Passes & Canyons Blog

I noted down the odometer readings on my vehicles on December 31 once I knew I wasn’t going anywhere else that day. Once again, as has been the case every year for quite a few years, I put a lot more miles on my three motorcycles than I did on my car. In fact, once again, I put more miles on one particular bike than I did on the car.

My mileage on the car was up about 500 miles last year, all the way to 3,062. That compares to 2,506 in 2022. But I put 3,940 miles on the V-Strom, which was 74 miles more than the previous year. That’s the third time the Suzuki has gone more miles than the car.

It used to be that the Concours was the bike that out-distanced the car, often by a heck of a lot. For instance, in 2010 the Concours to Elantra numbers were 10,004 and 5,581. In 2011 they were 6,875 and 3,556. In 2012 they were 9,437 and 5,061. But now apparently I ride the V-Strom more.

In fact, my Concours number was only 1,849 in 2023, compared to 2,354 in 2022. Part of that had to do with it being out of commission after overheating up by the Eisenhower Tunnel coming home from the OFMC trip. It was nearly two months before that bike was rideable again.

I know I’m not going to get big numbers on my CB750 so my target each year is to put at least 1,000 miles on it. Once again I was unsuccessful. I only racked up 672 miles on that bike in 2023, which was down from the 729 miles in 2022. I try to favor that bike for that very reason but I guess I just don’t do it enough. A new year’s resolution I’ll try once again to keep.

Altogether in 2023 I put 6,461 miles on my bikes. This is down a bit from the previous year, when I rode them 6,949. My total mileage on all four vehicles for 2023 was 9,523 compared to 9,455 in 2022. Are most people as consistent as I am?

Biker Quote for Today

Distance is just a number when you ride a bike.

The early part of this week has been great riding weather, with bad weather coming soon, so of course I was out taking advantage of it.

On Monday I took the V-Strom out and ran the regular errands I carry out each month. Not a lot of miles so I’ve got to get back out on this one again this month if I want to turn over the next 1,000 on the odometer. I’m still about 70 miles away. Maybe today after I finish this post. The weather is supposed to hit tomorrow.

On Tuesday I went out on the Concours for a longer run. I’m still waiting to get the bike in to Rowdy Rocket Garage to get this vacuum issue fixed so I’m still contending with the fact that the engine races like crazy every time I pull the clutch in to shift. I’ve started figuring out how to adapt to the problem at other times. For instance, if I’m coming to a stop I just let the bike slow down a lot before I finally pull in the clutch and downshift. Normally you would be concerned about stalling but this bike is not going to stall. In fact, much of the time I can let go of the throttle just as if I had cruise control on and the bike just keeps going.

This ride just strengthened my resolve that yes, I am going to sell this bike at some point and replace it with something newer and lighter. It just isn’t all that much fun to ride when I’m constantly having to pay attention to this problem. And yes, once I am finally able to have the problem addressed it will eliminate this negative condition but I’m past that. My mind is made up to move on. I was talking to Bruce yesterday and he was saying just go ahead and sell the bike as it is and take whatever you can get. But I don’t think I could find any buyer at this time of year so I’d like to have it fixed so I can enjoy riding it in the next few months before I sell it. At least if it’s not going to cost too much.

Then on Wednesday the RMMRC took a ride out to Bennett for lunch. I rode the CB750.

There were eight of us on this beautiful, warm, sunny day. We headed out down Parker Road, then east on Quincy and out into the country. There are not a lot of options on roads to take going out where we were headed so we just rode the straight out to where we turned north on County Road 129, jogged east and then north under I-70, and reached our destination, the High Plains Diner. We had never been there before and I was favorably impressed. The food was good–nothing spectacular–at very reasonable prices. I would not hesitate to go there again.

Heading out after the meal we didn’t have a lot of choices. We could go back the way we came or we could go east about a mile and take the Kiowa-Bennett Road south. Heading west without going south didn’t offer any attractive options, although I guess we could have gone east on US 30 to Watkins and then south on Watkins Road. We took the Kiowa-Bennett Road.

Two of us were inclined to go on all the way to Kiowa and then turn west but the other six decided just to go south as far as Quincy and then retrace our route there. So we did, then home. But man, it was a great day to be out on a bike.

Biker Quote for Today

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.

Every year about this time I look at the odometers on my three bikes and set my goals for how many more miles I want to put on each of them before the end of the year. Which is to say, turning over the next thousand on the odos. As usual, it’s a mixed bag.

The easy one is going to be the V-Strom. That odometer currently sits at 45,880. If I can’t ride another 120 miles in 2023 I’m not trying. Not that riding prospects look all rosy at the moment. Writing this over the weekend I’m looking out the window at nearly a foot of fresh snow and temperatures in the 20s. Tomorrow is to be colder. Yikes! But this is Colorado and doubtful as it may look, we know it will get warm again and temps will reach at least into the 60s, if not higher. So it’s just a waiting game.

The other two are a lot more iffy.

The meter on the Concours is now sitting at 79,130. That’s a full 870 more miles I would need to put on that bike in the next two (cold) months. Probably not going to happen. I can try but I wouldn’t bet a plugged nickel on doing it. On the brighter side, I’ve put quite a few miles on this bike this year so not hitting another thousand this year is not a failure. I can live with that.

The one I’ll probably focus on will be the Honda CB750. That odometer currently rests at 37,365 so I’m probably not going to roll that over to 38,000 this year but the other measure I watch with this bike is that I try to put at least 1,000 miles on the bike each year. Because most of my riding is on the other two this does not always happen. But in this case, while I would need another 635 miles to roll the odo over to 38,000, I can hit the 1,000 for the year mark if I just put another 498 on it.

That’s still a lot at this time of year but I can at least try. The weather will have a lot to say about how likely I am to succeed. Speaking of which, we had some great weather this last couple weeks but I didn’t get in nearly as much riding as I would have liked. But I knew the weather was about to change and I have a lot of things to do to prep for winter each year. Things like shutting down the swamp cooler, covering the attic fan, getting the sprinkler system blown out, and getting the garden stripped and all the veggies stockpiled. For instance, I have about 30 pounds or more of tomatoes at this point, most of them green. All of that has kept me plenty busy. And now the weather has hit.

The flip side of that is that now, once the weather gets warmer, I don’t have a lot of other things crying for my attention, so I can ride when it’s possible. Don’t be surprised if you see me on the Honda.

I took the V-Strom to Colorado Moto Service for fluids and chain alignment and I knew they were busy but at least expected to hear from them soon as to what work they felt was needed and the cost. I was going to be leaving soon on this year’s OFMC bike trip but I was planning to ride the Kawi so it was not urgent. Still, I was expecting some sort of follow-up.

A week went past and I heard nothing. So I called. The guy working the desk said they were about to take a look and he’d send me an estimate right away. This was a Thursday. I got the estimate on Tuesday, 12 days after I had dropped the bike off.

The estimate called for all kinds of work to be done, a lot of which I felt was unnecessary, such as new tires front and back. Their criteria for recommending this was that based on the date of their manufacture they were old. Never mind that they had plenty of tread and the rear tire was new (on the bike at least) last year.

I called, said do this, don’t do that and told the guy I was leaving town on Friday. He took it to mean that I was leaving town on the bike they had in the shop and while that was not true I figured it didn’t hurt to let him think that. He promised to have it for me on Thursday.

On Thursday at about 11 a.m. I called. The guy at the desk said blah, blah, and we’ll have it for you by the end of the day tomorrow, does that sound good? I said loudly, adamantly, “No!” I reminded him I had told him I was leaving town the next morning and he said he would look into shifting the shop schedule to get it done and said he’d call me to tell me what would happen.

He didn’t call. At 4:20 I called. He said it would be done by close of business. When is that? 5 p.m. I explained that my wife was not there to give me a ride and I would need to take the light rail to the Broadway Station and get the bus heading out Mississippi and walk the last five blocks. It would be some time past close of business before I could get there. And it was raining hard at that moment. We did an e-pay and he said the key would be in a lock box. OK, not convenient but it would do.

I hung up and almost instantly our highly esteemed handyman, Dale, called about coming over to eyeball a job he was to be starting on the next morning. Would that work? I said I didn’t know and explained about the bike. He offered to take me there. Wow. Thank you. So he came, eyeballed the job, and we headed out. The guys at the shop were still there when we got there at 5:05 and the mechanic was just taking it for a test ride. So it all worked out and I got home dry.

Now, if the guy had just called me back as he said he would I could have simply gotten myself there before 5. I like these guys but their follow-through sucks. If you tell someone you’re going to do something you should do it. But they did a good job, the charge was reasonable, and I wouldn’t hesitate to take one of my bikes to them again. Although I would want to have a conversation with someone there about the need to follow through on promises.

All that said, they remain a good distance from where we live and getting there is not at all convenient. I would still be open for other options. And I would have an opportunity to explore other options sooner than I would have hoped. This story continues in my next post.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s not a new bike. It’s a new member of the family.

When I bought my first motorcycle, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, I would take it to Aurora Honda for service. At some point, however, many years ago now, they fired me as a customer. They told me they didn’t want to work on a bike as old as mine.

So I looked around and found an independent mechanic who welcomed my patronage. This was Joel Brown, who ran his shop, Mountain Thunder Motorsports, over on old Hampden just east of Federal. Joel was my guy for the Honda, and then when Vickery fired me as a customer with my 1999 Kawasaki Concours I started taking that bike to him as well. When I bought my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650 I never took it anywhere but to Joel.

Now Joel has gotten out of the business of wrenching for customers; he needed to have health coverage for his family and so he took a job as the house mechanic at Aces Motorcycles in Littleton. It took a bit for me to finally get clear that Joel is done with outside work. I think he’s the kind of guy who hates to say no, so when I would call him needing some work done he would tell me he only has one day a week now to do that kind of work and maybe he could recommend me to another mechanic “so I could get the work done quicker.”

Joel recommended me to a guy named Mark who ran a shop just a few blocks from Joel’s old shop, and I took the V-Strom there one time and was pleased with the service so I figured this would do. Then the time came when I needed work done on some bike and surprise . . . Mark’s shop was no longer there. It turned out, as Joel told me, Mark had some serious health issues and had to close the shop. Now I was back to square one.

OK, not a huge deal. There are plenty of other motorcycle mechanics out there, aren’t there? Umm, actually no. In fact I was aghast to see just how few shops there seem to be any more. But I identified two that looked promising. One was Colorado Moto Service, over on Lipan, a few blocks south of Mississippi. That’s a good bit further away than Joel’s or Mark’s shops were but you do what you have to do. The second was Rowdy Rocket Garage, which I was surprised to find is quite close to me. I read some good reviews and so decided to try Rowdy first.

I needed some service again on the V-Strom. I wanted all the fluids flushed and replaced–oil, coolant, transmission fluid–and I wanted the chain adjusted. I called Rowdy and Mark told me he was swamped, that his garage has limited space and so in order to take a bike in he first has to get a bike he has finished with out. Could I call him back on Monday? (This was a Thursday.) Fine. I called on Monday and he said call him on Wednesday. I called on Wednesday and he said call him on Saturday.

At this point I was getting ready leave town for about 10 days on a bike trip so I just wanted to get the bike in. I called Colorado Moto Service and they said sure, they could get the bike in and out right away. Could I bring it by and drop it off on a particular day. I said yes and I did. The follow-on to this is another post, my next one. This whole story is going to take at least three posts. Check back for part two on Thursday.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride Big, Ride Long, Ride Free.

As I said I would, I went to Fay Myers Motorcycle World on Friday to test ride the latest V-Strom 650. This is with an eye toward possibly replacing my ’99 Concours and my ’06 V-Strom 650 with something in between them size-wise and moving to an updated machine. Not at all a certainty to happen.

I suppose it was because it was Friday and people were at work but there were not a lot of people looking to do test rides. There were only three in my group. One guy was testing the V-Strom 800DE and the other was on a Husqvarna street bike.

Sitting on the V it was clear to me that this seat height was lower than on my 2006 V. It makes sense. The V-Strom started out as a dual-sport bike but as it became ever clearer to Suzuki that most of their buyers never or almost never take the bike off the pavement they made it progressively more of a street bike. And then now they’ve side-stepped over to cover the dirt niche again with the new 800DE. But the basic V-Strom is now a full-on street bike.

It felt good to ride. I definitely like the bike. We headed east a bit on Arapahoe and then turned south on Lima, which became Inverness Drive East. Who knew Inverness Drive was a racetrack!? But it is. And these demo guys know that. It has some curves, a lot of open stretches, and not a lot of traffic, at least not at this time of day. I believe we violated some traffic laws.

The V handled well but it really did not seem to have the acceleration I’m accustomed to with my ’06. Everything felt good, though.

Swinging around at the south end and starting north on Inverness Drive West we were still on the racetrack but at one point the guy on the 800DE slowed way down. Just seemed to be coasting. To a stop? Did his engine die? Just as the other guy and I were about to blast past him and leave him to the sweeper to deal with he nailed the throttle and took off. He was sling-shotting. Holding back to create distance so he can really hit the throttle.

I’m sorry, but that’s a jerk thing to do. This was not the first time I’ve contended with that. Generally in the pre-ride talk they tell you not to do it; they had not done so this time, though I doubt that would have stopped him. But it creates issues for the people behind you and it’s just not cool.

Anyway, we got on back to Fay Myers and I sat on the bike a bit checking out different items. One of the demo guys came along and asked if I had any questions. Yes, I do. Does this have cruise control? One of the things I want if I’m going to move to a new bike is cruise control, and I could not identify anything that would be that control.

No, it does not, he replied. Darn. That really pretty much is a deal breaker for me at this moment. So no, I won’t be buying a 2023 V-Strom 650. But the game of shopping for a new bike has been launched.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m a motocross rider because football players need heroes, too.

Item of note: Suzuki is doing a demo days event this weekend, Friday and Saturday, August 11 and 12, at Fay Myers Motorcycle World.

That demo days thing is of more interest than usual for me because for the first time in a very long time I’m giving thought to buying a motorcycle. And for the first time ever I’m considering selling a motorcycle. Or two. For someone who still owns and rides every motorcycle he has ever owned, this is unusual.

This all has to do with where I see the future going. I know that at some point I’m going to decide to sell my 1999 Kawasaki Concours because it is just so big and heavy. But it’s a great highway bike.

I really like my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650, and it does well on the highway, but having just been out for 10 days on the Concours it really brought home to me just how much better the Kawi is as a highway bike. Plus, I bought the V-Strom to be more comfortable off the pavement–and it is–but the truth is that I don’t really go off the pavement all that often.

Lately I had been seeing mentions of this latest Suzuki V-Strom 800DE. It occurred to me that maybe I ought to sell both the V-Strom 650 and the Concours and buy one of these larger V-Stroms that presumably would fill the niches both of the other bikes fill.

On the recent OFMC trip I mentioned this thinking to Bill and Dennis and they both responded enthusiastically. Both of them are the type who like to trade up for something new now and then just because, and they have a hard time understanding my preference for keeping the same bikes year after year. Plus, as Dennis pointed out, this new bike would presumably have cruise control, which would be so much better than my current throttle locks.

So I started reading more on the 800DE but what I read made me less, not more, interested in it. One thing I read said it was the most dirt-ready of any V-Strom ever, and since I’ve found that I just don’t get off the pavement all that much that was kind of a negative. Plus, the seat height is considerably higher than on my current V-Strom, which is already high for my short legs.

Still interested in the idea of a single bike replacing these two, I turned my thoughts to other bikes that might fill that bill. I looked around and came up with a couple possible choices but then on Tuesday I needed to go to Fay Myers to get a battery for my Honda. I talked about how a guy at Batteries Plus tested the one I have and said it was fine, just needed to be charged, and how Roy came over and checked it out and said he disagreed with that guy. When I tried to start that bike Tuesday it barely responded and I concluded Roy was the correct one.

Of course while I was at Fay Myers I looked at bikes. I hadn’t really thought about a used bike but they had a Honda Africa Twin that had all the extras already on it and that got me to thinking about going the used route: lower cost, extras already in place.

I climbed on the new V-Strom 800DE and found I could not get it off the side stand because of the seat height. So that settles that one point. Then I noticed a new regular V-Strom right next to it and sat on it. I instantly liked this bike. Is there anywhere within reasonable distance, I asked, where I could take a test ride on this bike? Yes, right here, on Friday and Saturday, was the reply. Oh my gosh!

How would the 2023 V-Strom be different from the 2006, I asked. It would be lighter(!), perhaps a little more powerful, and have upgraded electronics (i.e., cruise control and more). This is sounding better and better.

So that’s where it sits. I will definitely be over at Fay Myers on Friday, looking to do some test riding. But I’ve also looked at Craigslist, Motorado, and Cycle Trader to see what is available used. And there are a lot of nice-looking used bikes out there, many with all the gear already on them. Who knows, I may soon do the unthinkable and do some motorcycle trading.

Biker Quote for Today

“Two of the most important things to me; my wife & my bike.” — Anonymous

The RMMRC is leaving in a few days on this New Mexico ride and at last week’s meeting someone asked me which bike I’ll be riding. Gosh, I hadn’t even thought about that. I guess I ought to.

The Honda CB750 was out right away because its tires are too thin and would not be enough for a 1,500-mile trip. That left the Concours and the V-Strom.

I figured what I really ought to do is take both of them out for runs and see which seems to be most ready, or else figure out what each of them might need.

I checked the tires on the V-Strom and the air was good. Check. Tires are good. Check. My top bag has suffered some damage in a couple times dropping the bike but I pulled out a strap that secures it well so no worries there. Check.

How is the oil? I just got the oil changed in my car the day before because I realized I had pretty much forgotten about paying it any attention. And I couldn’t remember the last time I changed the oil in the V.

I checked, which first meant figuring out how. That’s how bad an owner I am. So there’s a sight glass and you’re supposed to hold it level and check the level in the sight glass. Well, I didn’t see anything in the sight glass. I figured it would be good to take it for a ride over to Vickery to get some oil. That way I would also get a chance to see how it’s running.

It ran great. One thing I like about this bike is that it always runs great. I’ve had my troubles periodically with the Concours and the CB but the V-Strom, as they say, is bullet-proof.

I got home, put in some oil, checked the sight glass, put in some more, and it looked fine. So this bike is ready to go. I guess I’ll be riding the V-Strom. But now I really ought to check the air and oil in the Concours, just because they need to be checked. And if I do that before I leave, and I take it for a ride, maybe I’ll change my mind about which bike to ride. After all, the Concours is a really fine highway bike . . .

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you hate the fact that you were in front of your computer long enough to read this and not on your scoot.