Passes & Canyons Blog

This is going to be an Examiner Resurrection with a twist. After putting in this brief Examiner post I’m going to add a bit to the discussion. Look for that below.

Most motorcycles get better gas mileage than most cars.

“When you add it all up, there is no question: If everyone rode motorcycles, the planet would be a greener place.”

That’s Rob Dingman, the president and CEO of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), in an Earth Day statement on environmental benefits of commuting and traveling on a motorcycle.

And Dingman adds, “Just as important, more of us would experience the thrill and freedom that motorcycles provide. Riding is not just easy on your bank account and the planet, riding is a fun, and often a social activity that simply makes life more enjoyable.

“Regardless of how you use your motorcycle or scooter — commuting to work, riding down the block, across town, traveling across the country — your choice to ride instead of drive has a positive impact on the environment and results in a more enjoyable, less-congested experience for you as well as your fellow road userS. For motorcyclists, every day is Earth Day.”

The AMA notes that a typical motorcycle generally gets better gas mileage than all but the most fuel-efficient cars, often 50 miles per gallon or more, and that many scooters can deliver nearly twice that. Motorcycles also require less oil and other chemicals to operate. And then there are the growing number of electric motorcycles that are even greener than the gas-powered models.

Other benefits that motorcycles offer, says the AMA, is that:

• Motorcycles take up less space than cars and trucks both during operation, and when parked. They reduce traffic congestion and, in so doing, help increase the efficiency of traffic flow on the road.
• Significantly fewer raw materials are utilized to produce motorcycles and scooters compared to cars and trucks. By some measures, it requires thousands of pounds less metal and plastic per vehicle to produce a motorcycle. The environmental benefits are realized both during production, as well as at the end of the vehicle’s useful life.
• Because motorcycles and scooters are so much more compact and lighter than cars and trucks, they cause far less wear and tear on the highways, reducing the cost and environmental impact of infrastructure repairs. In addition, because of their size, many more motorcycles can be transported from factory to consumer using the same or less energy.

OK, back to 2019. So after I put this piece up on Examiner I did some deeper digging. I wanted real answers to the question of whether bikes really are greener, and what I found was inconclusive. I wrote to Pete terHorst at the AMA for what he had to offer but the information he sent me didn’t seem to resolve my questions. I never did run the piece I envisioned and Pete later put out an AMA release on it rather than let his own efforts go to waste.

The thing that I found was that yes, motorcycles use less gas. However, because we don’t have all the antipollution devices that cars do, we actually put out more emissions. So what’s greener, using less gas and doing less road damage or putting out less emissions? How do you make that kind of determination?

Of course, much of the future appears that it will be powered by electricity. Once you put electric motorcycles into this equation there will be no question. Yes there is environmental damage associated with generating that electricity but if you have an electric bike and a solar panel powering it I don’t think you’ll ever get much greener.

Biker Quote for Today

Caution, twisting the right side hand grip of this vehicle may tend to alter the rotation of the Earth.

I wrote here about my trip to Arizona Bike Week when it happened, but looking at what I wrote I see that what I put up on Examiner was quite different. That makes sense since it would be boring to write essentially the same thing a second time. So here’s what you didn’t read previously.

A rest stop in New Mexico on my way to Arizona Bike Week.

The Pre-Rally is already in full swing but Arizona Bike Week itself doesn’t start until Wednesday. I’m en route and will be there tomorrow, Monday. I’m happy to be able to say that because it wasn’t a sure thing earlier today.

The weather gods seemed to be smiling on me this morning in Denver, with temperatures higher than they had been in a week and clear, sunny skies. I climbed aboard my Kawasaki Concours and took off with my only concern being whether I could keep my hands warm.

That particular question was starting to feel a lot more important by the time I got to Castle Rock, just 20 miles from home down I-25. My finger-tips were very cold but I didn’t have a lot of time to think about them because as I climbed toward the Palmer Divide I noticed that about half the cars coming the other way had snow on them. Then the highway started looking suspiciously wet and I wondered if that moisture was in liquid or solid form.

Then came the fog. I got over the divide and started the descent toward Colorado Springs and it was pea soup. To say that the warm, welcome sun I started out with was nowhere to be seen is an understatement. I tucked in behind a pick-up pulling a trailer that was going about 40 and just crept along. And I was getting a lot colder.

Of course I had my electric vest on, as well as my warmest longjohns and a bunch of other warm clothes. If not for the vest I would have turned back. No way would I ride on in that cold without that warmth. But by the time I got to the south end of Colorado Springs my fingers were screaming in pain from the cold and I pulled off to get a cup of hot cocoa at a convenience store.

With my freezing hands wrapped around the hot cup of cocoa, I questioned people coming in the store as to whether they knew how the weather was on south. No one knew for sure but the presumption was that it should be warmer heading toward Pueblo. I asked a guy where he was coming from that he had snow on his car and he said, “My house. Right here in the neighborhood. We had snow this morning, but I think it’s all done for now.”

With my hands warm again I got back on the bike and pressed on. Sure enough, the farther south I got the warmer it got. It was a little chilly going over Raton Pass but by the time I reached Santa Fe I switched the vest off because it was getting too hot.

Meanwhile, about the time I reached Walsenburg, before reaching the pass, I got hit by the first blast of the powerful crosswinds I was destined to contend with for the next several hours. Almost all the way to Albuquerque the winds played their cat and mouse game, easing off when the road dipped beneath the general landscape and blasting me as soon as I came out in the open again. I’d pass a truck on the downwind side and have to stand the bike up quickly to keep from steering right into it, and as soon as I would pull ahead the wind would blast me toward the median. I took to diving back into the right-hand lane as soon as I got ahead of the truck because while that’s exactly what happened most of the time, other times the blast hit me so hard that if I hadn’t already been leaned in like that it would blow me off the road.

At Albuquerque I turned west on I-40, so now at least, any westerly wind would be blowing in my face rather than from the side. I pressed on to Grants and considered continuing to Gallup. But the sun was at that point where if I had, it would have been setting and I would have been riding right into it the last part of that leg. I opted for Grants. That’s about 530 miles of the 850 from home to Scottsdale, where I’m headed. Another 320 miles tomorrow won’t be bad. Plus, I get to leave the interstate at Holbrook and the last 140 miles will be on two-lane through some mountains I’ve never seen before.

So all right! First bike trip of the year. Yee hah!

Biker Quote for Today

Riding fast is one thing, riding in a hurry is a completely different thing. Never ride in a hurry.

Before I decided to run this Examiner Resurrection I checked to see if this site still exists and whether the information I presented in 2011 had changed. It’s all still good. So I don’t need to change a thing.

A sample of what you get with Cyclepedia.com.

Figuring on restoring an old motorcycle you found in a barn? Looking for the technical info you do to do the work? Here’s a heads-up on a website I recently discovered that may be just what you need.

Cyclepedia.com is an online repository for workshop manuals for ATV, motorcycle, and scooter repair. If you’re only going to need access to the information while you rebuild the bike, a one-year subscription may be the way to go. If you’re planning on riding the bike for years, a lifetime subscription may be your best bet. Either one comes with tech support, so if you’re stuck trying to figure something out, they actually have a motorcycle technician available to answer questions or help you interpret the manual.

These are not just static text documents, like a printed manual that you access online. They come with videos to guide you through processes, as well as interactive features that a printed manual can’t offer. You do, however, have the option of printing the documents.

Want to see what the manuals are like? A sample manual for a Suzuki DR200SE is available. Open it and at left are topics such as:

• Periodic Maintenance
• Quick Reference
• Fuel System
• External Components
• Engine
• Final Drive

And more. Pretty much the stuff you expect in a shop manual. Also included are parts diagram, printable full-color wiring diagrams, and a troubleshooting guide.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m no mechanic myself, so I can’t judge the usefulness of this site; that’s up to you to determine. But I figured if you hadn’t heard about it, you might like to know the site is there. Happy wrenching!

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t make me use my motorcycle mechanic voice.

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.

Yes, even you can do this at home.

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

A day on that California trip.

I knew things had gone too far when my 86-year-old mother told me she won’t be flying any more if it means they’re going to pat her down all over, as in everywhere. Which, of course, is exactly what they did to me when I flew home from California a few weeks ago. Using profiling to decide who to search may not be the best idea, but can’t we at least agree that there are some people who we can reverse-profile out of being searched?

So what does this have to do with motorcycles? It’s all about transportation choices. I want to say right up front that I owe the idea for this piece in part to Bruce Arnold, who runs http://www.ldrlongdistancerider.com/, and his recent post, Motorcycle Touring Mathematics 102: X-Raying Your Junk vs. X-Treme Riding Pleasure. In this post, Bruce compares the example of flying from Miami to Atlanta to riding there on a motorcycle. He looks at time, cost, and dignity. By his calculations, riding would take about 3 hours longer but cost a little less. He goes on:

The trade-offs to consider, however, go beyond time and money. Given the choice, for instance, how would you rather spend an entire day: Subjecting yourself to the pains of being processed, inspected, stamped and transported like so much meat? Or enjoying the pleasures of the wind in your face, a thundering engine beneath you, and the open road ahead of you? And what about privacy and practicality? Would you rather pack what you really wanted and needed to take with you, or worry about whether your shaving cream, pocket knife or party favors will make it through security? And last but not least, just how much individual freedom and personal dignity are you willing to sacrifice in return for a questionable promise of protection from some ethereal “terrorist threat” that may or may not exist?

On that recent trip to California that I mentioned my first intention was to ride out there. Time was not an issue. This is what I do for a living. I don’t have to take time off to ride my motorcycle, it’s my job. And riding to Southern California would be a great road trip. Why would I not ride?

Well, the answer, as it turned out, was money. I was able to get tickets from Denver to LA and from Oakland to Denver for such incredibly low fares that it was the only logical thing to do. I would have spent more on gas than I did for plane fare, and that doesn’t even include motels for three nights out and three nights back. So I flew and I got groped. And make no mistake about it, the security folks will deny it, but if you fly one-way rather than round-trip you will always get pulled aside for extra screening.

I couldn’t agree more on the idea of riding as your first choice, though I’m also well aware, as is Bruce, of the factors that time, distance, and weather often play in determining whether this option is really an option. Those caveats acknowledged, Bruce’s math does makes sense when riding is a possibility, and more and more people are figuring this out. Even some people opting for cars instead of motorcycles. As security increases and the time you waste in airports increases, the numbers will only favor ground transportation even more.

Hey, here’s a thought: Let’s build some high-speed passenger railroads. Then while most other folks are blasting across the country at near-warp speed, I’ll be putting down the highway on my motorcycle. Maybe you’d like to join me from time to time.

Biker Quote for Today

And I to my motorcycle Parked like the soul of the junkyard Restored, a bicycle fleshed With power, and tore off Up Highway 106 continually Drunk on the wind in my mouth Wringing the handlebar for speed Wild to be wreckage forever. — James Dickey

OK, I admit, I’m just like you, I’m really busy this holiday season and I’m not averse to taking the easy way out: I’m putting up some Examiner Resurrection pieces. We’re going back here to 2010, but this is still relevant.

The Harley I rode.

I spent four days on a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail recently, hoping to understand at last the reasons why so many people are so fanatically devoted to the brand. I recapped my thoughts the first couple days out but now I’m ready to speak about my total experience and the conclusions I’ve reached.

Hint: I’m not converted, but I think I understand more now.

Ease of riding
The No. 1 understanding I came to on the Harley is that this bike is just incredibly easy to ride. Let’s compare it to my primary bike, my 1999 Kawasaki Concours.

The Concours is a tall bike to begin with, and with my 30-inch inseam it took some getting used to. The Softail has a much lower seat height, making it very easy for me to plant my feet widely and firmly on the ground at a stop. The Connie also has a 7.5-gallon gas tank that sits way up high, making for a very high center of gravity. Center of gravity on the Softail is very low, which makes the handling much more stable at low speeds. I never once came anywhere close to dropping it, whereas I have dropped the Kawi a couple times.

The power delivery on the Softail is very different from what I’m accustomed to so that took some getting used to. My Kawi has a high-revving engine and it has a ton of power. It’s very fast and the gearing is such that you don’t have to shift constantly in situations where you’re frequently speeding up and slowing down. My first impression of the Softail was that I all too frequently needed to downshift from the upper gears. To a certain extent I think that is true, but what I found with experience is that mostly that’s just the low-rev, loping v-twin and it would go along fine at the slower speed but then pick right back up with the twist of the throttle.

The bottom line here is that, while it probably took me two years to become totally comfortable on my Concours, I was right at home on the Softail within an hour or two. Now, having gotten comfortable on the Connie, I’m extremely comfortable on it and like it very much. And with longer legs it wouldn’t have taken that long. But I don’t think most people are willing to be that patient, so I can see the attraction of the Harley.

Riding comfort
Having a broad, well-padded seat was a real joy for me on that Softail. My other bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, has a reasonably comfortable seat but after doing a ride to California and back on a trip that included numerous long-mileage days, I swore never to do that again. I went out and bought my Concours. The Connie is a much better touring bike but even its seat gets hard after awhile. The seat on the Softail was a huge improvement.

Another thing I liked was the floorboards. With the floorboards I could shift my foot position a little or a lot, and even stretch my legs out completely straight. The key here is the knees. None of my buddies likes trading bikes with me and I think that has a lot to do with their aging knees. I suspect that sitting with your knees always bent as you must when your pegs are below you is just not something that works for them any more.

I, on the other hand, prefer to have my pegs beneath me because I want to stand up when I go over a bump and let my legs absorb the shock. The first big bump I hit on the Softail threw me way up off the seat and back down hard. I did find, though, that with my feet on the back edges of the floorboards, and a good grip on the handgrips, I could raise myself off the seat for bumps and minimize the impact. I still prefer pegs below me, however, and my knees are still limber enough that I can ride that way comfortably. Besides, highway pegs allow you to stretch your legs out, too. That said, I do, again, see the attraction of the Harley for a lot of folks.

While the Softail’s seat was comfortable, and you can get custom seats with better lumbar support, I strongly prefer the riding position on my Connie. Stock, the Connie had an intolerable reach to the grips, so the very first thing I did when I bought it was install risers that brought the grips back and up three inches. That made all the difference in the world. Now I have just a slight forward reach that keeps me in an erect, upright position, which is a good posture for your back. Having the pegs underneath you also helps foster that good posture.

The Softail, on the other hand, encouraged me to slouch. And after four days I could tell. My back was hurting.

Details
One negative aspect of the Softail’s low profile is the potential for contact with hot exhaust pipes. I discovered this one rainy day when I noticed black marks on the pipes. Then I noticed a spot on my black rain pants that was clearly melted a bit. Apparently you have to be careful at a stop to set your right foot down away from the bike so as to avoid this sort of thing. I also apparently let the heel of my boot touch the pipes while riding with my feet back on the floorboards, and that got melted, too.

This has never been an issue with my Honda or my Kawasaki. Sitting up higher as they do, there is room for the pipes to go beneath the pegs, and I’ve never touched those pipes with anything.

Ground clearance is another issue. Riding the bikes I’ve owned, I had never scraped hard parts until just recently when I took a Harley Sportster for a demo ride. Both my bikes are shaped live a V when you view them from in front or behind, and you’d need to lean a long way over to touch anything on the ground. Not so with the Softail. Swooping through curves on the New Priest Grade Road I scraped the floorboards and I wasn’t even leaning all that far. I’m not saying that’s a problem, but it’s definitely a difference.

I liked the very clearly defined shifting on the Softail. It gave a loud thunk dropping into the next gear, so it was always clear whether you had or had not flicked that shift lever far enough. There have been times on my bikes, particularly between first and second, where I didn’t make it all the way into gear and didn’t realize it until I let the clutch out and twisted the throttle.

I wasn’t impressed with the Softail’s brakes. I’m generally heavy on the front brake and only use the rear brake when I need extra stopping power. With the Softail I had to use the rear brake almost as much as the front. The front just didn’t do the job. Surely Harley can do better than that.

It took some adjustment for me to look to the gas tank for the instrument cluster. And I didn’t like having to take my eyes off the road to do so. Both my bikes have the instruments up on top of the fork where I can still watch the road while checking the dials and gauges.

The Softail surprised me with how smooth it was. I’ve seen plenty of Harleys that, at idle, shake like a paint mixer but that was not the case here. I definitely prefer smooth. Also surprisingly, it was a bit rougher at highway speed.

Lastly, I liked the idea that the bike won’t start without the key fob in close proximity, so with our frequent stops I wasn’t constantly inserting and removing the key. I’d use the key in the morning, then all day long I’d just turn the bike off and walk away. Coming back to it I’d just turn the switch and push the Start button. Then use the key for complete shut-down at night.

Harley or cruiser?
While these riding impressions all have to do with the Softail I was on, I suspect most are applicable to any dressed out cruiser. In other words, I’m not certain whether I’ve gained a better understanding of the Harley mystique or simply a better understanding of the cruiser mystique.

Of course one thing many Harley owners point to with pride is the fact that their bikes are “American iron.” That’s as opposed to, say, Star’s Royal Star Venture, which is made in Japan, I presume. I’ll point out, however, that Kawasaki operates a plant in Lincoln, NE, which until recently produced motorcycles. I may be wrong but I believe that’s where my Concours was made, so how much more American-made is a Road King with Kiehin carbs and Brembo brakes than my Connie?

So no, I’m not converted, but at least I don’t find it such a mystery. The Softail is a comfortable bike that is easy to ride and feel at home on. Presumably that’s true for the whole Harley line-up, with the possible exception of the V-Rod. I think especially for aging riders, and there are a lot of those out there, cruisers are absolutely the way to go. Maybe that will even include me one day. But not yet.

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycle adventures are the perfect antidote to middle age. — Alex Morritt