Passes & Canyons Blog

Having had three motorcycles for many years it is really odd now at home with just one. I sold one–the Concours–and another, the CB750, is in the shop for some work. I have always kept the V-Strom in the garage, parked in front of my car, while the other two resided in the workshop that runs alongside the garage.

Right now the workshop is empty of bikes and, by golly, I’ve been using it as a workshop! What a concept!

I bought a new battery-powered electric lawnmower and typically I would have waited for a sunny, warm day and unpackaged it out on the driveway, but now, despite a few days of cold and snow, I just went in the workshop and took care of it there.

And I have this old, damaged chair that I have undertaken to repair and reupholster with our grandson Jack so as to give him some experience in doing things like that and also to help him understand that just because something is broken doesn’t mean you just throw it away and get a new one. We’ve been working on it out on the back porch but that’s not a wonderful place to be making a long-lasting mess. That’s the role of a workshop.

So yeah, I’ll be getting the Honda back fairly soon so it will go back in there, but I’m thinking I’ll continue to park the V-Strom in the garage and that will leave me room to work in the workshop. I like that idea.

And speaking of the Honda, I mentioned that the guys at the shop were not seeing the smoking that was the reason I took it in. I spoke with the person at the desk about the other things they say need work but I told her I’m still most concerned about the smoking. Maybe it didn’t smoke when they started it up because there was so little oil that it hadn’t seeped through. Try it again now that they added oil and ran it and now it has had a few days to sit. See if it smokes then. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ll have the carbs synced and they say that if they haven’t been rebuilt in the life of the bike that is probably going to be necessary, too. And that’s a six-hour job, and for all bikes older than 1999 they charge a higher hourly rate: $155 an hour. So that’s going to cost me about $1,000.

I’m glad to get the work done and I’ll pay whatever it takes but I’m still going to be looking for a new regular mechanic who doesn’t charge high rates like that. The really big question is who?

Biker Quote for Today

My happiest hours include a sunset and a motorcycle.

All right, so I took the CB750 in to Colorado Moto Service to have them work on the problem with the oil seeping through the valves into the cylinders, leading to heavy smoking each time I start the bike up. Get this job done finally.

Well, I got a call from them to say they had checked the bike out and . . . there was no smoking when they fired it up. What?

They did say it was very low on oil–which kinda happens when you’re constantly burning it and you neglect to top it off frequently–and maybe that was why it was not seeping into the cylinders. As in, there was no oil there to leak through. Ken you are a bad owner. You are neglecting your motorcycle again. But who knows if that is the reason.

So they added oil and checked it out and said the carbs need to be synced, which I can easily accept, and there is an oil leak from one of the lower engine gaskets. Tell me about that. This bike has leaked from that gasket since the day I bought it. It used to be a lot worse. I would come home from a ride with oil on my pants where it had seeped out and the wind had blown it back onto my pant leg.

I said go ahead and work up an estimate of what these two fixes would cost. I’m very leery of having the gasket done because I know from experience that that can run into serious money.

And one more thing. There seems to be a switch problem. When they tried to shut the bike off it wouldn’t shut off. Again, what? I have never had that kind of issue. And I did have the ignition switch replaced some years ago. I need more info on this issue but if all it takes to get around the issue is to hit the kill switch I’m perfectly capable of hitting the kill switch. Heck, I’ve done it by accident some times.

So what the heck is the deal with it not smoking for them? I can’t count the number of times I’ve been standing there revving the engine to burn out that oil from the cylinders and pumping out huge clouds of blue smoke, hoping none of my neighbors were looking out their windows at me polluting the neighborhood air. I’m going to be very unhappy if I get it back after spending a bunch of money on other things and then it starts smoking again. It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Biker Quote for Today

It is the unknown around the corner that turns my wheels.

As Senate Bill 24-065 (Mobile Electronic Devices & Motor Vehicle Driving) was coming up for its initial Colorado House hearing recently I was wondering–as I mentioned previously–if there would be opposition as there was two years ago claiming that it would be unfair to fine poor people who violated the law.

Thinking about that got me thinking about a different issues from what must have been 25 years ago. The connector here is well-intentioned people reaching conclusions that overlook extremely relevant factors. In the case of outlawing use of handheld electronics while driving (SB24) it is the idea of trying to help people who did not have to break the law while ignoring the very real impact on other people who did nothing wrong. If it’s not clear what I’m referring to please read the other piece linked to above.

The situation 25 or so years ago had to do with insurance and wearing helmets. Specifically, there were health insurance companies that were writing policies that said if you were injured in a motorcycle crash and you were not wearing a helmet they would deny your claim. Does that still happen or were laws passed forbidding that? I’m not sure but I suspect it is no longer an issue because it’s been a long time since I’ve heard it mentioned.

So anyway, my family was gathered at some point and this whole thing came up and my father offered his opinion that he saw nothing wrong with that policy. After all, people should wear helmets and why should the insurance companies pay if they refuse to protect themselves?

I nearly exploded. This is the gist of what I told him.

OK, let’s say I’m legally riding my motorcycle without a helmet. I’m obeying the speed limit and all the traffic laws and I have a motorcycle endorsement on my drivers license. Then I get hit but a guy who a) is speeding, b) runs a red light, c) does not have a license because he lost it due to DUIs, and d) is drunk. He veers off and hits a telephone pole and is also injured.

So everything I have done is 100 percent legal, while everything he has done is 100 percent illegal. Oh, and by the way, while I am badly injured, I have not sustained any head injuries, despite not wearing a helmet.

After all this, my insurance company says it will not cover my medical expenses because I was not wearing a helmet (legally!) but his insurance company will cover his medical expenses.

Are you telling me that is somehow fair and appropriate? Really?? Are you telling me this makes any sense at all??

OK, my Dad was a rational guy and he acknowledged the error of his thinking once I educated him on the matter. And that’s my whole point. There are plenty of people out there who favor or oppose policies we might know are respectively bad or good simply because they are not personally connected to the issue and have not given it more than cursory consideration. But once they are presented with more facts, a deeper understanding, they see the error of their thinking.

That’s what the motorcycling community has to do, continually. That’s what organization such as the American Motorcyclist Association, the various state ABATEs, the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, and others work to do constantly. And it’s what each of us needs to do when talking with non-riding friends and family members. We need to educate them. I mean this was my own father and he thought it made sense to deny his son coverage until I educated him.

Let’s all be educators.

Biker Quote for Today

Every ride is a tiny holiday.

I made the very unpleasant decision to sell my 1999 Kawasaki Concours to Steele’s Cycle for a pittance because it made more sense than paying a pile of money to get some problems fixed and then turning around and selling for less than I just spent on it. When I took it over there I made the pitch to Rick, the honcho, that this was a bike that was worth fixing and selling rather than just parking it in the lot to be picked over by people needing parts.

He may have thought we were having a negotiation but we weren’t. I knew he would not offer me much and I was prepared to take whatever he offered. All I wanted was for the bike to continue to roll and to bring joy to someone. But “negotiating” as he was, he told me no, with 79,000 miles on it there was no market.

Well, he lied–sort of. A couple weeks afterward I went to the Steele’s website and looked at what they had for sale. What do you know? There’s my bike, listed as being “SALE PENDING” for about 10 times what I sold it to him for.

Now, I’m sure it’s not exactly the bike I took in there. The benefit you have from being a salvage lot is that you probably have a lot of parts off similar bikes that you can use to make a really cherry bike. The listing says the condition is “Excellent” and the descriptive text refers to it as “super clean.”

What has changed about it, as far as I can see just from the photo, is that they removed the top bag and reinstalled the passenger backrest, but left the rack itself. The top bag and the back rest are incompatible–if you have one installed the other cannot be mounted. It also appears they removed the Murph highway pegs. Maybe the idea is to then offer these accessories at an additional price to the buyer.

They also put on a tank bra and swapped out the right side bag from some other Concours to replace the damaged one I had. And of course they did the repair work I did not wish to spend the money for–another advantage because the cost for them was just the repair guy’s time.

The one other thing they did is the questionable one. The bike I took in had 79,000 on the odometer. Here it says mileage 37,986. Certainly it’s not hard to swap out one instrument cluster for another, putting on one that shows fewer miles. But that motor and everything else still has 79,000 miles on it. I would think to just do this would be fudging the law a bit, but maybe they got a salvage title for the bike. I’m sure that would be easy enough for them to do. You just say hey, it’s a frankenbike, put together with parts from various other bikes, and gosh, this odometer just says 38,000. We don’t claim that that goes for the whole bike.

Anyway, it’s really not a big deal. I knew when Rick was telling me it had too many miles on it that he was BSing me because these Connies are known to go many, many miles further. These motors are pretty bullet-proof. It’s not going to break down on this new owner anytime soon. I took really good care of that bike.

So it did not get consigned to the lot. That makes me very happy. I wish the best to whoever the new owner is, and particularly with those decals on that side bag I will recognize it if I ever see it somewhere. If I do I’m going to want to chat with the guy. He got a good bike.

Update
I was throwing out paperwork on maintenance and repair on the Kawi and on my car that got wrecked and ran across an “Odometer Disclosure Statement” that I got when I bought the bike. It says it is both a federal and state crime to misrepresent the mileage on a vehicle. But. This does not apply to vehicles more than 10 years old. So there you go, swapping out that odometer and representing the bike as having only 38,000 is perfectly legal.

Biker Quote for Today

You either love going for motorcycle rides, or you’re wrong.

I have an appointment to get my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom in to the shop on Tuesday and it’s a good thing. I initially made the appointment to address the smoking that happens every time I start it up but now it seems to have another issue so that’s good timing.

The smoking is a no-brainer. While it sits parked oil seeps past the valves into the cylinders and has to be burned out when the engine is fired up. So on Sunday I wanted to take it for a ride and I started it and let that smoke blow. Then I took off but it didn’t seem to be running right. I went around the bend, down the hill, turned right up a small hill and as I was turning right again it died. Dang! What now?

It turned over and tried to start but just couldn’t. What now?

I rolled it back and turned around and coasted down the hill I had just come up and stopped at the bottom to try to figure things out. Not just “what’s the problem?” but also “how do I get back home up our big hill?” As I was sitting there a woman came along walking her dog and asked if I was out of gas. I said no, it’s some other problem, and she walked on.

Figuring I needed to get home no matter what I started pushing the bike along the level portion I needed to traverse. I figured I’d call Judy and ask her to come with her car and a tow rope I have, so she could then pull me up the hill. I called but just got her voicemail.

As I was pushing it occurred to me that the woman with the dog may have helped solve my problem. Checking my trip meter I saw that I was right at the point where I typically need to go to reserve. That would explain the not running right issue. I flipped to Reserve and tried to start it but by now the battery had been run down from trying so hard before, so I was still going to need to get up the hill to home so I could connect it to the charger.

I got to where there was nothing but uphill left in front of me and on a last hope tried starting it one more time. It started! I normally don’t ride without my helmet and jacket on and they were both off and hanging on the bike at this point but I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity, I left them hanging and jumped on, put it in gear, and roared on up the hill. Yahoo!

OK, so all is good again, right? Well, maybe not. I put the charger on and gave it something more than an hour to put a bit more juice in the battery and then got on to go for the ride that had been cut short before. It ran strongly and I headed immediately for a gas station. By the time I reached the gas station, however, it was clear it was still not actually running right. I didn’t want to risk have it crap out on me again, only much, much further from home, so I just rode on back home and parked it till Tuesday.

Maybe on Tuesday it will be running better. If not, it will just add to the total amount I end up paying the shop. Not wonderful but not the worst thing that could happen.

Biker Quote for Today

Imagine life without motorcycles. Now slap yourself and never do it again.

On Tuesday this week the Colorado House committee considering it approved by 11-0 the bill to make it illegal to be holding a cellphone or other mobile electronic device while driving. After a pass through the House Appropriations Committee it will go to the floor for second and third readings. There may or may not be amendments made at that time.

As I stated previously, there seems to have been a huge shift in general thinking about the use of electronics while driving, and that shift is against the practice. When a similar bill was under consideration in the previous legislative session it passed the Senate but failed in the House after much opposition was offered. This time around, of about three dozen witnesses speaking at the House Committee on Transportation, Housing & Local Government hearing, only one person offered any opposition.

That person was someone who raised the issue of possible discriminatory enforcement where minority members might be singled out by police officers more frequently than whites. While that concern was not pooh-poohed, several speakers offered information to show that such has not been the case in other states where similar laws have passed.

One of those speakers was Jennifer Smith, CEO and co-founder of StopDistractions.org, who, in her introduction, stated that unlike others speaking, “I am an expert.” She said that her organization had worked closely with members of various state Black caucuses to develop model legislation language that would prevent such discriminatory enforcement. Colorado’s bill, she said, uses that model language.

Numerous other speakers told numerous sad tales of their personal experiences–and often injuries–inflicted by distracted drivers. While I had testified in the Senate committee hearing, I did not feel it was necessary that I add my voice to the many in this case. Besides, the argument I was prepared to make was made by Scott O’Sullivan of RiderJustice.com. In the hearings in the last session one of the big arguments was that poor people would be disproportionately affected by having to pay the fines for violating a law against using your phone while driving. I would have argued–and Scott did–that there is no comparison between a poor person having to pay a $75 fine for doing something they easily could have chosen not to do and some other poor person, who they hit, being faced with the cost of having their car smashed or even their own selves badly injured. But nobody made that argument this time around, there was only the discriminatory enforcement argument.

I figured that the way this vote went would either bear out or refute my previous reading that a large change in public feeling in this matter had taken place over the last two years. My take seems to have been borne out. Among those testifying one theme emerged strongly and that was that people are tired of the delay in getting this law on the books. “How many times do we have to come here and tell you our stories” was the question asked again and again. And this time it passed unanimously.

Now we just have to wait to see what happens on the House floor. Unlike with the filtering bill, I have no doubt Gov. Polis will sign this one if it reaches his desk. It really does look like we’re going to make it over the finish line this time.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you paid for your new FXSTC in 24 months or less.

Gov. Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 24-079 on April 4 and motorcycle lane filtering will now be legal in Colorado starting on August 7. Mind you, that doesn’t mean you can just go crazy with it the way I’ve seen many people do in cities in Europe. There are rules about what you can do and under what circumstances. Let’s go through the law.

As written, the bill first went through several examples of how filtering has been found safe and reasonable in other places. For instance:

A 2009 “Motorcycle Accidents In Depth Study” by the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers that was conducted in five European countries found that 0.45 percent of motorcycle crashes involved lane splitting and that motorcyclists were seven times more likely to be hit while stopped compared to crashing while lane splitting

This list ended saying:

Lane filtering is prohibited in Colorado and can result in various citations, including violations of motorcycle lane restrictions and careless driving laws. Therefore, the general assembly determines that the act of lane filtering by a driver of a motorcycle, when done at speeds at or below 15 miles per hour and when conditions permit, is in the best interests of motorist safety.

Aye, there’s the rub–below 15 miles per hour and when conditions permit. Here’s what the law says. I’ll clean up the sections and legalese a bit to make it read more smoothly.

The driver of a two-wheeled motorcycle may overtake or pass another motor vehicle in the same lane as the motorcycle if the overtaken or passed motor vehicle is stopped and if the motor vehicles in the adjacent lanes traveling in the same direction are stopped and the motorcycle is on a road with lanes wide enough to pass safely and if the passing motorcycle is driving at fifteen miles per hour or less and conditions permit prudent operation of the motorcycle while overtaking or passing.

OK, so traffic has to be stopped, you have to have room to pass safely, and you can’t be going more than 15 miles an hour. But there’s more. When traffic starts moving again you have got to get back in your lane and start moving with traffic again. Then:

A person overtaking or passing pursuant to this subsection shall not overtake or pass on the right shoulder or to the right of a vehicle in the farthest right-hand lane if the highway is not limited access or in a lane of traffic moving in the opposite direction.

OK this is the part that I’m not clear on. You can’t pass on the shoulder or to the right of the right-most lane of traffic. But: “if the highway is not limited access.” So does this mean that on a limited access highway, such as an interstate, you can legally pass on the shoulder? That sure seems to be what it says. So you are limited on city streets or most highways but not on the really big roads. Is that correct?

As for the city streets situation, it was my impression during the hearings that some of the legislators were thinking this behavior would not be allowed on city streets but I see nothing in the bill that rules that out. And let’s get real, it’s exactly that filtering that is so commonplace in other places. Heck, in California one time I did that myself at a traffic light on a city street along with a bunch of other riders. The lady in the front car was familiar enough with the practice that she stopped back from the intersection enough to provide room for us to pull in in front of her.

Another thing I’ll be watching for is that to my knowledge, this law does not apply to scooters. By that I mean those 50cc and smaller two-wheelers that are not counted as motorcycles. This was an issue brought up in the hearings. Small scooters like that are not allowed on big highways anyway but they are certainly allowed on city streets. And if you start seeing motorcycles filtering on city streets I’m betting the scooter folks will start doing it, too. Could get interesting.

Now, as is customary with something like this, the legalization of the practice is for now temporary. In four years the law will be nullified unless the legislature extends it. To that end, the Colorado Department of Transportation is mandated to keep records and produce a study of the effects and present that study to the legislature by January 1, 2027.

So happy riding out there. But remember, don’t do any filtering before August 7. Then for pete’s sake, do it safely. We don’t want the law repealed in four years.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you refer to your bike as your “toy.”

The Colorado House hearing on SB24-065 (Use of Mobile Electronic Devices While Driving) was postponed from Wednesday of this week to Tuesday of next week. It will be held on Tuesday, April 9, in the Legislative Services Building located at 200 E. 14th Avenue, directly south of the Capitol. However, the time is now a bit uncertain because instead of 1:30 p.m. as initially announced, it will take place “upon adjournment,” meaning that right after the main House session adjourns for the day the committee will cross the street and hold the hearing. Upon adjournment could mean as early as 9:30 a.m. This could get tricky.

This is the big one. This bill needs to pass. The idiots out there who think their phone calls are more important than our lives–like the guy who T-boned me on January 18–need to be served notice that this will no longer be tolerated. It happened with drinking and driving. The Mothers Against Drunk Driving group raised a ruckus and this country finally came to the realization that drinking and driving was a deadly hazard to each and every one of us and public attitudes changed. It’s happening with cellphone use while driving and it’s happening here in Colorado next week.

I really don’t know if there will be opposition to this bill. There was none when it passed through the Senate but the last time it was up for consideration there were opponents arguing that it would unfairly affect poorer people who would be less likely to be able to afford the fines.

Will that argument be raised again this time? Because that is such a piece of BS that I will absolutely speak out to counter. First off, avoiding such fines is an extremely simple matter: just don’t use your damn phone while driving. You don’t even have to do anything to avoid a fine, you just do nothing. You just obey the law.

More than that, what about the poor people who are the victims of the distracted drivers? Don’t they count? When they get injured or their cars get totaled because some fool ran a red light and crashed into them they incur real expenses. Hospital bills. Time lost at work. Repairs or a new car. Heck, I had insurance but it paid me a pittance, so when I replaced my totaled car I bought a used one and had to put up an additional $10,000 on top of the insurance money to pay for it. All because some guy I never met and probably would never have known existed felt that his phone call was more important than safely operating the 3,500-pound vehicle he was supposed to be driving.

And I consider myself absolutely blessed because although my car was trashed I was completely uninjured. But how long does it take a car going 15-20 miles an hour (mine) to go two feet? What fraction of a second is that? Because that fraction of a second was the difference between this guy smashing into the back half of my car and not directly into where I was sitting in the driver’s seat. And he was speeding. He hit me hard. The collision tore open the rear end of my car so that although the trunk lid was still closed, tools from my trunk were strewn across the road.

I have supported this bill every time it has come up in recent years but now it’s personal. We have got to get this bill passed. I know people will still use their phones–some of them at least–but with the passage of this law they will know what they are doing is wrong and that will deter at least some of them. And for those it does not deter, they will pay a heavier price. Not heavy enough, but we can worry about raising the penalties later, once we get the general law enacted.

I urge as many of you as possible to show up on Tuesday to support this bill.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you want to be buried with your bike because you’re not done riding yet.