Passes & Canyons Blog

The Twisted Road website.

How do you feel about handing over the keys to your motorcycle to a total stranger–even a thoroughly vetted stranger–in exchange for a bit of cash.

For most riders, that is not going to happen.

Imagine, you’ve got your totally farkled out baby, your only bike, that you love like it’s your child and that no one–absolutely no one–better mess with it. Rent it to a stranger for a day or two? Not gonna happen.

But what if you own six bikes, and while you love them all, none of them are all that special. And they all cost money to maintain and keep running, and by renting one or another of them out from time to time you can significantly defray that expense. You just might consider it.

Enter Twisted Road. Think of AirBnB for motorcycles. You register, you meet the requirements (valid, current license), and when you’re going to be somewhere with some cool riding, you locate a bike and rent it. For a whole lot less than the approximately $200/day that the big boys charge.

Or if you’re the one renting out the bike, you set the daily price you’re comfortable with while Twisted Road vets the potential renters in advance.

This is a business that might work.

So Judy asked me, would I rent out one of my bikes? (Because I would totally rent someone else’s.) Let’s see. My friends who rent bikes as a business tell me how often their dual-sport bikes come back damaged, so no, I don’t think I would rent the V-Strom. The Concours has a lot of expensive bodywork and it is my number one bike these days so no, I would not be inclined to risk it in anyone else’s hands.

That leaves the CB750. Let’s face it, I only paid $800 for it when I bought it nearly 30 years ago and while I love it–it’s my first bike I ever owned–I’m not afraid of letting other people ride it. So yeah, maybe I’d rent the Honda. Maybe.

You might think that other people would be equally reluctant to rent out their nicer bikes but a look at what is available might surprise you. Let’s just list a few.

• 2011 Triumph Street Triple–$110/day
• 2017 Harley Softtail–$99/day
• 2014 Ducati Diavel–$125/day
• 2012 Yamaha Road Star–$130/day
• 2014 Yamaha WRR250R–$89/day
• 2004 BMW R1150R–$95/day
• 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale–$250/day
• 2003 Honda Shadow 750–$75/day

OK, there are a lot of bikes listed that are not at all shabby. If all you wanted was a bike to run around on for a couple days and have fun, I for one would be very interested in that Shadow 750 for $75 a day.

One thing that’s funny about it all is this “Dumb and Dumber” aspect. In the news article I saw that brought this to my attention, the guy running this business, Austin Rothbard, said he polled riders to see how many would be willing to rent their bikes out and how many would be willing to rent someone else’s bike to ride. He found that 85 percent of owners would not be willing to rent, while 70 percent of riders would not be willing to rent someone else’s bike.

“So you’re saying there’s a chance!?”

Right. That means 15 percent of owners would be willing to rent their bikes while 30 percent of riders would be willing to rent.

And so we have Twisted Road.

Biker Quote for Today

Warning: Tampering with my motorcycle may result in an ass whoopin’ you’ll never forget!

Author’s Note: Unless you are reading this on http://motorcyclecolorado.com/blog/ you are probably reading it on a rip-off site where they steal my work and publish it as their own. If you are not reading it on http://motorcyclecolorado.com/blog/, please exit and do not return to this rip-off site.

So many directions to choose from.

My string still holds, but it is destined to break soon. Ever since I bought my first motorcycle about 28 years ago I have ridden each bike I own at least once every calendar month. For the Honda that’s more than 300 consecutive calendar months. For the Kawi it comes to more than 200 consecutive months. For the V-Strom we’re looking at maybe just 45 months or so. But there will be no rides in April 2018. And probably none in May.

Thank you, heart surgery. Three weeks ago I had a quadruple bypass, along with repair of an aortal aneurysm and I’m not even supposed to drive for two months, much less ride a motorcycle. Heck, I’m not supposed to pick up anything weighing more than 10 pounds. How much weight do you suppose it involves just to rock a bike upright from its side stand? More than 10 pounds, I bet.

But I have to get back on the bike as soon as I can. Judy and I have plans to take a ride with our friends Willie and Jungle up to Bampf and Jasper in early July. I don’t intend to miss out on that trip. But that means that when I am able to ride, maybe around the first part of June, I’ll have just a month to get my stamina back and get my confidence up where it needs to be.

That confidence factor is a big one. I’ve never had to dust off rusty riding skills because I have never put the bikes away for the winter. This will be by far the longest I have gone without riding. And then there is the strength issue. I know I’m going to be nervous on my first couple rides so I’ve arranged with Alan to ride with me a few times. I know I’ll feel better knowing there is someone there to provide assistance if I need it.

This is all uncharted territory for me. I’m doing what I can already to build up strength, but so far it can be simply exhausting to walk around the block. Starting perhaps next week I’ll be going in regularly for rehab. No one is going to need to push me to do my rehab exercises; I intend to be pushing them.

So I don’t know how frequently I’ll be updating this blog for the interim. If I feel like I have anything interesting to discuss I’ll be here. Certainly I’ll be highlighting the big steps forward.

And also, just by way of explanation of that Author’s Note at the top, just recently two different websites have started stealing my blog posts and putting them up as their own. I’m trying to work with their web hosts to have them taken down but until that happens I want to try to make it clear to anyone coming to their rip-off sites that they are in fact rip-off sites.

Biker Quote for Today

A Biker’s Prayer: As I lay rubber down the street, I pray for traction I can keep. But if I spin and begin to slide, please dear God protect my sweet ride.

That instrument cluster in the foreground tells me I was on my Honda this day.

How is it that things come in bunches? I went out on my CB750 a couple weeks ago and three times during that one ride I had drivers in the lane to my right try take my lane, never mind that I was in it.

The first was the most egregious. This lady obviously did not look and she just pulled right over barely six feet in front of me. I blew my horn and shook my fist at her and she hit the gas. Made sure to get well ahead of me.

The next time was better. This guy seemed like he initiated his lane change and looked my way at the same time. He very quickly corrected and got back in his own lane.

The third was the least of the three: she signaled and had barely begun moving my way when she saw me and moved back.

You might ask whether I was at fault here. Was I paying no attention to being in these people’s blind spots? No, I assure you I was not. I pay a lot of attention to that issue, coming up on cars I’m overtaking cautiously and then hitting the throttle to blast past them quickly, getting into and out of their blind spots as rapidly as possible.

But there’s no avoiding being in their blind spot at least momentarily, and if that’s when they decide to change lanes and they don’t do a head-check, watch out!

Call Me The Breeze
That Saturday was an utterly gorgeous day so I did something kind of unusual: I went for a ride up in the hills. Normally I just never venture up to the high country on a bike until about May. This year, however, it has been so very warm of late, and we’ve had so little snow, that I figured I’d do it. Plus, I had just been up on the Peak-to-Peak the week before in a car and it was all clear.

So I was on the Concours and I headed up Mount Vernon Canyon on U.S. 40. It was a really nice run up to Genesee but when I got to that high point the wind was whipping a bit. I went on to Floyd Hill and the wind was howling. Of course, the Concours has complete bodywork so I always describe it as a sail. Not fun in high winds.

My original idea was to hit U.S. 6 in Clear Creek Canyon and then jump on I-70 just up to the exit for the Central City Parkway. I planned to take it over to Central City and then run down to Black Hawk, then go north on the Peak-to-Peak and back down to the flatlands via the Golden Gate Canyon road.

Well, considering the wind at Floyd Hill, going on up to Central City Parkway, which is higher and more exposed, was not at all appealing. So when I hit U.S. 6 I turned right and headed down Clear Creek Canyon. I could have then taken the left that would have taken me to Black Hawk and on to Golden Gate Canyon as planned but my gas gauge was acting weird so I was nervous.

Gas Or No Gas?
Ever since I had left home my gas situation was unclear. I always reset my trip meter to zero when I fill up but when I started off, the trip meter was reading about 80 miles while the gas gauge was showing near empty. Then as I went up and down hills the needle swung back and forth from half a tank to almost empty. I understand this, I’ve ridden this bike for for nearly 20 years, but I’ve never seen this kind of wild swinging. I was starting to wonder if a gas line had rotted through and was leaking. But I checked at a stop and found nothing dripping so I kept going.

I just kept heading down, to Golden, and made my way back home. I stopped and filled up on the way, and it only took 4.2 gallons. The Kawi holds 7.5 gallons. I was nowhere close to empty. But I filled it and set the trip meter to zero so now I know that next time, if things get weird again, there must be something wrong. Otherwise, I have no idea what was going on.

Speaking of gas issues, I had a different one on the previous Friday when I was out on the CB750. Normally I go to Reserve on that bike at about 145 miles. I was hitting 160 and going strong so I was wondering, watching closely for the first sign of the engine coughing so I could switch over.

I was coming up I-25 when it did seem to cough and I quickly flipped the petcock. But it didn’t take long before it started coughing even more. I hadn’t planned to get off at Orchard but in this case I did. On Orchard I got stopped at the first traffic signal and then the engine died altogether. I pulled over onto the sidewalk and considered my options.

The one thought I had been having was that maybe I had left the petcock set to Reserve ever since the last time I had had cause to use it. I put the kickstand down and got off to take a look. Sure enough, it was now set in the “On” position, not the “Reserve” position. I flipped it back to Reserve, pushed the starter button, the bike fired up and I rode on home.

No harm done, of course, but I know from experience what can happen if you have the lever set to Reserve without knowing it: you run out of gas entirely. Yes, I’ve done that.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if you’ve never ridden long enough to know that stock seats are never comfortable.