Passes & Canyons Blog

Every year about this time I start looking at what I want to get done before the end of the year. Usually that includes making an effort to turn over one more 1,000-mile point on each bike’s odometer and then any other odd objective I can identify.

Turning over 1,000-mile points is especially easy–or irrelevant–this year. On the Honda CB750 the meter is sitting now at 35,940. Can I put another 60 miles on that bike yet this year. Is the sky blue?

It’s even more of a no-brainer on the Kawasaki Concours. That meter now sits at 73,986. We’re looking at 14 miles. Yeah, I think I’ll manage that.

And then there’s the Suzuki V-Strom. That meter is now reading 38,181. You can either say that one is totally out of reach or you can look at it that I already passed that 1,000-mile mark 181 miles ago. I’ve put a lot of miles on that bike this year so I’m going with the latter interpretation.

This year I do have a different goal for the Honda, however. In the beginning this was my only bike and all the miles I rode were on it. Then I got the Kawi and didn’t ride the Honda as much, and then I got the V-Strom and the time on the Honda went way down. For a whole bunch of years I didn’t even put 1,000 miles a year on that bike. So now that in itself has become an objective.

At the start of this year that bike had 35,048 on the dial. So instead of just putting 60 miles on it yet this year I really want to go at least 108. Still totally doable, I just have to get out and do it. And if this great weather continues that will be easy.

So what else do I want to get done before January 1? Well, often as we head into winter I’m looking at my tires and figuring I need better rubber for the winter. Not this year. Already this year I’ve gotten two new back tires and one new front. All the other rubber is good, lots of deep tread. Tires are no issue.

Plus, they’ve all had oil changes and the Honda and Kawi had overall tune-ups. I guess I’d have to say all three are in pretty darn good shape at this point. That’s kind of a nice way to end the year.

Biker Quote for Today

Biker new year’s resolutions: 1. Ride bikes. 2. Look at bikes. 3. Talk about bikes. 4. Repeat.

Many years ago I bought a junker of a pick-up truck to haul materials for some landscaping I was doing at home. This was not a vehicle you would drive for any other reason. It had been in a crash and the frame was bent, so it was one of those things that look like they’re going sideways down the road. Mostly it sat parked in my garage.

It didn’t take me long to figure out, however, that for what I was paying in insurance on it each year I could save money by paying to have this rock and compost and other stuff delivered. So I sold the truck.

A lot of people who have motorcycles don’t really ride them all that much. If you only ride the bike about 1,000 miles a year but you’re paying $200 for insurance that would come to 20 cents per mile ridden. If you put 10,000 miles on that bike you’re only looking at 2 cents a mile. What if you could get insurance where you pay for the actual mileage you put on the bike?

This is actually an option in some states (Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana). There is a motorcycle insurance company called Voom Insurance that does exactly that. Ron Khirman from Voom contacted me recently asking if I would like to work with them on getting the word out about their company. In exchange for putting up a blog post (this post) they would pay me $50. Check them out, write whatever I feel is appropriate. I said I was interested in their offering but if they were going to pay me I would need to let you, the readers of this blog, know that. “Fine by us,” Ron replied.

So I checked them out. Ron sent me to a link that is presumably a dummy page so I wouldn’t accidentally purchasing insurance that would do me no good–I’m in Colorado and they do not yet operate in Colorado. The first thing that happened was that Norton Antivirus deemed this a dangerous choice and I had to tell it no, I really do want to go to the site. I got no such response when I went to the actual site in the link above. In the meantime I was able to get the information I needed.

For starters, Voom offers three plans at varying price points: Essentials, Popular, and Extended. With Essentials the monthly base rate is $4 and 1 cent per mile. For Popular it is $9 a month and 4 cents per mile. With Extended it is $35 a month and 13 cents per mile. If you go with Popular it adds in comprehensive and collision and going to Extended also includes uninsured, underinsured, and body injury.

Each plan is customizable depending on what coverage you want. For instance, I chose Essentials and used my V-Strom as the bike. It gave me a base rate of $2.10 and a penny per mile. (The last two fees are consistent for all policies.) This includes $25,000 coverage per person, $50,000 coverage per incident, and $20,000 property damage per incident. These coverages meet Colorado’s requirements. If I added comprehensive and collision that went to $7.76 per month and four cents per mile. All the standard choices you always make with insurance were there for your selection.

They also offer the usual deductions for things like having a motorcycle endorsement on your driver’s license, taking a rider safety course, and that sort of thing. I have those so I took those deductions.

So how does this work out for me? Would I benefit by paying per mile for my insurance?

Well, last year I rode the V-Strom 1,046 miles. Taking the basic coverage that would work out to $35.66, whereas I now pay GEICO $145.02 per year on that bike. (OK, an update on Dec. 1: I did the math wrong. I think I misread that quote. By my recalculation it would cost me $60.62 per year. That’s still a heck of a savings.) I tried adding my other bikes onto the policy and it didn’t alter the general equation very much. It would seem that I could save a good bit of money going with a policy like this.

I don’t know. Maybe there’s something I’m missing here but this looks like a pretty sweet deal. If it was offered in Colorado I would definitely check it out further. But it isn’t, so for now I won’t. Get back in touch with me then, guys, OK? If any of you readers give this a shot let me know how it turns out. Thanks.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you only took the job to pay for your trip to Sturgis.

I was discussing gloves last week and made the point at one spot that with my heated gloves I need never ride with freezing hands again–as long as I actually have the gloves with me. Which is a pretty significant if. You can have the best riding gear in the world but if you don’t wear it or take it with you it’s of absolutely no good.

I had a perfect example of that on the Colorado Cruise when we needed to leave Ouray early to get over Red Mountain Pass before it was closed for construction work. I had not anticipated riding is really cold weather so of course my heated gloves were sitting–uselessly–at home.

We went up over the pass and down to Silverton, where we stopped for gas and for breakfast. My hands were so cold it took several minutes warming them up before I could undo the latches on my tank bag so I could get to the gas cap, and then it took more warming before I could manipulate the key in the gas cap to open the tank.

Was I so fully loaded on this trip that it would have been an issue sticking the gloves in a bag somewhere? Oh heck no. I was on the V-Strom and besides the tank bag and top bag it has two huge Givi sidebags that are so big that even when I go on longer trips I never fill them more than half full. No, it was just stupidity.

This is a recurring theme with me. On this same trip I wore one of my mesh jackets because, you know, it was still summer, right? Mesh is for summer and leather is for winter. It was still summer. OK, but even mesh jackets have liners you can put in or take out. And it’s not like they take up a lot of space.

So I wore the mesh. Did I take the liner? No. Did I seriously regret this as we repeatedly went over passes where the temperatures were really low? You bet. Did I feel really stupid? You bet. At least in this case I finally figured out on the last day that I should just put on my rain jacket and that would provide the wind-blocking function the liner otherwise would have.

Of course I can’t count the number of times I have gone out on just day rides and figured, oh, it’s plenty warm, I don’t need to take a sweatshirt or my electric vest. And then found it much too cool for comfort but there I was out there and there was my warm clothing sitting at home. Just put the darn thing in the side bag. If you don’t need to pull it out there’s no harm done. It’s not like it weighs 50 pounds and you’re carrying it on your back as you walk across the desert.

It does work the other way. Just the other day I was out riding and out of an overabundance of caution I bundled up. And I roasted! But you know what? I stopped and took over the unneeded layers. How hard is that?

The bottom line is, I have a lot of really good gear. I’m prepared for pretty much anything. Nevertheless, I continue to find myself in situations where what I really need is sitting at home. Some people are hopeless and sometimes I have to think I’m one of them.

Biker Quote for Today

I would love to buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle… But I can’t afford all the shirts.

Gloves, gloves, we got gloves. Boy, do we have gloves.

If you’ve been riding motorcycles for any good length of time you probably do, too. As with helmets, eye protection, and so many other things, many years ago gloves were not considered essential riding gear. Nowadays, I don’t know about you, but I usually wouldn’t think of riding without them.

But just as my three bikes are each best suited to particular niches, gloves are as well. Which is why I have three motorcycles and a whole bunch of gloves.

In the beginning, I bought a pair of doe-skin gauntlets, which is to say, gloves with deep, flaring cuffs that allow room for your jacket sleeve as they extend back beyond the wrists of the jacket. A very good all-around riding glove. In warmer weather these are still my go-to gloves.

But those gloves aren’t lined or insulated so it wasn’t long before I bought a very similar pair, except that the new ones are lined with Thinsulate™. When the weather turns cooler I turn to these gloves. It’s kind of how I mark the turning of the seasons.

Thinsulate alone doesn’t cut it though when it gets really cold. So next I bought some heated gloves. Now we’re really cookin’! (Yeah, pun intended.) Now it doesn’t matter how cold it is, if I’m riding I’ve got warm hands (as long as I have the heated gloves with me–I sometimes don’t).

But I have a GoPro camera and while I’ve shot some video, where I set it to record and just go ride, I really have more use for individual still photos. To do that, I need to use a remote controller that connects via Bluetooth, and I need to press the button each time I want to take a shot. Well, I can do that with gloves on but it’s hit or miss; the gloves make it hard for me to feel the slight click as I successfully press the shutter button. So I’ve ridden at times with no glove on my left hand. That can get cold.

The answer: fingerless gloves. Judy had given me a pair of fingerless gloves a long time ago but I never wore them because they were really stiff and not at all comfortable. I wondered if treating them with oil, the way you do a baseball mitt, would soften them up and make them usable, but I couldn’t find them. I probably (discreetly) got rid of them a long time ago. So I went and bought some new ones. This is definitely the type of thing you need to pick out for yourself, not allow someone else to choose them for you when they have no idea of what makes a good product and what does not.

What else could I possibly need? Well, what about when it rains?

OK, so somewhere along the way I bought some waterproof mittens that are large and can be pulled on over regular gloves when it rains. They work great but one time I was up in Eagle heading home and it was wet, and I did not have the mittens with me. Jungle gave me a pair of scuba gloves. They not only are waterproof, they are also insulated. Nice.

And then Robert moved to Panama, and gave away everything he wasn’t taking with him. I got the top bag that I now have on my Concours and I also got . . . drum roll . . . several more pair of gloves.

One pair is made by Icon and has some armor on the knuckles. Another is made by Rev-It! and has a lot more armor in a variety of places. Both are nice and I wear them at times.

The last pair is made by Olympia and while I have worn them on occasion I don’t like and won’t keep them–for the smallest, most unlikely reason. The way they’re stitched there is a seam that comes to a point right between the thumb and forefinger where your hand wraps around–and presses against–the grip. On any ride of more than half an hour, this little bit of seam becomes very uncomfortable. It’s just poor design.

So yeah, I’ve got gloves. And did I ever tell you how I came to have five riding jackets? Or five helmets? Those are other stories for other times.

Biker Quote for Today

Harley-Davidson has invented a flying motorcycle. The old bikes will henceforth be known as ground Hogs.

“Discovering” here is a sorta, kinda thing. I’m pretty sure I rode at least part of this road once before but could not have taken you back there and only stumbled on it then.

I’m talking about Lake Gulch Road, which runs south out of Castle Rock and meets up with CO 83 south of Franktown.

I’ll make an aside here, telling you that I’m playing with Google Maps to show you the entire route we took last week when the RMMRC rode down to Colorado Springs to visit the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum. I’ve never delved deeply into Google Maps so I’m not real sure how to make it do what you want but as you can see I had some success, although there are two spots (probably obvious) where the software added bits I didn’t want and I can’t figure out how to get ride of them.

So anyway, we headed out from Performance Cycle over to Sedalia where we were meeting up with a few more riders. We headed south on CO 105 to west of Castle Rock, where we turned east on Wolfensberger Road. I had been on this before but had gone straight on into Castle Rock. This time we turned southeast on Plum Creek Parkway, under I-25, and on to where we turned right onto Lake Gulch Road.

At this point I was extremely interested. I’m always interested in finding new roads. This one was great. We quickly were out of town and going along a very pretty highway with very little traffic, winding and climbing and just generally being the kind of road motorcyclists always like.

I could tell it was angling southeast so after awhile I figured we would eventually meet up with CO 83, but where? And then we did reach 83 and I now knew that I had taken this road going the other way once. Even now, though, I don’t know if I came out where we got on it or if maybe I got off onto South Ridge Road, which would have taken me into Castle Rock at a different place. I suspect I did.

Regardless, what a nice alternative route this road is. And so far it is still undeveloped, although with Castle Rock exploding that probably won’t be the case for long. So go ride it now while you can.

Biker Quote for Today

I was hit by a moose driving my motorcycle yesterday. How he managed to drive it is a mystery to me.

I rode down to Colorado Springs the other day with members of the RMMRC to visit the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum in its new location in downtown CS. Oddly enough, after we got to the Springs and had lunch the rest of the group decided to skip the museum and just head back to Denver. I was not party to that discussion so I’m unclear on the reason but there was no way I was not going to the museum. So I went alone.

The first trick in visiting the museum was finding it. It used to be in an outbuilding on the site of Pikes Peak Harley-Davidson, up at the north end of town. I’m not sure, but maybe then they moved inside the dealership, and then just recently into this new space at 19 N Tejon Street. Finding Pikes Peak H-D was easy; finding the new site a bit harder. The main thing is, it’s inside a restaurant, or group of restaurants. This is the Tejon Eatery, which appears to be maybe sort of a food court with a variety of restaurants–I’m just not clear on all this.

But the point is, while there are signs outside, they’re small and if I had not had the address I would probably not have spotted them. So, with uncertainty, I stepped inside and asked the hostess right inside about the motorcycle museum. She said yes, just go straight that way, make a right turn, and then go up the stairs. I got to the back portion of the building and there, among tables for diners, was a staircase heading up under a row of motorcycles to another dining area. Up on top I turned 180 degrees and there was the museum. This was the weirdest setting for a museum I’ve ever seen but hey, whatever works.

In the little building outside Pikes Peak H-D the museum had been insanely crowded. There was no question they needed more space. While there is more space in the new site, the bikes are still in most cases packed closely together. At least visitors have more room to move around.

And goodness, do they have motorcycles. Lots of vintage Harleys and Indians plus a whole bunch of really odd, seemingly one-off bikes. Plus, they have displays all over the walls of photos, old posters and advertisements, and all kinds of memorabilia. Also, to add to the retro feel of the place, they have an old-style soda fountain in the back of the museum area.

Thinking that it might make sense to plan another RMMRC trip down and then just come here to eat I asked the “soda jerk” and he explained that he just serves ice cream. OK, you could still have lunch somewhere else then come here and get ice cream and tour the museum.

“What are your hours?” I asked.

“We’re open right now,” he replied. OK.

“But on a normal day, when are you open?” I asked. He didn’t seem to understand my question and offered no answer. OK. Maybe that’s not such a good idea.

So I don’t know about the soda fountain, but the museum’s hours are Wednesday-Saturday, 11am to 8pm, and Sunday, 11am to 4pm. Admission is free.

Bottom line, if you’re into looking at a lot of antique and vintage motorcycles, as well as a lot of associated memorabilia, you won’t be disappointed. And frankly, it’s kind of small so you may not end up spending a whole lot of time there, so I’m not sure it’s worth a special trip to the Springs just for that purpose. Or, depending on your own interests, it might be. I just know I sure as heck had no intention of going all the way down there and not going to the museum.

Biker Quote for Today

A policeman pulled me over on his motorcycle. I don’t know why, I told him I was only borrowing it for 5 minutes.

I generally like to ride alone a lot but there is one thing that you lose when there’s no one else with you: swapping memories later. It’s only the times when you were together that you can say, “Oh hey, do you remember when we . . . .”

I’ve been riding with the OFMC for more than 30 years now and we’ve racked up a lot of memories. And isn’t it great to just sit and kick some of those times around now and then. Some of them were not fun when we were living them but we all know that some of the worst times present some of the best memories.

On this summer’s OFMC trip we were sitting around one night toward the end of the week and that’s the direction the discussion headed.

“Remember the last time we were here in the Black Hills and Steve and Johnathon and those other guys met us here, and we rode the Iron Mountain Road/Needles Highway loop and they liked it so much they went right back and did it again?”

“And it dumped rain on them so hard they thought the sun had gone down and were surprised when it passed that it was still daylight?”

“Oh, yeah. Man, I’m glad I didn’t go with them.”

That kind of thing.

“Or that other time we were here and Aaron Neville was giving a free concert on main street?”

“Right. And the young guys stayed out really late getting raging drunk and we had to stay another day so they could get over their hangovers!”

“Yeah, and do you remember how Todd just passed out sitting up in that chair, with his eyes open, just staring at me in my bed? That gave me the creeps. I had to get up and turn him so at least he wasn’t looking right at me.”

Yeah, that kind of thing.

Now, I have some pretty terrific memories from my rides alone, but there’s no one to share that knowing feeling like when someone was there with you. Still, they make good stories, and I do get to enjoy telling them. Come to think of it, that’s part of why I do this blog. You weren’t there so it’s all new to you. Did I ever tell you about the time . . .

Biker Quote for Today

During labor the pain is so great that a woman can almost imagine how a man feels when he can’t ride his motorcycle for a week.

I am not a go-fast guy. I’m not an aggressive rider or driver. But I know that many people who ride have a particular enjoyment of speed. I get it. I have ridden fast plenty of times, I just don’t make it a regular part of my ride. There are just moments.

The rest of the time I’m generally happiest just tootling along at an easy pace. That’s one reason why I enjoy riding alone so much, I get to go exactly as fast as I choose, stop exactly when I want to, and get going again exactly when I’m ready to do so.

But when you’re riding with a group you have to make compromises on a lot of these things. And I do, although within limits. I’m very much a “Ride your own ride” kind of guy, and if the guys in front of me are going a lot faster than I’m comfortable with I don’t hesitate to drop back. I know where we’re going. I’ll get there in my own time.

And that’s very much what it’s all about on a lot of the RMMRC rides I go on. I used to refer to Bob and Robert as the Go-Fast Boys. The two of them on matching Gold Wings would often take the lead and if you were going to keep up with them you had better be comfortable cranking up some speed. I generally didn’t.

Robert has moved to Panama now so now it’s Dave and Bob who I think of as the Go-Fast Boys. But there are others. This came very clear on the recent Colorado Cruise, where Ralf led much of the time. Let’s put it this way: Dave considers Ralf a Go-Fast Boy.

Fortunately, there were enough of us on this ride that it was easy to break up into two groups, the fast ones and the others. I generally stuck with the slower group. But not always.

The first day out we covered 400 miles getting from Denver to Grand Junction, so by the time we were crossing Grand Mesa it was late in the day and getting a lot cooler. This didn’t seem like a time to dawdle and we didn’t. The speed limit over Grand Mesa is something like 45 but there was no traffic and we raced over at about 70 mph. Usually I’d have preferred to take my time and enjoy the scenery but this time I was OK going fast.

And while I prefer not to ride someone else’s ride, there can be benefits to pushing yourself at times. I mean, how do you improve your skills if you never challenge yourself?

So on the third day, when we rode from Ouray down to Durango, east to South Fork, and then north to Gunnison, I spent a lot of time at the tail end of the fast boys. And you know what? I did really well and felt very comfortable. For one thing, if everyone in front of you is taking this curve at this speed there’s really no reason to think you need to slow down. Just get in a groove behind the guy in front of you and follow his lead. And for the most part I did. Not entirely, but most of the time.

I can do it. I think I have a lot of skill as a rider. I’m just not an aggressive kind of person. I like going at my own pace.

Biker Quote for Today

What kind of motorcycle has the best sense of humor? Yamahahaha.