RX3 – Page 3 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Day 1: Adventure Riding the Andes!

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!

Medellin!

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!

CSC’s new colors and some good adventure video…

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.

A note from Sergeant Zuo

Sergeant Zuo on our 2016 ride across China, somewhere along the Silk Road.

I recently wrote to my good buddy Sergeant Zuo, who led our 2016 ride across China. Zuo lives in Lanzhou, a huge refining center we visited on the China ride. He and I became great friends on that 38-day adventure. Zuo is a former Chinese Army senior NCO and in an earlier life I was a lowly lieutenant in the US Army. But hey, a lieutenant outranks even a senior noncommissioned officer, and every morning (even though we served in different armies), he’d snap to attention and salute me. And I would then return the salute. It was cool and it added to the good nature and relaxed camaraderie we all felt on the China adventure. Zuo is that rare natural leader you sometimes encounter when groups gather and he was perfect for the China ride. He made what could have a been a scary undertaking into a grand adventure. I would follow him anywhere, and I imagine the troops in the Army units he led felt the same way.

Sergeant Zuo along Qinghai Lake, one of the largest salt water lakes on the planet. We were about a third of the way into our ride when I took this photo.

Zuo owns an RX3 (he was one of the very first people to buy an RX3 in China) and it is his daily driver. He doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Chinese, but that had no impact on us. We spoke RX3 and riding, I guess, and we formed an immediate bond. A good motorcycle can do that, you know.

Sergeant Zuo on the ferry ride to Qingdao. Qingdao was our final destination on the China ride.

Our trip started in Chongqing, we rode to northwest China (the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert), then back to central China, and finally over to Beijing and then Qingdao. Qingdao was a name that stuck in my mind. Nearly 50 years ago I was on a US Army missile site in Korea and our primary target line pointed straight across the Yellow Sea at Qingdao. And now, here we were at the end of our China ride five decades later in that very same city.

Zuo, Gresh, I, and a dozen others rode our motorcycles right onto the beach at Qingdao, stripped down, and went swimming in the Yellow Sea’s cool waters. Damn, that felt good. After fighting the oppressive heat and humidity of a damp Chinese summer, I could have spent all day in that cool ocean water. Back in the day I was ready to launch missiles at bad guys coming from Qingdao; 50 years later I swam in the Yellow Sea with Zuo at that very same spot to wrap up the grandest adventure of my life.

With that as a backdrop, here’s the note from my good buddy Zuo:

Joe(大舅）：

谢谢您给我的信。

从网络里看到新型冠状病毒（CV-19）在美国蔓延，这个可怕的家伙成了人类共同的敌人，但是我们应该相信，它是会被战胜的！

我们这里的疫情虽然得到控制和缓解，但是疫情警戒还没有结束。

J，我很好，谢谢您。

阅读您和二舅的博客是我生活中的最大乐趣，看到你们快乐的玩很是高兴。因为你一直相信在大洋彼岸有一个和你惺惺相惜的好朋友一直在关注这您们，是吗？

等到疫情结束，如果能和您一起摩旅那将是我最幸福的等待。

非常想念您——我的良师益友。

代为向您的爱人问好。

祝愿您和二舅一切安好。

—— 左振义 2020年3月20日于中国.兰州

Yeah, I know, you don’t speak Chinese. That’s not a problem; we’ll just turn to Google’s translation site:

Joe (big uncle):

Thank you for your letter.

Seeing the spread of the new coronavirus (CV-19) in the United States from the Internet, this terrible guy has become a common enemy of humanity, but we should believe that it will be defeated! Although the epidemic situation here has been controlled and alleviated, the epidemic alert has not ended.

J, I’m fine, thank you.

Reading your and Erji’s blog is the biggest joy in my life, and it’s great to see you playing happily. Because you have always believed that there is a good friend who cares about you on the other side of the ocean, has you been paying attention to you.

When the epidemic is over, it will be my happiest waiting if I can travel with you.

I miss you so much–my mentor.

Say hello to your friend.

I wish you and Erji all the best.

—- Zuo Zhenyi in Lanzhou, China, March 20, 2020

About that “Erji” business…the Chinese quickly gave Gresh and me Chinese names. I was Dajiu (big uncle), and Joe was Erji (little uncle). After that initial christening, those were our names for the entire trip. It was cool.

You know, when this CV19 business is over, it would be grand to get Zuo over here for a US and Baja ride. It’s something to look forward to, and I promise you it’s going to happen.

Edit: Just in case you haven’t seen these videos, here you go. The first is Gresh’s China Ride video, the second is the one released by Zongshen. They’re both great.

The Royal Enfield, the RX3, the TT 250, and more…

So you’ve probably noticed I haven’t been riding too much lately. You know how it goes…it gets cold, you have other things going on in your life, you want to send some lead downrange, and on and on it goes.

I needed to break that pattern, and there’s no better way to do that than to buy a motorcycle. Yeah, I know…I already have two motorcycles (what has to be the world’s most well-traveled RX3, and a pristine, low miles TT 250). I like CSC motorcycles. But you may recall that Uncle Joe Gresh and I road tested two Enfields last year and I fell in love with the 650 Interceptor.

Down Mexico way…dinner at the San Remedio in Guerrero Negro. Life is good, folks.

I was primed to buy a Royal Enfield when I returned from Mexico, but the Enfield dealer in Glendale had done a God-awful job prepping the Bullet (I wouldn’t buy squat from those guys now), and the Enfield dealer in Brea was doing the normal bend-you-over-a-barrel, here-comes-the-setup-and-freight-charges routine. Folks, I’ve worked in the industry, and I know what setup and freight costs actually are. Trust me on this…they ain’t $1500. So I didn’t buy an Enfield.

Then an amazing thing happened. One of the few dealerships I trust picked up the Enfield line last week. It’s Art Guilfoil’s Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino. I asked Art what he could do for me on a new Enfield, I was shocked at how low the number was (don’t ask, because I won’t tell), and, well…

I think this is No. 42 or No. 43 or something. I’ve owned a lot of motorcycles. This is the latest. Sue is cool with it, too!

I’m picking up my new 650 Royal Enfield on Thursday, and to say I’m excited would be an understatement of immense proportions. It was a tough call for me between the Enfield and the new CSC RX4, but truth be told, I love my RX3 and it checks all the boxes for what I want in an adventure touring motorcycle. Arguably, the RX3 is the finest adventure touring motorcycle in the world if you’re going places other than the corner burger joint (for all the reasons I explained in my piece titled Why a 250?). I know. I’ve been to places other than the corner burger joint, and I’ve made most of those trips on an RX3.

So with my new Royal Enfield coming in, it begged the question: What should I do with my RX3 and TT 250? My first thought was that I’d sell them. Then I got to thinking about the RX3. I’ve done some miles on that thing, folks, and we’ve bonded. Nope, I’m going to hang on to it. Baja beckons, and all that. The RX3 is perfect for poking around the peninsula. And next, month, that’s where I’m headed. Susie’s going with me, and we’ll share a Tequila or two with Baja John. You can read about it here.

That leaves the TT 250. Hey, I was involved in bringing the TT 250 to America, and it all started when I eyeballed the 150cc version on display in Zongshen headquarters. It was a bit of an uphill struggle…you know, getting Zongshen to make a 250cc version, and then selling the idea in Azusa. I got the powers that be to go along and then I was out of town when the prototypes arrived in California. A couple of the CSC underlings didn’t like the bike, and I had to sell it in Azusa all over again. But it worked out, and the TT 250 is one of CSC’s best selling motorcycles ever. It should be…it is a hell of a bike for a stunningly low price.

My TT 250 on the road at La Rumarosa in Baja.

With the Enfield coming in, I thought I would sell my TT 250. Hell, it’s pristine, but because I don’t ride it too much, the carb gummed up on me. I thought maybe I’d bring it to CSC and have them make it perfect again, and then another serendipitous thing occurred. A few days ago, a post popped up on Facebook (why do I spend so much time on that moronic site?) from Revzilla, and what do you know, it was about doing your own maintenance on a CSC motorcycle. In this case, it was the San Gabriel (a wonderful name for a motorcycle if ever there was one), and the guys from Revzilla said the CSC shop manuals were wonderful. I thought that was great for a lot of different reasons, including the fact that, along with help from Gerry Edwards and the guys in the shop, I wrote many of the CSC manuals. Then I realized…hey, I wrote the TT 250 manual. I can fix my own carburetor. I looked up the carb stuff and this afternoon I took mine apart, I cleaned the low and high speed jets, and now my TT 250 is running great. There’s something uniquely satisfying about fixing your own motorcycle, and the Revzilla boys were right: Those CSC manuals are amazing. So are the motorcycles. And so is the 650 Enfield. I know, because I took one on what had to be the longest demo ride ever…all the way to Baja and back!

More good times coming up, folks, on the Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor!

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!

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.

My RX3 and its campaign ribbons…

I thought it might make for a nice change of pace if I actually posted something about motorcycles on this here motorcycle blog, so yesterday I fired up my faithful old RX3 and rode over to CSC Motorcycles. Steve has a very cool 1982 Yamaha Seca that he said I could ride, and I wanted to experience what it’s like to ride a nearly-40-year-old motorcycle, built during the Reagan Administration, with only 1700 miles on the clock. I’ll have a story on that later (Spoiler Alert: The RX3 is a nicer motorcycle). For today, I grabbed a few photos of my RX3 and I wanted to talk about my bike and its decals a bit.

Restaurants, Baja Runs, and more…my RX3 wears its decals like campaign ribbons. In a very real sense, that’s exactly what they are.

My RX3 is one of the very first ones delivered to America when CSC starting importing the bikes, and the story behind that is well told (if I do say so myself) in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM. It’s orange, which became sort of a nice orange-yellow over the years, and I like the look. I also like the look of a lot of decals. I always thought that was a cool aspect of the whole ADV thing, telling folks where you’ve been and (with the help of a little artwork and adhesive) bragging about it a bit. And my RX3 and I have covered a few miles.

My first big RX3 ride, and one of the things that I think put CSC and the RX3 on the map was the 2015 Baja Run (our first, and maybe a first in the motorcycle industry for a new bike introduction). I didn’t know how that would go, I was nervous as hell that the bikes wouldn’t fare well, but my fears were unfounded. It was an incredible ride. And, it was our first decal. That’s the big round one you see just above the my saddle in the photo above.

Next up: The Chinese and a couple of cool guys from Colombia wanted to come to the US and ride with us. And I got to meet a cool guy named Joe Gresh, who Motorcyclist magazine sent to ride with us. You need to read 5000 Miles At 5000 RPM to get the full story on that adventure tour, too. It was grand. Azusa to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, ride west across Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington, and then a turn left at the ocean to ride the western US coast back to So Cal. The relevant point here is that ride made for a bitchin’ decal, which you can see in the photo below.

The Western America Adventure Ride. It was grand. 5000 miles, lots of bikes, and not a single breakdown. Gresh staged a burnout with his RX3 in Port Orford, Oregon…the burnout heard around the world. John Welker planned our stops and navigated for us. It was a magnificent ride.

Then we did a bunch more CSC Baja rides, and with each one came another decal. Then I did a ride across China with Gresh on a couple of RX3s we borrowed from Zongshen (I wrote a book about that one, too). Then it was a ride around the Andes Mountains in Colombia with my good buddies Juan (who was on ride across America with us) and Carlos, both supercool guys who took great care of me in Medellin, Barichara, Mompos, and a whole bunch of other magnificent Colombian destinations. Yep, that resulted in yet another book.

Luggage decals…Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario (incredible lobster burritos), BajaBound Mexican insurance (the best), and the Horizons Unlimited Rally in northern California.

My Chinese buddies gave me a Chinese flag to put on my bike, I had to add a US flag to show where my loyalties lie, and a decal good buddy Juan’s Colombian motorcycle magazine, DeMotos.com.co.

I could ask if you knew how many RX3 breakdowns I experienced in all those miles, but I know you already know the answer: Zero.

Yep, that little 250 has taken me to hell and back, and my RX3 just keeps running and running and running. An added benefit? Mine is orange (it’s the fastest color, Orlando).

And that brings us to now, and the latest decal to adorn my well-broken-in, trusty, faithful and fearless companion. It’s the supercool ExhaustNotes.us decal, and it’s perfect on my RX3.

Joe Gresh had a magnificent idea in creating an ExhaustNotes.us decal. I had just enough real estate to add it to my RX3!

So there you have it. Imagine that: A motorcycle story on a motorcycle blog! And there’s more motorcycle stuff in the pipeline. Truth be told, I enjoyed my RX3 sprint this morning, and it helped me realize I need to ride it more. Welker called me about Sturgis a couple of says ago. That might be fun. If I go, I’d do it on the RX3. I’d forgotten just how magnificent a motorcycle the RX3 is.

Stay tuned, folks…there’s more coming!

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