Passes & Canyons Blog

I use a photograph with every one of these posts, and I almost never use the same photo twice. That means that every time I go out I’m shooting more–I burn through a lot of them.

A lot of the time, in order to get shots of bikes on the road, I carry my camera strapped around my neck and when the situation permits I’ll pull it up and fire off a few shots as I ride. Thank you auto-focus and auto-exposure for making this possible. But this practice is not without risks. Some people–maybe you!–would say it’s stupid and dangerous.

Besides the risk, however high or low it is, there are limitations because often just when I’d like to take a shot or two I really need both my hands on the grips and my eyes on the road. I miss an awful lot of good pictures for that reason.

Enter the GoPro camera. This thing is designed to be mounted and either turned on to shoot photos or video or else to be triggered manually with a remote device. Judy gave me this camera for Christmas several years ago and other than taking a ride over Guanella Pass with it recording, and up and down the Lookout Mountain road, I really haven’t used it.

Quite some time ago I decided it was time to use it. I keep a to-do list and it has been on the list for months. This week I finally checked it off the list.

The GoPro is a pretty cool little device but I had found that shooting video of riding a motorcycle is just not that exciting. Maybe if I was racing at 150 mph around a track with other bikes alongside and in front, but I don’t do those things. So I concluded my best use for it would be to shoot individual photos using the remote. Stick it in the mount on top of my helmet, look at what I want to shoot, and press the button.

The thing with the camera is that it shoots in super wide view and has incredible resolution. It’s almost a fish-eye lens, so the horizon arcs and things get distorted the further you get from the middle of the image. So if all I want is shots of some guys on bikes ahead of me on the road, they come in sharp and I just crop out 90 percent of the image. Plus, even at full magnification the resolution is not at all bad, although it gives sort of an artsy, posterized image.

And then here’s the kicker. All of these shots above were taken from one photo, the one below. I was looking a bit off to the right but the ultra wide lens got half of the world around me. I think I’ll be using this camera more in the future.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if your best friends are named after reptiles.

The light turned green and both lanes of traffic pulled forward and then left. As I swung my Kawasaki Concours from the right-hand lane of one street through the arc and into the right-hand lane of the other I saw a common sight. A driver in the left-hand lane swung through the curve but then started moving to the right.

Of course he didn’t turn his head to see if the lane he was moving into was clear, and of course it wasn’t. I was there. I made sure to get out of his way and blared my horn at him. He looked in his mirror to see this motorcycle right at his rear bumper, realized what he had done, and waved sheepishly in apology.

Just another day on the road for me. I’ve had this particular situation occur at this particular intersection more times than I can count. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen at other intersections as well. It does. It also happens driving straight down the road. People think it’s sufficient to check their mirrors, and that a head check is not necessary, and they are wrong. Bikers learn that they need to ride as if they were invisible, because they might as well be.

The problem is blind spots. Everyone knows you’ve got a blind spot where a vehicle pulling alongside you is not visible in your mirrors. And every motorcyclist knows that their bike is small enough to get completely lost in that blind spot. We compensate by throttling through it a quickly as possible, keeping a close eye on the vehicle we’re passing in the process, ready to react at the slightest indication of trouble.

But sometimes that’s not an option. Sometimes you’re on the highway in rush-hour traffic, creeping along with cars and trucks on both sides. In that situation you’re constantly, inevitably in and out of somebody’s blind spot almost all the time. And when this dude to your left decides he wants to be in your lane and doesn’t do a head check to see if the lane is really clear, you’d better have good reflexes. By the time you’ve grabbed the brakes, swerved to safety, and then gotten stabilized it’s usually too late to blow your horn so the fool doesn’t even know he almost killed you. He’d just wonder, “Why is that guy on that bike blowing his horn?”

I know a lot of riders who respond to this by simply not riding in traffic unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. They’ll get on their bikes and head straight out of town. You call them up to go for a ride and they’ll only agree to meet you somewhere that does not involve them coming across town.

That’s not me. I ride everywhere, on all kinds of roads, in all kinds of traffic. You’d better believe I ride defensively. And if someone encroaches on my space I’m quick with the horn. I want them to know they screwed up. In that situation at the intersection, that driver and I were going the same route for several miles. In the repositioning that constantly goes on in traffic we found ourselves a few miles later with me in the left lane and him in the right lane. I was watching him closely and I saw that he wanted to move left. I also saw that he turned his head to see where I was, turned on his turn signal, and then waited until I slowed down to open up space for him before he pulled over.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Update
I had intended to head out to the Dirty Dogs Roadhouse on Saturday to check out the first of these monthly swap meets but then Sunday morning as I was thinking about what I would write about this week it dawned on me that I had totally forgotten it. Oops. I’ll try again next month.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding a motorcycle is like flying. All your senses are alive.

As presumably all Colorado motorcyclists are aware, the end of January is normally the time for swap meet, or more recently, the Colorado Motorcycle Expo. However, as with all large, inside gatherings, that was canceled this year due to the coronavirus.

For businesses during this trying time, the adage “Adapt or Die” is absolutely the nature of the beast. The Expo is adapting; whether this will be sufficient for it to survive we can only wait to see.

The adaptation in this case is a move to monthly swap meets, the first of which will be Saturday this week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Dirty Dogs Roadhouse, at 17999 West Colfax in Golden. There is no admission fee.

The event is sponsored by Rider Justice, which is the activist arm of the O’Sullivan Personal Injury Law Firm. Here’s what they have to say about the event:

Join us for our 1st Biker Swap Meet hosted by the Colorado Motorcycle Expo and sponsor RiderJustice and Colorado Rider News
This will be a monthly swap meet for the purposes of giving our local motorcycle vendors a place to sell their stuff. Dirty Dogs Roadhouse will be hosting this in the lower and upper parking lot giving everyone ample space to sell.

We aren’t sure if rallys and events will be scheduled this year. This will be an outdoor event with everyone practicing safe social distancing. As the weather warms up, we will include music, food and beverage stations in the upper parking lots as well.

Dirty Dogs Roadhouse also had this to say:

Dirty Dogs Roadhouse is currently serving from 7am-11pm due to recent covid restrictions. We will update this information as it changes. We currently require guests to wear masks when moving about or standing, once sitting you are free to take it off.

So, what’s it going to be like? Will there be vendors? Will people show up? Will it be safe to show up? There are a bunch of questions but I guess the only way to get answers is to try it and see. Will I be going? Hard to say. Right now my inclination is to drop by and take a look, which perhaps staying at a distance. Judy and I have each gotten our first Covid shots but we’re still wary and I’m sure we will be for some time to come yet. But I’ll probably at least drive by and stop to shoot a picture or two.

Biker Quote for Today

If I was a short track racer I’d be an Indian. You could ride me around and ride me around again. — Mark Knopfler

Ongoing mechanical issues with my now 41-year-old Honda CB750 Custom some years ago had me thinking the unthinkable, as in getting rid of it rather than continuing to put money into it. It didn’t happen, but for the only time in all those years I was at least considering it.

But this is the first bike I ever owned. I had ridden motorcycles before but this is the bike that I learned to actually ride on. There really is a difference. Anyone can get on a bike and start it up and go forward. To handle that bike with skill and finesse is an entirely different matter. It takes time, and this was the first bike I ever spent enough time on to learn these things.

Thinking these thoughts had me thinking about the early days, when I had no idea how much I didn’t know. When my friend Richard heard I’d gotten a bike he commented that I must be figuring out the seeming contradiction of counter-steering. I looked at him blankly because I had no idea what he was talking about. Of course, counter-steering is that business where you put pressure on the right grip if you want to go right, the left grip if you want to go left. If you think about steering, pressing on the right grip–away from you–would seem to turn the front wheel to the left, so how does that make you go right? I’m not even going to get into that lengthy discussion here but trust me, it does. I had some learning to do.

Another thing I learned right away was to back into a curb. I read something awhile ago from a non-rider who had passed through Sturgis during the rally who wondered why it was that all the bikes were parked with their rear wheels backed in. Was this just some unspoken law of biker cool?

Hardly. Within the first week or two that I owned the Honda I ran over to the local motorcycle dealership to get something. I pulled in the parking lot, which sloped down from the building toward the street, and pulled into a space alongside the sidewalk, nose in. Guess what happened when I was ready to leave. With no reverse gear, I had to muscle this 600-pound bike uphill, backward. Of course if I had backed it in I would have just climbed on, started it up, and driven away. That’s one of those lessons you learn once and never forget.

Paying attention to the kill switch is another lesson but it doesn’t sink in quite so quickly. If you take a Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider training course they will teach you to turn the bike off every time by flipping the kill switch. I’m sure if you get in that habit you will never forget then to flip that switch back whenever you want to start. I don’t do it that way. I just turn off the ignition key.

In my mind, at least in the beginning, the kill switch was something you would use in an emergency, such as if you dropped the bike and the engine didn’t die on its own. What I had to learn is that sometimes you get all fat-fingered and hit the kill switch inadvertently. Sometimes that means you’re trying to start it and nothing is happening. Other times, you might be cruising along and all of a sudden the bike dies, and for the life of you, you can’t figure out why.

I did this once when I was setting my throttle lock and my hand grazed the kill switch. I sat there by the road for half an hour while two different bikers stopped to offer assistance. I felt pretty stupid when I finally figured out what the problem was. Eventually I just developed the habit of scanning the controls every time before starting to make sure everything is in the proper position.

I could go on; there’s a lot more. But the point is, I learned all of this on the Honda. This bike has been with me since the start, quite a bit longer even than my wife has been with me. Could I really let it go? At this point I’d say no, and back then I never had to make that choice. After getting a bunch of work done on it then, ever since it has been a dependable, good-running bike.

On the other hand, I know a number of guys who are younger than me who have decided they’re getting too old and it’s time to hang up the spurs. Do I see that happening any time soon? Not on your life! But before I hang up the spurs I’m guessing I will get rid of these heavy bikes I now ride and get something smaller. But I don’t even see that happening any time soon. Heck, Roy is 89 and still rides his big Beemer across the country. I’m planning to be Roy.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m a biker grandpa. Just like a normal grandpa except much cooler.

As I try to figure out the problem with my Concours I have visited some forums on the bike. As something of a surprise to me, after owning the bike for more than 20 years, there apparently is a common, known issue with Connies, and that is called hydrolock. One thing I read the guy said the two main causes for the deaths of the Concours are crashes and hydrolock.

So what the heck is hydrolock, and what causes it? Let me tell you a little about the Concours.

On my Honda CB750 Custom the gas petcock has three positions: On, Res, and Off. Pretty simple. On the Concours there are also three positions: On, Res, and Prime. Prime allows gas to trickle into the cylinders. I have never understood the purpose of Prime, but I do know from experience what can happen if you leave the petcock in that position.

Probably within the first year after I bought the bike I had cause to go to reserve. After getting gas, without looking at the markings, I pushed the lever all the way in the other direction. That’s what I would do on the Honda. All the way one way was On, all the way the other way was Res, and in the middle was Off.

That’s not how it is on the Concours. On the Connie, On is the middle position. Switching to reserve, if you go the correct direction you move to reserve. If you go the wrong direction you go to prime. And apparently the bike will run on prime.

But when you stop, if you leave it on prime it will allow gas to trickle into the cylinders but because it is not getting burned it just seeps past the rings into the oil pan. And the bike does not run well with gas mixed with the oil. It was after the second time I did this that I figured it out. And apparently I’m nowhere near the only Concours owner who has made this mistake over the years, although from most of the discussion of hydrolock that I’ve seen the larger problem is failure of the petcock, not carelessness.

Well, all these years, I thought the only issue with inadvertently switching to prime was the engine not running well and that the solution was to dump the oil/gas mixture and put in new oil. That has always worked in the past. So this time, when I apparently had a brain fart and pushed the petcock to the wrong position I assumed changing the oil would solve the problem.

And it sort of did solve the problem. I could now fire the bike up and ride away on it, but it doesn’t run well at first. Which is what brings me to where I am now.

So trying to figure this out I go looking and for the first time I start seeing all this discussion of hydrolock. Hydrolock occurs when there is fluid in the cylinder and you fire the bike up. On the up stroke the cylinder is compressing the fuel/air mixture. Fluid does not compress as well as gas (as in oxygen, not gasoline). And what can result is that the connecting rod that links the cylinder head to the crankshaft gets bent. Not good; not at all.

Is this my problem? I’m still not sure, though I sure hope not. I need to find out one crucial thing. With all the discussion I’ve read I still haven’t seen definitively whether the bike will still run after a hydrolock event. I get the idea it won’t, and if that’s the case then that’s not my issue because my bike does run.

Judy says just call Joel and let him figure it out; that’s the purpose of money and we have money. To which my response is that the only thing worse than doing something stupid is having to pay a bunch of money to correct for your stupidity. But unless I get real smart real soon I guess that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if one area of your house (other then the garage) is decorated in a motorcycle motif.

OK, me, the non-mechanic, trying to trouble-shoot my Concours. I looked into what would happen if you had too much oil in the machine and my first lead was to the air intake, which is where excess oil presumably would be pushed out. Is the air filter saturated with oil?

First I had to figure out how to get to the air filter. I was going to change the spark plugs on this bike once but then I found that to do that I would have had to lift the gas tank. To do that would have required sealing off the gas line and who knows what else. I left it for Joel to do once I finally got around to having him do a tune-up. Would I need to lift the tank to get to the air filter?

Happily, the answer was no. I have a shop manual and looking in there I found that all I had to do was remove the left side panel, then take out two screws to remove the plate to get to the filter. Easy enough. So I pulled out the filter and found myself with a definite maybe.

The thing is, I don’t know what a new Connie air filter should look and feel like. This thing, seen in the photo, seemed to be a bit oily, but not so much as to be anything close to saturated. Is that normal? Plus, there was certainly no oily residue in the air box.

The only thing I know to do is take it over to Vickery and ask them if this is how it should be, and if they have one in stock, compare it to a new one. It is Sunday as I’m writing this so it will be Tuesday before I can do that. Nothing to do but wait.

If this proves to be the answer it will be a godsend. Because if it is not the answer I have no idea what to look for next. Of course I can always give Joel a call but man, I’ve really been giving him a bunch of my money lately. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

A little later: Nope, I did some more reading in my shop manual and it says to lightly coat a new air filter with oil. I guess my next move will be to go to the Concours Owner’s Group forum and see if I can find answers there.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you have at least one ashtray that is actually a motorcycle part.

We had some fabulous weather to start off February so I got out on all three bikes right away.

Of the two bikes I’ve recently had issues with the situations varied. The V-Strom, which I put a new battery into, started and ran just great. It still drips something but that is a longstanding issue that I’ll just continue to live with.

The Concours is a different matter. It fired right up and I ran it a good while to make sure it was warm. That bike has always needed to warm up before heading out.

Previously I had apparently left the reserve lever in the Prime position, an error that led to gas trickling into the cylinders and seeping past into the oil pan. In that state the bike wouldn’t run and I ended up making a real mess changing the oil. And once it was changed, although the bike fired up and ran, it didn’t initially run well. I rode around the neighborhood to be sure it didn’t crap out on me a long way from home, but eventually it did fine.

Well, same thing this time. I pulled out of the driveway and there was very little power. Again I rode around the neighborhood until it seemed to be doing OK and then I took off. This time, however, in two instances when I was coasting downhill and not revving the throttle at all the engine died. Now, it started back up right off when I pushed the starter button but this bike has never just died on me before. For the rest of the ride, anytime I was slowing down I made sure to give it a little more gas so it would not die. That’s a pain.

Maybe the business with dying could be remedied by just cranking up the idle speed a bit, I don’t know. But what the heck is the issue with the poor running in the beginning? Could there still be gas in the oil? Certainly not much–would just a tiny bit have that effect? Is there some other issue? I’m convinced that my mechanic put too much oil in when he changed it back in June. Could that have blown out a seal? What happens if a seal is blown? I just don’t know the answer to these kinds of questions. I need to do research.

Of course I could change the oil again–it certainly helped to change it before. I hate to do that because motorcycle oil is not cheap and changing oil on this bike is not a simple operation. And if I did that and it still was not running right, then what?

I just did a quick Google search and it appears I ought to check the air filter to see if excess oil has been through out that way. Now I need to look into how I get to the air filter. Sigh. I’ll let you know what happens.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: Disassembling the motorcycle is done out of pleasure rather than need.

Coronavirus or not, the OFMC took its annual trip in 2020, and we’re all still alive and healthy. So you can bet we’re planning a trip for 2021.

As the designated trip planner I have asked the guys what they want to do and then worked out a route and itinerary. They guys are good with what I came up with and here it is.

Our destination for the first day is Scottsbluff, NE. The guys mainly wanted to go to the Black Hills this year and this is a good midway point. You can ride all the way in one day–I have–but it’s more leisurely to take it in two. Plus, if you’ve never been to Scottsbluff and gone to the top of the bluffs you should. The actual park is Scotts Bluff National Monument. So this short ride will give us plenty of time to do that.

The next day we’ll ride on up to Custer, SD, which will be our home base for three nights. The OFMC always likes to spend two days in one place in order to have a day for golf. It turns out there are very few places in the Black Hills where there are public courses, and Custer is one. On the other day we’ll just ride around in the Black Hills.

Then leaving Custer we’ll have a short day’s ride up to Spearfish, SD. That’s a really short ride but the OFMC also always wants to do some gambling, so we’ll take a very short ride to Deadwood, give the casinos some of our money, and then complete the leisurely run to Spearfish.

The next day’s run is also very short, so I had to figure a good way to extend it. We’ll run up from Spearfish to Belle Fourche, then west through Hulett and on to Devil’s Tower National Monument. We’ve been to Devil’s Tower before but never gone in and up to the monument, this time we will. And then we’ll ride on to Newcastle, WY, for the night.

Following that we’ll cruise on down the eastern side of Wyoming to Torrington. That’s another short day but when you look at the map there’s not a lot of places to go without going a long way. And in recent years we have made a deliberate effort to stay in towns we’ve never stayed in before. We’ve never stayed in Torrington. Who knows, maybe we never will again.

The day after that will be the most scenic of the whole trip, as well as one of the longest. We’ll head south to Cheyenne and then take the state roads between Cheyenne and Laramie. Most people take the interstate but the state road is much nicer. Then we’ll head southwest out of Laramie down through the Snowy Range and back into Colorado for a night at Walden. That’s our last night out and the next day we’ll head home. So that’s the trip this year. Only about 1,000 miles.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s your road and yours alone. Others may ride it with you but no one can ride it for you.