Passes & Canyons Blog

I make a point to ride each of my bikes at least once every calendar month, year-round. But so far here in January 2023 I had not been able to get out of the neighborhood because our street was covered in ice.

Last week we had a few warm days and I saw my opportunity approaching. There were patches of exposed asphalt but other big patches of impassable ice. But lanes of asphalt were starting to appear. So I went out with my shovel to give nature a helping hand.

I got out there and was surprised and pleased to see the neighbor three doors down out with an ice breaker busting up the ice in front of his house. We joined forces and after maybe an hour and a half we had carved a passageway most of the way down the block. All I needed was to get to the end of the block because the cross street down there was already clear.

Mick said he had other places he needed to go and I was tired so we weren’t going to do it all right then. He said he would leave his ice breaker leaning against his garage so I could use it. I rested for about an hour and then went back out to finish the job. I was following the path of least resistance so the last stretch I cleared had some curves in it. You can see that in the photo. But I figured I could handle that sort of maneuvering.

The next day, Saturday, was the day. Around noon I got on the V-Strom, fired it up, and headed down the street. It turned out that twisting path was not as easy on the bike as I had expected so I did end up clipping a bit of ice on the tightest corners but I got out and did a short ride. Coming home I took it really slow and managed the pathway but decided to come back with my shovel and clear some more.

That was when I noticed that nature had opened up much of a better route than mine and all I needed to do was scoop away some soft ice that separated that lane from mine. Now I had a good path. I went back and got on the Honda.

I got out on the Honda but didn’t go far. Something just didn’t feel right. It didn’t seem to be running properly. Not wanting to get too far from home in case I had problems, I just rode around a bit close by until the engine was fully warmed and then headed home. I still don’t know what’s going on; I’ll deal with that later.

Then it was time to take the Kawi out. And while it readily turned over, it just did not want to catch. I kept cranking and cranking and cranking and while it did catch at one point, it quickly died. Now what the heck? But I kept trying and it finally did start and keep running. And once I got out on the road it ran beautifully. It was just that trouble starting. I’ll just hope that it was because it hadn’t been run since early December.

So it was a beautiful day to ride, and I saw a bunch of other guys out on their bikes. Judging from the weather forecast this was going to be the last good day to ride for at least another week so lots of people took advantage of it while they had it.

It’s always iffy at this time of year; you take your opportunities when they knock. I may not get out again this month, who knows. But at least all three bikes got a January run, even if they were short.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short as you feel. But ride.

On that OFMC trip to the Grand Canyon where the communicators were useless I mentioned that Bill and John had to leave without me and we had to meet up later. Why was that?

For as long as I had owned this 1980 Honda CB750 Custom it had leaked oil. I would go for a ride and by the time I got home the lower portion of my right pant leg would be spattered with oil. Not a wonderful thing. So about six weeks before we were to leave on the trip I decided to do something about it.

I took the bike to a repair shop and told them I wanted the leak stopped. I didn’t really know what it would take to do that, but I trusted that they would. The guy at the counter had a much better idea of the situation, though, and he totally set me up. For what it’s worth, I figure what was needed was gaskets. At least, that’s my take on it now. But what he seemed to understand was that even a new set of gaskets was not a guarantee of no leaking.

So he told me, gosh, we’re going to have to tear the whole engine down to do that so while we’ve got it apart it might make good sense to give it a ring job, too. I was naive and trusting so I said OK, do that. Then he wrote up the ticket saying that the repair needed was the ring job. He made no mention of stopping an oil leak.

I made sure to tell him I was leaving on a trip in six weeks and the bike absolutely had to be ready by then. I didn’t see how that could be hard to do and he assured me that they would have it for me long before our departure date. So I left the bike in their hands.

What I learned later was that this shop was struggling financially. At this time of year they could make a lot more money doing quick jobs like new tires and oil changes, whereas tearing my bike down and doing my work was nowhere near as remunerative on an hourly basis. So they put their attention toward the cash flow jobs. Time went by and I didn’t get a call so I called them. No, it was not ready yet, but no problem, they would definitely have it for me in time. OK.

More time passed and I called again. Same answer. OK. And more time passed and now I was getting nervous. Same answer: they’d have it for me in time.

Finally, about three days before departure I called again and this time the jerk at the counter said no, there’s no way they’re going to have it ready for me in three days. That would be a Friday. The best they could do, he said, was have it for me on Monday. Can you say angry!? But what could I do? And what could Bill and John do? So they left without me, and we made plans to meet up in a few days.

I was livid. This was utterly inexcusable and clearly these guys didn’t give a rat’s patootie about me as a customer. And the thing was, this was a much bigger deal to me than it might have in other circumstances. But the thing was, when I bought this bike it was at the absolute lowest point of my life, before and since. I was at absolute bottom. And I bought the bike and it brought me unbridled joy! It literally gave me something to live for, at a time when I desperately needed something to live for. And in the nearly three years since I bought it it had been nothing but pure, absolute joy to me. And now, for the first time ever, there was anger and negativity connected with it. And I resented that bitterly! That they could introduce negativity into my relationship with the bike was beyond despicable. Unforgivable. The very worst blow they could strike. I hated the guy at the counter with the deepest passion.

And would they actually have the bike ready for me on Monday? Well, they did, though not until Monday afternoon, too late for me to even get started till Tuesday morning. So I picked it up Monday afternoon, took it home, packed, and got ready for an early Tuesday departure. Finally.

I’ll pick up the story next time; it’s far from over.

Biker Quote for Today

Sometimes I ride my motorcycle to nowhere to see nothing just so I can ride my motorcycle.

Every year after the first of January I look at my mileage for the year just ended. I did pretty well in 2022; rode the motorcycles more and put exactly 12 more miles on my car than I did in 2021.

First the car, because that’s my primary basis of comparison. I drove my car all of 2,506 miles. I wasn’t far off that with the Concours and well beyond it on the V-Strom. Nowhere close with the Honda, though.

The Honda only got ridden 729 in 2022. That’s down from 1,086 the year before. Which is a bit surprising to me considering that I thought I was trying to make a deliberate point of riding it regularly. Oh well, I’ll do better in 2023. And I’m also going to put some money into some work this good old bike is in need of.

The Concours had a better year than the CB750: 2,354 miles. That is up from 2,002 miles in 2021 and, as I said, almost as much as the car. Just 152 miles shy of the car. The Kawi got to go on the OFMC trip so it got a lot of miles off that one.

The champion this time around was the V-Strom. I rode that bike 3,866 miles in 2022. It got to go on the RMMRC Great River Road Ride and that was a good long jaunt. I hadn’t planned it that way. I was going to ride the Concours but had to make a last minute change when I discovered the valve stem on one of its tires was totally rotted away. It’s good to have more than one motorcycle.

Altogether that adds up 6,949 miles on motorcycles in 2022, versus 2,506 in my car. I may not put really big miles on any of my vehicles the way a lot of people do but by gosh, I do most of my getting around on the bikes. I kind of like it that way.

Biker Quote for Today

I love being on my bike, but I don’t consider that a sport: it’s too pleasant.

I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I’m a bad motorcycle owner. By that I mean that I do a lousy job of maintenance. Over the weekend I proved to myself once again that I probably rate a D in this category.

When I had been out on my Honda CB750 recently I had had the impression that perhaps my front tire was low on air. I made a note to check it sometime soon. Also, my mechanic, Joel, tells me the reason it pumps out blue smoke when I start it up is because the valves need to be adjusted and that they are allowing oil to seep into the cylinders. Then I start it up and this oil gets burned out. I’ve wondered more than once what any of my neighbors who were observing this might be thinking.

Lately, though, this seems to have gotten worse. It used to be that if the bike sat for a few weeks it would smoke when I fired it up, but if I ran it yesterday and started it again today there would be no smoke. That is no longer the case. I can start it every day for a week and it will smoke every time. I need to have Joel work on the valves.

More pressing, though, was the thought that I ought to check the oil. With all this oil burning away, how low might I be on oil?

So with somewhat warmer weather on Sunday I rolled the bike out to do some maintenance. First thing I noticed was that one of the four zip-ties that hold the bag on the back of the sissy bar was broken so I replaced that. Following the procedure in the shop manual, I set the bike up on the center stand and fired it up to warm the fluids and circulate the oil. Then I shut it down and gave it a few minutes for the fluids to settle.

Of course, when I started the bike it smoked like crazy. When I pulled the dipstick, cleaned it and put it back in, it came out not showing any oil at all on the end of the stick. Yep, low. So I added some oil and tested again. Nothing on the dip stick. I added more; still nothing. I didn’t have a lot of oil so I just poured the rest in. Still nothing showing on the dip stick. Yeah, I guess I was low.

Then I measured the tire pressure. Both tires are supposed to have 41 pounds of pressure. I have a good, digital-read-out pressure gauge and I used it twice. Both times it said 7 pounds of pressure. OK. That would sure explain why I had the impression it was low. Fortunately I have this multi-tool thing my parents gave me many years ago to keep in my car that includes an air compressor. I hooked it up, set it to put in 41 pounds, and let it run. It took almost 15 minutes to bring this baby up to proper level. Normally if you just need to add a few pounds it can take a minute or at most two. Not this time.

I figure all of this tells us two things. First, I’m a lousy owner. I rarely wash my bikes, I go too long between oil changes, and I don’t do routine maintenance as I should. Rap my knuckles with a hickory stick.

Second, the engineers that design these machines do a great job. Their machines continue to run year after year despite such utter neglect from idiots like me. Thanks guys, you do good work and I definitely appreciate you.

Biker Quote for Today

The next time your neighbors tell you that your bike is too loud, organize a bike rally at your house.

It’s that time of year when I always look at the odometers on my bikes to see if I can turn over just one more 1,000-mile mark by the end of the year. This year looks like it’s going to be easy.

With the V-Strom I just turned over 42,000 miles. It’s at 42,058 at the moment. No way I’m putting another 942 miles on that bike before the end of December.

With the Concours it’s not quite so cut and dried but still pretty obvious. The odo now sits at 76,309. Theoretically, if I had only one bike and I really got out on it a lot I could reach 77,000 by year’s end, but that’s not the case. I’ve got two other bikes that need to be ridden at least once each month. So no, I’ll just consider that turning over 76,000 hits the mark. If I turned over 76 in May there would be no excuse for not reaching 77, but doing so in October is good enough for this year.

Then we come to the Honda CB750. This is the bike I’ll be choosing on most of my rides for the next seven weeks. This bike is currently sitting at 36,730. That’s only 270 miles from 37,000. That’s doable. In fact, just two more rides like the one we did this past weekend are all it will take. (I do want to make a clarification here for anyone who is new here. This 1980 Honda CB750 Custom does not have only 36,730 on it in all these 42 years. The original speedometer/odometer set broke at about 84,000 and I replaced it with a salvage yard instrument cluster with about 29,000 on it.)

I track the mileage each year on all four of my vehicles, with my eye particularly on the motorcycle miles vs. the car miles. For about the past 10 years I have always put many more miles on my bikes than on my car. That’s the way I like it. I’ll do it again this year, no question. Heck, I’ll probably end the year with more miles on the Suzuki all by itself than on the car. Did I ever tell you I love my motorcycles?

Biker Quote for Today

Why didn’t the motorcycles get in the carpool? Because they didn’t have trunks.

I dropped the Concours and busted the left mirror when we were in Angel Fire so I’ve been looking to get that fixed.

I checked online and a replacement is available from about $95 to $150, depending on if its new or used and who you buy it from. I wondered if I could get a better price from a salvage yard. Time to check with Steele’s. They have a website and on the site they tell you you can send them a message asking if they have what you need. I tried that but after no reply over a week I just got on the CB750 and rode on over there.

First I checked in at the front desk and the guy checked in their computer to see if they had one listed in there. No. So he told me I could go look around the yard myself. He told me not to just take something off one of the wrecks, but to shoot a photo and come back to them and they’d decide who should do what.

I don’t know if you’ve ever walked around in a motorcycle salvage yard but it’s kind of like a fantasy land. In fact, after I’d looked at what they had out front and didn’t find anything I was about to leave when another employee asked me if I’d checked in. Yes I had, but I didn’t find anything. Oh, there’s more, he said. It goes all the way around the building. “Have fun.” So I went and looked further.

I did find three Concourses but they were all in almost totally stripped-down shape. No mirrors, except on one. And these were not the stock mirrors, they were clearly aftermarket. This suggested to me that busting a mirror was not all that uncommon, and some people opted not to replace with stock.

Around back I found shopping cart after shopping cart filled with assorted side panels. Many years ago I did lose one side panel off my Honda but I found a replacement. Still, it is from a different year so it doesn’t actually match, even though it fits. I figured if I came across the real thing I would at least ask what they wanted for it. No dice. Lots and lots of side panels but not the one I want.

Different parts of the yard were devoted to different things. In one section there were lots and lots of wheels. There were great numbers of stripped frames. And there were all kinds of bikes in all kinds of condition just in pieces everywhere you looked.

There were also the proverbial junkyard dogs, although during business hours I guess these guys are friendly enough. They were rough-housing so hard and so obliviously that twice they crashed right into me as they chased each other around, having a ball.

I didn’t find anything. I’ll have to get something online. But it was worth the run over there.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: If your motorcycle doesn’t look good, you can paint it or get better parts.

I was out on my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom last week and I realized I’ve been neglecting this old friend. It’s late in August and I was only getting out on this particular bike for the first time this month. Meanwhile I’ve put a good many miles on the other two.

Not only that, I’ve already taken the V-Strom on a trip of 2,800 miles this summer and in just a couple weeks I’ll be taking the Concours on a 1,500 mile trip. Meanwhile, even after my ride the other day I’ve only put 198 miles on the Honda so far this year. If I really love this bike (and I do!) how can I ignore it like that?

You have to understand, my Honda is not just a motorcycle, it is the physical realization of one of my fondest, most ardent dreams. My dream to own a motorcycle as a teenager was thwarted by my mother and years later when I finally got the CB I was absolutely in heaven.

Then, on top of that, when Judy and I got married she came with three kids who did everything in their power for the first seven years of our marriage to make every single day a living hell. There were two weeks every year when I was not in a constant state of rage. One was the week each year when she would take the kids and they would go off on a road trip, leaving me at home, blissfully alone. The other was the OFMC trip when I was gone, out on the road on my beloved motorcycle.

I remember one day heading out of town on the Honda and throwing my head back and screaming to the skies, “I love my motorcycle!!”

Fortunately, the kids finally all moved out and after a while they even grew up and became human beings. Every one of them now has deep regrets over how they behaved and how they treated us back then. And that’s great, we get along fine. I don’t hold it against them; they’re not the same people they were back then.

Also since then, I have acquired two additional motorcycles. And honestly, although I used to always do long trips on the Honda, the other two really are better suited for that kind of thing. So the Honda sits at home. But I still love that bike. And every time I do get out on it it just reminds me how much fun it is to ride. I just need to do it more.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: You don’t have to take a shower before riding your motorcycle.

Unlike with the Concours when its valve stem went bad, there was no way I could ride my Honda CB750 to the dealer to have the valve stem replaced. I have no idea why that Concours tire still held air but the Honda tire did not. I had already had it towed to my house and was reluctant to have it towed again to the dealer, so the other option would be to remove the wheel and take the wheel to the dealer.

I had never taken a wheel off a bike before. But I looked at it and figured it couldn’t be all that hard, especially if I had someone helping me who knew what they were doing. I called Roy. Roy was very accommodating and came over right away.

The first thing we had to do was put the bike up on its center stand. I knew from when I had a flat on the Concours a few years ago how hard that can be. But that had been a back tire and this was a front tire. It went up easily but then when we tried to jack the bike up high enough to get the tire off it started raising the rear off the ground. The answer was to put a piece of plywood under the center stand, but now it was really hard to get it up. We managed.

Then we needed a block of wood to put between the jack and the crank case. Scraps of wood are something most any guy has laying around but during the Covid lockdown I had done an extensive garage cleaning and had thrown out stuff like stray pieces of wood. I finally came up with a two by four and it was not optimal but it worked. Up on the jack the bike was very unstable so Roy’s job was to hold it steady and give me guidance while I did the work.

It really couldn’t have been much simpler. Remove two bolts and slide the disc brake caliper off, drop the C-clamps at the base of the forks, and disconnect the speedometer. Voila.

I took it to Vickery the next day and a while later they called to say it was ready. I got there and immediately saw they had not put on a 90-degree valve stem, which I had stressed I absolutely had to have. So they got right on it and quickly had it done and I headed home. I should have been clearer on that 90-degree stem but they made it right immediately so I have no complaints.

The next day Roy came over again and we put it all back together. Spread the caliper wide with a couple screw drivers, reassemble the fork ends, reattach the speedo. What I would not have known to do was to compress the shocks a few times to make sure everything set in properly. Roy also warned me not to touch the brakes while it was apart because otherwise they would have needed to have been bled, which would have been an unnecessary pain.

And that was all there was to to it. Great. I love learning how to do new stuff, and this is the kind of thing that may well come in handy in the future.

Biker Quote for Today

My brother recently got into a bikers gang that worships Norse monarchs. They call themselves ‘The Bikings.’