Passes & Canyons Blog

It’s getting to be that time of year. The road to the top of Mount Evans has closed, so that means other roads can’t be far behind.

Others that close for the winter include:

• Trail Ridge Road
• Kebler Pass
• Independence Pass
• the Pike’s Peak Road
• Cottonwood Pass

You can keep tabs on which of these are still open, as well as get real-time info on road conditions around the state at the Colorado Department of Transportation site.

The other roads are maintained all year round but you never know when they’ll be getting snow. The truth of the matter is, although I ride down here on the flatland all year round, I almost never ride in the mountains after October. There are more hardy riders than me, though. Redleg comes to mind. He seems to ride anywhere he wants any time he wants. You’re a better man than me, buddy.

Biker Quote for Today

Winter is nature’s way of telling you to polish your bike.

Some things just take you by surprise. As you may be aware, I write for Examiner.com as their Denver Motorcycle Examiner. I post on this blog three times a week and I post on Examiner three times a week.

Well, yesterday I wrote a piece entitled “Share the road, not my lane.” It was about how a car pulled across the center line–directly into my path–as he was passing a bicycle. I won’t go into more specifics; if you ride you know it all already.

Imagine my surprise when I checked this morning and found that more than 2,000 people had read that post so far and there were six comments. And more surprisingly, three of the six were hostile toward motorcycles and motorcyclists. Two were favorable and the sixth was more neutral.

One of the hostile comments was the sort of thing you just blow off and ignore:

You should cry more.

The woman who was neutral had this to say:

True, but you have to keep in mind how often those of us in cars see motorcyclists zip between us, riding the line on the highway. Maybe they guy just thought, “Well, they do it all the time, why can’t I?” I’m not defending his actions as they were very reckless.

Then, there were these:

Sure thing douchebag, but make sure you don’t share my lane the next time there’s a red light and a line of traffic that you really want to sidle past, m’kay?

And what are you going to do about it when someone does? And another thing, with the engine cooling excuse ready at hand when you pass huge traffic jams, you cannot expect to be taken seriously when you claim that your personal space corresponds with traffic conditions, because basically, that is what you are saying. When guys like you behave normally in traffic jams, normal people will begin to show you some respect, or at least, stop hating your guts.

It would be easy to dismiss these people as jerks but I don’t think we would be wise in doing so. Considering that these are the people who are out on the road with us, and we’re the ones who always lose in a collision, we need to consider any validity there might be in their statements.

The one argument they all make is that bikers share their lanes at times. Now, if you’re in California and you’re lane-splitting, that is absolutely legal. And I can see how that diminishes the argument that motorcycles have a right to the entire lane, just as cars do. We can’t have it both ways. At the same time, that in no way excuses the reckless, dangerous stunt I described. If I hadn’t swerved that driver would have had to choose between a head-on with me or running the bicycle off the road into the rocky hillside.

Elsewhere, lane-splitting is not legal, although here in Colorado I don’t ever see people lane-splitting anyway. I do, however, see bikers passing on yellow lines (because we know that we can do it safely) and ignoring other laws that were designed with cars in mind, not bikes. It might be worth our while to think about how the people in cars see these things. Obviously some of them, rightly or wrongly, see them as unfair, improper, and justification to act improperly toward us.

Food for thought.

Biker Quote for Today

Remember all the others on the road are crazy & out to kill you.

If you’ve surfed around the Passes and Canyons website you know that I have a page listing upcoming motorcycle rides, rallies, and other events. One recurring event that has moved around the metro area week to week all summer is the Road Rage Car, Truck & Bike Show, put on by Pro Players Association as a fund-raiser for a variety of charitable organizations.

Road Rage was close to me this weekend so I figured it was time to check it out and see what it was all about. My timing could have been a lot better, though.

For starters, the event had been scheduled to be included as part of Englewood Days but those plans went awry and it was moved to the parking lot of Wal-Mart just off Arapahoe and Havana. It was a nice day for a ride in the mountains so I did that first, and so I arrived at Road Rage about 2:30 in the afternoon.

What I found was not exciting. There were just a few show cars and trucks and only two motorcycles. There was also a band playing but there were not very many people around.

Heading, of course, to the two bikes, I met Chuck Shortt, who runs Rocky Mountain Custom Bikes in Larkspur. I’ve got to tell you, Chuck does nice work. What I especially liked was the (former) Suzuki Intruder he worked over for his wife. That’s the one in the picture. Chuck tells me he builds custom bikes and also does repair work, so if you have a custom bike in need of some work, you might want to look him up.

With Chuck’s assistance I identified Gary Adler, the president of Pro Players Association and the organizer of the event. I went over and introduced myself and the first thing I said was that I expected there to be more to this event. Gary sighed and filled me in on everything that went wrong for him this week. In addition to having to relocate at the last minute and the problems of making people aware of the move in time, he had competition just to the south, in the form of a big custom show going on at Arapahoe County Airport. In fact, jets were doing flyovers as part of this show as we talked. Pretty hard to compete with.

Additionally, Gary told me he normally has some former Broncos on hand at these events for people to meet and talk to, but this weekend was Broncos’ Reunion Weekend and all the guys were off playing golf. And then he showed me some photos from earlier in the day when there were a lot more show vehicles present. Apparently the guys who bring their toys to show off don’t like sticking around all day, so my coming later meant I missed a lot of them.

Bottom line, while this particular Road Rage show was a benefit for the Military Families Relief Fund, I’d have to guess the group didn’t profit all that much from it. I know Gary was feeling pretty frustrated.

So, while I would have liked to have reported that this was a great event that you really ought to hit, I guess I’m going to have to check it out again when the situation is more normal. And I’ll make it a point to go earlier in the day. That won’t be any time soon, however, because this was the last Road Rage show of this year. I guess we’ll just stay tuned for next year.

Biker Quote for Today

May all your encounters with the law start with the words . . . “Nice bike!”

“Welcome to Colorado Interstate W-470, brought to you courtesy of the Northwest Parkway Authority.”

What’s that? Aren’t interstate highways owned and operated by the federal government? Well, that’s the way it used to be, but in this age of trying to reduce spending and cut budgets, more and more of the public infrastructure is being handed over on long-term leases to private, for-profit entities. The Northwest Parkway Authority is not one of these; it is in fact a creation of several local jurisdictions, but this is a variation of the same theme.

The issue is whether these private operators will have to ability to impose different restrictions than those for federally operated highways. This was one of the concerns voiced last weekend at the Motorcycle Riders Foundation‘s Meeting of the Minds here in Denver.

What might happen? Well, in Chicago, for instance, several years ago the city council passed an ordinance banning motorcycles from Lakeshore Drive after a certain hour of the night. The issue was excessive noise from bikes disturbing the folks living nearby. The problem was that that stretch of Lakeshore Drive is a U.S. highway, and federal law prohibits the kind of restriction Chicago wanted to impose. The ordinance was overturned.

But what if Lakeshore Drive were operated by a for-profit “Lakeshore Drive Agency”? Would they have gotten away with it?

There really isn’t a clear answer but that’s what the MRF is concerned about. They want to make sure that there is a clear answer enacted into law, and that that clear answer holds that federal policies DO apply and cannot be ignored. It takes relationship building with legislators and congressmen, lobbying, and a lot of behind-the-scenes hard work.

Just figured you needed to know.

Biker Quote for Today

The battle for bikers’ rights is not about patches, parties, or poker runs. We fight to protect the freedom and promote the interests of American motorcyclists … to defend our right to choose our own modes of transportation, attire, and lifestyle … to deter and defy discrimination against us … and to vanquish those who violate our rights or right-of-way. — Bruce Arnold

A big part of the Motorcycle Riders Foundation’s Meeting of the Minds, which took place here in Denver last weekend, is looking ahead to the issues we as motorcyclists are likely to face in the near future. Rather than simply react, the MRF wants to be proactive. Rather than scramble in a disorganized fashion for responses when new legislation is proposed, the MRF wants to have its position and its talking points already determined and disseminated to its membership.

So just what are the issues that appear to be on the horizon? Here are the ones I gleaned from my discussion with MRF President Kirk “Hardtail” Willard, from the various speakers, and from the audience during open discussion.

• Rider and motorist training
  The MRF and the state motorcyclist rights organizations (SMRO) that are its constituent groups strongly advocate for rider and motorist training. However, they are concerned about a move to make such training mandatory, because they fear that the capacity does not exist to offer that training to that many people. This looks like it could be a balancing act.
• Health insurance
  Not so much on the horizon as current, this issue has to do with efforts to pass the HIPAA Recreational Injury Technical Correction Act, and end the legal ability of insurance companies to refuse to provide benefits when someone is injured while engaged in legal but so-called “risky” activities. I’ve written about this before.
• Protecting 2010 funds
  The so-called 2010 funds are the dollars earmarked by government for rider training programs. You’ll recall that I’ve written about U.S. Dept. of Transportation Sec. Mary Peters’ efforts to divert some of this money to promote mandatory helmet legislation. There are other threats to this money as well. When states run into budget difficulties these funds are attractive to politicians as a way to balance the budget, regardless of the fact that they are often paid solely by motorcyclists for motorcycle-related purposes.
• The Transportation Equity Act
  This pending bill will have major influence on highway spending in coming years. The MRF wants to ensure that motorcyclists are included in the planning and not just an afterthought.
• Graduated licensing
  From what I understand, graduated licensing is very common in Europe. This means that you start out on a small bike, learn to ride, and as you demonstrate competency you earn the right to ride bigger and bigger bikes. Frankly, I’m not clear on the issues here, or the concerns the MRF has about this. I’ll try to find out more and address this issue again.
• Right to repair
  This issue was raised during a panel discussion on Saturday, with two Harley-Davidson representatives on the panel being addressed. Speakers from the floor expressed their unhappiness with computer chips that shut down the bike when non-H-D mechanics work on them. The reps replied that the computer chips do allow some modification, whereas some governmental agencies are pressing for simply welding carburetors and exhaust pipes on permanently.

There’s more, but this gives you a bit of an idea about what’s going on. It is inevitable that you’ll be hearing more about these issues.

Biker Quote for Today

The biggest problem facing motorcyclists today is that we live in a nanny state, and if people think you can “save just one life” by banning motorcycles, they’d do it. — Jay Leno