Passes & Canyons Blog

I’m not certain, but this could be the last of these Examiner Resurrections. I’m about at the end of these pieces that I feel are good enough and timeless enough to be republished since the demise of Examiner.com, where I originally published them.

Boredom Totally Lacking In Ride Across The Prairie

Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota are known as long, boring states that you just have to get across by a lot of travelers heading east or west, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If the journey is the destination, as motorcyclists so often like to say, these middle states are an enjoyable part of the ride.

I left Denver Monday morning in a rainstorm. In fact, by the time I got four blocks from my house I was drenched. Though the sky was threatening I figured I didn’t need to suit up yet as my first stop was to be for gas, and I’d see how the sky looked then. Four blocks later I was pulling under a shelter and putting on rain pants and jacket, but didn’t see the need for the glove and boot coverings that I have. But the rain just came down harder so by the time I reached the station my gloves were soaked through, worse than they’ve ever been soaked before.

At the station I carefully put everything on and, typical of Colorado, by the time I was ready to roll the storm was abating. By the time I made it out by the airport it was already time to start peeling things off. It was getting hot! And though the sky to the west looked like a boxer’s face after a title bout, to the east there was blue sky and sunshine.

I blasted northeast on I-76 to Sterling and then cut north on CO 113, to Sidney, NE, where I picked up U.S. 385. At Alliance I headed east on NE 2, which my map indicated was “scenic.” These terms are relative such that a scenic road in Nebraska would probably not be rated such in Colorado, but you take what you can get. The point was that in my first two days all I did was cross the prairie and it was a very interesting ride. Once I got past Alliance it was all new and all of it was different and beautiful in its own way. I never once wished I could just get beyond this horrid stretch of nothing.

From Alliance I could take the road north out of town, past Carhenge, and that was the shorter, most direct route, but it was also straight. If I headed east on NE 2 there was a squiggle on the map with lakes on both sides that looked to hold promise. That was NE 250 and it delivered on that promise. Who knew western Nebraska had so many curves?

This brought me out to U.S. 20 at Rushville, an east-west road that quickly took me to Gordon, where I spent my first night with some Motorcycle Travel Network (MTN) people. Ray and Shirley are also Christian Motorcyclist Association (CMA) members and Ray made a point of telling me that the $15 gratuity I gave him per the MTN protocols would go to the CMA’s fund raised each year to promote its missionary work overseas.

In the morning I headed east on 20 as far as Valentine and then got onto NE 12 to stay as close to the Nebraska-South Dakota border as possible. Approaching Valentine I was doubtful of signs I saw that described Valentine as a “vacation paradise” but the buttes above the Niobrara River formed beautiful topological features and I could see that if hunting and fishing and horseback riding were what you like to do on vacation, this could indeed be a paradise.

Quickly crossing the river on NE 12 and ascending the butte I saw a turn-out to an overlook, so even though it was about 3/4 mile of loose gravel, and my Kawasaki Concours hates gravel, I took it and the view was fantastic. There was also a lone buffalo just grazing right there, close enough to make me nervous. But I didn’t provoke him and he just watched me nonchalantly and we got along fine.

I finally crossed into South Dakota at the town of Niobrara and then zig-zagged my way north and east to Sioux Falls where I had arranged to stay with a friend from high school who I had not seen in more than 40 years. We had a lot of catching up to do and I think we both found that the other really hadn’t changed all the much in all those years. Let’s not wait to get together again so long next time.

Today it’s on to the Minneapolis area, with a brief side-trip down into the corner of Iowa. Vintage Motorcycle Days, I’m on my way, but it’s an indirect route.

Biker Quote for Today

The fact that I’m a biker doesn’t make me a different kinda Christian, but the fact that I’m a Christian makes me a different kinda biker. — Dano Janowski

As many times as I have ridden the Squaw Pass road I never noticed this one paved road heading off to the south. But now I’ve got to tell you about it.

I was riding with Bob and Robert, the Go Fast Buddies, on an RMMRC Wednesday impromptu ride. Bob proposed Witter Gulch, Robert said that sounded good, and I said I didn’t know Witter Gulch. Apparently that road connects to the Squaw Pass road but Dave wasn’t sure he could spot the turn-off. Then let’s go up it, Robert suggested. Just take the turn by the lake in Evergreen. OK, that will work.

So we got to Evergreen and the turn and Bob kept straight. Robert had been trying to signal Dave that this was the turn but now he just raised his arm, palm up, signaling “Well, OK.”

I guess Dave figured he could find the turn and wanted to go down, not up. We turned onto the Squaw Pass road and at a point where the road curves to the right there was a road to the left and he took it. We followed. This was indeed Witter Gulch Road.

And what a road! Holy crap! You can see in that Google Maps image above how it is one switchback after another. It make sense. The Squaw Pass road at that point runs along a ridge and anything in either direction could only be down. A lot.

Down we went. This is a good road, with excellent pavement. But you’re never going to get up much speed. I hope and presume that Bob was scanning the road ahead because at each switchback he late apexed to the point of going way over into the oncoming lane, while Robert and I just slowed down enough to stay in our lane.

Then there was the point where my attention flagged for an instant and I realized I was scary close to the edge of the road at a point where beyond the asphalt there was only air. OK, put all other thoughts aside until you get down where it’s more level. Dummy.

We got down to Upper Bear Creek Road and now the road followed the creek. There were obviously expensive houses along Witter Gulch Road all the way but now we were into one of those areas where you look around and wonder where in the world all these people got all this money. Ten of me together couldn’t buy one of these houses.

We pulled off at the Evergreen Country Club and agreed it was time to head home. Then on down along Bear Creek to Morrison and off in our separate directions. Thanks for the tip, Bob. I’ll be going back to that road. And I may need to point it out on the website.

Biker Quote for Today

Vinyl Tension-o-meter. Using a vernier caliper you measure the amount of seat vinyl you have sucked into a ridge by rapid contraction of your butt cheeks as the result of a near accident. Also referred to as “pucker factor.”

I went out to ride with the Wednesday morning group from the RMMRC and it turned out to be just three of us this time. As we pulled out of the parking lot, me in the middle, it occurred to me I was with Robert and Dave, who I have come to think of as the “Go Fast Buddies.”

I’ve ridden with these guys before, but in larger groups. They’re always out in front, getting further and further ahead. The last time we were leaving Deckers and I inadvertently got between the two of them and it wasn’t long before Robert blasted past me and then the two of them took off.

So here I was again, in between them. That got sorted out pretty quickly, however, in the heavy traffic on I-25. A truck pulled in between me and Dave, who was leading, and before I could see an opening to pass the truck Robert raced past us both using the exit lane. He caught up with Dave quickly enough but we were pretty far west on C-470 before I caught up with them.

All this time I was thinking about what was ahead on this ride. I just told myself I was going to ride my own ride, period.

We got off C-470 at Wadsworth, then turned west on the road up Deer Creek Canyon. I knew what was coming. It was going to get curvy and they were going to go fast. But I was also thinking about the fact that I’m not a half bad rider myself. And I have spent years deliberately practicing leaning off the bike so as to take a curve at higher speed with the bike not leaned over excessively. I decided that my own ride that I was going to ride was going to include seeing how close I could keep with them while still feeling secure and in control, that is to say, not scaring myself.

And I did pretty darn good. From Deer Creek Canyon to Turkey Creek Canyon the turns got tighter and while there were occasions when due to the curves I lost sight of them ahead of me, all it took was a little more straight and there they were, not that far ahead.

We did a bunch more twisty roads and I held my own. But I could never keep right up with them. And that got me thinking, too.

I can take curves kind of fast because I lean off the bike to provide counter weight to keep the bike upright, in the way that racers do when they lean off so far they drag their knee pucks on the ground. I never saw the Go Fast Buddies do any leaning of this sort. They were both on recent model Gold Wings, which appear to have very low centers of gravity. All my bikes have high centers of gravity, although on this day I was on my CB750, which is the lowest of the three.

Still, this is something I have observed many times with the OFMC, how these guys with their lower bikes can always go faster than me around curves. Without leaning off the bike.

Maybe some day I’ll have a bike with a low center of gravity. Then watch out. I just might become a member of the go-fast community.

Biker Quote for Today

Reasons not to date a motorcyclist: Our idea of dressing up is putting on a clean black t-shirt.

The OFMC left Cody headed into Yellowstone National Park wondering just how bad the tourist traffic would be. We weren’t going in to see the park–we’ve all been there many times–we just needed to get through and out the north gate at Gardiner. If there had been a realistic alternative we would have avoided the park.

Somewhat to our surprise, the road from Cody to the park was not busy and as we got into the park the road was still not busy. Maybe we were going to have a pleasant ride after all.

U.S. 14 into the park goes up over a small pass and it was inevitable that we would get behind some campers going up the hill but there were passing lanes and some of the camper drivers were polite and used the pull-outs to let other traffic pass. Nice. We got down on the other side to where the road runs along Yellowstone Lake and all was clear sailing. And then we hit the construction zone.

For about 12 miles or so, from Yellowstone Lake to Fishing Bridge, the road was totally ripped up. I didn’t mind because I was on my V-Strom but Dennis was on his Indian and Bill was on his Harley. Neither of them ever willingly gets off onto the gravel. This time they had no choice.

So we weaved our way through and around loose gravel and mud holes. Loose gravel is one thing but you really don’t want to go into the mud holes. We did our best. And we uneventfully reached the intersection where the road goes north or west, with our route north.

I was in the lead and the construction ran all the way to the very lip of the road we were getting onto. It was not clearly visible at all but just before I hit the pavement there was a considerable dip that sent my front end first down and then up sharply to the point of getting some air with my front tire. Then bump-boom as the rear did the same. OK, glad I have deep suspension. What about those guys?

Dennis was right behind me and he saw me go up and down. But he’s short and sure as heck didn’t want to come to a stop in the middle of that mess, with no way to touch the ground. So he powered on through. What else could he do? Bill followed, doing the same. Great. No harm, no foul.

It was on this stretch going north that we did encounter the idiotic tourist delays Yellowstone is famous for. Is there a bison way over there? Everybody stop and grab your cameras. Oh, we’re in the middle of the road? Who cares?

So we got on through that section and headed west at Canyon Village, over toward the Norris Geyser Basin, then north hoping for clear sailing out of the park.

Wrong. Long before we reached Mammoth Hot Springs we ran into more construction. More gravel. More slow going.

While this stretch was in pretty good shape, not as torn up as the stretch coming in, it was wet. The truck had obviously just recently sprayed water to keep the dust down, and while there was no dust, the wet made things very slippery. Time to take it really easy around these curves.

And finally we were out of the park. OK, that wasn’t so bad. We’ve definitely seen it worse. Try cruising past Old Faithful just after that geyser has done its thing, for example, and everyone is leaving. Yeah, that wasn’t too bad.

Biker Quote for Today

Reasons not to date a motorcyclist: Our idea of a date night is riding to a sleazy biker bar.

Our experience on the recent OFMC trip where Dennis inadvertently put diesel in his Indian has led me to think about some things I hadn’t considered before. Primarily, the importance of being close to someone who can work on your motorcycle when need be.

It’s no secret that there are one heck of a lot more Hondas or Harleys on the road than there are Indians. First off, the modern-day Indians are a much newer brand than Harley, plus they cost a lot. So–so far at least–Indian is sort of a niche brand.

Thus, the economics of the situation dictate that there are a lot fewer Indian dealerships around and also not all that many independent shops with experience working on Indians. And when you paid something in the mid-20s or more for your Chieftain I’m guessing you aren’t comfortable letting just any wrench jockey tear into it.

But what do you do when you break down? In Dennis’s case, he rented a U-Haul truck and we loaded the bike in and drove more than 200 miles out of our way to get to the nearest dealer. That will disrupt your trip in a hurry.

If it had been Bill, on the other hand, who rides a Harley, we would only have needed to get the bike another 40 miles or so in the direction we were heading to find a Harley shop. Same thing for me on my Suzuki V-Strom. And there are plenty of all-makes shops that would have been fully competent to work on either of our bikes. Perhaps they would also have been fully competent to work on Dennis’s bike but as I say, he was not particularly willing to take that chance.

So obviously, if you’re like Dennis and you ride a bike where repair options are sparse you are going to make an extra careful point to be sure the bike is in top condition before you take off on a trip like this. But Dennis didn’t break down; he made a mistake at the pumps and grabbed the wrong pump.

I’m sure this is not an irrelevant issue for some people when they’re deciding which bike to buy. And it has to be a chicken and egg thing: how do you get the sales without the dealer networks, but how do you support the dealer networks before you have the sales? I guess in this case it helps to be a big corporation like Polaris that can afford to subsidize the new brand for awhile from sales of the established brand. But even they don’t have infinite resources.

I guess I’ll stick with my Honda, Kawasaki, and Suzuki bikes. There are a lot of them out there.

Meanwhile, I want to note that as I prepped to write this piece I googled Honda, Harley, and Indian dealerships in Colorado and was amazed–as I periodically am–at how many shops come and go. And then there are those who change their names. I try to keep my “Colorado Motorcycle Dealers and Repair Shops” page reasonably current but this is an ever-changing target. I ended up adding about eight new shops and revising the name on two. About once a year I try to go through and click each link to see who is no longer in business, and there are always a bunch of those. Ah, the joys of running a website.

Biker Quote for Today

Reasons not to date a motorcyclist: We never ask for directions. Getting lost is usually the point on a motorcycle.

I have talked numerous times about the Motorcycle Travel Network (MTN) and once at least about Biker Buddy. Both of these are similar to Airbnb in that it’s a matter of motorcyclists providing accommodations for other traveling motorcyclists.

But I haven’t said much lately and there’s a reason: It has been more than two years since we’ve had an MTN guest and in the almost two years since I signed up for Biker Buddy we have had no one contact us about a stay.

Until Monday night. On Monday night I got a Biker Buddy email saying that Maureen would like to stay with us on Tuesday night. That would have been great except we had plans to go to the Rockies game Tuesday night. So what time would she be arriving?

Here’s where it got frustrating. There may be ways to contact potential guests directly but because this was our very first we have no experience in doing so. This thing is an app on my phone and it showed that Maureen had requested a stay. I tried tapping her name, hoping to go to a profile that would list an phone number or email but it did not. I tapped a drop-down menu and one option was “Send an email” but when I tapped that it wanted me to fill in the email address, which I could not do.

What to do? Judy insisted that I cancel the reservation because if we couldn’t be here she should not be coming by expecting us. I did tap the cancel button but was told that a reservation cannot be canceled within 48 hours of the arrival. The only thing that left was the “Confirm reservation” button. If I tapped that we would be confirming but with no idea whether we’d be here when she came. If I did not tap it, perhaps she would call, or else figure out we weren’t able to accommodate her.

On the chance that she might come by because the reservation had not been canceled, I left a note on the front door with my phone number and telling her she was welcome but we would not be home till late. No one was here waiting for us when we got home.

Then on Wednesday I checked my email and found that around 4 p.m. the day before Maureen had emailed me. That was followed up about half an hour later by an email from Ginger, one of the folks who runs Biker Buddy. But I didn’t think to check my email before we left for the game.

It turns out Maureen was expecting to arrive around 10:30 p.m. You never know how long a baseball game will last but this was a short one and we were home before 10:30. It would all have been fine. So darn. We enjoy hosting other bikers when they come through town and we’re sorry we missed Maureen. I explained to Ginger what happened; maybe they’ll revise the app to make it possible for hosts to do what I wanted to do, i.e., directly contact the guest.

So that’s a disappointment. But it’s nice to finally get a request after two years being a member. In the meantime, the Motorcycle Travel Network seems to be fading into the sunset. We had not had a guest in quite awhile but when I checked I found that our membership had expired. So I renewed for two years. Well, that two years expired in February and we had zero guests during that time. That’s sad. We’ve had nothing but good experiences with MTN, both as hosts and guests.

If you are comfortable with the whole Airbnb idea, you really should try one or both of these programs. There is no cost to host on Biker Buddy, while membership in MTN is $40 per year or $60 for two years. Biker Buddy pays you $40 per night to host, while you get $20 per night with MTN. And most importantly, you meet a lot of good people who share your motorcycling passion. Just do it, OK?

Biker Quote for Today

It is incredible what a rider filled with irrational desire can achieve. — Dr. Claudio Costa

This year’s OFMC trip was a surprising one in terms of the temperature. The whole week before leaving Denver we had had temps near 100 and so it was on the day we departed. We really wanted to get moving so we could at least have some breeze.

This is Colorado, however, and when you get up high the temperature drops. So as we had taken off dressed for heat, crossing Berthoud Pass was, shall we say, chilly. This set the stage for a week of see-saw temperatures.

By the time we got down to Winter Park it was hot again and that heat stayed with us up to Walden and then to Saratoga, Wyoming. In fact it was so hot in Saratoga that we parked next to a small office building where there was shade on the east side. There was nowhere to sit or anything but we wanted to get off the bikes and we absolutely wanted shade, so we took what we could get. Then we cruised on into Rawlins for the night.

The next day we were going to be crossing the heart of Wyoming, which we know from experience tends to be a long, hot, dusty ride. Again, we dressed for the heat. We had gone about 40 miles when I pulled over. I was cold! The day had started out cool and it was not getting a bit warmer. Bill and Dennis were happy to layer up, too.

We took off again but then reached a rest area and while we were stopped there we added another layer. It was still darn chilly! This was totally unexpected.

Our destination that day was Cody and when we reached Riverton we made another stop. Now it was definitely heating up and layers came off. Then, as we neared Cody, the heat really set in. Where was this heat this morning?

Come morning and this time we were warned. Dennis noticed some riders coming in from the west, from Yellowstone, where we were headed, and they were warmly dressed. So we dressed warmly and were glad we did. It was sure nice to be getting away from that 100 degree heat in Denver, which we could see was still going on.

We got through Yellowstone, spent the night at Chico, Montana, and headed up to Livingston to catch I-90 toward Missoula. Then we got rerouted toward Idaho Springs by Dennis’s by now legendary mistake of putting red diesel into his bike’s tank. We ended up heading south on I-15 and it was a pleasant day. Getting used to the cooler temps I had even put on my electric vest before he headed south with the Indian in the U-Haul, though I certainly did not have it turned on.

That changed when we reached the state line between Montana and Idaho. Just like going through a door into another climate, suddenly it got really cold and I flipped the “On” switch on my power cord. Boy, did that heat feel good!

And then about five miles outside of Idaho Falls it suddenly got blazing hot! Of course I turned the vest off but I couldn’t wait to get stopped to tear off my extra layers. How was it so cold just 50 miles ago? It’s not like we came down out of the mountains or anything.

For the rest of the trip the temperature fluctuations calmed down a bit. As expected it was hot in Vernal, Utah. As expected, it was comfortable through most of Colorado, only getting hot again as we neared Denver.

But the thing that really got me was how we headed out initially expecting hot weather and how little of that we encountered, yet all the while Denver was baking. Meanwhile, those folks in cars are pretty much oblivious to all this. I’ll take the bike any day.

Biker Quote for Today

The cheapest part of a project bike build is the initial purchase.

The benefit of being very familiar with your motorcycle is obvious. You know where everything is and you know what to expect. Still, there are some things that only come into play occasionally and so perhaps you’re not as familiar with them as you are with the bike in general.

I went for a ride yesterday with members of the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club (RMMRC) and this was one of those times.

I was on the V-Strom and unlike my other bikes, the V-Strom has a gas gauge and no reserve. Because this bike has a larger tank and gets better gas mileage than my friends’ bikes I generally find myself filling up before I would actually need to. I’ve never run out of gas on this bike. Which means that I have never found the true limit to how far it can go on a tank of gas.

Taking off yesterday I thought I had plenty of gas. The gauge is in bars; five bars is full. I didn’t look at it closely but was figuring just from how much I’d ridden it lately that I had four bars. It wasn’t until it was too late to do anything about it that I noticed I was at three bars. That made me a little uncomfortable but I still figured I had plenty.

Our route was to be out U.S. 285 up to Pine Junction, south to Deckers, and then back along the Platte, up by the Rampart Range, and down to Sedalia. Then home. Not that long a ride.

So there I was at three bars and to my dismay, I dropped to two bars right away. Oh gosh, I’ve got a whole lot less gas than I thought I did.

OK, now here’s what you need to understand about this gas gauge. The five bars do not represent equal amounts of gas. I generally will get 100 miles before the first bar disappears and I’m running on four bars. Then the next three go away fairly quickly and then the fifth bar is closer to the first in mileage. I was talking about it once to my friend, Kevin, who sold me the bike, and I can’t remember the figure he threw out but basically he said you have a whole lot of miles left when you go to one bar.

Another thing to understand is that switching between the odometer and the trip meter on this bike is a pain in the butt. And it’s one or the other, as opposed to my other bikes where you see both at the same time. So after riding this bike for more than six years I still don’t have a good feel for how many miles each bar represents.

Anyway, at two bars I was a bit concerned but not a lot. And then it went down to one bar really quickly. Uh oh, I don’t like this.

Now, what happens when you go to one bar is, I would guess, intended to make you nervous and persuade you to fill up as soon as you can. First a flashing gas pump icon appears next to that one bar but then you go a few miles further and the solid black bar changes to a hollow red flashing bar, as shown in the photo above. Now I’m really getting uncomfortable.

The saving grace in all this is my experience the first time this happened. I was out with the OFMC and we had spent the night in Meeker. I had arrived there via a different route than the other guys and unbeknownst to me, they had gassed up upon arriving in town. I had not. We headed out of town in the morning and as we neared Rangely I saw I was down to two bars. Just shy of town we turned south on CO 139 over Douglas Pass down to Loma. And very soon after that I went to one bar and it started flashing red. Oh crap.

It’s about 70 miles from Rangely to Loma with no gas in between. I sweated that ride. But I got there. So that told me I could get at least 70 miles on one bar. So there we were yesterday up in Deckers, and I knew it was less than 70 to home. But I was still nervous. Still, I was with other guys and I carry a siphon hose on each of my bikes so I figured I’d be fine.

We reached I-25 at Castle Pines Parkway and split up and then I only needed to go another 10-12 miles–with no ready assistance at hand. With each mile I felt more and more relaxed and rolled happily into our driveway. As I said, it’s really good to be familiar with your bike.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you’ve spent more on your motorcycle than your education.