Passes & Canyons Blog

Are you aware that when you renew your plates on your motorcycle(s) each year in Colorado you pay $4 that goes into a fund to help defray the cost of rider training courses? Also, anyone renewing their driver’s license with motorcycle accreditation pays an extra $2 that goes to the same fund.

This is all set in place because some years ago the motorcycling community asked for it. The general idea is that it is a good thing for everybody to have the folks riding motorcycles actually get some training so they can do it competently. The accompanying concept was that such a program could help to forestall proposals that Colorado institute a mandatory helmet law. That is to say, education and better riding skills do more to prevent traffic fatalities than wearing helmets. Or, to put it differently, crash prevention is better than having safer crashes.

Regardless of how you might feel about helmet laws, I don’t see how anyone can argue that it is not better to avoid crashing than to crash and not get hurt so badly.

The vehicle for this funneling of fees to rider training is Colorado’s Motorcycle Operator Safety Training program or MOST. MOST is now under attack, in some cases from organizations that originally supported its creation.

I could go on at great length with the history and background of what is currently going on, as ABATE of Colorado’s State Coordinator Terry Howard did with me, but I’ll give you the short version.

ABATE, Riders for Justice, some of the motorcycle clubs, dealerships, and others pushed for the training approach. Over the years the program was not given sufficient oversight and some problems developed. The Colorado Legislature this past year conducted an audit of the program and identified a number of issues. Several of those issues were immediately addressed and rectified and the rest will soon have been fixed.

In the meantime, however, new people have replaced the old, and in organizations such as the Colorado Confederation of Clubs (COC) which came into existence later, there is no understanding of the history of and reasons for the fees. Some of the previous supporters are now saying, “Why should we have to pay to reduce the cost for other people to learn to ride?”

In a twist that gives fits to Terry Howard, a Republican, the legislative audit committee was divided on party lines–with the Republicans being the ones she finds herself in opposition to. In the current anti-tax atmosphere, the Republicans on the committee are in favor of eliminating MOST and letting us keep our $4 and $2 fees. It is the Democrats who are saying, “The motorcyclists asked for this program, and for these fees to be levied on them, so let’s keep the fees and keep the program they fund.”

One other thing to keep in mind: If MOST is killed there is no certainty that the fees will be eliminated. We could end up paying the fees without getting the benefit.

The committee deadlocked in this past session, but it seems likely that Republican Rep. Marsha Looper, of Colorado Springs, will introduce legislation in the next session to kill MOST. This would be a good topic for all Colorado motorcyclists to learn more about, and then do what you can to educate your legislators, whether you support MOST or oppose it. Most of them don’t know anything at all about it.

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Hooray, hooray! It took a long time but Rider magazine has published my feature article about crossing western Colorado on old U.S. 6, in the shadow of the superslab.

I had heard from Donya Carlson that it would be in the January 2012 issue, and I knew it should be arriving in my mail any day now. But over the last several days I’ve been in communication with three people who had already received their issues of Rider and seen my piece, while my issue had yet to arrive! Well, the mailman was here about 10 minutes ago and I finally got mine. Yes!

Now I’m hard at work on my next piece for Rider. Judy and I went on vacation to Seattle and British Columbia this summer and rented a Harley out of Vancouver to go riding for a few days. It was part of the plan all along to pitch the story to Rider, so I made sure to shoot a lot of pictures and take a lot of notes.

Once we got back I sent a letter pitching the idea, and they liked it. Now I need to get it written and select the photos to go with it and send it along. If they like it and want to publish it they will tell me that, and then, if things go like they did before, the note will say I can expect to see the piece in print in 12 to 18 months.

So I’m in the middle of the first draft right now, and I’ve got the photos narrowed down to about 40 or so. The article will go through three or four revisions and I’ll winnow the photos down to about 15. Then I’ll be eagerly awaiting a note that I hope will say they like it. If they do you will probably see it in print in 2013. Meanwhile, I want to be pitching them another story idea a whole lot sooner this next time.

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OK, it has taken about five months but I’ve finally gotten re-energized about becoming a RiderCoach and teaching other people to ride motorcycles. You may recall that I took RiderCoach training way back in June, and I passed it successfully, but my experience was rather dismal and discouraging. There were more steps to take before I could actually become an instructor but I didn’t take any of them, until now.

I was calling over to ABATE of Colorado a couple weeks ago to speak with Terry Howard, the state coordinator, and Ben Hochberg picked up the phone. Ben is the head of ABATE’s rider training program, and was the lead instructor in the RiderCoach class. I figured what the heck, I’ve got Ben on the line, I might as well talk to him about moving ahead.

So I did, and he told me a bit about what I need to do next, and said he would send me the paperwork they need. One thing I knew they needed was for me to get affiliated with the state’s MOST program, the Motorcycle Operator Safety Training program. I contacted Paul Peterson, the honcho over at MOST, and he emailed the materials they need back from me. So now it’s a matter of getting all this pulled together.

It has taken me till now to do all this because I ended the RiderCoach training feeling very discouraged. I didn’t feel I did very well in the class, despite passing, because I had several major screw-ups. I guess I finally worked my way through understanding and accepting those screw-ups. For one thing, the kinds of things I did wrong were things that I’m never likely to do again. Learning is a matter of trial and error. I made my errors; now I know not to do those things again. I know I can do this, I just needed some time for my confidence to return.

Additionally, though, the training was a very unpleasant experience because we were standing out on hot asphalt all day on blazing hot days. I was feeling pretty bad, which may have contributed to my poor performance. The training ended on Sunday and I went, as I always do, to the gym on Monday for a work-out. Stepping on the scale at the gym I found that I was down six pounds from my normal weight. That was odd. Then, two days later, back at the gym, having done nothing out of the ordinary, I had regained all of those six pounds.

My conclusion is that I must have become seriously dehydrated during those days out on the range, despite drinking a lot of water. And of course, that would have affected my mental performance. So OK, let’s learn from this. I figure that if when I go out on the range on hot days like that, I make sure to drink a bottle or two of GatorAde or some other drink to restore electrolytes, I’ll probably be in much, much better condition. And do a better job.

Presumably I’ll find out if I’m right about all this. I’m sure you’ll be able to read about it here in the next few months. Wish me well.

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