Passes & Canyons Blog

I’ve had a tank bag for my Kawasaki Concours for years and it’s been great. More recently I got a tank bag for my Suzuki V-Strom and it’s a very welcome addition as well. But I’ve never had a tank bag for my Honda CB750 Custom. I’ve felt that lack. Well, now I have one.

I took the bag from the Kawi with me on the Honda one trip and utterly regretted that. Whereas on the Connie it sits–with magnetic attachment–on a broad gas tank with wind protection from the fairing. On the Honda the tank was probably OK, not great, but with no fairing the wind wanted to lift it up and throw it around and I spent that whole trip fighting to keep it in place. A real horror! Nope, I needed a tank bag that straps down securely for the Honda.

So, as I often do, I received an email from the folks at Viking Bags offering to give me some gear in exchange for my testing and reviewing it. Usually I ignore these emails because one person really only needs just so much gear. But this time I figured what the heck, it would be nice to have a tank bag for the Honda.

Of course, nobody makes bags today designed specifically for a motorcycle made in 1980. But Viking does offer bags designed to fit many specific makes and models so I looked at what they had for Honda and picked one that struck me as possibly working on my Honda. I chose to go with the Viking Dirtman Medium Black Dirt Bike/Enduro Tank Bag.

I received the bag Saturday and immediately took it out to put it on the bike. I knew this might be less than straightforward.

The first thing I knew I needed to do was to remove the seat and loop the back strap under the slot where the tongue on the seat slips in to be held in place. That was easy, although removing the seat on this bike is never easy. That particular design element is so much better these days than it was in 1980.

Attaching it in front was not so simple. On this old bike, the gas tank straddles the backbone of the bike’s frame and wraps around the steering post. I slipped the straps into that V and then brought them back up to the bag. I wasn’t sure this was going to work but when I tightened everything down it did seem to do the job. The real test will be when I take it for a ride and see how it does.

I also had to figure out just what to do with the rest of the straps and I kind of jerry-rigged that.

It appears secure. What I like about it is that, as the name implies, this bag is designed for a dirt bike so it sits back on the tank, pretty much in the space where the actual tank on my Concours is. This leaves me free access to my gas cap so unlike with the other two, I won’t need to remove the bag to put gas in the tank.

Right now the strap comes up the side of the tank and that is a bit unsightly so I will probably try setting it up differently but for now it looks like it will work. I’ll be following up this post with an actual description of the bag and discussion of its features. I’ll also explain there how I finally decide to handle all this set-up.

In the meantime, I think it’s going to be really nice to finally have a tank bag on this bike. Heck, I’ve had this motorcycle for 33 years.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 5. Bonus at work? We’ll buy shiny bits for our bike instead of taking you on a romantic vacation.

For the first time in quite a while I have added a new page to the Passes and Canyons: Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website. The new page focuses on the numerous good motorcycle roads that lead to Cripple Creek, and I have named it “Roads to Cripple Creek.”

I don’t add many pages to the site these days because I’ve basically got it built out. It’s not like the roads in Colorado change all that often. I did add a new page for Guanella Pass when they finally paved that road all the way. But that’s not a common occurrence.

I first started thinking about Cripple Creek when I read somewhere that the high point of the road coming into town from the north, from Divide, is considered Tenderfoot Pass. If it’s a pass, I figured, I ought to have it on the site. But it’s kind of iffy as a pass. There is some more or less official registry of geographic place names in the U.S. and Tenderfoot Pass is not included on this list. And as many times as I have been over that road I never thought of it as a pass.

But then I got to thinking. While the road out of the north does have some good twists and turns, and goes up and down, and has some terrific views in places, it’s really probably not the nicest motorcycle road to get to Cripple Creek. There are others I would rate higher. So how about a page focusing on all of them. That’s what I did.

The other paved road into town is generally considered the back way, coming up in a roundabout manner from U.S. 50 a bit to the west of the Royal Gorge. If you’ve never been on this road you really need to do it. It has some terrific twists and lots of changes in elevation. Definitely better than the main road.

Then there are two gravel roads, both along old railroad beds. One comes directly into Cripple Creek, and that’s the Shelf Road, which comes north out of Canon City. Then the Phantom Canyon Road comes north from U.S. 50 a little to the east of Canon City and runs up to Victor, which is just a few miles east of Cripple Creek. Both of these are really nice, scenic road and are ride-able on street bikes as long as your bike is OK on decent gravel. For instance, I would not hesitate to take my Honda CB750 on them, but I would never consider riding them on my Kawasaki Concours. And of course, my Suzuki V-Strom loves that kind of stuff.

The page is not yet complete; I still need to add photos of these four roads. I have some already and just need to add them. For the others I’m going to have to go ride these roads again and get some shots. Oh the horrible burdens I bear!

Biker Quote for Today

The ride keeps me sane. I would like to call it my church.

The RMMRC rode up to Bruce’s in Severance a few weeks ago and while there we got in a conversation with our waitress.

It turns out she and her guy ride motorcycles and they were planning a trip in a couple weeks, going to Florida to visit family. While there they planned to rent a bike and cruise over to Daytona for Daytona Bike Week. But, oh man, the regular rental places were in full mercenary mode.

In addition to the usual high price of about $175 a day, they wanted more because it was Bike Week and they knew they could get it. As in an extra $500. It was kind of like when I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We got there a week before the official start to the event and ate every morning inexpensively at this particular restaurant. One morning we showed up and there was a new menu with all the same items but double the price. We asked why and the waitress told us, “Oh, that’s our carnival menu.”

No surprise then that these folks were not inclined to pay that much. She’s working in a restaurant in Severance, for Pete’s sake, they’re not wealthy. But they found an alternative: Riders Share.

I’ve written recently about Riders Share but I have never used the service or known anyone who has. But there she was. And presumably it worked out well for them. They had some nice cruiser bike lined up and as I recall it was going to cost them just around $100 a day for five days, with insurance included. You can’t beat that with a stick.

I’ve always found this concept interesting and seductive. I have three motorcycles. Why not make a little extra cash by renting them out on occasion? But that’s where you get into issues.

For instance, I have a 1980 Honda CB750 Custom. It’s an old bike, and not worth a whole lot. But hey! It’s the first motorcycle I ever bought. It was a dream come true, and I still love that bike. Sure, insurance would cover the financial loss if something happened to it but this bike is irreplaceable. It has so much emotion tied up in it. Exactly how horrible would I feel if someone else smashed it beyond redemption?

Well, what about my 1999 Kawasaki Concours? I don’t have the emotional attachment to this bike that I do with the Honda. And from time to time I have seen basically identical bikes in excellent condition for sale for essentially peanuts. The same is true for my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650. I love the bike but it could be replaced.

So for me it now gets to the question of what’s the point? There were a lot of years when I was scraping by and a bit of extra cash now and then would have been extremely helpful. But I’m retired now, and I’m doing fine financially. As I have said many times, if I needed more money I would not have retired. So no, I don’t think I’ll be listing my bikes for rent.

On the other hand, I do like having a bike to ride when I go somewhere, but I really don’t like the high prices the big companies charge. Something like Riders Share seems to me to be the perfect way to go. By the way, there is another company doing the same thing, called Twisted Road. If you’re planning a trip and want a bike to ride you might think seriously about checking out what is available on both these sites. I sure would.

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycles are not all about speed. It is a feeling, and emotion, but also my therapy.

We had some fabulous weather to start off February so I got out on all three bikes right away.

Of the two bikes I’ve recently had issues with the situations varied. The V-Strom, which I put a new battery into, started and ran just great. It still drips something but that is a longstanding issue that I’ll just continue to live with.

The Concours is a different matter. It fired right up and I ran it a good while to make sure it was warm. That bike has always needed to warm up before heading out.

Previously I had apparently left the reserve lever in the Prime position, an error that led to gas trickling into the cylinders and seeping past into the oil pan. In that state the bike wouldn’t run and I ended up making a real mess changing the oil. And once it was changed, although the bike fired up and ran, it didn’t initially run well. I rode around the neighborhood to be sure it didn’t crap out on me a long way from home, but eventually it did fine.

Well, same thing this time. I pulled out of the driveway and there was very little power. Again I rode around the neighborhood until it seemed to be doing OK and then I took off. This time, however, in two instances when I was coasting downhill and not revving the throttle at all the engine died. Now, it started back up right off when I pushed the starter button but this bike has never just died on me before. For the rest of the ride, anytime I was slowing down I made sure to give it a little more gas so it would not die. That’s a pain.

Maybe the business with dying could be remedied by just cranking up the idle speed a bit, I don’t know. But what the heck is the issue with the poor running in the beginning? Could there still be gas in the oil? Certainly not much–would just a tiny bit have that effect? Is there some other issue? I’m convinced that my mechanic put too much oil in when he changed it back in June. Could that have blown out a seal? What happens if a seal is blown? I just don’t know the answer to these kinds of questions. I need to do research.

Of course I could change the oil again–it certainly helped to change it before. I hate to do that because motorcycle oil is not cheap and changing oil on this bike is not a simple operation. And if I did that and it still was not running right, then what?

I just did a quick Google search and it appears I ought to check the air filter to see if excess oil has been through out that way. Now I need to look into how I get to the air filter. Sigh. I’ll let you know what happens.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: Disassembling the motorcycle is done out of pleasure rather than need.

Joel, my mechanic, came by and checked out the V-Strom, then went and got his volt meter out of the truck. The battery was gone.

I had intended to look at my records and see when I last replaced the battery but had not done so. I looked then and found out that amazingly, this was the battery that came with the bike when I bought it in 2014. Wow.

So the charge I thought I gave it was of no use. There was enough to turn on the lights and try to turn the starter but with the reading Joel got he was surprised it could even do that.

A couple days later I got out and bought a new battery and once I got it installed (more about that in a moment) I turned the key and pushed the starter button . . . and it didn’t want to start. At first. Then it did. OK, that’s good.

Our road was still covered in ice so I couldn’t take it for a ride but on Wednesday things were clear and I figured I’d head out. I pushed the starter and it didn’t want to start. And then it did. This is not instilling me with confidence.

I was cautious about getting far from home but as I rode it and it continued to run, and in fact to run better, I did eventually take it out for a real spin. And when I got home I turned it off, opened the garage, moved Judy’s car, and then started it again to ride it in. This time it fired right up. So at this point I’m just going to keep a wary eye on it.

Besides that, while it had previously seemed like there was a fuel line leak or something, the paper I had underneath it showed no sign of a drip. Joel had checked what was on the floor of the garage and said it appeared to be coolant, not oil or gas. All in all he told me to put in a new battery and then let him know how it did and whether other problems persisted. We’ll see how that goes.

As for putting in the new battery, what a pain. Taking the old one out had been easy, just back out the bolts and lift it out. Why couldn’t putting a new one in be so simple.

The first problem was that the cable ends that connect to the battery were form-fitted to nest over the posts, but the new battery had larger posts and no nesting was going to happen. If I could have reached the vise with the cables I would have flattened them out but that was not possible, so I took pliers and bent them enough to get the metal in contact.

Next, the bolts were not long enough to reach down and thread into the nuts. I had some longer bolts but when I tried using them they were too long and I couldn’t get them tight. So I tore off some stiff paper and stuck that in the space below the bolts, to elevate the bolts, and finally was able to thread the bolts into the nuts and tighten them up. What a pain, but I’ve had to do that before so it didn’t require any new creativity.

So the V-Strom is running again. But now I’m going to be nervous every time I ride it for awhile until it proves itself trustworthy again. And what the heck is the deal with this leak and the fuel?

Biker Quote for Today

The keys to success: Waking up in the morning. Going to bed at night. Riding a motorcycle in between.

It’s December 31 right now so it could be a tiny bit early to lock in my 2020 mileage but it’s unlikely I’ll be going anywhere today, so here goes.

Every year I tally up the miles I put on each of my three motorcycles and on my car. Once again, as has been the case for a long time, I put more miles on the bikes than I did on the car.

Obviously this has been an unusual year and my car mileage really shows it. I only drove my car 1,979 miles in 2020. That’s amazing. In comparison, I rode the Concours alone for 2,977 miles. I also put 1,026 on the CB750 and 1,046 on the V-Strom. That’s a total of 5,049 miles on the bikes–more than two and one-half times the miles I put on the car.

While 5,049 miles on the bikes may not seem like much it is in fact more than I did the previous year. In 2019 I only rode 4,777 miles. In last year’s post where I tallied all this I set a goal for myself to ride 10,000 miles. Clearly that didn’t happen. Pretty much nobody got out and around as much as they had planned to in 2020, and I’m certainly no exception.

The one really big difference this year is that for the first time since 2010 I rode the Honda more than 1,000 miles. This was not an accident or by chance. I’ve mostly neglected that bike for a long time and I told myself in 2020 I was going to make a point to ride it more. I guess I succeeded on that goal.

So what goals to set for 2021? That’s easy. Ride a lot more. And with vaccines on the way that should be an easy goal to meet. The RMMRC had what looked like a terrific ride set up, up the Great River Road from St. Charles, MO, to the source of the Mississippi in Minnesota. That ride didn’t happen in 2020 but it is now planned for 2021. I definitely intend to go on that one.

The OFMC did take its trip in 2020 and I’m now planning the 2021 trip. And maybe 2021 will be the year I finally do the article I proposed to Rider magazine three years ago. I’m sure Mark Tuttle has forgotten I ever pitched that story to him but I’m confident he’ll accept it if I ever get it to him. But first I have to do the ride.

So here’s looking to 2021 to be a much better year. And let’s hit that 10,000 mark this time.

Biker Quote for Today

Some bikers never realize how anti-social they are until there’s a pandemic and their life doesn’t really change that much.

Judy went straight to the core: “The worst thing about renting a motorcycle is that it’s not your own.”

She was right on the money in two senses. First, unless you rent a bike that is just like the one you ride at home, you’re on an unfamiliar machine. Second, if you damage a rented bike it’s probably going to cost you a lot more money than if you did the same damage to your own.

This was all very much on both our minds a few years ago as we spent two days riding in British Columbia on a rented Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Classic. We chose the Electra Glide because it was the only bike the company had that came with full passenger accommodations and I wanted Judy to have the ultimate in comfort. The consequence of that choice was that we were not only on an unfamiliar machine, but on an extremely heavy unfamiliar machine.

I consider my wife to be the most precious cargo I ever carry and I had never before taken her on a bike I was not already thoroughly familiar with. The idea of climbing on this bike for the first time, her climbing on behind me, and riding off made me a bit nervous. But I took it easy, and was cautious, and all went well at the start.

I quickly started learning about the quirks of the bike, however. I’m accustomed to coming to a stop and putting my feet down at a point where I can plant them for maximum stability. On the Electra Glide, I would put my feet down and think I had solid footing but with the bike still rolling just a bit the passenger floorboards would run up against my calves and push my feet forward. That doesn’t happen on any of my three bikes. The buddy pegs are back further on all of them.

Things like that I could adjust to but I never adjusted to the extreme weight of this bike. It has a low center of gravity so it’s very stable on the highway, but at slow speeds it can tip and if that much weight once gets going sideways there’s nothing I could do to restrain it.

The issue really presented itself in the parking garage at the place we were staying in Whistler. The floor was very smooth, slippery concrete and the turns to get to where we needed to park were numerous and very tight. With either of my bikes I could navigate that route easily, and with a lot more experience on the Electra Glide I could probably do the same, but I didn’t have that experience. After a couple times we made it easier by Judy getting off or on at the entrance to the garage.

The issue of cost was also ever present in my mind. My Honda is old and is only worth maybe $700. If I did damage to it that would cost $2,000 to repair I’d probably just buy another old, used bike for a lot less. My Kawasaki is also getting older but I carry collision insurance on it, with a $250 deductible. And I only paid $3,000 for the Suzuki.

With this rental we had the option of paying $18 a day and having a $2,000 deductible, or $24 a day and having a $1,000 deductible. We went with the lower deductible but that still meant we could be liable for $1,000. Our rental was costing us $350 for two days already and the thought of it costing $1,350 was not comforting.

Of course, I never expected to do any damage to the bike, but that’s why they call them “accidents.” And while we never did have even any close encounters with other vehicles, there was one time when I came perilously close to dropping the bike.

We were on a very scenic stretch of road and turned into a pull-out to have a better look. The pull-out was gravel, and the gravel turned out to be deeper than I anticipated. With that big, heavy machine that I was not all that familiar with, it was an incredibly tense moment.

Within the space of six heartbeats I alternated between believing we were going down, to profound relief that I had recovered it, to certainty that we were going down, to elation that we weren’t, to horror once more, and finally to breathing a huge, huge sigh of relief as the bike finally came to a stop upright. I’m sure the only thing that enabled me to keep that bike up was adrenaline.

Bottom line: We’ll never rent that heavy a bike again. And while it’s great to be able to fly off somewhere far away and then have a bike to ride, it’s not all pleasure. We had a great time but next time we’ll have a much better idea of what to expect.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m not addicted to my motorcycle, we’re just in a committed relationship.

I maintain the iron rule that I ride each of my motorcycles at least once every single month. (I did finally miss two months following heart surgery two years ago.) As such, when we get to this time of year it pays to be preemptive. You never know when the weather will turn and your plans to ride next week get shot to pieces.

The weather so far in November has been spectacular. Plenty of time to get in at least three rides. So on Monday I was planning to ride one bike, then a second on Tuesday, and the third on Wednesday going on an RMMRC ride. Then life stepped in.

Judy and I had been hoping to squeeze in one last camping trip this year and on Monday she said let’s go camping–today. There was no way I could say no to that, nor would I want to, so Pawnee Buttes here we came. I can ride later.

Of course, that shot Tuesday as a day to ride as well but I could still go with the RMMRC on Wednesday.

Then I woke up on Wednesday feeling decidedly under the weather. Of course probably the first thing most people think of at this moment when they feel sick is, is this Covid? I didn’t figure it was but even if it was just a cold I saw no reason to share it with others so I did not ride with the RMMRC. Besides, I felt like crap.

Now the situation was turning. The weather forecast said the nice days were going to end soon. Snow was projected for Monday. Fortunately, on Thursday, I was feeling quite a bit better. Is that all this cold has to throw at me? Hah! That’s nothing. So I went out on the CB750. Then on Friday I rode the Concours.

On Saturday the cold–which is what I had deemed it to be by this point–came back to bite me and I was not feeling good. But I had that V-Strom to ride and snow was still being forecast for Monday. Sure the likelihood is that after a brief cold spell things will get nice again, but I’ve learned not to trust that assumption. So on Saturday I rode the V-Strom. I made it serve double duty as I stopped off at Walgreen’s to pick up some throat lozenges and Tylenol. And then Sunday I was still feeling like crap, spending most of the day on the couch trying to breathe through all the sinus congestion.

But I got the bikes ridden. I sure hope that’s not the last riding I do in November, but if it is, I did get each one out.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you make your bike payment before any other bills are paid.