Passes & Canyons Blog

I was going to ride my CB750 yesterday, but it wouldn’t start. This is just like what happened a few weeks ago. The battery was dead.

The problem is, this is a new battery. I just bought it back in October. It worked fine then, it worked fine in November, it worked fine in December, it worked fine in January, it worked fine in February . . . and then in March it was dead. I put it on a trickle charge but after two days when that didn’t do any good I took it to a shop and they put it on a charge. A few hours later I took it home, put it in, and the bike fired right up. And now it’s dead again.

OK, I’m good at troubleshooting so here’s what I’m looking at. If anyone has any thoughts they’d like to offer please do.

It could be that the battery is defective. One sure way to confirm or refute that would be to buy another one and see if the problem arises again. That would confirm that it is not the battery. The problem with that is the expense, and if it turns out the battery is not the problem then I’ve got two batteries and still have a problem.

It could be a short. This is what I would expect if a second battery did the same thing, and if it is then that’s going to be a pain to track down. But I don’t think it’s a short. If it was a short I suspect the entire battery would be dead, but as it is, there’s enough juice to turn the light on and if it were a short I would expect it to have no power at all.

It could be that there’s a problem with my charger. The last time I let it charge for two days and still got no response at all when I pushed the starter button. A two-hour charge at the shop got me going. This wouldn’t explain why it went dead again but it would explain why two days of charging did nothing. Do I have two problems? There is definitely electricity coming out of the outlet I plug into–I checked that. How do you check a charger to see if it’s working?

It could be the starter. I wondered about that the first time but once I got the battery charged it fired up with no problem, so I don’t think that’s it.

It could be the fusible link, too, but I checked that and it’s fine. Plus, as with the starter, that was a non-issue last time.

This is all complicated by the fact that the shop I bought the battery from has since closed its doors. I can’t just take the battery in and ask them to test it and give me a new one if it’s defective. This is really a pain. Yesterday was a gorgeous day and I wanted to ride. Bah.

Biker Quote for Today

A good mechanic will let you watch without charging you for it.

Have you ever had a problem on the road? Or have you gone out to start the bike and it wouldn’t, and it’s not the battery?

At times like this it can get expensive. Having your bike hauled somewhere to be worked on can easily cost you $100. Unless you’ve had the foresight to sign up for MoTow.

MoTow Roadside Assistance is offered by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) for the piddling fee of $25 per year. You have problems, you call for assistance, and they have “people who know how to tow motorcycles” available to help you out 24/7. The service covers all your bikes and it doesn’t matter what you ride.

Now, maybe you have a pretty new bike and don’t generally have mechanical problems. Good for you. On my old bike, my 1980 CB750 Custom, it can get dicey at times. There have been a couple times that bike has just quit on me. But the MoTow guy has showed up quickly and hauled the bike to the shop. Not a dime out of my pocket (not counting my annual membership).

It doesn’t have to be a problem on the road. A buddy of mine called just yesterday hoping I would have some great idea to get his bike running so he wouldn’t have to spend a bunch on it. He has a newer, more dependable bike, but it seems he left it parked all winter, never fired it up, and didn’t put in gas stabilizer. Bad decision. I’m no miracle worker. But he has MoTow so he called and got the bike hauled to the shop. He’ll have to pay for the carb cleaning himself. That one use of his MoTow membership will pay for his membership for three years.

There is a catch here. MoTow is only available to AMA members. AMA membership is $39 a year. So that’s not quite such a savings, right?

Well, you get a lot more from AMA than just access to MoTow. You get a monthly magazine, American Motorcyclist, which has a lot of good reading, but that’s not really the important thing. What you get with AMA membership is representation in government. We all know the limitations non-bikers continually try to put on us and it’s not pixies who fight those battles to protect our rights. It’s the AMA.

Here in Denver they recently passed an ordinance that allows the police to ticket bikers whose exhaust pipes are not OEM. The idea is to fight noise but it is so wrong in its implementation. It basically says that it doesn’t matter how quiet your bike is, you can get a ticket if it is not an OEM muffler and pipes. Never mind that while the cop is writing you a ticket, a really loud car or truck may pass by, ignored by the cops. The ordinance is clearly discrimination against motorcyclists. And the AMA is on the case. They haven’t gotten it changed yet but they’re still working on it.

I could talk a whole lot more about what the AMA does, I’m a real believer in the organization. But I’ll save that for another time. Right now, just think about the fix you might find yourself in if your bike breaks down on you and how good it would feel in that case to know that help from MoTow is just a phone call away.

Biker Quote for Today

A friend is someone who’ll get out of bed at 2 am to drive his pickup to the middle of nowhere to get you when you’re broken down.

It’s getting toward that time again, so as I always do, I’m cluing you in to this year’s Ride Your Motorcycle to Work day.

This year the date is July 16. As always, that’s a Wednesday, the third Wednesday in July. This is a day to get as many bikes out on the streets and highways as possible, to make an impression on the non-riders as to just how many of us there are. Not for intimidation or anything negative, just to let them know we’re here and that they need to be mindful of us as they drive. I mean, have you ever been on the highway when someone in the next lane pulled into your lane without looking over their shoulder to see if perhaps someone might be there? No, it’s never happened to me either. Right!

So the point is to get out in force and impress upon them that they MUST look, MUST be aware, and MUST share the road. Maybe their lives don’t depend on it, but ours do!

If you really want to get into this, you can go to the website at www.ridetowork.org and download logos and artwork, public service announcements, and various other things to pass along to the local media or put up in public places. Here’s the logo.

Who knows, maybe this year I’ll be able to take part. The funny thing is that each year as I’ve promoted this thing, I’ve not been able to participate. Last year I was working a job that had me working at home. The year before that I was on vacation. This year I may be unemployed on that day, but if so I’ll at least get out and ride a bit just for the heck of it.

Anyway, I’ll bring this up again just before the date. In the meantime, take today’s quote with a grain of salt. Maybe.

Biker Quote for Today

If the person in the next lane at the stoplight rolls up the window and locks the door, support their view of life by snarling at them.

If you ride with buddies — and who doesn’t? — I cannot over-stress the importance of making sure that everyone understands the principles your group will follow on rides.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. My buddies John and Bill and I have been riding together for nearly 20 years. We take week-long summer trips and go on various other rides over the year. We have had the good fortune not to have had any accidents along the way. Barely. That’s the issue.

We very nearly did have a serious accident on one of our early rides. I was in the lead, with Bill behind me, and John behind him. We were coming up a road that was snaking up a mountainside and I saw ahead of us a pull-out on the left with a terrific view of the valley below us. I slowed down as I considered stopping, and just as I decided that I would pull over Bill went shooting past me on my left. If I had made my decision to pull over half a second sooner he would have T-boned me and who knows how bad the injuries might have been.

So essentially, what I’m saying is that the most serious danger we have ever encountered was not at the hands of some inattentive driver, but at our own hands. There’s no excuse for that.

Every group needs to have signs and signals, and use them. The first and most obvious one is to signal your turns and look before turning. That applies to anyone on the road and should be so obvious as to not need mentioning, but I didn’t do either that day.

Other good things to have agreed-on signals for are gravel or other obstacles on the road, and reminding someone to turn off their turn signal. Indicating you want to make a stop is another obvious one.

What about the less obvious? For example, when it was just the three of us we all understood that when passing through a town we would stay bunched close so that everyone would make it through any traffic lights. It was up to the leader to judge before going through whether the others would have time to make it. Now that we ride with a bigger group I don’t think we’ve had this discussion with the other guys. Consequently, we end up getting all disjointed and needing to pull over and wait. Sometimes, with a larger group, that’s just inevitable. But not always. It’s guaranteed, though, if the last guy is half a block behind the next guy. Stay close.

It should be understood, too, that when making a turn at a crossroads, you wait until you’re sure the guy behind you has seen which way you’re going.

What else? I’m sure there are more things to discuss and agree on. The main thing is to raise the subject and then make sure everyone is on the same page. It will make your rides safer and help avoid stupid delays and hassles. Do it!

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t lead the pack if you don’t know where you’re going.

I don’t travel for business a lot, but when I do I try to mix business with pleasure. If I can, I try to arrange it so I can be there over the weekend. Then I’ll arrange to rent a motorcycle. What better way to see a different part of the country than where you usually ride.

Here’s a tip I learned the hard way. I got sent to Nashville a few years ago, and it was only for a day, but I set it up for a Friday. I flew in Thursday night, went to work on Friday, and then, of course, I picked up the tab for my lodging on Friday and Saturday nights, rather than return to Denver.

Saturday morning I went to a nearby Harley dealership where I had reserved a bike and picked up my Road King. I had brought my leather jacket but they had told me when I made the reservation that they could provide me with a helmet and a rain suit. So I didn’t bring my own. Well, it turned out that the only helmets they had were open face. OK, no big deal, in fact, maybe nice. More open and airy, you know.

Well, not so nice. Unfortunately it was a rainy day. The open face helmet meant my face got very wet and my glasses were constantly covered with water droplets, making it hard to see. On top of that, when I pulled out the rain suit they had given me it turned out to be a one-size-big-enough-for-anyone unit. I could get into it, and it kept me dry, but you could have gotten two more of me in there as well.

Lesson learned: Take your own gear. It may be a bother on the airplane but you’ll be glad you did.

Biker Quote for Today

If you don’t ride in the rain, you don’t ride.

Another question I got from Steve in New Zealand, who is coming to Colorado to ride with some friends in 2009, was “Are there any other pure renters (as opposed to tour companies) of similar style bikes?” Steve and the group are planning to rent from www.tourbikes.com.

That was something I’d never really thought about so I did some research. First I checked to see what selection they have at tourbikes.com. It’s a pretty wide selection. They have a bunch of BMW touring bikes but they also have some Harleys, some Hondas, a Yamaha FJR 1300, and a mix of dual sport bikes. All in all, something that would probably suit anybody.

Then I started looking at the others. L2 Motorcycle Rentals has mostly Harleys, but they also have some Gold Wings. Mainly Harleys, though.

Not surprisingly, EagleRider of Denver has only Harleys. It also appears that Moturis also is exclusively Harley.

I list a number of other rental companies on the motorcycle rentals page but can’t check the rest of them out very easily because they don’t appear to have website. So in answer to Steve’s question, no it does not appear that there are other renters of similar style bikes in the area.

If I’m wrong, and someone tells me more than I know at this point I’ll be glad to post the info here and on the rentals page. Thanks in advance.

I got an email from Steve in New Zealand asking about early and late season road closures. He asked:

I found your website and it is REALLY great. Myself and 3 or 4 friends are coming over from New Zealand in 2009 for a 12 day bike ride. One thing which would really help overseas people is to know which roads are NOT passable during the “early” months (ie Apr/May/Jun). We are planning on being there the first 2 weeks of June, so it would be very handy to know which roads are NOT passable, given “normal” weather conditions. Obviously it is not possible to predict the exact weather in advance but knowing that certain roads are likely impassable means that detours can be pre-planned (where practical of course).

I did some checking and found six roads that the Colorado Department of Transportation says close for the winter:

US 34 over Trail Ridge Road

CO 82 over Independence Pass

CO 5 to the top of Mount Evans

COS 1 to the top of Pike’s Peak

GCR 12 over Kebler Pass

FR 209, 306 over Cottonwood Pass

For more info on this subject, check the What You Need page.

Here’s a good one. I just saw a news dispatch that a motorcyclist in Pennsylvania had an expensive custom helmet stolen off his bike. He went looking on Ebay for a replacement and what do you suppose he found? His stolen helmet for sale.

The seller was charged with theft and convicted. Now the owner is waiting to get his helmet back from the police. He may have a bit of a wait yet. The convicted thief has appealed and the helmet is still being held as evidence.