Passes & Canyons Blog

Since I’m not able to ride again yet (four more weeks!) I’m running a little dry, so as I do at times like this I have turned again to threads on the Adventure Riders forum. This is the one titled “Stupid questions people ask you when stopped.” Time for some amusement.

• I had a Gold Wing Aspencade once. I insulated the left saddlebag with thin styrofoam to make it into an ice chest. It worked quite well. It would keep 24 cans of beer ice cold for 2 days in the hottest of summer weather. My buddies and I pulled into a gas station and, with the bike on the side stand, it started to drip. A passerby noticed the puddle under the bike and asked if the bike had air conditioning. “Yes,” I replied, “It does.”
• I’m standing next to the bike again in full ATTGATT and somebody asks “Your bike?” – I say Nooooo, it’s my Granny’s.
• After being pulled over by the local Police who have seen me on the DR a couple hundred times by now… “Is that thing street legal?” Me = Nope, it just has lights and a plate because I like the extra weight!
• Yesterday. It was raining, Grey and an all around dreary day. As I walked into a gas station dripping all over the place some guy speaks up: I bet you wish you are in a car today don’t ya?
  Me: That is a bet you would lose. (stepped to the counter and paid for purchase)
  Him: What do ya mean? You can’t be enjoying yourself!
  Me: You’ve never ridden a motorcycle have you? (Laughed and turned to walk out)
  Clerk: He rides every day rain or shine and always has a smile.
• One Sunday morning I was out for a ride in the Colorado back roads. The morning was fantastic and I had seen nary another driver. Coming over a hill and looking down, an officer of the law was sitting, apparently also enjoying the lonely Sunday morning. I was well in excess of the posted speed limit. I pulled up to him and stopped. He got out of his car and walked across the road to me. “Nice morning for a ride.”
  “Yes sir,” I said.
  “If you would slow up some you will have many more.”
  “Yes sir,” I said.
  “Have a nice day,” he said, and walked back to his car.
  It was a great day.
• Last week, it’s snowing like hell and I stop at a light while riding to work. (already 2 inches on the road, no studs B.T.W.) and the yuck next to me asks out his rolled down window… “You know it’s snowing don’t you?” Me = “Nah! Hadn’t noticed.”
• I was driving my 1200 LT and notice that a guy was following me in his car. At a red light he pulls over and says: Wowww what a bike! For that money you might have bought a car instead!
• Stopped at a gas station today… some random guy came up and ask me if my 1982 BMW R65LS was a Harley Davidson… :huh? I guess the BMW badge on the tank, tail, bikini fairing and on my license plate bracket wasn’t enough of a hint that it wasn’t an HD. I toyed with the guy saying “Yeah, it’s one of those boxer twins that HD is FAMOUS for…” and rode off.
• My ride is an FJR1300. Not the fastest or most powerful bike on the planet, but definitely no slouch. Was at a gas station one day and a guy walks up to me and asks “Do you need all that power or do you just want it?” “Both,” I replied.
• I kid you not, I was stopped at an intersection with two other guys on bikes and a troglodyte waltzes up and asks “are those motorcycles?”

OK, calling it a day. Hope you got a chuckle.

Biker Quote for Today

Bike to work. Bike to play. Bike tomorrow. Bike today.

I was in the waiting area of couches, chairs, and refreshments at Fay Myers while they were putting my new front tire on the V-Strom and changing the oil and I noticed this magazine there on the table. VAHNA it was called, and they had a bunch of issues. I had never heard of this so I picked one up to look at.

It’s a motorcycle magazine, one I had never heard of, and what a nice magazine. Super high-quality reproduction on heavy paper and perfect binding. (“Perfect binding is a bookbinding method where pages are glued together along the spine, and then a cover is wrapped around the glued spine, resulting in a softcover book with clean, trimmed edges”–per the AI search results.)

Opening it up I was amazed. More photos than writing, it was full-page-spreads and double-page spreads of fabulous photos of motorcycles, mostly out off-road. It was gorgeous. But the writing was really good, too. Heck, I pulled out my phone and shot pictures of several pages as a quick and easy way to save the writing that I could see would be great to use in the quotes I end this blog with each time.

I also noted why Fay Myers has all these issues sitting there: toward the back of each issue was a full-page Fay Myers ad.

So I was really interested. What the heck is this magazine? When I got home I sat down at the computer and searched. First of all I looked for the meaning of VAHNA. I expected it would be an acronym for some motorcycle trade organization. Nope. Here’s the AI explanation: In the context of Indian mythology, “vahna” refers to a creature or vehicle that serves as a mount for a god. It’s a Hindi word derived from Sanskrit “vaha,” meaning “to carry.”

OK, so that’s cool. What a great name for a motorcycle magazine. We do ride the mounts of gods. We all know this.

But still, what is this magazine?

It turns out that VAHNA is more than a magazine. They make films and host a film festival. They’ll be launching a podcast this summer. They had a film festival tour that came to Denver for two days in January but I never heard about it. Darn. I’m going to get myself on their email list.

And the magazine? I did some searching before I found their site and a lot of people were saying the magazine was no longer being published. But as far as I can tell they are wrong. Or maybe it has gone online only. Not sure. But the site has articles posted as recently as March 5, 2025.

You should definitely check this out. I’d suggest doing so on a desktop computer just so you can fully appreciate the photography–a cellphone screen just won’t do it justice.

So you can file this under “gosh Ken, thanks for telling me about this.”

Biker Quote for Today

Feet on the pegs, head in the clouds.

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.

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.

I periodically go through the links on the Passes & Canyons website, testing them all and removing any that are no longer good. Far less frequently I go through my bookmarks in my browser to see what is still functioning and what is not.

Here are a few sites you may find interesting, as well as a few you have missed.

• Bikerpunks.com – Watch Motorcycle Videos, Sportbike Videos! — Gone. Yeah, there are plenty of videos out there, but it was nice to have a whole bunch in one place.
• blindspotcycles.com — Sorry to see this is gone. This was a guy who made a business of converting old gas-driven bikes to electric. I did a couple pieces about him and his bikes but I guess he has moved on.
• Colorado Front Range Tag-O-Rama — Not a site, but a thread on Adventure Rider. These guys go out and shoot photos of their bikes by some unique or odd building or natural feature or whatever, post them, and then the others have to figure out where this is and go shoot their bikes in the same place. Then the new winner posts another spot and it keeps going. I have participated in this but not recently so I’m glad to see they’re still going.
• Motorcycle Escape and Top Ten favorite rides and getaways — Another page on a bigger site, in this case Motorcyclist magazine. The title here is self-explanatory and the rides recommended are still good ones.
• Motorcycle Museums | Enginecycle® Motorcycle Directory—U.S. — Gone. Too bad. This was a directory to the motorcycle museums around the country. But I’m guessing others have stepped up to fill this niche. This site, Rumble On, looks good.
• Tilting Motor Works — I’m glad to see this guy is making it. He designed a two-wheeled, tilting front end for a few Harleys, Indians, and Hondas. None of this drives-like-a-car business of most motorcycle trikes. They’re not inexpensive, however.
• Motorcycle Travel in Hope, Whistler and the Sea to Sky Highway — Oh yeah, shameless plug. This is a link to a story I wrote for Rider magazine a few years back.
• Twisted Road — This one is definitely worth bookmarking. Are you going to be away from home and would like a bike to ride but don’t want to pay the high price of the big guys? Twisted Road is a peer-to-peer network where I could rent you my V-Strom, saving you money and putting some cash in my pocket.
• Byways — Subtitled “Exploring Our Nation’s Scenic Byways,” this site shows you some of the best roads in each state. Who knew there were 11 scenic byways in Kansas.
• AllPoetry.com — This one’s a bit different. It’s a poetry site and they have a page for motorcycle poetry. Check it out, there’s some interesting stuff here.
• Redleg (Dom Pacheco) is one of the most intrepid riders I know. He rides sidecar rigs and goes everywhere and almost totally ignores silly things like weather. And he chronicles it all here on his blog, A Redleg’s Rides.

OK, I’ve gone through about a third of my motorcycle bookmarks, and two things are evident. First, an awful lot of sites and blogs come and go. Second, considering I’ve been posting this blog regularly for 16 years I guess I must be one of the real old-timers. Dom is, too. We’ve both been blogging since 2006. Thanks for reading.

Biker Quote for Today

An engineering student is walking on campus one day when another engineer rides up on a shiny new motorcycle.
“Where did you get such a rocking bike?” asked the first.
The second engineer replied “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, ‘Take what you want.'”
The first engineer nodded approvingly “Good choice, the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit!”

I’ve been reading Rider magazine for as long as I’ve been riding. John had a friend who rode, who died, and his widow gave John a bunch of the guy’s magazines, which John passed on to me after he had read them. One was Rider. I remember the cover photo on that first issue featured the Honda Pacific Coast, which was brand new.

A lot has changed with motorcycle magazines since then, with some folding and others going digital-only. Somewhere maybe about a year ago it occurred to me that I had not received an issue of Rider for quite some time. Had they folded? Quit publishing on paper? Had I allowed my subscription to expire? Had they gone digital-only and was I still being automatically renewed while not getting anything for my money?

I sent an email to their subscription department. (They definitely had not simply folded.) Was my subscription current, I asked, and if so, why had I not received any issues? Had they gone digital-only? Because if so I would probably choose to cancel my subscription. Or were they still publishing a hard copy that I just was not receiving?

I got a reply that due to Covid they had halted printing hard copies but all the latest issues were available online, and yes my subscription was still current. But most importantly, they were resuming hard copy publishing with the December 2021 issue, and to compensate me for missing so many issues they were extending my subscription. In fact, when that issue arrived I saw that they had extended my subscription for two full years. Nice. Thanks.

So this first hard-copy issue had a bunch of surprises in it. Mark Tuttle, the editor-in-chief since forever has left. Retired I assume. There in the lead piece, always written by Mark, was Greg Drevenstedt. Holy smokes.

This drove me to see when it was that Mark left. I’ve worked with Mark for years and am still sitting on a story I pitched to him that got delayed repeatedly. So I dug into the online-only issues. It turned out that Mark’s last issue was December 2020. I found this by working backward to see when Greg’s first issue was, and found that in January 2021. But then there was another surprise in store for me in that issue: Clement Salvadori was retiring and the January 2021 issue was his last.

Holy smokes again. Clem had been with Rider since before I started reading the magazine. He was one of my favorite writers. Oh my gosh.

Life moves on, I guess. Things change. Meanwhile, though, it’s nice to be receiving Rider in the mail again.

Biker Quote for Today

I used to own a motorcycle that couldn’t go anywhere. Later I found out it was because it was two tired.