OK, normally I would have a post today that has to do with motorcycles. However, because my web host did some upgrading of their servers it was necessary for them to update my version of WordPress, which is what I use for this blog. And as always happens when they do that, it broke some of the pieces. So today I’ll spend my time fixing the blog. Sorry.
If you’ve surfed around the Passes and Canyons website you know that I have a page listing upcoming motorcycle rides, rallies, and other events. One recurring event that has moved around the metro area week to week all summer is the Road Rage Car, Truck & Bike Show, put on by Pro Players Association as a fund-raiser for a variety of charitable organizations.
Road Rage was close to me this weekend so I figured it was time to check it out and see what it was all about. My timing could have been a lot better, though.
For starters, the event had been scheduled to be included as part of Englewood Days but those plans went awry and it was moved to the parking lot of Wal-Mart just off Arapahoe and Havana. It was a nice day for a ride in the mountains so I did that first, and so I arrived at Road Rage about 2:30 in the afternoon.
What I found was not exciting. There were just a few show cars and trucks and only two motorcycles. There was also a band playing but there were not very many people around.
Heading, of course, to the two bikes, I met Chuck Shortt, who runs Rocky Mountain Custom Bikes in Larkspur. I’ve got to tell you, Chuck does nice work. What I especially liked was the (former) Suzuki Intruder he worked over for his wife. That’s the one in the picture. Chuck tells me he builds custom bikes and also does repair work, so if you have a custom bike in need of some work, you might want to look him up.
With Chuck’s assistance I identified Gary Adler, the president of Pro Players Association and the organizer of the event. I went over and introduced myself and the first thing I said was that I expected there to be more to this event. Gary sighed and filled me in on everything that went wrong for him this week. In addition to having to relocate at the last minute and the problems of making people aware of the move in time, he had competition just to the south, in the form of a big custom show going on at Arapahoe County Airport. In fact, jets were doing flyovers as part of this show as we talked. Pretty hard to compete with.
Additionally, Gary told me he normally has some former Broncos on hand at these events for people to meet and talk to, but this weekend was Broncos’ Reunion Weekend and all the guys were off playing golf. And then he showed me some photos from earlier in the day when there were a lot more show vehicles present. Apparently the guys who bring their toys to show off don’t like sticking around all day, so my coming later meant I missed a lot of them.
Bottom line, while this particular Road Rage show was a benefit for the Military Families Relief Fund, I’d have to guess the group didn’t profit all that much from it. I know Gary was feeling pretty frustrated.
So, while I would have liked to have reported that this was a great event that you really ought to hit, I guess I’m going to have to check it out again when the situation is more normal. And I’ll make it a point to go earlier in the day. That won’t be any time soon, however, because this was the last Road Rage show of this year. I guess we’ll just stay tuned for next year.
May all your encounters with the law start with the words . . . “Nice bike!”
Every year at the start of the year I make note of how many miles I’ve ridden my bikes and driven my car in the previous year. Then I set goals for myself, high goals for the bikes and low goals for the car. I figured it was time to check and see how I’m doing so far this year.
The answer is, very nicely thank you. In the first nine months of 2008 I have put 2,305 miles on my Honda CB750 Custom, 1,278 on my Kawasaki Concours, and only 3,739 miles on my Hyundai Elantra. My goals for the year are, respectively, 1,000; 2,500; and 11,000.
So I’m already way over on the Honda, due primarily to the fact that I took it on the summer OFMC trip rather than the Kawi. The numbers on the two bikes would be approximately reversed if I had ridden the Kawi. That would be right in line with my goals. And there are still three months left in the year!
Of course the big deal is the car. Fewer than 4,000 miles so far, with a goal of not exceeding 11,000. I think I’ll make it. That current 3,739 on the car compares with a total of 3,583 miles on the two bikes. That was really why I wanted to check these numbers now. I wondered if I’d been putting more miles on the bikes than on the car. No, but darn close. I figure it will be really cool if I do put more on the bikes. This gives me incentive to try just a little harder. We’ll see at the end of the year where it all stands.
I don’t need a reason to ride . . . just a direction.
All of us have encountered flying objects or objects in the road ahead of us. It comes with the territory. Awhile back I found a thread on a motorcycle forum where people were asked to tell about their encounters. I did two posts back then, sharing some of the postings with the readers of this blog: Motorcycles and Flying Objects, and More Flying Object Tales.
Well, it’s time for another batch. The thread is alive and continues to receive posts.
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Back in my youth, in the mid 70’s – I was coming back into town from some cowtrailing on my Yamaha 175. Just got to where the road opened up to 4 lane, saw that I was closing in on some oil field trash (top level Merc with dried mud halfway up the windows). They were shedding little bits of mud as they went, so I decided to move to the other lane to miss that – when they hit a bump and let loose quite a mud-clod storm, and this long tubular object the width of the car….that turned out to be a rattlesnake! That bad boy had apparently been all cozy inside their back bumper, all stretched out.
He was doing some interesting spirals as he rolled down the road, and I passed him. Not much other traffic, so he had time to get clear – just glad I didn’t leave near there!
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On the bike I hit a bat that was flying through the woods, hit me in the shoulder, actually hurt a Lot, but didn’t dislodge me, and didn’t kill the bat – which after a moment departed my shoulder.
In the car I drove through a plate glass window which came off the back of a truck.. had it not fallen the way it did – I drove through it like it was a wall before it hit the ground – had it not – had it stayed parallel to the road I’d have been dead.
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I was riding some very curvey roads in east TN and was following a buddy of mine. He scared a hawk that had just made a kill on the side of the road. Who knows, maybe a mouse or something. When my buddy startled it, it took to the sky and came across the road right at me. It swooped up, I ducked down. All I heard were its talons clicking when they hit my helmet. No injuries to either of us.. Just a good story (of course better told in person).
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3 lane highway…noticed a truck about 2 cars ahead in the slow lane…full of old furniture…that “gut” voice said move over to the fast lane…fast…
About 2 min later a coffee table came out and shattered in the middle lane…I missed it completely…
WHEW!!
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Tuesday after work I took my usual dirt detour on the way home over Hog Creek. Right off the bat, had a couple deer run across the road, no biggie, usually see at least a half dozen on this trip.
I get over the first good hill and start down the other side. It’s a pretty good slope with sharp twisty corners and lots of loose gravel. I’m running about 40 mph when all of the sudden a fairly large black bear comes out of nowhere up the bank and almost T-bones me!
I locked the rear and started fish tailing and I yelled out WHOOOOAAAA! The bear turned and ran a few yards in front of me before heading down a near vertical cat slide.
I got off the brakes and gave her some throttle and saved myself from going down. I was feeling a little edgy though and the ol’ ticker was getting a good workout
So I stopped up on the next hill and drank an Obsidian Stout to calm the nerves.
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* Sheet of plywood, skimming along in front of me at about 50mph – when I swerved, it drifted my way, etc – Wonder what would have happened if I’d tried to ride straight over it?
* Burning truck tire in the middle lane of a near-deserted M4 at 1:00am in the pouring rain – Wafting smoke obscured it until I was almost right on top of it – Smelled it before I could see it. – Caused a bit of a pucker
* Found a box of high-explosive shaped charges laying by the side of I-10 on my way to work one day – Didn’t nearly hit them and wasn’t on bike but it was certainly unusual – Picked them all up, put them back in the box and in back of my truck then called State Police. Had an interesting conversation with trooper when he finally got there.
* Empty plastic garbage can blew right in front of me on a city street at about 45 mph – Big GS and I blasted right through it with a bang – Saw lots of bits in mirror – No damage to me or bike.
Everyone is trying to kill you. Really TRYING.
Today I just want to point you to an interesting article I ran across on the MotorcycleUSA.com website. It discusses the many variations on the motorcycle theme that have been tried over the last 140 years and then turns to what future bikes may look like. Now, I’m not saying visually, I’m talking about their power plant and methods of motivation.
Bart Madson, the writer, starts out describing what is believed to be the first motorcycle ever invented, which ran on a twin-cylinder steam engine. A charcoal-fired stove sat under the seat to create the steam.
Then he continues saying:
Due to environmental concerns and the fact that $4/gallon gas is now a reality, the desire for alternatives to the internal combustion engine are more in demand than ever before. So, like automobiles, future motorcycles figure to be greener, more efficient machines.
He then goes on to talk about electric bikes, fuel-cell powered bikes, and even bikes that run on compressed air. All of these are under development somewhere, and some are available now.
Madson focused specifically on bikes such as the Suzuki Crosscage, the Piaggio HyS Hybrid, the Killacycle, the electrobike Pi, the Zero X, the Brammo Enertia, the Vectrix ZEV, and the Yamaha BOBBY. Never heard of any of those? Neither had I. Interesting stuff.
Go check them out. You could be riding one of these some day.
The best modifications cannot be seen from the outside.
It’s not that we hate advertising on television or radio, it’s that we hate boring, who-gives-a-damn stuff that just interferes with the show. If an ad is really entertaining, heck, people will go to YouTube just to watch it.
The Allstate Garage is an online ad for Allstate Insurance, and it is one of those you actually want to watch. It’s called viral advertising, and in this case it works.
You can see from the image here that you’ve got three guys in a shop, and what they’re doing is building a motorcycle right before your eyes. They actually do it and it takes about 15 minutes, so you might want to do something else and check back in every couple minutes.
But there’s a lot more going on than just building the bike. For instance, the TV fritzes off and on periodically and if you click on it it takes you to some information about Allstate insurance. Likewise, you can click on the telephone, the yellow warning sign, and a whole lot else to bring up other information.
Most interesting, however, is clicking on the link that opens when you move your cursor to the bike being built. That link will allow you to custom build your own bike. Pick the frame. Pick the tank, the seat, the fork, and on and on. Don’t like your selection? Pick something different. Customize to your heart’s content.
This thing is really kind of fun. It’s advertising, but who cares?
Practice wrenching on your own bike.
I have to tell you, I’m amazed. You may recall that I announced in early April that this Passes and Canyons, Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website had had more than 3,000 unique visitors in the month of March, the first time it ever hit that level. It took 2 years and 5 months to go from zero to 3,000, so I was pretty excited.
Then I was really excited to be able to announce in June that the total of unique visitors for May had passed 4,000. That’s 29 months to go from zero to 3,000, but only 2 months to go from 3,000 to 4,000.
So you might be thinking now that I’m going to tell you the number went from 4,000 to 5,000 in July, but you would be wrong. It went over 6,000! I am just blown away! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your interest. I do this website as a labor of love and it matters immensely that someone out there appreciates my efforts.
Now, knowing the month to month trends, I have every expectation that the numbers will drop off in the immediate future. That’s the way it has worked every year up to now, so I see no reason to expect anything different. But that’s fine. I have a lot of new material that I’m in the process of adding, so when next year’s surge comes you and all the other visitors will have a lot more hopefully useful information available.
Thank you.
I only feel like riding my motorcycle on days that end with the letter “Y.”
If you’re interested in some terrific old motorcycle videos I strongly recommend you visit helmethairblog.com. Not all of this blog is videos but the author, Jesper Bram, of Denmark, is good at finding really fun and interesting stuff and posting it.
Here’s one of the recent videos he posted. See for yourself.
Life may begin at 30, but it doesn’t get real interesting until about 110.
I
ride and I write. This is where I bring it all together.
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