Passes & Canyons Blog

Riding with friends doesn’t mean riding just like your friends.

Motorcycle riding, like so much else in life, is a matter of learning by doing. The following are a dozen lessons learned through more than 25 years and 100,000 miles on two wheels.

1. Get yourself some friends
If you’re not carrying a passenger, riding is a solitary activity at its core. You can be with other people but when you’re running down the road you’re all alone on that bike. That makes it all the more enjoyable to have friends with you when you stop. “Wow, did you see that bald eagle on top of that tree?” “Did that jerk come as close to running you off the road as it looked like from my view?” “Which direction do you think we ought to head now?”

Plus, if you go down it’s awfully nice to have friends to come to the rescue. Riding buddies are a good thing.

2. Signal your intentions
Cagers (people in cars) are generally the biggest threat to bikers but sometimes your buddies can be a threat, too. Does that pull-out on the left have a great view? Fine, pull off, but don’t assume the guys following you know why you’re slowing down. Signal your intent. For all you know, the guy behind you is impatient with your slow speed and is just about to pull around you to pick up the pace. If you make a left just as he twists the throttle your trip could come to an unpleasant end. Don’t let that happen.

3. Ride your own ride
Next to brain-dead cagers, the majority of motorcycle accidents are of the single-vehicle variety. That frequently means the rider pushed beyond their ability. This is the kind of thing that can happen when you’re riding with others and the leader is setting an aggressive pace. You may not be comfortable taking these tight turns at this speed but you want to keep up.

Bad idea. You can always catch up later. Don’t put yourself at risk when safety is at stake. Ride your own ride.

4. Don’t hesitate to go it alone
As enjoyable as it is to ride with friends, sometimes they’ve all got other plans. If you take off on your own you may find the freedom to stop when you want, go where you want, and do whatever your heart desires to be downright addictive. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have a cell phone with you in case you have trouble, but don’t pass up a great riding day just because you can’t find someone to join you.

5. Make like a Boy Scout and always “be prepared”
Sure, the sun is shining and it’s warm now, but don’t let that persuade you that you don’t need rain gear or warm clothes. It’s guaranteed to be very unpleasant if you find yourself out miles from anywhere and the skies open up. Particularly if you have saddle bags, there’s really no excuse for not carrying the gear you might need at all times.

6. Know your bike
Modern motorcycles are extremely reliable but user error can thwart the best technological design. Here’s a real-life example. Most bikes have petcocks that switch between the regular fuel supply and the reserve. On most bikes, the three positions for that lever are “Open,” “Shut,” and “Reserve.”

On some Kawasakis, however, the positions are “Open,” Reserve,” and “Prime.” Perhaps you don’t pay attention to this difference, and, after filling up, switch from Reserve to Open–you think. But in fact you have switched from Reserve to Prime. The next time you start up the bike it barely runs. Why? Because with that petcock in the Prime position it has been dribbling fuel into the cylinders continually, and that fuel has been seeping past your rings into the oil pan. Bikes don’t run well with their oil pans full of gasoline. (Hint: I did this twice before I figured it out.)

Get thoroughly acquainted with your motorcycle and everyone will be much happier.

7. Get schooled
Numerous studies show that the majority of motorcyclists who get killed on the road have not taken any sort of rider training. What more do you need to know?

8. Assume you’re invisible
The most common phrase spoken by a cager who just hit a motorcyclist is “I didn’t see him.” It doesn’t matter why this is, it matters that you take it to heart. If you pretend to yourself that you are invisible, and ride as if that were true, you’ll make decisions that will usually negate that driver’s inattention.

9. Take your time
Sometimes the best part of the trip is the unplanned, unscheduled stop or sidetrip. If you’re in too big a hurry to stop and enjoy the trip you might as well go by car.

10. Lean into adventure
This goes hand in hand with taking your time. The best motorcycle roads are the ones less traveled by cars, trucks, RVs, and the like. Don’t look for the shortest distance between two points, those roads are straight. Find the roads that curve.

11. Be opportunistic
“If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” Numerous parts of the country claim this line, and it’s something to take in consideration. If you want to go for a ride today and it’s gorgeous right now, go right now. You just don’t know what the sky will look like two hours from now.

12. Pick it up!
Amazing as it may seem, even petite women can pick up huge, heavy motorcycles laying on the ground. It’s all a matter of technique. Use the wrong technique and at best you will fail, and if it gets worse you may get a hernia. Learn how to pick up your machine and you won’t end up looking like a fool – or worse, in the hospital.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than men: Motorcycles don’t insult you if you are a bad rider.

Bob (left) and Will, the other students in my ERC.

I took the Experienced Rider Course (ERC) once before. In fact, it was the first rider training course I ever took. Since then I’ve also taken the Beginning Rider Course twice, a dirtbike riding course, and I did the Rider Coach Training course, although I never worked as a Rider Coach. Here’s a tip: it never hurts to take a riding course–you always learn something new and improve existing skills.

The primary focus of this ERC I did on Friday was tight maneuvering. That wasn’t all, of course. The overall point is to learn to be a better rider everywhere. But if you can handle a big bike in tight quarters, handling that same bike in the wide open spaces is just that much easier. And sometimes that extra bit of control can make all the difference.

So I’ll get right to it. The number one thing I got out of this course was understanding what it takes to make a big bike make a really tight turn. Maybe you’ve seen these riders doing circles on big baggers that you couldn’t even dream of doing on a little 250. How the heck do they do that?

Don’t think I’m going to claim that I can do that now. But I am a little closer.

Bob, the instructor, talked about counter-weighting. If you need to lean the bike way over you also need to move your body the other direction to balance that out. Counter-weighting. To do this you put your weight on the outside peg and lean way back.

But the thing that got me was his instruction to keep your inside arm straight. Think about that. You’re turning left, you’ve got that left grip tucked in close to your body, and yet you need to keep your arm straight. If that’s not going to keep your weight off to the other side nothing will.

Fact is, I wasn’t sure it was even possible. I mean, OK, let’s say you’re riding a sport bike with little clip-ons. That seems doable. But my CB750 has a steer-horn handlebar that is 31 inches from tip to tip, and sitting upright in the saddle with the wheel turned as far as it can go the grip is about five inches from my stomach. I’m supposed to keep that arm straight?!

Guess what? It can be done. I couldn’t go it right off, but we went around again and again and I kept pushing myself and after awhile it happened. I’ve never made tighter turns with that bike in my life. I admit that the thought of putting weight on my outside peg never crossed my mind, though I suspect that happened naturally.

Most of the rest of the course was a refresh. We practiced techniques I know but maybe was a little rusty with. But then, I’ve taken this course before, as well as others. If you haven’t ever taken a riding course there’s probably a ton of stuff you’ve never learned. I don’t care if you’ve been riding 40 years I bet you’d learn something new. And you’ll be a better rider.

Is there any reason in the world that that would not be a good thing?

Biker Quote for Today

I hate being sexy but I’m a biker, so I can’t help it.

Every group seems to have its own approach to how to ride together.

Going riding with Willie and Jungle and some of their friends a week and a half ago I was very interested from the outset to see if this particular group was into staggered riding. It didn’t take long at all to figure out the answer was no.

Do we need an explanation? Staggered riding is where each rider alternate taking the opposite side of the lane from the rider ahead and behind them. That opens up sight lines and gives each rider a better view of the road ahead, and it also doubles the space between each rider and the rider directly behind them, which makes for safer riding.

I do a lot of my group riding with the OFMC and that is a group where staggered riding is not the norm. There have been a few of us who have lobbied for doing so but most of these old farts don’t give a hoot about it. Finally I resorted to always riding last so I can put myself in the position I desire and have no one behind me to sit right on my tail or anything.

With the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club, on the other hand, riding staggered is absolutely the norm.

So with Willie and crowd, we gathered in Pueblo and set out the next morning headed for Lake San Isabel. There were only four bikes at that point and Jungle took the lead. Kevin and Bonnie were in the number two spot, Judy and I were third, and Willie was in the rear.

The dynamic shaped up very quickly. Jungle stayed largely in the middle of the lane. Kevin stayed largely on the left so I took the right, although at any given moment Kevin might drift over. I just kept a good distance. Willie, in the rear, always stayed so far behind it didn’t matter where she rode.

The next day we had added a couple bikes but it was pretty much the same. Nobody but me seemed to pay any attention to keeping staggered. Oh well, it’s not like I was going to make a big fuss about it. I prefer riding staggered but if it really mattered a lot to me I would not ride with the OFMC. But it was interesting to be with a different group and see how they do things.

Biker Quote for Today

Wait! I do not snore! I dream I’m a motorcycle!

Part of CDOT’s MOST website.

The Colorado Legislature officially moved the Motorcycle Operators Safety Training (MOST) program from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to the Colorado State Patrol (CSP) during this recent legislative session but that doesn’t mean CDOT is casting it aside during the transition. In fact, it seems like they may even have kicked things up a bit.

MOST is a program intended to promote rider training, with the idea that a rider who receives real training in operating the bike will be a safer rider than one who just learns by doing. I know this to be the case because I learned by doing and years later took some training courses. Guess what: I learned a bunch of stuff. I became a better and a safer rider.

May is commonly declared Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month and so with that theme in mind I was recently contacted by Megan Tobias, a public relations rep working with CDOT to promote the safety effort. She was asking if I could do something in this space to help promote training efforts. And in fact, she offered that if I wished, they could set me up to take a course on their dime. “Even if you’re a skilled motorist, we have an array of more advanced classes that can help fine tune your skills. Locations and class levels can all be found here: https://www.codot.gov/safety/live-to-ride/get-training.html/.”

This is a new level of promotion that I haven’t seen before. And I suspect I’m not the only one Megan has contacted to try to get this information out to the public. I say good on CDOT.

So initially I declined Megan’s offer but thinking about it now I may take her up on it. For one thing, I know that the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, whose curriculum the MOST instructors follow, has revamped its programs, so if I take the Experienced Rider Course a second time it is presumably going to be different from the first time. Plus, I don’t care how good or experienced you are, there’s always more you can learn. You’ll read about it here if I do.

Biker Quote for Today

Never twist the throttle with your ego.

The wind blast from this guy isn’t going to do much; it’s very different with trucks.

During this last ride Judy and I did I made some interesting observations I want to pass along.

It was kind of windy as we set out but not bad. The road we were on was not too busy, either, until we reached Limon and turned southeast down US 287. This is a major highway and that translates into “lots of trucks.”

Anyone who has ridden a motorcycle for long knows how powerful the wind blast can be on you as trucks go by in the opposite direction. Accordingly, I braced myself every time one came along but after awhile I started noticing that not all truck wind blasts were the same. Judy noticed it, too.

Sometimes a truck would go by and the blast would like to blow you off the road. Other times they just seemed to slip by and you hardly felt it. Once I got my mind focused on the question it didn’t take long to recognize the answer.

Very simply, the more aerodynamic the truck, the less the wind blast. It’s pretty dang intuitive, if you think about it.

You know those fairings that many trucks now have, the ones on top of the cab that deflect the wind from hitting the flat surface of the trailer? Those things help semis get better gas mileage because they reduce the wind resistance. No surprise there. But the real issue is that the more smoothly the truck can just slice through the wind, the less turbulence is created. And the less turbulence created, the less wind blast felt by vehicles going the other direction.

Now surprisingly, this is not as predictable as you might think. I found that almost universally, the big trucking companies all have their trucks faired and stream-lined and they kick up very little wind. The you-rent guys apparently don’t care so much about gas mileage since you are buying the gas, not them, and they generally are not faired.

And then it matters what the truck is hauling. If it is an enclosed unit, the wind is minimized. Very open and/or oddly shaped loads kick up more wind. So a truck hauling a bulldozer on its bed can be expected to rattle you a bit as it goes by.

So I got pretty good at knowing when to brace myself and when it was not likely to matter. But every now and then, I would be expecting one thing and get the other. I can’t explain that. All I can say is that this business about aerodynamics is a good rule of thumb but there are exceptions.

Biker Quote for Today

Tunnel? Allow me to play the song of my people.

This is why we stayed three days in Lakin, Kansas.

After stopping in Coolidge, Kansas, the first night out on our proposed ride to Barber Motorsports Museum we awoke in the morning to snow and high winds, as I discussed a few days ago. After wavering all morning I finally decided it looked like we could continue safely so we geared up and left.

I started to regret that decision almost immediately. Although the road was only wet, and the snow had stopped at least for now, the wind was hellacious. We were headed due east and it was blasting down from due north, doing all it could to push us off the road. No matter. I’ve ridden in these conditions a number of times and while it’s no fun, I know I can do it. It was also cold, and while we both had our electric vests on, I had not brought my heated gloves because I had not expected this kind of cold.

Inevitably, when vehicles passed us going the other way they blocked the wind and our lean into the wind ran us toward the oncoming lane. I knew this and made ready to compensate each time. Fortunately there was not much traffic.

We made it the first 15 miles to Syracuse where we stopped for gas, as planned. So far we were a bit chilled but our vests were doing their jobs and my hands were not particularly cold. I had intended to see about getting some of those chemical heat packs at the gas stop but managed to forget. We pushed on.

The next town was Lakin, 27 miles further. Conditions were exactly the same: powerful wind, wet but clear road, and cold. By the time we were maybe a bit more than half-way there my hands were getting cold. I definitely planned to stop in Lakin for heat packs.

We were going 65 but the miles crawled by as my hands got colder and colder. And then the road surface changed. What had been wet was now becoming ice. And there was no way to skirt around the ice patches; this was ice across the entire lane. I had to go right over it.

I immediately slowed down to about 40. My entire focus now centered on keeping the bike as stable as possible so as not to go into a slide–not easy to do when you’re leaning into a powerful wind. Almost impossible when oncoming traffic momentarily blocks the wind and you swerve sharply to the left. And when it’s a truck, just when you’ve gotten stabilized again, it’s past and the wind blasts you and you swerve again.

Plus, now that we were going slower, people were passing us. And unlike oncoming traffic, which blasts by in a second or two, passing vehicles take a lot longer to get by. And then the truck passed us.

We were leaned into the wind, which he blocked, which made us swerve toward him. As he crept by in what seemed like slow motion we moved further and further to the left, toward him, as I worked desperately to angle more to the right. It may have been the physics of it all or it may be that I was target-fixated on him, but we just crept closer and closer–scary close–until finally he got past and wham! The wind hit us again, sending us toward the shoulder. All of this on ice, mind you.

It would have been one thing if it had just been me. But Judy was with me, and I have said many times that when she is riding with me I am carrying the most precious cargo in the world, and I will do absolutely everything in my power to deliver that cargo safely. But here I was in a situation where what happened might well be out of my control. I’ve never in my life been so scared on a motorcycle.

But apparently I wasn’t scared out of my wits; apparently I kept my wits about me. At the point the road got bad we were five miles or so from Lakin. I held on, fought with everything I could muster, and just prayed for Lakin to come into sight, and that there would be a motel there when we got there. We finally reached town and I spotted a motel and I didn’t even care that I had to plow through about eight inches of snow to get into their parking lot. I rode up to the office, parked the bike, and it didn’t move from that spot for three days. Safety!

In retrospect I do see one option I could have turned to, and if anything bad had happened I surely would be kicking myself for not thinking of this. When conditions turned horrid I could have just pulled off the road and parked the bike. We had cell phones and could have called 911 and asked for emergency services to be sent out to whisk us to warmth and safety, regardless of whether that included hauling the bike or meant leaving it there.

That thought never crossed my mind at the time; I was too focused on just keeping the bike upright. But if I ever find myself–us–in that situation again, I’m going to have to seriously consider it. But I suspect that if there is the possibility of getting into that situation again I’ll cut it short at the earlier phase, and not get on the road in the first place.

My whole body is quivering now from reliving this story in such detail.

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t always try to act cool when I ride, but when I do, I miss second gear.

Be a nice person; don’t crowd the guy in front of you.

Riding with your buddies is one of the great joys of motorcycling but there are times when you just wish someone wasn’t with you. That happened to me recently.

I’ve ridden with this one guy a number of times and he was along this one day in a group. Initially I was in the two spot and he was third, behind me. For convenience I’ll call him Joe. While I don’t spend all my time looking in the mirror, I do check it periodically and I was a bit perturbed on several occasions to take a glance and find Joe really close–too close for my taste.

Now, I’ll give Joe credit that he was in staggered formation, so even though he was close he was not right on my tail. I’ve ridden with guys who get close AND get right up behind you. I totally hate that!

It was not a big deal, although there was one time when the leader moved into the lane to the left and as I threw out my left arm to signal I also looked back (like any smart person ought to do). There was Joe, staggered to my left but almost right up with me. I hesitated a moment and he dropped back and I safely changed lanes. That should not have happened. He shouldn’t have been there.

Later we were in a different order. Joe was in the two spot and I was third. Now I had the opportunity to really observe.

I had to feel for the leader. Joe stuck tight behind him, but now the road was more curvy that it had been earlier. And in the curves you don’t necessarily stay in staggered formation; you follow the curve where the line leads you.

What I saw was not pretty. Any number of times I saw Joe touching his brake because the leader was moving over in the lane on a curve and Joe was too close. Other times, Joe actually ran off onto the shoulder a little to avoid the leader as the curve carried him to the center of the road.

Come on dude, if you’re hitting you brake and running off on the shoulder in order to avoid the guy in front of you, you’re too dang close!! Back the heck off!! What’s going on in your head?

Biker Quote for Today

How are the brakes? Don’t know, I never touched them.

Turns can be fun–or they can scare you silly.

I’ll knock on wood and say that I’ve never gone down on my motorcycle except in the mildest circumstances possible. That includes a 2 mph tip-over in mud and wiping out on gravel at about 5 mph when a dog walked out in front of me from between two cars. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t come close a few times. And there were plenty of other times when in truth I probably wasn’t all that close to disaster but managed to scare myself pretty badly just the same.

I’m happy to be able to say that most of these incidents were a good many years ago, when I was nowhere near as experienced or as good a rider as I am now. That fact testifies to the folly of someone thinking they can get on a motorcycle and ride it just fine without any sort of formal training. Like me. Managing to not go down and being a good rider are not at all the same thing. I’m a good rider today because I have by now had a great deal of experience AND I have taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Beginning Rider Course (twice) and their Experienced Rider Course. Plus a couple other classes.

Almost without exception, the situations where I’ve been scared have been when I’ve been in a turn and either found myself going too fast or seen loose gravel on the road. You know as well as I do that there is nothing that will get your adrenaline pumping more than being leaned over in a turn and feeling that rear tire let go when it hits gravel or a patch of water. At that point there’s nothing you can do but ride through it and count on your tire to hook up again once you’ve cleared the hazard. Fortunately, that’s usually what happens.

Get a Grip

Going too fast is different. Most importantly, you can learn better riding skills that will help you avoid the situation in the first place or how to cope with it if you failed to avoid it.

The crucial factor in a sharp curve is traction. Leaning and braking both consume traction. If you’re going straight down the road at 90 degrees vertical you have maximum braking traction. Leaning into a curve it can be very dangerous to use the brakes because the farther you’re leaning the less traction you have left to brake with. Thus, the best way to enter a curve is to do your braking coming into the curve, before you initiate your lean.

Rider coaches will tell you not to touch your brake while in a curve, except very, very gently as a last resort. I have actually violated this rule from the very beginning because I didn’t understand the physics of it. Suffice it to say that I’ve gotten away with it because I’ve always been very gentle on the brake, but I’ve known instinctively that it was a risk and there were a lot of times when I was very scared. Now that I’ve learned more I do this a lot less, but I’m actually fairly confident in my ability to do it because I’ve been doing it successfully for so long.

The other factor in finding yourself too fast in a curve is taking a huge leap of faith and trusting in the bike, and that’s a mighty scary thing to do, too. The fact is, motorcycles and motorcycle tires are very good these days, and they have abilities that exceed those of most riders. That is, you can safely lean most bikes over farther than the rider has the courage to lean.

When it’s a do or die situation, though, you’re going to be a whole lot better off scaring yourself silly by leaning even further, than if you don’t try it and just accept that you’re going to crash. It’s hard to find that courage but seriously, what’s the worst that can happen if the only other alternative is crashing for sure? I make a point sometimes of leaning way off the bike, keeping it as upright as possible, even on easy turns. I figure I want it to be muscle memory coming into play if I ever desperately need to make that move.

In the end, I think what has saved me all these times was fear. I have been more afraid of crashing than I have been of pushing beyond my comfort zone. But fear is no fun, so I’ve worked to become a better rider and these days I just don’t find myself in these situations much anymore. It makes for a much more pleasant ride.

Biker Quote for Today

200mph, no hands. Damn that’d be cool… right up to the part where you die.