Passes & Canyons Blog

Erico Motorsports and Revzilla are just across the street from the Rev-It! store in Octane Alley.

My apologies to anyone reading this who is not in the Denver area; this is a local event only.

You may recall I have written about Octane Alley, an area up on the 2800 block of Walnut Street where there is a tight concentration of motorcycle shops. Erico Motorsports is the original shop to open up there, long before the area got redeveloped and gentrified.

Perhaps because it was necessary to draw customers up to that then-unlikely part of town, Erico has always been a little different, taking uncommon steps to bring folks in. That process continues with the establishment of a small park-like area next door where Erico has been promoting community events.

As one of those community events, this Friday, October 17, “@sofarDenver is transforming Erico Motorsports into an intimate live music venue. Expect an unforgettable night of local artists, great vibes, and a little mystery because you won’t know who’s playing until they hit the stage!”

Doors open for this event at 7:30 with the show slated to begin at 8. The music will continue for up to three hours.

Here’s the rest of the info.

BYOB: Feel free to bring your own drinks, including alcohol. Remember to pack your own cups or bottle openers.

Snacks Welcome: Small snacks are permitted to keep you fueled during the show.

Seating: Mostly floor seating or standing —bring cushions or blankets for added comfort.

Parking: Limited spaces may be available in our lot; public parking available throughout the streets.

Tickets: Secure your spot now and use our exclusive friends & family discount code: ERICO at checkout to receive 20% off!

Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind experience—grab your tickets today and join us for an evening where motorcycles and music collide!

Sounds like it could be fun. Judy and I have been trying to catch more live music lately so we might go–can’t say for sure just yet. Maybe this will be right up your (octane) alley.

Biker Quote for Today

If you want to live a happy life, don’t teach your wife how to ride a motorcycle.

The OFMC at the Grand Canyon.

People always want to talk to you when you’re out on motorcycles, have you noticed? Of course you have. They look at us wistfully and reminisce about when they had a bike, or how great it must be to just get out on the road and go, or whatever thoughts we stir. Bikers are so daring, so cute and lovable, right? How can you not strike up a conversation with them?

Usually those conversations go pleasantly and everyone parts with good feelings. Usually.

Then there was the time the OFMC was at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, in the parking lot by the lodge (burned down in summer 2025!) when a family on vacation struck up a conversation. Cool bikes. Hey, would it be OK if our son climbed on board one? Oh sure, what the heck, no harm.

Well, no. The boy climbed on, wearing shorts, and managed to let his bare leg press up against one of the exhaust pipes. Blazing hot exhaust pipe. Yow!!!

OK, that didn’t go so well.

Then there was the time in Aspen when we struck up a conversation with a couple cougars who seemed to think we were of interest. Things went pleasantly right up to the point where I asked one of them if, way back years ago, Hunter Thompson ever had any chance of winning his run for election as sheriff of Pitkin County.

This was a simple question based on my honest interest in whether the answer was yes or no. You would never know that from the response I got. She replied scornfully that no, he never had a chance, and did we think they were all stupid? Well, I never suggested that, I was asking a simple question.

I did reply that it would be nice to have a sheriff who wouldn’t arrest anyone for simple possession of marijuana. She then got quite nasty, pointing out that marijuana was illegal (back then), whereas her drug of choice was alcohol (which was legal by then but back in the 1920s this was not the case). And by this point she had certainly had plenty of her drug of choice. We didn’t stick around a lot longer.

Fortunately, these less than great encounters are vastly outnumbered by the good ones. But the not so good ones make better stories, don’t they?

Biker Quote for Today

If you are going faster than everything else you only have to worry about what is in front of you.

When people and vehicles share the very narrow street like this you better believe everyone is careful and nobody drives recklessly.

We just spent five days in Barcelona (Spain) and as always, I observed the traffic scene–i.e., the two-wheeled type–closely. I’ll tell you two things: No non-California city in the US is ready for this scene, and it is then a good thing that no such city will soon be experiencing this.

Barcelona streets are packed with traffic so vehicles frequently move slowly and even when they move fast they are slow by our norms. And because traffic moves so slowly, the filtering and lane-splitting are constant.

We took a cab one day. The right-hand curb lanes on busy streets are reserved for buses and taxis so those types of vehicles can make better time. Of course motorcycles use that lane a lot. And apparently they’re allowed to, either officially or unofficially.

Let me make a side note here. In Europe they tend to use the word “motorbike” and that’s actually probably a better word for them. The highly dominant two-wheeler is the step-through scooter, like the Vespas of old. There are also real motorcycles but anything over 500cc is rare. Baggers are non-existent.

But you also have plenthy of the stand-up scooters that have become popular, plus lots of power-assisted bicycles–ebikes. And of course plain old people-powered bicycles and skateboards. All of these, for our purposes, can be grouped under the term “motorbikes.”

OK, back to the narrative. I was saying we took a cab.

The one problem with taking the right-hand cab and bus lane is that both of these conveyances are prone to making stops. And when they do you can end up sitting a while before they move again.

The obvious thing to do is go around them but that means merging into the next lane and on our cab ride, as the cab would start to insinuate its way in, the motorbikes behind the cab would dart into the opening and block the cab out of the space it had created. We missed getting through red light cycles a couple times for exactly that reason.

Our cab driver stayed totally cool, showing no frustration or aggravation. I’m sure because he deals with this all day every day. And he was vigilantly watchful for these scooters and all.

How do you suppose a typical American driver is likely to respond to something like this? Rhetorical question. We know the answer.

So no, no non-California city in the US is ready for this but it’s not going to happen anywhere any time soon. In Europe motorbikes are everywhere by the thousands. Until Americans take up two-wheeled travel in those kinds of numbers that kind of scene cannot develop. And hopefully, as it will happen gradually–if it ever does–we’ll all have time to adapt to it just as gradually. Until it feels normal.

How crazy would that be?

Biker Quote for Today

Why did the motorcycle stay at home? It was two-tired.

Is anyone surprised that South Dakota ranks first in terms of people per motorcycle?

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.

As long as the roads aren’t like this you always have back-up transportation if you have a motorcycle.

For obvious reasons, transportation was an issue for me after this idiot totaled my car a couple weeks ago. The issue was quickly resolved for a while when my insurance company got me a rental car, with them paying $30 a day and me picking up the remainder, about $10 a day. But then I bought a new car and before Judy gave me a ride over to pick it up we took my rental back.

Before I could pick up the new car my insurance company called to tell me the one I was buying–a used car–had a recall on it and until I could get that warranty issue handled they could cover me for liability but not for comprehensive and collision. OK, that’s a real issue and a couple quick calls later I had an appointment to get the new car in for the warranty work just a few days later. But still, driving at all without comp and collision made me extremely uncomfortable.

Judy said I was welcome to use hers any time I wanted but as we looked at our schedules we quickly saw there would be some conflicts where she needed her car and I needed to get somewhere. Not a problem, I told her, I can ride one of my bikes.

Of course this ability is always contingent at this time of year on the weather. But at this time we were having some beautiful, warm weather. So one day I needed to run up to the salvage yard in Commerce City where my old car now resided because I wanted to get my old plates to put on my new car. I rode the V-Strom.

Later that day I needed to run some paperwork to my insurance agent so they could process my claim and cut me a check. They’re way down south but it was a beautiful day so of course I’m happy to run down there on the bike. Motorcycles ARE transportation. They just happen to also be fun.

The next day I had a dental appointment. Again, the V-Strom got me there and as long as I was out I made about three other stops.

Eventually we did get over to pick up the new car but even just driving it home and parking it and then driving it to get the warranty work done without coverage had me very uneasy. But the sales guy told me the law requires that in a situation like this the insurance company has to extend your previous coverage to your new vehicle for a minimum number of days, not sure how many. I checked with my agent and he confirmed this is correct. So why didn’t they tell me that when they said I had to get the warranty work done before I’d be covered?

Anyway, I got the car, the weather turned nasty, and I was able to use the car without worrying. And now probably by the time you read this the warranty work will be done and all will be back to normal. But it sure was great to have the bikes to turn to when I didn’t have a car to use.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m not afraid to go fast, it’s crashing and burning that sucks.

This is where your bike ends up if there’s no one to fix it and keep it running.

How’s this for a scenario: Your dealer where you bought your motorcycle 12 years ago just told you that it’s too old, they don’t want to work on it any more. You’ve just been fired as a customer. Fine, you’ll go find some independent shop where they work on old bikes.

But each shop you go to tells you they can’t work on your bike because it requires specialized equipment and knowledge that the manufacturer deems proprietary information. You now have a very heavy, very expensive paper weight.

Does that sound a bit extreme? Maybe it is but that part about proprietary information and equipment is very real, as is the whole business of being fired as a customer. What can be done about this?

Both the AMA (American Motorcyclist Association) and MRF (Motorcycle Riders Foundation) have sent me emails recently urging me to contact my Congressional representative to push them to support H.R. 906, the “Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair Act or the REPAIR Act.” I’m passing this on to you.

I thought for sure one of the emails had more specific information, something about it coming up for some vote or something, but for the life of me I cannot find any such email. Dang.

Well, nevertheless, here’s the scoop. Quoting the MRF:

The REPAIR Act ensures that vehicle owners or repair shops are not denied access to the information, software or tools needed to work on vehicles. The proposed law also establishes rules regarding vehicle data access. This commonsense law will help preserve consumer choice and a fair marketplace.

Then there is this from the AMA:

Do you believe in the Right to Repair your own motorcycle? Politicians in Washington want to limit your ability to repair, maintain, and modify your motorcycle.

The AMA is working closely with members of Congress to fight for your Right to Repair, the simple idea that when you purchase something — like your motorcycle — you should have the right to repair it or seek an independent repair shop to do the work, and manufacturers must make the parts and information needed for repairs available to the public for a fair and reasonable price.

In the House of Representatives, the AMA is advocating for passage of H.R. 906, the REPAIR Act (Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair). This legislation will ensure that motorcyclists and independent repair shops have access to the tools, parts and information needed to repair motorcycles.

Right now there are three Colorado representatives who have cosponsored this bill: Rep. Pettersen, Brittany [D-CO-7]; Rep. Neguse, Joe [D-CO-2]; and Rep. Caraveo, Yadira [D-CO-8]. If your rep is someone else maybe you could drop them a line and push them to add their name to the list. I need to do that with Diana Degette.

Go ahead and give your rep a nudge. They’re there to work for you. Make them earn their pay.

Biker Quote for Today

“Try to remember the reason you started riding a motorcycle in the first place. For me, it was a couple of things but mostly rebellion.” ? Sonny Barger