Passes & Canyons Blog

I can’t even remember how long ago it was that my Concours started giving me trouble, but it seems like it’s been all summer. I packed it off to Joel before the OFMC bike trip but when he brought it back Joel said it still needed more work. But there wasn’t time to do that before the trip.

Once I got back from that trip I ordered the necessary parts and called Joel to let him know they were in hand and I was ready for him to come get the bike again, and this time bring it back really, truly fixed.

Well, Joel brought it back the other day and first I took it on a brief errand run to the wine store and then a few days later I rode it with the RMMRC to Daniels Park. And there was just one word for it: normal.

How wonderful it is for that bike to be operating normally again, finally. Normal is so great.

No more racing at a screaming pace when I pull up to a stop. No more dying as I coast to a stop. No more needing to ride around the neighborhood first to get the bike running halfway smoothly before getting out on the less forgiving main roads.

It was also nice once again to have the feeling of power. I had never noticed a lack of power in my other bikes before but lately I have. On the Colorado Cruise with the RMMRC I was on the V-Strom and for the first time it seemed like it was struggling for power going over the highest passes. That bike is currently with Joel and I hope it feels more back to normal when he brings it back. And then the other day I rode the Honda CB750 with the RMMRC up to Kremmling, and that bike was totally left in the dust by those other bigger bikes. The Connie has the power to keep up with any of these other guys.

Yeah, normal can often be boring. We crave some change, some variety. But when you’ve had a steady diet of not normal, and it hasn’t been fun, it’s amazing how wonderful normal can be. We all know that old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. Right now I’m really hoping to be living in some boring times.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 19. We “need” a bunch of expensive riding gear, usually 2 or 3 of each item.

I’m still counting on taking the Kawi on the OFMC trip very shortly but nothing has happened yet on the carburetor issue. For insurance I got a new rear tire on the V-Strom a couple days ago.

I got this recommendation from both Bill and Dennis, that I get the tire at Let It Ride, on 8425 W. Colfax, and then take it next door to 1 Down, Four Up Motorsports, at 8427 W. Colfax, to be mounted. That worked out great. I called ahead about the tire and they had it in stock. I asked them to hold it for me and made an appointment so I could have it mounted while I waited.

Mid-way through the job, the guy (whose name I can’t remember–I really should make note of these things) asked if I wanted new rear brake pads because with the old ones, “there’s almost nothing there.” That didn’t surprise me; I had been thinking about that possibility. So sure, put on new pads. He said the front pads are fine.

Then as I was paying he told me they had adjusted the chain as good as they could but there was some stretching and really, the chain and sprockets need to be replaced. That didn’t surprise me either.

The ride home proved interesting then. Of course I was doing some swerving to scuff up the edges of the new tire but I wasn’t so busy with that as not to notice something else. A noise I had wondered about for quite awhile was not there.

This noise is something I’ve always thought of as maybe the chain slapping. I’ve tried adjusting the tension but never made a difference. I take it now that the shop did a better job of adjusting it than I did and at least for now that slapping–which is apparently what it was–is gone. At the very least, the noise is gone. So OK, that’s something to take care of after the trip.

Biker Quote for Today

I was born intelligent, but my bike ruined me.

Sometimes the best tool for the job is not the one designed for that purpose, but the one – the only one – you have.

Take dual-sport riding, this business of taking a motorcycle down the highway to get somewhere, and then taking that same bike onto the dirt when you reach your destination. Years ago, when motorcycles were less specialized than they are today, riders were far more ready to take their street bikes in the dirt. Nowadays we have dirt bikes and dual-sport bikes, and most street bikes never see more than a short stretch of gravel here and there. Many never see anything but pavement.

I went dual-sporting awhile back in the area around Gunnison. The two Suzuki V-Stroms we were on were provided by my friend Kevin, who used to rent V-Stroms out of Gunnison. And there was a third person with us, Kevin’s wife, Janet, and she was riding her Kawasaki Ninja 500R.

The Ninja is a sportbike, the antithesis of a dual-sport or dirt bike. Whereas the V-Strom has 6 inches of suspension travel in the rear, the Ninja is limited to 3.9 inches. On rough roads those 2 inches make a huge difference. And ground clearance on the Ninja is only 4.9 inches, compared to 6.5 inches on the V-Strom.

We headed out of Gunnison on the highway, went up and over North Cochetopa Pass, and then coming down the other side we turned off on an unpaved county road. It was pretty good gravel, hard packed and stable, and well maintained. The V-Stroms, like any good dual-sport bike, were right at home. And the Ninja just cruised along, too.

As we began to climb up to Carnero Pass things got a bit rougher. There was washboard, a few ruts, and some stretches of badly disturbed surface. The V-Stroms ate it up. The Ninja took it slowly, navigating around the bigger holes, following the smoothest path. Not a problem.

Over the top and down and we followed a ranching canyon to its outlet onto the prairie. The road was once again good hard-packed gravel. Then we turned onto an unpaved county road that was broad and flat . . . and deep in loose gravel.

“That sucked!,” Janet said when we stopped in town. “That mountain road was fine. I had no problem with it. On that flat road I didn’t feel comfortable going above 40. I knew that if I screwed up it would hurt.”

“Deep, loose gravel is hard, I don’t care what you’re riding,” Kevin replied in agreement.

So the rougher, less-maintained road was really better for the Ninja.

“The suspension on the Ninja was fine. I absolutely felt confident on it. I feel very maneuverable on that bike. I can move it anywhere I need it to move to avoid obstacles in the road,” Janet explained.

That said, she added, “I’d rather be on the (paved) road.”

Janet is a serious mountain bike rider, but has only started riding motorcycles in recent years. She chose the Ninja because it was one of the only bikes she could handle considering how short her legs are.

“Now I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I want a dirt bike because I want to start doing all these gnarly roads around in the mountains.’ I want to get up in there without having to be in a car. It just catches me off guard because I didn’t expect motorcycling to get under my skin. And when I ride it gets under my skin. When I’m not riding I’m like, ‘No I don’t want to do that, I want to ride my bicycle.’”

Janet has taken her Ninja over other mountain passes on gravel roads. “It’s the only bike I’ve ever had. If I want to go somewhere it’s the bike I ride.”

It’s just that simple. For Janet, it’s the best tool for the job.

Biker Quote for Today

I need men for some things; riding a motorcycle is not one of them.

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.