Late Night Ramblings

We are getting so close to getting these bikes, but the wait is driving me crazy! I knew I was impatient, but this definitely proves that I lack the ability to not get excited like a kid on Christmas Eve WAYYY too early in the game. Lol. As of right now the boat is still anchored off the coast of Long Beach awaiting its turn to unload (things are still a bit backed up from the dockworker strike a few weeks ago that shut down all of the western ports). Also, Joe posted up that the accessory shipment from the Germany are still waiting to be cleared by customs, so it's looking like once the bikes DO get unloaded that it will still be a while to clear customs. I'm guessing that this will delay our tentative date of Mid-April for the Baja trip, but I'm sure CSC will keep us posted as to the latest plans as they figure it out.

There has been some noise on some of our forums about the lack of warranty coverage for the bike and questioning CSC's honesty about the availability of approved service centers to work on the RX3s. I posted up my thoughts on the forum and will do the same here (again, these are just my two cents). From the moment I first heard about this bike I understood that I will be doing all of my own maintenance and service work on it based on everything I read from CSC. They will be the only location selling this bike and are also the only location that will be servicing them and selling parts. This was understood when I paid my deposit on the bike. I do not feel in any way that CSC has misrepresented this information nor do I feel that I have any reason to question their honesty and integrity.

Ok enough of that. This weekend I will be working on compiling the basic information on the RX3 and posting it up as I have a hard time grasping information unless I write it down. I want to ensure that I fully understand the standard features and information on the bike and am knowledgable about it prior to my trip so I can go into this as informed as possible. I am also creating my mini-maintenance journal this weekend, with the help of my husband, to ensure that I stay on top of the break-in period maintenance as well as the regular maintenance on the bike. I am really looking forward to the learning experience that the RX3 is going to provide me with. I've always done my own minor service work and maintenance on my bikes, but this will really help me to understand how to wrench on a bike plus be able to teach me to diagnose possible issues. Besides the great adventures I foresee with this bike, I think it is going to be invaluable in teaching me many lessons and I am super excited about that!

Also, Joe just posted up a few more pics of the orange RX3 and I am now fully confident that I have made the right decision to go with the orange bike. Considering orange is my favorite color (almost any shade), I don't know why I ever questioned this? Will post up more pics when I can get on a computer. Insomnia and excitement has me up tonight, so this is being written on the iPad and has been a bit challenging to work with as compared to using a PC.

Oh, will someone PLEASE remind me to call CSC during their business hours tomorrow? I have had a meeting on my calendar at work every day for the past week to call, but have gotten so busy that I've missed my opportunity every day. 😜 That would be greattttt (I hope you read that in your best Office Space head voice.)

 I also forgot one last thing. I'm tent camping in the backyard this weekend to ensure I know how to setup whichever tent I decide to take on the trip by myself. Also, I want to make a list of the camping items I will need to pack and will do some test packing runs as well. Since I have the measurements of the stock bags on the bike (I'm not planning on buying the aftermarket luggage just yet), I will grab some plastic bins that are similar in size and will start figuring out packing for the luggage too. I did this same thing before my Alaska motorcycle trip and it proved to be very helpful as I was able to eliminate a lot of stuff that I wouldn't need. It was great because I was doing a similar type of trip where I pre-packed into luggage to take on the plane and then had to repack my stuff onto a bike once I arrived.

What is an adventure?

So Joe posted up on the CSC blog yesterday about some labor riots that are going on down in Baja (http://californiascooterco.com/blog/?p=15692).  He said that in his 21 years of riding down in Baja he's never seen anything like this, but still that's a pretty intimidating thing to happen!  He and his wife were in their car, but it makes you wonder what would have/could have happened had they been on a bike/bikes?  I'd prefer to not think about it and just say that everything would have worked out the same as it did for them, but I'm also a "glass is half full" kinda chick. 

Anywho, in his update today (http://californiascooterco.com/blog/?p=15720) he ended his blog with a question to the riders...

"Do you folks still want the Inaugural Run to be through Baja (with a diversion around San Quintin), or would you rather do a 4 or 5 day ride through the American Southwest, hitting spots we select from places like the Pacific Coast Highway, California’s Sequoia National Park, Laughlin, the Grand Canyon, Zion, and maybe Bisbee?  I’m okay either way, so let’s hear your thoughts, all you future RX3 riders!"

I commented and said I hope the riots end soon as I've been dreaming of this Baja ride, but it sparked a question in my mind... What is the definition of an adventure and how far do you push it?

People have been traveling to war-torn countries for decades for mission trips, peace work, humanitarian efforts, or simply for personal travel.  It's inevitable that if you travel often enough that you will come upon some kind of civil unrest somewhere.  So... knowing this, do you continue with your plans to ride into a place where emotions are high and the tension could spark a riot if the wrong words are spoken or action is made?  How important is it to push forward with the adventure?

To me, adventure is just that... it's things going right, things going wrong, and having a story to tell about the trip.  Sure, when everything falls into place and a trip goes off without a hitch, it's wonderful, but sometimes the stories mean so much more when you are pushed and have to overcome obstacles.  I'm not saying that riding into a riot and putting yourself at personal risk is the right answer, but when/where do you draw that line?

I think either trip would be amazing, although, I'm definitely voting for the Baja trip as long as we can either detour around San Quintin if the riots are still going on or if tensions have subsided and things have calmed down.  I think it's too early to say if the Baja trip should be ruled out, but I understand Joe's concern about the wellbeing of the group.  I mean, it has been almost my entire life since I've been back to Sequoia National Park (where my parents took me on many camping trips when I was younger) and I've got the Pacific Coast Highway on my list of roads to ride on a motorcycle in the US... so it would definitely be hitting spots I've been aching to see.  I guess I'm fine with whatever the outcome is decided upon because if I wasn't, I would definitely be going against my entire opinion on what an adventure is and would just be a hypocrite!  :-)

Only time will tell and Joe and the team at CSC have my full support for whatever they decide!  I know they'll use their best judgement to keep everyone's safety the top priority while also planning an awesome inaugural adventure! 

To end, "Have a great trip in Baja, Joe and Susie!  I look forward to more updates and hope that things stay relatively calm for y'all!"

Maiden Voyage

I realized that I created this blog to document my adventures on the RX3, but I haven't really explained what's in the works.  So here are the tentative plans for my maiden voyage on the RX3.

One Way Ticket to California
I will be flying one way to California to pick up my RX3, pack it up, and then start off on this most amazing adventure

Group Ride to Baja
Oh yes... you read that correctly.  Steve and the team at CSC are organizing a group ride down to Baja as the kick-off trip for the RX3 here in the US.  They have ridden in Baja multiple times and I am SO excited that they will be our guides for this trip!  The tentative plan is to spend 6 days/5 nights in Baja.  The dates are still TBD since we're still waiting for the bikes to get to the US, unload off the ship, then make it through customs before being delivered to CSC for assembly.  They are estimating mid-April as of right now, but things are flexible.

Solo Ride Across the US
YESSSSSS!!!  I am most excited and nervous about this part of my trip as this will be my first big solo ride.  I've had a few people ask why my husband isn't coming with me on the cross-country trip.  Technically, he could ride out to California and ride back with me, as he's a seasoned Iron Butt rider, but the short answer is "I told him not to!"  Look, I love him and all, but he's had multiple amazing solo rides and now I want one, darnit (yes, that's a bit of jealousy- lol)!  I've discussed this trip with him and he is my biggest supporter of doing it solo.  As he explained "When you get on a plane and fly to California from Georgia, the scenery is instantly different.  When you ride across the country, the scenery changes so slowly that you almost don't even recognize it until you are fully submersed in it."  I want that... I want to be riding and to all of a sudden have that realization that the trees are different or there are no trees at all.  I want to ride through the deserts after driving through what seems like endless miles of farmland.  I want to experience it all and have it just be me and my thoughts.
As far as a route back, I'm going to play it by ear depending on the weather and other factors.  Will keep you posted on this as I figure it out.  ;-)

CAMPING!!
Thank goodness my parents raised me as a tent camper.  I feel so fortunate to enjoy camping as much as I do!  I try to camp often during the year, but sometimes it's just too easy to make excuses or to simply not take the time to return to nature.  Since I'm planning on camping during my solo trip, I'm hoping to tap into the foundation of one of my favorite Lord Byron quotes: 
"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes, 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: 
 I love not Man the less, but Nature more, 
 From these our interviews, in which I steal 
 From all I may be, or have been before, 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”

I feel that camping is the only way for me to really submerse myself 100% into this adventure.  I could stay at hotels every night while solo, but I will be doing that in Baja while indulging in the culture and atmosphere of that trip.  My solo trip has a different meaning... it's raw.  I want to be alone with the bike, with the road, with nature.  I want the full experience and camping helps to culminate my road trip into self awareness.

So... that's the tentative plan, but you know what they say "even the best laid plans..." Meanwhile, I will continue being flexible and this will be an amazing adventure!  After all, it really wouldn't be much of an adventure if everything went exactly as planned, right?! :-)

Ships Ahoy!

Well, I've got some good news and some not so good news.  My previous boss always told me to start with something positive, then provide feedback/constructive criticism, then finish up with positive again, so I will start with some good news.  The first bit of good news is that the Germany (ship on which the RX3's were being transported from Shanghai) ported in Long Beach, CA and unloaded today!

The bad news is that the bikes were not on the ship.  Joe from CSC posted on their blog that there was a mix up with the shipping company and the RX3 parts and accessories made it onto the Germany, but the actual bikes did not.  Apparently the bikes are on the ship Xian Fei Zhou and are scheduled to be unloaded in Long Beach on March 24.  Kind of a bummer, but at least it looks like they will be here before the end of March! 

So the positive news that I will end with is that I ordered a center stand and a dash mounted accessory power outlet (cigarette port and USB port) and CSC said that they would install them on my bike prior to the Baja ride with no fee for the installation!  That's super exciting!  The center stand is going to be a HUGE help for the daily chain lubing.  Blake started a great routine of lubing our chains every evening once we stopped riding for the day and I am going to take that ritual along with me on this trip!  Also, the accessory power outlet is going to be a great asset because it eliminates me having to cut into the power cables and rig up my own power outlets!  

I have to rave about how impressed I am with CSC and their visibility and thoughtfulness.  This team really works to communicate effectively and efficiently to their customers and is really going out of their way to provide as much information as they can to everyone.  From the moment this RX3 process started, they have taken feedback from the community and have made changes/improvements to the standard options on the bikes, and have been nothing but responsive and kind.  These bikes and this company came under fire due to ignorance and kept their heads high as they pursued their vision of making a 250cc adventure bike available to the masses in the US.  I am so proud to be one of the first group of RX3 owners in the US and look forward to building a great relationship with the team at CSC.  Top notch folks there! 

A Long, Long Time Ago

Roughly 10 years ago and not too far away from where I currently reside in the deep south of Georgia, I had my first taste of motorcycles via a ride on the back of my high school boyfriend's CBR 600.  He was the same height as me and had much to learn about shifting.  On our first ride, every time he'd shift my helmet would bang into the back of his and he would fuss at me.  This forced me to get creative with my pillion riding stance... I would put one hand in front of him on the tank to hold me up and then would hold around his waist with my other hand to ensure I could feel him move when he was trying to figure out how to maneuver his bike.  Needless to say, my intimate meetings with the back seat of that CBR left a bad taste in my mouth and made me loathe longer rides (longer meaning over 30 minutes).  When I confronted my boyfriend and told him that I wanted to learn how to ride my own bike, he was not a supporter of that idea, so I decided that I no longer wanted to be a passenger on a bike- nor did I want a boyfriend anymore.

I said "goodbye" to my boyfriend and the backseat of his CBR and signed up for an MSF (Motorcycle Safety Foundation) course through my local Harley Davidson dealership.  I had never been on a 2 wheeled vehicle before, besides a bicycle.  I had never driven a motor vehicle that had a hand clutch, nor was I any good at driving a manual car.  My shifting skills left MUCH to be desired.  The MSF course I took was 4 days long.  It consisted of 2 days of classroom learning after school/work and then 2 full days of on-bike education.  It ends on Sunday with your MSF Test, and if you pass it you automatically receive your motorcycle license/certification without having to go take the test at the DMV.  There was one other woman in my MSF course and the reason she was there was because she was the passenger on her husband's motorcycle when they crashed and now she was scared to ride as a passenger and was hoping to gain some confidence in riding her own bike.  There were also a couple of men there who had crashed and were trying to gain some confidence back.

Our instructors were fantastic!  They really took the time to work with each one of us in the class individually, to give us tips and us out.  We were on Buell Blasts, which are sportbike style bikes, so they were kind of hard for some of the riders to get used to because they were used to cruiser style bikes.  I enjoyed the Blast, though, and had dreams of owning my own sportbike some day.  During one of our drills, which was a right turn, left turn, or stop- based on the instructors hand signals, I dropped my Buell.  We were told to shift up into 2nd gear while approaching the instructor and then whatever signal he gave us we had to do.  I got up into 2nd gear and as I got closer to him, both of his arms went out, which meant stop.  So, I shifted down into 1st, pulled my hand brake and gently stepped on my foot brake, but when I went to put my left foot down on the pavement, I was on a bit of a hill and didn't place my foot securely so the bike started to lean.  I still remember it like it was in slow motion... I fought SO HARD to keep that bike upright.  It just slowly kept leaning further and further to the left and I fought it with everything that I had until the instructor looked at me and told me to let it go and push away from the bike.  I listened to him and pushed away from the bike, slowly falling backwards to land in a sitting position with the bike on it's side next to me.  

I felt like an utter failure and my pride was very wounded.  The instructors came over and told me it was no big deal as all it did was break the corner of the front turn signal, but I was still ashamed and embarrassed.  They took that time to teach the class how to lift a bike by yourself, which was one of the most helpful things they could have done as over the next few months I got plenty of practice in.  There were a few other little incidents from some of the other riders and the instructors handled each with compassion and took that time to educate everyone.  At the end of the class, we all took our tests and we all passed!  The instructors then had a little awards ceremony for us and gave each of us a nickname.  I was given the nickname of "Asphalt Cowgirl" because I fell off the Blast and landed on my Asphalt.  I framed that certificate and have it hanging on the wall next to my desk at home.  :-)

After the MSF course I decided that it was time to start looking for my very own motorcycle.  I joined a local sportbike internet forum and quickly met some incredible friends/mentors.  They gave me recommendations on which bikes I should look into as my first bike and ultimately helped me pick my first bike.  Another forum member was upgrading to a bigger bike that he could use for trackdays, so he was selling his 1993 Yamaha FZR 600.  The bike's "name" was Captain America, as it was the red, white, and blue color scheme.  It was in pristine condition.  For being over 10 years old, it had very low miles on it and had not been run too hard.  I swung my leg over it and fell in love.  I paid $2,500 for "The Captain" and my friend trailored it home for me as I wasn't quite comfortable enough to ride it home on my own.  For the next few weeks I would ride my bike to some local parking lots to meet my friends and do parking lot practice.  I practiced all of my slow speed maneuvers as well as starting and stopping.  My parking lot time was very helpful in boosting my confidence as a rider and on my new bike.  The FZR was a bit twitchy, so learning it in a parking lot was great as I didn't have to worry about getting run over every time I stalled the bike.

Me and "The Captain"

Once I got enough practice in, I started joining in on some of the group rides that the members of our forum put together.  Luckily, I'm within an hour or two of some really incredible twisty roads, so I could slab it for an hour and then hit up areas like Suches, Fort Mountain, and Blood Mountain.  We'd hit the twisties up to Helen (a little Bavarian town in Northeast Georgia), grab some lunch, and then ride some of the sweeper roads back home.  After riding on the roads for a few months, I got the bug to do a trackday as I LOVED turning my FZR, but the mountains just weren't the place for me to try to push my comfort zone.  Luckily, a few of my mentors were big trackday riders/coaches, so I had no problem signing up for my first trackday at Jennings GP in Jennings, Florida.  Less than 6 months after getting my motorcycle license and buying my FZR, I did my first trackday at Jennings.  I did a few more trackdays after that, but decided to give my FZR a break from the hard track riding.

My first trackday at Jennings GP

Now 10 years and many amazing motorcycle trips later, I still have my FZR sitting in my garage, along with my "touring" YZF 600, and soon will have my new 2015 RX3 Cyclone joining the group!  I'm trying to come to terms with the notion that I don't need 3 motorcycles, but both of my Yamahas have so much sentimental value and are hardly worth more than a few hundred dollars, so selling either one of them just doesn't make much sense to me.  Luckily, my husband has a collection of motorcycles as well, so the pressure for me to sell a motorcycle is super low because that would mean he'd have to sell one of his as well.  :-)  

Dual Sporting the FZR for a camping trip

Deal's Gap on the FZR

I cannot wait to get my RX3 Cyclone out on the road and on some great adventures!  CSC just updated their blog with a picture that the owner took of a bunch of ships hanging out off the coast of Long Beach, CA and one of those boats is the Germany, which is carrying all of our bikes.  Here's the link to that blog post:  http://californiascooterco.com/blog/?p=15592  They are saying that the bikes will hopefully be off the boat within a couple of weeks, so I'm hoping to fly out to California to pick up the bike in mid-April.  I'm also planning on joining them in their Baja trip before I ride back across the country, so let's hope the bikes don't get delayed too long!