Passes & Canyons Blog

You know I love exploring. Sunday was gorgeous so I got on the V-Strom to go enjoy it.

I didn’t know where I was going, and it gets tougher and tougher to figure out new places to go. I just headed south on DTC Boulevard.

I got to Orchard and thought about how I generally don’t go east on that road, so why not? Past Havana it gets into a neighborhood but comes out at Peoria, where you’re looking at Cherry Creek State Park. Go south.

Crossing Arapahoe and continuing south Peoria passes Arapahoe County Airport, bends east, and becomes Broncos Parkway. Sure I’ve been on this road before but not recently. And then when Broncos Parkway hits Parker Road, what then?

Well, at Parker Road, to keep going east means going into the Chenango development. Local streets. But I wondered, does it go through somehow and eventually end up at Smoky Hill Road? Time to find out. (The short answer is yes; the long answer follows.)

To say this road twists around a lot is an understatement. First it’s Jamison Avenue but then it bends south and you end up on Long Avenue. Wind and twist and twist and wind and after some time you end up at Ireland Way. This finally takes you out of Chenango and across E-470. I was a little turned around and thought I was heading east but the map tells me I was going more south-southeast.

Nothing to do but keep going, keep exploring and after heading a good way south I came upon Inspiration Drive. I’ve never heard of Inspiration Drive. Let’s go left, which I see for sure now is due east.

Inspiration Drive hits a T at Piney Lake Road, where I turned left–north. After hitting County Line Road it becomes Powhaton Road and pretty soon, sure enough, there’s Smoky Hill. So then it was just up Smoky Hill to Parker Road, to I-225, and home.

I knew I’d hit on some new roads when I got to all these unfamiliar streets. Also, as is often the case when I got exploring like this, I found myself several times on the edge of civilization. That is, there were large areas currently being bulldozed in preparation for new homes and schools and stores. Come back in a year and you won’t recognize the place.

Hey, did you have something better to do on this beautiful Indian summer day? I sure didn’t.

Biker Quote for Today

Weekend forecast: Motorcycle things with no chance of house cleaning or cooking.

I’d guess the pipes on this custom bike are not quiet.

After I put up that latest Examiner Resurrection piece I got to wondering if these anti-noise groups have perhaps gotten their facts a bit more in line since that was published in 2010. So I’ve been perusing their websites to see.

First I visited the NoiseOFF site. Recall that back then this group was accusing the various motorcycle rights organizations (MROs) of lobbying “to defeat motorcycle noise legislation.”

So has NoiseOFF gotten their facts a bit more in line? Read this:

Some riders join motorcycle rights organizations (MROs) that lobby against motorcycle noise legislation. These organizations include the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, and American Motorcyclist Association (AMA). In many cities and states, there are groups that call itself ABATE.

Also:

The AMA compromises (compromises? I think they mean comprises>) over 300,000 members and more than 1,200 chartered clubs, with corporate representation from the motorcycle industry. Through sponsored events and organized campaigns, they mobilize their membership to lobby to defeat motorcycle noise legislation.

So no, NoiseOFF still has their FactsOFF.

Also of note, their web page also contained this:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) analyzes and reports on motorcycle accident data statistics and acts as a clearinghouse on motorcycle safety.

In their 2007 published report, ‘Fatal Two-Vehicle Motorcycle Crashes’ (DOT HS 810 834), motorcyclists were found to be overwhelmingly responsible for causing accidents with passenger vehicles. In nearly three-fourths of the two-vehicle motorcycle crashes involving passenger vehicles, the role of the motorcycle was recorded as the striking vehicle. Additionally, factors including alcohol impairment, invalid license, and speeding were more attributed to motorcycle riders.

Wow. I think they misread the stats. Other studies have shown that it is predominantly the car driver who is at fault. Yes, the bike may strike the car, but that is almost always because the car turned in front of the bike. I’m all in favor of keeping noise under control but these people need to get their facts straight.

What about Noise Free America? Back in 2010 they were saying that “In reality, the Sturgis event is probably the largest concentration ever of lawbreakers. And Mike Rounds, the governor of South Dakota, gave aid and comfort to this massive lawbreaking.”

Frankly, they’re probably right about that. While I don’t find this statement on their site anymore, they do present a much more factual look at the nature of motorcycle noise and enforcement efforts. They look at what the legislation is, how enforcement is generally ineffective, and at what might be done to address that ineffectiveness. Mostly they call for enforcement of existing laws.

I agree. That’s what I said in 2010. But don’t just focus on motorcycles. As I said then, “If noise of any kind is a problem, pass laws that limit the noise regardless of the source. And then enforce those laws.”

I guess nothing has changed in the interim.

Biker Quote for Today

Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go to Sturgis.

Motorcycle noise is a legitimate issue, but let’s separate the fact from the ignorance.

Will the Governator veto the California bill requiring EPA seals on motorcycle exhausts? (This Examiner post is from eight years ago, so there have been some changes.) That’s one of the biggest questions on many people’s minds at the moment. That it should be an issue at all is a demonstration of ignorance. Let’s start with a recap.

Truth
Some motorcycles make too much noise. Admit it, it’s a fact. Also, some cars and trucks and airplanes and trains and other vehicles make too much noise. This is true as well.

So the California legislature decided to copy what has been done in several other jurisdictions in recent years, notably Denver, and has passed legislation requiring all motorcycle mufflers to carry the Environmental Protection Agency stamp that certifies it does not exceed noise standards. Thus the waiting to see what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is a motorcyclist himself, will do.

The ignorance comes in where the proponents of the bill think it will solve the problem. It won’t, and Denver again serves as a good example. In a recent CBS News article it was reported that “just 37 tickets were issued in 2007, the law’s first year. In 2008, just 4 tickets, and last year 5 tickets. So far this year, no tickets have been issued.”

It’s a matter of practicality. Generally the stamps on the mufflers are in obscure, out-of-the-way places where a police officer would have to get down on hands and knees, or perhaps lay on the his back on the ground, to spot. It’s just not very likely to happen. Plus, OEM mufflers carrying the EPA stamps are not always available for older bikes, and even if they are, why should a biker be subject to ticketing for not having a stamp if the noise the bike makes is not excessive?

In the meantime, laws like this are not needed. Laws already exist limiting noise. All that is really necessary is to enforce the laws already passed, and this is regardless of whether the source of the noise is a motorcycle, a truck, a lawn mower, or anything else. The problem with the California law and others is that they unfairly target motorcycles.

Ignorance
While controlling noise levels is a valid endeavor for cities and other jurisdictions, the people promoting this agenda have been going off the deep end of late, and they often don’t worry about getting facts straight.

For instance, on the site for NoiseOFF – The Coalition Against Noise Pollution, they offer this bit of misinformation:

Some riders join motorcycle rights organizations (MROs) that lobby against motorcycle noise legislation. These organizations include the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, and American Motorcyclist Association (AMA). . . . The AMA compromises (sic) over 300,000 members and more than 1,200 chartered clubs, with corporate representation from the motorcycle industry. Through sponsored events and organized campaigns, they mobilize their membership to lobby to defeat motorcycle noise legislation.

First off, the MRF is only involved in national lobbying and they don’t get involved in local issues. As for the AMA, all you need to do is check their site and you’ll learn that they routinely urge riders to be conscientious with noise, and that what the AMA does oppose is . . . drumroll . . . legislation that unfairly targets motorcycles.

Then of course there is Noise Free America, which recently had this to say about the Sturgis motorcycle rally and South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds:

In reality, the Sturgis event is probably the largest concentration ever of lawbreakers. And Mike Rounds, the governor of South Dakota, gave aid and comfort to this massive lawbreaking.

Is it really that hard to understand? If noise of any kind is a problem, pass laws that limit the noise regardless of the source. And then enforce those laws. Quit singling out motorcycles. The sleeper whose slumber is disturbed doesn’t care what caused the noise, they just want the noise stopped. And that includes sleeping motorcyclists.

Biker Quote for Today

The bike started up–better rev the engine a dozen times to make sure.

Viewing my first Rever ride from my desktop computer.

I was recently introduced to a new tool that I may very well put to a lot of use on this website. Brought to us by many of the same folks responsible for Butler motorcycle maps, we now have Rever.

Rever is a ride-tracking app for your GPS-equipped cell phone. In brief, you create an account, download and install the app, and then turn it on when you go for a ride. Shut it off when you’re done with the ride and you then have, stored in the cloud, a complete record of your ride, including route, miles, time, average speed, and more. That image above shows my very first ride with Rever tracking me.

It’s dead simple plus it has a variety of uses. Offered in a freemium manner as is so common these days, the basic app is free but if you pay to subscribe it offers a lot more. But at its most basic, you can track rides and also plan rides in advance.

Once you do a tracked ride or plan out a ride, you can save it. Any friends you are connected to on Rever can see your rides. So if you’re taking a group on a ride you have done before, or that you have planned out on Rever, each of your friends can open up that ride and they have the complete route plan right there in their hand.

One issue group riders encounter at times is getting separated. If each of your riders is on Rever and is tracking, lose somebody and you can pull out your phone, go to their rides, and see where they are right now. How cool is that?

For the paid membership you can also get Butler Maps overlays on your map so you can plan the route to hit all the good roads Butler points out to you.

What really interests me about Rever is that back when I built this www.motorcyclecolorado.com website we did not have smart phones that were essentially desktop computers in your hand. But full-sized web pages don’t generally display well on a cell phone. In order to at least not get too far behind technology I have rebuilt the main pages of the site to be mobile-friendly, but that’s only 11 pages out of more than 100.

Of course, the main point of the website is to present the best rides in Colorado. I have created maps but they are static. You can’t zoom in or do anything else other than look at them. With Rever I see the opportunity to create new, mobile-friendly pages for all these routes that should really bring the site more up to date. So look for that to happen over the next couple years.

Meanwhile, in order to present all these routes via Rever maps, I’m going to have to ride them all again. Oh, what a dirty job. Please don’t throw me in that briar patch.

Biker Quote for Today

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

I love having three bikes, partly because they’re so different and each has its own strength.

For a little more than two weeks Judy and I were on a ride to British Columbia on my 1999 Kawasaki Concours. We got home on a Thursday and on Friday I took off with the OFMC for another week, this time on my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650. After basically living on the Connie for two weeks, was it an adjustment to be on the V-Strom, alone? You better believe it.

First off, Judy and I have helmet-to-helmet communicators, and I was totally accustomed to just talking with someone (her) as I rode along. Heading off on the OFMC trip, several of the guys had left earlier but I headed out with Brett. I can’t tell you how often I started to just talk to him, only to be reminded that, oh yeah, he can’t hear me. It’s silly how many times I did that.

As for being on a different bike, that played out in a variety of ways. For one thing, wow, what a change to go from a 670-pound bike with a 110-pound passenger to a 420-pound bike and no passenger. Can you say “light” and “agile”? I thought you could. This was like night and day. Smaller, lighter bikes are just fun to ride. I love my Connie as a highway, let’s-do-some-traveling sort of bike, but the Wee Strom is made for other pleasures, although it does fine on the highway.

Now, the seat is less comfortable than the Connie. I know most people think the first thing you should do is get an aftermarket seat, but I’ve never found that necessary or even desirable. I like the seat, and it is definitely better than the one on the V-Strom.

A different consideration is that the V has chain drive, while the Connie has a shaft. Not a big deal, but I did pay attention to the chain on this trip, even stopping to buy some W-D 40 because I forget to bring chain lube along.

The other significant thing about the V is that it has a digital read-out, not dials the way all older bikes do. One option on this digital read-out is the odometer and two trip meters that you have to punch a button to select. Also, a fuel gauge with five bars: full is five and when you get to only one it starts flashing to warn you that you are low.

These controls may be simple but it took me a while to figure out how they worked. As long as I’ve had the V-Strom I have had it just set to the odometer. That means that if you want to know what kind of gas mileage you’re getting you have to remember what the mileage was when you last filled up. I usually didn’t.

So on this trip I started using the trip meter for the first time. I wanted to understand how many miles each of those five bars represented. I quickly found that the first one did not go away until I had ridden at least 100 miles. The second one would generally disappear about 40 miles later. But I was riding with the guys, and none of their bikes can go as far on a tank of gas as my V-Strom so we were always stopping for gas before I got far into the third bar. I’ll have to figure out what the others represent sometime when I’ve riding alone.

But even the little I do know now has come in useful. As long as I’ve had the bike I’ve noticed that when I start it up after it’s been sitting for a while I smell gas. Once I saw gas dripping and I took it in for work that seems to have addressed the issue for the most part. But after I got home, with about 50 miles on the tank, I let the bike sit for a few weeks. Next time I got on it I was already down to the third bar. Whoa! Clearly I have a leak. Something is wrong. I’m hoping it will just require replacement of some rubber fuel lines. That’s going to be up to Joel to figure out.

Biker Quote for Today

If you need me I’ll be riding.

Part of our group at Lake Louise.

Everyone is an individual and so it is a simple truism that every group is different and group dynamics are different from one group to another. Plus, group dynamics change as a group changes. When you become part of a group it behooves you to figure out the group dynamics.

With the OFMC, it started out very simple. Each of us took our turns leading, not by any formal process but simply based on who felt like being in front at this moment. That would change if someone got a wild hair and wanted to put on some speed for awhile. Bill goes blasting past and we either pick up the pace to join him or we catch up with him when he slows down. John wants to stop, he either pulls over when he chooses or, if he’s behind, he blasts ahead and then stops. It’s easy with three.

As the group got bigger it got more complicated. Friggs became the one who set the pace in terms of taking off from a stop. We learned that it just didn’t make any sense to even put on your helmet until Friggs put on his. He was always the last to be ready to ride.

If you didn’t want somebody right on your butt, make sure not to get immediately in front of Randy. Randy would target fixate on your rear bumper and stay close, right behind you, rather than staggering to one side or the other.

Don’t try to ride a staggered formation with Dennis because Dennis is all over the road. If the folks behind you want to ride in staggered formation, just pick one side of the road or the other and stay there, so the folks behind can all stay in one spot. Sometimes Dennis will be right ahead of you and sometimes he won’t. Live with it.

What am I in all this? It embarrasses me a little to have to say I don’t really know. You’d need to ask the other guys. I do know that I was one guy who everyone figured knew where he was going. With a larger group John became the leader almost all the time but sometimes he had to berate the guys for not paying attention to our route. The only one he had confidence to know where we were going was Ken, he would tell them.

Now that John’s health has him not riding any more, I have become the leader. I planned our last trip and rode in front most of the time. But I did make a point, when I knew one guy was clear on the route and destination, to suggest he lead for awhile. And it seemed like they kind of enjoyed taking that spot occasionally.

Riding this summer to British Columbia with Willie and Jungle and others, the dynamics were set. This was their ride so Jungle always rode lead and Willie always rode sweep. Except, with two Slingshots and a Porsche Carrera 2 in the mix, people sometimes had other ideas.

Terry, in her Porsche, was sometimes impatient with the group going what she considered slow. So she would take off on her own and we’d see her again whenever we did.

As the den mother for the group, Willie often found herself telling the rest of us to go ahead, she and JC, in his Slingshot, would catch up. It seems JC has a wont for shopping and thought nothing of wandering off to some shops just as the rest of us were getting ready to go.

Meanwhile, Jean has her issues with JC and to the extent possible, she stayed as far away from him as possible. With seven or more of us in the group that was fairly easy, and Willie–again the den mother–went out of her way to ensure they didn’t end up sitting next to each other at meals. JC, of course, was unaware of any of these machinations.

So what got me thinking about this is that after Judy and I peeled off to blast home so I could turn around and leave on the OFMC trip, she wondered how our departure would affect the group dynamics. And especially how much harder it would now be to keep Jean separate from JC.

People are people. Each is unique. When two or more come together you get group dynamics. The patterns are infinite. This is life.

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t wait for life, ride to meet it.

Riding as a group comes with certain responsibilities toward your other riders.

When you’re riding with a group on motorcycles there will always be someone in the lead and someone at the back, riding “sweep,” whether you think about it that way or not.

It’s a really good thing if the leader knows where he or she is going. Unless you’re using GPS, however, that is not always possible. For instance, when we were with Willie and Jungle’s group going to Banff this summer, there was one point where I was in the lead because the group had had to split up, with Jungle back in Cranbrook, BC, with a broken down bike.

We pulled into Radium Hot Springs, our destination for the day, and at an intersection neither Judy nor I noted that the highway we were following took the right turn. We went straight, as did all those behind us.

We quickly realized our error and turned around, motioning for the others to follow but for some reason they stayed put at the turnaround. Apparently they expected us to come back to tell them, yes, this is the correct way to go. Eventually everyone found their way to the motel but that’s the kind of problem you can have when the leader doesn’t know the route exactly.

Generally, however, everyone has GPS these days and as long as everyone knows the destination, they can get there. It’s just that sometimes you have to stop to pull out the phone and check the GPS.

Riding sweep is entirely different. Theoretically, each rider is responsible for making sure they do not lose sight of the rider behind them. If you do, you slow down until they show up and if they don’t show up you stop. If they still don’t show up, you go back. This ripples through the ranks up to the leader.

Unless the sweep is the one suffering problems, their general responsibility is to stop and assist anyone ahead who has problems. If the sweep has problems then the first rider in front of them should notice and come back.

That’s where it can get sticky. At least in the group I ride with, not everyone is paying all that much attention. They should, but the truth is, some do not. I like to ride sweep mainly because that way I don’t have anyone behind me crowding me or target fixating on my rear. We do have at least one person who will do that.

But I have been the one who has had problems, or the one who has stopped for another reason, and had the guys in front of me just keep on riding. When I finally have rejoined the group it’s generally, “Where were you?” to which I reply “Well, where in the heck were YOU?!”

It can be a fine line, though, between going your own speed and dropping way back and dropping back so far that the folks ahead of you start slowing down wondering about you. This is something about which Friggs has aggravated the rest of us at times. For instance, on this year’s OFMC trip, I was riding sweep but Friggs was going so slow for so long, with the others nowhere to be seen ahead, that I finally just blasted past him. He’s on his own! I have no feelings of guilt over passing him and leaving him behind.

Talking with the other guys later, they agreed that they had had the same annoyance with him at times and done the same thing. Dude, it’s fine to ride your own ride but you really need to at least maintain a minimum of contact with the group. If you’re not going to, say so in advance and we’ll see you when you get there.

Biker Quote for Today

Keep calm and take a back road.

Those scuff marks show you exactly where Friggs’s face would have been ripped open.

The best motorcycle protective gear does you no good at all if you don’t wear it. This is summed up in the term ATGATT: All The Gear, All The Time.

I’ve gotten better about this as the years have passed. I used to frequently ride without a helmet; I never do now. I didn’t always ride with a jacket; now it is seldom I ride without. And I almost never ride with my leather chaps on, even now. So I can hardly ever claim to ride with ALL the gear. But what I do wear I do wear almost all the time.

Friggs is another one who is about on a par with me. He always wears a helmet and almost always wears his jacket. I’m not sure he even owns chaps.

Friggs was not wearing his jacket when he crashed his bike in New Mexico. He was wearing his helmet. That made all the difference.

Take a look at his helmet. See all that scuffing above the visor, and how the top part of the visor is scraped up, too? That would have been his face. And you have to look a little harder but just below the visor, above the “Harley,” and also on the chin portion there is scuffing. That could have been a dislocated jaw, or worse.

This is why I always wear a helmet these days.

As for not wearing his jacket, Friggs got off lucky. His shirt was ripped up and his shoulder was bruised but he came out of it remarkably intact. But we all commented on how, gosh, Friggs almost always wears his jacket. What bad timing on his part to leave it off this particular day.

His pants were also torn up, which chaps would have limited, but hey, we don’t ride with that kind of gear most of the time. We’re just not true, to the core, ATGATT guys. But even more so than before, after seeing this, I will NEVER ride without my helmet.

Biker Quote for Today

A good friend knows all your best stories. A biker friend has lived them all with you.