Passes & Canyons Blog

Today I just want to point you to an interesting article I ran across on the MotorcycleUSA.com website. It discusses the many variations on the motorcycle theme that have been tried over the last 140 years and then turns to what future bikes may look like. Now, I’m not saying visually, I’m talking about their power plant and methods of motivation.

Bart Madson, the writer, starts out describing what is believed to be the first motorcycle ever invented, which ran on a twin-cylinder steam engine. A charcoal-fired stove sat under the seat to create the steam.

Then he continues saying:

Due to environmental concerns and the fact that $4/gallon gas is now a reality, the desire for alternatives to the internal combustion engine are more in demand than ever before. So, like automobiles, future motorcycles figure to be greener, more efficient machines.

He then goes on to talk about electric bikes, fuel-cell powered bikes, and even bikes that run on compressed air. All of these are under development somewhere, and some are available now.

Madson focused specifically on bikes such as the Suzuki Crosscage, the Piaggio HyS Hybrid, the Killacycle, the electrobike Pi, the Zero X, the Brammo Enertia, the Vectrix ZEV, and the Yamaha BOBBY. Never heard of any of those? Neither had I. Interesting stuff.

Go check them out. You could be riding one of these some day.

Biker Quote for Today

The best modifications cannot be seen from the outside.

I saw a Piaggio MP3, three-wheeled scooter the other day here in Denver for the first time. We saw a lot of them in Europe when were there this summer but this is the first one I’ve seen here at home. This photo is one I shot in Paris.

This little baby is a scooter that comes in three sizes, 250cc, 400cc, and 500cc. The marketing materials describe it saying “The Piaggio MP3 provides safety, road grip, and stability levels that no two-wheeler can match. Its power, performance, and ease of use make for a very entertaining ride.”

Let’s face it, one thing that puts off some potential motorcycle and/or scooter riders is the inherent instability of the things. If you hit ice or gravel or a patch of oil when you’re leaned over on a curve those two wheels can go right out from under you. And unlike other three-wheelers you may have seen, with one wheel up front and two in the back, this scooter leans like a normal motorcycle, up to 40 degrees, according to the company.

Priced at $7,200, the MP3 250 has a liquid-cooled, single-cylinder, four-stroke, four-valve engine with electronic fuel injection. It has a top speed of 77 MPH. As with most scooters, the transmission is “twist and go” automatic. Front and rear brakes are disk. The tires are 12-inch tubeless. The bike weighs 450 pounds and holds 3.2 gallons of fuel. Under-seat storage is large enough for a full-face helmet plus one open-face helmet.

The MP3 400 sells for $8,700 and the MP3 500 is $8,900. The 250 reportedly gets about 65 MPG, while the 400 and 500 only get around 50. Top speeds on the 400 and 500 are 89 and 92 MPH respectively.

Other features include the following:

• An electro-hydraulic suspension locking system that makes it unnecessary to set it on its center stand, even on sloping ground, and making it possible to park the two front wheels where there is a height difference of up to 8 inches.
• Two dual effect hydraulic shock absorbers, a helicoidal spring, and four-position preload.
• Linked braking.
• Splashguards on either side of the front shield protect the rider and the vehicle.
• A remote control button on the ignition key opens the seat lock and the rear boot lid.
• Ergonomical seating.
• A dashboard including a speedometer, fuel gauge, coolant temperature indicator, clock, trip and mileage odometer, fuel reserve indicator, oil pressure, turn signals, low and high beam, seat or boot lid open warning, and an Immobilizer LED.

So. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, but another example of motorcycle designers who are looking beyond the basic two-wheeled concept. I’d like to ride one just to see what it’s like.

Biker Quote for Today

I’d trade all my motorcycles for one flying dragon.

Just when you thought you’d seen it all, trust some 19-year-old kid to come up with the most revolutionary two-wheeler yet.

Ben Gulak, from Toronto, has developed an electric-powered vehicle with two wheels side by side. It has gyroscopic stabilizers that allow it to stand upright, and you lean forward on it to move forward, much like Dean Kamen’s Segway. The further forward you lean, the faster it goes. To turn you lean in the desired direction.

Called the Uno, the starting point is a Yamaha R1 frame, but the commonality ends right about there.

Gulak is clearly a whiz kid, and he was inspired when he went to Beijing for an international science fair. He saw the smog created by all the two-stroke scooters and motorcycles and decided an electric vehicle was what was needed. Gulak worked out the basic design on his own but turned to Trevor Blackwell, the inventor of the Eunicycle, a single-wheeled gyro-stabilized vehicle, for further development assistance.

So far, the top speed is 15 MPH, but Gulak thinks it can get up to 40 MPH with further development.

Keep your eyes open. I’m thinking we’ll be seeing more of this soon.

Biker Quote for Today

Just ride the damned thing.

The OFMC went on our summer trip last week and it was a great week of riding. We stayed primarily in Colorado and many people (not me) were surprised that we could see so much of interest and make so many nice rides without going far. I knew this. That’s what this website is all about. I know that people come from all over the world to ride in Colorado. So we live and learn.

Anyway, this isn’t about our trip except for a couple things that happened along the way.

One of our guys, Jason, was riding his very new Harley-Davidson Road King. It’s less than two months old. So guess whose bike was the only one that had problems. We were close to Durango when Jason decided he needed to visit a dealer so he checked and found that Durango Harley-Davidson opened at 9 a.m. He planned to be there at 9 a.m. so they could work on it right away and he could get back on the road.

Well, it turned out that they opened at 8 a.m., and when Jason got there at 9 a.m. he was told they couldn’t get to his bike until about 1 p.m. because six other traveling Harley riders had gotten there before him and they also needed priority service in order to get back on the road.

Now, in our group this year we had five Hondas and three Harleys, and as I said, Jason’s Harley was the only one to have problems. And six other traveling Harley riders also had problems that day? I’m sorry but we couldn’t help but conclude that does not reflect very favorably on the Milwaukee folks.

And then there was Dennis’s issue. Dennis has owned a lot of bikes in his day, including Harleys, but recently he has been riding Hondas. Part of the reason for that has to do with Harley salesmen. It would appear that with their product in such high demand, many of them have never had to learn to actually sell. They do a great job of handing you the papers to sign when you’ve made up your own mind, and they’re happy to sell you the extras, but working to close a deal is apparently a different matter.

Let’s back up a few years. Dennis was riding a Big Dog but decided to replace it with a Harley. He went to a dealership knowing they wouldn’t take the Big Dog as a trade-in but figuring he could arrange some consignment deal. The salesman was brief: “Get rid of your clone and come back and I’ll sell you a real motorcycle.”

More than a little annoyed, Dennis headed straight for a Honda shop and bought a Honda.

Dennis was equally put out in Durango. He and several others went with Jason to the dealership and, as he puts it, the four of them were a captive audience for half a day. Bill, Brett, and Jason all ended up spending money there but the thing that really caught Dennis’s eye was one particular bike. A salesman noticed this and approached him. Dennis explained that he rode in on a Gold Wing and would need to get the right amount out of it in order for a deal to work. And the salesman dropped the ball. All he could offer was that Dennis could buy this Harley now and fly back to pick it up, and what he did with the Honda was his issue.

For hours afterward Dennis went over again and again how it could have been handled. “All he had to do was say ‘toss me your key and I’ll go over to the local Honda dealer and see what they think you can get on consignment.’ Or he could have just picked up the phone and called the Honda dealer and asked what they thought they could get for the bike. But he didn’t do a thing! I’m not going to buy it and fly back here to pick it up!”

Dennis had been extremely close to spending quite a few thousands of dollars but once again the Harley salesman blew it. So what if your dealership doesn’t take trade-ins. If you want to make a sale, and the sale is contingent on unloading the current bike, doesn’t it make sense for you to go an extra mile to try to grease those wheels?

Biker Quote for Today

When you look down the road, it seems to never end – but you better believe it does.

Have you ever seen a 1957 Aermacchi Chimera? How about a 1953 Moto Guzzi Galleto? Or a 1956 Moto Rumi Formichino Little Ant? Have you ever heard of those bikes?

If you want to see some cool motorcycles and get out of the heat of summer, I strongly recommend hitting the Arvada Center for their Summer of Cycles exhibit.

Rather than talk about them I’ll just show you some pictures. The exhibit runs through September 7, it’s free, and the Arvada Center is open 9-6 M-F, 9-5 Saturday, and 1-5 Sunday.

This next one is the 1956 Moto Rumi I mentioned above.

Here’s the 1957 Aermacchi Chimera (Dream)

This one is a 1958 Cushman Eagle.

There are a lot of others, too, including a 1998 Boss Hoss with a 350 cubic inch Chevrolet engine, 1999 Harley-Davidson MT500 built for the British military, and a 2006 Harley-Davidson VRXSE Screamin’ Eagel Destroyer, which is set up for drag-racing.

All in all, a pretty good show. Definitely worth more than the admission!

Biker Quote for Today

Park the latest Ducati, Harley, Honda, or BMW on a street corner in any city or town in the world and a crowd will gather. — Thomas Krens

If you’ve been to Europe in the last 10 years you’ve probably seen these things, but if you haven’t you’re going to do a double-take.

This little baby, a BMW you will notice, is called the C1 CityScooter. It was first released in 2000 and was built by a specialty manufacturer in Italy. There were two models, one a little bigger than the other. Sales apparently didn’t hit BMW’s targets so 2002 was the last year they were produced, but you still see a lot of them on the streets. The stats are as follows:

• Dry Weight – 375 pounds
• Gas Mileage – 80 per gallon
• Engine Size – 125cc or 176cc

ABS, heated grips, and a lot more were available as accessories.

According to the article about this bike on Wikipedia, France has a helmet law but some countries consider it dangerous to have a seat belt and a helmet, C1 riders are exempt from the helmet law. That confirms my suspicion because in two weeks over there I never saw anyone on any kind of motorized two-wheeler not wearing a helmet, except one person in a C1. On the other hand, Sweden does require helmets but allows you not to use the seat belt.

The C1 never made it to the U.S., just another example of how when it comes to motorcycling, Europe is like another country. Or 12. I’ll have more to tell you about in upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

Biker Quote for Today

Two wheels? Lets ride!

I haven’t been over to see this yet, and won’t have a chance for a few more weeks, so rather than waiting I’m going to tell you about it now. That way you’ll probably get there before me and you can tell me about it.

The Arvada Center for the Arts & Humanities, at 6901 Wadsworth Blvd, is hosting a free exhibit entitled Summer of Cycles: Motorcycles from the Harry Mathews and Jim Dillard Collections. The exhibit runs through Sept. 7.

Here’s the blurb from the Center’s website:

As an unknown author philosophically remarked, “Four wheels move the body; two wheels move the soul.” Most motorcycle enthusiasts would say amen to that. Perhaps no other single object of industrial design better epitomizes 20th and now 21st century fascination with speed and power as well as more abstract notions of freedom (sometimes even rebellion), progress and danger. And as the exhibition further contends, motorcycles are art objects too, the aesthetic sum of technology and innovation, yet typically styled and adorned to communicate individual personality. Arvadan Harry Mathews and Jim Dillard have lent classic cycles from their considerable personal collections for this exhibition.

I’ll go when I get the chance, and then post some pictures and comments. But now you won’t miss it and complain that no one told you it was going on.

Biker Quote for Today

I like the mechanicalness of motorcycles. I have a ZX-14, and it’s a fantastic bike. But the thing is, it doesn’t need me. It’s the vintage stuff I like.–Jay Leno

Man oh man! Gas for $4 a gallon! Sure would be nice to get, oh, about 80 miles per gallon. Well, some people do. But you can bet they don’t do it in a Hummer.

On the other hand, take that little scooter next to that green Kawasaki in the photo below. That person is getting around 80 MPG. And probably having more fun getting to and from work than they ever have before.

Even better than that, Yamaha claims that their Vino 125 gets 96 MPG, and the Yamaha C3 is rated at 115 MPG. Now you’re talking saving real money!

Of course, there are some trade-offs. Those two little Yamahas don’t have much speed and you can’t take them on the highway. However, some bigger scooters don’t cost a lot more than those and can hit top speeds of 75 or more. It’s always a matter of trade-offs.

So, what kind of gas mileage does that Kawi guy get? On a sportbike like his (or hers, you never know) he’s surely in the 40-50 MPG range. The fact is, most motorcycles will get mileage in that approximate range, even the bigger ones. For example, I get around 45 MPG on both my Honda CB750 Custom and my Kawasaki Concours. A Honda Goldwing, one of the biggest bikes on the road, can get up to 40 MPG, although it does have six cylinders and therefore is not as efficient as the more common one-, two-, three- or four-cylinder bikes.

Another big road bike, the Harley-Davidson Road King, is rated at 54 MPG on the highway and 35 in the city. The Yamaha FJR1300A delivers around 40. Honda’s Shadow Spirit 1100 is rated at about 48 MPG on the highway and 38 in the city. (Sorry I don’t have city/highway splits for all these bikes.)

The mileage you get on a bike generally depends on the same three things that determines a car’s fuel efficiency: weight, your driving habits, and engine size. The big six-cylinder bikes eat more gas than a V-twin, but any bike with six cylinders is also a heavy bike. For a smaller bike, around 1,000 cc’s, you’ll get pretty much the same mileage with a V-twin or an inline four.

And then, as the city/highway splits show, speed matters. While I normally expect 45 MPG from my 1,000-cc Concours, riding easily on curvy mountain roads has at times given me as much as 55 MPG from the beast.

Do the math. A lot of other people already have. There are a lot more people joining us on the roads on two wheels. Welcome to the club.

Biker Quote for Today

Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.