Passes & Canyons Blog

Once again I can connect my battery to the trickle charger and my electric vest to the battery.

I mentioned last time how when I went to plug in my electric vest there was nowhere for me to plug it into. Removing the seat on this 1980 Honda CB750 Custom is enough of a pain that I didn’t get to that right away but I did turn my attention in that direction over the weekend.

Removing the seat would theoretically be easy but in practice it is anything but. The seat has a tongue that you insert into the compartment for it just below the gas tank. But first you have to remove two bolts, one on each side. Easy, right? Well, it might be except I have a sissy bar on the back and the two bolts are very close to each other. Then the bar that is one of the main structural members of the sissy bar, which includes back rest, tool bag, and luggage rack, passes directly over the bolt that holds the seat on.

In other words, I can’t get at it directly. So I slip a box-end wrench under the bar to work the bolt. But that’s not all. When the seat is in place there is stress on the frame of the seat such that the bolt does not turn freely. I have learned that I need to first lay across the seat from the left side to the right, putting my weight on the seat to push it down. In this way I position the bolt hole on the seat frame perfectly around the bolt and then it screws out easily. Next I have to raise the right side of the seat to get the bolt and bolt hole aligned, and then I can unscrew that one.

OK, taking the seat off is really not that big a deal. And I got it off and sure enough, the shop failed to put the two pigtails back on when they worked on the bike this spring. I have two pigtails. One is for my electric vest and the other is for my trickle charger. Neither were there.

Fortunately I have extras because when I sold the Concours earlier this year I stripped off equipment like that. Now I just had to find where I had put them. I wasn’t having much luck finding them but in the process I came across a spare vest connector that I had forgotten I had. Brand new, never been used. They must have been packed two to a package. Cool.

It took a lot of looking but then I did find the stuff I took off the Concours. And wasn’t it fortunate I had found that spare vest connector. I had forgotten that to hook the vest up to the Connie’s circuitry I had to snip off the loops that normally go over the battery posts and replace them with plugs that were inserted into the bike’s outlets. I had kept the loops and I could have reversed the process but with the spare I didn’t need to. Nice.

Next I removed the two side panels in order to get to the battery. Again, theoretically you should be able to remove the side panels with the seat in place. In practice it really isn’t possible. No problem, the seat was off.

So I hooked it all up and was about to put the other things back in place but on this bike the battery has a metal strap holding it in place and that strap has a bumped out spot where the battery cable needs to go. So before you reattach the battery you have to bolt this strap back in place and position the cable properly. I had not done that, so I had to undo the connections, put the cable in place, then redo the connections. Fine, now put the rest of the bike back together.

I got the seat back on, which is a lot harder than getting it off. To get the bolt started you have to hold it with two fingertips and position it just right and then turn it to get the threads started. This can be–and usually is–very awkward. But I got it done. Then I realized I had not put the side panels back on. So I had to remove the seat again, put the side panels on, and then put the seat back on again.

Fun, huh? I know it was my own carelessness that caused me to have to do these things twice. I really shouldn’t forget them because I have made these same mistakes more than once in the past. But dang it, I shouldn’t have had to be doing any of this. If the guy at the shop had done his job properly my connectors would have been where they were supposed to be.

And this was not the first time I’ve had this kind of thing happen. I once started out on a week-long trip after finally getting my bike back from the shop, only to realize about 50 miles out of town that the mechanic had failed to put one of my highway pegs back on. I like highway pegs. I use my highway pegs. And there I was gone on a long trip and one highway peg was not where it was supposed to be.

Yes we all make mistakes, but when I make a mistake no one is paying me for my efforts. I’m paying these mechanics. I think it’s not unfair for me to hold them to a little higher standard. But if I learn any lesson from this it should be that when I get a bike back from the shop I need to go over it carefully looking for exactly this sort of thing. Will I learn that lesson? I’ll keep you informed.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 29. We wake up at 4:00 AM to watch the MotoGP race in Australia.

Think of all I would have missed if I’d never learned to ride a motorcycle.

I wasn’t born knowing how to ride a motorcycle. I had to learn. Neither were you? What a coincidence. Eventually I did learn, however. You did, too? Good for us.

I did not learn by taking a class. Heck, I’m not sure I was even aware back then that classes like that were offered. If I had been I wouldn’t have taken one because I was poor. I was so poor, in fact, that I had to borrow money from my parents to buy my first motorcycle, although I never let them in on that secret till many years later.

Before I bought that bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, I had ridden motorcycles occasionally, although not recently. I had friends when I was younger who had bikes who occasionally let me ride, but it was only good fortune that kept me from crashing them. I didn’t know how to steer properly.

When I bought my Honda, a friend who had ridden scooters as a kid told me he assumed I understood about counter-steering. Nope. Never heard of it. He didn’t know how to explain it, other than you push the bar right to go left, so I was still none the wiser. But I now understood there was something I needed to learn more about.

Whenever I’m new to something I dive in and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, mostly by reading. John’s first bike (as an adult; he had a scooter as a kid) was an old Gold Wing that someone gave him. (Nice, huh? Would like this free Gold Wing? Oh gosh, I don’t know. Sure, I’ll take it.) That was a bit too big a bike for him right off the bat but he rode some with another teacher at his school. Then when that guy died unexpectedly his widow asked if John would like to buy his Virago at a very low price. So John got rid of the Gold Wing and bought the Virago.

Along with the Virago, the widow gave John a bunch of her husband’s motorcycle magazines. These he shared with me. The first issue I ever saw of Rider magazine was the one with the newly introduced Honda Pacific Coast on the cover. I read those magazines cover to cover, including the ads, soaking up every bit of knowledge I could. Soon I was subscribing to Rider and Cycle and passing them along to the guys after I had read them. I still do that.

This–along with practice on the road–was where I learned about counter-steering. Along with a whole lot more.

I also learned about traction management. I’m talking about how you have the most traction when the bike is completely erect and the farther you lean the less available traction you have, right up to the point where you lose traction altogether and go into a low-side crash.

First John got a bike, then I did, then Bill did. We rode together a lot. One thing I quickly noticed was how both of them were able to go faster in the twisties than I could. I initially attributed this simply to the fact that they had both had scooters as kids and so were more experienced than me. Later I also figured out that both of their bikes had lower centers of gravity than mine, which just simply made it easier for them. (It’s funny to think of my Honda as having a high center of gravity. My two other bikes, a 1999 Kawasaki Concours and a 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650 are both very tall bikes and I have long come to consider the Honda as the low one.)

Trying to learn to ride better, and to keep up with them, I took to sitting up straight and leaning my Honda way over. I did not understand the risk that entailed as opposed to leaning my body to the inside of the curve and keeping the bike as upright as possible. But I never crashed and eventually I learned the ins and outs of maintaining traction.

Most of my friends to this day have never taken a riding class. Eventually I was no longer poor and I did take riding classes–a whole bunch of them ultimately. By then I could ride competently and what I ended up learning were some finer points that I had still missed. It may surprise you but even an experienced rider can learn something from a riding class.

I did learn to ride. And I like to think I eventually got pretty darn good at it. So here’s a thank-you to everyone–writers, teachers, other riders–who helped me get to this point. I don’t think I would have gotten this good without you.

Biker Quote for Today

On the bike, time stretches, and I glimpse moments of forever.

That’s Johnathon’s Virago before it fell. That’s Johnathon on the left, next to his dad.

Have you ever parked your motorcycle and come back to it later to find it laying on the ground? If you ride a Harley, probably not. Those broad, sweeping kickstands hold things really solidly. Not so much with a lot of other bikes. But sometimes even Harleys can fall.

On the second ever OFMC trip we were headed back into Colorado from New Mexico when we got caught in a cloudburst. We just rode through it and we dried off quickly enough but by the time we reached Alamosa that moisture and subsequent evaporation combined to bring us hypothermia. We headed for the nearest coffee shop and sat there for two hours drinking pot after pot of coffee, trying to stop shaking.

As an aside, coffee is not the best thing to drink in this situation. You’ll get a lot better results if you drink something like hot chocolate. Just FYI.

When we finally got warmed up we figured it was time to find a motel, so we walked on out to the bikes. Well, guess what. This coffee shop’s parking lot was newly repaved and the day was a really hot one. John’s kickstand, which was pretty vertical with a small foot, had sunk right into that asphalt and his bike had toppled over onto Bill’s, with both of them going down.

OK, lesson learned. From then on when it was hot and we were on asphalt we knew to find a flattened aluminum can or a broad rock or something to put under the stand. Later we all acquired pucks to carry with us. We do learn.

A couple years later, on a trip where John’s son Johnathon was with us, we were up in Idaho, heading north from Arco. At some point we spotted a nice, shady spot to pull over and take a break. We weren’t on pavement or rock but no big deal. Until, as we lounged there taking it easy, there came a crash. Johnathon’s bike–the one that had been John’s and knocked Bill’s bike over previously, had sunk into the soft dirt and gone down. At least no other bikes were involved and Johnathon, too, now learned the lesson.

A couple years after that, with Dennis now part of the group, we were up in Wyoming in the Bighorn Mountains. We stayed at a lodge where the people were so creepy it gave us thoughts of the Stephen King novel and movie, “The Shining,” but that’s a whole other story.

It rained hard that night. No problem, the parking lot was gravel. Well, maybe gravel and sand. And Dennis came out in the morning to find his Gold Wing laying on its side, with the kickstand sunk deeply into the more sand than gravel spot where he left it. Dang.

Now, those are the kinds of falls that even a Harley would be vulnerable to, because when the ground is soft even something broad and flat will sink. But it’s especially likely with a very vertical stand with a small foot. Such as on my Honda CB750. Or my old Kawasaki Concours. Or my Suzuki V-Strom. Are you catching my drift?

It was not long at all after I first bought the CB750 that I rode over to meet John and his wife Cheryl at a park where they were watching Johnathon playing soccer. When I parked the bike the ground was sloped such that it was standing up pretty straight but I figured it would be fine. Wrong. We came back to the bike and there it was on the ground. Apparently just the wind was enough to tip it too far.

Then there was the day I was out on the Connie and parked along a street with a pretty good crown to it. Which is to say, with the kickstand on the left and a slope to the right, that bike was quite upright. And yeah, I came back to it and it was down.

And then later I got the V-Strom and on one of my first rides with it I was with a group down along the Platte River up in the hills and we pulled off by the river. I jockeyed that thing a good bit to be sure I had it somewhere where it would be OK but I misjudged. I got off, walked away, and had only gotten about 10 feet when there was this big crash behind me. Dang. Dang. Dang.

There have been others. And there’s always something that breaks. I guess it’s all just part of the expense of riding motorcycles. It sure has been for me.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 30. Yes, the bike gets a Christmas gift.

Years later John and Bill, in the center, were still riding those Shadows with no windshields.

Revisiting the OFMC’s California trip the other day got me to thinking about how jerry-rigged the whole thing was even then. Yes, we did have good rainsuits, probably the first thing we learned early on that we needed. But what about things like a throttle lock or cruise control?

We rode a lot of days on that trip where we covered many miles and as I would imagine you know, holding onto that throttle grip for that long can get pretty dang tiring. But if you read that post you may be saying, What? How did Bill ride 35 miles hands-free if you didn’t have throttle locks?

Well, John is pretty inventive. What he rigged out for the two of them–I was OK just holding onto the grip–was a string tied to the handlebar with a Popsicle stick on the other end. They would get up to speed and insert that Popsicle stick between the grip and the float, wedging it in tightly enough that it would stay. It didn’t always stay put but hey, you just grab it and stick it back in. They covered a lot of miles like that.

And these long days were even longer than they might have been. Right from the start I have always insisted on having a windshield on my bikes. Those guys were just the opposite. Neither of them had windshields on their Shadows.

Now, John had had one on his Virago up until the time he and I spent a night out in Laramie doing some heavy drinking and he then went down on a patch of gravel making the turn into our motel. He got a little road rash was all, but his windshield was busted and rather than replace it he just took it off and rode without. Then he got the Shadow and it didn’t come with one and he never put one on.

OK, so fine, to each his own. But on this trip, when we were covering so many miles, I naturally wanted to run a little fast. But guess what? They didn’t like the buffeting they got from the wind so they didn’t want to go fast. In fact, much of the time they wouldn’t even go the speed limit. It’s a long ride across Utah and Nevada if you don’t even go the speed limit.

Neither of these guys ever got windshields until they each moved on to their first Harleys, which came with fairings. Then they wondered how they had ever done without them. I had wondered that for a long time before that. At least we all had gotten throttle locks eventually on the older bikes but windshields? Nope.

So that’s the low tech and the no tech. The high tech–at least relatively speaking–was, as I mentioned before, heated gear. It didn’t matter how cold they got on this trip while we were along the coast. And it didn’t matter how cold they got any other time, whether we were on the trip or just doing a day ride. And we did one day ride where we got surprised by an unexpected snow storm. They never got heated gear, despite complaining about being so cold and hearing me rave about my electric vest. And then later my heated gloves. OK guys, your choice.

Of course, now I’m the one who doesn’t have an actual cruise control on either of my bikes. And the throttle lock on my V-Strom really doesn’t work very well. But retrofitting them with cruise control would be a real job and costly, if they even make units that would work on those bikes. That’s what I’ve got my eyes set on with the next bike I get. Whatever I get, assuming I ever buy another bike, I really, really want cruise control.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: Your motorcycle won’t leave you for another rider.

We made it to the Pacific.

Probably the most ambitious trip the OFMC ever made was in 1999 when we decided it was time to head for the ocean. The Pacific, to be exact. California here we come.

Normally we would leave on these trips on Friday and return on Saturday but for this we left all of one day earlier, and not even early in the day. We hit the road at 2 p.m., heading west on I-70. Where we were promptly hit at about Silver Plume by what may still be the biggest deluge we ever encountered. But by now, this being our eleventh year, we were prepared, had good rain suits, and we just rode right through it. I do recall vehicles going the other direction sending huge walls of water over the median barrier onto us.

Despite our late start we got to Green River, Utah, that evening. The next–very hot–day was just blasting on I-70 to Ely, Nevada. These are the days when you appreciate the pool at the motel.

We were a little wary of crossing Nevada on US 50, the Loneliest Road in America, but it was actually pretty nice. Clouds were appreciated. But we had to pay the incredibly high price of $2 a gallon for gas! Outrage! We made it to Lake Tahoe that day, staying in South Tahoe, in California, where it was cheaper, and we walked into Nevada to gamble.

The next day we looped around Lake Tahoe and crossed Donner Pass on I-80. A short while later we got off the superslab onto CA 20 through Yuba City and on to Calistoga. This was the day when we first experienced some of the tight, twisty, up-and-down roads that California is famous for. Calistoga was a good stop: good food, a decent motel, and alcoholic beverages, of course.

Then we crossed into the Napa Valley, but we didn’t stop for wine tasting, we kept going until we crossed over into the Alexander Valley, also wine country. We stopped at Alexander Valley Vineyards and tasted a few wines and I just had no choice. I bought a case and had it shipped home. With the shipping, I calculated later that I only paid about double what I would have paid buying the same wine at home. But to this day I continue to buy Alexander Valley Vineyards wines.

After a night in Healdsburg we headed to Lake Sonoma Recreation Area where I knew one of the sweetest roads in California. The Stewart’s Point Skaggs Springs Road is so out of the way and sparsely used that a lot of it is one lane. It loops through the forest with so many curves that Bill said later it made him a little sick to his stomach. But then it comes out onto Highway 1 right at the coast. We had made it to the Pacific.

We turned north and headed up to Mendocino. Then we got a real taste of what Mark Twain was talking about when he remarked something to the effect of, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a week in San Francisco.” Fortunately for me, by that time I had my electric vest and had brought it along. Bill and John have never acquired heated gear. I don’t understand why not. I love my vest and my heated gloves.

North of Mendocino, Highway 1 goes inland and we were not unhappy to say good-bye to the coast and coastal weather. We spent the night in Redding at a motel that turned out to be a long-term stay place for what looked like some families just scraping by. No problem; nice folks. Just not what we expected.

The next day we passed through Lassen Volcano National Park and turned south on a series of roads that eventually brought us to Reno. Stayed the night in Reno and then it was back across the Loneliest Road in America for another night in Ely. Bill had fun this day. His Shadow had a very low center of gravity so just like a bicycle, he could ride with no hands. He tested to see how far he could go without touching the handlebars and his best shot was about 35 miles.

The next day was just a hard day of riding, back to Green River. Then Bill went all the way home while John and I stopped for the night in Grand Junction with a friend living there, and home the next.

This was a trip full of hard days of riding. I rode my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom with its stock seat and my butt was really sore by the time we got home. Shortly afterward I bought my 1999 Kawasaki Concours and I rode it out to coffee one day with the guys. Hey, when we leave, I told them, you have to see the new seat I got. I walked them out to the Connie telling them, yeah, the seat cost me one heck of a lot but they threw in the whole rest of the bike at no extra charge.

Biker Quote for Today

No therapy in the world can do what burning a tank of gas, chasing the setting sun can do for you.

We had a big group for a while.

When the OFMC got going–before we even came up with the OFMC name–there were three of us: John, Bill, and Ken (me). John had bought a bike, so I bought one, so Bill bought one. Soon enough we decided we needed to go somewhere on these fine machines. That was 1989.

Things took a new twist in 1998 when John’s son Johnathon joined us for the first time, riding the old Yamaha Virago his father had given him when he moved up to his Honda Shadow. That started a chain reaction.

In 2000 Bill’s brother Friggs joined the group. The funny thing is, he didn’t even own a bike at that time. Instead, he rented a Harley. The rental had an “unlimited miles” note in the paperwork but when Friggs took the bike back after the trip the rental guy grumbled that unlimited miles didn’t mean that many miles. Oh yeah? Friggs bought a Virago shortly after the trip.

Then in 2004 things exploded. Bills’ son Jason now joined us and he brought along a friend, Todd. Johnathon also brought his friend Randy. It was also the first trip for Bill and Friggs’s brother-in-law Dennis. Now it was getting too big a group to just be showing up in some random town expecting to find enough motel rooms, but that was a lesson we learned on this trip, not beforehand.

In 2006 Johnathon brought another friend, Brett, and we had the biggest group yet. So we’ve got three original guys, one brother, two sons, one brother-in-law, and a fluctuating line-up of sons’ friends. In 2010 Matt, a brother of one of the friends (see how it spreads!) came along. Finally, in 2015, John’s wife’s cousin Frank joined us and we had the biggest group ever. From there the OFMC began to shrink.

Johnathon and Jason were the first to drop out. They were both young married guys with families and they made the decision that they needed to put their families first and not risk getting hurt badly or killed. Several of the friends fell away then, too. By 2017 we were down to John, Dennis, Bill, Friggs, Brett, and me.

In 2018 John, one of the three founders, did not come. His health issues had gotten too serious and he had sold his motorcycle. The end of an era. Then in 2018, on a clean, smooth road, for no knowable reason, Friggs went down. He escaped serious injury–thank goodness for his helmet–but after finishing the trip he sold his bike and has never ridden again.

Then in 2019 it was just three of us again, Bill, Dennis, and me. That continued until 2022 when we were joined by Bruce but Bruce didn’t make it in 2023 or 2024 so at the end it was just us three. Same number as we started with, two of the same guys. Can’t say for sure yet but it looks like that’s the end. At a poker game recently John asked if there would be a ride next year and I listened keenly to the replies Bill and Dennis gave. Dennis was non-committal, probably waiting for Bill to answer, and Bill said he was not inclined to. But he didn’t say a positive no. We’ll wait and see.

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycling is like talking; the road speaks, and my heart understands.

Stopped along the road on the Squaw Pass road.

What a nice ride I had on Tuesday! And then it turned out it wasn’t just any day.

I had intended to go out on the Honda on Monday but got busy so I reset my plan for Tuesday. Well, what does my calendar show me on Tuesday but that this is the day, in 1988, that I bought this motorcycle. Thirty-six years ago to the day. Still have it, still ride it.

I know most people don’t mark on their calendars the date on which they bought a motorcycle, and I hadn’t either, but back earlier this year when I was selling the Concours I was digging through my titles and related documents and found the bill of sale for the Honda. I decided then to put that date on my calendar. September 17, 1988. A day that changed my life.

And then what a good ride. I started out figuring I ought to pick up where I left off the last time I headed out on this bike, heading up Deer Creek Canyon. This time I knew to avoid the construction blockage on South Santa Fe and headed west on Bowles to Kipling and then south to Deer Creek Canyon Road. I turned up the canyon right behind a pick-up and that guy pulled over to let me past so as not to slow me down. Nice guy. Not that I’m a speedster but I made sure not to slow him down.

Part way up the canyon I decided to turn south onto Deer Creek Road. Two different roads: Deer Creek Canyon Road and Deer Creek Road. Deer Creek Road climbs and winds and eventually comes out at US 285 at Conifer. Just a short bit before I got to Conifer two guys on Harleys pull out in front of me but then just a couple miles later they turned right onto Oehlmann Park Road, which I had never noticed before. Wonder where that goes? I wouldn’t have necessarily paid attention except that this whole way we were riding on brand new asphalt. So new it has not yet been striped. And Oehlmann Park Road also is covered in brand new asphalt. So presumably not a completely minor road. More on this later.

And then I came upon the paving crew, at work. That’s how new this asphalt was. I got to Conifer, went under the highway and got onto County Road 73, which runs up to Evergreen. But I went just a short distance and turned left onto Shadow Mountain Drive, which goes through some really nice areas and eventually bends back around to rejoin CR73 just south of Evergreen. As I was waiting at that intersection to pull out onto CR73 who should come along but those same two guys on Harleys. What the heck route did they take? Looking at the map now I see that Oehlmann Park Road winds through some rural neighborhoods and comes out onto South Turkey Creek Road, the same as I would have hit if I’d just stayed on Deer Creek Canyon Road. Then they must have gone left to meet up with US 285 at Meyer Ranch Park and gotten off at Conifer to take CR73 north. Now I know.

So I got into Evergreen right behind these guys and as they went right I went left to go up Upper Bear Creek Road. There was a sign right away saying something about elk in the area and I had only gone another 100 yards or so and there were all these elk, on both sides of the road. OK, cool. I watched closely as I passed them and headed on only to come to another group. Past them I figured that was it but then there was one more group and this time I came around a tree and one big male was right in front of me in the road.

I hit my brakes and on this CB750 the brakes squeal. Always. Always have, presumably always will. Nothing I can do seems to stop that squealing. Well, that squealing seemed to really bother this big guy in front of me so he skittered very quickly out of my way, which was fine with me. And those were the last I saw.

On up Upper Bear Creek Road till I got to the Witter Gulch Road. This is a great road. It climbs steeply up out of this canyon and has a whole bunch of hairpin turns toward the top. A fun motorcycle road. And that brought me up to the Squaw Pass Road. I turned east, back down to Evergreen Parkway and took the parkway back into Evergreen, then headed down the canyon to Kittredge. At Kittredge I made the turn onto Parmalee Gulch Road over to US 285 again at Indian Hills. From there it was US 285 all the way home.

This all took more than three hours but I only put 96 miles on my odometer. But it was really nice country, the day was beautiful, and I had a great time. And so nice to take the CB750 out for such a nice anniversary ride.

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t rash ride.

Beyond the bike airplanes are taxiing over, lining up for take-off.

How quickly we went from “Is it so cold that if I ride I’ll freeze my butt off” to “I might like to go for a ride but I really don’t want to roast.” But Sunday was very nicely cool so what better thing could I do?

I figured I’d ride the Honda but I was very interested to see what happened once I started it up. Would it smoke like crazy as it used to? That issue had just miraculously gone away by itself but that means it could come back in just the same manner. And yes, the exhaust did smoke some at first. Not the huge clouds it used to produce but there was definitely some smoke.

And of course that makes me think about how much oil I have. When you’re getting a lot of blue smoke you are, by definition, burning oil and if you burn enough you end up with none. I had almost done this before I took it in to get the smoking addressed. I headed out one day, knowing I needed gas, and by the time I got to the gas station I just felt like it wasn’t running right. So I gassed up and just went back home, where, as a caution, I added some oil.

The next time I rode it was to take it to the shop, and it ran OK with the little bit of oil I had added, but when the shop started giving it the once over they found it had almost no oil at all. I’ve said it before: I’m a bad bike owner. I really don’t give my bikes the care they need. Shame on me.

So now I’m on this Sunday ride and my oil level is on my mind. I will check the oil level before I ride it again.

I hadn’t gone far and I saw something I had never seen before: one of those Tesla pick-up trucks. I’ve seen pictures but I had never seen one in real life and there it was. OK, a first.

I cruised south, to just north of E-470, and looped around the south end of Arapahoe County Airport and stopped to watch the airplanes lined up for take-off. What a mixed bag. All the way from little Piper Cubs up to enormous corporate jets.

On south and a turn onto the road that eventually becomes Main Street in Parker. And to the south of me the southern edge of the city is going up in the form of condos and homes. Jeez, I remember when the south edge of the city was 10 miles north of here.

East on Main Street, then a turn north on Jordan Road. At the intersection of Jordan Road and Broncos Parkway, on the northeast corner–and I mean right on the corner–sits a new condo complex with balconies overlooking this busy, noisy intersection. Just what I would want for a relaxing place to live. Do people really live in places like that voluntarily? If you flicked a cigarette butt from your balcony it might go right in somebody’s car window.

About this time it dawned on me that my test of using safety pins to snug up my fluorescent orange safety vest was apparently working. All this time it had not blown up around my head and it was staying where I wanted it. It occurred to me that I could use a couple more safety pins and just attach it long-term to my mesh summer jacket. Pin it down around the bottom to hold it down securely. I guess I’ll do that. I’d still recommend if you’re in the market that you pay a bit more and get a real motorcycle safety vest from a motorcycle supplier.

Then on home again. It sure is nice to have some comfortable days in July. The OFMC trip is coming up in a little over two weeks and it sure would be nice not to get cooked on that ride the way we did last summer.

Biker Quote for Today

Speed is my language, and the wind translates it into joy.