Passes & Canyons Blog

I saw an interesting chart the other day showing motorcycle ownership per person in each state. It’s not really information you can do much of anything with, it’s just interesting.

Colorado, for instance, ranks 14th with 173,120 bikes spread among 5,047,692 people. That comes out to one motorcycle for every 29 people. Of course, with people like me owning multiple bikes the actual number of motorcycle owners is necessarily lower. Still, the figures give you a general indication of the level of motorcycle interest per state. And it should not be a surprise that Colorado ranks high considering our weather and all the great places there are to ride in the state.

First on the list is South Dakota, with 69,284 bikes spread among 816,598 people, for a total of only 12 people per bike. It would be interesting to know how the bikes are concentrated across the state. Does the Sturgis area have, say, 3 people for each bike, while the eastern part of the state has something like 20 people per bike? There’s an awful lot of flat, wide-open country in South Dakota once you go east from the Black Hills.

At the other end of the listing, the District of Columbia has only 3,523 bikes for 604,912 people, leaving them with 172 people for every bike. I’m not at all sure how to interpret that. Is it just that a dense population with decent public transportation discourages people from owning their own vehicles? Who knows; surely I don’t.

In case you presume that more southerly states have more motorcycles simply because they have better weather for riding more of the year you would be wrong. The number 2 state with the most bikes per person is New Hampshire. There, they have 79,266 bikes amongst 1,316,807 people, for a ratio of one bike to 17 people. Is that related in some way to the Laconia Rally?

Filling out the top 10 are (rank, state, # of bikes, population, people per bike:
#3 Iowa: 173,929; 3,050,202; 18
#4 Wisconsin: 317,276; 5,691,659; 18
#5 Wyoming: 30,351; 564,554; 19
#6 North Dakota: 32,654; 674,629; 21
#7 Vermont: 30,070; 625,909; 21
#8 Montana: 46,996; 990,958; 21
#9 Minnesota: 240,288; 5,310,658; 22
#10 Alaska: 30,983; 714,146; 23

On the bottom end, leading to DC, we have these states:
#41 Kentucky: 98,475; 4,347,223; 44
#42 Hawaii: 30,098; 1,363,359; 45
#43 California: 801,803; 37,338,198; 47
#44 Utah: 59,355; 2,775,479; 47
#45 Maryland: 120,069; 5,785,681; 48
#46 Georgia: 199,586; 9,712,157; 49
#47 New York: 345,816; 19,395,206; 56
#48 Texas: 438,551; 25,253,466; 58
#49 Louisiana: 67,486; 4,545,343; 67
#50 Mississippi: 28,067; 2,970,072; 106

Does it surprise you to see states like Kentucky, California, Utah, Georgia and Texas so low in the ranking? I’d love to see some information explaining what factors lead to that result. I don’t think we’re likely to see that kind of info though so we’ll just take it for what it is.

Biker Quote for Today

A clean visor is a wonderful thing.

Judy and I had just finished eating lunch, after I had been out taking the Honda CB750 for a run. The phone rang and Paul on the other end said “I have your motorcycle bag. I picked it up off the road on Belleview.”

What!? Yes I had just been on Belleview but I ran out to the bike and the saddle bags were there. But Paul told me there were tools and other things in the bag and only then did I see that the bag that normally hangs off the back of the passenger rest was gone. Oh my gosh.

I took a quick look and saw that three of the zip ties that held the bag on had broken and the fourth had held, which meant that instead of breaking, the weight of the bag after the other three did break pulled the loop that all the zip ties were looped through right out of the bag. The zip tie and the loop were still there.

Of course that complicates putting the thing back on. If all four zip ties had broken I would just put it back on with four sturdier zip ties. Now I’m going to have to somehow get that loop stitched back into the bag.

How had this happened? In fact, I had just inspected the zip ties before I took the bike out and all looked fine. Those zip ties do break occasionally but I’ve never had more than one break at any time. I carry an extra one in that bag just for that purpose.

So I pondered all this as I headed over to Paul’s and once I had gotten it from him and was headed home it all started to gel. It was right about at the spot along Belleview where he found the bag that I had thought I hit one of the worst potholes ever, though I hadn’t noticed it riding along. Was it not that I hit a pothole, but that the bag fell off and its bouncing off the rear of the bike sent that jolt that I took to be a pothole?

Or did I perhaps in fact hit some really bad pothole and the force of the jolt momentarily lifted the bag up and then when it came down hard it managed to snap the zip ties all at once and then rip the fourth loop off?

I’m sure I’ll never know, but what a surprise. And thank you Paul for stopping to pick the bag up and looking inside to find my registration and then calling.

Biker Quote for Today

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.