Passes & Canyons Blog

The first of the month was two days earlier, so that meant I had three motorcycles to ride. It was an overcast day but not particularly cold and the forecast was for much colder soon. I figured it was a day to ride; I chose the V-Strom.

I wasn’t going to be fooled this time; I wore my riding pants with the lining in plus long underwear. It didn’t take any time at all to find that this was definitely the right choice. I’m stupid sometimes but not all the time.

I had no idea where to go. I just got on DTC Boulevard and headed south. That road turns into Yosemite and I just kept going. At County Line Road I turned west. It occurred to me that it had been years since I’d gone more than a few blocks on County Line Road so what the heck, I’d just take it all the way to Santa Fe Drive.

It was a nice ride, not a lot of traffic at all. And all the way west I could see clouds bunching up over the foothills. That’s weather coming in. Maybe I could find a good spot to do a picture of the bike and the clouds. This is the kind of thing that drives a lot of my rides. I don’t have any clear destination but I decide I want a particular type of photograph and then I go somewhere that I can get that shot.

The temperature was dropping, but I had my electric vest keeping me warm so it was not at all unpleasant. Meanwhile, it was fun being out on the bike. None of us get in enough riding time at this time of year.

I blasted north on Santa Fe, to Belleview, then turned east to home. Ten minutes after I got home I looked out and it was snowing. OK, I guess that worked out pretty darn well. Now I have two more bikes that need to be ridden.

Biker Quote for Today

A motorcycle shop is the only place riders like window shopping.

February has been very compliant this year, offering us good riding days right away. Of course I took advantage.

Friday of last week was looking to be the best day so I got out on the Concours. There were plenty of other bikes out, too. People know a good thing when they see it.

Nothing eventful happened on that ride but I did notice that unlike its opposite number and its predecessor, my new left-hand mirror vibrates as if I were on a Harley. That’s never been the case before. Did I just not wrench the nuts down tight enough? Getting to them is way too complicated for me to just go in and see, so I guess I’ll be living with this for the foreseeable future.

It was a beautiful day and Saturday promised to be very nice, too, so I left the other two bikes for Saturday. But Saturday proved to be no way near as nice.

I took off first on the V-Strom. The temperature was about five degrees cooler than the day before but more importantly, there was a breeze, and it was a cold breeze. I immediately turned on the electric vest, which I had worn the day before but never turned on. That helped a lot.

Unlike the day before, there were not a lot of other bikes out; I only saw a couple. I did notice, though, going over Cherry Creek Dam, that there were ice fishermen all over the lake. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen ice fishermen out there before. I guess that is a testament to how much colder this winter has been than recent years past.

I kind of had a longer ride in mind but it wasn’t long before I was getting more than a little chilly. I altered my route and got in a good ride but a shorter one than planned. By the time I got home my hands were seriously cold and all of me was uncomfortable. Fine, I have warmer gear.

After lunch I headed out on the CB750, this time having added long underwear and my riding pants with liner, and my heated gloves. Absolute night and day. I took a much longer ride and could not have been more comfortable.

The other really nice thing, which I didn’t even think about for a while, was that whereas the Honda had seemed to run poorly the last time I rode it, now it ran absolutely beautifully. Not one thing wrong. I have no idea what that business was about last month but I’m quite pleased it didn’t turn out to be something I would have to contend with.

This time I headed west and then turned south down US 85 through Sedalia. Not surprisingly, I saw a lot more bikes out this time. You will never ride down by Sedalia on a decent day and not see lots of bikes, and this day was no exception. I turned north on the Daniels Park Road, stopped and took the obligatory ride photo, and worked my way on home. Now the weather can do its worst, I’ve ridden all three bikes in February.

Biker Quote for Today

I love the sensation of being out in the open air, far away from all the distractions of modern life. I will usually disappear for a couple of hours, and that time on my bike is quite sacred, as it’s when I do all my serious thinking.

I make a point to ride each of my bikes at least once every calendar month, year-round. But so far here in January 2023 I had not been able to get out of the neighborhood because our street was covered in ice.

Last week we had a few warm days and I saw my opportunity approaching. There were patches of exposed asphalt but other big patches of impassable ice. But lanes of asphalt were starting to appear. So I went out with my shovel to give nature a helping hand.

I got out there and was surprised and pleased to see the neighbor three doors down out with an ice breaker busting up the ice in front of his house. We joined forces and after maybe an hour and a half we had carved a passageway most of the way down the block. All I needed was to get to the end of the block because the cross street down there was already clear.

Mick said he had other places he needed to go and I was tired so we weren’t going to do it all right then. He said he would leave his ice breaker leaning against his garage so I could use it. I rested for about an hour and then went back out to finish the job. I was following the path of least resistance so the last stretch I cleared had some curves in it. You can see that in the photo. But I figured I could handle that sort of maneuvering.

The next day, Saturday, was the day. Around noon I got on the V-Strom, fired it up, and headed down the street. It turned out that twisting path was not as easy on the bike as I had expected so I did end up clipping a bit of ice on the tightest corners but I got out and did a short ride. Coming home I took it really slow and managed the pathway but decided to come back with my shovel and clear some more.

That was when I noticed that nature had opened up much of a better route than mine and all I needed to do was scoop away some soft ice that separated that lane from mine. Now I had a good path. I went back and got on the Honda.

I got out on the Honda but didn’t go far. Something just didn’t feel right. It didn’t seem to be running properly. Not wanting to get too far from home in case I had problems, I just rode around a bit close by until the engine was fully warmed and then headed home. I still don’t know what’s going on; I’ll deal with that later.

Then it was time to take the Kawi out. And while it readily turned over, it just did not want to catch. I kept cranking and cranking and cranking and while it did catch at one point, it quickly died. Now what the heck? But I kept trying and it finally did start and keep running. And once I got out on the road it ran beautifully. It was just that trouble starting. I’ll just hope that it was because it hadn’t been run since early December.

So it was a beautiful day to ride, and I saw a bunch of other guys out on their bikes. Judging from the weather forecast this was going to be the last good day to ride for at least another week so lots of people took advantage of it while they had it.

It’s always iffy at this time of year; you take your opportunities when they knock. I may not get out again this month, who knows. But at least all three bikes got a January run, even if they were short.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short as you feel. But ride.

Every year after the first of January I look at my mileage for the year just ended. I did pretty well in 2022; rode the motorcycles more and put exactly 12 more miles on my car than I did in 2021.

First the car, because that’s my primary basis of comparison. I drove my car all of 2,506 miles. I wasn’t far off that with the Concours and well beyond it on the V-Strom. Nowhere close with the Honda, though.

The Honda only got ridden 729 in 2022. That’s down from 1,086 the year before. Which is a bit surprising to me considering that I thought I was trying to make a deliberate point of riding it regularly. Oh well, I’ll do better in 2023. And I’m also going to put some money into some work this good old bike is in need of.

The Concours had a better year than the CB750: 2,354 miles. That is up from 2,002 miles in 2021 and, as I said, almost as much as the car. Just 152 miles shy of the car. The Kawi got to go on the OFMC trip so it got a lot of miles off that one.

The champion this time around was the V-Strom. I rode that bike 3,866 miles in 2022. It got to go on the RMMRC Great River Road Ride and that was a good long jaunt. I hadn’t planned it that way. I was going to ride the Concours but had to make a last minute change when I discovered the valve stem on one of its tires was totally rotted away. It’s good to have more than one motorcycle.

Altogether that adds up 6,949 miles on motorcycles in 2022, versus 2,506 in my car. I may not put really big miles on any of my vehicles the way a lot of people do but by gosh, I do most of my getting around on the bikes. I kind of like it that way.

Biker Quote for Today

I love being on my bike, but I don’t consider that a sport: it’s too pleasant.

It’s that time of year when I always look at the odometers on my bikes to see if I can turn over just one more 1,000-mile mark by the end of the year. This year looks like it’s going to be easy.

With the V-Strom I just turned over 42,000 miles. It’s at 42,058 at the moment. No way I’m putting another 942 miles on that bike before the end of December.

With the Concours it’s not quite so cut and dried but still pretty obvious. The odo now sits at 76,309. Theoretically, if I had only one bike and I really got out on it a lot I could reach 77,000 by year’s end, but that’s not the case. I’ve got two other bikes that need to be ridden at least once each month. So no, I’ll just consider that turning over 76,000 hits the mark. If I turned over 76 in May there would be no excuse for not reaching 77, but doing so in October is good enough for this year.

Then we come to the Honda CB750. This is the bike I’ll be choosing on most of my rides for the next seven weeks. This bike is currently sitting at 36,730. That’s only 270 miles from 37,000. That’s doable. In fact, just two more rides like the one we did this past weekend are all it will take. (I do want to make a clarification here for anyone who is new here. This 1980 Honda CB750 Custom does not have only 36,730 on it in all these 42 years. The original speedometer/odometer set broke at about 84,000 and I replaced it with a salvage yard instrument cluster with about 29,000 on it.)

I track the mileage each year on all four of my vehicles, with my eye particularly on the motorcycle miles vs. the car miles. For about the past 10 years I have always put many more miles on my bikes than on my car. That’s the way I like it. I’ll do it again this year, no question. Heck, I’ll probably end the year with more miles on the Suzuki all by itself than on the car. Did I ever tell you I love my motorcycles?

Biker Quote for Today

Why didn’t the motorcycles get in the carpool? Because they didn’t have trunks.

The tumbleweeds were out in full force Sunday when eight RMMRC riders headed out to Patty Ann’s in Kiowa for a lunch ride. The weather has been great but the forecasts are for cold very soon and high winds immediately. They weren’t kidding.

As we headed east on a variety of roads the wind was blasting out of the south and tumbleweeds were blowing across the road like a mass migration. I felt like I was riding rather skillfully as I managed to get to Kiowa without hitting a single one but when we left a big one nailed me right away. OK, some skill, a bit of luck, too.

The wind was killer. I was on the V-Strom, which is my smallest and lightest bike, and we were getting pushed all around. With all its body work my Concours is like a sail but at least it weighs a lot more and so it is more stable. At times this wind had me leaning so far to my right that it felt like the wind might just blow my wheels out from underneath me. But it didn’t.

What it really reminded me of was heading out from Patty Ann’s the first morning of the Great River Road trip we did this summer. Heading southeast out of Limon that day on US 287 we hit such powerful winds that I rode for about 50 miles with the only thing visible in my left mirror being my chest; that was how far I was leaned over.

It also reminded me of a technique I discovered one day riding out this same road, CO86. On that day the wind was out of the north, not that that matters. What mattered was that I was struggling to keep that bike going where I wanted it to go and at one point, for whatever reason, I left go of the grip with my left hand. Suddenly controlling the bike was a lot easier.

The nearest I can figure is that when I was holding on with two hands my hands were working in opposition to each other. It certainly wasn’t a conscious effort but it was a strain and a struggle; once I let go with one hand, control was easy. I wasn’t fighting against myself. I’ve tried this many times since that day and it works every time.

An interesting aside: having figured this out I thought it was worth sharing so I sent a letter to one of the motorcycle magazines so they could pass it along to their readers. I never heard anything and they never printed my letter so I have to suspect they thought I was talking crazy but I’m not. It really works. Try it for yourself and you’ll see.

We headed out after lunch but original plans to take a roundabout route home got dumped because the wind was just blowing so hard and it was obvious the front over the mountains was coming our way. Everyone decided they just wanted to head home. So we did. But it was good to get out for one more ride before the bad weather arrives.

Biker Quote for Today

I thought of that while riding my motorcycle.

I’ll be leaving soon on this year’s OFMC trip and I plan to ride the Concours. So I got a new tire put on the V-Strom.

You have to understand, one of the best things about having more than one motorcycle is that if you’re planning to ride and find at the last minute that the bike you planned on has an issue, you just take a different one. I’ve run into that situation more than once.

Most recently, I was loading my Concours the night before departure on the Great River Road ride and found that the valve stem on the rear tire was totally rotted out. I immediately unloaded and moved everything to the V-Strom. I don’t expect anything like that this time but I wanted to be prepared just in case.

And man was that front tire in need of replacement. It wasn’t down to the cords or anything like that, but ever since I’ve had that bike I’ve run 80-20 Shinko tires that have an 80 percent bias for street riding but a chunkier tread that provides the 20 percent bias toward dirt. The thing is, in reality I don’t get off on the dirt all that much, but this tire doesn’t seem to like the pavement very much so it had a really odd wear pattern.

In fact, the guy at One Up Four Down, where I had the work done, commented on what an odd wear pattern it had, how the cupping was very unusual. Basically, the chunky tread along the outside was still thick but sloped down to almost nothing diagonally at an angle, while the inner portion of the tread was almost down to the DOT lines. Weird.

So I decided OK, I’ll just go with street tires. The guys next door at Let It Ride, where I bought the tire, recommended a Metzeler so that’s what I got.

In the meantime, while the guys were putting the new tire on I looked around at all the bikes they had in the repair shop. In the front of the shop, in an area where I was told the bikes were either ready to be picked up or were waiting for parts to arrive I spotted something very startling: A 1980 Honda CB750 Custom exactly like mine, except looking a lot more shiny and polished than mine.

It seems this bike, though, has an aftermarket exhaust system that has gone to crap and now they’re having a hard time finding something to replace it with. I still have the stock exhaust on mine and it works fine so whoever took theirs off and replaced it might have made a bad decision.

But there it was, looking very pretty and otherwise probably in a lot better condition than mine. I’m glad to see there are still others out there loving this old bike.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 38. “Am I dating an adult or a 10 year old” you’ll wonder sometimes.

We left McPherson, Kansas, very early with a lot more miles to cover this second day of the Great River Road Ride. Riding in early morning is frequently magical and it was this day. Plus, eastern Kansas is a lot prettier than the western portion. Winding through emerald green hills broken by the jagged red clay banks of little streams it was absolutely beautiful.

Crossing into Missouri we followed smaller roads all the way across the state. From Jefferson City we followed MO 94, which follows the Missouri River. Judy and I drove this road the other direction just last year and I knew it was a nice road. I did not remember that there were considerable stretches that were hilly and twisty and perfectly designed for motorcycles.

I was riding second behind Dave and we got into the good stuff and he cranked it up, as he typically will do. I am not an aggressive rider normally but in this case I did not want to hold up everyone behind me, plus, I figured my V-Strom has to be more agile than his big honking Beemer so if he can take this road at a rapid clip I can, too. And I did. I kept tightly with him every mile of the way and you know what? It was fun. It was a lot of fun. That evening on our way to dinner he told me “You did some fine riding today.” I knew that, and I know that I’m probably a better rider than a lot of folks, but it feels good to have that competence recognized by someone who is himself an excellent rider.

At one point Dave made a wrong turn and I’m guessing his GPS told him we could get back on track if we just took this one small road a few miles. We turned off and paused. Initially at least it was gravel. I was on the V-Strom so no problem for me but I wondered about the others. We continued and so did they and we reached pavement in just a few miles and all was well. Then we were back into the twisties. And who knew these Missouri hills were so full of wineries?

By this time we had come a long way and I know I was long past wishing for a stop. We came by several places I felt were perfect to pull over for a while and I was praying Dave would take them but no, he kept cruising. And then we were into the mess of suburban St. Louis afternoon commuter traffic. A couple more navigational glitches slowed us down more and even put us a bit at hazard but we finally worked our way into St. Charles, our stop for the night. Oh man, another 455 miles on top of the 470 the day before. Let me off this bike!

Biker Quote for Today

You can’t ride all day if you don’t start in the morning.