% of the battery’s charge.

As you can see from the above chart, energy consumption on the way down was near zero.  I used 43% of the battery’s energy (from 99% to 56%) to make the 9.2-mile, 2500-ft-elevation climb, and then I used only 10% of the battery’s energy (from 56% to 46%) to cover the same distance riding downhill.  Cool.

I ran this test in the Eco mode, mostly because I didn’t want to use too much energy on the climb.  In the Eco mode on flat ground, the bike tops out at an indicated 37 mph (don’t forget that the speedometer is about 8-10% fast, so actual speed is lower).  On the climb, Slick slowed to an indicated 33 to 34 mph on the steepest hills, which is about what my 150cc CSC Mustang could manage.

On the way down the mountain, Slick ran 43-44 mph (still in the Eco mode), and the throttle became meaningless.  The bike coasted downhill faster than the motor could drive it.  It reminded me of my bicycle down this same stretch.  On my bicycle, I topped out at the same speed and pedaling was useless because my Bianchi was already going faster than I could pedal.

Watching Slick’s regeneration function on the dash was cool.  The red regen plug (to the left of the battery charge indicator) stayed red for most of the run downhill.  I previously wondered if the bike only regenerated at lower speeds; I now know it regens at all speeds when Slick is going faster than the motor is driving it.   Just like before, though, I never saw the charge percentage indicator go up (say, from 48% to 49%).  It just stayed at a given percentage for a much longer time.  I asked the wizards at Zongshen about this, and they confirmed it’s what they would expect.

The knee in the x-y plot at the 56% charge level is where I turned around (at the Mt. Baldy Lodge).   It shows that Slick uses way less energy going downhill than it does going uphill.   Like they say…duh.   The slight changes in the slope of each line (for the uphill section, and then for the downhill section) are due to changes in the grade on Mt. Baldy Road.  There were undulations in the road, and that’s why there are minor variances in the slope of the line on both the uphill and downhill portions of the graph.

Once I was home, I put Slick back on the charger for the ride back to CSC.   I’m headed out on a road trip next week, and I wanted to return the bike to Steve.

I did the climb up to Mt. Baldy with the lights off.  My bike is a preproduction sample, and it’s not wired to keep the lights on.   The production City Slickers will have the LED marker lights on all the time(that’s a US requirement).  The LEDs will consume a little energy, so the range will be somewhat less for the US bikes than what I’ve been reporting.

To get a feel for what the impact of having the lights on might be, when I returned the bike to CSC I rode there with the headlight and taillight on.  This is a more severe test than would be running the bike with only the LED lights (the headlight and taillight consumes more energy than the LEDs).   Previously, without the lights on the 16.4-mile ride to CSC from my home took 35% of the battery’s charge.   Running the same route today with the headlight and taillight on, I used 42% of the battery’s energy.   Note that this is more energy than would be consumed with just the LEDs (but it is representative of energy consumption when riding the bike at night).  And, I was hotfooting it a bit. I wanted to stay at around 34-35 mph, but Slick was smelling the barn and I frequently ran faster than that.

So there you have it.  Eco mode, Power mode, and a steep climb and descent on the CSC City Slicker.  Stay tuned; there’s more coming on this fascinating new electric motorcycle.  You’ll see it here first.

Getting my kicks, on Route 66…

Route 66 from Slick’s cockpit…

This is Phase II of our CSC City Slicker range testing.  Phase I examined how the bike performed in the Eco mode. In this phase, today I tested the bike’s range in the Power mode.

Bottom line first: The bike went further then Zongshen said it would. Zongshen claimed the bike would go 37 miles at 37 mph. I managed to go  40.7 miles when starting with a 100%-charged battery.  I attribute that to the fact that part of the course I ran today had a gradual downhill slope.

The next big thing…the newest bike in America on the grandest road in America: The CSC City Slicker on Route 66!

There’s a lot more to this test than what I did in the Eco mode testing. I should start out by telling you that this was not a test run on a perfectly flat, uninterrupted test track (I’m pretty sure if I did that I would have managed to get even a few more miles out of Slick). Nope, this was real world testing on American roads. In fact, I’d say it was real world testing on what is arguably the most famous road in America: Route 66.  (Cue in the theme music from the ‘60s TV show, Route 66).  It was that cool. Call me Todd. Arjiu can be Buzz. All we’d need is the Corvette.  But I digress…back to the main attraction.

Power mode, Amigo! It’s like kicking in the afterburners!

So, I live a little over 16 miles east of CSC at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. My home is at 1700 feet above sea level. CSC, from my home, is headed toward the ocean, and that means a gentle downhill slope all the way. CSC sits about 610 feet above sea level. You might wonder why all the topological details, and here’s the reason: I found during my Eco mode testing that Slick uses less energy going downhill than it does going uphill. The bike covered about a mile for each 1% of battery charge going downhill, and about 0.4 miles for each 1% of battery charge going uphill. One of the things I wanted to find out in today’s Power mode testing is how the bike would perform from an energy consumption perspective in the Power mode, going downhill and then uphill.

I guess I ought to point out that I had a difficult time staying at 37 mph during this test, which is the speed for which Zongshen provided the range statistic.  Every time I wasn’t really paying attention, I found myself going 42 or 43 mph (and those higher speeds use more energy). It was a challenge watching the road, watching the battery charge indicator, watching the mileage, and recording the data on my high-tech data logging system.

The ExhaustNotes.us high-tech data logger…

The bottom line here is I probably penalized the bike a little because I spent more time than I thought I would above 37 mph.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what’s magical about 37 mph, I’m only hanging on that number because that’s the data point Zongshen gave us for range and speed in the Power mode: 37 miles at 37 mph.  And in case you’re wondering why Zongshen picked the number 37, they really weren’t being cute about it.  Zongshen’s real magic number was 60.  37 miles at 37 mph is 60 km at 60 kph.  They’re on the metric system.

To cut the chase, here are the results…

Lots of good info. The top line with the yellow dots was the ride out. The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.

I know that’s a complicated chart, but hey, I’m an engineer, and there’s a lot going on here. Let me explain it a bit.

I only recorded the data with each 5% decrease in battery charge for this test. I was moving a lot faster than I was in the Eco mode test, and I didn’t want to try to capture data points with every 1% decrease in battery charge.

The top line (the one with the yellow data points) was my ride out to CSC and beyond. It was downhill for the first 16.4 miles (from my home to the CSC plant).  Starting with a 100% battery charge, my ride to the CSC plant took me down to 65% charge remaining.  Stated differently, I used 35% of the battery charge to get from my place to CSC.  I was impressed.  If I was still a working stiff this would be a cool commuter bike.

I wanted to run the battery all the way down until the bike quit, and that meant I kept riding back and forth between Azusa, through Duarte, and into Monrovia.  Those are the yellow data points on the upper line after reaching the CSC plant. I kept doing that until the battery hit 30% charge remaining (at which point the red plug to the left of the charge indicator started flashing, just as it had in the Eco mode test).

The dashboard battery charge indicator. The red plug lights when the bike is being charged by the external charger. It will start flashing when the charge level gets down to 30% while you are riding the motorcycle. It also lights up during regenerative braking.

When I got down to 15%, the bike went into its “limp home” mode again, just as it had in the Eco mode. When this happens, it accelerates much more gradually (that’s a gentle way of saying Slick is getting tired), and the bike tops out at about 20 mph.

I kept going in the CSC parking lot, riding in circles until the bike hit 6% charge remaining. I rode for another 0.4 miles at 6% charge when Slick called it a day. I watched to see if it would indicate 5% just before giving up the ghost, but I didn’t see that on the dash. I think when the bike drops from 6% to 5%, you don’t get to see it indicate 5%, but that’s where it quits.

To my surprise, I blew right through Zongshen’s claimed 37 mile range. I made it to 40.7 miles. And, as I mentioned in the Eco mode test, the odometer is about 5% pessimistic, so the indicated 40.7 miles is actually 42.7 miles. This is good, folks.  Again, though, the fact that I went more than 37 miles is at least partly due to the fact that this leg of the test was slightly downhill.

I mentioned in the specs that the bike has regenerative braking. When that occurs, the red plug to the left of the battery charge bar illuminates. I never actually got it to cause the indicated charge percentage to increase, though. If it was at, say, 67% and it went into a regenerative braking mode, there wasn’t enough regeneration going on to bump it back up to 68%. The bike is obviously consuming less energy and it is charging, but not enough to register on the numerical percentage indicator. You do see the charge bar go up sharply (it swings to the right) while the red charging plug flickers on during deceleration. It’s cool.  You feel like you’re giving something back.

The other thing I could not discern is how the algorithm operates the regeneration function. It seemed to me that the regeneration light came on while I was decelerating as my speeds dropped below about 10 mph and I was braking. I don’t know if that’s because there’s a lag between when the regeneration actually starts and when it is displayed on the dash, or if Zongshen has programmed something into the bike to prevent too much regeneration. I’m emailing them to find out, and I’ll let you know.

My big disappointment today?   There was only one:  When I got to CSC, all the burritos were gone. Saturday is burrito day at CSC. But I’m still young, and I’ve been working on handling disappointment.

Steve had a freshly charged battery waiting for me, and I wanted to do a video of the battery removal. One of the guys following the ExhaustNotes blog asked for that, so here you go…

Guys, when you see the video, be gentle.  I’m not Cecil B. DeMille.  I know that.  You need to know that I know that.  If you want to be a video critic, start a blog or something.

With a new battery in place, it was time for my ride home. I was very curious to see how this would go, because now instead of descending from 1700 feet to 610 feet, I’d be climbing that same 16.4-mile grade.  I’ll post the graph here again so it’s easier to put the words and the music together…

The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.

The bottom data line (the one with the green data points) shows energy consumption as a function of miles on the uphill ride home. You can see that the bike uses more energy going uphill than it does going downhill (again, duh, but the data shown in the above graph makes it clear).  Some folks are confused by x-y plots (hell, some folks are confused by, well…never mind).   Don’t look at this graph and think that the shorter lower line with the green dots means the bike will only go 16.4 miles.  I still had 50% of the battery charge left at that point.  I was home.  I parked the bike, went inside, and opened a can of Tecate (which I’m nursing as I write this blog).

So, here’s the take-away from today’s testing:

  1.  The bike goes further in the Power mode than Zongshen said it would.  This is good, but temper my results with the course I rode (part of it was slightly downhill).
  2. I used 35% of the battery’s energy going from my home to CSC (a gradual descent) and I used 50% of the battery’s energy going from CSC to my home (a gradual climb).
  3. This motorcycle is a lot of fun and it gets a ton of attention.  Every time somebody stopped alongside me at a light, the questions and compliments started.  I don’t mind admitting I enjoyed that.
  4. I think these guys (that is, CSC) aren’t charging enough for the bike, but hey, what do I know?

And there you have it.  Slick’s on the charger now.  I’m going to the rifle range tomorrow to send some lead downrange.   On Monday or maybe a little later in the week, me and Slick are going to do some climbing up in the San Gabriels to see how the steeper grades affect range.  As always, if you have questions, post them in the Comments section, and I’ll do my best to get answers for you.

Slick specs…

I’ve been helping CSC in the last few days compile specifications for the new City Slicker electric motorcycle, and the bike is looking better and better the more I learn about it.  Here’s what’s going up on the CSC site in the near future…

Any questions?  Post them in the comments section, and I’ll see if I can get answers.