Passes & Canyons Blog

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.

I generally like to ride alone a lot but there is one thing that you lose when there’s no one else with you: swapping memories later. It’s only the times when you were together that you can say, “Oh hey, do you remember when we . . . .”

I’ve been riding with the OFMC for more than 30 years now and we’ve racked up a lot of memories. And isn’t it great to just sit and kick some of those times around now and then. Some of them were not fun when we were living them but we all know that some of the worst times present some of the best memories.

On this summer’s OFMC trip we were sitting around one night toward the end of the week and that’s the direction the discussion headed.

“Remember the last time we were here in the Black Hills and Steve and Johnathon and those other guys met us here, and we rode the Iron Mountain Road/Needles Highway loop and they liked it so much they went right back and did it again?”

“And it dumped rain on them so hard they thought the sun had gone down and were surprised when it passed that it was still daylight?”

“Oh, yeah. Man, I’m glad I didn’t go with them.”

That kind of thing.

“Or that other time we were here and Aaron Neville was giving a free concert on main street?”

“Right. And the young guys stayed out really late getting raging drunk and we had to stay another day so they could get over their hangovers!”

“Yeah, and do you remember how Todd just passed out sitting up in that chair, with his eyes open, just staring at me in my bed? That gave me the creeps. I had to get up and turn him so at least he wasn’t looking right at me.”

Yeah, that kind of thing.

Now, I have some pretty terrific memories from my rides alone, but there’s no one to share that knowing feeling like when someone was there with you. Still, they make good stories, and I do get to enjoy telling them. Come to think of it, that’s part of why I do this blog. You weren’t there so it’s all new to you. Did I ever tell you about the time . . .

Biker Quote for Today

During labor the pain is so great that a woman can almost imagine how a man feels when he can’t ride his motorcycle for a week.

This thing has been spreading (kind of like a virus) so you may have already seen it. If not, you came to the right place.

In this time of coronavirus pandemic there is constant talk of “social distancing,” that is, not getting too close to other people because they may infect you or you may infect them. So hey, what’s the best possible way to socialize but keep your distance? Riding motorcycles, of course.

Here’s a thing I got from an ABATE member.

BE ADVISED

Avoid crowded spaces — ride motorcycles.

Do not use public transportation — ride motorcycles.

Well ventilated spaces are virus free — ride motorcycles.

Protect your nose and mouth — ride motorcycles.

Recommended use of gloves — ride motorcycles.

Try not to touch contaminated surfaces — don’t let anyone touch your motorcycle.

Avoid shaking hands — do not remove your gloves when getting off the motorcycle.

Keep a safe distance from people who sneeze or cough — ride motorcycles.

Maintain a positive and prudent attitude — Only way to ride a motorcycle.

FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Wow, I couldn’t have said it better.

Biker Quote for Today

I need some time off from reality. Just a few days away from people and all their bull crap.

I was casting about for a topic for this post and I thought about motorcycle poetry. Was there something like that out there?

Turns out there definitely is. In fact there is even a Wikipedia page titled “Biker poetry.” According to whoever put up this page, “Biker poetry is a movement of poetry that grew out of the predominantly American lifestyle of the Biker and Motorcycle clubs following World War II.” Turns out there are even “notable biker poets.” I’ll let you explore those on your own if you’re interested.

So I started out doing a search for “motorcycle poetry.” That returned only, oh, about 22.5 million links. Really?

The top of the pile was allpoetry.com. This very broad site breaks out into subject matter and https://allpoetry.com/poems/about/motorcycle is where I ended up. Here’s a sampling of the titles.

• 2 wheel death machine
• Two Wheels To Heaven
• The ride
• Parade of Dog Voices
• Well, that’s what I gave you a key for, isn’t it
• Wear A Helmet
• Motorcycle Madness

There are a lot more. Are they any good?

I will say this: If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I close each post with a “Biker Quote for Today.” Reading through these poems I picked up a few lines that will be gracing that feature sooner or later.

But is the poetry good? Well, I would have to say, in my opinion, not much of it. No Pulitzer Prize winners here. But some of it is interesting, and the variety of subject matter is interesting as well.

For instance, that one I listed above, Parade of Dog Voices. The idea is of a biker going down the road and dogs in the yards he/she passes barking at the passing bike. Parade of Dog Voices–get it?

So anyway, if you’re interested to see what else is out there here are a few more links.

Hello Poetry (https://hellopoetry.com/words/motorcycle/)
Poetry Soup (https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/short/motorcycle)
Poetry By Chuck (https://www.charlesallenjohnson.com/motorcyclepoetry.htm)
Triumph Rat (https://www.triumphrat.net/biker-hang-out/179739-best-motorcycle-poetry.html)

Biker Quote for Today

A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle. — W H Auden

Reach back in your memory to those blissful times driving along on that hot summer day smelling the fresh cut hay, enjoying the dips into the ravines for the coolness they bring, and . . . Stop! You don’t remember those things? No, of course not, what was I thinking? You were in a car. You don’t have those experiences in a car; those are motorcycle experiences.

People who spend their lives riding in cars have no idea of how very “in the world” motorcyclists are, or how much “out of the world” they are in their metal, glass, and plastic cages. Especially now that nearly every car has air conditioning, motorists are closed up in their containers and inhabit their own controlled environments, largely oblivious to whatever is outside.

So what is outside? Oh, just the entire world.

There are smells outside the cage. Sure, sometimes those smells are diesel fumes and the like, but there are also smells of food coming from restaurants, newly mown grass, lilacs in bloom, sagebrush in the wide-open West, and the salt and seaweed smell of the ocean.

Temperatures change outside the cage. Of course the temperature will drop as you go up over a mountain pass, but it’s startling for first-time riders how, over just a tenth of a mile, even dropping into a wash to cross a creek, how much cooler it is in that dip.

There are sounds both inside and outside the cage, but some sounds are better than others. You’ll never hear the cry of a hawk with your windows rolled up and the CD player blaring. And you’ll never see a biker going down the road with screaming kids arguing in the back seat.

The whole world is outside the cage. If the sun is shining, it shines on you. If it’s raining, it rains on you. You feel the heat, you feel the cold, and you feel the delicious, balmy breath of Spring. You don’t have just a rectangle view of the world around you, your view in every direction is completely unobstructed.

And very few bikers ever fill the tank and ride until it needs filling again. Wide spots in the road are made for stretching the legs. View points are perfect for taking breaks. If you didn’t have time to make these sorts of stops you probably wouldn’t be on a bike in the first place. And at every stop you have time to really see, and smell, and hear, and feel the world around you just that much more.

The word is “sensuous.” The biker is in the environment and his senses are attuned to that environment. The motorist is in his cage, locked away from all but his unchanging pre-programmed environment. That’s why they’re called cagers.

Biker Quote for Today

Addicted? Possessed is a better word.