Nice logo for Ball O' String, no?

Vail Ride & Dine — Judy and I are going to join Jungle and Willie and others on this 3-night adventure, August 10-13. As always, luxury lodging and dining. You should join us.

Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Glacier Park Ride and Dine — Running from August 18 to September 1, you’ll visit the places mentioned as well as Flaming Gorge, Waterton Lakes Canadian National Park, and various other stops in Montana and Idaho.

Fall in Love with Italy — Willie and Jungle fell in love with Italy a long time ago, and so every chance they get they go back there, preferably leading a group of riders. No hard and fast dates yet but this tour will be in September.

Colorado and Utah National Parks Tour – Including eight nights of luxury lodging, you’ll visit Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and other scenic spots in these two states. This trip will run October 6-14.

If one of those catches your fancy, check it out. And I guarantee you’ll enjoy the time you spend with Willie and Jungle, in addition to the riding.

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You’re a biker wannabe if your saddle bags say “Gucci.”

You'll be cruising the Canadian Rockies if you take this tour from Seattle to Anchorage.

As the proprietor of Go 2 Motorcycle Tours, Dan has a need to move a few KLRs from Seattle to Anchorage. In exchange for you helping him get them there, he’ll set it all up and for your $1,300 you’ll get 10 days bike rental, a guide, and a support vehicle. What is not covered is gas, food, and lodging. Of course, it’s up to you to get to the starting point in Seattle, and also to get home then from Anchorage.

Let’s put this in perspective. I don’t know the details but this is all somehow in connection with a MotoQuest North to Alaska Tour that will be making the same ride at the same time. If you ride with MotoQuest your fees cover gas, food, and lodging, but the very cheapest option they offer is $3,400 if you ride your own bike and share a room. It’s $5,600 if you ride their bike and share a room.

That’s making Dan’s option sound pretty enticing, isn’t it?

Well, if you’re interested you have to decide quickly. The ride leaves Seattle on May 17 and arrives in Anchorage on May 26. You can get to Dan through his website or by email at go2mototours@yahoo.com.

Like the song says, “North! To Alaska! We’re going north, the rush is on.”

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Adventure begins when the pavement ends.

Most of us have learned a lot of lessons in motorcycling by doing things that make us say, “Oops, I guess I won’t do that again.” It’s called experience.

Well, the folks who work for the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) have between them an awful lot of experience. And somebody got the idea for them all to collect the tips they have picked up along the way and offer their wisdom to all riders. The result is the Rider Resources page on the AMA website. It’s worth a look.

The page has three sections, Riding, Wrenching, and Learning. Each section offers a variety of articles on different topics. For instance, under Riding they offer “33 Secrets for Smart Touring,” “Tips for Crossing the Border,” and “Keeping Warm.” Under Wrenching the topics include such as “Used-Bike Buying Checklist” and “The Bike Stopped. Now What?” “Books We Love to Read” and “Riding With Disabilities” are two of the topics under Learning.

A lot of the info is sure to be stuff most of us already know, though newbies will find it very helpful. A lot is not such common knowledge. For instance, among the 33 touring tips are some jewels like this: If you’re nearing the end of your riding day and want to set yourself up for a quick getaway in the morning, consider riding to the far side of the next city you reach before you stop for the night, eliminating urban traffic the next morning.

At the same time, I find it amusing that the piece on what to do if the bike stops on you doesn’t mention what is probably one of the biggest reasons for this sort of occurrence: the kill switch. Who among us hasn’t had the experience of the bike either dying or failing to start and after beating our heads against the wall for . . . how long? . . . realizing it was just the kill switch. It happened to me one time when I reached over to engage my throttle lock and inadvertently hit that switch. I was stopped there by the side of the road for 15 minutes before it dawned on me.

That shortcoming aside, however, a whole bunch of riders offering their best advice has to have something of value for just about any rider. Take a look and see what you can learn.

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You know you’re becoming addicted to riding when you crash your bicycle when you lock up the tire because you were trying to use the brake as a clutch lever.

Others are a bit more hesitant. They welcome some coaching, and even once they learn to ride they still welcome coaching to move to the next level. That’s where the AMA Conference Tour comes in. Organized by my friend Alisa Clickenger (aka MotoAdventureGal) and her associate, Karen Thomson, this ride is intended to help women riders gain confidence in and learn the ways of motorcycle touring.

I’m interpreting some of this from their website but as I read it, their name for their venture is Women’s Empowerment Motorcycle Tour, and this AMA Conference Tour is one of two they are promoting this year. The other is a 10-day Pacific Northwest Tour. Their first ever event was the original Women’s Empowerment Motorcycle Tour last year. (I’m sure Alisa will clarify this for me if I’ve got it wrong.)

So anyway, this AMA Conference Tour starts out in Denver on July 20 and is a 6-day ride to Carson City, NV, where the American Motorcyclist Association will be hosting the International Women & Motorcycling Conference.

As they note on the site, “Besides the normal tour itinerary and enjoyment, the tour will include pre-trip personal coaching, confidence building exercises, and during-tour seminars to give every rider a toolbox of skills they can rely on when planning or implementing their own future trips.”

Now, there’s no mention of the return trip, so I have the idea that once the riders get the experience going out there they’re going to get to put what they’ve learned into practice immediately getting home on their own.

So hey, great time. Road trip. Just ride the dang thing.

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Motorcycles make good girls do bad things!

If you’re like most touring motorcyclists you’re limited as to how far you can go by the amount of time you have off from your job. One way to expand your horizons is to ship your bike to some far-off destination, then fly out there and ride the bike home. But I’ve looked into this and it is pretty expensive. Not out of the question but darn pricey.

There’s another option and it could save you a lot of money. Using a website called uShip.com, you can post a notice as to what you want to ship, when, from where to where. Then carriers bid on your load, trying to undercut the competition in order to win your business. Once you select the bid you want to go with you are put in touch with that shipper. Afterward you both provide feedback which builds confidence on both sides for future shippers/carriers.

I had never heard of this site until they contacted me recently to inquire about placing an ad here on the Passes & Canyons website. That’s their text link over in the right-hand column, just below my picture. When Carlos told me what their business was I said hey, I want to do a post about you guys just to let people know you exist, because I think what you’re doing is great!

As I said, I’ve looked into shipping the bike before and it’s not cheap. But looking at the listings on the site right at this moment, here’s what I see. There’s a guy in Cheyenne who wants to ship his 1997 Honda Z50 to Austin, TX, and he has a low bid right now of $225. There’s another guy in Grand Junction who wants to send his 2001 Indian Scout to Lancaster, CA, and has a low bid of $532. Then another guy there in Junction has 1975 Suzuki re5 Rotary that he wants to ship to Sydney, Australia. He doesn’t have any bidders yet.

There are a lot of bikes waiting for bids. As a matter of fact, there might be a business opportunity here for someone with a truck. String a few of these shipments together and you could make some money.

So it’s free to list your load, and presumably (I didn’t dig deeply here) the hauler pays a percentage of the shipping fee to the folks running the site. Clearly there’s no guarantee, so if you absolutely have to get a bike to particular place by a specific date this might not work for you. But it might. And you’ve got nothing to lose by trying. The more flexible you can be, the better, I’m sure.

Then couple inexpensive shipping with a cheap airplane ticket and you could be set for a terrific ride in places you’ve just never had time to get to before. I tell you what, I’m going to be checking this out myself this summer. Judy and I have spoken numerous times of shipping the bike to Seattle or somewhere like that, flying out, and riding back. It just might happen.

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I don’t ride because I have a death wish, I ride because I wish to live.

Today is warm and sunny and that’s a good thing. We still have ice on our street, and more importantly, we still have ice between our driveway and the clear part of the street. I need that to be gone so I can get out on one of my motorcycles. By tomorrow it should be clear.

It’s the day after tomorrow that I’m particularly interested in. December 31 is the date for the Last Brass Monkey Run, as I’ve mentioned before. I’m planning to ride this year, and I’ll bet there are a lot of other people making similar plans. It’s not always possible but this year looks like a good one.

Of course, that also means I’ll almost certainly be out on both my bikes the following day. I make it a point to ride both bikes at least once every single month of every single year, and at this time of year you have to take advantage of the first opportunity you get. The weather can change and if you don’t ride today, tomorrow may not be an option. With good weather on January 1 you can pretty much assume I’ll be out riding.

Looking ahead to the new year, I’ve got some great trips planned. I’ve decided this is the year to expand my horizons, and to that end, I’m planning on heading to Ohio for the AMA’s Vintage Motorcycle Days. I’ve never ridden out in that part of the country, so this will be a long trip and it will be something completely new. Plus, I have a brother who lives in Ohio and he and a friend are in the process of opening a biker-oriented cafe in Michigan and of course he wants me to come out and tell the world about it. It’s a dirty job and all that. I’ve never ridden in Michigan before either.

But first we have some cold months to get through. All I ask is just a couple nice days in each of them.

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Yes, I have a problem — that there are 50 weeks of the year without Dakar!

Where are you going on your summer motorcycle trip in 2012? Are you already making plans?

A lot of people are, and many of them are coming to Colorado.

I know this because of the traffic patterns on this website. With last year being the one exception, traffic on the site reaches its lowest point in November and takes a sharp upturn in December. Then it climbs all the way through July or August before starting to decline again. Last year it actually dropped a hair in December from November, and then screamed higher in January. Who knows why.

I know the bulk of this increase in traffic is from people interested in coming here to ride because of the pages they visit and the exit links they click on. Right at this point, one of the most popular pages on the site is the Colorado Motorcycle Rentals and Tours page, and visitors click the links of numerous of the rental outfits listed there. Another popular page is Biker-Friendly Motels and Hotels. A third is Good for You to Know . . ., which discusses things like the type of clothing you should bring and other Colorado-specific riding information.

Of course, those of us who live here know how great a place Colorado is to ride. The group I ride with, the OFMC, takes a summer trip every year and some years we stay right here. It’s great to go to Montana or Idaho or Utah or any number of other states, but when you’ve got some of the very best right in your backyard, why not take advantage of it? Next year we are leaving the state, heading down to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but hey, we’ll have to ride through the Colorado mountains to get there. Oh, it’s a dirty job.

It’s not too early to start planning. And when winter has you cooped up and unable to ride, it’s nice to have something wonderful to look forward to. Come on summer!

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It’s not an adventure until someone says, “WTF are we doing here??”

Hooray, hooray! It took a long time but Rider magazine has published my feature article about crossing western Colorado on old U.S. 6, in the shadow of the superslab.

I had heard from Donya Carlson that it would be in the January 2012 issue, and I knew it should be arriving in my mail any day now. But over the last several days I’ve been in communication with three people who had already received their issues of Rider and seen my piece, while my issue had yet to arrive! Well, the mailman was here about 10 minutes ago and I finally got mine. Yes!

Now I’m hard at work on my next piece for Rider. Judy and I went on vacation to Seattle and British Columbia this summer and rented a Harley out of Vancouver to go riding for a few days. It was part of the plan all along to pitch the story to Rider, so I made sure to shoot a lot of pictures and take a lot of notes.

Once we got back I sent a letter pitching the idea, and they liked it. Now I need to get it written and select the photos to go with it and send it along. If they like it and want to publish it they will tell me that, and then, if things go like they did before, the note will say I can expect to see the piece in print in 12 to 18 months.

So I’m in the middle of the first draft right now, and I’ve got the photos narrowed down to about 40 or so. The article will go through three or four revisions and I’ll winnow the photos down to about 15. Then I’ll be eagerly awaiting a note that I hope will say they like it. If they do you will probably see it in print in 2013. Meanwhile, I want to be pitching them another story idea a whole lot sooner this next time.

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Time spent on a motorcycle is not deducted from your lifespan.

That’s when it can be good to turn to somebody else’s idea of a good route. And with the modern day convenience of the internet, that can mean Byways.org.

Scenic and historic byways are routes that probably include roads you’ve been on, but perhaps you’ve never combined them in quite the same manner. Take the Lariat Loop. I’ve heard of that route for many years but never really looked into where it goes until today. It starts in Golden, goes up Lookout Mountain and then snakes over to Bergen Park, to Evergreen, and down to Morrison. Then it follows CO 93 back to Golden. I’ve been on all those roads, but have I ever ridden that route all at one time? No.

So Byways.org lists 11 major byways in Colorado, along with 14 others that it says “may be incomplete or contain byways that overlap.” To give you an idea of what’s there, here’s a sampling.

Frontier Pathways Scenic and Historic Byway — Down west of Pueblo, this route runs to Westcliffe, past Bishop Castle, and past the Jackson Hill Stage Stop.

Santa Fe Trail — This ride comes in from Kansas and heads down into New Mexico following–what else?–the old Santa Fe Trail. One nice thing about Byways.org is that it shows you the continuation of roads like this because it covers all the states.

West Elk Loop — Starting and ending at Carbondale, this loop heads up over McClure Pass to Hotchkiss, takes the road through Crawford that runs along the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, crosses the dam and heads east into Gunnison, and then turns north to Crested Butte. From Crested Butte, it goes over Kebler Pass back down to CO 133 and back over McClure to Carbondale.

Of course, you don’t need to double back to Carbondale. Heck, you don’t need to do the loop at all. The point is, at least for me, to look at these byways with the idea of identifying roads that perhaps you have overlooked. Or maybe learn about spots along the way that you were unfamiliar with and worth a stop the next time you’re out that way.

Plus, this sort of site strikes me as an excellent resource when you’re planning a trip to an area you are not as familiar with as you are your own home state.

Or you can just continue to ride the same old roads. Totally up to you. Just thought I’d offer an idea.

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Adventure: The pursuit of life.

One of the OFMC guys emailed us all asking if we wanted to go for a ride on Sunday (yesterday). I replied that yes, I was planning to ride, but I wouldn’t be with them. My Sunday ride was in British Columbia.

On an Electra Glide Classic, rented from EagleRider in Vancouver, we took off on a loop east through Hope, up to Lytton, to Lillooet, and up and over and down to Whistler. I know, you’ll need to look at a map to see this, or maybe I’ll have to figure out Google Maps and set up a link. Suffice it to say that a) it was a terrific ride, and b) it was an exhausting ride. The thing with Whistler is that there’s only one road and to go anywhere you either go and backtrack or you take a very long loop. We did the loop. It was dark by the time we got back to Whistler.

So the first thing I have to say about riding in British Columbia is that it’s different than riding in Colorado. In Colorado we have some canyons but mostly we go up over passes, down through valleys, then up over more passes. In BC you basically go up one canyon, up another canyon, down another canyon, and on and on. And the big difference is that their hills here are so steep they make ours look like bunny slopes.

Picture this. You’re riding along a highway that is cut into the side of a steep slope. The river is 1,000 feet below you and then as far ahead as you can see the mountain rises 4,000 or 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the road. And it’s all at a very steep angle. You do some climbing, and you do get down to water level on occasion, but mostly it’s following the shoulder of the hillside on and on, with lots of curves but little climbing.

When we did climb it was up over the pass between Lillooet and Whistler. By then it was getting dark and it got cold. And as we started to climb we started accumulating raindrops on the windshield. Oh, oh, we don’t need to get wet now. But it was never more than a few drops so not so bad. I still got a minor bit of hypothermia that had me shaking once we got to Whistler until I got some hot tea in me. But we got here. At last! And we have the bike for another day so we have to go riding again. And there’s really nowhere else to go but back over to Lillooet and do a loop over there. At least that will allow us to see all that in daylight.

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Get on your knees every Sunday and pray the road throws you another curve.