Passes & Canyons Blog

It happens as you get older. You eventually find you don’t need all the stuff you’ve accumulated and you start thinning the herd.

Dennis is the latest with stories to tell. He and Janice had lived up in the hills off Deer Creek Canyon Road but had decided it was time to move down into town. They bought a pretty dang nice–but much smaller–place over in Arvada and are pretty happy with it, but . . .

The “but” for Dennis is that the place they left had an oversized three-car garage. He and Janice each have a car and they each have a motorcycle. No problem at the old place. Big problem at the new place.

I was over there last week and got the tour and made a point to see the garage. I definitely understand. There’s plenty of room for the two cars but in order to get two bikes in they first have to move the car on the left out and then wheel the bikes in and line them both up along the side of the garage. Like, right alongside. As in almost touching. Whereas they used to just ride in and park the bike and get off.

It has an effect. It used to be when Dennis needed to go into town he’d just figure “might as well take the bike.” And he rode a lot. Now, it is a real effort to get the bike out. He’s not going to do that just on the spur of the moment, just because why not. No, if he needs to make a quick run to the store–something he used to routinely do on his BMW, or the Indian before that, or the Harley before that–it’s going to be in the car. Every time. Dang.

His situation makes my situation, which I have always thought of as quite nice, seem really, really nice. We have a large two-car garage with an attached workshop. I park one bike in the garage and when I had three bikes I parked two in the workshop. Now I just have one in the workshop. And yeah, I have to pull my car out to get the V-Strom out and then pull Judy’s car out to get it back in, but there’s no issue with cramming it into a tight space. I just pull in front of the cars and park. Then with the bike or bikes in the workshop, I just open the door and roll it/them in or out.

As reasonably convenient as that is, it has nevertheless deterred me from riding as much as I might have over the years. It’s the idea of gearing up and then getting a bike out, just to make a quick run to the store, that just doesn’t work for me most of the time. So I totally understand Dennis’s disinclination to go to all the trouble he has just for a quick run to the store. Dennis has always been the guy in the OFMC who has ridden way more than anybody else. I think that has changed.

Of course, my prospective answer to this issue has for a long time been that I want a little electric scooter. But I’ve never bought one. And now they have these electric power-assisted bicycles. A moped, actually, although the name “moped” has been appropriated by scooters, which are not in fact mopeds. Sooner or later I’m convinced I will. Then it will be the easiest thing in the world to hop on and cruise off on some small errand. Fun. What am I waiting for?

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 18. The bike gets washed and waxed twice a month. The car never.

I received an interesting email recently from the Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) about the shift to electric vehicles. It discussed the move by some states, most notably California, to set a point after which no new gas-driven vehicles will be allowed to be sold in the particular state.

In California, for example, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that all new passenger vehicles be zero-emission by 2035. And apparently–I don’t know the mechanism involved here–a number of other states have their laws or regulations tied to California such that if California enacts something like that, it will go into effect in their state, too. That itself is something interesting and news to me.

As you can well imagine, a lot of people in a lot of states are not inclined to follow that lead.

I personally have no issue with having electric vehicles available. They reduce noise and they reduce air pollution. Who could possibly oppose those? Especially if you have solar panels on your roof feeding your electric motorcycle, all you really need is better batteries to enable you to go farther on a charge. And those better batteries are on their way.

But let’s take Harley as one example. Many Harley purists have for years voiced their preferences for sticking with the old tried and true of decades ago. Yes, Harley has steadily introduced high tech improvements, but the basic engine configuration and styling has met the demands of this group. What if, in 12 years, they had no choice but to buy an electric motorcycle? Screaming bloody murder is pretty much a guarantee.

Let me hasten to note that apparently this executive order does not as of yet speak to motorcycles; it’s just passenger cars and trucks. But don’t think that something addressing cars and trucks won’t eventually filter over to motorcycles. Meanwhile, according to this note from the MRF, “In Colorado, the Energy Office said, ‘While the governor shares the goal of rapidly moving towards electric vehicles, he is skeptical about requiring 100% of cars sold to be electric by a certain date as technology is rapidly changing.'”

The bottom line to all this, ultimately, is that at some point–perhaps not within our lifetimes–the simple act of riding a gas-powered motorcycle, or driving a gas car, will be restricted to hobbyists who have the time and money to source the very scarce fuel needed to run them. There will be charging stations available everywhere but gas stations will be a thing of the past.

Hey, the only constant is change. Just 125 years ago nobody ever heard of such a thing as a gas station. And 125 years from now probably most people will be grossed out at the idiocy of vehicles that spew toxic fumes to foul the air.

For now though, I have three gas-powered motorcycles and I intend to ride them as much as I can. It’s not that I don’t care about clean air, . . . I don’t know how to end that sentence. I do care about air pollution but I’m still going to ride my bikes. End of discussion.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you think any motorcycle is too loud.

OK, that title is a bit overly dramatic but it’s also true. All of us who ride know that when it comes to pollution and infrastructure, motorcycles are a plus. And that gets more true when the motorcycles are electric. I mean, let’s face it, with electric cars growing in numbers it gets harder and harder to make the low pollution argument. Electric bikes get us back on track.

So I was interested when Judy sent me an email with a link to a TED talk video about an effort going on in Africa. The video, “Africa’s path to clean mobility — driven by motorcycles,” has this guy, Adetayo Bamiduro, talking about a start-up he and another guy have got going to help put motorcycle taxi drivers in Lagos, Nigeria, on electric bikes.

First a little background. (If you watch the video, sorry, I’m just repeating some of what he tells you.) Lagos is one of the biggest cities in Africa and by 2060 is projected to be larger than New York City or Mexico City. Also, Nigeria is projected to be bigger (in population) than the United States. So we’re talking big.

As in much of the world, motorcycle taxis are common and make sense. However, says Bamiduro, most drivers are outside of the formal economy so they have to get money to go into business from loan sharks. They then have no cash left to maintain their bikes properly, which leaves them with heavily polluting machines. Big problem in a big city like this.

So the start-up owns a fleet of electric bikes. The driver signs up on their app, takes out a company-maintained machine, cuts out the middle man (loan shark) and doubles his income while cutting pollution by a lot. A big win-win.

This is such a big change in just a few years. I remember when Zero Motorcycles first came on the scene. It was a real question whether anyone would even have any interest in something like that. I test rode some Zeros a couple times and they were fine but they were small, had a very limited range, and cost a whole lot.

But Zeros get better each year, as does the range of their batteries. And now there are a lot of electric motorcycles on the market, including one built by Harley-Davidson.

I assume that one day I’ll own an electric car, although at the moment I have only 80,000 miles on my 2006 Hyundai, so it probably won’t be any time soon. But I also assume that one day I’ll own an electric motorcycle, and I suspect that will happen sooner. The future really is now.

Biker Quote for Today

A motorcycle cannot/will not fall over without an audience.

I tend to be pretty environmentally minded and so for years I’ve been a little proud that I ride motorcycles, which get better gas mileage and use fewer resources.

That said, is it really true that we who ride are easier on the environment than people in cars? This is a question I have raised more than once and the answer is never clear cut. So I’m approaching this from a different perspective today.

The point I want to focus on today is that, if we only used bikes for transportation and were saving all that gas and resources it would be a simple yes. But we don’t. In fact, many of us almost never use our motorcycles as basic transportation, we ride them for recreation.

Which is to say, when we ride them we are burning more gas, creating more pollution, using more resources, than if we had other recreational pursuits. When the OFMC takes off on a trip, each of us is riding a motorcycle, getting good gas mileage. But how does the gas usage of our whole group equate with what we would burn if we all rode in one van? I’m sure that flips the equation pretty seriously.

Now, I do use my bikes for transportation some of the time. I have a number of regular errands that I almost always run on a motorcycle. But most of my riding is just joy riding. It’s a beautiful day, I want to be out in it. So off I go.

One option that grows more viable with time is getting an electric motorcycle. Can I see myself with one of those at some point? Absolutely. In fact, I went up to Boulder a few years ago with cash in pocket intending to buy an electric scooter. I didn’t because it was used, and thus had some issues, and the seller did not strike me as altogether trustworthy when he spoke to the issues I raised. But yeah, I’d say there is a 100% probability that some day I will have an electric two-wheeler.

Which brings me to the second part of this discussion: Do we really care about being green?

Do we really, truly care? Yes, I care about being green, that’s why I recycle, cut my waste to almost nothing, turn lights off, walk a lot, take light rail . . . so many things that I do. But do I care so much that I’m going to stop “wasting” gasoline on motorcycle joy rides?

Emphatically NO! I love riding motorcycles way too much for that.

So does this make me a hypocrite? I guess it does, at least a bit. Am I going to beat myself up over it? Probably not. I’ll just take solace in knowing that whatever I do that is harmful to the environment, most people do a lot more. And I accept that if you are going to live in our so-called modern society this is what happens.

But I really should keep my smugness in check.

Biker Quote for Today

Fast cars and motorcycles raisin’ hell in cowboy boots. — Tim McGraw

As far as I can tell, this guy is no longer in business. I mean, this story is from January 2011. But this is still a very interesting idea.

The future for vehicles may be electric, but that doesn’t meant the present can’t be, too. All it really takes is a motorcycle, some batteries, an industrial-type electric motor, and some know-how. Just ask Chris Ravana. He’ll be happy to show you the electric bikes he has built. Heck, he’ll be happy to take you for a ride.

And by the way, if your interest is in going green, you can’t get much greener. Doing business as Blindspot Cycles out of Fort Collins, CO, Chris sources his parts as much as possible from salvage yards.

Take his 1986 Honda Rebel. The frame and most parts were from a junker. The brakes, tires, and other equipment that affect safety are new. The electric motor was originally used in a big floor-buffing machine. The batteries are straight-off-the-shelf deep-cycle batteries like those used in RVs and boats. Voila! You’re set to go.

Now, admittedly you’re not going to go very far or very fast. The Rebel uses four 12-volt batteries that give it a top speed of about 53 mph and a range of around 30 miles. This is definitely a ride for in town, such as commuting to work, comparable to the electric scooters that seem such a good niche for electrics. The difference is, this is a real motorcycle and it’s something you can build for yourself.

Speed on electric motorcycles of this kind is directly a factor of the number of batteries used. The more 12-volts, the more power to the motor and the faster the motor–and the tires–spin. Chris recently acquired the much higher-tech battery from a Ford Escape hybrid–a 300-volt battery pack.

“I have some engineers that I work with, and we’re going to look at how to break that down and put it into a couple different bikes. I may do a bike that’s in the 96-volt arena, so theoretically a 100-mile-an-hour bike. And then I’ll look at breaking it out into a couple smaller bikes.”

Art that fools people
Chris’s interest in building these bikes is not so much the commercial as the artistic.

“Basically I’m an artist and right now my medium is motorcycles. A lot of electric motorcycles are plastic spaceships and I don’t want to create plastic spaceships. I want to tribute classic styles. People all the time see me on these and don’t know that they’re electric until they don’t hear it. And they’re like ‘Oooh’ and I get that double-, triple-, quadrduple-take. I’ve been run off the road by people doing this (turns head way round). For me, that’s the point. For me that’s the ultimate design challenge, to take something that wasn’t supposed to be and fool everyone.”

Nevertheless, he is a true believer in electric vehicles.

“I’ve been riding motorcycles my whole life, I’ve just always had a motorcycle. But I hate having gas bikes. They stink, they leak, and never seem to run right. With these, when you turn it on it’s gonna go or it’s not gonna go, or it’s charged or it’s not charged. It’s really that simple. Other than that, there’s no maintenance, they don’t leak, they don’t produce any smells, they hardly produce any noise, and they’re just really user friendly and simple.”

Honoring the look
A common question Chris gets is why he retains the gas tank on his electric bikes.

“Because it helps people understand it’s a motorcycle. I don’t want someone to think that I’m riding down the street on a trailer or some miscellaneous pile of parts. I want people to look at it and think, ‘Ah, it’s a cool chopper.’ The all of a sudden they realize it doesn’t make any noise and it’s not running on gas. I would love to do all vintage bikes, board track racers, and just really cool old stuff and keeping the tanks on, keeping them looking like motorcycles is really important to me from a design standpoint.”

Chris first got interested in converting motorcycles to electric when “I saw something online about someone who had built a bike and claiming you could do this for $1,800 or something like that. It turned out not to be the case at all. I was just intrigued and I said you know, I’ve got to build one of those.”

He works totally on a custom basis, building bikes only when a customer orders one. Each bike is made to fit the customer’s specific desires. If you want one he’d be glad to work with you, just contact him at info@blindspotcycles.com. (Nope, not gonna happen. Sorry. But these links below are still good.)

If you want to build one for yourself, there are several websites that offer instructions. Here are a few:
http://visforvoltage.org/forums/electricrides/motorcyclesandlargescooters/custom-builds-or-homebuilt
http://visforvoltage.org/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/587-my-kz750-electric-motorcycle-project

Biker Quote for Today

He was born free. And he loved to drift. He loved his motorcycle and his motorcycle loved him. But he did not believe in love and attachments. He just wanted to drift. He was addicted to his loneliness. He was free. And he loved to ride his motorcycle. — Avijeet Das

I ride my motorcycles all year round, but it’s not that hard because I live in Colorado. We always have a lot of warm days no matter what month it is so I just pick and choose when I’ll ride. But what about if you live some place way north, such as Duluth, Minnesota? My map shows me that Duluth is about 100 miles south of the Canadian border, and right on the shore of Lake Superior. Or perhaps more significantly, about 450 miles north of Denver.

And what if, living in Duluth, you were to ride to work all winter long, not just the occasional warm day? I’m not talking just sub-freezing days, I’m talking sub-zero days. Well, they did it.

They who?

They, in this case, as a bunch of employees of Aerostich, a company well know in motorcycling circles as manufacturers of riding suits, jackets, pants, and other items. And the company is headquartered in Duluth. What a natural marketing pitch, to use their own products and then ride all winter.

But wait, there’s more. All this riding was done on a Zero electric motorcycle. Now, common sense tells us that batteries don’t work so well in really, really cold environments. Will a Zero even run in sub-zero weather?

So anyway, Aerostich and Zero got together and decided to do a test. Test the Aerostich riding gear and the Zero motorcycle against the really cold weather of northern Minnesota. And then they released a book telling about the experience. That book is Zero Below Zero: Electric Motorcycle Everyday Commuting All Winter in Duluth Minnesota. Alan picked this book up somewhere and thought–rightly–that I might be interested in giving it a read. I would definitely recommend it to you–it’s pretty interesting.

First off, they made a bunch of mods on the bike, a Zero FX, such as embedding studs in the tires to give traction on icy streets. Aerostich also created a custom heated jacket for the Zero battery, but then the practice was to park it outside all the time. Sure, keeping it in your garage would be reasonable, but they wanted to push the thing, so park it outside–always.

How did it go? They did it. They rode the thing all winter, through snow and over ice and in weather far colder than any I’ve ever ridden in. And they loved it.

OK, I could make this post twice as long by going into a lot of detail and quoting from the book, but I’ll decline that temptation. If you want to know more, read the book. It only costs $10. And yes, it’s great marketing for both companies but consider, if these companies’ products made this possible and enjoyable, perhaps their products deserve recognition. I know I’m intrigued with this Aerostich “Warmbib” that several of the riders said they loved.

Now, this book is not going to inspire me to ride in all weather because I don’t have studs in my tires, nor do I anticipate putting any in. But it’s good to know that I really could if I wanted to. Pretty cool.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s always Ride O’Clock.

OK, I do understand the point; it just seems so wrong.

I’m talking about an article I ran across titled, “Police Bikes That Have No Rider.” The article discusses what is essentially a land-based drone motorcycle intended as sort of a RoboCop. What the heck, if Google can create a driverless car why can’t someone create a riderless motorcycle? Apparently they can.

The gist of the concept is this:

Deemed the interceptor, this concept is a driverless police vehicle. It would be equipped with 3D cameras and an extremely complex monitoring system. The “drone” will be able to monitor the streets, issue citations, and record violations in real time. Another widely accepted use for this vehicle would be nightly patrols and neighborhood watch, while being almost completely silent.

What we seem to be looking at is a very much cooler rendition of R2-D2. Just kind of a droid.

But with no rider there is no one to enjoy the bike. How wrong is it to have a motorcycle that cruises around but there’s nobody riding? Motorcycles are meant to be ridden.

Of course the real issue with something like this is the same as with those automatic traffic cameras that catch you speeding or running a red light (or yellow light, depending on how they’re set). Let’s face it: Every one of us speeds at times, and theoretically it would be possible to fine everyone every single time they committed any infraction, but I don’t think anybody wants that. So consider this additional portion of the article:

Not only does the Interceptor monitor for speeding violations, it is also constantly scanning and running liscense plates to check for registration violations. When it senses a violation the Interceptor records the action in real time. Making use of its state of the art audio visual system to make sure that the entire encounter is recorded, including real time stats that include speed, and direction. The Interceptor will then immediately issue a citation that will be delivered via e-mail, text, or postal service. The Interceptor will then continue on its way, there is no need for the vehicle to stop. If the violator continues the illegal behavior the Interceptor will notify local offices and they can then stop the suspect.

Does the name “Big Brother” creep into your thoughts?

Anyway, be alerted. This is something we may see in the future. That means it’s time now to be thinking about how we feel about this sort of thing and formulating the opinions we want to pass along to our lawmakers when the time comes, or perhaps even before.

Biker Quote for Today

Didn’t see me? Or didn’t look?

I was really annoyed when I found that registration was closed for demo rides on the prototype electric Harley-Davidson LiveWire. I had gotten an email inviting me to come see it and ride it and I had replied asking if I needed to do anything or just show up. I guess it was a mass email, though they did a good job of making it seem personal, and I got no reply. So doing a quick check before heading over to Mile High Harley-Davidson I spotted a link to register and clicked it. Registration was closed. Rats.

OK, I figured, I still want to see the bike, and they say you can do a stationary demo even if you can’t go for an actual ride. Plus, it might be that some folks who registered will fail to show up and I can still get a ride. So I went on over.

I walked up and a woman asked me if I had a reservation. I said no and she immediately asked if I’d like to be put on the waiting list. You bet. She said check back in 20 minutes.

In the meantime, I got all the paperwork done and took a spin on the stationary bike they had set up with rollers. It was a real bike and it really ran, you just didn’t go anywhere. It was a good introduction to how the bike works so they wouldn’t have to explain all that when you were getting ready to actually ride. And they shot your picture and emailed it to you. That’s me up above.

At the appointed time I checked back and they had a bike available, but there was one guy ahead of me on the list. She went searching for him but couldn’t find him so I was in. Run grab my helmet off my bike.

We got the usual demo lecture and they walked us through start and getting ready. You have two modes to ride in, Range Ride and Power Ride, the first getting better miles out of a charge in the battery, the second giving you more power (read: fun). I chose Power Ride.

One thing they made absolutely clear was that “This bike accelerates and brakes unlike any other bike you’ve ever ridden.” I’ve ridden electric bikes built by Zero so the acceleration part was not true for me, but the braking part was. I’ll come back to that in a moment.

We pulled out. The ride leader was determined to let us see how these puppies ran so he set a quick pace. Of course there are no gears to shift, you just twist the throttle. Acceleration was hard and smooth. (I’d been told earlier that the bike will go 0 to 60 in four seconds.) And there wasn’t a bit of the Harley “potato-potato” rumble. You did hear the drive belt.

Handling was great. This is a sportbike with that sort of agility and that sort of riding position. Not a tight, cramped position, but rather, a comfortable one. With your feet below you, not out in front. That’s how I like it.

One thing made it totally clear that these are prototypes and that is the mirrors. Yes, in order to be street legal they had to have mirrors but I had to look for them. It turned out they are below the handlebars and were totally hidden by my hands. Worthless. Even once I found them I couldn’t see a thing in them. Heck, I almost couldn’t see them.

And then there’s the brake. Pretty much all electric bikes use regenerative braking in order to extend the battery range. This uses the turning of the motor or wheels in braking to generate power that is fed back into the battery.

Well, Harley has carried it to the max. When you want to stop on the LiveWire you just release the throttle. The bike stops quickly. But 99% of the time you stop without ever touching the brake; you just taper off on the throttle till you get to where you actually want to stop completely. Then maybe you use the brake. Maybe. Or maybe you use the brake then to keep from rolling. They did suggest that you tap the brakes once to let the person behind you know you’re stopping.

So how did I like it overall? I liked it. It was fun. It was fast, it handled well, and it’s a motorcycle. What’s not to like?

Will I buy one if Harley builds them for sale. I’ve never been a Harley guy and I’ve never wanted any Harley I’ve ever seen. If they build this thing it will be the first Harley I’ve ever even considered buying. But they’ve got a long road to go to get the range up to where they’re competitive with other electric bikes out there, and the price would have to be reasonable.

But if they do bring it out, will I want one? Yes.

Biker Quote for Today

If you want a motorcycle just because of the way it sounds, do yourself (and us) a favor and find a different hobby please.