Passes & Canyons Blog

I went recently with the RMMRC on a fall color ride and Ralf was the leader and organizer. I know Ralf and I’ve ridden with Ralf. And I know Ralf is very much a go-fast kind of guy.

Sure enough, we hadn’t gone all that far and the folks ahead of me were moving at a clip I just was not all that comfortable with. I can ride fast when I choose to but frequently I just don’t choose to. So I just went my own pace and that was fine. Ralf had been very clear that he would not turn off the road we were on without waiting for everyone to catch up so no one would get lost.

One of the folks ahead of me, though, was Maynard. Maynard kept up with Ralf but when we stopped for a couple minutes in Conifer he spoke up, saying that he felt the pace to that point had been a bit excessive. Good for you Maynard, it’s good to speak up and let your opinion be known. Ralf replied that he didn’t feel the pace had been all that fast but he asked how the rest of us felt. I spoke up and said I agreed with Maynard but that I knew beforehand that Ralf was fast and I had just made up my mind to ride my own ride, and if I got behind, I was OK with that.

I will note, however, that there was one particular curve where I went into it too hot and did some emergency hard braking. And I wasn’t even trying to keep up.

No one else said they thought the pace had been all that excessive, although of course some of them had been behind me.

The consensus was as I had suggested, that everyone should just ride their own ride, and we went on. Ralf gave no indication he felt he ought to slow down, and he reiterated that he would not let anyone get separated at a turn. Whether it was for this reason or just because he often does this (he does, and he may have planned this from the start), Maynard peeled off from the ride a bit later when we got to Evergreen and headed off on his own.

But this is a real issue, and it’s one everyone needs to think out on their own. Some people just like to ride faster than others. If a group you ride with always goes faster than you like, then maybe you need to find another group. Alternatively, you could take the role of leader and then lead at the pace you feel comfortable with.

I’m personally not a go-fast guy, to the point that on the recent OFMC trip Bruce asked at one point why we so frequently would ride at five miles below the limit. We just like to take our time and enjoy the ride. Bruce said he had never ridden with a group that didn’t generally go as fast as they could. Or at least go the speed limit.

However, there are several people in the RMMRC who lead a lot of the rides who are go-fast guys. If you go on many rides with this group you are going to find yourself in this situation. And I have. Many times. And I just ride my own ride. If someone wants to go faster they can go around me and catch up with the group ahead.

No one should out-ride their own abilities. Safety is more important than conforming with the group. If you’re not comfortable, slow down. The life you save may be your own.

Biker Quote for Today

So today I went on a motorcycle ride and I forgot to post a picture on Instagram about it. Then I remembered I was too busy riding my motorcycle.

OK folks, this is serious. Unfortunately, the data I’m able to come up with are unclear.

I was on my V-Strom headed south on I-25 a few days ago and one of those highway message signs was saying something like “102 motorcycle deaths this year, be aware of motorcycles.” I swear it said 102 but now I can’t anything to support that number.

But that fired me up to look at the latest numbers. I mean, it’s only September and if we’re at 102 that’s a lot because whereas in 2016 the Colorado fatality rate hit 125, it had dropped to just (just!) 103 in 2017, again in 2018, and a third time in a row in 2019. And as recently as 2012 the number was only 79. So 102 in early September is a lot.

That’s not the whole story, though. In 2020 the number shot up to 140. That’s a lot! And in 2021 it was 137. Yikes.

Now, the most recent information I can find is saying we were only at 75 at the end of August. Something just doesn’t jibe here. I swear that sign on the highway said 102. And various reports I found said we’re up this year from last year, so in that case 102 now would make sense. Only 75 now would seem to suggest a downward trend. I don’t get it.

OK, I’m passing this along in real time. I just went to the Biker Down Facebook page and they have a photo of the sign saying 102, along with the note, dated September 7, “2 weeks ago, BikerDown Colorado was interviewed on Fox 31 with year-to-date statistics that 85 riders had passed on a motorcycle. Heading to DIA yesterday, the total is now 102.” Holy smokes! What the heck is going on?!

People, we’ve got to be careful out there. While it’s easy to point fingers at drivers on their cell phones there are riders at fault here, too. Jungle has always said that if you’re in a crash you were at fault. Yes, the other guy may have precipitated the situation but it is your responsibility to always be riding as though you are invisible and everyone else on the road is deliberately out to kill you.

It’s pretty hard to argue against that. Ride like your life depends on it. Because it does.

Biker Quote for Today

Cars have bumpers. Bikers have bones. Drive aware.

I was heading out last week on that RMMRC ride I mentioned and had only gotten as far as the collector street coming out of our neighborhood. I looked left and then pulled right, out onto Tamarac, and only seconds later a young guy on a sportbike blasted past me in the parking/bike lane on my right.

That definitely gave me a start and at first I thought I had looked but had not seen him coming along. But after zigging into the traffic lane he then zagged back into the bike lane to pass the car in front of me. So no, it probably wasn’t that I hadn’t seen him, he was probably behind the oncoming car I saw when I looked but in just a flash he had passed that guy and then was right up on me.

We continued up Tamarac and the car ahead of him stopped at a red light. The guy on the bike pulled alongside the car, using the bike lane, of course, looked both ways to see there was no cross traffic, and blasted on through the red. Another two blocks and I came up in the left-turn lane and while he sat at the red at Hampden I made my left turn. Just another of the countless examples I’ve observed where aggressive driving (or riding) gains you almost nothing.

So I headed west on Hampden and was approaching Broadway, but now, stopped two back at a red light, another young guy on another sportbike filtered his way to the front, pulling fully into the pedestrian crossing that everyone else had stopped short of. My immediate question was, is he going to blast through the red, too? He didn’t, but as soon as the light turned he screamed on ahead. And he kept doing that. Again it didn’t work very beneficially for him because by the time we got to where he turned left off Hampden I was still almost right up with him and I was just moving with traffic.

I also wrote not so long ago about coming south on Havana when a guy on a bike first went screaming past all the traffic ahead of him, using the center lane. At a red light with left-turn lanes in both directions he blasted on through the light using the turn lanes. Obviously, if anyone had been turning this would not have been possible but there weren’t and he did.

What’s with all this flagrant disregard of the traffic laws? It seems to have come on during the Covid lock-down. Back when the world had largely shut down and there was no traffic on the roads, the few people who were out found they could scream along at high speed and simply not worry about other traffic because there was no other traffic. Why wait at red lights for absolutely no other vehicles? And they liked that. Hey, who wouldn’t?

Now traffic is back to normal. But these guys are spoiled. They don’t want to give up their newfound freedom to scream down the road and ignore red lights. So they don’t.

That’s a little all right, until someone gets hurt. And really, do they think they’ll always be able to get away with it? I’m all in favor of flaunting the rules a bit as long as no innocent person pays a price. But when someone gets hurt it’s a completely different story. Maybe these guys ought to just accept that they had their moment but now that moment is past.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if You think black and orange would make nice house colors.

With a new riding season in full swing it is inevitable that the hits and misses of objects on or above the road keep occurring. Here are some of the latest from this Adventure Riders thread.

• Commuting home from work. Long downhill to traffic light. I see a kid chasing a basketball down the sidewalk. He’s 25 yards behind and not gaining on it. Watching in my mirror as traffic stopped for the light. I watched as the ball bounced into the street. I didn’t even have to dismount. It rolled to where I could stop it with my right foot. I waited for the kid to catch up and flipped it to him. I damn near dropped the motorcycle on its right side.
• Gator, this AM. I have almost hit a smaller one a while ago on a dirt road near here too. Thought it was a log laying in the road….until it scurried off into the ditch as I went by.
• I was riding behind two cars going around 50 mph. Up ahead, about a dozen or so buzzards are feasting on road kill. The first car passes and they don’t react, second car passes and they scatter. One flies right into my windscreen, bounces up and barely misses my left shoulder. I immediately check the mirror, and see it walking dazed in the road. Tough bird.
• Last weekend, a turkey buzzard. It was feasting on road kill. I saw it, slowed and hit the horn. It got up slowly, and flew to the right. I swerved to the left (no traffic) and could have reached out with my hand and grabbed its left wing.
• Potatoes, near Alamosa Colorado. Big potato growing area, this was during harvest. We were following a big truck with an uncovered bed over-heaped with potatoes. It took a turn too fast and bushels of potatoes spilled out in front of my husband. You wouldn’t think potatoes bounce like ping pong balls, they do. Then they roll around on the ground attacking your tires. At the same time others are exiting the truck and whizzing through the air at you like rocks. He didn’t go down.
• For me, riding my cbr929 on I-40 through Albuquerque. Major cross-country trucking route. I was hemmed in by semi’s on both sides. The pick-up in front of me straddled a big box lying on the pavement, like from a dishwasher or washing machine. Of course it pops suddenly into my view as the truck passed over it. Nowhere to go to avoid it. The turbulence of the truck passing over it made the box lift off the ground and open like a box kite. I ducked as it soared over my left shoulder. I suppose it hit the car behind me. This all took maybe 4-5 seconds.
• Minding my own business on my F800GSA a few years ago, following (about 20′ back) a large box truck down a nice, twisty back road. All of a sudden I hear a loud snap, see a flash of light to my left, and a telephone pole goes sailing over my head!! The box truck caught the low hanging power lines and snapped off the pole, sending it flying and dragging it down the road.
• Many moons ago, following a cage at about 50mph along a remote 2-lane I knew well and after dark with no street lights, cage crossed one set of RR tracks with nary a bobble. I followed 10 secs later in the middle of the lane. My meager headlight barely picked up the pothole between the rails. Pothole was clean down to the ties and from rail to rail. Width was maybe 4-5 feet wide. The cage prolly never knew it was there and easily straddled it. I was on it with just enough time to see it and snap the throttle wide open. I was out of the saddle by the time the front wheel hit the far rail. The whang was tremendous. Everything from my hands/wrists to the middle of my back hurt bad. I didn’t crash but wobbled onward slowing to pull onto the shoulder of the road.
• While braking ordinarily for an ordinary traffic light, my front wheel rolled onto an ordinary flattened pop can. The pop can began to slide and the front end began to wash away. Managed to get off the front brake and lose the can to regain traction and braking.
• The first time I took my wife for a ride (her first time on a motorcycle) an oncoming pickup’s hood flew off and went right over our heads.

Yeah, OK. That all goes under the heading of “glad it wasn’t me.” Keep your eyes open so it isn’t you the next time it might be.

Biker Quote for Today

What kind of a bike does a cow love riding? A cow rides a Cowasaki Mootorcycle.

Having been to the headwaters of the Mississippi and then spent the night in Detroit Lakes, our RMMRC group of Great River Road riders were now turning toward home. We had a lot of miles to cover in just a few days.

Before I go any further I want to make a point to applaud the guys who organized and were leading this ride. Without them it wouldn’t have happened and it was indeed well planned and we all had a great time. Thanks guys.

That said, the main leaders, Bob and Dave, are both Iron Butt guys and for some of us that style of riding just simply is not fun. We had grumbled a little bit up to this point but now I decided we needed to have a talk. At breakfast I suggested to Bob (Dave, you may recall, was no longer with us due to a stator problem) that we stop more often than every 150-180 miles. What I didn’t know before this was that Bob was not in a particularly good mood because of some disagreement he had had that morning with the motel people. He did not seem pleased to have me bring this up.

But I told him that especially on the first leg of the day it would be good to stop sooner because, for one, people drink coffee with breakfast and coffee is like beer, you don’t buy it, you rent it. You need to stop and pee. Roy was there and he chimed in that if we stop too often we’ll never get anywhere. I understand Roy’s thinking. He rides sweep and every group has one or two guys who are always the last to be ready to roll. And Roy is the one who’s always nudging that person along because as sweep he can’t leave until they do. But I persisted.

Then I went out to the bikes and Mike was there. I knew Mike backed me on this, and I told him I had spoken to Bob and it would probably be a good thing if he did, too. He said he would and went in. A little later he came back out telling me he had spoken to Bob and Bob did not receive it well. But our point was made. And Tim was in agreement with us as well.

With everyone out at the bikes we discussed it some more. We considered making a planned stop at a town about 60 miles down the way, but finally I just said I would ride in the number two spot and when I felt it was time for a stop I would pull into the lead and pull over. Bob was not in a good mood and didn’t want to deal with it all so Charley agreed he would lead. Great, let’s roll.

Our route was down US 59 then over to Waterton, South Dakota, and then US 81 down to Yankton, our stop for the night. After awhile I was congratulating Charley to myself for having actually heard what I was saying about letting me take the lead on stopping. Then he pulled into a gas station, thinking maybe he ought to. All the pumps were busy, with people waiting, so I was reluctant to stop for a pee break without getting gas so I motioned him to keep going. Awhile later I did think the time was right so as we came to a town I pulled ahead and stopped at a station. Mike said he was definitely ready for a stop because he was drowsing off.

We were planning on stopping at Waterton for lunch and now it was my turn to start drowsing. I did my usual snapping of my head to jolt myself awake, and also closing my eyes all but a hair but then I had an instant when it seemed like—for who knows, half a second?—I went to sleep. I came back with a start and man was I awake! I knew what had happened and it scared me awake. It was just eight miles then to Waterton so I stayed awake.

Again, that’s why I really like riding alone. It’s dangerous to ride in that state and when I’m by myself I’ll just stop.

Continuing south to Yankton we went through Madison, SD, and this is where some fierce winds we heard about a few days ago had hit. I have never in my life seen so many broken and totally uprooted trees, plus demolished and damaged buildings. We went past more than a few windrows where maybe one tree in ten was not blown down or broken off. We stopped for gas and I heard the clerk telling someone she nearly had her husband blown away but he did manage to make it to the house. Basically it had been like a tornado minus the tornado–just powerful, powerful winds.

The rest of the ride to Yankton was uneventful. And after a few days of cool we were definitely back in the heat–a lot of heat.

Biker Quote for Today

Nothing is scarier than being trapped in a cage.

We were up in Eagle at Willie and Jungle’s earlier this week and to our pleasure and surprise, Mario was there, too. You’ll understand what a surprise this was as I tell you Mario lives in the Yukon. He’s a long way from home.

We met Mario four years ago on a ride Judy and I did with Willie and Jungle and some others up to British Columbia, to Banff and Jasper, along the Ice Fields Parkway. Mario flew in from the Yukon to Calgary, rented a car, met us in Radium Hot Springs, then cruised with us for about five days. Super nice guy.

So among the many things we talked about, Mario told us of a road north of where he lives that had been built across the tundra. I don’t recall if he said anything about the purpose of the road or where it went to and from, but the road itself was the item of interest. First off, it’s hard to build a road across the tundra. As the soil freezes and thaws the road gets lifted, sinks, and you end up with mile after mile of some terrific whoops. Whoops are great fun for a short distance but not something you want to drive on for a couple hundred miles.

To build this road they laid down some kind of fabric as wide as the road was to be and then covered it with sand. We’re talking some honking big rolls of fabric. Let’s see: 18 feet by 150 miles . . .

You can see how this type of road could better handle the freeze and thaw and the shifting. But there was some kink that nobody had expected. In the first couple months it was open, Mario said, the EMTs had to go out something like 50 times because motorcycles had had bad crashes. And primarily these were all heavy cruisers, Harleys mainly. What the heck was going on?

Mario went out to ride the road himself on his Kawasaki KLR 650. Everything was fine at first but then it got to where he felt like he was floating. He came close to crashing but managed to ride it out. What the heck?

Riding on, more cautiously now, the same thing kept happening. He had a hunch, and he pulled over to see if he was right. This is not a busy road so he had to wait awhile but eventually another vehicle came along and he saw just what he expected to see. It was like this.

The fabric material was waterproof, and beneath it, with the sun beating down on the sand, heat permeated and melted the permafrost. This released water, which had nowhere to go so it sat there. When a vehicle would come along some of the water would get pushed along under the fabric, gradually building up to something of a wave, which would start lifting the front end of a motorcycle up–the floating feeling–until such time as the front wheel would go on over the crest of the wave and suddenly the biker was running steeply downhill ahead of the wave. Then you hit level ground at a steep downhill angle and things do not go well.

Once he had this figured out Mario pushed on, cautiously, and eventually found what seemed to be the best way to ride it. He would stand up on the pegs and lean back, like you would on sand going down a hill. Hard to do on a big Harley, but OK on a KLR. So he rode to the end of the road and then turned around and rode back. Fun in the Yukon, huh?

Biker Quote for Today

More people die in their sleep than on motorcycles, so sleep less, ride more.

Stump, the legislative liaison for ABATE of Colorado, continues sending updates on legislation at the capitol and he has sent out an alert about the pending distracted driving bill. This bill would make it illegal to use a cellphone while driving except in hands-off mode. It has been brought up repeatedly over the past few years and each year it gets further in the process.

Here’s the latest:

SB22-175 is scheduled to be presented to the House Transportation & Local Gov’t Committee next Tues or Wed (April 26/27). Committee member info is below. Please reach out to these legislators to request their support. Thank you for your continuing support on trying to make Colorado roads safer for everyone.

Tony Exum, Committee Chair
tony.exum.house@state.co.us
303-866-3069

Meg Froelich, Committee Vice Chair
meg.froelich.house@state.co.us
303-866-2921

Andrew Boesenecker
andrew.boesenecker.house@state.co.us
303-866-2917

Marc Catlin
marc.catlin.house@state.co.us
303-866-2955

Matt Gray
matt@matthewgray.us
303-866-4667

Edie Hooton
edie.hooton.house@state.co.us
303-866-2915

Mandy Lindsay
mandy.lindsay.house@state.co.us
303-866-3911

Andres Pico
andres.pico.house@state.co.us
303-866-2937

Janice Rich
janice.rich.house@state.co.us
303-866-3068

Tom Sullivan
tom.sullivan.house@state.co.us
303-866-5510

Donald Valdez
donald.valdez.house@state.co.us
303-866-2916

Tonya Van Beber
Tonya.Van.Beber.house@state.co.us
303-866-2943

Kevin Van Winkle
kevin.vanwinkle.house@state.co.us
303-866-2936

In an earlier update Stump also noted that “Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Holbert, gave a very ‘persuasive’ argument in support of the bill at 2nd reading, citing how his personal distracted driving experiences have changed his view to supporting a bill which he had opposed in the past.”

That is why this bill keeps gaining support. Maybe this year we can get it passed.

Biker Quote for Today

What do you get when you mix a motorcycle with a joke? A Yamahaha.

Arizona has joined the ranks of the few states where lane-splitting is legal–sort of.

The state legislature has passed, and the governor has signed, a bill legalizing lane-splitting under very specific conditions. The new law will go into effect in three months.

What the law allows is actually more along the lines of what is referred to as filtering. In full-on lane-splitting, such as in California, motorcycles can pass between cars while traffic is moving. Filtering generally refers to bikes moving to the front of the pack when traffic is stopped at a traffic light.

That’s actually what Arizona will allow. Traffic has to be at a dead stop at a red light. And bikes can only move between them to get to the front at a speed of less than 15 mph.

The key here is that statistics have shown that one of the most dangerous places a bike can be is between cars at a stop. If someone slams into the bike from behind, or into a car further back, setting in motion a chain reaction, the biker can be caught between the cars in front and in back of him/her, to catastrophic effect.

Filtering ahead gets you out of the trap. Someone could still run into the car two vehicles back but there would not be a car in front of you to get crushed against. (Though you could get shoved out into the intersection, into the cross traffic. I’d be willing to take that chance.)

I had the chance to do some filtering in California a few years ago and it worked really well. Out there the drivers are used to it so many of them deliberately leave space ahead of them at a light. A couple other riders and I were behind the first car at the light and there was room in front so after a couple hand signals to suggest we do it we nodded in agreement and pulled around. Others followed us. The light turned green and we sped off, with acceleration much greater than the typical car. We didn’t slow them down and we were quickly out in front with no traffic to be any kind of threat.

This seems like the sensible, safe sort of practice that even bikers who consider lane-splitting to be crazy can get behind. Kudos to Arizona for being sensible.

Biker Quote for Today