Passes & Canyons Blog

An aerial shot from Google Maps showing Chambers Reservoir.

There was a Wednesday morning RMMRC ride scheduled last week so I climbed on the V-Strom and rode on over to the breakfast place. Although I learned later that there were several folks inside, none of them had come on their bikes. I intended to ride and with no bikes in the parking lot I saw no reason to go inside. I headed out.

It was a cool, crisp morning but I was wearing warm gear so it wasn’t uncomfortable; rather, it was invigorating. But I was darn glad to have my electric vest.

Where to go? It gets harder and harder to go places I haven’t been before. I headed out Parker Road. As I approached E-470 I thought about the road that crosses Parker just south of the highway, Pine Lane. I had been east on Pine but never west. Where does that go?

I turned right to find out. Passing Jordan Road, Pine Lane becomes Aventerra Parkway and starts winding around through a housing development, eventually hitting a T intersection at Chambers. Turning right would have been to head back toward town; I turned left, south.

Right there along the west side of Chambers there is a huge hole in the ground. It looks like a reservoir, maybe, but maybe it’s just a flood control collection pond. It’s long and narrow and really deep, and was completely dry. It also looked like freshly turned earth, as if it’s still being dug, although in a satellite image I see water in it.

(OK, some research shows me it is the Chambers Reservoir, which is undergoing rehabilitation, involving grading, installation of drainage improvements, and construction. Ain’t the internet great!)

Heading south I soon passed Lincoln Avenue. Now I was on totally familiar ground once again. Reaching Hess Road I turned west.

Hess Road runs past the Rueter-Hess Reservoir up into the highlands around the dam that made the reservoir feasible. Cruising through here you have an uncommon–and probably doomed–opportunity to see a section of the Colorado plains that as it was before the city arrived. It’s amazingly pretty. Too bad this whole area will presumably be covered in subdivisions and shopping plazas in about 10 years.

Hess winds around and then terminates at I-25. Continuing on the other side of the interstate the road becomes Castle Pines Parkway. But just before I-25 I turned north on Havana, which parallels the interstate for maybe four miles up to Ridgegate Parkway. I jogged east on Ridgegate and then continued north on Peoria.

This brought me up to County Line Road and the south side of Arapahoe County Airport, which I jogged east to get around. From there it was Potomac north and on back home. Just a one hour or so ride but really nice on this cool, very nice morning.

Biker Quote for Today

100 Reasons not to date a motorcyclist: The way we look at our bike reminds you of the way we used to look at you.

Not something you ever want to see.

I’ve been writing about Colorado motorcycle crash statistics from 2018 and–in part–how these numbers related to rider training. That prompted a note from a friend with considerable experience in this area. Being a modest guy he asked that I not name him.

What this all related to was what I had pointed out about how the crash figures for rider trained through the Colorado Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program seem to suggest that these riders crash more than those who have not taken the training. The question I asked was, did these riders crash before or after the training? When I queried Colorado State Patrol (CSP) coordinator for the MOST program he told me he couldn’t answer that question now but in future tracking they would include that data. He said he sure hoped the crashes occurred before they took the training.

Not to be too repetitive but, as I pointed out before, many riders take the course in order to get their license after they have been cited for riding without proper licensing. Often that occurs when they are involved in crashes, thus they get counted as MOST-trained riders but the crash occurs before they take the training.

Well, what my friend tells me is that back in 1976 the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) did a study to see how effective driver’s training for teenagers. He told me that “the study made waves when it was reported that driver training actually resulted in no fewer crashes, injuries and fatalities. The theory was that trained drivers were more confident and took more risks, but because they were still inexperienced, they still made bad judgments.”

Now apparently, there were some folks who didn’t like having the government–at whatever level–putting up the money for driver training programs, so they took the findings of this report and soon the in-school driver’s ed program, such as the one I took as a teenager, were gone. In fact, it has been claimed by some people in a position to know, that the books were cooked a bit on this study in order to reach that conclusion, for that purpose.

My friend continues: “Fast-forward to today, and many safety-crats have long held that driver (and rider education) is not worth investing public dollars. It is an argument that is sometimes summoned to push back against SMROs (state motorcyclist rights orgs) that seek to replace helmet mandates with rider education programs.

“If stats are being published that suggest rider education does little to reduce crashes and fatalities, be prepared for pushback from the safety community to reduce or eliminate funding, and possibly attempt to reinstate the helmet mandate.”

So wow, I didn’t realize I was poking such a hornet’s nest when I innocently wondered if those crashes took place before or after the rider received training. That makes it really important now that CSP tracks the timing of crashes vis a vis time of training. We’ll have to wait for the 2019 crash data to find out.

Biker Quote for Today

Experience is what keeps a man who makes the same mistake twice from admitting it the third time around.

Parked across the street from Patty Ann’s.

I went for a ride with the RMMRC Friday and leading the group was Tim. Now, I’m terrible with names, and after being a member of the group for about three years I still probably only know about six or seven peoples’ names. But I think I’ll remember Tim because he is really short, so my mnemonic device to remember his is “Tiny Tim.” You don’t have to mention that to him.

It was supposed to be a beautiful November day but starting out it was overcast and cooler than expected. I dressed warmly and was glad I did. Love that electric vest.

The intent was just a simple ride out to Kiowa to have a late breakfast at Patty Ann’s. I’ve eaten at Patty Ann’s several times and they have great food. If you’re out that way–or if you want to head that way just to eat there–Patty Ann’s gets my hearty recommendation. They have terrific green chile and with everything else smothered in green chile it probably really doesn’t matter what that everything else is.

So the discussion was on the route to get there. The easy and direct–and boringly familiar–route would be to go out Parker Road to Franktown and turn east. That was suggested but Tim didn’t like that idea. He took the lead.

We worked our way southeast, zigging and zagging as you have to do with straight roads on a grid, but we came to a spot where I think everyone expected to go east and Tim headed west. That tipped me off. A couple years ago Roy had staged a mystery ride and we ended up out in these parts. Tim had helped Roy plan that ride. I suspected we were about to take a portion of that ride again.

When we made a left turn at a particular spot I knew I was right. From that point on all the way to Elizabeth we followed the mystery ride route. And it was a lot more interesting than just Parker to Franktown and east.

Kiowa, Patty Ann’s, and the food did its job and we were ready to leave. What route? Again, Tim had no intention of retracing our steps. So he led us along some other roads out here.

What this all told me was Tim must be a kindred soul to me because while I would guess most of the guys had little idea exactly where they were, I pretty much knew every bit of it. You see, I go out there and ride around on these roads exploring quite a bit. And I had just been out here in the past week. These were several of the same roads I was on just days before.

I guess I’m not the only one who loves to explore.

Biker Quote for Today

I got my own reasons why I do what I do. I like to ride motorcycles. She likes it too. — Alan Jackson

Guess what? You are the biggest factor in whether you come home from your ride safely.

I’ve been looking at the crash statistics in the 2018 report from the Colorado Motorcycle Operator Safety Program (MOST). Previous posts are here and here.

The next table in the MOST report on 2018 motorcycle crashes focuses on the “First Harmful Event (FHE)” which I take to be the nature of the crash, more or less, after whatever actions occurred that led to the crash. Number one on the list, by a lot, was overturning. In a car, overturning would be big deal; on a bike, it has to be pretty much standard. This happened to 377 riders, 26.8% of all riders and 40.3% of MOST-trained riders.

Here’s what may be a surprising number two: front to rear collision (201 total). I’d have to wonder who was in back and who was in front. I’ve know more than one rider who got rear-ended but I don’t know anyone who hit the vehicle in front of them. We stop quicker. But this shows us that you do need to be alert to the guys behind you as well as those in front or on the side.

All the rest were collisions of various sorts: with curb, with wild animals, with guardrail, etc.

Then we get to the top human contributing factors with at-fault riders. This has got to be key, right?

The top factor was driver (rider) inexperience: 247 total (17.5%) and 24 MOST-trained (31.2%).

Again, that looks ugly for the idea of rider training unless the bulk of these are riders who crashed and then went for training. As MOST coordinator Chris Corbo said, we don’t know this time around whether the crashes were before or after the training. We would hope they were primarily before. That data will be tracked the next time around.

Number two on this list was aggressive driving (162). That should give you some idea of what not to do.

Number three was DUI, DWAI, DUID (110). I don’t think we need to say anything more here.

Number four is interesting: driver unfamiliar with area (95). I wonder if that means they did something such as a lane change that someone who knew the intersection (for example) would not have done, or if they were meandering trying to figure out where to turn.

These tables only include the top 10 but in this case by the time you get to number nine there are only two instances so number 10 is “Other.” There were 181 of those, which says there are a whole heck of a lot of things that can lead to a crash.

More to follow.

Biker Quote for Today

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know. — William Saroyan

I was not up for the mud on this day–later!

Once again I took off with no idea where I was going to go. Somehow I figure it out. Today I was on the V-Strom.

Here’s an idea. I know on the way south on the Kiowa-Bennett Road there is a point where the road jogs west and if you wanted to you could continue west on whatever road that is. I know I’ve always expected that some day I would take that road and see where it comes out. Maybe today is the day. I headed out Parker Road and then turned east on Hampden.

Now, here’s how my thinking goes. I got to wondering, how far east does Hampden go? Have I ever taken it out as far as I could? Maybe I had but I couldn’t remember. So let’s do that.

Well that didn’t last long. Hampden ends out on Gun Club Road where it runs into a huge landfill operation, Trash Mountain in my parlance. Back to plan A. I turned south on Gun Club to Quincy and then turned east again.

I knew I’d been out this way before and a couple names I was familiar with came along: Tom Bay Road and Brick Center Road. I had checked them both out before and they both quickly go to gravel. Now I went past them until I reached Kiowa-Bennett and turned south.

The jog came at County Line Road. I didn’t know this at the time because there were no signs to that effect but I continued west. Right away there was a sign saying the pavement was ending. That jogged a memory that perhaps I had tried this once before and–not being on the V-Strom–turned around. Well I was on the V-Strom now so no turning around today.

It was a good gravel road, although the surface varied, with some loose sand, some washboard. I don’t know how far I went–at least five miles–and it was a pretty area.

And then there were the construction zone signs. No problem, I can deal with that. But although I never saw any construction equipment, I came up on the area where they had been working and it was all mud. Oh yuck.

Now, I had the bike and the tires to do mud. What I did not have was the riding skills and experience. But there’s no better way to get the experience . . .

On another day I might have done it, but this day I turned around. It was Tuesday and the forecast was for warm and dry so maybe by Saturday, which was also forecast to be in the 60s, maybe it will be dry and I can ride it then.

As I headed back I saw a sign for Brick Center Road. Really? Does that come all the way through? That would save me having to go all the way east to Kiowa-Bennett. But what kind of condition is it in? I guess I’ll find out on Saturday.

So Saturday came and I headed back. Turning south on Brick Center Road I found it to be about the best gravel surface you could hope for. Smooth, solid, and not a lot of loose gravel. As if perhaps it got graded recently.

Brick Center ended at the road I was headed for and I turned west again. I reached the construction zone and although I was totally psyched up to do the mud today if necessary, everything was completely dry. I cruised on and was surprised to find that in less than a mile I reached pavement. What do you know.

Cruising further and further west the road signs kept reading County Road 194. Finally, when I reached Delbert Road the sign said County Line Road. So that was my answer. Not that it ran into County Line Road over by I-25. Just past Powhaton Road it became Sampson Gulch Way and wound its way through a housing development. It hit a T intersection at Aurora Parkway, I went north, and soon came to Arapahoe. I headed west on Arapahoe and on home.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than men: If your motorcycle is misaligned, you don’t have to discuss politics to correct it.

These guys are not likely to be guilty of most of the crash-causing actions included in this list, at least not on this ride.

Let’s continue looking at the stats on motorcycle crashes in Colorado in 2018.

The Colorado State Patrol (CSP) report breaks the data out into tables, with each table addressing one specific consideration. The first table is labeled, “Top Driver Actions among at-Fault Motorcycle Riders in Crashes, 2018.” That poetic, symbolic title sums up pretty well what the table has to tell us.

The number one driver action leading to a crash was careless driving. OK, now if there is one thing that is preventable it should be careless driving crashes. Drive carefully, you know? You life may well depend on it.

Careless driving was the primary crash factor for 446 riders, or 31.7% of them. Of those 446, 22 were MOST-trained riders. That looks like a very good figure except the next column is not so good. This included 28.6% of the MOST-trained riders.

Now here’s where the questions I raised last time factor in. If, as I speculated, this tagging of MOST-trained riders only counts those who received their training in 2018, and if many of those who received training were required to do so after they had crashed, then this does not look so bad. Well, I contacted Chris Corbo, the CSP guy who manages the MOST program and he gave me some answers. Yes, the riders counted as having MOST training only counts those trained in 2018. As for question of whether the crash occurred before or after the training was taken, here is Chris’s reply.

That is a great question and one that will be answered going forward. When the data was presented to the data analysis the date of when the rider took the BRC was removed and therefore a correlation of when a crash happened and when the rider took the BRC was not able to be made. We are hoping the crash was prior to the BRC, but cannot make any statements of that.

Pushing on now, the next biggest crash factor was excessive speed, or more specifically, “Exceeded Speed Limit.” Starting here and continuing I’ll give the break-outs as follows: Total riders / Percent of riders / Total MOST riders / Percent of MOST riders. So for speeding the break-out is 150 / 10.7% / 6 / 7.8%. One thing we need to note here is that these percentages do not add up to 100% because this is a list of only the top 10 actions leading to the crash.

Here is the entire list.

Careless Driving: 446 / 31.7% / 22 / 28.6%

Exceeded Speed Limit: 150 / 10.7% / 6 / 7.8%

Followed Too Closely: 140 / 9.9% / 7 / 9.1%

Lane Violation: 124 / 8.8% / 7 / 9.1%

Reckless Driving: 72 / 5.1% / 7 / 9.1%

Fail to Yield Right of Way: 34 / 2.4% / 1 / 1.3%

Improper Turn: 25 / 1.8% / 1 / 1.3%

Failed to Stop at Signal: 24 / 1.7% / 1 / 1.3%

Improper Passing on Left: 16 / 1.1% / 1 / 1.3%

Improper Passing on Right: 8 / 0.6% / 0 / 0%

So these are the primary ways in which we are harming ourselves. We can rail against drivers texting all we want but we also need to take responsibility for our own actions. Of course, that’s what rider training is supposed to lead to–safer, better riding.

Biker Quote for Today

While cagers continue to conduct their affairs while driving, to the detriment of their driving, those of us on motorcycles are (should be!) totally focused on safely negotiating our way amongst them. That deadline at work is not a priority at this time.