Passes & Canyons Blog

The website for the Sisters' Centennial Motorcycle Ride.

With acknowledgements to Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin for the title here, I want to direct your attention to an event my friend Alisa Clickenger is organizing around something a pair of motorcycling sisters did for themselves 100 years ago.

Way back in 1916, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren set out to ride across the U.S. on motorcycles. As Alisa’s website for the event says, “In 1916 the Van Buren Sisters were the first women to cross the continental United States, each on her own motorcycle. They became the first women to reach the 14,115 foot summit of Pikes Peak each on her own motorcycle. In 2002 the Sisters were inducted into the American Motorcyclists Association Hall of Fame and in 2003 they were inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame.”

And what exactly is the event? Scheduled for July 4-24, 2016, and titled the Sisters’ Centennial Motorcycle Ride, “The ride will loosely follow the Van Buren sisters’ 1916 route, primarily following the Lincoln Highway across the United States from New York to San Francisco. Combining scenic routes and major metropolitan areas, the route will allow for great riding as well as promotion and visibility of female motorcycling role models.”

In addition to the riding, events are planned at a number of places along the way:

• Brooklyn, New York – Departure City Party
• Springfield, Massachusetts – Springfield Museums, www.springfieldmuseums.org
• Pickerington, Ohio – AMA Hall of Fame, www.motorcyclemuseum.org
• Latrobe, Pennsylvania – Lincoln Highway Experience, www.lhhc.org
• Anamosa, Iowa – National Motorcycle Museum, www.nationalmcmuseum.org
• Colorado Springs, Colorado – Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum, www.themotorcyclemuseum.com
• Pikes Peak, Colorado – Pikes Peak Highway, www.PikesPeak.US.com
• Visits to Zion National Park and Bryce National Park
• San Francisco, California – Arrival City Party

The ride is open to men as well as women with only 100 registrations open for the full-blown ride, although you can do portions of it and participate in a variety of ways. Check the website for details. Says Alisa, “We promise an epic ride and a plethora of new riding friends.”

Biker Quote for Today

If you think I’m cute now wait till you see me on my motorcycle.

Out where Belleview runs into a ritzy neighborhood.

Frustration. Aggravation. Ready to scream.

Yeah, I was and I knew I needed to go for a ride. Really, really needed to go for a ride.

It was Sunday and I was doing some long-neglected chores around the house. Specifically, the latch on the gate was about to fall off and I wanted to fix it for real this time, not just put on a band-aid as I have done several times before. But things just weren’t going well.

I had a strip of scrap wood that I figured I could attach on the edge and then attach the latch to that, but man that piece of wood was hard. I tried to drill it but the drill didn’t do a thing. I tried to nail it but the nails all bent.

Meanwhile it had been a pretty nice day, cool at first but then sunny and warm, and now it was starting to cloud over again. Forget this, I’m going riding.

I rolled out the V-Strom and geared up and then saw it was starting to rain. !!!! A look to the west, however, showed blue sky so I figured that while I would take my rain gear I would not put anything on just yet. And I headed west, toward the blue sky.

Not really knowing where I was going, I just headed west on Belleview. I was on the V-Strom so maybe I’d get to the foothills and find a dirt road going who knows where. I could feel the tension melting away and I couldn’t have cared less about the raindrops speckling my visor, my jacket, and the bike. And pretty soon I reached the sun and now I was feeling a lot better.

Crossing under Santa Fe, still on Belleview, I was not sure where the road went from here. Time to find out. I have that exploring gene.

Soon enough I did find out. I ran into the barrier that is Bow Mar. Tried to poke my way through a couple times but kept running into dead-ends so I backed out and went south till I got to Bowles, which finally carried me further west. Rode past Southwest Plaza (how many years has it been since I’ve been out here?!) and further west until I reached C-470 and there was a foothill immediately in front of me. But Belleview went on across the highway so I checked out where it went.

Not far. It immediately swung south and then into a tiny neighborhood and the grounds for one of those ginormous mega-churches. OK, back to C-470 and go north to the next exit.

That was Quincy and I got off and crossed the highway and found it split left and right. Right was marked Turkey Creek Canyon. I’ve been up there and know it and where it goes. Left was marked Belleview. Oh really? Let’s see.

So I headed south and then west once again on Belleview. This led into a ritzy area with lots of McMansions and as I would around I found myself coming out towards US 285 as it heads up into the mountains. This was that area you always see to the south as you head up that way. Now I know how to get in there.

The road brought me out on CO 8 right at the Fort restaurant on the north side of US 285. My exploring gene had been satisfied and it had clouded over again so it was cooling off and I was getting cold. I turned east to chase the sun again. A couple more side trips along the way and I was nearly home. I stopped off at our local Ace Hardware and bought some new drill bits and left the bike and my gear to put away later as I turned my attention back to the latch.

Very calmly now, with no feelings of aggravation, I put the new bit in and presto, it went right into that hard piece of wood. In five minutes the job was completely done.

Some times you just have to clear your head. There’s no better way to do that than getting on your bike.

Biker Quote for Today

When life throws you a curve… lean into it, pick your line, and keep your weight on the outside peg.

Since I posted about my small personal campaign to get headline writers to stop calling car/motorcycle crashes “motorcycle crashes,” I have been sending emails out at the rate of about two a day, although I have only gotten one reply. If I get more I’ll put together a post with the back and forth.

Of course in so many of these crashes the fault has been with the driver of the car or truck, and as we all know so well, often they have been distracted by stupid things like their cellphones. I’m sorry you idiot, my life is more important than your damn phone call.

So I figured I would make Neil Tohill at Southside Motor Factors happy by posting this infographic he sent me, complete with a link to their site. Not that any of you reading this will frequent their store (they’re in Ireland) but the web crawlers will pick up the link and that will work to their benefit. But I’m not doing it to make Neil happy, I’m using the graphic because it has good, relevant information. That’s the gold standard when it comes to viral marketing: offer something that promotes your company that people pass along because of its own inherent value.

Here’s the graphic. It’s really long, so keep scrolling. I also had to shrink it down to fit width-wise but it should still be legible.

Distracted driving infographic.

Biker Quote for Today

I live with fear every day. But on weekends I leave her at home and go ride my dirt bike.