Passes & Canyons Blog

A clip from a video about the MSF 'naturalistic' motorcycle study.

Time passes and things slip our minds but out of view from the rest of us things do get done. In this case I’m speaking of the two different motorcycle safety studies currently under way around the U.S. One is the new version of the Hurt study that is being conducted by Oklahoma State University. I haven’t heard anything at all about that one since the guy running it, Samir Ahmed, announced that he was leaving the project, and said he had doubts that it could achieve its intent.

The other is the “naturalistic” study being conducted by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, and it is moving along on schedule.

I got an email recently from Mike Ginocchi, a guy I ran into who was interested in the OSU study. Mike is a retired accident investigator and he felt he was a natural choice to be brought on the team but the OSU guys apparently had other ideas. So he petitioned the MSF to be one of the 100 riders they would equip with tracking devices so as to observe their riding behavior, particularly when it comes to getting into or avoiding crashes. The MSF was interested, so every time he rides now he is being recorded.

A local TV station thought this was pretty interesting so they did a piece on him and the study. You can go watch it here and see just what it’s all about. I agree with the TV staion–it’s pretty interesting.

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Biker Quote for Today

Everyone I know predicted my death when I bought my bike. I say it’s done just the opposite. Even if it does kill me, it wouldn’t take too many days like today to make it worth it.

A MOST legislative hearing in 2012.

Given a reprieve last year following years of poor oversight, the Colorado MOST program’s new rules have been agreed upon and should go into force in mid-March.

MOST, or Motorcycle Operator Safety Training, provides funding to reduce the cost of motorcycle safety training for riders. That funding comes from an extra fee motorcyclists pay each year when they renew their plates, and when they renew their drivers’ licenses.

After surviving the legislative inquest regarding the poor oversight, the program was once again threatened when legislators on the relevant committee concluded they wanted to keep the fees but eliminate the trainee benefit, using the fees only to pay for other motorcycle safety efforts. That would have totally negated the purpose of the MOST program and left motorcyclists paying extra for programs that people in cars and trucks pay nothing extra for. Talk about unfair!

That challenge was faced and overcome, and now the final rules have been laid out and, according to ABATE of Colorado State Coordinator Terry Howard, they are acceptable. Howard told members at yesterday’s ABATE District 10 meeting that now it is time for members to let their legislators know they support the rules.

The process now was spelled out in an email from Emiliano Barela, of the Colorado Department of Transportation:

This email is to let you know that the rules were adopted by the Executive Director with no changes on January 14th. We have submitted them for review to the attorney general’s office today. That office has 20 days to review them, so must send us an opinion prior to Feb. 3rd. Once they send us the opinion, we file them with the Secretary of State: http://www.sos.state.co.us/CCR/RegisterHome.do and they are published in the Colorado Register. We believe they will be published on Feb. 10th, and they become effective 5 weeks later, so by mid-March. Attached are the same rules you reviewed for the public rule making hearing (red-line and final draft). There are no changes (except maybe numbering corrections) since that draft. The clean version will be the official rules when they are published.

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Only a biker knows . . .: Motorcycle wit and wisdom, #25

Biker Quote for Today

Practice makes perfect and is just an empty parking lot away.

Riding dirt near Gunnison.

Wow, it’s been more than a year since the last time I did one of these. The question posed in this thread on the Adventure Riders forum was, “What is the strangest thing you’ve ever run into on the road?” Here are some of the more interesting and oddest responses.
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I was on my CB1000, my buddy was on his Goldwing (1500?). Late at night on I-75 making tracks back to Chattanooga from British in the Blue Ridge. He tags an alligator with the chin spoiler of his GW. The gator flips up in the air all slow motion like. It’s comin’ right for me but I had no time to react. It went by my head at 75+ mph. Seemed like it was inches away, It may have actually been 2 feet. Either way the pucker factor was quite high.
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Doing a high speed run on my 87 GSXR907 Big Bore went through a flock of finches at over 170. Yeah I had some bruises.
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Couple of years ago…. large sheet of painter’s plastic in the highway, kicked up just perfectly by a cage in front of me. Hung there like a shower curtain as I plowed right into it. Had to move over three lanes blindly, through traffic, to get to the right hand shoulder and stop so I could peel it off of me and the bike.
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A whole flock of white leghorn chickens decided to cross the road. Left a LOT of white feathers!
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I was riding in a 35mph zone at the edge of town when I was sure I was about to hit a dove. We were on a collision course when a hawk swooped in and changed the dove’s course to parallel mine. The outcome for the dove was the same, but the hawk & I were happy.
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Four of us are riding along one day. I’m the second guy. We come around a curve and there’s this huge dead black snake in the road. I went to point it out with my right foot and inadvertently kicked it up. It goes sailing and wraps all over the guy behind me. He almost shit himself.
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Riding down through Pennsylvania to visit a friend in Bethlehem, a loud ‘thwack’ announced the impact of a firefly on my face shield, then two more. I shut the lights off for a moment to confirm that the green glowing effect all over my field of vision was not a hallucination.

Want one scarier? Similar road winding alongside the Big Thompson River heading up to Estes Park, Colorado. Something snapped across my face shield that left a respectable gouge in the plastic. Turns out it was a fly fisherman’s line with a fly & hook on the end of it!
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There must have been 50 geese crossing the road 3 to 4 deep. I came around the curve at 70 mph and there they were. I went thru them, but missed hitting any of them. They scattered around and went on off the road before anything else happened. The “Highway Grandfathers” were looking over my ass this morning.
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I was hauling ass down a fire road in my younger days, just about to run over a yucca stalk when it started wiggling. It was a friggin 6′ rattlesnake sunning itself on the road. I don’t think I helped it any hitting it square in the middle but I didn’t stop to ask if he was OK.
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Heading home from a long day in the saddle. Sun had just set and was pretty close to being dark outside. All of a sudden the rear of my bike rose up as if I hit a speed bump. The front tire never hit anything. It scared me, but after a few minutes I forgot about it. Until I got home that is. The stench of skunk all over my rear wheel was too much to take. I had to let the bike sleep outside that night. Never even saw the critter. Lucky my front wheel didn’t hit him!

Yeah, hey. The stuff that goes on out there! Ride carefully, OK?

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Biker Quote for Today

Trials is an amazing sport. You can get hurt really really bad without even leaving the campsite!

Every one of us is responsible for our own safety in traffic at all times.

I had another of those experiences the other day that solidly reinforce what I already know, which is that it is up to us to keep ourselves safe on the road because the operators of other vehicles don’t see us on our motorcycles. And as has been the case in the past, this time I was the operator of the other vehicle.

I was in my car, getting onto I-25 northbound at Hampden. As I came down the entrance ramp I checked my mirror to see if the lane I needed to merge into was clear. I didn’t see anyone, but because I’m a motorcyclist and I know not to trust solely in my mirror, I did a head check. That is, I turned my head and looked back.

Oh my gosh!! There was a motorcycle right there. He had been perfectly positioned right in my blind spot. And if I weren’t a rider and knew I had to do a head check, he would have been taking evasive maneuvers to avoid me and cursing me as a dumb ass cager. Fortunately I didn’t force him to do that.

I give him credit, too, that he was obviously keeping his eyes clearly on me. He had seen me coming and he was ready to do whatever was necessary. And it wasn’t that he was being foolish riding in my blind spot. The on ramp angles toward the highway and it was just chance that his exact position was exactly where my blind spot was at that second. Another second either way and he would not have been.

So no harm, no foul. He sat back and let me pull in in front of him, which I did after I made absolutely certain that he was not coming on. We both did all the right things and all was well. But we all know that not everyone does that head check every time. It really is up to us to ensure our own safety.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
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Biker Quote for Today

We are here to show those guys that are inching their way on the freeways in their metal coffins that the human sprit is still alive.

The Randy Run is named for Randy Savely, who lost his leg in a crash.

Motorcyclists are far more vulnerable than cagers and as often as riders go on poker runs to support other causes, it would seem that it should be a no-brainer to raise money to help other riders who have been hurt.

That’s what ABATE of Colorado’s Randy Run is all about, and it will take place this weekend on Saturday.

The Randy Run is named for Randy Savely, that fellow in the photo above, who lost his leg when a car turned left and hit him as he was passing through an intersection. Randy is the district rep for ABATE’s District 10 and the run was originally a D-10 event. Last year the decision was made to make it a state-wide event and the state organization took it over.

The Randy Run takes off from the Frontier Club, 18881 E. Colfax, with sign-up beginning at 9 a.m. The ride fee is $15 per poker hand and that includes admission to all events. There will be the poker run, a bike rodeo, door prizes, auction, live music, and more.

As the flyer says, “You don’t have to be a member of ABATE to apply for Randy Run funds. Pay it forward now and help fellow motorcyclists in their time of need.”

Biker Quote for Today

Ride to lean.

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.

Biker Quote for Today

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.