Passes & Canyons Blog

>1,798 posts, 636 comments.

OK, rather than a motorcycle-related post here I’m doing a blog-related post. Specifically something I have long tried to figure out about this blog.

Why does almost no one ever comment? If you look at that screen shot of my blog dashboard you’ll see that there have been 1,780 posts which garnered only 698 comments. I look at other people’s blogs and they’ll have multiple comments on every post. I just don’t get it.

For one, I’m wondering if I have this thing set up in a way that makes commenting difficult or even impossible for people at times? Something I could fix. Could I move the comment button somewhere more convenient?

Or is what I write so complete that no one has anything to add? Or so boring that no one cares? Or is it something else I have no idea about?

I know, for instance, that up at the top right, below the photo of me on the Honda, it reads “Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).” And I know that is not functional; I need to remove it. Is that it? Do people click on that Comments link and get nowhere? The Comments link that does work is at the bottom of each post. You read the post, you get to the end, you want to offer a reply, and you click the link there. Is that not clear enough?

This has frustrated me for a long time. Anything anyone can do to help me out here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Biker Quote for Today

You can’t get good by staying home. If you want to go fast, you have to go where the fast guys are.

Is anyone surprised that South Dakota ranks first in terms of people per motorcycle?

I saw an interesting chart the other day showing motorcycle ownership per person in each state. It’s not really information you can do much of anything with, it’s just interesting.

Colorado, for instance, ranks 14th with 173,120 bikes spread among 5,047,692 people. That comes out to one motorcycle for every 29 people. Of course, with people like me owning multiple bikes the actual number of motorcycle owners is necessarily lower. Still, the figures give you a general indication of the level of motorcycle interest per state. And it should not be a surprise that Colorado ranks high considering our weather and all the great places there are to ride in the state.

First on the list is South Dakota, with 69,284 bikes spread among 816,598 people, for a total of only 12 people per bike. It would be interesting to know how the bikes are concentrated across the state. Does the Sturgis area have, say, 3 people for each bike, while the eastern part of the state has something like 20 people per bike? There’s an awful lot of flat, wide-open country in South Dakota once you go east from the Black Hills.

At the other end of the listing, the District of Columbia has only 3,523 bikes for 604,912 people, leaving them with 172 people for every bike. I’m not at all sure how to interpret that. Is it just that a dense population with decent public transportation discourages people from owning their own vehicles? Who knows; surely I don’t.

In case you presume that more southerly states have more motorcycles simply because they have better weather for riding more of the year you would be wrong. The number 2 state with the most bikes per person is New Hampshire. There, they have 79,266 bikes amongst 1,316,807 people, for a ratio of one bike to 17 people. Is that related in some way to the Laconia Rally?

Filling out the top 10 are (rank, state, # of bikes, population, people per bike:
#3 Iowa: 173,929; 3,050,202; 18
#4 Wisconsin: 317,276; 5,691,659; 18
#5 Wyoming: 30,351; 564,554; 19
#6 North Dakota: 32,654; 674,629; 21
#7 Vermont: 30,070; 625,909; 21
#8 Montana: 46,996; 990,958; 21
#9 Minnesota: 240,288; 5,310,658; 22
#10 Alaska: 30,983; 714,146; 23

On the bottom end, leading to DC, we have these states:
#41 Kentucky: 98,475; 4,347,223; 44
#42 Hawaii: 30,098; 1,363,359; 45
#43 California: 801,803; 37,338,198; 47
#44 Utah: 59,355; 2,775,479; 47
#45 Maryland: 120,069; 5,785,681; 48
#46 Georgia: 199,586; 9,712,157; 49
#47 New York: 345,816; 19,395,206; 56
#48 Texas: 438,551; 25,253,466; 58
#49 Louisiana: 67,486; 4,545,343; 67
#50 Mississippi: 28,067; 2,970,072; 106

Does it surprise you to see states like Kentucky, California, Utah, Georgia and Texas so low in the ranking? I’d love to see some information explaining what factors lead to that result. I don’t think we’re likely to see that kind of info though so we’ll just take it for what it is.

Biker Quote for Today

A clean visor is a wonderful thing.

Yellow line? What yellow line? Yeah, acceleration is fun on a motorcycle.

Like you, I would assume, when a motorcycle goes by I look at it. That leads me to occasionally see some things that are unusual and interesting.

I recently saw this guy on a Harley Sportster. Nothing unusual there, but his riding style was unlike any I had seen before.

We were in a parking lot with several speed bumps. We all know Harleys are bikes you sit back on, with your feet up ahead on the pegs. There’s not a lot of cushion going over bumps so you take it easy. Now, on a bike with the pegs beneath you you can just stand up on the pegs and let your legs be the shock absorbers. Not so on bikes with your feet way out there.

This guy was riding like he was on a different bike. He was standing up on the pegs, which meant leaning way out over the front of the bike. And he did it just fine. But I’ve never seen that before.

Then there was the evening when I was sitting in a restaurant, by the front window. Looking out I saw a guy on a Moto Guzzi pull up and park. Then, holding onto only the left grip, he put his foot on the center stand lever and just rocked that baby up onto the stand. Just that easy.

I don’t know about you but all three of my bikes have center stands and on all three I hold the left grip with my left hand, grip the frame of the bike securely toward the rear, and then put my foot–and then my entire weight–on the center stand lever and hoist it with a hearty pull up onto the stand. To just hold the grip and step on the lever is not an option. Do Guzzis really not weigh much? I was pretty surprised.

A few days ago I was heading down the road and I heard the high whine of a sportbike behind me and to the left and sure enough here came the bike at fairly high speed coming past me in the next lane. Then there was a louder roar and I saw behind the bike some mega-expensive sport car. The guy in the car apparently wanted to run. The bike pulled over out of his way and the car driver hit the gas. Then the bike pulled back in behind him and he hit the gas, too. You want to run? I’ll run with you. Let’s go. And they both went. Quickly.

Just a few fun things I’ve seen recently.

Biker Quote for Today

I love looking into those beautiful eyes of my bike.

This was the email that started this process.

This came out of the blue. Per the email above, somebody wants to buy this domain name, www.motorcyclecolorado.com. They have made an initial offer of $500. Do I have any interest in this?

Right off the bat I said no.

Thanks, but I’m not interested in selling.

I got a follow-up:

Hi Ken,
Thanks for the response – it’s greatly appreciated.
All domain names are for sale at a certain price, even if it’s at a much higher price than the initial offer.
Can you think about this and let me know a dollar amount that would make sense for you?

Now, the simple fact is that this website is something I care a great deal about. I have worked on it for more than 15 years and writing this blog is my number one creative outlet. OK, along with my piano. But I wondered, and asked for clarification.

You know, this could depend. Is the buyer interested in the site or just the URL? Because if I could just move the site to a new URL and keep it going I might be willing to sell the URL, though the price would have to be enough to compensate me for all the work that moving it and getting it established with the search engines would entail. If, on the other hand, they want the site, first, that’s flattering, second, I really don’t want to let go of it.

And this was the response.

Hi Ken,
Thank you for the response – it’s greatly appreciated.
This would be strictly for the purchase of the MOTORCYCLECOLORADO.COM domain name, you would still have the website content to operate on a different domain name if you’d like.
Can you let me know a counter offer that you would consider?

That latest email came about three and one-half hours ago as I write this. So it becomes something I have to actually think about; if they wanted the whole site it wouldn’t take any thought.

What would it entail? First I’d have to select a new URL. That could be easy–I could just go with www.PassesAndCanyons.com. I checked just now and it is available. But that’s just getting started. You can put up a site but people have to know about it to visit. When I built this site I spent a lot of time and effort building up recognition of its existence. One way that happens is to get links to your site on other sites. All those links out there now would be broken, except for the home page, which would take the visitor to a totally different site.

Then there would be the edits needed on every single page of the site. And all the links internally. It overwhelms me just to think about it.

Really, I think that’s my answer. I have often said that I write in order to understand what I’m thinking. Writing, for me, is an exploration of my thoughts. And just laying this out here for you has persuaded me that I have to say no. I mean, sure, if they offered me $50,000 for the URL I could take it and just pay someone else to do all the drudge work. But I don’t think they’re going to offer $50,000. And I just don’t want to do all that work.

So my decision is made. Thanks for lending me your ear.

Biker Quote for Today

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

I hope this new spam-blocker lets you post comments again.

I’ve been doing this blog for more than 10 years and over that time I have received very few comments, and I’ve never understood why. Some people who I actually know in person will occasionally send me emails with comments but I’ve always wondered why they don’t just post responses on the blog. That’s what happens on most blogs I’ve seen.

Now, early on I got a lot of comments, but they were about 99.5% spam. So I set up a spam-blocking plug-in on the site and that took care of things. But then I hardly got any comments at all.

Well, at some point I figured out the biggest reason was that anytime anyone tried to post a reply the system failed to carry through. The blog is run on WordPress so I went to an online meeting of a WordPress Meet-Up and asked if anyone there had any ideas. They all looked at the site right then as we were meeting and the only suggestion anyone could offer was to check to see if the plug-ins were causing a conflict. They said I should deactivate all of them and then reactivate them one by one and test each time to see if the system was working. If you activate a plug-in and suddenly things stop working then that’s your problem, probably.

I never got serious about this, but deactivated a couple that I figured were not essential, but no change. But just now I decided to try again. I was running one spam-blocker and it was showing that it needed to be updated. I clicked to update but that took me to a page where it said this domain name was available. What?

So I googled the name and found comments about the company shutting down and the plug-in causing systems to fail. Holy crap! So I deactivated that plug-in and tried to post a comment. It went through. And significantly, in the bare minute or so that that took me, I also received a spam comment. Just that quickly!

OK, I definitely need a spam-blocker so I reactivated another one I had installed but had been deactivated, Akismet. I don’t remember why I deactivated this one, quite some time ago, but maybe it was because they quit offering a free install and I was being cheap. Now they have a “pay what you want” option for non-commercial blogs so I chose that and agreed to pay a dollar a month. And boom, now I have a spam-blocker and it looks like you can finally offer comments again.

Anyone who wants to give it a try, please do. I’m going to be really pleased if this turns out to have solved this issue. Thanks.

Update April 11: Yeah, it looks like it’s working now. So is the spam-blocker. I’m now seeing hundreds of spam comments showing up in the spam folder every few days. If I had to dig through those looking for that stray actual comment it just wouldn’t be worth it.

Biker Quote for Today

My girlfriend, Ruth, fell off the back of my motorcycle. I rode on, ruthlessly.

A ride one day with some sidecar folks.

I’ve been busy and distracted and I find myself today looking for something to write about here. So I’m going to do something very unusual: punt. But I also have a question I want to ask you.

I’m putting in the usual photo of a motorcycle and I’m closing with the usual Biker Quote for Today. But that’s about all.

But about that question: Do you see that (now really old) photo of me on the right? Do you see underneath it those links for “Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS)? Does anyone still use those? Do you even know what they are? Unless someone asks me not to I’m just going to eliminate that.

It used to be that RSS, Really Simple Syndication, was a way for the reader to have all their blog feeds presented in one application. You would have an aggregator and tell it which RSS feeds you wanted and any time a new post went up you would see it in your aggregator.

But here’s what Digital Trends says about RSS these days: Is it still used online? Yes and no. RSS feeds are certainly still present (more on this later), but they aren’t as dominant as they once were. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others have become the go-to option for following sites, watching feeds, and learning about the latest content.

Frankly, I’m not even sure this code still works. So unless someone responds telling me they use the RSS feature I’m going to eliminate it.

Now on to what I know many of you primarily come here for, the quote!

Biker Quote for Today

The Tin Man to Dorothy: I did want a heart, but I decided a motorcycle would be a lot cooler. Besides, now I can give you a ride back to Kansas.

Just out for some fun.

It turns out that I have drawn from this Adventure Rider thread more recently than I remembered. Oh well, there’s a lot more where this came from. The idea is, what stupid questions have people asked you when you’re on your bike and stop somewhere? Here are some of them.

• Who makes Triumph? (I get this one a lot at gas stations).
• Stupid woman: “Motorcycles are dangerous!”
  Me: “Don’t you mean ‘riding motorcycles is dangerous’?”
  SW: “Yes.”
  Me: “Most people die in bed. So, where do you sleep?”
• In ’64 my buddy and I rolled up to the ranger’s hut at the Wildrose Station entrance to Death Valley on a pair of Vespa 125s on our way from San Jose to the Grand Canyon. Hard to mistake those Vespas – floor board / fairing front end with “VESPA” in big letters. The ranger leans out and comments,
  “Hondas, huh? How do they take the hills?”
• Got the Classic again last week.
  Nitwit “What is that?”
  Me “KTM 950 Adventure”
  Nitwit “Who makes it?”
  Me “KTM”
  Nitwit “Oh Its a Kawasaki”
  Me “Uhm,,,,,, Yeah”
  Pulled my helmet on and rode away laughing
• Stopped at a stop light in ATGATT. Crotch Rocket Guy pulls up next to me in T-shirt, shorts, and sneaks.
  CRG: “Planning on falling down?”
  Me: “Nope. Planning on getting up if I do.”
• Had a girl ask me not long ago how I was able to get my pipes such a pretty blue color!
• Riding to work each day in winter, other employees getting out of their cars in the parking lot without coats or jackets would ask me, “Aren’t you cold?”
  Nope, I’m the one with the warm coat.
• The receptionist has asked me if it’s hard to keep the motorcycle upright and if I can go as fast as a car.
• I stopped at a deli the other day and this woman looked at my jacket & boots and asked me if I was going skiing.
• A guy walks up from the rear of the bike and asks “How far of a trip are you on this time” I am less than 5 miles from the house, no luggage, tank bag, or anything strapped down on the tail rack, and I have Indiana plates on the bike in Indiana.
• Does that jacket make you hot?
  Nawww… but my wife thinks it does.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you own more black T-shirts then underwear.

On a motorcycle you are truly outside.

I try to avoid driving a car as much as possible but I don’t always ride motorcycles. For instance, any time I can ride the light rail rather than drive I do. And I walk. I walk a lot. And you know what? Walking has a lot in common with riding motorcycles.

I was walking to the gym the other day and as I went down the other side of our block I had three encounters in quick order. There is a house over there where the entire front yard is landscaped, using a lot of rock and with plants wedged in here and there. And it was bursting with green! Spring had definitely arrived in that yard. Now, since then we’ve had a soaking rain and it is Spring everywhere, but this was the first.

Two houses later I saw a squirrel in a tree, going in and out of a hole in the trunk. I had to wonder, how does a tree come to have a perfectly round hole like that? My presumption is that a limb grew there but died long ago. As the rest of the tree grew around it the limb itself eventually rotted away and then the critters probably clawed away the soft, dead wood and created this hole. It was interesting.

And another three houses down I heard clucking. Like chickens. And sure enough, there was a chicken coop next to the garage in the back yard. That was never there before.

So what does all this have to do with motorcycles? What do you tell non-riders when they ask what it’s like to ride a motorcycle? Almost invariably you will mention at some point how being on a bike puts you out in nature, not enclosed in a box away from nature. You’ll mention the smells that people in cars never smell. You’ll mention the micro-climates you experience that people in cars are totally unaware of. I know those are two of the things I noticed right away when I first started riding behind my friend John, before I bought my own bike.

Well, same with walking. All three of those things I described are things I would not have been at all aware of if I had been driving. Judy and I both go to the gym but she drives while I walk. I’m always telling her what’s going on in the neighborhood, things that I see because I walk that she misses because she drives.

Plus I get the exercise of walking.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than men: motorcycles don’t smell bad.