Passes & Canyons Blog

John and Bill and I started taking these OFMC trips more than 30 years ago and for an amazing number of years we did so with absolutely zero mechanical issues. Actually, it was very close in our seventh year, when Bill’s stator failed on him as he was heading to our rendezvous point. So technically it wasn’t on the trip. John and I left without him and a few days later he met up with us in Thermopolis, Wyoming.

It wasn’t until our 20th year that we actually had mechanical problems on the road. That year Jason was on his new Road King and while we were in Taos he and several other guys rode down a very rough road to a very much over-rated hot spring. Something jarred loose on the bike and caused him problems until he took the better part of a day at a Harley dealer getting it fixed.

Since then we have had periodic issues, and this year’s trip was definitely way up there.

For starters, as I’ve told of previously, I dropped my Concours in a parking lot and busted my left mirror assembly. That necessitated a kludgey repair but I was able to roll with no problem.

Then later that same day my right-side highway peg just fell off. Vibration had apparently just worked it loose over who knows how long a time. Miraculously it did not fall to the ground and get lost, it hung up on the fairing so when I was able to stop it was there for me to put in my bag and put back on later.

Then the day we headed out of Socorro we made a stop to view the Very Large Array. When we were ready to head on Bruce found that his bike would not start. He had left the key in the On position and the battery–probably very much near the end of its life–had gone dead. Fortunately, Bruce is very resourceful. He carries along a jump-starter outfit. This is a very small thing that consists of a cable to connect to the battery and a fully charged power source. He hooked it up, hit the starter, it fired, and we were off. Handy little device you’ve got there Bruce.

And then later that day we hit the big one. Riding in a rainstorm in Arizona, Bill did not dodge a big rock laying in the middle of the road. He took a terrific jolt but kept the bike up and then rode it all the rest of the way to our day’s destination. At which time his front tire promptly went flat. Another miracle.

Now Dennis and Bruce both pulled out little air pumps they carry and they tried to reinflate the tire. But the rim had been badly bent and it just wouldn’t hold air. But we had gotten all this way; can’t we get enough in there to force a seal again? Our host had an air compressor and hose so they tried that and it did get the tire filled. But just a couple hours later it was flat again.

This necessitated a tow to the next town where an inner tube was put in and we made it on to Farmington. But by morning the tire was flat again. Bruce’s air pump put in enough air so Bill could make it five miles to the local Harley dealer, where he ended up paying $2,000 for a new wheel and tire.

And that was finally the end of our troubles. It just leaves me wondering, how in the world did we make it 20 years without any mechanical problems. Just amazing luck I guess.

Biker Quote for Today

My motorcycle is like my wife. Very temperamental and showing signs of age. But stays by my side during the twists and long straights of life.

I had forgotten to mention one thing about our recent OFMC trip: all of a sudden my Concours decided to run well again.

I had been having a series of problems with this bike. I didn’t know how long this had been going on till just now when I looked back on times I’ve written about these problems. The first mention I encountered was from December 28, 2020. Almost two years. Dang.

At that time I told how I had rolled the bike out for a ride, fired it up and let it warm up, and then took off, only to have it die about 10 feet out of the driveway. It seemed to be acting the way it had in the past when I had inadvertently left the gas petcock on Prime rather then in the On or Reserve positions. Why this thing even has Prime I don’t understand. So I did what had worked in the past, I changed the oil. After that it ran fine and I thought I had solved the problem.

Not so easy. The next few times I rode it it wouldn’t run well at first and I would ride around the neighborhood before just to see before going further from home. It would die coming to a stop so I’d rev it a bit as I stopped.

I did some searching and found information suggesting maybe the air filter was clogged with oil, so I replaced the oil filter. No improvement so I checked on the Concours Owners Group forum and came up with the possibility of hydrolock. But as far as I could tell that was not the issue either so finally I resigned myself to calling in Joel, my mechanic, and paying the price.

But then I met a guy who suggested clearing the fuel line using carb cleaner. I did that and it helped a lot. Maybe I wouldn’t need to pay Joel after all. The immediate improvement was great and I hoped it would just get better and better. But it didn’t. Eventually I did have Joel clean the carburetors. By now it was April of 2021.

Come July of 2021 I went on the OFMC trip on the Concours after Joel had cleaned the carbs and the bike ran well but not perfectly. And at times it seemed like the throttle would stick and the engine would race like crazy at a stop and there was nothing I could do. Arrgh!

After that trip I had Joel work on it some more and it finally was good enough and I figured I’d just have to live with revving it a bit until it got fully warmed up, and accepting that it had a delayed response to twisting the throttle. Not great but livable. And that’s where matters rested as of October 2021 and all through 2022.

Until the day before this year’s OFMC trip. I was getting ready to leave and figured I should take the bike for a spin just to make sure it was operating well before I took off and miraculously it didn’t run OK, it ran great! It ran the best it had run in two years. No long warm-up needed, no delayed throttle response, none of that.

And then the next day and on the whole trip and every time I’ve ridden it since then it has run like a new bike again. The impression I get is that for a long time there was some blockage in the fuel line and all of a sudden, finally, it got cleared out all on its own. I’m so happy! It’s just night and day how much better it runs. FINALLY!!

Biker Quote for Today

The best invention after the wheel was putting two of them together.

Morning in Alpine, Arizona, and we had to wait for the tow truck to haul Bill’s Harley to Eager, where a shop would put a tube in. We had been told it would be noon but the guy was able to make it by 11, so that was good.

Meanwhile, I took this opportunity to remove the body work from my Concours so as to put my highway peg back on. Taking the body work off is an involved process that I hate but what better time to do it than right now. And it all went smoothly so it was good.

The tow truck arrived and loaded Bill on and we took off for Eager. There, the shop was ready for us and got on it right away but it was still several hours before the job was done. We finally got off from Eager about 3 p.m., and this was our longest day’s ride of the trip. Time to burn some miles.

We headed north on US 191, up to AZ61, which became NM53 when we crossed the state line, and then north to Gallup on NM602. At one point heading up 191 Bruce blasted past us on his ST1300 and in a flash was lost from view up ahead. Cool. What’s up?

Dennis was leading and at the AZ61 intersection he pulled over for a pit stop. Good thing, as it turned out, because he had not understood that we wanted to turn here and it was only after a couple minutes that we noticed Bruce had made the turn and was waiting over there. So we were back together. Turns out Bruce, who hasn’t owned the ST all that long, figured he wanted to see what it could really do and this road was so open and unbusy that he figured let’s go. And go he did. Everybody needs to do that now and then, don’t they?

So we made the turn and made it to Gallup, where we picked up US 491 headed north to Farmington, our destination for the night. This is a long stretch and we just blasted. Dennis was leading again and his GPS told him our best route would be to take 491 as far as Indian Service Route 5 (BIA-5; this is reservation) and then go east to NM371, then north to Farmington.

Dennis almost missed the turn and we found ourselves past the turn with a median preventing us from doing a U-turn and heading south so we waited till there was no traffic and then turned and rode the wrong way down the highway back to the turn. Of course, by the time we got there there was a lot of traffic coming off BIA-5 so I’m sure we looked kind of funny facing that way on that side of the road waiting to be able to turn. But it worked.

By now it was getting toward dusk. We don’t generally ride after dark these days. This was going to be interesting. Dennis was riding hard because he wanted to get to Farmington before the light was too much gone. But hey, sunset in New Mexico is frequently pretty gorgeous and so the ride did have its charms.

It was almost fully dark by the time we pulled into Farmington and we checked in our hotel and immediately went to dinner so as to get to the restaurant before they closed. Finally we can relax. Except that Bill had noticed his bike handling a bit off coming into town, and now especially going to and from dinner. ???

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you move your bike and the grass is brown under the wheels.

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.

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.’

I think I’ve got something figured out here. I have the vague notion that when you have a dealer put a new tire on your bike, they routinely put in a new valve stem. Maybe I’m mistaken, but that’s my notion. Regardless, I’m pretty certain now that Joel, my mechanic, does not. And in the future, any time I have him put on a new tire I will specify that I also want a new valve stem.

I had my first valve stem problem when I was getting ready to leave on the RMMRC‘s Great River Road ride. That necessitated that I take a different bike; not a big deal.

Well now I’ve had a second valve stem problem, and this was a lot bigger pain in the butt.

I’ve been taking some music classes over at Swallow Hill Music and so a couple weeks ago I headed over there on the Honda CB750 Custom, which had yet to be ridden in July. Just a few blocks away I noticed the handling on the bike was not as it should be, and it reminded me of the time when I had a flat back tire on the Concours. I got to Swallow Hill and parked and looked at the rear tire. It was fine. Great. I headed in.

When I came out and returned to the bike it was very obvious that my front tire was flat. Oh, dang. OK, I got here on it, if I can get air in the tire hopefully I can get home on it. I called Judy and asked her to bring my pump, figuring I’d put air in and she could follow me home, stopping if necessary to add more air along the way.

Judy arrived and I hooked the pump up but after way too long the pressure gauge was still showing no increased pressure. I turned it off and was disconnecting it when I heard a hiss at the valve stem. Sure enough, that’s where the problem was. And there was no way this bike was rideable.

I have roadside service through my American Motorcyclist Association membership so I called for a tow. It took a while to get through but I finally reached someone who took all my info and said I would be receiving a text message with the data on the company dispatched and their estimated time of arrival. We knew we had a wait in store.

The first part of the wait was not boring. We were at the corner of Lincoln and Yale, standing by the bike, when we heard tires screeching and a crash. Turning around, there was a Harley on its side, a rider on the ground, and a car stopped, all in the middle of the intersection. Holy crap. I went running to the guy, thinking about my recent crash scene management training.

The guy, an older, very gnarly-looking sort of old school Harley rider, was sitting up and bleeding badly from the left side of his head. The first step in crash scene management is to secure the location, and there were cars stopped in all directions so clearly nobody was going to come driving through and hit someone. The guy asked for a hand up and I hesitated. Another initial point in crash scene management was to do all you can to prevent the person from getting up and riding off, because they may suffer shock and once the adrenaline wears off they may find themselves completely incapable of even standing.

He asked for a hand up and I told him he really ought to just sit there for a few minutes. “F— that” he bellowed and insisted I help him up, which I did. Then he asked me and another guy to help him get the bike up, which we did. I was hoping he just wanted to move it out of the intersection but he climbed on, fired it up and rode away. Meanwhile, we could all see that the lobe of his left ear was almost completely ripped off, hanging by just a slender strip of skin.

Judy’s speculation was that he either had warrants out or else maybe he had been drinking or drugging and either way had no intention of dealing with the police. Who knows. Meanwhile, the young woman driving the car was on the phone with 911. She had not hit him; there had been no contact. I’m not sure what she had been doing, maybe a U-turn in the intersection, definitely not a left turn in front of him. All I got from her was that she was making her turn and he just wouldn’t wait for her to complete it. He must have swerved to avoid her but even that is odd because the bike fell on its right side and he was on the ground on its left. I have no idea what happened. The police were apparently never even dispatched to the scene.

We know this because we were there for another three hours, and they never showed up. After talking to the person I gave the tow request to we were told we would receive text updates and all we got were three messages saying sorry for the delay, we’re still trying to get someone to provide your service. After awhile my phone was going dead and Judy suggested we call again, using her phone, so I did.

Once we got through again I explained the situation and they escalated it to the supervisor and once again we were told we’d be messaged with update info. We finally did get a message, telling us who was coming and that it would probably be an hour and half more. Thank goodness we had Judy’s air conditioned car to sit it because we had no shade and the outside temperature was about 85.

Finally the tow guy showed up and I have to say, he was super nice. We were now late for a birthday party we were supposed to be heading to and he said go ahead to the party, I’ll get the bike safely to your house. Which he did, and then called to tell us he had done so. Nice guy.

So that’s twice now I’ve had valve stem issues. Valve stems are now very much on my radar.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if other people you consider bikers scare you.

We eight RMMRC riders left Red Wing the morning of Day 5 of this Great River Road ride and turned away from the river, headed for a house on a lake that was owned and rented out by Dave’s sister and her husband, in South Haven. I think it was at about this time that I decided to completely bag the idea I had started out with of doing a story for Rider magazine about this ride. For the kind of story they want you need to stop at interesting places, shoot a lot of pictures, and generally do more than just ride through without stopping. Which was not the way this group was traveling. Plus, now we were leaving the river entirely for the next 80 miles of its route. Nope, not going to happen.

The river goes right through Minneapolis/St. Paul and our route was south and west of the cities and then north to South Haven. Only about a 140-mile day. But first there was the question of Dave’s bike. Did buying a new battery make everything better? Or was the problem deeper? He had a full charge when we started out but it didn’t take long for him to see that the problem was not solved. We got southwest of Minneapolis and stopped, he looked to see where the nearest BMW dealer was, and we turned in that direction.

We got there and over the course of the next couple hours the shop did a diagnosis that showed the problem was the stator. A big deal. First off, the part would cost about $1,000; second, labor would be about $1,500; and third, they didn’t have one in stock. Big problem. As long as Dave kept charging his battery he could keep running. But what to do?

We headed on out to the lake with the only thing eventful about that being the driveway down to this house. Dave had warned us that it was extremely steep. My parents lived their retirement years on a lake like this in South Carolina and while their driveway was not excessive, there were plenty in the area where you might have a 150-foot driveway that drops 50 feet. Like this one. The difference being that my parents were in South Carolina where it rarely snows and this was in Minnesota. It snows in Minnesota. Frequently. A lot.

“How do you get to this place in winter?”

“We don’t.”

So we got there and one by one rode down, making sure each bike was out of the way of the others yet to come. This was uneventful until Charley dropped his bike at the bottom, the second time in two days he had dumped it. Unlike the day before, however, this was more of an event. I winced as I saw and heard his helmet crack sharply on the asphalt. Not good. But he was up quickly and later had no recollection that he had hit the ground like that. That’s why you wear a helmet. He also got his shin bloodied a bit by his highway peg. But basically not hurt.

While the rest of us relaxed and settled in for two nights Dave was on the phone and trying to figure out what to do. Should he try to ride home, counting on keeping the battery charged? Should he take the bike to a shop in the Twin Cities and wait for it to be fixed? Or leave it with them and fly home? And then fly back to get it and ride home or drive out with his wife in his truck with the trailer and trailer it home? Or maybe just trade it for a new bike right here. Decisions.

After four hard days of riding we were ready to be off the bikes. We went out on the lake in the boat, made a grocery run and got a lot of stuff for some good eating, and took it easy.

One issue lurked on our minds, though. Getting back up that hill. I was on my V-Strom, which has a ton of low-down torque, so I knew I’d be fine. I wasn’t so sure about Tom’s Vulcan in particular, and all of them considering there was no room to get a run at it. This would be start rolling and hit the hill in about five feet, then climb. The next day we moved the bikes around to get them all set up to just go at the hill.

Meanwhile, relax.

Biker Quote for Today

Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?

I got the V-Strom back from Joel and what a difference!

The chain and sprockets were badly worn and I guess that can contribute to a loss of power but the real factor seems to have been the air filter. You can see in that photo just how bad that was. When I started looking into when I had last had that replaced I was more than a little embarrassed to find the answer was, oh, maybe seven years ago.

I had been out on a four-day Colorado Cruise with the RMMRC about a month ago and really noticed that the bike had trouble going over the higher passes and also in keeping up with the rest of the group on their big, powerful bikes. One night on that trip I did some googling and ran across something that said a worn chain will reduce power, and that was what got me thinking about that.

But when I mentioned it to Joel he said yeah, that might have a tiny impact, but not all that much. That’s when I started thinking about other possibilities. When I hit on the air filter it all made a lot more sense. It’s really hard to give your all when you’re struggling just to breathe.

And did you look at that filter? All those bugs and other debris embedded in it? Not to mention the whole load of dirt! Man, if anyone ever wondered why you need an air filter, just imagine all that crap being sucked into your combustion chamber. Yikes!

So within an hour after Joel dropped the bike back at my place I was out on it seeing how it would run now. Night and day. Joel told me he figured it would have a lot more zip and boy was he right. Plus, with the new chain and sprockets all that slapping I had heard for so long was just gone. Yahoo!

I can’t say enough about having machines that work well. Not to mention having the money to keep them working well. Too well I remember my younger days driving crap cars because that was all I could afford. I don’t miss those days.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if it’s impossible to see out of your car or trucks rear window because of all the Harley stickers.