Passes & Canyons Blog

It seems apropos to revisit this thread from the Adventure Riders forum, “What is the strangest thing you hit/almost hit?” The weather is warm, there are lots of bikes out on the road again, and at least many riders have had the bike put away for the winter.

So this is a cautionary tale, a reminder that stuff happens out there, often when you least expect it. Here are a few things that other riders have encountered.

• A big fat woman in short shorts, about 11 pm doing her best Jesse Owens sprint across the highway. Missed her by a foot probably. Her drunk boy friend was on the other shoulder telling her to get across the road.
• Last week on my way home from work at 3am the road was on fire. 2 small patches about 5 inches each and about 3 feet apart. And not another car to be found anywhere. Was too weird to even stop, went around and kept on heading home. Strange.
• One time coming around a corner in some twisties I came across a sheet of plywood – it was too big to avoid, so had to go over it. As I went across, it started to slide, I started on the inside of the corner and came out near the gutter. I was still maintaining traction, kept my line and everything was normal…it was just that the the road I was on moved 3 feet.
• I was on the Causeway (24mile bridge) coming back from NoLa, and someone threw a dirty (poop-loaded) diaper out the window – right in the face-shield, glad I had leather on that day.
• An unidentified glob of gelatinous goo the size of a small pumpkin off the back of a garbage truck when it went over the railroad tracks. Hit me dead center in the chest. Had to throw away the riding jacket because I couldn’t get the horrible smell out. (even tried the pressure washer at the car wash).
• Traveling down W bound I69 into Flint Michigan, someone had lost a load of pallets in the road. I choose a clear path and thought I had it made till the woman in the van next to me decided my lane looked better than hers. I took the shoulder and a pallet square on. Stayed up, but sent wood and splinters everywhere.
• On I270S heading towards Washington, DC during the morning commute I saw a large wedge of geese heading east. There was a drainage ditch on the east side of the highway that they seemed to be aiming for. Unfortunately, the tour buses that were also heading south did not fit into their computations. The geese hit the buses and soon dead or dying goose missiles were coming at me from all angles. I do not have any idea how I managed to avoid getting hit. I just ducked (hah!) and rode through the onslaught.
• Earlier this summer I hit a black garbage bag kicked up by traffic in front of me. It hit my handlebars and stuck there, flapping right in my face so I couldn’t really see anything at all. Not really a strange thing to hit, all things considered, but definitely not a pleasant thing to hit. At least it wasn’t something heavy or solid, I guess.
• As a teenager years ago I was woods riding with a couple friends when a large black snake dropped from a tree ..and wrapped around my neck. I screamed like a girl, let go of the bike and was ran over by my buddy. Got a couple scars from that one.
• I hit a muffler and later a Porcupine on the same night. Made me start riding a little slower.
• A Dragonfly…well didn’t hit him but it came under my helmet and got trapped inside my face shield…..I couldn’t get it opened fast enough. Pretty weird feeling having a dragonfly bouncing off your face.
• I was riding home from work on 66 from the beltway around D.C. I saw a 5 gallon paint bucket fall off of the back of a paint truck. It started to spin and bounce and I did what I have always heard, aim for it and by the time you get there, it will not be. It just caught my foot peg and broke open. I got just a little on the bike, but the car behind me caught almost the whole bucket worth on his windshield. Wipers didn’t do much and he wound up into the guard rail. I stopped to give my testimony to the Police. That one was pretty wild.

And wow, I didn’t see it coming, but this is the end of this thread. I guess it will be quite awhile before I pull stuff off this one, until a whole bunch more people tell their stories.

Whatever. Be careful out there, you never know what you’ll run into.

Biker Quote for Today

After reading through this thread I’ve come to the conclusion that more people cruise the internet looking for reasons why X bike won’t work in Y scenario rather than actually riding their motorcycles. — RyanR

I don’t see Alan frequently; mostly we communicate by email.

But we did get together last week, while Michel was here, because Alan was interested in meeting Michel. That was on Wednesday.

Imagine my surprise when I got this email from Alan on Monday.

Hi Ken,
Bambi got her revenge on me! I was riding with Dan Leffert Friday morning down by Cripple Creek, when I was the object of a hit and run, by a deer! Fortunately I was in the lead and Dan saw the diagonal path of the deer run up behind me and then cut in front of me and knock me over. He was able to help me off the road, call 911, get me to a hospital and have my bike towed. Bike is a mess as to be expected and I am bruised up on one side with 4 broken ribs, but it will all heal with time. Tell everyone to wear ATGATT and watch for deer! The Kilimanjaro jacket, overpants and a full face helmet definitely saved me from serious injury!

Holy smokes! Two days later! Eating Italian on Wednesday, eating pavement on Friday. Ouch!

Now, I don’t know what revenge it is that Alan is talking about. What did he ever do to Bambi? Maybe he hunts.

I remember well my own closest encounter with a deer while on a bike. We were up in Idaho, had spent the night in Stanley (??), and were heading out in the morning. I took the lead and hadn’t gone far when I saw a couple deer along the side of the road. On my guard, I slowed down a little and kept my eyes on the leader. He started trotting alongside me, about 25 feet to my left, matching my speed.

Then he bolted across the road in front of me. I nailed my brakes and he got by safely. The guys behind me told me later I put up quite a bit of smoke from the rear tire as it locked up and slid. But I was in control the whole time and never at risk of going down.

What is it in an animal’s brain that makes it do something like that. Why couldn’t it just wait till I was past and then go? Why did that deer just have to cross the road right when Alan was there?

Another really scary time was once when we were setting off on the annual OFMC trip and we were headed for Montrose our first night out. It was getting dark as we came to the Blue Mesa Reservoir along U.S. 50. Johnathon was in the lead and I was pretty far back, so I don’t recall exactly what happened. I believe some deer gave Johnathon quite a scare. What I do recall is how our headlights were reflected from so many eyes out there alongside the road. It was “Oh my gosh, don’t let your guard down for an instant.”

And another time I was coming back from Utah, very late at night on U.S. 40 a little outside of Dinosaur. I was whizzing along and just for an instant saw the flash of a couple deer standing right at the edge of the road as I went by them. Maybe five feet away. Maybe four. They didn’t move a bit. Thank goodness. I went a little slower after that.

So yeah, they’re out there. And unlike us humans re. deer, deer don’t kill humans only in season. It’s open season all the time. Be careful out there.

Biker Quote for Today>/h3>
Motorcycles are like chlorine for the gene pool.

Bureaucrats really should mind their own business. This is no joke: the United Nations General Assembly voted to urge all its members to enact mandatory helmet laws.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m all for helmets, and always wear one myself, but I do not believe government has any justification for requiring everyone riding a motorcycle to wear one. Yeah, I know this is beating a dead horse; either you agree or you don’t and nobody is going to change anyone else’s mind.

Of course, you know it doesn’t stop at motorcyclists. We were up in Breckenridge last weekend and I saw a lot of skiers wearing helmets. How long will it be before either the government decides to mandate helmets for skiers or, perhaps even more likely, the ski operators start telling people they can’t ski their mountain without a helmet?

And then there are equestrians. Many people who ride horses now wear helmets, and helmets are showing up at rodeos now. How long before those are mandatory?

And then the bicyclists. Of course many of them wear helmets now but those excuses for helmets are only effective if you go down and hit a particular way. Good luck on that. My sister-in-law was wearing one when she got hit by a truck and she suffered permanent brain damage. So do we mandate that all bicyclists must wear real helmets, helmets like those we motorcyclists wear, that actually offer protection? They’ll be happy to have that extra weight won’t they?

And to all those who say, “yes, but if it saves even one life it’s worth it,” I say, then let’s require people in cars to wear helmets. How many thousands of lives a year would that save? That has to be really worth it!

Or we could all just agree life is inherently dangerous and we’re all going to die sometime, so in the meantime, let’s just all enjoy life in the manner we see fit, providing of course that we don’t do harm to others. Shouldn’t the UN be doing something constructive, like keeping Russia out of Ukraine, rather than worrying about my head? No one cares more about my head than I do. I’ll take responsibility for it. You go do your job in Eastern Europe.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride safe, ride often.

I got an email the other day from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) announcing the release of their latest tip sheet and I thought, “Oh good, I can do a blog post about this.”

I don’t know, maybe when you’ve been riding for a lot of years it’s just hard for anything new to come your way. I went and looked at this “Pretend You Are Invisible” tip sheet and while it’s all good information, there wasn’t anything on it I hadn’t seen before.

You know, wear bright clothing, have your headlight on, pretend you’re invisible. That last one isn’t hard to do because effectively we are invisible out there. If you don’t ride like you’re invisible you’re just asking for it.

So that was kind of a disappointment, but the email also noted that the MSF has previously released various other tip sheets so I figured I’d go check them out. There was one in particular, “Preventing Motorcycle Theft,” that I found kind of surprising in how many tips in so many situations that they offered. The tips ranged from “If traveling with other riders, lock motorcycles together when not in use,” to “Be careful about giving out private information on where you live, work, or play.” But more than that, they also had tips on what to do when you’re pulling the bike on a trailer and guarding against theft when you’re selling the bike. This was more the kind of thing I was hoping to see in the first one.

So what else do they have? Well, here’s the list, with links:
“Should You Ride A Motorcycle?”
“If You Ride A Motorcycle”
“T-CLOCS” Pre-Ride Inspection Checklist
“Ten Things All Car & Truck Drivers Should Know About Motorcycles”
“Riding With A Passenger”
“Group Riding”
“Alcohol Awareness”

Hopefully everyone can find something relevant in among those tips sheets. You know, if you ever stop learning you might as well be dead.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride like you want to get up and do it again tomorrow.

If you live in Colorado there’s a good chance you occasionally ride in Utah and Nebraska, east and west of us. This current legislative session they’ve both had some potentially good bills introduced that have to do with motorcycles, but it doesn’t look like anything will make it into law.

In Utah they have a bill that would allow lane-splitting. Lane-splitting is when bikes go down the road between cars when the cars are stopped or slowed way down in traffic jams. California is the only U.S. state that currently allows this, and it works fine there. More than that, the rest of the world does it and it works fine all over the world. Go to Paris or Rome or just about any place of your choosing and see how well it works. Why do we have to be the dummies who think there’s something wrong with this?

Well, Utah is going to stay a dummy. According to a story in the Deseret News, “Several members of the House Transportation Committee said they had safety concerns about HB281, and they voted 7-1 to table the measure until more study is done.” Can you say “dead”? Why this euphemism about “tabled”? Well the guy who introduced it–a Republican I will note–said he’ll reintroduce it next session. Till then . . .

Over in Nebraska they’ve been kicking around the idea of repealing their helmet law. I don’t care how stupid you might think anyone is to ride without a helmet, I simply believe it should be the rider’s choice. I always wear a helmet these days (not true in my younger days) and so this law would have no effect on me, but I just don’t think it’s the government’s place to forcing us to be “safe.” Why don’t they outlaw using cell phones when you’re driving? They’d save more lives that way, if that was truly what they cared about. Of course they’d save even more lives if they just outlawed motor vehicles. You know what they say: If it saves even just one life . . . !

So will you be able to ride lidless in Nebraska soon? Not likely. As in, fat chance.

They do apparently have the votes to make it happen, if it could just come to a vote. But guess what? The opponents are filibustering it. Who cares what the majority wants, if we can keep it from coming to a vote the minority rules! I couldn’t have been more pleased when the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid changed the filibuster rules there. The Republicans screamed bloody murder but you better believe they’ll be overjoyed for what Harry has done the next time they’re in the majority.

But hey, it’s just like baseball: There’s always next year.

Biker Quote for Today

“The motorcycle, being poorly designed for both flight and marine operation, sustained significant external and internal damage,” police noted.

Have you scared yourself recently? On your bike, I mean?

I’m happy to say I haven’t–recently–but that doesn’t mean I haven’t scared myself to death a few times over the years. I think the improvement comes with a lot of experience, plus, taking some rider training courses didn’t hurt me, either.

I don’t think there’s anything that scares me more than getting leaned over in a curve and seeing an unavoidable patch of gravel, and then feeling that rear tire slip. There’s nothing to do at that point except ride it through, and fortunately that’s generally what happens. In less than a heartbeat you’re through the gravel and your tire hooks up with the pavement again. Whew!

Carrying too much speed into the curve is another situation where that adrenaline pump can kick in big time. It probably happens most often when you think you’ve got the speed judged well but then the curve gets progressively tighter and all of a sudden, oh my god, hang on! The saving grace there, if you have the guts, is that your bike and tires are capable of a lot more than what you generally call on them for. If you don’t do something foolish, such as deliberately laying it down, you can usually ride it through.

In later years I’ve taken to practicing leaning as far off the bike as I have the courage to, to the inside of the curve. The more you move your weight in that direction the more you are able to stand the bike up, and the more upright the bike is the more traction you have. You see the racers do it all the time but who among the rest of us schlubs has the guts to drag a knee? Not me, but I still practice it as much as I can so that if the need arises some day I will have as much going for me as possible.

The trouble is, though, that sometimes you can be doing everything right but you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was one time I was coming north on Federal and was stopping at a red light at Alameda. Taking it easy, no big deal, when all of a sudden the bike started going sideways. I hadn’t seen anything but apparently someone had leaked some oil on the road right there.

I threw out my leg and braced it and my foot hit the ground hard. It was just enough to bounce me back over the other way, at which point I threw that leg out and braced it and hit hard. That bounced me back the other way again and kept me upright and I was able to save the situation. Holy crap. It happened so fast, was over so quickly, and all I could do was thank my lucky stars and my reflexes. It’s probably also a good thing I was on a smaller bike, my CB750 Custom, or else there’s no way I could have stopped the fall. And that bike’s not light, just over 500 pounds, but at least it’s not 800 pounds or more like a lot of the bigger bikes these days.

Yeah, I haven’t been scared in quite a while. I do think it’s mostly because I’m a better rider, but I know some of it has to be luck. The fact that I may draw a short straw some day isn’t going to stop me from riding. But more and more I think it has kept me from riding stupid.

Biker Quote for Today

Nine mile skid on a ten mile ride. Hot as a pistol but cool inside.

We had our piano moved on Saturday and it was a spectacle of coordination and communication. These guys were pros.

They had specific terms for each move in the process and they were constantly checking in with each other. Not once did someone decide to push the piano some direction without first asking, “Can I come your way?” or whatever the move called for. Going downstairs they confirmed with each other step by step and had total control of this large, heavy burden with never any confusion at all. None.

I was fascinated. And I got to thinking how that was so not like so many group motorcycle rides I’ve been on. The worst case I can think of happened in our early days, a story I know I’ve told before.

Bill and John and I were going up over a pass in Utah, with me in the lead, and we were approaching a turn-out on our left with a great view. I decided to pull off but just an instant before I made my move Bill went shooting by me. He apparently was tired with my pokey speed and wanted to bump things up a bit. If I had moved an instant sooner we would both have been on the ground and not in good condition. We learned a lot from that experience.

It’s all about communication. Of course, back in those days there weren’t a lot of people who had communicators and those of us in the OFMC still don’t, except for the rider to passenger communicators Judy and I have and John and Cheryl have. But even back then there were hand signals. You just had to agree on what they meant and then use them. Of course, turn signals are good, too, and if I had used mine on that pass Bill might not have gone shooting by me. But they don’t do a thing for you if you don’t use them.

I know I did a post some years ago where I provided a link to a web page displaying a number of basic motorcycle hand signals. Well, I’m going to do it again here because this graphic includes several more, different signals that strike me as pretty useful.

This latest graphic comes from a blog by a guy name Michael Padway, a motorcycle attorney. You know how it is, these guys want to get your attention so if you have a crash you’ll think of them and give them a call. Sometimes in the process they really do create and offer materials that are worthwhile. I think this is one of those times. And apparently the guy does ride.

Actually I think both of these displays of signals is good because they both have at least a few that the other lacks. So point your riding buddies to both of them and then talk it over before your next ride. The skin you save may be your own.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if you’ve had to replace your tires, but because they were too old and not too worn.

So with the snow and cold weather just about one of the weirdest things you might have seen on the road lately was a motorcycle. No, I haven’t seen any in at least a week, have you? But the weather is warming up, our road is starting to show through the ice, and it looks like there will be riding to do this weekend.

Meanwhile, it’s time for another edition of what’s the weirdest stuff you’ve encountered on the road, courtesy of a thread from the Adventure Riders forum. Let’s not waste time.

• Here’s a new one, from today’s ride. I was motoring along home on a two lane highway and see what appears to be a short tree branch in my lane up ahead. I change lane position enough to miss it, and look down as I pass it. WTF? It’s a disembodied deer foreleg, perfectly intact and not missing any hair, from the hoof up to the knee. No deer carcass anywhere in sight, no grease spot or blood patch anywhere.
• The rider in front of me by about 15 feet did not put his hard box on right. That BMW pannier fell off right in front of me and I swerved so fast, I almost high sided. We were going about 70 miles an hour. Make sure they are snapped in place, folks.
• Years ago, riding down a back alley, only going about 15 mph, a little robin flew into my right coat pocket. I stopped and tried to find him, but couldn’t see a thing. Next thing I knew, the little guy popped out and flew off. It was the strangest thing.
• Hit a yellow jacket that landed just below my helmet. It didn’t die and quickly climbed into my helmet and proceeded to sting me. NOT fun.
• A house. First time on a bike (1973) on a Honda 50. Throttle stuck and I slammed right into my folks’ house. Rear tire dug up Mom’s flowers. They weren’t home and I wasn’t allowed to ever ride motorcycles. They never found out.
• I did deliberately run over a Barbie Doll that was lying in the street in my neighborhood, the head actually popped off and rolled under a parked car, leaving the headless doll body alone in the street for lookers by to ponder…”WHY?” – it was almost performance art…..
• I hit a police car with an angry policman in it. He took my bike and me to jail. Long time ago.
• I hit a large pine cone that was rolling across a bend in the road on a windy day. As it was moving I kind of target fixated on it, resulting in front wheel going over it whilst I was slightly leant over in the bend – very interesting “rodeo” moment not exactly sure how I stayed on the bike – especially as I had not been riding long at the time.
• Rode the the rotting carcass of a hog this week on the way to work. Somehow, by no fault of my own, none of the guts got on me. Thank goodness, that thing stunk!
• I intercepted a pinecone’s fall to earth with my face @ about 45mph.

_______________________

OK, enough for now. More to follow, sooner or later.

Biker Quote for Today

In your helmet, no one can hear you scream.