Passes & Canyons Blog

This CSP video actually shows a rider in the left lane passing with oncoming traffic on his left. But gosh, I haven’t seen many traffic lanes that were more than three times wider than the cars in the lane.

OK, right as I was finished writing this and about to schedule it to post in the morning my wife came to me and showed me a text she had just received from a friend saying she had just seen me on the news. As it says below, I had been told the piece with the interview I did would run on the 5 o’clock news but now it had run on the 9 o’clock news. I did not see it and have no idea what part of the interview they used. So much of what is below is out of date, but I have no idea what parts. If anyone saw the piece and can help me out I’d greatly appreciate it. Meanwhile, here’s what I had intended to post. Hey Channel 9, if you can enable me to see what you ran I’ll gladly take this post down and totally rewrite it.

I thought I really had a chance to set things right when a reporter from Denver’s Channel 9, contacted me to say he would like to talk to me about lane-filtering as it was about to go into effect. I welcomed the opportunity to speak to a larger audience to clear up the misconceptions being put out by the Colorado State Patrol (CSP) as to what lane-filtering is about. Oh silly me.

First the guy who contacted me failed to get back in touch when he said he would to set up an interview, and then about the time I figured he had just blown me off I got a text from another guy who he had apparently handed the thing to. I replied, we spoke, and we set a time for him to come to my house so we could speak.

Ethan turned out to be a super nice guy, a young kid doing an internship and just looking to get his career started. I told him I had been in the news business myself for many years and we had a nice chat about how things have changed.

I rolled one of my bikes out and he set up his gear and we basically chatted. I talked about how it’s mostly going to be the smaller bikes and scooters that do the majority of the filtering, not the big cruisers, and I also talked about how the information the Colorado State Patrol is putting out is just flat wrong. Other things, too.

In addition to the conversation, Ethan did a number of long still shots of my bike and gear, which I figured he would use with my voice playing over the image. When we were done he packed up and he promised to text me to tell me when the piece would run. Now he was heading back to the studio to do the editing and put the piece together. In the following text he said it would be on the 5 p.m. news.

Five o’clock came and I had the TV on set to Channel 9. The third or fourth item came on and it was about lane-filtering and I was nowhere to be seen. Or heard. All it was was another recital of what the CSP had put out, accompanied with a graphic video depicting the same thing as depicted on the CSP website. Which is to say, a motorcycle passing entirely within the same lane as the car it is passing.

If you ride you know this is absurd. As I told Ethan, and as any rider knows, lane-filtering or lane-sharing is done by going up the middle between two lines of cars. And you intentionally ride the lane divider line, you don’t stay entirely within the lane of the car you’re passing.

Now, if all drivers always kept their cars all the way to the right of their lane, then passing within the lane might be possible. Does that happen. Of course not. Drivers naturally try to stay pretty much in the center of their lane. But that opens up space to the right-hand car’s left side and the left-hand car’s right side. That’s where bikes go.

But apparently not according to CSP.

And I have read and re-read the legislation and nowhere in that bill does it say anything about the rider passing on the left. That would be stupid. If you were in the left lane, passing on the left would mean potentially encroaching on the oncoming traffic lane, and while you are allowed to filter only if the cars going your direction are completely stopped, those oncoming cars may not be stopped at all. Dangerous much?! No, you go up the middle between the two lanes of traffic going your direction, no matter whether that means you are passing on the left or right. People, let’s get some sanity going here!

So I texted Ethan and he said he had thought he would be doing the editing but then found that “some people at the desk had already done so.” They just wanted him to get the interview. Which they then totally ignored.

Now, Judy raised the valid point about, who are they going to believe, the official governmental source or some blogger? My reply was that if there is differing information it is their job to dig in and find out what the truth is. That’s what I would do when I was a reporter.

Anyway, not being the type of person to just let this die, my next move will be to contact the public information officer at CSP and talk directly to that person and see what comes of it. I also sent emails to the two main sponsors of the bill in the legislature pointing out to them the erroneous nature of the info the CSP is putting out. I had hoped to hear back from them by now but Judy pointed out that they’re not in session so who knows when they’ll see my emails. But I’ll try again to reach both of them.

Next update when there’s something new to tell you.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding my motorcycle is like painting memories on the road’s canvas.

Whoever wrote this piece just doesn’t understand.

I’ll take a break from recounting the latest OFMC trip today because this is timely and really flagrant.

Lane filtering becomes legal in Colorado this week, on August 7. As a surprise to no one, I picked up several articles addressing this change and “informing” the readers of what it means. I put “informing” in quotes because all three pieces I saw, including one from the Colorado State Patrol (CSP), were clearly written by someone who does not ride motorcycles and who fails to understand the entire procedure. More importantly, they were just flat wrong.

Because the other articles seem to have been written based on what CSP put out I’ll go right to the source.

“The rider must pass on the left and not enter the oncoming traffic lane.”

What’s wrong here? Picture this. You have two lanes of traffic going each way and you are a rider in the left lane. You “must pass on the left”? I don’t think so. That would have you partially encroaching on the oncoming lane of traffic, which is strictly prohibited. Your only choice is to pass between the two lanes of traffic going your direction, which in this case would mean passing on the right. Either that or else if you’re in the left lane you are not permitted to filter. I’m pretty sure that’s not what is intended.

What the law actually says is this: A PERSON OVERTAKING OR PASSING PURSUANT TO THIS SUBSECTION (3)(b) SHALL NOT OVERTAKE OR PASS:
(A) ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER;
(B) To THE RIGHT OF A VEHICLE IN THE FARTHEST RIGHT-HAND LANE IF THE HIGHWAY IS NOT LIMITED ACCESS
(C) IN A LANE OF TRAFFIC MOVING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.

So that pretty much stipulates that you have to filter between lanes going your direction.

The CSP piece also said this: “The lane must be wide enough to fit the vehicle and motorcycle while passing.”

Now, not very many lanes anywhere are wide enough to allow a car and a motorcycle to fit comfortably side by side. The motorcycle needs to ride down the stripe separating the lanes. The law states filtering is permitted if “THE DRIVER OF THE TWO-WHEELED MOTORCYCLE IS ON A ROAD WITH LANES WIDE ENOUGH TO PASS SAFELY.”

Notes the plural there: “lanes.” And nothing about staying in the same lane as the car you’re passing.

I think part of the confusion may come from the wording of the law where it says “THE DRIVER OF A TWO-WHEELED MOTORCYCLE MAY OVERTAKE OR
PASS ANOTHER MOTOR VEHICLE IN THE SAME LANE AS THE MOTORCYCLE IF . . .” Maybe whoever wrote this piece read it to mean you can pass another vehicle only if you stay in the same lane that it is in, when in fact it should be read that you can pass another vehicle THAT IS in the lane you are in but you don’t have to stay completely in that one lane in doing so. A significant difference of meaning. So the law could have been written a bit more clearly.

So anyway, reading through the law again I spotted one thing this time that I did not notice previously. This is item B in the list above. “SHALL NOT OVERTAKE OR PASS: (B) To THE RIGHT OF A VEHICLE IN THE FARTHEST RIGHT-HAND LANE IF THE HIGHWAY IS NOT LIMITED ACCESS.”

“If the highway is not limited access.” Does this mean that they are specifically allowing you to overtake or pass on the right of the vehicle in the farthest right lane if the highway IS limited access? As in, if you’re on the interstate you can pass on the shoulder? It had not been my understanding that that was the intention of the Legislature but that does seem to be the logical reading of that rule.

At the same time, it also says this: “(III) A PERSON OVERTAKING OR PASSING PURSUANT TO THIS SUBSECTION (3)(b) SHALL NOT OVERTAKE OR PASS: (A) ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER;”

This seems contradictory. If anyone can clarify this for me I would appreciate it.

I think there are some kinks here. I suspect that there are going to be some amendments needed. But get ready because filtering will be here this week.

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t love the people driving fast, that’s the reason why I overtake them.

Bill gets some pix on top of Cottonwood Pass.

We headed out of Buena Vista at a reasonable hour headed up over Cottonwood Pass. It wasn’t as cold as the day before but once again, late July or not, I was darn glad to have my electric vest on. Since they finally paved the other side of this pass it has become a very popular route for a lot of people but the crowd wasn’t too thick.

Heading down, though, we had options and I thought I had gotten it all worked out. Once we got past Gunnison we had the issue of a bridge across the Blue Mesa Reservoir being out of service . . . or not. There were two possible detours. One was to get to Almont coming down off Cottonwood Pass and turning north to Crested Butte and taking the unpaved Kebler Pass. They use a lot of magnesium chloride on that road so it’s really hard-packed, like really rough pavement. I’ve been over it and it’s not bad.

The other is to head out of Gunnison and take the road at the east end of the reservoir south toward Lake City and then, before coming to Lake City, take the Lake City Cutoff, which goes down to US 50 on the far side of the bridge. But the cutoff is not paved either.

The third alternative was that I thought I had found information saying that the bridge was actually open just one lane at a time for light traffic, such as motorcycles and passenger cars. We headed for the bridge.

At the turn-off to head for Lake City the road straight ahead had a sign that said it was closed. Not a good sign. We went past it. You could still go in because there were campgrounds and fishing areas you could get to on this side of the bridge. But we kept seeing signs saying the road ahead was closed. Not a good sign at all. We kept going.

Sure enough, we came to where the road really was closed. There was a guy there telling people what their alternatives were and he told us we should hurry back and take the Lake City road and then the cutoff. He said the cutoff opened for westbound traffic at 12:30 p.m. and if we didn’t make it there in time we would have to wait two hours for the next opening. We didn’t have much time so we hustled.

Until we got behind a couple really slow, large vehicles. Dang! Well, we got there in time and didn’t even have to stop, they just waved us on through. And then it was 15 miles of rough gravel. I was on my V-Strom so for me it was no issue. Dennis didn’t like it on his BMW but he just figured it had to be. Bill, on his Harley, absolutely hated it. He said later if he’d known what it was going to be he would have turned around and gone home or something. Anything but that 15 miles of gravel. He was not a happy camper.

I had actually been surprised they had gone for it. When I told them what the guy at the blockade had told me I was not expecting Dennis to just say simply, “Let’s do it.” But he did. He and Bill hate gravel. And Bill just followed us. Bill prefers to just follow. This time he wasn’t so glad he had done so.

The way I looked at it, this was supposed to be a Colorado adventure tour, where we stop for all the tourist attractions we typically just ride right past. Our first day was doing a hot springs. Our second day was zip-lining. Now our third day was getting off the pavement into the backcountry. Kinda.

One way or another we made it to Montrose, our stop for the night.

Biker Quote for today

The joy of riding a motorcycle is out of this world. The thrill of riding in the hills and mountains is an opiate addiction. — Avijeet Das