Passes & Canyons Blog

I am so angry. I had been troubled lately looking at my website statistics because in the last week or so the traffic has been way, way down and that didn’t make sense.

So I decided to do a Google search for myself, as I have often done, searching for the two words “colorado” and “motorcycle.” Guess what came up. Take a look at this bit of screen capture.

Look at that. That’s my URL but someone stuck in some text for C—– (not going to use that word here). Bastards!! Why do these assholes do this? Can anyone possibly be making money in this way?

So I contacted my web host and hopefully they’ll be able to rectify the situation. I am so pissed.

And now I’ll put in the regular end of column stuff, though this is nowhere near a normal blog post.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
MotoAdventureGal update: Made it to Machu Picchu, broke her hand

Biker Quote for Today

Go like hell, You’ll get there quicker!

It was just a year ago when I went on my first ever poker run, except no one rode motorcycles. It was the ABATE District 10 Coffee Run and the weather was miserable. Well, the Coffee Run for 2010 was held this past weekend and this time the weather cooperated. We rode bikes.

There was a lot of interest for me in this run because of all that has happened in the past year. A year ago I was a new ABATE member and when I showed up at this run I didn’t know anybody. I’m not an overly gregarious person and it can be hard for me to mix comfortably with strangers. But I learned long ago as a newspaper reporter that as long as I assume a role I can play that role instead of being simply me. So I shifted into reporter mode and talked to a bunch of people, got a lot of good story ideas, and felt pretty good about it all.

This year was so different. I walked into a crowd of people I knew, greeted and was greeted, and was happy to see some folks I hadn’t seen in quite awhile. Folks I met last year at the Coffee Run, as a matter of fact. I didn’t have to play a role, I could just be me. And of course, as I always do, I did come up with some good contacts for some story ideas. Any journey starts with the first step. It can be hard to take that step but once you do you’re on your way and from then on it just gets easier.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
MSF President Tim Buche discusses motorcycle safety studies

Biker Quote for Today

Crawl, walk, ride

For months now there has been some question as to whether the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) would or would not fund the motorcycle crash study to be conducted by Oklahoma State University (OSU) researcher Dr. Samir Ahmed. After an initial rejection, the MSF board did reconsider but ultimately decided to stick by its original decision.

Apparently a big part of the reasoning for that is that the MSF was deep into negotiations with Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) to conduct a very different, “naturalistic,” motorcycle safety study. That study was announced yesterday. Whereas the OSU project will place cameras and sensors in specific locations to record accidents that occur there, the VTTI study will mount those cameras and sensors on specific motorcycles and track what happens. Presumably, for the study to be really effective, someone is going to need to crash with all that gear on their bike.

Or, maybe I’m wrong about that. VTTI will be tracking the riders whether they crash or not, and presumably will be developing some relevant data even if they don’t crash. Not sure; I’ll be talking with MSF President Tim Buche tomorrow so I’ll need to ask him about it.

In the meantime, Dr. Ahmed has $3 million from the feds to proceed with his study and he intends to do so. When I spoke to him yesterday after hearing about the VTTI study he said he and his team are ready to go as soon as they get the last details ironed out. They expect to start collecting data in May.

Ahmed was also very outspoken in his anger at the MSF and Tim Buche. He feels the MSF jerked him around, claiming that they would not fund his study because it wouldn’t investigate enough crashes to develop statistically valid data, when in fact they already were planning to spend their money elsewhere. That’s another thing I intend to ask Buche about tomorrow.

I’ll let you know what I find out.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
MSF expands motorcycle rider training programs, raises the bar on minimum competency

Biker Quote for Today

Biking skillz or Hospital billz