Passes & Canyons Blog

My life got complicated yesterday. I’ve been in touch with Ben Hochberg at ABATE of Colorado about taking their motorcycle trainer training so I can work as an MSF instructor teaching new and experienced riders to be better riders.

My interests are numerous. First, I’m trying to make a living as a motorcyclist, primarily by writing about motorcycling for any publication that will pay me. Being an MSF instructor doesn’t pay a lot but I’m in an every-little-bit-helps situation, trying to piece together a bit here and a bit there to equal a living wage.

Also, being an instructor would undoubtedly provide me with a lot of material for my writing. Heck, just taking the training course will provide me with material even if I never teach a class. Plus, taking the training and teaching the courses would inevitably make me a better rider myself.

And third, I enjoy teaching. I’ve had a few jobs over the years where part of what I did was to train others and I find it very rewarding.

So what’s my dilemma? Well, Ben told me yesterday the dates of the class, two weeks in June, and those are the same two weeks in which I was planning to do a motorcycle trip to California with some friends. Dang!

Of course that trip would also be fodder for my writing, and I don’t take vacations, so I’d be cranking out articles for Examiner.com and RumBum.com and others the whole while I was gone. But it would still be play as work, whereas doing the training would be more work as work. And who wouldn’t rather play than work?

I know the logical choice here is to stay home and do the training. Both the training and the trip would cost me money, some of which I would recoup through my writing, but the potential earnings of becoming a trainer far outweigh what I’d earn from the trip. And paying the bills is a nice thing to be able to do.

But I’d rather go on the trip. Wouldn’t you? Gosh, it just sucks to be me, doesn’t it? Don’t I wish I just had some job sitting at a desk and pushing papers all day! Yeah, right.

So anyway, if you have any thoughts to offer me on this decision I’d be happy to hear them. It just had to be those two weeks, didn’t it?

Biker Quote for Today

I’m a highway junkie! Lord, I love a white line!!!

I picked up some new work the other day and I’d love to tell you where to go to read what I’m writing, but at the moment I don’t even know myself.

Just to bring anyone up to speed who isn’t familiar with what I do, I’m a writer and a rider and I’ve made it my job to combine the two. In addition to this blog, I write for Examiner.com, RumBum.com, do occasional pieces for CycleConnections.com, and have various other outfits that sometimes will hire me to do a piece.

My dance card is not full, however, so I’m always looking for another gig, and this time I decided to check out Elance. That as in E for online and lance, for freelance. It’s a digital meeting place for freelancers and the people who need freelance work done.

An there it was, a gig posting titled “Motorcycle Articles Needed.” I put in a bid and the next day got an email from Michael A. saying “You’re exactly the guy I’m looking for.”

Michael has hired me to write eight pieces for him, with complete freedom to choose my own subject matter, provided that I somehow draw into the discussion some of the brands and models sold by the dealership Michael does work for. Which is to say, this is more or less advertising copy, though only in the sense that many websites where the focus is on selling want honest to goodness content to draw readers to the site. I’ve done some of that before.

At this point I have no idea where this stuff will appear, whether I’ll be identified as the writer, or even how it will be used. There is likely to be more of this work in the future, though, so I’m sure I’ll learn all this eventually. It’ll be interesting to see.

Biker Quote for Today

Midnight bugs taste just as bad as noon time bugs.

I had a really interesting visit today with Chris Ravana, of Blindspot Cycles, with him showing me a couple of his homemade electric motorcycles.

The way Chris does it there’s nothing magical, or even particularly high-tech, about building an electric bike. He goes to a salvage yard and buys an old junk motorcycle body, picks up a few necessary parts, and then puts an electric motor in it. The motor runs off a stack of standard automotive-type batteries, although they are of the deep-cycle variety that can stand to be deeply discharged before being charged again.

And there’s nothing all that special about the motor. It’s just a basic industrial-type electric motor.

The whole business couldn’t be much more straightforward. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here because I’ll be writing a lot more about Chris and his bikes for RumBum.com and Examiner.com, but, as always, I wanted to tell you the backstory here.

I just ran across an article about Chris and what he’s doing by chance, somewhere on the web, and it turned out he lives just up north in Fort Collins. I emailed him about getting together but didn’t hear anything back, so I called. He apologized for not replying but told me his wife had just had a baby the day before. So he’s been a little, shall we say, busy. Oh yeah, some excuse.

Today was a beautiful and warm day so I jumped on the Kawi and headed up there but along the way it got very cold. I was glad I had my electric vest. We talked about his bikes why he does all this, as well as the other things he does, and then it was time to ride.

Chris had two bikes prepped for us and off we went. This is not the first time I’ve ridden electric motorcycles but it’s still a kick. They’re silent when you’re sitting still, but twist that throttle and you absolutely do go forward, as in right now. Then you can cruise along side by side and talk, because there’s no engine noise. Not shout, talk.

What can I say? It was a lot of fun. He’s an interesting guy.

And then, just to show you how fickle the weather in Colorado can be, I headed back to Denver and rode back into sunshine and warmth. I knew there had been a beautiful day somewhere around here.

Biker Quote for Today

If motorcycles are not allowed in heaven then I’ll ride mine to hell.