Passes & Canyons Blog

As I reported on Examiner.com, Harley-Davidson has signed on to be the chief sponsor of the 2011 Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge. What I didn’t mention in that report was the wave of skepticism that immediately followed that announcement.

For instance, Todd8080 has been to several such reports with his comment saying:

Have traffic laws in all of the lower 48 states suddenly changed overnight? Up until now it’s been illegal to race any vehicle for money on public roads in every single state.

You can call Hoka Hey an “endurance challenge” or anything else you choose, but the fact remains whoever gets to the finish line first wins the cash, and that’s called racing in any language.

No one has the right to jeopardize the driving public (in 48 states no less) by conducting an illegal race on public roads. Last year’s Hoka Hey was fraught with death and serious injuries, and not just to the race participants.

Over on Cyril Huze’s blog, Grayhawk offered this:

One might surmise that this sponsorship might put HD at the top of the grief list and the deepest pocket if the 2011 event repeats itself in confusion, issues, deaths, publicity, etc. from their 2010 effort no matter the assurances it will be different, your words from an excerpt above specifically, “stretching the boundaries”, may be deemed by some as encouragement to extend man and machine past it/their capability to reap monetary rewards. Event insurance alone may not suffice the negative impacts if this event goes south, just asking.

Now, with Harley as the sponsor, it would not be surprising if competition was limited to H-D riders, and that may be the case but it may not. The Hoka Hey home page says “The Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge is open to riders of Harley-Davidson motorcycles” but on the Entry page it says “This year’s event will be open to riders of V-twin, air-cooled motorcycles.”

The general opinion on that limitation, if it is in fact the case, is just fine: He who pays the piper calls the tune. Again over at Cyril Huze, TommyBoy remarked:

So, the Hoka Hey is now supported by Harley and only Harley motorcycles can participate!!!!!! Surely, the boys Harley & Davidson are looking down and smiling as once again The Motor Company eliminates Indian from what could have been a tremendous advertising/growth opportunity.

Some of the objections to the Hoka Hey right from the start have come from members of the Iron Butt Association, many of whom consider the Hoka Hey to be dangerous and badly conceived. I suspect they also fear it may have repercussions that will damage their own events. A commenter on my Examiner page, who oddly chose to identify himself by the name “IBA,” had this to say:

I knew it wouldn’t take long before the IBA whiners started chiming in. You have your rally, so go away already. If IBA was so great you would be the one with the big sponsors and prize money events rather than making your riders do all the documentation and work then pay too much for a patch they can get made for $2. IBA is a great idea in the hands of the wrong people.

So the Hoka Hey is back for 2011, and whatever its merits or deficits, it’s getting a lot of attention. I see this first hand when I check my Google Analytics statistics for the three days since I posted that sponsorship article. In that time fully one-third of my readers have been to that story, and its readership outstrips the No. 2 story 15 to 1. Yikes!

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As I get older and more fragile, my bikes get bigger, heavier, and more powerful….Another beer please!

I’ve been up-front about my disinclination to even try doing an Iron Butt ride but Dan Leffert has managed to plant a seed. (That’s Dan in the picture. Notice that Iron Butt pin on his hat.)

The Iron Butt Association (IBA), of course, is a group of motorcyclists who have ridden 1,000 miles in 24 hours. Their slogan is “World’s Toughest Riders.”

The longest rides I’ve ever done have been around 500 miles, and I’ve done that three times. They were doable but I had no desire whatsoever to continue and cover that same distance again all in the same day.

I mentioned that fact in a recent post here, “What I Want to Do: Motorcycle Bucket Lists,” where Dan, an Iron Butt rider himself, read it. He tells me he made a note to contact me and see if he might change my mind. Then my editor at RumBum.com asked me to do a profile on an Iron Butt rider so, long story short, I posted a note on the IBA forum where Dan saw it and gave me a call.

Dan and I met on Saturday and talked. The story that will come out of that will presumably be posted on Rum Bum on Feb. 9, unless my editor does something unexpected, which happens. What I want to tell you now, though, is what that headline above suggests. Dan got to me, just a little. He’s made me start thinking about it.

Turns out Dan is helping organize an Iron Butt event here in Colorado in September. For beginners, they’ll be doing a three-pointed star ride that will start in Denver, go south to Trinidad, back to Denver, west to Grand Junction, back to Denver, then northeast to Brush, and back once again to Denver.

That’s a lot of riding in one day. I’ve ridden from Denver to Grand Junction and the reverse, but never both in the same day. That alone looks like a lot to me. But what makes this at least a tiny bit appealing is that I could try it and go to Trinidad and if, when I got back to Denver I didn’t want to go any further I could just stop.

One thing that has put me off in the past is the idea that if I started a ride, once I was a few hundred miles from home, if I wanted to chuck the idea, I’d be stuck riding at least another few hundred miles to get back home. The star route eliminates that issue.

Now suppose I went to Trinidad and back and then headed for Grand Junction. That would, all by itself, be the longest day’s ride I’ve ever done. But I have a brother who lives in Grand Junction so if I got there and just didn’t want to ride any further I would have a place to spend the night. And if I did go back to Denver, once again, I could call it off at that point.

But I suspect that if I made it that far it would be hard to resist the relatively short run out to Brush and back to Denver to make it complete.

So I don’t know. I’m still very skeptical, but Dan got the seed planted. We’ll see. I’ve got till September to make up my mind.

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It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Just a heads-up here for anyone who might want to join in the fun. Tag-O-Rama has hit Colorado.

What the heck is Tag-O-Rama? I thought you’d never ask.

A game of Tag-O-Rama starts when someone goes out on their motorcycle to some place where there is a distinctive building or some other kind of landmark and then shoots a picture with their bike in the picture with the landmark. The photo is then posted with clues on an Internet forum, such as Adventure Riders, and the game is on. That photo above of the Spyder at Red Rocks would be a good example.

The first person who can identify the location, go get a shot of their bike with the landmark, and get that shot posted gets the tag. It is then up to them to pick another landmark, shoot a shot with their bike, and post it.

From what I read, Tag-O-Rama is very popular out east, although they don’t face some of the challenges we do out here. As one person noted, we have counties larger than some of their states.

So anyway, Charleetho on Adventure Riders got this game going on Dec. 24 with a photo of his Beemer outside Vintage Motos in Denver. The game has gone in spurts as cold weather and snow have created some delays, and most recently the place has centered on the Colorado Springs area. Denver metro area players are calling for someone to bring the tag back north so perhaps we’ll get some rivalry going on.

Check it out if you’d like to join in. Here’s the link:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=646566

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He who dies with the biggest gas tank–wins.

For the biggest and most important motorcycle show in the country, it’s really bizarre the cities that the International Motorcycle Shows visit. And by the way, this year there is “Progressive” on the front of that name, whereas the past few years at least the first part of the name was “Cycle World.” New major sponsor, new name, presumably.

Back to what I was saying. So what cities does the show visit? Nothing surprising in New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and those. But while you won’t see Kansas City, Phoenix, Denver, or anything west of the Mississippi other than the west coast, you do have Greenville, SC. Now what’s that all about? Greenville?

Doesn’t matter, it works for me. I made the decision this year that if the IMS wasn’t going to come anywhere close to me, I would go to it. And conveniently enough, my mother lives just 40 miles from Greenville. So I arranged for my press pass, booked my flights, and told my mother I was coming to visit. And oh, don’t expect to see much of me because I’ll be spending all day for several days in a row at the show.

Yeah, I will spend time with my mom, too. I’ll go down a couple days early and stay a couple days after the show. And I won’t have to pay for a hotel room. That helps.

So this is just a heads-up. I’m absolutely certain I’ll have some interesting stories to tell you after this is all done. Check back in about six weeks.

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