Passes & Canyons Blog

The Harley-Davidson Pan America is the first Harley I might consider owning.

Anyone who rides motorcycles knows how easy it is to strike up conversations with other bikers just about anywhere you encounter them. That’s especially true out on the road. You’re in a gas station or at a motel and there’s someone else with a bike and you talk. Just that simple.

No surprise then that on this latest OFMC trip we encountered our share of interesting folks.

We were in Arco, Idaho, and there were two bikers in the room next to Bill and Dennis. This was a father-son duo who were headed back to Salt Lake City after a few days out. The dad was on an Indian much like the one Dennis used to have and his son was riding the Harley he handed down to him. Nice kind of dad to have. Actually, Bill had done the same with his son Jason some years earlier.

After dropping the son off, the dad still had some riding to do. He was going to keep on going and would meet up with a friend a day or two later somewhere else. The details are hazy now but this guy was definitely enjoying himself. They had come down the day before through Challis, which was the way we were headed the next day and it was good to be able to ask a few questions.

For one, Google maps wanted to route us east a bit to go up between a different row of hills. Who knows, maybe that’s a nice route. No, said the dad, that’s nowhere near as nice as through Challis, but do be aware that we might encounter smoke from several forest fires burning up the way we were going. Also, if we are planning to head south from Cascade, Idaho, later, be aware that that road has closures due to blasting as they widen that highway. We never had any smoke but days later we did have a stop at the blasting site. It’s good to have a heads-up about these things.

Also at that motel in Arco there were three young guys on Harleys. They were doing some hard riding and told us they were hoping to make it all the way to the Oregon coast the next day. All the way to the coast? Holy crap. Plus, while two of them said their bikes were very comfortable for these long rides, the third said his was not. He was definitely regretting his choice of bikes. Not fun.

In Kemmerer, Wyoming, we came back to our motel after dinner to see a dirty, well-ridden bike we could not recognize loaded down with gear, parked right in front of the motel main door. Not long afterward, this guy came walking over from the same restaurant we had been at and yes, it was his bike. And the bike was a Harley Pan America. None of us had ever seen one before.

As for well-ridden, he was on his way home to Amarillo, Texas, after having ridden to the Arctic Ocean in Canada and then doing a loop around Alaska. And, by the way, this was not the bike he started out on.

Turns out he left home on a different Pan America but he said that one had always been a lemon, giving him lots of problems. So he rode up to the Arctic Ocean, into Alaska, and barely limped into Fairbanks, to a Harley dealer. There the guys checked out his bike and it definitely had problems but there on the showroom floor they had another just like it, brand new. Would he like to trade? Yes, he would.

So this beat-up, dirty bike we were looking at had 4,000 miles on it and was only 10 days off the showroom floor. But unlike the other one, it was not a lemon and he had had no problems at all with it. And he was figuring going all the way from Kemmerer to Lamar, Colorado, the next day, and on to Amarillo the next. He denied being hard-core, and when the discussion turned to gear he said he always wears all the gear because he falls down so much. Different people have different perspectives. And you meet all kinds of different people on the road.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when picking bugs out of your beard becomes part of your daily grooming ritual.

Rest areas with shade are very, very welcome when the heat is this bad. This one was in Buhl, Idaho.

After that ride through Boise and then down to Jackpot all of us were happy to stay put for two nights and get off the bikes. It’s an OFMC standard to spend an extra day somewhere and play golf, and also to do some gambling. Jackpot, Nevada, offers both.

That day in Jackpot would have been a good day to ride. There was cloud cover all day, right up to the time we were walking back from the golf course at about 5. But it also made for a nice day out playing golf.

The next morning we headed out early, with similar cloud cover. Nice. But it didn’t last. By the time we reached Wells the sun was out and it was getting hot. We got on I-80 and cranked along till we got to Wendover and stopped there for lunch. If you’ve never come into Wendover from the west you’re missing an impressive sight. You come over a hill and there ahead of you is the vast flatness and bleakness of the salt flats. It really is an “Oh god!” moment.

Then we blasted across the flats. Hot, hot, and more hot. There are two eastbound rest areas and we stopped at the second and fortunately it had a building with air conditioning. Bad news for other people, it had a sign that as of the following day it would be closing, presumably for renovation considering that the grounds looked like they had just been thoroughly redone.

We didn’t want to go through Salt Lake so we turned off I-80 at Grantsville, down to Tooele and around the south end of Utah Lake and the ridge that separates the valleys. En route we passed right by what used to be called Miller Motorsports Park, now the Utah Motorsports Campus, and it was swarming. There were people and campers everywhere, with all these folks just out there in this blazing heat with no shade except of their own making. Not for me, thanks.

We came around the hills and angled back north, headed to Spanish Fork. Dennis, with his GPS, was leading and we got to Spanish Fork and the exit off I-15 and traffic was crazy. It turned out that to get to our motel we needed to cross two packed lanes of traffic to get into the left turn lane immediately. Dennis managed to shove his way into the left lane but there was no way to merge into the turn lane. So he went ahead and made the next left turn, to turn around and head back. He had gotten separated from Bill and me and as we sat in the left turn lane I saw Dennis do a U-turn and then a right heading back the other way. I looked at the traffic situation and at a moment I deemed safe I just did a U-turn right there, with Bill hurrying to follow me. Not exactly legal but it worked.

We pulled up behind Dennis as he sat waiting to take a right turn off this busy highway and we followed him, much to his surprise. He had no idea we were there and had planned to pull over where we could see him and know to turn there. But there we were right behind him. So we got to our motel and what a relief to get out of that heat. Later, at about 10 p.m., I took a walk and the temperature was still around 85. But hey, at 7:45 it had been 99. Way too much heat.

At least we managed not to have to ride through Salt Lake. That would have been worse than Boise.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you worry about what bikers are supposed to look like.

Motorado has a lot of bikes but not a lot of space.

It’s funny how you get an idea and if you let it it takes on a life of its own. I got this idea of swapping two of my motorcycles–the ’06 V-Strom 650 and the ’99 Concours–for something in between them that would fill both their niches. Then I mentioned it to the guys, who enthusiastically supported the idea. And now I’m looking at bikes.

Whoa. Hold on. Do I really want to do this? The more I think about it the more, when riding the old bikes, I find myself appreciating the things I have always liked about them. Why mess with what is already good?

But the thing is in motion. After looking at some new bikes and test riding one, I turned my attention to used bikes. Two reasons: a used bike costs less than a new bike, plus a used bike–if you choose selectively–will come with a lot of the extras you would need to pay extra for on a new bike.

I had looked at web sites and seen some bikes of possible interest so last week I decided it was time to see some of these bikes in person. I headed first to Aces because it was reasonably close but also because this is where my now former mechanic, Joel, now works. What I found was very different from my expectations.

I had the mistaken idea that Joel was the head of the service department at Aces but in fact, Aces does not do service. Joel is the mechanic on site with the job of doing whatever is needed by any of the bikes on the premises. So my search for a new mechanic goes on.

Then, second, pretty much every bike they had in their spacious showroom was a late model bike, mostly 2019 and newer. Yes you would pay less for these than for new models but we’re still talking pretty big bucks.

I did, however, get an idea for one model to consider and that was the Yamaha Tracer 900. The sales guy Joel hooked me up with said it was one of his three all-time favorite bikes and it seemed to fit in the middle ground where I was hoping to find something. Unfortunately, the 2019 model they had on hand does not have cruise control. That was only added to that model in 2020.

Leaving Aces I figured I was already over on the west side of town so I might as well go on over to Motorado at 6th and Sheridan. This proved to be a very different place.

In contrast to the huge showroom at Aces, Motorado has a much smaller space with bikes crammed in every square inch. They had several bikes I had seen on their website and I could check them out but only within limits. For instance, one bike was on its sidestand and I couldn’t stand it upright because the bike on one side was literally leaning onto it, just as it was leaning onto the bike on the other side. I figure if you are really interested in a bike you better have a check or credit card in your hand before you ask them to pull one out so you can really check it out.

On another I was interested in the seat height but it was on its center stand and there was no way I could rock it down to see how my feet touched ground. But at least at Motorado they had plenty of bikes that were not just late model, and they were therefore at better price points.

I don’t know. I guess next I’ll look more into buying from private owners. The problem there is that it’s much more of a buyer beware situation. And while it’s easy to take a used car to a shop to have it inspected by a mechanic, try that with a motorcycle. I’m trying to find a new mechanic to even work on my bikes and I’m not having a lot of luck.

So that just sends me back to the question of whether or not I even want to do this. But as Judy pointed out, if I had a newer bike I could take it to a dealer and they’d be happy to work on it for me. At least until it got old enough that they fired me as a customer again.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: Motorcycles don’t get pregnant.

Construction delays are just an opportunity to stretch your legs and adjust your layers.

We got up early in Cascade, Idaho, that morning of this year’s OFMC trip. We had a long way to go and wanted to take advantage of the morning coolness. As we were getting ready we saw a group of 31 Harleys rumble in and stop for gas across the road, and about 20 minutes later another group of comparable size followed them. Heading to Sturgis?

They were heading north but we were heading south. One of the first things of interest we saw was a guy skinning a deer right beside the road. Road kill we assume and no reason to let it go to waste. Certainly not here in Idaho.

We continued to follow ID 55 across this huge alpine park when all of a sudden the road veered to the west and soon we were plunging down a steep, narrow gorge. And it just kept going. We had to be giving up a lot of altitude. Along the way we encountered a delay at a place we had been warned of by another biker we spoke to several days earlier in Arco, where they were widening this narrow road, and doing so by blasting. Not a very long delay, though.

We knew if we continued on this road it would take us straight into the heart of Boise, which was something we did not want. Checking the map we could see that if we took a left at Banks, over to Lowman, and then south again we could catch I-84 just on the east end of Boise. That was our plan. But we came to Banks and at the intersection was a sign saying the road was closed between Lowman and More’s Creek. We had no service way out here and no map showed More’s Creek so we didn’t know what to do. There were cars coming from the direction of Lowman, though, so as one came to the stop sign I waved to him. Yes, the road to Lowman is open but the road south–which is where More’s Creek is–was closed. We had no choice but to go through Boise. Dang.

Meanwhile, all of this was still just gorgeous riding so it was not as if we weren’t having a good time. We stopped for gas on the north side of Boise and as I was checking my phone for routes a woman at the next pump asked if I was lost. No, not lost, just trying to figure out how best to get around Boise. Is there a bypass? No, there’s no bypass, she told me, but here’s the best route through.

So we took off from there but where she had said to go right Dennis’s GPS said go left, so we went left. That took us pretty deep into town and we decided it was time for lunch. After lunch we needed to turn left out of the parking lot but traffic was horrible. Deciding to go right and then make a left and double back, Dennis took off. But Bill and I were blocked by traffic and by the time we could do anything we had totally lost Dennis. We flailed a bit and finally figured we would just ride on to the spot we had discussed getting gas next. (Dennis had not filled up when Bill and I did.)

We got headed back the other direction and soon saw a sign for I-84. OK, if we can get on the interstate right here this won’t be too bad. We got on and rode just a couple miles and this road–what I now see was I-184–just dumped us onto the city streets in downtown Boise. Not at all what we wanted. So we made it through that mess and then finally picked up the main road south of town and started blasting.

By now we were in phase two of this bifurcated day. All the green and cool were gone and now we were deep into the brown and hot. And if you weren’t going at least 80 mph you were practically going to get blown off the road by everyone else who was going that fast and more.

We got down to Glenns Ferry, where Dennis was to get gas, pulled off the highway into town, turned down the mail street, and found Dennis pumping gas. At least that worked out fine. Something about this town just cried out to me that it must have an ice cream parlor so I asked at the station and they said yes, and here’s how you get there. That was one very welcome break in this long, hot day.

From Glenns Ferry it was only 18 miles till we got off I-84 again, at Bliss, where we picked up US 30, which runs through the Snake River Valley for quite a ways. This got us off the interstate, through some pretty country, and enabled us to not have to go all the way to Twin Falls and then double back to the west to reach US 93 south to Jackpot, Nevada, our destination for the day.

We found a nice rest area in Buhl, Idaho, and took a break there and then hit 93 and turned south. Another 45 miles and we came over the hill and down into Jackpot. This crew was ready for a day off the bikes.

Biker Quote for Today

“On my tombstone they will carve, ‘It never got fast enough for me.’” — Hunter S. Thompson

The new V-Strom 650 that I test rode.

As I said I would, I went to Fay Myers Motorcycle World on Friday to test ride the latest V-Strom 650. This is with an eye toward possibly replacing my ’99 Concours and my ’06 V-Strom 650 with something in between them size-wise and moving to an updated machine. Not at all a certainty to happen.

I suppose it was because it was Friday and people were at work but there were not a lot of people looking to do test rides. There were only three in my group. One guy was testing the V-Strom 800DE and the other was on a Husqvarna street bike.

Sitting on the V it was clear to me that this seat height was lower than on my 2006 V. It makes sense. The V-Strom started out as a dual-sport bike but as it became ever clearer to Suzuki that most of their buyers never or almost never take the bike off the pavement they made it progressively more of a street bike. And then now they’ve side-stepped over to cover the dirt niche again with the new 800DE. But the basic V-Strom is now a full-on street bike.

It felt good to ride. I definitely like the bike. We headed east a bit on Arapahoe and then turned south on Lima, which became Inverness Drive East. Who knew Inverness Drive was a racetrack!? But it is. And these demo guys know that. It has some curves, a lot of open stretches, and not a lot of traffic, at least not at this time of day. I believe we violated some traffic laws.

The V handled well but it really did not seem to have the acceleration I’m accustomed to with my ’06. Everything felt good, though.

Swinging around at the south end and starting north on Inverness Drive West we were still on the racetrack but at one point the guy on the 800DE slowed way down. Just seemed to be coasting. To a stop? Did his engine die? Just as the other guy and I were about to blast past him and leave him to the sweeper to deal with he nailed the throttle and took off. He was sling-shotting. Holding back to create distance so he can really hit the throttle.

I’m sorry, but that’s a jerk thing to do. This was not the first time I’ve contended with that. Generally in the pre-ride talk they tell you not to do it; they had not done so this time, though I doubt that would have stopped him. But it creates issues for the people behind you and it’s just not cool.

Anyway, we got on back to Fay Myers and I sat on the bike a bit checking out different items. One of the demo guys came along and asked if I had any questions. Yes, I do. Does this have cruise control? One of the things I want if I’m going to move to a new bike is cruise control, and I could not identify anything that would be that control.

No, it does not, he replied. Darn. That really pretty much is a deal breaker for me at this moment. So no, I won’t be buying a 2023 V-Strom 650. But the game of shopping for a new bike has been launched.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m a motocross rider because football players need heroes, too.

I get the feeling a lot of people have stopped to take pictures with this sign.

Despite the blazing heat when we got to Missoula the day before on this OFMC 2023 trip, morning came in cool. Nice. I put on one extra layer.

We had to backtrack a little, to the town of Lolo, and then turn up US 12 over Lolo Pass. There was almost no traffic on the road so we had a nice cruise. And the higher we got the cooler it got. It was darn chilly!

Passing by Lolo Hot Springs of course brought memories of the first time I was there, back in about 1978, with a lady friend who was going to school in Missoula. Back then it was just a hot springs in the woods, no development at all, and we were the only ones there. We just got naked and got in the water. Then we camped there overnight. Now it’s totally developed, you have to pay to get in, and I suspect swimsuits are required. Big sigh.

We got to the top of the pass and of course we had to stop for photos at that famous sign. That one in the picture above. Is there any sign anywhere more attractive to a motorcyclist?

And it was cold! We put on more layers. And then, it was a dirty job but we were up for it. We tackled those 99 winding miles. It’s primarily sweepers that you just cruise along through, swaying left and right and left and right, in a nice easy gait. Sweet ride.

At Kooskia we stopped for lunch and then turned south on ID 13 (we were in Idaho now) and then picked up US 95 at Grangeville. The next town south after Grangeville is White Bird and our plan was to ride the White Bird Grade, which has been described as the Stelvio Pass of Idaho. But I blew it.

I had looked this road up before we went and I had it in my mind that you came down to White Bird, got off US 95, and continued south on the grade. That was wrong. I first started wondering when we reached White Bird Summit. This was marked as an historical site and I should have just pulled off to see what the situation was, but I didn’t. We headed on down the newer road and off to our left I could see a two-lane road with lots of sweeping curves over there and I figured it out pretty quickly. Dang! We got down to White Bird and there clearly was no big incline anywhere close ahead. I blew it. Next time. At least the newer road is in fact a pretty darn nice one, too.

We did some up and down and then started climbing. We were running alongside a river and the river kept getting smaller till there was almost nothing left of it. At Meadows we left US 95 and were on ID 55, climbing over a line of hills and down to McCall. Here we came into a huge alpine park, kind of like North Park or South Park in Colorado. Mountains on all sides. Beautiful area. And really big lakes.

Who knew McCall was such a huge tourist destination? Dennis said later his GPS was showing him a bypass around this massive congestion but I was leading and we don’t have communicators. I just followed the highway right through town. That took a while. From McCall we made it on down to Cascade, our destination for the night, and our nicest accommodations of the trip, at the Alpine Lodge. I highly recommend this place.

Altogether a beautiful day’s ride.

Biker Quote for Today

The three most dangerous words to a biker are “HEY… WATCH THIS!”

My V-Strom when it first arrived and became mine.

Item of note: Suzuki is doing a demo days event this weekend, Friday and Saturday, August 11 and 12, at Fay Myers Motorcycle World.

That demo days thing is of more interest than usual for me because for the first time in a very long time I’m giving thought to buying a motorcycle. And for the first time ever I’m considering selling a motorcycle. Or two. For someone who still owns and rides every motorcycle he has ever owned, this is unusual.

This all has to do with where I see the future going. I know that at some point I’m going to decide to sell my 1999 Kawasaki Concours because it is just so big and heavy. But it’s a great highway bike.

I really like my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650, and it does well on the highway, but having just been out for 10 days on the Concours it really brought home to me just how much better the Kawi is as a highway bike. Plus, I bought the V-Strom to be more comfortable off the pavement–and it is–but the truth is that I don’t really go off the pavement all that often.

Lately I had been seeing mentions of this latest Suzuki V-Strom 800DE. It occurred to me that maybe I ought to sell both the V-Strom 650 and the Concours and buy one of these larger V-Stroms that presumably would fill the niches both of the other bikes fill.

On the recent OFMC trip I mentioned this thinking to Bill and Dennis and they both responded enthusiastically. Both of them are the type who like to trade up for something new now and then just because, and they have a hard time understanding my preference for keeping the same bikes year after year. Plus, as Dennis pointed out, this new bike would presumably have cruise control, which would be so much better than my current throttle locks.

So I started reading more on the 800DE but what I read made me less, not more, interested in it. One thing I read said it was the most dirt-ready of any V-Strom ever, and since I’ve found that I just don’t get off the pavement all that much that was kind of a negative. Plus, the seat height is considerably higher than on my current V-Strom, which is already high for my short legs.

Still interested in the idea of a single bike replacing these two, I turned my thoughts to other bikes that might fill that bill. I looked around and came up with a couple possible choices but then on Tuesday I needed to go to Fay Myers to get a battery for my Honda. I talked about how a guy at Batteries Plus tested the one I have and said it was fine, just needed to be charged, and how Roy came over and checked it out and said he disagreed with that guy. When I tried to start that bike Tuesday it barely responded and I concluded Roy was the correct one.

Of course while I was at Fay Myers I looked at bikes. I hadn’t really thought about a used bike but they had a Honda Africa Twin that had all the extras already on it and that got me to thinking about going the used route: lower cost, extras already in place.

I climbed on the new V-Strom 800DE and found I could not get it off the side stand because of the seat height. So that settles that one point. Then I noticed a new regular V-Strom right next to it and sat on it. I instantly liked this bike. Is there anywhere within reasonable distance, I asked, where I could take a test ride on this bike? Yes, right here, on Friday and Saturday, was the reply. Oh my gosh!

How would the 2023 V-Strom be different from the 2006, I asked. It would be lighter(!), perhaps a little more powerful, and have upgraded electronics (i.e., cruise control and more). This is sounding better and better.

So that’s where it sits. I will definitely be over at Fay Myers on Friday, looking to do some test riding. But I’ve also looked at Craigslist, Motorado, and Cycle Trader to see what is available used. And there are a lot of nice-looking used bikes out there, many with all the gear already on them. Who knows, I may soon do the unthinkable and do some motorcycle trading.

Biker Quote for Today

“Two of the most important things to me; my wife & my bike.” — Anonymous

A sign we saw in a restroom at Alpine Junction.

It was cool in the morning as we left Kemmerer and a very pleasant ride past Fossil Butte National Monument, north through Cokeville on US 30, on north into the Star Valley, and a stop for gas at Alpine Junction.

That’s a really nice road leading up to the Star Valley and it was freshly paved with almost no traffic. Sweet! Getting into the Star Valley it was startling to see how development has discovered this once undiscovered place. It’s down the road a bit from Jackson so I guess it was inevitable; maybe the question is why it took so long.

We split off from US 89 at Alpine Junction, riding past the enormous Palisades Reservoir and down to the little town of Irwin to stop for lunch. I was leading and as we came up on this place I couldn’t tell if it was a motel or restaurant, or both, or whether it was open. By the time I saw there was a restaurant and it was open I was past the turn for the parking lot so I motioned for Bill and Dennis to pull in and made a turn just ahead to come back. What happened next is hearsay for me because I was totally unaware of any of it.

They tell me that as I was preparing to come back–and I know I looked both ways–that I pulled right out in front of a guy coming the other direction. And then nearly stopped right in front of him as he braked and blew his horn. For me what happened was that I looked both ways and maybe I saw this guy but he seemed to be far enough away and/or not moving so fast that it was not an issue. Then, I had failed to downshift when I pulled off to turn around so as I started moving the bike faltered till I quickly downshifted. And then I pulled in at the restaurant.

Bill and Dennis were beside themselves and I was totally oblivious. Oops.

After lunch we rode on to Idaho Falls, me leading, and all I knew for sure was that we wanted US 20 west and that meant going through town. I just followed the signs but our route was the epicenter of a major road construction project. And it was blazing hot. We crept through town until I was no longer seeing signs for US 20. Apparently I missed a turn in among all this chaos. I pulled into a gas station/convenience store and we went inside. After all that heat it took me 10 minutes in the cool to begin to feel like a human being again.

Dennis has GPS so we decided he would lead us out of town and to US 20. We took some country lanes and wandered a bit, all in the right direction, and then finally regained US 20. Then it was a scorching hot ride to Arco, our destination for the day.

The next day we were headed for Missoula, Montana. We took US 93 up to Challis and then north through Salmon. We gained some altitude so it was a little cooler but not as much as I had expected. But a nice road. One spectacular canyon coming down into Salmon. We had lunch and moved on.

The next town of any size was Darby and that was where we had the same experience as coming up the Star Valley. The entire 50 miles or so from Darby to Missoula is like the Colorado Front Range was 40 years ago: open spaces quickly turning into one unbroken city. The highway was four lanes and packed. In 10 years they’ll probably be expanding to six lanes and it won’t be enough.

Missoula itself astonished me. That town must be four times the size it was the last time I was there, less than 10 years ago, and it must be more than 10 times as large as it was the first time I was there, about 50 years ago. It was just mind-boggling. At least we didn’t have to go far into town to get to our motel but once there, to get across the road to the McDonald’s or other fast-food places meant either walk a tenth of a mile to the nearest traffic signal or risk your life crossing directly. Crazy.

Oh, and it was 104 degrees coming into Missoula.

Biker Quote for Today

Sometimes I look back on my life and I’m seriously impressed I am still alive.