Passes & Canyons Blog

For a lot of people, getting into riding motorcycles consists of simply throwing their legs over the bike and riding off. Never mind that that may be just a bit less preparation than would be good, most do eventually figure it out.

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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Biker Quote for Today

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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Biker Quote for Today

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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Biker Quote for Today

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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Biker Quote for Today

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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Biker Quote for Today

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

Do you ever feel like going for a ride on your motorcycle but can’t figure out where to go, because you’ve already been everywhere, at least locally? I know I get tired of doing the same old routes again and again.

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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Biker Quote for Today

Adventure: The pursuit of life.