Passes & Canyons Blog

I wasn’t born knowing how to ride a motorcycle. I had to learn. Neither were you? What a coincidence. Eventually I did learn, however. You did, too? Good for us.

I did not learn by taking a class. Heck, I’m not sure I was even aware back then that classes like that were offered. If I had been I wouldn’t have taken one because I was poor. I was so poor, in fact, that I had to borrow money from my parents to buy my first motorcycle, although I never let them in on that secret till many years later.

Before I bought that bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, I had ridden motorcycles occasionally, although not recently. I had friends when I was younger who had bikes who occasionally let me ride, but it was only good fortune that kept me from crashing them. I didn’t know how to steer properly.

When I bought my Honda, a friend who had ridden scooters as a kid told me he assumed I understood about counter-steering. Nope. Never heard of it. He didn’t know how to explain it, other than you push the bar right to go left, so I was still none the wiser. But I now understood there was something I needed to learn more about.

Whenever I’m new to something I dive in and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, mostly by reading. John’s first bike (as an adult; he had a scooter as a kid) was an old Gold Wing that someone gave him. (Nice, huh? Would like this free Gold Wing? Oh gosh, I don’t know. Sure, I’ll take it.) That was a bit too big a bike for him right off the bat but he rode some with another teacher at his school. Then when that guy died unexpectedly his widow asked if John would like to buy his Virago at a very low price. So John got rid of the Gold Wing and bought the Virago.

Along with the Virago, the widow gave John a bunch of her husband’s motorcycle magazines. These he shared with me. The first issue I ever saw of Rider magazine was the one with the newly introduced Honda Pacific Coast on the cover. I read those magazines cover to cover, including the ads, soaking up every bit of knowledge I could. Soon I was subscribing to Rider and Cycle and passing them along to the guys after I had read them. I still do that.

This–along with practice on the road–was where I learned about counter-steering. Along with a whole lot more.

I also learned about traction management. I’m talking about how you have the most traction when the bike is completely erect and the farther you lean the less available traction you have, right up to the point where you lose traction altogether and go into a low-side crash.

First John got a bike, then I did, then Bill did. We rode together a lot. One thing I quickly noticed was how both of them were able to go faster in the twisties than I could. I initially attributed this simply to the fact that they had both had scooters as kids and so were more experienced than me. Later I also figured out that both of their bikes had lower centers of gravity than mine, which just simply made it easier for them. (It’s funny to think of my Honda as having a high center of gravity. My two other bikes, a 1999 Kawasaki Concours and a 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650 are both very tall bikes and I have long come to consider the Honda as the low one.)

Trying to learn to ride better, and to keep up with them, I took to sitting up straight and leaning my Honda way over. I did not understand the risk that entailed as opposed to leaning my body to the inside of the curve and keeping the bike as upright as possible. But I never crashed and eventually I learned the ins and outs of maintaining traction.

Most of my friends to this day have never taken a riding class. Eventually I was no longer poor and I did take riding classes–a whole bunch of them ultimately. By then I could ride competently and what I ended up learning were some finer points that I had still missed. It may surprise you but even an experienced rider can learn something from a riding class.

I did learn to ride. And I like to think I eventually got pretty darn good at it. So here’s a thank-you to everyone–writers, teachers, other riders–who helped me get to this point. I don’t think I would have gotten this good without you.

Biker Quote for Today

On the bike, time stretches, and I glimpse moments of forever.

Have you ever parked your motorcycle and come back to it later to find it laying on the ground? If you ride a Harley, probably not. Those broad, sweeping kickstands hold things really solidly. Not so much with a lot of other bikes. But sometimes even Harleys can fall.

On the second ever OFMC trip we were headed back into Colorado from New Mexico when we got caught in a cloudburst. We just rode through it and we dried off quickly enough but by the time we reached Alamosa that moisture and subsequent evaporation combined to bring us hypothermia. We headed for the nearest coffee shop and sat there for two hours drinking pot after pot of coffee, trying to stop shaking.

As an aside, coffee is not the best thing to drink in this situation. You’ll get a lot better results if you drink something like hot chocolate. Just FYI.

When we finally got warmed up we figured it was time to find a motel, so we walked on out to the bikes. Well, guess what. This coffee shop’s parking lot was newly repaved and the day was a really hot one. John’s kickstand, which was pretty vertical with a small foot, had sunk right into that asphalt and his bike had toppled over onto Bill’s, with both of them going down.

OK, lesson learned. From then on when it was hot and we were on asphalt we knew to find a flattened aluminum can or a broad rock or something to put under the stand. Later we all acquired pucks to carry with us. We do learn.

A couple years later, on a trip where John’s son Johnathon was with us, we were up in Idaho, heading north from Arco. At some point we spotted a nice, shady spot to pull over and take a break. We weren’t on pavement or rock but no big deal. Until, as we lounged there taking it easy, there came a crash. Johnathon’s bike–the one that had been John’s and knocked Bill’s bike over previously, had sunk into the soft dirt and gone down. At least no other bikes were involved and Johnathon, too, now learned the lesson.

A couple years after that, with Dennis now part of the group, we were up in Wyoming in the Bighorn Mountains. We stayed at a lodge where the people were so creepy it gave us thoughts of the Stephen King novel and movie, “The Shining,” but that’s a whole other story.

It rained hard that night. No problem, the parking lot was gravel. Well, maybe gravel and sand. And Dennis came out in the morning to find his Gold Wing laying on its side, with the kickstand sunk deeply into the more sand than gravel spot where he left it. Dang.

Now, those are the kinds of falls that even a Harley would be vulnerable to, because when the ground is soft even something broad and flat will sink. But it’s especially likely with a very vertical stand with a small foot. Such as on my Honda CB750. Or my old Kawasaki Concours. Or my Suzuki V-Strom. Are you catching my drift?

It was not long at all after I first bought the CB750 that I rode over to meet John and his wife Cheryl at a park where they were watching Johnathon playing soccer. When I parked the bike the ground was sloped such that it was standing up pretty straight but I figured it would be fine. Wrong. We came back to the bike and there it was on the ground. Apparently just the wind was enough to tip it too far.

Then there was the day I was out on the Connie and parked along a street with a pretty good crown to it. Which is to say, with the kickstand on the left and a slope to the right, that bike was quite upright. And yeah, I came back to it and it was down.

And then later I got the V-Strom and on one of my first rides with it I was with a group down along the Platte River up in the hills and we pulled off by the river. I jockeyed that thing a good bit to be sure I had it somewhere where it would be OK but I misjudged. I got off, walked away, and had only gotten about 10 feet when there was this big crash behind me. Dang. Dang. Dang.

There have been others. And there’s always something that breaks. I guess it’s all just part of the expense of riding motorcycles. It sure has been for me.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 30. Yes, the bike gets a Christmas gift.

I was headed home from doing Guanella Pass and after I turned down Kerr Gulch Road I stopped to take off the sweatshirt I had put on before going up that pass. No big deal, right?

I pulled off at a driveway, put the kickstand down, and got off. And the bike just rolled forward, off the kickstand, and fell. What the hey? This was very much like a time years ago when I was crossing Idaho with Kevin and we stopped so I could clean my visor. I parked and got off and Kevin pulled in behind me and got off . . . and his bike rolled forward, bumped into mine, and they both went down.

OK, fine. I know how to pick a bike up. Crouch, backed into the seat, grab the handlebar with one hand and something on the body with the other and stand up, using your legs, not your back. But a funny thing happened.

I really don’t know what it was, but each time I tried to lift the bike, instead of coming up, it pivoted in a clockwise direction. Was it turning on the kickstand? On the case guard? On the highway peg? On the regular peg?

I don’t know, but after three attempts to lift it the bike had rotated about 90 degrees. What the hey?

Oh, and another thing. Apparently the seal on the gas tank is not particularly snug because gas was dribbling out of the tank at a pretty fast pace. If this thing lay there very long I’d lose half my gas at least.

I really didn’t know what I was going to do but just then I saw two guys coming from the house next door to the one whose driveway I was in. they climbed through and over a fence and hurried to me, calling out asking if I was OK. Yeah, I’m fine, I said, I didn’t go down. I parked the bike and it went down by itself.

So they helped me get it back up, with at least half a cup of gas spilling out of the brush guard on the handlebar which had been catching it as it ran out of the tank. OK, let’s get the heck out of here.

The bike fired right up and I put it in gear and was off, no problem. After thanking these guys profusely. And after assuring them for about the fifth time that I was not injured. Nice guys. Thank you so much!

Biker Quote for Today

Me and my bike, we’re like two best friends on a journey together.

Just to wrap this up, I’m not going on this RMMRC ride I’ve been talking about. Healing is just taking too long.

But as part of my exploration as to what I am currently capable of, on Tuesday I decided it was time to do a real ride and I went out US 285 and then over Guanella Pass. A beautiful day to ride and if I couldn’t handle this 150-mile jaunt I sure couldn’t handle the longer days planned for the trip.

And it was good. I got all the way out of town before I felt even slight discomfort. Big, big improvement.

So there I am tooling up 285 and a couple on a Concours 14 rolled up behind me. Very shortly afterward another guy joined us. I was chuckling to myself about how anyone who saw us was almost certainly thinking we were a group of riders on a trip together. You don’t think that about three cars in a row but you do when it’s a bunch of motorcycles.

Then in a few more miles we were joined by two more guys on bikes. Now we’re a group of five bikes and six people, for all the world like we’re traveling together. We passed a bunch of bikes going the other way, everybody’s waving, and I’m just shaking my head at how I just know that even those bikers figured we were together.

The solo guy who had been the third member of the group turned off at Pine Junction so now there were only four bikes, and we got to Grant and I turned up the Guanella Pass road and the couple on the Concours went straight. They have a sign there at Grant that I liked. It read, “This is a mountain pass, not a raceway. Slow down and enjoy the scenery.” Words of wisdom.

The other two guys had dropped out of sight behind we got to Grant but then I stopped partway up the pass to put on a sweatshirt–it was getting chilly!–and they went by. Hey fellas, fun riding with you for awhile.

Just FYI there were a lot of tar snakes on the Grant side of this pass. I figured since it was cool they would be no issue but after my rear end slid out a couple times I concluded they were not to be ignored. On the Georgetown side, which is a different county, there were no tar snakes but there was a lot of gravel in the very high switchbacks and some in some of the lower ones. So take care riding this pass at this point.

And yeah, it was darn chilly up on top of the pass but dang if my butt didn’t still just feel fine. I like this. I’ll need to stop and take the sweatshirt off when I get lower but for now it’s very welcome.

So there was no obvious spot to stop once I got down lower so I kept riding but by the time I was getting off I-70 at the El Rancho exit I was cooking. The plan was to jump on the Evergreen Parkway just a couple miles and then turn off onto Kerr Gulch Road and take that very non-busy route down to Kittredge.

Up at the top Kerr Gulch is very steep but I finally came upon a driveway and that looked like a good spot to stop. I stopped, put the kick-stand down, and got off . . . and the bike just rolled forward and fell over. Dang! I didn’t need this. What happened next is a bit of a story and I’ll tell that next time. Suffice it to say I got going again.

So, down to Kittredge, to Morrison, to US 285, and home. A good long ride and by the time I got home I knew I’d be texting Alberto to say no way am I going on this trip. By this point I was hurting and this time a hot soak in the tub was not enough to make it all go away.

Not that it mattered as it turned out. I checked my email later and he had sent me a note the day before saying he had had to cancel out. And a couple other guys dropped out, too, and it was now just down to Alan, the organizer, and Bruce. I texted Bruce to ask if they were going to go nevertheless and he said yes. Good for them. Sorry I won’t be with you.

Biker Quote for Today

Does it get any better than motorcycling with your best friends?

With four days left before we are to leave on this RMMRC ride my butt is better but not great so I took another ride to see just how bad–or good–it was. Verdict: I still don’t know.

I had taken a ride about a week earlier and that time I had barely gone a block or two and was already uncomfortable. I made it for about 35 minutes that day. This time it actually felt just fine at first, but after about a mile I felt the discomfort creeping in. But that’s a big improvement.

It was a blazing hot day so I wanted to head up into the hills. I meandered my way through the southwest suburbs heading toward Deer Creek Canyon. But then, heading south on Kipling, the bike died. Please, no!

I was on the Honda and I stopped at a traffic light but when I started to move again it just died. I pressed the starter button and it fired up but as soon as I let out the clutch it died again. I was in the middle of the intersection at this point so I paddle-walked the rest of the way across, coming to a stop next to the median.

As I said, it was blazing hot and I had visions of being stuck there in the heat with no shade anywhere, waiting for a tow truck. But I’m not stupid, or new at this, and it occurred to me that this was kind of like running out of gas. Now, the trip meter only read 68 miles and this bike generally goes to Reserve at about 125 miles. But it had been in the shop and I had not filled the tank since I’d had it back so who knows how totally off that 68 might be. I flipped to Reserve, pressed the starter, and it fired up. Yahoo! Next stop the nearest gas station.

I got to the canyon and by now the discomfort was starting to worry me. I’d never go 250 miles in a day like this. But then suddenly it was like second wind, where the burning just kind of went away. I felt fine again. Nice.

Nevertheless, as I continued further up the canyon a bit came creeping back again. It was my intention to crest out of the canyon and down to Turkey Creek Road, where I would go right. I decided to stop at Tiny Town both to get a photo and to see how much good it did to just get off the bike for a few minutes.

I got my picture and even that few minutes off the bike did a lot of good. Then I got onto US 285 coming back down out of the hills and continuing east to home. Along the way it was getting pretty uncomfortable again so I decided to shift my position on the seat. It isn’t sitting per se that is uncomfortable, it is sitting for very long in the same position. And yes, shifting around made a big difference.

Then as I got back into town I made a point to stand up every time I got stopped at a red light. That helped, too. Altogether, this time I was out for an hour and a half and I did not feel as bad as I had after 35 minutes a few days before. I decided I now put my odds of going on this ride at 70-30, versus the 50-50 I had set it at previously. But just four more days.

When I got home I found that Alberto, my presumed roommate on this ride, had texted me asking for an update. I guess Alberto is a glass half empty kind of guy because he asked if I was still a no-go. Looking at 50-50 I had never considered myself a no-go. Surely I would get better each day–the question was how much better I would get, how fast. I was just waiting to see if I would feel sufficiently better. But now I told him 70-30.

He asked for a definite decision by Tuesday evening. Money is apparently an issue and he said if I’m not coming he isn’t going to pay those hotel bills by himself and will cancel and not go either. And of course he needs to cancel far enough in advance not to be charged. So I guess I’ll be making a definite decision on Tuesday, after riding again on Monday and then Tuesday.

My best guess at this point would be a go. I just may not ride with the rest of the group all the time, stopping whenever I feel the need to regardless of what they do. Plus, I’ll be on the V-Strom and that bike is designed to be ridden standing up, so I may stand up a lot.

Biker Quote for Today

Any day is a good day to leave some miles behind.

I hadn’t been on a bike recently because about 10 days ago I had minor surgery that makes it very uncomfortable for me to sit down for too long. But I’m planning on doing a four-day RMMRC ride in a bit less than two weeks so I was feeling a bit uncertain. Figured I’d better go for a ride.

I plan to ride the V-Strom so that was the bike I went out on. I was figuring it has a nice broad, flat seat so maybe that will be OK. Well, I got about two blocks and was already uncomfortable. Not a good sign.

So I wanted to see, would the discomfort get worse, diminish, or what, and how quickly? I checked my watch before I left.

Certainly I did not want to go a long way away and find myself in pain and have a long way to return, so I headed out, went a ways, and made a right turn. Now just go straight until I’m feeling like I ought to do another right turn. One more right turn after that and I would be home.

The good news is that the discomfort did not increase. The not so good news is that it did not diminish either. And hitting bumps was not more uncomfortable as I thought it might be. It was just a stable level of discomfort, but I have the strong suspicion that if I were to do that all day it would get a lot worse and then maybe I wouldn’t even be able to walk the next day.

OK, that answered my question. And I was only out for 35 minutes. Now, I still have 10 days before we leave. Surely I’ll be feeling a lot better by then, right? I mean, heck, I did three weeks straight on the Concours just two months after having heart surgery. This will pass, won’t it?

It better. I’m set up to share motel rooms with Alberto on this ride and I don’t want to leave him holding the bag paying in full for rooms he had expected to split. But if we were leaving tomorrow and I was feeling like I do today there’s no way I’d be going. We all know about monkey butt. Well, this is monkey butt to the max. It’s got to be better in 10 days.

Biker Quote for Today

They say treat yourself right, so I bought myself a motorcycle.

Having had three motorcycles for many years it is really odd now at home with just one. I sold one–the Concours–and another, the CB750, is in the shop for some work. I have always kept the V-Strom in the garage, parked in front of my car, while the other two resided in the workshop that runs alongside the garage.

Right now the workshop is empty of bikes and, by golly, I’ve been using it as a workshop! What a concept!

I bought a new battery-powered electric lawnmower and typically I would have waited for a sunny, warm day and unpackaged it out on the driveway, but now, despite a few days of cold and snow, I just went in the workshop and took care of it there.

And I have this old, damaged chair that I have undertaken to repair and reupholster with our grandson Jack so as to give him some experience in doing things like that and also to help him understand that just because something is broken doesn’t mean you just throw it away and get a new one. We’ve been working on it out on the back porch but that’s not a wonderful place to be making a long-lasting mess. That’s the role of a workshop.

So yeah, I’ll be getting the Honda back fairly soon so it will go back in there, but I’m thinking I’ll continue to park the V-Strom in the garage and that will leave me room to work in the workshop. I like that idea.

And speaking of the Honda, I mentioned that the guys at the shop were not seeing the smoking that was the reason I took it in. I spoke with the person at the desk about the other things they say need work but I told her I’m still most concerned about the smoking. Maybe it didn’t smoke when they started it up because there was so little oil that it hadn’t seeped through. Try it again now that they added oil and ran it and now it has had a few days to sit. See if it smokes then. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ll have the carbs synced and they say that if they haven’t been rebuilt in the life of the bike that is probably going to be necessary, too. And that’s a six-hour job, and for all bikes older than 1999 they charge a higher hourly rate: $155 an hour. So that’s going to cost me about $1,000.

I’m glad to get the work done and I’ll pay whatever it takes but I’m still going to be looking for a new regular mechanic who doesn’t charge high rates like that. The really big question is who?

Biker Quote for Today

My happiest hours include a sunset and a motorcycle.

I have three motorcycles and I was just reflecting on the numerous times that as worked to my benefit. Sure, I have to spend a bunch more money on maintenance and insurance–not to mention purchase–but it’s worth it in my opinion.

Right now offers a perfect example. After getting my 1999 Kawasaki Concours back from the shop following my misadventure getting home from the latest OFMC trip I now had a throttle issue. I took it back to the shop to have that addressed and it has now been 50 days since I dropped it off and I am still waiting to get it back. If I only had one bike that would have been 50 days of no riding. Not acceptable.

There have also been several instances when I was leaving on a trip, planning on riding a particular bike, and had issues with that bike at the point when I was leaving. One time the bike just wasn’t running right and I made a detour to the shop, where they worked on it a bit but couldn’t guarantee for me the issue would not reappear. Another time I was checking the air in the tires and discovered that one valve stem was totally rotted out, so badly I couldn’t understand why the tire wasn’t flat already.

In both cases I just pulled all my things off the one bike and loaded it all on another and off I went.

On at least another couple occasions I wanted to take one bike but checking the tread on the tires there clearly wasn’t enough rubber to go a couple thousand miles. At the same time, there was plenty of rubber to go another 1,000 miles or so and I didn’t want to junk that tire prematurely. Not with motorcycle tires generally getting only 10,000 miles or less as it is. And paying to have the old tire replaced and then put back on later would be absurd. No problem–take a different bike.

Early on in the rides of the OFMC, back when I only had one bike, I had an issue and did not have this option. I needed some work done on my CB750 and took it to a shop well in advance of departure date, telling them I absolutely had to have it by a certain date, but expecting to get it back well in advance of that date. They said oh yeah, we’ll have it done well before then. They didn’t. They didn’t have it done until three days after Bill and John had already left. I ended up riding really hard for two days solid to meet up with them a long way from here. How nice a second bike would have been at that point.

Having more than one bike has also worked to the advantage of other people a couple times, too. Once the OFMC was heading out and Johnathon had problems with his bike. I loaned him my CB750; he got to go on the trip. Another time a member of the RMMRC who has moved away from Denver was back in town. The RMMRC was going on a ride. I offered to let him ride my V-Strom. He did. You’re welcome.

So yeah, I like have three motorcycles. I strongly recommend it. You have room for another, don’t you?

Biker Quote for Today

A motorcycle ride melts away the frustration of life in less than a mile.