It's actually "35 microns absolute", among other terms. "Down to" is just a way of expressing that absolutely nothing that large or larger will get through.
I did some research when I bought it, and asked some people in the know. It's main advantage is at the time when most engine wear occurs, at cold start. A stainless filter will give you immediate and consistent flow, at rates far superior to any paper element. Most paper elements are so bad at cold filtering, that the bypass valve kicks in and you're starting the engine with much less oil flow, and what does flow is unfiltered dirty oil.
One square inch of the filter cloth will flow 1.9 Gallons per Minute at only 1 PSI pressure (70°F). Multiply that by the 30 square inches in the typical element, and you're at roughly 59 gallons per minute with literally NO pressure at common starting temps! There is not another filter on the market that can match the amount of flow provided by the stainless mesh filter.
Another dirty little secret (pun intended) is that there are NO STANDARDS when it comes to oil filters, on another net list I'm on, members took it upon themselves to test oil filters because they basically make up the rules as they go along, pointing out the good aspects of a given filter and making it look like unbiased test results.
This is a response to inquiry made to the manufacturer about their micron claim:
"We found the Testing filters is not a science in the industry, it's the snake oil scenario, so we tested ours against 5 other leading brands with an arbitrary test facility and no I.D. on any filters. The results were obviously very good for us, but the standards by which paper filters are tested and the results posted would scare you!
Some mfg's claim 10 micron filters, but what they don't tell you is that same filter lets particles as big as 300 microns through also. The test is controlled and mandated by whatever standards the mfg wants. 35 microns "absolute" means just that... nothing bigger than 35 gets through."
All that being said, the CX is such a robust engine when compared to just about anything else on 2 wheels (especially of that era), things such as oil filters etc. won't really make a difference in terms of longevity or reliability. I've got some parts bikes I bought which were absolutely and shamelessly abused from what appears to be day one, with hacks that just leave you shaking your head, and they made it past 60k miles (probably more, owners were too cheap to fix odo cables or clocks.) They were popular messenger bikes in the UK because they could take a licking, and keep on ticking.
