Passes & Canyons Blog

A rest stop on that trip in 2002, just a bit south of Jackpot.

We of the OFMC have always had a soft spot for one really out of the way spot: Jackpot, Nevada.

Jackpot is a wide spot in the road, right on the state line with Idaho, about 50 miles south of Twin Falls. By right on the state line I mean that coming south you cross into Nevada and you’re in the middle of town. I once, back in the days before we always wore helmets, came across the state line figuring I would be fine without a helmet the short distance (100 yards?) to our hotel. (Nevada is a bucket state.) Wrong. A cop flagged me down immediately and said no, I needed to stop short of the state line and put the helmet on. OK, lesson learned.

The OFMC favors Jackpot for a couple reasons. First, it’s a gambling stop, which is mandatory on any trip. Second, it has a surprisingly nice golf course, which is also an OFMC must.

But it can also be a fun place. As with any big casino, Cactus Pete’s has an auditorium where they have shows. It’s not like way out here in this podunk place you’re going to get top headliners but on the other hand, ticket prices are nothing like what they are in Las Vegas.

We were there one time and the show that night was Bowser, the lead singer from the group Sha Na Na. OK, that sounds like fun, let’s do it. Besides, the longer you spend sitting and watching a show the less money you lose at the slots or the tables.

So Bowser was good and we enjoyed his part of the show but I don’t now remember much about it. What we all remember was what they did during intermission: a hula-hoop contest.

By this time the OFMC was a mixed group of the original guys and others of our generation, plus the sons and friends of sons of the older guys. Everyone was egging on anyone who might be willing to get up there on stage and potentially make a fool of themselves and I got up there and so did Johnathon, John’s son.

They started out with three categories: men, women, and kids. Yes, there were kids allowed because it was a show and they just weren’t allowed to drink, of course.

Johnathon was a hot shot and he figured of course he would take the men’s competition and he was dumbstruck when I emerged the winner. Not the first or last time Johnathon has underestimated me. Then the winners of each group faced off.

I don’t remember anything about the winner of the women’s group but there was a young girl who won the kids’ group. And oh my gosh, she skunked us totally.

We got up there and I’m gyrating and trying to keep that hoop up above my waist, struggling mightily, and unsuccessfully and the girl was just very easily, casually, sedately, swinging that puppy around and around. Just to rub it in, she kept going for a good while after the other two of us had lost. And Johnathon was pleased to see me lose so decisively after he had lost to me so badly.

I’ve thought about the whole thing since then and I think I understand how it worked out. This little girl had hips wider than her stomach, whereas we older folks had more belly and less hip. I think it’s just easier to keep the hoop above your hips when you’re shaped that way. I mean it couldn’t just be that she was better at hula hoop than me, could it? No, no. couldn’t be.

Anyway–we always had a good time at Jackpot. Always a favorite stop.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if your saddlebags have a special pocket for your cell phone.

From left, the V-Strom, the CB750, and the Concours. Good-bye to the Connie, I’ll need now to do a shot of just the remaining two.

It’s that time where each year I look at the mileage on each of my bikes and set some goals for riding the remaining few weeks. This year is a pretty darn odd year.

For one thing, I sold the Concours. For another, my car got smashed and I got another. And third, for the first time in a lot of years it appears I will have put my miles on my car than on my bikes. How did that that happen?

Just for starters, it’s been a low-mileage year for everything. To date I only have put about 3,100 miles on my cars this year. I’m fine with that. But last year I put about 6,500 miles on my bikes. So far this year I’m at about 2,500 miles on the bikes. Seriously?

I think a lot of this has to do with the markedly less activity going on with the RMMRC. Ever since I joined that group I have gone on a whole lot of rides with them, but this year there just haven’t been that many rides. And one ride that did happen that I intended to go on–a Colorado four-corners ride–I had to drop out of because I had had minor butt surgery that made riding just too painful.

I know Bruce, one of my friends from the RMMRC, also rides with a couple other groups and has suggested I join them. I may do just that. It looks like the RMMRC may be fading away.

So what goals can I set for the rest of 2024? I try each year to put at least 1,000 miles on each of my bikes. That may not seem like much but for a long time I have had trouble getting that many miles on the Honda CB750 Custom. I’ve just ridden the other bikes a whole lot more. But with the sale of the Connie I figured for sure I’d put a lot more miles on the Honda.

And yet, here we are in mid-November and I have put almost the same number of miles on the Honda this year as last year. I still have time and the weather has been pretty good so I do expect yet to surpass last year but more than 1,000? It doesn’t seem likely. But surpassing last year looks like the best I can hope for. And as for turning the odometer over another 1,000, that really looks like it’s off the table because I just did that, sitting now at 38,136. I don’t think I’m going to be putting another 864 miles on that bike this year. I’m just going to have to do better next year.

As for the V-Strom, I’m about 2,000 miles behind last year on it. What I can shoot for is at least turning over another 1,000 yet, as the odo now sits at 47,930. If I can’t get another 70 miles on that bike this year I should hang up riding gear.

I don’t think there’s any doubt what my New Year’s resolution needs to be come January 1: Ride. And ride some more. And ride some more. And then some more after that.

Biker Quote for Today

“The road never ends . . . only our vision does.” — Amit Reddy

Yeah, it looks like winter out there but technically it’s still only fall. In other words, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

The temperature was in the 50s, hardly a cloud in the sky, and I had not ridden the Honda in November yet. My assignment was clear.

For once I actually had a route planned out in advance. I headed west on Belleview to Santa Fe and then south. It was about then that I remembered that the last time I went this way I couldn’t get through. There was major roadwork in progress where Santa Fe crosses C-470 and I had gone around and around trying to figure a way to get where I wanted to go. Either I was going to have to find another route again or else I’d get to see what they had done.

The construction was finished so I got through, but what exactly they had done was not at all clear to me. What the heck was all that about? I was expecting a whole new interchange with C-470 or something but that was not the case. I’m assuming I’ll never know.

Just south of that interchange, however, they had shifted the road a bit. The gas station and other shops that used to be right along the road are now accessible only by turning off the main road onto a bit of frontage. Making them more difficult to get to but making the road a little safer I’m sure, eliminating all that pulling on and off right onto the main road.

I continued on south on US 85, with nothing much new to be seen here. Reaching Castle Rock, I crossed I-25 and took Founders Parkway just to the left turn onto Crowfoot Valley Road, the most direct route between Castle Rock and Parker. This road has seen huge changes since I started riding it, going from a small two-lane with a lot of open country to having housing developments just about everywhere. At one point I passed a farm that used to be all alone out there and now there is a row of houses looking down on it from the ridge above, going on and on and on. How long ago was that farm isolated? Two years? Yeah, a lot of change around here.

It was a potentially chilly day so I had worn my electric vest but had not felt the need to turn it on yet. Castle Rock is higher than Denver, being down toward the Palmer Divide, so I was definitely feeling the cool here. I considered turning the vest on but it just really wasn’t necessary.

I ran up Crowfoot Valley Road till it turns into Motsenbocker Road at Stroh Road and up to where it bends west on Todd Drive. Right there there was construction going on that looks as though they’re connecting to the northeast to Parker Road across a new bridge. That will be interesting to explore when it’s done.

Todd took me to Jordan Road, which I took up to Arapahoe, then east to Parker Road and on home. About 60 miles–an hour and a half. Nice day for a ride.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: You can’t get diseases from a motorcycle you don’t know very well.

My baby, my first bike, my Honda CB750 Custom.

I’ve kept a journal off and on all my life, and consistently for the last 40 years. While, for me, the simple act of putting things down on paper is beneficial, it’s also a very interesting thing to go back later and read what you wrote. Here’s something I just ran across, from October of 1992. This was on my Honda CB750, the only bike I had back then.

I stayed a while longer, then got on the bike and headed home. Turning off Federal onto 67th my chain jumped off the sprocket and I had no power but could roll, and did, till the rear wheel locked up right out front. Jack (my neighbor across the street) helped me get it to the garage and this morning he helped me get it back to where I can at least ride it to Legends (a motorcycle shop just up on Federal a couple blocks from me) tomorrow. I’ll need a new chain and who knows what else.

OK, several things here. I had just come across town and this could have happened anywhere but it did happen just about 200 feet from home. How lucky is that!

Also, the chain jumped off the sprocket? How loose must it have been, and how negligent of me not to have noticed. I had been on I-70 much of the way home and what would have happened to me if the chain had come off at 70 mph? I mean, the rear wheel locked up. I might not be here writing this today.

Then there was this a few days later.

Got my bike from the shop. $55 for a new chain and installation but now the foot brake is sticking and causing a problem.

Yeah, you read that right. Just $55 for the chain and installation. Of course back then that was actually a big hit to my wallet. That’s inflation. But inflation is also the reason you can buy a house and have a payment that is a real stretch, but some years later it’s not a stretch at all. I’ve been a beneficiary of that and I’m sure many of you have as well.

I haven’t yet reached the next chapter in this story in my reading but I’ll reconstruct it here from memory.

As I noted, the brake was sticking. I had no idea why. I soon found out.

I was out at about Colfax and Monaco a few days later and the brake seized completely. And it wasn’t the rear brake it was the front brake. I must have gotten things confused previously–I was still pretty new to riding motorcycles at this time.

I pulled off the street and got down to check on the problem and in doing so I touched the brake disc with my finger. Yow! That sucker was so blazing hot it scorched my fingertip and left me with a second-degree burn. This is not good.

I was way across town but I figured this had to have been a result of something the shop did, something they did not set up properly. So I called them and told them where I was stranded and why. And here’s another thing I don’t think you’re likely to see any more: They sent a guy over with a truck and picked me up and hauled me back to the shop–no charge.

It turned out they had adjusted the cable on the brake a little too snugly and apparently the pads were in constant contact with the disc, gradually building up heat and expanding, until things seized. They readjusted it and that was that.

OK, so here’s one caveat. I know both of these events occurred. I’m going from memory saying one led to the other. I may read on in my journal and find that they were separate events. I’m simply not sure at this point. But they both did happen. And they both hark back to my title up above: Things Change. They certainly do. For one thing, that shop is long gone, as motorcycle repair shops seem to have a penchant for doing. And you’re not very likely to get that kind of service these days either. Heck, you go to an Italian restaurant these days and the bread sticks they used to give you are now available for a price.

The only constant is change.

Biker Quote for Today

“My dreams for the future are simple: work, a happy, healthy family, a lovely long motorcycle ride, and continuing the struggle to awaken people to the need for serious human rights reform.” — Mike Farrell

OK, watch this video. Then come back.

Who are these jerks? What the hell do they think they’re doing? I mean, they planned this. They got together, removed their license plates, and then went on this spree. What kind of dips–t does something like that? And this is right here in Denver. That intersection is Colfax and York.

I guess I have nothing more to say.

Biker Quote for Today

What do you call a Harley Davidson with no tires? A groundhog.

Once again I can connect my battery to the trickle charger and my electric vest to the battery.

I mentioned last time how when I went to plug in my electric vest there was nowhere for me to plug it into. Removing the seat on this 1980 Honda CB750 Custom is enough of a pain that I didn’t get to that right away but I did turn my attention in that direction over the weekend.

Removing the seat would theoretically be easy but in practice it is anything but. The seat has a tongue that you insert into the compartment for it just below the gas tank. But first you have to remove two bolts, one on each side. Easy, right? Well, it might be except I have a sissy bar on the back and the two bolts are very close to each other. Then the bar that is one of the main structural members of the sissy bar, which includes back rest, tool bag, and luggage rack, passes directly over the bolt that holds the seat on.

In other words, I can’t get at it directly. So I slip a box-end wrench under the bar to work the bolt. But that’s not all. When the seat is in place there is stress on the frame of the seat such that the bolt does not turn freely. I have learned that I need to first lay across the seat from the left side to the right, putting my weight on the seat to push it down. In this way I position the bolt hole on the seat frame perfectly around the bolt and then it screws out easily. Next I have to raise the right side of the seat to get the bolt and bolt hole aligned, and then I can unscrew that one.

OK, taking the seat off is really not that big a deal. And I got it off and sure enough, the shop failed to put the two pigtails back on when they worked on the bike this spring. I have two pigtails. One is for my electric vest and the other is for my trickle charger. Neither were there.

Fortunately I have extras because when I sold the Concours earlier this year I stripped off equipment like that. Now I just had to find where I had put them. I wasn’t having much luck finding them but in the process I came across a spare vest connector that I had forgotten I had. Brand new, never been used. They must have been packed two to a package. Cool.

It took a lot of looking but then I did find the stuff I took off the Concours. And wasn’t it fortunate I had found that spare vest connector. I had forgotten that to hook the vest up to the Connie’s circuitry I had to snip off the loops that normally go over the battery posts and replace them with plugs that were inserted into the bike’s outlets. I had kept the loops and I could have reversed the process but with the spare I didn’t need to. Nice.

Next I removed the two side panels in order to get to the battery. Again, theoretically you should be able to remove the side panels with the seat in place. In practice it really isn’t possible. No problem, the seat was off.

So I hooked it all up and was about to put the other things back in place but on this bike the battery has a metal strap holding it in place and that strap has a bumped out spot where the battery cable needs to go. So before you reattach the battery you have to bolt this strap back in place and position the cable properly. I had not done that, so I had to undo the connections, put the cable in place, then redo the connections. Fine, now put the rest of the bike back together.

I got the seat back on, which is a lot harder than getting it off. To get the bolt started you have to hold it with two fingertips and position it just right and then turn it to get the threads started. This can be–and usually is–very awkward. But I got it done. Then I realized I had not put the side panels back on. So I had to remove the seat again, put the side panels on, and then put the seat back on again.

Fun, huh? I know it was my own carelessness that caused me to have to do these things twice. I really shouldn’t forget them because I have made these same mistakes more than once in the past. But dang it, I shouldn’t have had to be doing any of this. If the guy at the shop had done his job properly my connectors would have been where they were supposed to be.

And this was not the first time I’ve had this kind of thing happen. I once started out on a week-long trip after finally getting my bike back from the shop, only to realize about 50 miles out of town that the mechanic had failed to put one of my highway pegs back on. I like highway pegs. I use my highway pegs. And there I was gone on a long trip and one highway peg was not where it was supposed to be.

Yes we all make mistakes, but when I make a mistake no one is paying me for my efforts. I’m paying these mechanics. I think it’s not unfair for me to hold them to a little higher standard. But if I learn any lesson from this it should be that when I get a bike back from the shop I need to go over it carefully looking for exactly this sort of thing. Will I learn that lesson? I’ll keep you informed.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 29. We wake up at 4:00 AM to watch the MotoGP race in Australia.