Passes & Canyons Blog

I rode with some guys from the RMMRC last week and there was one point where things got very interesting. As in, not in a particularly good way.

We made a stop at Performance Cycle for one guy to exchange something and then the idea was to jump quickly on I-25 south to Happy Canyon Road and then to do the loop down to Sedalia, then south through Monument. Sometimes when people say one thing they intend to say something else; a slip of the tongue. Other times they’re just simply incorrect. This was one of those.

As we started drawing near the Castle Pines Parkway exit, which takes you to Daniels Park Road, Robert, in the lead, pulled into the right lane. He and Bruce were up front and I was in the center lane. There was a semi in the right lane behind those guys.

I was not concerned because Robert had said Happy Canyon. That was a few miles ahead. But I figured it would be good to get in behind them just to play it safe. I knew that Castle Pines was a shorter route than Happy Canyon.

The trucker was keeping pretty close behind them, however. At one point I thought I would change lanes and looked to my rear only to discover the truck’s front bumper was just about even with my rear end. As in if I hadn’t looked (but I’m not stupid, I did look!) it would have been very nasty.

Now, as Bruce noted later, it is typical behavior for a trucker to back off on motorcycles because in case of an emergency stop the bikes will stop much faster than the truck. And if the truck is too close it will roll right over the bikes. But this trucker was not leaving room. In fact he was not even leaving enough room for me to pull in behind the other bikes, although by this point it had to be obvious to him that I wanted to get in.

Still, not a problem because this was not Happy Canyon. And then we reached the exit and they took the exit lane. Oh crap. In one of those assess, decide, act situations that happen in a heartbeat, I knew what my bike was capable of and I twisted the throttle hard and veered sharply across in front of the truck, entering the exit lane well after the two had completely diverged. I knew I could do it safely–there was not the shred of a doubt in my mind.

Nevertheless, this was the sort of thing that if I observed someone else doing it I would think they were nuts. And if I had had Judy on behind me there’s no way in hell I would have done it, even though missing the exit would have put a real hitch in this group ride.

But I knew I could do it. I had no doubt at all, and hey, I do enjoy living. I have no death wish.

So was this risky? Dangerous? Or just unorthodox? The trucker blared his horn at me and I don’t blame him for that, but I do blame him for not showing some courtesy and letting me in a lot sooner when it was obvious that that was what I wanted. Also for not just backing off on the bikes in general. They couldn’t have just speeded up and gotten further ahead of him; there was traffic in front of them.

It made for an interesting conversation when we stopped for a break. No one else had seen my move, but everyone had been aware that the trucker was being kind of a jerk. Bottom line, everything came out fine and I had a new story to tell. But I would not have been unhappy not to live this story–there was just no point to it.

Biker Quote for Today

Reasons not to date a motorcyclist: Facial hair may get long enough to braid.

There are motorcyclists who get together with friends and go for a ride as a group. And then there are motorcyclists who go on group rides. The two can be vastly different. While the former can be very loose and unstructured, with different riders taking the lead periodically as they feel so moved, the latter is a very structured event.

On a group ride, particularly the sorts of rides that Harley Owners Groups (HOGs) affiliated with dealerships do, safety is generally a top priority and clearly defined leadership and rules are paramount. At minimum you’ll have a Ride Captain in the lead and a sweep rider bringing up the rear, often in communication with each other via radio.

Alan Baumbach is an experienced Ride Captain who lives in Denver. As a Harley rider he belongs to several local HOG chapters and ridden with many groups. Alan has very definite ideas about motorcycle safety and he has stories to tell. We let him talk.

“We were with a sizable group coming down I-70, coming back to Denver from Grand Junction. I was leading. I think there were 12-15 bikes in the group. I’m checking my mirrors all the time and everybody’s all lined up and I can see everybody, and we’re good. But every so often I’d look back and it was like half the group was gone. What happened?! A minute or so would go by, and I’d be checking my mirrors, and they’d catch back up to me. And then I’d look back again and they’d disappeared again. Finally we stopped for a fuel stop and one of the people who was in the last half of the group came up to me and said, ‘Alan, I think you need to talk to so-and-so because he’s sightseeing and he is slingshotting.’ He was slowing down because it was his first time in Colorado, he wanted to see the sights, and then he was speeding up. And he was slowing down and he was speeding up. So he was slingshotting in the group and driving everybody nuts. Because you don’t want to pass when you’re in a group.

“There have been times when I’ve been on rides where people are novices and don’t quite know how to ride. I don’t know if it’s a situation where they feel they have to keep up with the group, or they are not riding their own ride, or what. But they crash. And that’s always sad to see. I’ve never been on one that was too serious, but I’ve been on some where people broke bones. They had to have the ambulance come and take them away.”

Why did they crash?
“Target fixation. I’ve even seen it in myself sometimes. I think anyone who rides any time, any distance, has seen that there’s a natural tendency to fixate on a target. And where you look is where you’re going to go. And if you look for the side of the road you’re going to go to the side of the road. And if you look for the chuck hole, you’re going to go into the chuck hole.

“I think a lot of people, too, just never learned how to counter-steer. It’s counter-intuitive to what you think. You describe it to someone who has never ridden a motorcycle or a bicycle and they think that you’re nuts. It’s like, no, that’s really how you steer.”

Do many of the people on dealer rides tend to be new riders looking for someone to ride with?
“I’ve been on rides with a number of dealerships and it varies by chapter. I’d say of the rides I’ve been on there have been a lot of new riders. But I’ve been on other rides where you’ve got a lot of experienced riders. It is so nice to ride with experienced riders who know what they’re doing. They know the signals, they know how to stagger, they know single-file when you’re on a twisty mountain road. It’s automatic. I think it’s intimidating for a new rider to come into a group and everything is unfamiliar. That’s one of the things I think, anytime you’re riding with a group, the Ride Captain and the leaders and the sweeps all should go over who’s new, ride your own ride, go over all the signals, do you have any questions, do you have any concerns, things of that nature, before you ever step over the bike and fire it up and go. I think that helps a lot and if there’s a new rider, people are watching out for him. If someone doesn’t raise their hand and say ‘I’m new and I’ve never done this before and I don’t know quite what to do,’ people are making assumptions that you’ve ridden before.

“I think six to eight is the ideal size for a group. When it gets beyond eight the leader can’t see all the way to the back. Even if you’re on radios with the sweep at the end you can’t see everything that’s going on.

Ride your own ride
“I tell people all the time, if something happens that you feel you need to pull over, pull over. Don’t think, ‘Oh I’ve got to stay with the group.’ If you’re running out of gas, if you hit something, if the bike’s not operating right, something of that nature, don’t be pressured by the group to continue the ride.

“I’ve ridden on rides where we want to try to keep it a reasonable space as far as distance, but not excessive, and if you start pushing it too excessive you know exactly what’s going to happen: cars are going to pull in, and the next thing you know your one group is now two groups or three groups, and you’ve got a mess. Trying to keep it tight . . . with experienced riders, not a problem. With new riders, they’re still uncertain of their capabilities, they’re uncertain what they can do as far as handling the bike and stopping the bike, and it may be intimidating to ride in a relatively tight formation, even though it’s staggered. And so they start leaving some space. I’ve talked to some of them and said, ‘You know, if you can, tighten it up. I understand if you’re not feeling comfortable with it, but if you can tighten it up that will help to make sure that cars don’t try to split us up.’ Again, having a group that is a small group instead of a large group so the cars can feel comfortable getting around the group is a big thing. Like I said, six to eight bikes is probably ideal as far as size. If you are not comfortable in the situation that you’re in, regardless if it’s a big group or a small group, they’re going too fast, they’re going too slow, whatever, if you’re not comfortable, pull out and do your own thing. But if you’re part of the group, be part of the group.

“I have ridden with a number of chapters and they all have varying levels of discipline. One of the reasons I ride more frequently with the chapter that I do is because they are very disciplined. When we want to ride we want to ride safe. We don’t want an accident. We want people to feel comfortable on the ride. We want it to be an enjoyable experience for everyone. And these are the rules so we can accomplish that. I’ve been on rides where everybody’s clustered around waiting for the ride to start and the leader comes out and says, ‘Well, everybody ready to go?’, jumps on his bike, and takes off. And it’s like, nobody else has started up their bike, maybe they’re adjusting their helmet or something of that nature, and now all of a sudden everyone is scrambling to try to catch the leader just to go on the ride. I’ve been on rides, too, where the leader has been oblivious of the group and he’s doing 80-plus miles an hour and the group is just a mile behind him because, it’s like, you shouldn’t be going that fast. Not on the road and the conditions we were on.

No bar hopping
“I’m not a bar hopper. I enjoy a drink after the ride as much as anyone. But I’ve ridden only once with groups that I find out have got to have six beers in three miles. I’m like hold it! Time out! No, no, no, no. This is not what I want to do. I realize there are people like that out there and that’s what they do but I don’t want any part of that. I want to ride safe.

“We were riding over to Grand Junction and I-70 was shut down at the tunnels, shut down in both directions. And they were sending all the traffic over Loveland Pass. This was early September, it was one of those freak weather things where there had been a little bit of snow at night and because it was still early September it had been warm and the snow had melted when it hit the road and it froze. And Loveland Pass was glare ice all the way up to the top and all the way down to the bottom. We had six of us who went up and down that pass and nobody lost it. I mean, there were a few close calls but nobody lost it. But we were doing 10 and 15 miles an hour trying to get up and down that pass. If somebody had gone down, or if we had not been able to control the bikes I think we would have called the ride immediately and said this isn’t worth it. But we had experienced riders, we had people who knew how to handle their bikes. Everybody was conscious that, we’re on ice guys. Watch it! We’re going into a hairpin turn you’d better be darn sure that you’ve got control of that bike. That was one of the best group rides I have ever been on. We put on 650 miles that day but it started out early in the morning and on Loveland Pass, glare ice. Don’t want to repeat that one again any time soon.”

Biker Quote for Today

Life is about moments. Don’t wait for them, create them.

Be careful if you’re riding your motorcycle in Mississippi. The most current numbers show that state as the one with the highest number of motorcycle deaths per rider in the country: 14.22 deaths per 1,000.

Colorado is right in the middle of the pack, at number 27: 5.42 deaths per 1,000. Is that crazy or what? Mississippi has three times the fatalities Colorado does. What’s going on down there?

These figures come courtesy of QuoteWizard Insurance News, an arm (I presume) of Lending Tree. You can find the complete list at https://quotewizard.com/news/posts/dangerous-states-for-motorcycles.

The safest state is Montana, with only 0.75 deaths per 1,000. Presumably that is due to the wide open spaces up there. Still, that means the Colorado fatality rate is about seven times as high as Montana’s. Is there something else they’re doing right?

I decided to take a look at fatality rates vs. helmet laws. Is there any correlation?

First I looked at states where helmets are required for everyone.

State / Deaths per 1,000
Alabama / 7.04
California / 6.28
Georgia / 6.82
Louisiana / 8.45
Massachusetts / 3.02
Mississippi / 14.22
Missouri / 8.75
Nebraska / 4.84
Nevada / 7.10
New Jersey / 5.43
New York / 3.70
North Carolina / 9.32
Oregon / 3.99
Tennessee / 8.07
Vermont / 4.20
Virginia / 6.03
Washington (state) / 3.46
West Virginia / 4.29

Only three states have no helmet law at all.

Illinois / 4.85
Iowa / 2.47
New Hampshire / 1.90

OK, so this is only a very cursory look. Who knows what other factors come into play. But I find it interesting that in those states with universal helmet requirements the fatality rates are all over the board, from the very worst (Mississippi) to one of the very best (Massachusetts). Meanwhile, two of the three states with no helmet laws have better fatality rates than even Massachusetts.

Don’t ask me what lessons to draw from this but I would definitely say these numbers show that anyone who thinks requiring helmets is a silver bullet cure for motorcycle fatalities is deluding themselves. Anyone care to offer their thoughts on all this?

Biker Quote for Today

It’s just like a video game that has… the element of danger. — Kenny Roberts

There are apparently millions of people who think they can safely drive while texting or doing so many other things that take their eyes off the road and their attention off the incredibly important activity of actually driving their car. Those people are idiots.

I never use my phone when I’m driving and I am an extremely careful, defensive driver. And rider.

And yet, despite all my care, I sometimes find myself in potentially dangerous situations. Safety is hard!

If I thought about it I’m sure I could come up with any number of dangerous times I’ve had on the bike, but I don’t have to think too hard to come up with the one that happened on Sunday.

I had been on a portion of the Old Bike Ride 17 and was headed home. I came into town on 6th Avenue and turned south on I-25. I quickly merged one lane to the left and wanted to move one lane further to the left. I turned my head to get a clear view of traffic, saw that it was clear and signaled and accelerated, all in the space of a couple seconds, and turned my view back to the front only to find the traffic in front of me had slowed down and I was already uncomfortably close to the rear end of the car in front of me. I was already moving left so I just accelerated that move and didn’t have to brake or even roll off the throttle and all ended well.

But that’s how it works. You have to pay attention ALL THE TIME. Conditions change in an instant. If you think nothing can go wrong in the three seconds you spend looking at your phone . . . you’re an idiot!

Biker Quote for Today

I have to get a license to drive a motorcycle to protect myself and the people around me. I am adamant there should be some sort of licensing required to have children. — Tim Allen

Every time we ride we know there is at least the possibility that things will turn ugly. On the vast majority of days it doesn’t happen, but then there is that one day.

It happened with the OFMC last year down in New Mexico, when Friggs, for no reason he understands, crashed on a perfectly smooth, clear road.

We had just gotten past a rough, torn up for chip sealing stretch of road, and stopped at the top of Emory Pass. Moving on again, the road was practically new and you could not have asked for better.

I was in the lead, with Bill behind me. Friggs was at the very rear, in back of Dennis. As I cruised along I noticed I had not seen Bill for too long so I slowed down. Bill caught up with me but had his turn signal on, so I pulled over at the first opportunity. Bill had not seen the guys behind him in too long a time.

A lot of things go through your head in a situation like this. First off you assume everything is all right and there’s a good explanation. Someone had to stop to pick up something they dropped. Someone realized they had not sealed one of their bags. There are any number of things that could cause a delay.

But you also worry it might be worse. What if someone went down? What if they went down and are seriously injured? How would you even deal with that? I don’t think any of us have First Aid training and where we were it was unlikely that there would be cell service. Would you be watching your buddy bleed to death waiting for an ambulance to finally arrive?

These are not pleasant thoughts to entertain so we focused on the more benign likelihoods. Still, after waiting about five minutes for the others to catch up, and not seeing anyone, we headed back.

Bill and I talked later and confirmed we had both been thinking the same thing, that we would come around a bend to see a disaster strewn out in front of us, with someone badly hurt. Each twist in the road offered that possibility afresh. We were figuratively crossing our fingers and hoping not to have something really ugly burned into our memories.

It was with great relief that we saw Brett and Dennis going the other way and they gave us the OK sign. But where was Friggs? Bill and I kept on until Friggs also went by and then, with relief, we turned around and caught up with them all at the same place Bill and I had pulled over. Friggs had gone down and was miraculously uninjured. His clothes were ripped and torn, his helmet scraped horribly, and there was damage to the bike but Friggs was somehow OK.

Wow. Such a good outcome when it could have been so bad. His angels were definitely watching over him that day.

So anyway, this has got me thinking, and I’ve decided two things. First, before this summer’s trip I’m going to take a First Aid/CPR class. And then, next chance I get, I’m going to take an Accident Scene Management class as well. The unfortunate thing is that these are not offered frequently and I just missed one because we were in Europe. That’s why I say “next chance I get.”

I’ll let you know how these go. Maybe you might consider getting some training, too. Couldn’t hurt and you never know when it might help–a lot!

Biker Quote for Today

If I hadn’t laid ‘er down , I would have wrecked.

Riding season is getting into full gear now so it’s good to remember that sometimes there are things coming at you on the road that you do not expect. And why should you? They’re so weird nobody would ever expect them. Here are some experiences other riders have had.

• A snake and a bird. At the same time. I was cruising down a country road and a bird with a snake in his clutches flew into my path, made a quick swoop away from me and was gone. I don’t know who was shocked the most. Me, the bird or the snake. I actually had to look back a few times to reassure myself that he didn’t drop it on me.
• BIG dead possum. Didn’t see it coming (even though quite dead and stationary) I was too fixated on the car in front of me, who seemed to be under the impression that brakes must be applied at every intersection, driveway, mailbox, and manhole. So I had already backed off to about 2 car lengths in a 30 MPH residential area. The next thing I know the KLR and I are airborne, landed the unexpected jump, and went around the block to see what the ramp was made of. Big ugly dead possum.
• Caught the tail end of a cat once. We were staring at each other seconds before I thought the cat would not move and the cat thought he could beat me accross the street before I came by. We both were wrong. Think I just bumped it with my front wheel. Felt something but not like going over anything.
• Elephant in northern Thailand, near Burma. Coming out of a corner still leaning, nearly smacked into this giant grey backside half across the road.
• I charged a huge grizzly bear a long time ago on my KLX250. Usually the bears run away. This one stood its ground. I think it moved at the last minute, I was too scared to look. I bent the license plate hitting a bump way too hard. I was too scared to get off and fix it.
• A swarm of (I believe they are called…) blind mosquitoes in FL. It was so thick that I had to pull over afterwards because my visor was completely blacked out…100% blacked out.
• I saw a dozen bikes crash on one corner was a swarm of locusts crossing the road on the second sweepback of a fast, fast technical section. Huge grasshoppers that do not fly. They crawl. There was a mass migration on Lake Lowery Road one morning. A group ride of Buellers was smokin’ along and when they hit the swarm, down they went.
• A coupla days ago I was on I-78 at the start of evening rush hour; thickening traffic but moving along OK. Saw a car ahead swerve slightly, then noticed what I thought at first was a piece of fruit or something, lying in the road. Or was it an animal? Bright green… a lizard? No… Then I saw another, of a totally different but equally bright color. As I passed the first two, I saw at least a dozen more, scattered across a few hundred feet of highway. What were they? Beanie Babies.
• Some drunk on the wrong side of the road in a long curved tunnel.

OK, that’s it for now. This could be you next time. Ride like your life depends on it, because it does.

Biker Quote for Today

It wasn’t until I went to college and I got my first motorcycle that I understood the thrill of speed. — Vin Diesel

I’d never spent significant time riding with people I didn’t know, until I took part on a media tour put on by EagleRider, a major motorcycle rental outfit that also offers tours. When you ride with the usual bunch of guys you pretty much know what to expect. With strangers, I found, it’s a whole new ball game.

The EagleRider tour leaders made it clear that we were to ride in double-file staggered formation, which builds in extra space for safety and visibility. When I ride with the OFMC we are not the model of safety because only some of us adhere to the staggered formation concept. Doing demo rides, on the other hand, the ride leaders make it absolutely clear that you will ride in formation and not change the line-up or you will not be allowed any more demo rides.

The 18 media members on this tour consisted primarily of a variety of Europeans, one Canadian, one Australian, and three Americans. Considering that nearly all the riders on this tour were professional motorcycle writers or photographers, who understand the safety issues, I expected strict adherence to the formation. I was in for a surprise.

The first situation that threw me was the two Dutch folks on the tour. An older fellow and a young woman, they work for the same outfit and he stayed on her tail the entire time. The ride leader would take the inside track, the young woman would follow to her right, and the guy would do whatever he wanted to do. Mostly he rode extremely close behind her, but on occasion he would move to the left where I would have expected him to be all the time.

So if you’re the person immediately behind him, what do you do? If you stay where you theoretically ought to be, you then have three bikes in a row in the right-hand track. If you stay to the left, what do you do at those times when he moves left? If you shift to the right, then everyone behind you has to shift as well to stay in formation and that alone can be hazardous.

I chose, those times I was immediately behind him, to stay left at all times. It just seemed to make the most sense. And I did eventually figure out that he had a video camera mounted on his bike and he was filming her. At least that helped to make some sense of his actions.

Squeezing From Behind
Then there was another of the Europeans who stayed in formation but was always close enough behind me that I could see him in my peripheral vision. I purposely kept a good distance between me and the bike ahead but he was always right there. Sometimes he would even pass me and soon after wave for me to repass him. I kept wondering why he didn’t back off and I figured he kept wondering why I didn’t close up.

I mentioned it at one point to another rider who told me that guy’s magazine is focused on speed and running in tight groups. OK, I get it. So I just did my best not to get right behind the Dutch or right in front of him. But sometimes it was unavoidable.

Another thing that threw me was the fellow who would on occasion just pass me and maybe one or two other riders. I finally asked him if there was something I was doing that troubled him, and should I be reading between the lines to recognize some mistake I was making. No, he responded, he just didn’t think it was smart for everyone to stay in the exact same formation all the time because that has a tendency to lull you into complacency. He liked to mix things up. And hey, thanks for asking rather than just getting angry or annoyed.

I can go with that reasoning, especially since it is focused on safety. As for the young woman being filmed, I don’t care, I don’t want anybody on my tail like that. I wouldn’t have wanted to be her. As for riding tight in general, I know the European countries have far more rigorous skill and training requirements for motorcyclists than we do. And they do ride close together, sometimes at amazingly high speeds.

Meanwhile, I guess I won’t be so hard on the OFMC. It’s not like they’re pros or anything.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re most likely to have an accident in the first year of riding because of inexperience, and after two years of riding because you think you know everything.

I read somewhere recently that the best passenger a motorcyclist can have is a girlfriend who has never been on a bike before. (This was obviously a guy talking.) The point being that she’ll get on and do exactly what you tell her to do because she doesn’t know to do anything else.

The worst passenger, this writer went on, was your buddy whose bike is broken down and to whom you’re giving a ride back to town. That guy is going to want to do his own leaning and all the things he normally does to control his own bike, but that throws your control efforts way off and makes for a hazardous ride. Backseat driving takes on a whole new meaning on a motorcycle, and it is not for the better.

Riding a motorcycle with a passenger is a whole new ball game for a variety of reasons. First off, you are now responsible for the safety of another person besides yourself. I know that I ride carefully at all times, but when my wife is on behind me I ride even more carefully. If I was responsible for something happening to her I’d never forgive myself. So I do everything in my power to ensure that nothing happens.

Second, adding all that weight makes a huge difference in how the bike handles. It’s a big difference if your 110-pound wife or girlfriend gets on; imagine the difference if your 210-pound buddy gets on.

Novice riders simply should not carry passengers. Until they have some real experience and skills with the bike it’s just too dangerous. I told the story recently how my friend Terry told me not to take some girls riding on his bike and never let me ride the bike again after I did so anyway. He was right to do so. I wasn’t ready.

After I got my own bike I waited awhile before taking a passenger but even then I was ill at ease. What finally made a difference was when the OFMC took its first extended trip and I rode around for days on end with a bunch of gear bungee-strapped on the back. I grew accustomed to the weight and from that point on I was comfortable with a passenger.

Not comfortable with just any passenger, however. We had a friend, Al, who was a super nice guy but not always the most prudent person. Al didn’t ride. (This is all in the past tense; Al died a number of years ago.) One night John and I rode over to Al’s and at some point Al wanted to go for a ride. He climbed on behind me first and I was aghast. Al was not fat, but he was solid muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat. On my 750cc Honda it was just too much and I suggested he ride with John. So Al got on with John, whose 1100cc Shadow was bigger than my CB750, and we took off.

But Al was not content to just sit there quietly on the bike. He was moving around and doing all kinds of stuff that kept throwing John off balance, so before we went more than half a mile John stopped and said “No more, we’re going back. This is too dangerous.”

Another time, John and Bill and I had gone over to Grand Junction to see our friend Christopher. Like Al, Christopher is not known for prudence. He wanted to take us to see the 20-foot dragon he was building so we got on the bikes, with Christopher riding with Bill. Turning in the driveway to the place where the dragon was under construction, Christopher was flailing around in much the way Al had done and he threw Bill’s balance off so badly that they went down. Fortunately, it was at a slow speed and the dirt was soft, so nobody got hurt.

The bottom line here is that, for a capable rider, and a passenger who knows how to be a passenger, riding two-up can be a terrific shared experience. But tell your own Al or Christopher “No” when they ask for a ride.

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