Passes & Canyons Blog

By the time John and Bill and I, collectively the OFMC, were getting ready for our third annual trip we had concluded it would be nice to communicate while riding. Up to this point we had depended on hand signals but that meant you had to ride up alongside someone and then make the appropriate motion. Workable but not optimal.

Back in those days we didn’t have a lot of money, which was a big part of the reason we did these trips as much on the cheap as we could. We knew you could get in-helmet communication systems but they were expensive.

I think I was the one who got the idea to check out these inexpensive communicators from Radio Shack. We all three met up one day at a Radio Shack in Lakewood and inquired about these things. What they were was just a chunk of hardware connected by a cord to an ear plug. You put the ear plug in place and just talk and the sound moves through your head via the bone and is picked up and transmitted. Obviously, the speaker is in the earpiece.

We each put an earpiece in our ears and then we walked around, and Bill even went outside to the parking lot. We could hear each other fine, so we figured this would do the job. Great. Pay for them and we’re set. Did we try them out on our bikes before the trip? No. That would have made too much sense.

Our departure on this trip was complicated by the fact that a shop I took my bike to for some pre-trip work totally screwed me over. I’m sure I’ve told that story here before and it’s too long to get into now so suffice it to say, they did not have my bike ready by the departure date. So Bill and John took off without me, with an understanding that I would meet them at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in a few days.

Meanwhile, they took off with their earpieces in and expected to chat as they rode. Sorry, no dice.

What I only came to learn some time later is that radio signals are affected by motion, and the more speed the more they are affected. It turns out that these little cheapos work just fine if you’re walking but on a motorcycle going 65 miles an hour they totally fail. They tried using them that first day, found them worthless, and put them away never to pull them out again. Of course, I didn’t know that. This was well before the days of cell phones.

So I finally got my bike from the shop and I took off, doing some hard riding to reach the Grand Canyon in two days. I had no problem finding the campground but found that I had no way to find them in the campground. I thought they might have left a message for me at the gate, and they had, but I didn’t notice it. I asked the ranger at the gate and he knew nothing but just at that moment a ranger just getting off duty overheard and knew about them and told me where to find their camp site. No problem.

I found their camp site but they weren’t there. All this time I had the earpiece for the communicator in and the unit turned on and I was calling out for them but getting no answer. I was certain they would be listening and waiting for me but no answer. So I set up my tent and went to find them. I rode down to the main parking lot by the lodge, calling for them again and again. Still no answer.

It later turned out that they were there, but somehow I did not spot their bikes. Trying to guess where they had gone I set off on a lengthy wild goose chase that itself is a whole other story. Eventually I just went back to the camp site and by then they were there. They had been back a while before they noticed a new tent in their site so now they had been wondering where the heck I was.

After what I had just been through I was overjoyed to finally find them, and seeing a beer in John’s hand I cried “Give me a beer!” He told me apologetically that this was the last one and I took it from his hand and downed it. And then I asked them why the heck they didn’t respond to me on the communicators. They laughed and told me how worthless those proved to be and it never occurred to them to pull them out to help me find them when I arrived. Actually, they might have done the job in that situation if they had used them. But they didn’t.

That was the last time the OFMC ever seriously considered communicators. Some years later Judy and I got communicators and I specifically got some that would work between bikes in case one of the other guys decided to get a set, too, so we could communicate on rides. But no one else ever was sufficiently interested, so to this day the OFMC operates without communicators. Nowadays, though, we do finally all have cell phones so while not the same, they do the job when needed.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s not a gang. It’s a loose association of rugged outdoorsmen who like vibrations between their legs.

The OFMC’s second year doing a week-long trip was a learning experience. I already described how totally unprepared we were on our first trip but we still had a lot to learn.

Our first day out we rode from Denver to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. If you’ve been there you know that from where you turn off US 50 it’s about eight miles in to the park, and it’s not a fast eight miles. We set up our tents and then realized that with no food we were going to need to ride into Montrose to get some dinner. That was about 20 miles away. OK, maybe we should have thought of this beforehand.

So we went to town and ate. As we were heading back, in the parking lot, I started pulling forward, just idly dangling my feet when my toe snagged on one of those concrete blocks that you park up against. My leg was hanging down in front of my peg and with the toe stopped by the block and my leg trapped by the peg it could have been serious. Breaking my foot or ankle was a real possibility. Fortunately my toe slipped over the block and freed me. I had just learned that you really ought to raise your feet pretty much as soon as you start moving. More ignorance dispelled.

We rode into Utah and ended up for the night camped on the shore of Lake Powell. This time we had the wisdom to stop in Monticello and get food, but we had made the assumption we would be able to get firewood at the campground. Wrong. So we gathered bits of grass, twigs, and anything else we could find that would burn and built a tiny fire that we took turns cooking hot dogs over, holding them with our fingers and moving them back and forth over the tiny flame. But man they tasted good!

Back then there was a ferry across from Hall’s Crossing to Bullfrog. Today there is a bridge. We rode the ferry across and headed on into Las Vegas. Back in these days we usually didn’t wear helmets, although we had them along. We rode into Nevada, into Vegas, to a hotel, and only after that did we learn that Nevada was a helmet state. Oops. Maybe we should research these things beforehand. (Nope, we didn’t learn this lesson here.)

From Vegas we rode on down to Laughlin and this was where we first encountered nasty riding. There was a lot of wind and the dirt and dust in the air was horrible. We were glad to be wearing our helmets. And we got down to Laughlin and there were no rooms, or at least none that our meager budgets could handle. But we discovered that just on the other side of the river was Bullhead City, Arizona, and there were free water ferries that you could get across on. (They’re not free any more.) Over there were affordable motels and we got one.

The affordable food, however, was on the Nevada side. Back then casinos treated restaurants as loss-leaders. They would draw you in with super cheap food and hope to make it up with you gambling and losing to them. We got a terrific prime rib dinner for all of $3.50. Don’t go looking for that today because you won’t find it.

Back at our motel it was a pretty good time. It seems there was some big deal going on somewhere in the vicinity that had drawn in strippers from all over, and a bunch of them were staying at our motel. Hanging out by the pool was very pleasant. But then I had a not so pleasant encounter.

I was standing outside our room, on the second floor, looking out over the parking lot and pool, talking with some other guy also on a motorcycle. At some point he pointed down to my CB750 below and referred to it a “that POS” except he didn’t use the initials. My motorcycle, this POS he was talking about, was the love of my life. I had never in my life wanted so much to punch someone’s lights out. I restrained myself but man I wanted to hit this guy, hard!

The next day was just a long ride east on I-40 across Arizona, into New Mexico, to Gallup. All day it was a strong wind directly out of the north, hitting us from the side. All day. We got a lot of practice at leaning into the wind, and also about how when someone passes you and blocks the wind momentarily you better be ready to straighten up and then be ready for the blast once again once they get past. Another less than pleasant first.

At this point one of our primary factors in choosing a motel was cost. We wanted the cheapest we could find. In Gallup we discovered that sometimes it’s better to pay a little more. We had the filthiest, crummiest little place you can imagine, not to mention the bugs. I don’t remember whose turn it was to sleep on the floor but it was not pretty.

We reached Albuquerque and stopped by to visit my brother and sister-in-law. He was not there but she was. I have no idea what we did while there but my brother told me later that his wife complained to him about what poor guests we were. He’s not married to her anymore.

Heading north back into Colorado we went through Ojo Caliente and on up toward Alamosa. Along the way we ran into a cloudburst and got pretty wet. No big deal. These storms pass and the sun comes out and everything dries off and everything’s cool. Of course, we were still total novices at this and we still didn’t have any rain gear.

So we got wet, but we kept riding, and sure enough, it wasn’t too long before we were dry again. But we got into Alamosa and we were starting to shiver. We headed to a coffee shop and sat there and drank about seven pots of coffee, all of us shaking and shivering, just trying to warm up. Hypothermia. It was nasty.

And then for one final lesson, we came back out to the bikes and, being a hot day, the asphalt was hot and the side-stand on Bill’s bike had sunk into the asphalt, allowing his bike to topple over onto John’s, knocking both of them down. Up till then we had no idea of putting a puck or a flat can or piece of wood or something under the side-stand to keep it from sinking in. You live and learn.

The next day we rode on home. No more lessons to be learned. But we had had quite an education this week.

Biker Quote for Today

The best routes are the ones you haven’t ridden.

In the beginning, John got a 750 Virago, then I got a CB750 Custom, and then Bill got an 1100 Shadow. The groundwork was laid for the OFMC, which officially launched within a year with our first trip.

That first trip was in 1989. Since then the group grew to as large as 10 but has now dropped back to three core riders and a new fourth who we hope will continue with us. Over the years there have been 13 of us all told. Every year we take at least one long trip, usually of one week.

Bikes have changed, gear has gotten better, and we’ve all gotten a bit grayer and a bit heavier. But every year we still ride.

These are the tales of the OFMC.

Is that dramatic enough? There ought to be some urgent music in the background, some pounding kettle drum building in intensity and pushing the tension to a crescendo. Then an eruption, fireworks, and cataclysm, leading finally to a spreading diminuendo. Now the mood is set. Our story begins.

The first OFMC trip was really just a long weekend. We left on Saturday and got home on Monday. John was a teacher and so was off for the summer and I was in one of my frequent bouts of unemployment. Bill just took a day off work. Let’s go have some fun.

We had no gear. All we took with us was tents and sleeping bags bungeed to the back of our bikes. We had no destination or plans of any sort. We probably headed toward Kremmling just because that was where John’s mother lived and he thought it would be nice to pay her a visit. After the visit we continued west on US 40 till we got to Steamboat Springs where, coming into town, we saw they had a small municipal water park with slides and pools and other cool (as in temperature) things that looked very appealing on this hot day. Just back up the road a short distance we had seen a campground so we agreed to stop here for the night and get in the water.

There wasn’t much to Steamboat at that time. After the water park there was still plenty of daylight and there was a road leading from our campground up into the hills so we decided to explore. Imagine our surprise to come upon a one-block stretch of shops and restaurants, and one multi-story parking garage, all by themselves up on the hill. We didn’t know it then but that was the beginning of the explosion of Steamboat Springs, and was the commercial center of the coming ski area-centered development. But for us it was just this weird area stuck out there in the middle of nothing. We had dinner and then slept down by the river in our tents.

The next day we headed on west to Craig and then John must have had an idea where he wanted to go next. We turned south on CO13 down through Meeker and on to Rifle, turning off before Rifle to go into Rifle Gap State Park. This was the place where Christo had put up his “Valley Curtain,” probably the project that first brought him to most Americans’ attention. We parked in a lot where you have to carry your gear in a ways to the campsites and set up camp. Then it was time to go check out the falls and swim again.

I mentioned we had absolutely no gear, right? Well, we didn’t even have swim suits. At the water park we had just work cut-offs; here at the falls there was no one else around so we just jumped in in our underwear. What’s the real difference between a swimsuit and underwear anyway?

Then we rode into Rifle for dinner. The one thing I really remember about that ride into Rifle and back was that there was a good bit of gravel on the road and I was still really learning to ride. I probably didn’t even have 2,000 miles under my belt at this time. Bill and John had both had scooters when they were kids and were a lot more used to slipping around on loose stuff so took that road a lot faster than I was comfortable going. The ride back in the dark, especially, was for me a bit scary. And my rear end did slide out a bit a couple times. Not my most favorite part of the trip.

The next day was really nothing much. We rode into Rifle for breakfast then jumped on I-70 for home. But we had set the ball in motion that is still rolling.

Biker Quote for Today

Put the fun between your legs.