Passes & Canyons Blog

More bikes and more people at the Last Brass Monkey Run this year than for quite a few years.

I got in two last rides right at the end of 2023. The weather is looking OK so maybe I’ll be able to get in some January rides right away. We’ll see.

On Saturday it really wasn’t much of a ride. Mark over at Rowdy Rocket finally had a spot open for me to bring the Concours in so he can fix the issue that has the throttle not backing off as it should. That was just a very short, five-mile ride but hey, I was out on a bike on December 30. Were you? Now I’m just concerned, having given the bike to Rowdy on December 30, that I get it back before January 31 so I can get in a January ride on it. The last time they had my bike they had it for a very long time. If need be I’ll nudge Mark, but I’d rather not have to.

Then on Sunday it was the day for ABATE of Colorado‘s annual Last Brass Monkey Run. This was looking like the best chance in several years to actually ride to this thing so that was my plan. Also, I was still 26 miles short of turning over a new 1,000 on the V-Strom so you know I was going to ride if at all possible. And it was.

I checked the temperature and it seemed reasonably warm out there so I dressed accordingly but when I went out to roll the bike out it was a lot colder than I expected. I was wearing jeans with long underwear and the usual up top, including my electric vest, and planned to wear my winter gloves. I took off the jeans and put on a second layer of long underwear and then put on my riding pants, which I mostly wear in the winter. Then I pulled out my heated gloves. I didn’t want to be cold unnecessarily.

I took off, headed out west to Golden, to the Rock Rest Lodge, and yes it was cold. I had set the gloves at 50 percent power but soon wished I had set them at 75 percent. And I had carelessly draped the cord for the vest between the tank and my body in a manner that led to me accidentally turn it off three times. Let’s just say that when I reached the Rock Rest I was glad to get off and go inside.

It was a great turn-out–the best in years. And a lot of folks came on their bikes, as you can see in the photo. It was good to check in with all the usual folks (Mike: I guess it’s been exactly a year since I last saw you). Yeah, but in 2024 there are going to be some issues at the legislature where we’ll be seeing each other down at the capitol.

Coming home it was a bit warmer but I still set the gloves at 75 percent and that kept my hands toasty almost all the way home. And I was more careful with the cord for the vest and never once turned it off by accident.

Now I’m eager to check my odometers and see how many miles I put on each bike this year. I took three trips so it ought to be a higher number than last year. Those numbers will be showing up here soon.

Biker Quote for Today

2 > 4

I found a lot of points of interest in this particular issue of Rider.

I don’t usually write about what is published in magazines but in the case of the November issue of Rider there were just too many things that caught my eye. So I diverge from my norm.

It started right off the bat with the magazine cover. It’s a picture of a Can-Am three-wheeler on a dirt road, kicking up a lot of dust, and with one of the front wheel off the ground (see photo). I thought it was a terrific photo, especially with the rider flying that wheel.

I was also interested in the machine because while I’ve long been familiar with the Can-Am Spyder, just recently I had seen a couple of these much smaller ones and had wondered about them. They are called Ryker and they’re much smaller and sportier. I test rode a Spyder and did not like the handling but was wondering if these would be different.

Well, reading the article about the Ryker answered my question and confirmed my impression from the Spyder: “On the street, the Ryker Rally is quick and responsive, but it requires muscle and aggressive body positioning when tackling curves at speed.”

By “aggressive body positioning,” in my experience, this means when you turn you have to brace your outside foot against the rear-set peg and then lean your body to the inside forward and across the machine. Otherwise it wants to throw you off. I guess that hasn’t changed.

Another item of interest in this issue was one by a woman, Ellie Cooper, who rode her 2009 Royal Enfield Machismo 350 across India from north to south–solo. Yow! I would be seriously skeptical of doing something like that and she has the added disadvantage of facing the hazards that men don’t face but that are all too well known to women. I’m sure it helps that she has apparently lived in India for a long time, and thus is vastly more familiar with it than me, but I’ve got to say, this lady has guts.

And then there is an article by Steve Larsen titled “19 Motorcycle Myths.” These generally include the well-known bits like “Loud pipes save lives” and “I had to lay it down” as well as some I hadn’t heard, like “Real riders never wash their bikes.” But one in particular struck me: “Raingear keeps you dry in the rain.”

In this bit of discussion he says, “My experience, however, is that rain almost always soaks into small cracks or seams, and before I know it, I’m soaked.”

What? That’s a myth? Says who? I have rain gear and I don’t mind riding in the rain for the simple reason that . . . drum roll . . . it keeps me dry. Sure I get a bit of spray at times up around my neck where there is space between my helmet and the collar of my rain jacket, but that’s all. Steve, maybe you need to invest in some better quality rain gear.

I’ve been reading Rider for about as long as I’ve been riding motorcycles. At this point it’s one of the few motorcycle magazines that have both survived and continue to be put out on paper. Keep them coming fellas.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding is my addiction, and I’m a savage at it.

You can see how Bill doesn’t exactly stand out from the background in this picture.

A little over a year ago Dennis traded in his Indian and got a BMW that he had long wanted but finally found lowered enough so he could ride it. Dennis is kind of short. One of the benefits of buying used is you get all the extras already in place as part of the package. One of the extras on this particular bike is really powerful lights that do one heck of a lot to make you visible.

On this recent OFMC trip I was in the lead most of the time and when Bill was second and Dennis third I never had any trouble checking my mirror to make sure they were behind me. One quick glance showed Dennis’s lights blazing like the sun. I think these things could be seen from outer space.

When Bill was in the rear it was a different matter. I’d glance back and see Dennis instantly but I would have to search to be sure Bill was visible behind him. Not a big deal, especially considering that I assumed Dennis was keeping his eye on Bill, but the difference between the two could not be more extreme.

Bill, on the other hand, appears to have a very weak headlight on his Harley. Or maybe it’s pointed more toward the ground so it’s not as visible further ahead. I really don’t know about that. But I do know Bill does not stand out against the background and I had to search for him.

On one day, however, Bill had a close call. We were in Idaho heading south from having crossed Lolo Pass and Bill was in the middle. A pick-up heading the other way did the usual thing, turning left right in front of him. Everything worked out fine but that got me to thinking.

I wonder if the driver saw Dennis’s lights (of course he did see them!) but failed to notice, closer to him, this much dimmer figure that was Bill. In that case you could make the argument that Dennis’s lights, which make him unmissable, render others (Bill) less visible. That could be a real safety issue.

What it definitely points out is that Bill really needs more lights on his bike. He just fades too readily into the background. Plus, his bike is black and he wears a black leather jacket and his helmet is black. Not exactly conspicuous.

I know I don’t necessarily stand out all that well either, and Roy had mentioned that to me more than once. He has urged me to get an orange vest to wear over my jacket as many riders do. I probably will at some point when I’m in a store and think about it.

Meanwhile, I need to bring this up with Bill. I’m sure he has no idea how low his visibility is. But knowing Bill I really don’t expect him to do much about it. Maybe he’ll surprise me.

Biker Quote for Today

My bike is more demanding than my lover, she wants me to ride her every day.

Not bad if this is all that’s wrong with 35-year-old gloves.

I’ve only ever owned three motorcycles and I still have and ride all three of them. I approach my riding gear in a similar fashion, although sometimes that stuff really does just wear out.

Case in point: my very first motorcycle gloves, which to this day are my first choice to wear in warm weather. I’ve had them for more than 35 years. That’s them in the photo above.

Dang, they’re starting to wear out. I guess maybe if I had oiled them occasionally or done something else to take care of them they might have held up better. For sure they would look better. But you know what? They still work great. But it does look like that gauntlet on the right-hand glove will eventually just rip off. That hole is a lot bigger today than it was two months ago.

I’ve always thought that motorcycle gloves should have gauntlets, that is, those spreading funnel-like attachments to the main glove that allow your jacket sleeve to go inside and keep the wind and bugs from going up your sleeve. I have acquired gloves along the way that don’t have gauntlets but I seldom wear them.

Among these are a pair of fingerless gloves that I bought just in the last year or two. I had only worn them once or twice but I took them along on this year’s OFMC ride, and that led me to what should have been an obvious realization.

Near the end of the trip we were in Utah and stopped in Green River for gas and lunch. We gassed up and figured to go in the restaurant right there but it was crowded and we didn’t want to wait that long. So we decided to ride a little further into town and find another place. Because we were going such a short distance I didn’t bother putting my gloves back on.

Important to realize here is that much of this trip was through brutally hot weather. I was wearing a mesh jacket but it was still hot and didn’t really seem to afford as much circulation as I would have liked. Well, we cruised a half a mile or so into town and I was amazed to realize how much cooler I felt. Duh! The gauntlets on my gloves were preventing cooling air from going up my sleeves and through my jacket. I wore the fingerless gloves the rest of the trip.

Meanwhile, my summer gloves, as I call them, will continue to be my main gloves but I can see–as can you–that their days are numbered. I think I got my money’s worth.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 44. Half gloves.

The OFMC gets out of the rain in New Mexico last year.

The RMMRC is leaving in a few days on this New Mexico ride and at last week’s meeting someone asked me which bike I’ll be riding. Gosh, I hadn’t even thought about that. I guess I ought to.

The Honda CB750 was out right away because its tires are too thin and would not be enough for a 1,500-mile trip. That left the Concours and the V-Strom.

I figured what I really ought to do is take both of them out for runs and see which seems to be most ready, or else figure out what each of them might need.

I checked the tires on the V-Strom and the air was good. Check. Tires are good. Check. My top bag has suffered some damage in a couple times dropping the bike but I pulled out a strap that secures it well so no worries there. Check.

How is the oil? I just got the oil changed in my car the day before because I realized I had pretty much forgotten about paying it any attention. And I couldn’t remember the last time I changed the oil in the V.

I checked, which first meant figuring out how. That’s how bad an owner I am. So there’s a sight glass and you’re supposed to hold it level and check the level in the sight glass. Well, I didn’t see anything in the sight glass. I figured it would be good to take it for a ride over to Vickery to get some oil. That way I would also get a chance to see how it’s running.

It ran great. One thing I like about this bike is that it always runs great. I’ve had my troubles periodically with the Concours and the CB but the V-Strom, as they say, is bullet-proof.

I got home, put in some oil, checked the sight glass, put in some more, and it looked fine. So this bike is ready to go. I guess I’ll be riding the V-Strom. But now I really ought to check the air and oil in the Concours, just because they need to be checked. And if I do that before I leave, and I take it for a ride, maybe I’ll change my mind about which bike to ride. After all, the Concours is a really fine highway bike . . .

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you hate the fact that you were in front of your computer long enough to read this and not on your scoot.

Just roll it on in here and plug it in, they told me, so I did.

The weather was nice a few days ago, with a forecast for a lot worse, so I planned to take the Concours for a ride. I geared up, rolled it out, climbed on and pushed the starter. Grunt, grunt, sigh. That motor is not going to start like that. So I hooked it up to my trickle charger and left it for a few hours.

Second try, grunt, nothing. Uh oh, I think I’m going to need a new battery.

I pulled the seat off and removed everything else you have to move to get to the battery and oh man, were those terminals corroded. I couldn’t remember when I put this battery in but clearly it was not any time recently.

First I had to struggle to disconnect the terminals. A screwdriver was not going to do it, and after dissolving away the corrosion they still would not budge. A screw bit in an adapter on a ratchet wrench–lots of leverage–did the job. OK, now I can go get a new one.

But as I set it on the workbench I saw a plastic holder with paperwork stuck on the side and when I looked at the papers I was stunned. I bought this battery in 2010. Thirteen years ago!

I remembered it then. I was writing for Examiner.com at the time and I rode out to Laughlin, Nevada, for the Laughlin River Run. When I was ready to leave home I had to charge the battery a bit to get it to start but didn’t think much about it.

Somehow I made it to Laughlin but once I got there the battery was giving me problems again. I was staying at a private campground and the only place to plug it in was in the club house. The guys who lived there told me to go ahead and just roll the bike into the club house and plug it in. So I did. That’s that photo above.

That really didn’t solve things so I bit the bullet and went to get a new battery. I paid what I recall being an exorbitant price for a new battery, but the guy told me it was a 10-year battery. I wasn’t sure I believed that but I was pretty much over a barrel. And then I pretty much forgot about it, apparently for a very long time.

When the bike was new it always fired up instantly as soon as I pushed the starter button and it has not done that in a long time. Now I see that what was probably going on was the battery was dying a slow, extended death. I put in the new one as soon as I got home with it, hit the starter, and it fired up instantly. How nice.

So now I have a new battery. I’m sure I paid a lot more for this new one, with a three-year warranty, than I did for the old 10-year battery way back then. Inflation. But now I’m going to mark it on my calendar and in three years or so I’m going to start looking around in advance to see where I can find another 10-year battery. Those things are worth it.

Biker Quote for Today

The only part you really need will also be the only part on permanent backorder.

Some helmets are more fun than others.

I wear a helmet any time I ride now, but for years I did not. What changed that?

When I bought my first bike I had a Bell half-helmet from my hang-gliding days. I figured that was all I needed and I only needed that if it rained, if it was cold, or if I was in a state where helmets are required. I did find, however, that if I was going to wear it I also needed a visor. The helmet had three snaps across the front so I bought a visor that snapped onto those. Voila. But I didn’t wear it much; mostly I left it hooked on the helmet lock on the side of the bike.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the value of a helmet. In the third year of the OFMC trips I was headed for Durango and came upon a chip-seal operation. Cruising over new chip-seal, the car in front of me threw up a rock that I saw coming right at me and it glanced off my helmet as I tried to duck out of its way. I had the helmet on at that time because it was a rainy day. So I knew the value of helmets; I just enjoyed riding without one too much.

By the sixth year of the OFMC trip I had a full-face helmet. I had picked up a used Bieffe helmet at a yard sale for $25. Yeah, I had probably heard that line about if your head is only worth $10 then buy a $10 helmet. But I was poor and I still wasn’t big on helmets. But a half-helmet really doesn’t do all that much good in rain. And to this day I say, if you’re going to wear a helmet, wear a real helmet that gives you all the protection possible.

So I wore that Bieffe for a lot of years, but not very much. Truth was, it hurt. The Styrofoam liner pressed against my forehead and after an hour or more I was in pain. I only learned why that was last year. I was buying a new helmet and some that I tried on did that same thing. The sales guy explained that some helmets are shaped differently to accommodate different people’s heads. Some heads are oval shaped, others are more round. Don’t get a helmet meant for someone with a round head if your head is oval shaped.

Time passed and Bill and John started wearing their helmets more and more. I was the hold-out. I remember some year when they both wore their helmets nearly the entire time. I defiantly did not wear mine at all on that trip. More guys joined the group and more and more of them wore helmets all the time. It wasn’t peer pressure but that kind of thing does impact your thinking, if only subtly.

Oh yeah, and along the way I got ride of that painful Bieffe and bought a series of other helmets. One of the first was a new Bieffe but that hurt me the same way the old one did. I hadn’t learned about that yet. I still have that one but it’s hardly ever been worn.

Another thing that came with the passage of time is that I got married. I still was not overly concerned for myself but I didn’t like to think of what something happening to me would do to her. And then family things started happening.

First, my oldest brother was diagnosed with, and then died from, brain cancer. Next my second brother and his wife ran into serious marital issues when her sister developed serious mental illness. My sister-in-law felt she had no choice but to care for her sister, despite the extremely bad relations between her sister and her husband, my brother. That marriage ended. And then my younger brother’s wife got hit by a truck while she was riding her bicycle. She was wearing a helmet but those bicycle helmets are junk, if you want my opinion. She suffered irreparable brain damage.

At that point I was feeling like I was inviting a clean sweep. I did not want Judy to have to deal with the same issues all my siblings were facing. For Christmas that year I told her my real gift to her was that I would always ride with a helmet from then on. Actually, I had made that decision and was doing so for some months before this, but this was the first time I ever mentioned it to her. Merry Christmas, Judy. She was very pleased with the gift.

This was my own personal journey. It applies to me, and only me. I’m not one of those converts who now thinks everyone else should do the same. I still believe in helmets being the choice of the rider. And I choose to wear a helmet always.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you paint your office nick-name (like EasyRider or Bad-Ass) on your Bell open-face helmet.

We have been back to the North Rim and this photo was from a later trip, but we don’t seem to have shot any on this early trip.

By the time John and Bill and I, collectively the OFMC, were getting ready for our third annual trip we had concluded it would be nice to communicate while riding. Up to this point we had depended on hand signals but that meant you had to ride up alongside someone and then make the appropriate motion. Workable but not optimal.

Back in those days we didn’t have a lot of money, which was a big part of the reason we did these trips as much on the cheap as we could. We knew you could get in-helmet communication systems but they were expensive.

I think I was the one who got the idea to check out these inexpensive communicators from Radio Shack. We all three met up one day at a Radio Shack in Lakewood and inquired about these things. What they were was just a chunk of hardware connected by a cord to an ear plug. You put the ear plug in place and just talk and the sound moves through your head via the bone and is picked up and transmitted. Obviously, the speaker is in the earpiece.

We each put an earpiece in our ears and then we walked around, and Bill even went outside to the parking lot. We could hear each other fine, so we figured this would do the job. Great. Pay for them and we’re set. Did we try them out on our bikes before the trip? No. That would have made too much sense.

Our departure on this trip was complicated by the fact that a shop I took my bike to for some pre-trip work totally screwed me over. I’m sure I’ve told that story here before and it’s too long to get into now so suffice it to say, they did not have my bike ready by the departure date. So Bill and John took off without me, with an understanding that I would meet them at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in a few days.

Meanwhile, they took off with their earpieces in and expected to chat as they rode. Sorry, no dice.

What I only came to learn some time later is that radio signals are affected by motion, and the more speed the more they are affected. It turns out that these little cheapos work just fine if you’re walking but on a motorcycle going 65 miles an hour they totally fail. They tried using them that first day, found them worthless, and put them away never to pull them out again. Of course, I didn’t know that. This was well before the days of cell phones.

So I finally got my bike from the shop and I took off, doing some hard riding to reach the Grand Canyon in two days. I had no problem finding the campground but found that I had no way to find them in the campground. I thought they might have left a message for me at the gate, and they had, but I didn’t notice it. I asked the ranger at the gate and he knew nothing but just at that moment a ranger just getting off duty overheard and knew about them and told me where to find their camp site. No problem.

I found their camp site but they weren’t there. All this time I had the earpiece for the communicator in and the unit turned on and I was calling out for them but getting no answer. I was certain they would be listening and waiting for me but no answer. So I set up my tent and went to find them. I rode down to the main parking lot by the lodge, calling for them again and again. Still no answer.

It later turned out that they were there, but somehow I did not spot their bikes. Trying to guess where they had gone I set off on a lengthy wild goose chase that itself is a whole other story. Eventually I just went back to the camp site and by then they were there. They had been back a while before they noticed a new tent in their site so now they had been wondering where the heck I was.

After what I had just been through I was overjoyed to finally find them, and seeing a beer in John’s hand I cried “Give me a beer!” He told me apologetically that this was the last one and I took it from his hand and downed it. And then I asked them why the heck they didn’t respond to me on the communicators. They laughed and told me how worthless those proved to be and it never occurred to them to pull them out to help me find them when I arrived. Actually, they might have done the job in that situation if they had used them. But they didn’t.

That was the last time the OFMC ever seriously considered communicators. Some years later Judy and I got communicators and I specifically got some that would work between bikes in case one of the other guys decided to get a set, too, so we could communicate on rides. But no one else ever was sufficiently interested, so to this day the OFMC operates without communicators. Nowadays, though, we do finally all have cell phones so while not the same, they do the job when needed.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s not a gang. It’s a loose association of rugged outdoorsmen who like vibrations between their legs.