Passes & Canyons Blog

The word from Erico Motorsports is that Paolo Pirozzi, who is riding around the world on his Ducati Multistrada 1200, will be coming through Denver this weekend and they’re rolling out the red carpet for him.

According to the blurb, Paolo has mapped out a 90,000 kilometer route that is taking him from Europe to Russia, Asia to Australia, then on to North American and North Africa, ending up back home in Italy. Ducati gave him the Multistrada for the ride but the Ducati community is taking car of everything else.

In Denver, there will be a meet and greet at Erico on Saturday from 2-4 p.m., after which he will be given a tour of the sights of Denver on a bus loaded with the first 20 to sign up. (“Yes, free beer on the bus,” says Erico.)

When the bus returns to Erico at about 5:30, the party will move to Vintage Moto at 2762 Walnut for a private viewing of Jim Dillard’s vintage motorcycle collection. Then the local Denver Ducati Owner’s Club will be taking the guest of honor out to dinner.

The entire event is open to anyone, although the bus is expected to fill up quickly. For more information, contact Erico at 303-308-1811.

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Biker Quote for Today

Adventure is not the road we travel, it’s the obstacles we overcome.

Just a quick note here to let you know that Butler Motorcycle Maps has just added Southern California to the list of motorcycle-touring maps it offers. Already available are Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Montana. They will also soon have a Rocky Mountain states map combining all five of those mountain states in one map. These things are sizable already so I’m wondering if that one is going to be huge.

I’ve written previously about these maps so I’ll just recap here. In addition to being tough and waterproof, these maps have all the best motorcycle roads in each state highlighted and detailed. I know they’ve done a good job of this because I have ridden extensively in the Rocky Mountain states and there isn’t a road I would add that they don’t already have. And they have a few I’m not familiar with. I’d say that’s a pretty strong recommendation.

As for this new one, Southern California, this is where it really gets interesting for me. I don’t know California very well, and I especially don’t know SoCal. I look at this map and I think, “Oh man. Look at that. And that. And that. I want to go there.” But you know, without something like this map, if I did go there I wouldn’t have any idea where to go. Clearly the main strength in these maps is cluing in people who are unfamiliar with an area as to what the area offers.

For instance, I was riding in SoCal just a couple weeks ago, and while I was on a tour where I couldn’t just split off and go somewhere else, I see from this map that we were very close to some really nice roads. Not that the roads we were on weren’t nice, mind you. We did, after all, ride Big Sur, and go to Yosemite, and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. But I had no notion that there were some other very good motorcycle roads that we just went right past. Next time I have a chance to get out that way I’m definitely taking this map.

I will make note here, for purposes of full disclosure, that I have an ongoing relationship with the folks at Butler. They have paid for one small ad on 1 page on my 100+ page website, and they do give me these maps for free, with the hope that I’ll write about them. Rest assured, though, that if I thought these things were crap I’d say so. But you won’t hear that from me because it’s not true.

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Biker Quote for Today

Don’t die wondering, die wandering.

By technical definitions, we are no longer in a recession. By the anecdotal definition of millions of people still out of work, that’s hogwash. The reality is demonstrated by the status of the motorcycle market.

A report in the Financial Times last week says that U.S. motorcycle sales were down by more than 14 percent in the third quarter of 2010, compared to 2009. That makes it the 15th consecutive quarter in which the numbers have declined.

An interesting–and logical–note in the article says sales are off more in the U.S., primarily because we buy them more for recreation, while people in other countries buy them for transportation. You’ve got to get to work but you can do without that toy for the moment.

And here’s something I didn’t know. “Some Japanese bike makers did not produce 2010 models.” They were apparently so backed up with leftover models from 2009 that they quit building them. I wish the article said who. This was definitely news to me.

Even if new bikes aren’t selling, you’d better believe those of us who have bikes continue to ride them. This is demonstrated by another statistic, the sale of motorcycle tires. The article says tire sales (or “tyre” sales, since this is a British publication) were up 7.7 percent January through September. And to the producers, that translates into the likelihood that “replacement demand is building” for bikes.

I don’t have any conclusions to bring to all this. It was just some information I found interesting and felt was worth passing along.

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Biker Quote for Today

Some people ride to enjoy life, some ride to travel, and some people ride to bars.