Passes & Canyons Blog

We’ve all seen these guys who do amazing things on their motorcycles–trials riding, street stunting, whatever–but I bet you have wondered, as I have, how they learn to do these things. The answer, of course, is practice.

But when practice means falling down repeatedly on a motorcycle that can get to be painful and expensive. But how else are you going to learn?

Well, Jerry is the king of sending motorcycle videos and here is one he sent me recently, titled “50 Motorcycle Crashes in 2 Minutes.” Some of these folks were indeed practicing, but most were out riding and showing off. Which means their embarrassment was especially public.

Prepare to grimace.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/50-motorcycle-crashes-in-2-minutes/vi-AA1JOAcn?ocid=socialshare

Biker Quote for Today

“There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot.” — Steven Wright

Ever since my crash back on June 29 I have had numerous conversations about it with people who have very different ideas about the aftermath than I do and who seem to find my take on it all a bit peculiar. Tell me what you think.

First off, I can’t count the number of people who told me they hoped the drunk driver who hit me would get the book thrown at him and end up doing some serious time in jail. They are surprised and confused when I explain that that is not my desire at all.

Here’s my thinking. First off, the guy had a clean record before this. Apparently, however, he had had a drinking problem for some time. So what is the better outcome here: let the guy rot in a jail cell for a couple years–at great cost to all of us taxpayers–and then turn him loose with nothing to stop him from falling right back into that trap of the monkey on his back? Or how about, get him into a good treatment program where he can hopefully beat that monkey and live a better, more constructive life–all at a much lower price tag than locking him up? Without a felony conviction to further screw up his life.

As I see it, the second option is not only cheaper, it is a more positive outcome for him and for society as a whole. And make no mistake, that felony conviction does screw up your life. We have a family member who got a felony conviction at 18. For 25 years now he has kept his nose clean as a whistle, but that felony has followed him everywhere he has gone, making it hard to get a good job, causing problems when he tries to rent an apartment. All of that. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced. He has paid his debt to society but society is not satisfied. And a potentially productive member of society is left to drive Door Dash and do other odd jobs just trying to keep his head above water.

Another thing countless people urged upon me was to call a lawyer and reap a big pile of money. Now, if the guy had insurance you can bet I would be asking for compensation for the loss of my bike and also the $450 helmet that did its job and is now trashed. But he didn’t. The DA’s office asked me about requesting compensation from the guy who hit me, which could be part of the court decision in his case. I said no.

Why not? Look, if the guy had any money he would have insurance. Meanwhile, I’m quite comfortable financially these days. There were many, many years when I was just scraping by, and there were even times when I was, to put it mildly, underinsured. But I’m doing quite well now, thank you, and for semi-wealthy me to insist on this poor schlub giving me a chunk of his meager stash of money just strikes me as kicking the guy when he’s down. I just don’t want to do that. He’s got plenty of trouble already. I’m not going to do that.

Then at last week’s monthly RMMRC meeting Tom, a retired attorney, recommended to me that I file a claim with my own car insurance company for pain and suffering and inconvenience, all that, caused by the crash. Right from the start I knew that my auto uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage would pay for the costs of the crash, such as the ambulance and the emergency room charges. And they did. But now Tom was telling me that through that coverage, my company is basically stepping into the place where the drunk driver’s company would have been, and so if I would have file a claim with them, I should now do the same with my company. He said it’s what they expect and they would probably cut me a check without a word of protest.

I’d say Tom really didn’t get it when I demurred. Why should I file a claim for pain and suffering, etc.? It’s not like I suffered months of agonizing pain or anything like that. It hurt a bit for a short while and that was that. And yeah, I still have some minor pain now and then. But he was basically saying, if I can get my hands on that money why would I not? Well, I’m sorry, I think we in this country are way too eager to lawyer up whenever we see a chance to get some cash. In my estimation it is simple greed. Well, I’m not greedy. And neither is Judy. Neither one of us sees any real justification for me to claim, “Oh, I’ve been hurt, I’ve suffered, and I deserve something for all my suffering.” No. Not gonna do that.

So I’m not vindictive, I want a positive outcome for the guy who hit me. And I’m not greedy. I was glad to have the insurance company pick up the actual costs but that’s all I ask of them. Am I really all that peculiar? I know a lot of people who seem to say that answer is “Yes.” If I am I’ll wear that as a badge of pride.

Biker Quote for Today

Never put anything on a motorcycle that won’t make it go faster or stop quicker.

I was out walking to Target and Ace Hardware Saturday because Judy is away for a few days and I’m under doctor’s orders not to drive. Besides, I like to walk and it wasn’t that far.

One reason I like to walk is because you see so much more than you do when you drive. Like this bike. First it was like, oh, a motorcycle. A Yamaha.

Then I noticed there was no windshield, no instrument cluster, no headlight. OK, so this guy is presumably not driving it at this time–it’s just parked here.

But then I noticed the tire. Look at that tire. The rest of the trashed front end presumably happened in some mishap, but that tire only got that way by being ridden. Ridden long after it should have been replaced. Who rides a tire down to the cords and then keeps riding it? Maybe someone prone to doing something careless that ends up with the front end smashed up.

I can understand the smashed up front end. My Honda got smashed up in front, too, and all I was doing was sitting on it. But that tire!

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycling is the safest dangerous thing you can do, or the most dangerous safe thing you can do.

I got an email the other day from a law firm that does advocacy for motorcyclists involved in crashes. Feller & Wendt, LLC™ appears to operate only in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona but maybe they’re interested in my blog because they’re considering expanding to Colorado. Just speculation.

Nevertheless, they were offering for my use here a link to an article they have put out that looked kind of interesting. “Motorcycle Safety:Understanding the Risk Through Statistics” can be summed up by this introductory line: “This guide brings together the latest statistics and expert insights to help riders make informed choices. Whether you are a seasoned biker or just starting out, understanding the data can make a life-saving difference.”

It is broken down into these sections:

• Motorcycle Accidents: By the Numbers
• How Weather Conditions Impact Motorcycle Safety
• The Importance of Wearing Protective Gear
• Speeding: A Leading Factor in Motorcycle Accidents
• The Risks of Riding a Motorcycle at Night
• Fatigue and Motorcycle Safety: The Dangers of Riding While Tired
• Distracted Driving: A Growing Concern for Motorcyclists
• Age and Its Impact on Motorcycle Safety
• Safety Tips for Beginner Motorcyclists
• Road Safety Tips Every Motorcyclist Should Know
• Practice Driving Safely

I took a look at each topic and while I can’t say I encountered anything that was completely new to me, some of it stuff I hadn’t thought about in a long time, so good to refresh. It’s not actually very long, and it does seem better conceived and put together than a lot of what you’ll find out there, so I’d say it is worth taking a look.

Biker Quote for Today

“There is a delicate ridge one must ride between fear and reason on a motorcycle—lean too far in either direction and there will be consequences.” — Lily Brooks-Dalton

I didn’t deliberately decide to post twice in a row about motorcycle websites but I take things as they come, so here we are.

In my email this morning I had two messages, one from RIDE BYND and the other from Ride Apart.

I’m familiar with RIDE BYND (pronounced “Ride Beyond”) because of these VANHA magazines I found in the waiting area at Fay Myers when I was having one of my bikes worked on. I wanted to check VANHA out and found that the magazine no longer is printed but they have a site called RIDE BYND. I signed up for their notifications and have by now received about four of these monthly notices. I had never clicked through to actually see what they were doing there so today I decided it was time.

Rather than a print magazine, what RIDE BYND appears to offer is videos, although their home page is divided between “Latest Episodes” and “Latest Videos.” The episodes are often long, more than an hour, and those I checked out focus mainly on individuals doing cool stuff on motorcycles. The videos are generally short, often just showing some cool footage of riding.

Here’s how they describe themselves.

RIDE BYND is more than just a podcast about motorcycles — it’s a celebration of the passion, creativity, and untold stories of the people who ride them. Hosted by the co-founder of VAHNA, Ben Giese dives into deep conversations with athletes, artists, adventurers, industry icons, and trailblazers from all walks of life—exploring the experiences that shape their journeys, both on and off the bike. The motorcycle is our connection. The stories are what take us BYND.

As for Ride Apart, I don’t know how I came to be on their mailing list, but I’ve been getting their emails for a while. It seems to be a general motorcycle-oriented site offering news, reviews, features, makes, models, with photos and videos.

The article that caught my eye this morning was headlined, “If You’re Against Motorcycle Helmet Laws, You’re an Idiot.” Considering my own recent remarks about helmets and helmet laws, I had to check this out.

The article is written by Jonathon Klein and, to extract just a bit, his main argument is, “But here’s the real truth, humans are inherently stupid animals, and we do all manner of dumb things all the freakin’ time. We can’t leave our phones in a cupholder for a second while driving a potentially idiotic 10,000-pound electric Hummer, for Pete’s sake. Why should we then be entrusted with our own safety? And that’s sorta where I’m at in terms of helmet laws, as I’m very much for them. Not because I like a nanny state or big government, I really don’t. But because I’d rather not see my fellow motorcyclists die a horribly painful death because they were too freakin’ stupid to just wear a full face helmet while out on the road. I mean, the data says it all, they increase your chances of survival in an accident.”

OK. Not a lot of new thought or information added to this long-running dispute.

Another example of what they publish is an article titled, “Despite What Amazon Says, You Shouldn’t Follow a Motorcycle So Freakin’ Closely.” This tells about what is purported to be a page from an Amazon.com delivery driver training manual that says to leave a four-foot distance between your delivery van and a motorcycle ahead of you. OK, yeah, I’ll read to see what that’s all about.

So they have kept up a steady progression of articles I have found interesting enough to click through on. Maybe you would do so as well. Check it out if you’re interested.

Biker Quote for Today

If you go fast enough on your bike you can fast forward your life to the very end.

I was in to see the results of my latest CT scan on Tuesday and it looked vastly better. And I’m feeling good, so now I can drive again and ride a motorcycle and drink wine and go to the gym, right?

Not so fast. It seems like they could have told me this earlier but apparently it is standard practice for brain surgery patients to refrain from driving and most of these other things for a full 12 weeks after surgery. 12 weeks! Huong, who removed the staples from my head, said she knows when you’re living it 12 weeks seems like a long time. But just think, she said, about not following protocol and having bad things result that you’ll live with for a whole lot longer.

OK. But that throws a whole of things I had in mind out the window.

For starters, all these many years I have always made it my practice to ride all my bikes at least once every calendar month. The only time I have not done so was for two months following my heart surgery. Now it looks as though brain surgery will do the same, causing me to miss two entire months of riding. It’s also going to make it a lot harder to keep coming up with topics for this blog because mostly what I write about is riding.

I had a lot of specific plans. Next week the RMMRC is doing a day ride up to the newly re-opened Bucksnort Saloon. I had been counting on that being my first post-surgery ride. Nope.

Then the following week I had every intention of going to Cheyenne for a Yamaha demo days event up there so I could test ride a Tracer 9. If I liked it as much as I expect I would then have come home and done a little shopping and gone to buy one. Now I’m wondering if I’ll just end up waiting for next year’s demo events and do all this at that time.

Also, Nick from Chicago wants to come out and ride the Million Dollar Highway. I was going to plan that ride for the two of us and then post it on the RMMRC site for anyone else in the group to join us. That would have happened in September. What I figure I’ll do is go ahead and map out the ride and then post that on the site, with the understanding that I will not be along to be the leader, which whoever posts the ride generally is. Someone else will need to lead. And I’ll hook Nick up with them so he’ll have that group to go with.

Plus, I was planning on just doing a bunch of riding on my own to make up for lost time. Judy said it was like when she broke her arm when she was a teenager. She missed the entire summer season at the local swimming pool. Why couldn’t she have broken her arm in November instead of June!

So now, in six weeks I’ll go back for my ninth–and this time maybe really final–CT scan, and then I’ll see the doctor in four more weeks. Then I can resume a normal life? I sure hope so.

There is one small step forward. Huang said it would be OK for me to drink maybe half a glass of wine at dinner now. Not a whole glass, just half. Consider it done.

Biker Quote for Today

My helmet has many stories to tell of me banging it walking out of doorways.