Passes & Canyons Blog

When “going for a scoot” really means scooting.

I spoke last week about the planned hearing on the latest dead red bill being on Tuesday, but due to weather(?) or whatever, it did not happen and was rescheduled for same time, same place this week. That is to say, 2 p.m. Tuesday in room 352. So if you have a chance to show up in support, that would be a good thing.

Beyond that, I’m just going to make it easy for myself by again pasting in Stump’s report.

Today is the 72nd day of the 72nd Colorado General Assembly and 197 Senate Bills and 250 House Bills have been introduced. SB-012 (Use of Mobile Electronic Devices While Driving) has passed the 2nd and 3rd readings in the Senate. As soon as it’s assigned to a House committee
(and it might not be the H-T&LG) I’ll send out an action alert with contact information so we can contact the committee members and ask for their support on the bill. There have been a couple amendments passed, so the Engrossed version is different than the introduced version.

You can read the latest version at: http://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2019A/bills/2019a_012_eng.pdf

The title has been changed, so the entire engrossed version is double underlined indicating Senate Amendments. The big change is lowering of the fines and points, which basically had to be done to pass the bill. It’s still a good bill though and hopefully will make our roads safer.
SB-144 (Dead-Red Bill) is scheduled for S-T&E Committee hearing on Tuesday, 3/19, at 2:00 PM. There will be an amendment introduced to delete the “wait for 2 minutes” but add in “the signal doesn’t recognize a motorcycle” so it allows the rider discretion on when to proceed.

There are also a couple other bills I’m keeping a close eye on: SB-175 and HB-1221. SB-175 (Serious Bodily Injury Vulnerable Road User Penalties) is scheduled for a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Monday, 3/18. This bill would increase the penalty for causing serious
bodily injury to vulnerable road users and motorcycles are on the list. You can read it at: http://leg.colorado.gov/bill-search?field_sessions=57701&sort_bef_combine=field_bill_number%20ASC&search_api_views_fulltext=SB19-175&field_chamber=2&field_bill_type=75.

HB-1221 (Regulation of Electric Scooters) is also on my radar, which includes EPAMD. It’s scheduled for a H-T&LG Hearing on Tuesday, 3/19. More info later.

OK, so I’m interested in this regulation of electric scooters thing Stump noted. But it occurs to me, is the proposal related to those little stand-up things, like Lime, or in regard to the scooters that we’ve had forever, only powered by electricity? I suspect it is the former so that would not be of all that much interest to motorcyclists. We’ll see.

Biker Quote for Today

With cars’ air conditioning, kids, radio, mobile phone, etc. they just don’t hear you. The only ones that hear you are the ones you tick off.

Just a shot in recognition that it is currently Bike Week in Daytona. (Photo by Friggs Pryor)

I was not the only one out of a bike on Thursday and Friday last week. I saw three other riders on Thursday and four on Friday. Meanwhile I was doing my standard thing of making sure each of my bikes gets ridden at least once every month.

It might seem that with that kind of policy I never have a chance for my riding skills to get rusty, and that is mainly true. However, when you think about it, in the worst case I can still go nearly two months without riding. That would be if I got out on the first of one month and then was not able to get out again until the last of the following month. That has happened a couple times.

And while it wasn’t so bad this time, it still had been quite a while since I had ridden. I went out first on the Honda and that was OK but when I brought that bike home and went out again on the Concours I could really feel a bit of hesitancy. The Connie is a big, heavy bike, and I just didn’t feel quite as at home on it as I normally do. Of course the best remedy for that is to ride, so I did. And by the time I was getting home I was definitely feeling more comfortable.

Not that the spin I took on the Honda was all peaches and cream. The road had been clear the day before but I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that we had a light snowfall overnight. I took off down our street and quickly found myself having to cross areas of ice from where the snow had fallen, melted, and then frozen. This was late morning and everywhere I rode through shaded areas it was the same. Then where it wasn’t icy it was generally wet. I got splattered a good bit and had to clean my visor when I got home. Of course the bike got pretty dirty, too, but I’ll tend to that later.

Getting out on the V-Strom the next day was totally different: dry and warm. It was just a good day to ride and was also an uneventful ride. We like those. “Eventful,” in this case, is a pejorative term. As in the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

But now the weather is to get cold again. I sure hope I’m able to get out at least a few more times in March. Heck, that’s part of the reason I live in Colorado.

Biker Quote for Today

The best path through life is the open road.

Just a shot of a vintage bike.

OK, the time is now to contact your state senator in support of this distracted driving bill, SB-12. The bill would be a step toward persuading the idiot cagers that it is not OK to be using your phone while driving and, um, oh, by the way . . . mowing down pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists while being distracted by that phone.

The bill was passed out of committee a while ago, then made its way through the Senate appropriations committee, and will now come up for a vote on the floor of the full Senate on Thursday this week. We all need to contact our senators and urge them to support it. I do admit I have an advantage here, and will not be contacting my senator. That’s because she was the sponsor of the bill. I think I can rest assured that Sen. Lois Court will vote for it. For everyone else, if you don’t know who your senator is, here is a link that will help you find out: https://leg.colorado.gov/find-my-legislator

There are also two other bills of interest that you may also want to contact your legislators about. I’ll quote from an email from Stump on these:

Also, on Tuesday, 3/12, SB19-144 (Motorcyclists & Malfunctioning Traffic Signals) will be heard by the S-T&E Committee Hearing at 2:00 PM in room 352. Reminder to contact the S-T&E Committee members ASAP and ask for them to vote yes on the bill. It’s also very important for people to show up and testify or just show “silent support” on Tuesday. (It’s a Traveling Trophy Points event too!) Please do your “grass-roots” part and attend this important hearing. Thanks.

A bill was introduced last Friday, 3/1, SB-175 (Serious Bodily Injury Vulnerable Rd. User Penalties) and it slipped by me as it’s assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the word “motorcycle” in the bill caught my attention. The bill lists motorcycles as “vulnerable road users,” along with 19 other users, and causing serious bodily injury to a vulnerable road user could result in license suspension for 1 year. I’ll be watching this bill more closely as it goes to S-Jud. Committee hearing on Monday, 3/18. The bill can be read at: http://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB19-175.

Lastly, as you know the wording in each bill has to be precise so there is no confusion as to the intent of the bill. Last year a bill was passed which changed wording in a previous bill from “and” to “or” (probably a big deal, I don’t remember). This might be helpful information for testimony as SB-144 is basically just changing some wording to make the law definable for motorcyclists. The point being is that HB19-1148 changes the maximum jail sentence for certain crimes from one year to three hundred sixty-four days. I just might have to attend the next hearing on this bill to hear why this bill has been introduced.

Biker Quote for Today

Why Motorcycles are Better than Men: Motorcycles don’t say smart-alecky dumb stuff.

The idea that women are drawn to men on motorcycles has never discouraged any guy from riding.

Chicks. Dig. Bikes. Those three words succinctly sum up one of the big reasons some guys are attracted to motorcycles at a young age. That was not the main reason I fell in love with motorcycles when I was a teenager, but I’d be lying if I said it was not something I thought about.

For the most part, it didn’t much matter though, because my mother would not permit me to buy a motorcycle “as long as you live in my house.” Thus, I was limited to occasionally snagging a ride on someone else’s bike, but I didn’t know many other guys who had bikes either.

That changed in the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. I got a summer job working at a family camp on an island in a lake in Minnesota. There were several of us kids who were basically the gofers for the adults running the camp. We provided manual labor when necessary, took the big camp boat in to the marina to pick up supplies, and did anything else we were told to do. Mainly we got to spend the summer at camp on the island and that was something we would have done for free, although they did pay us $25 a week.

One of the other kids was my friend Terry. Terry showed up at the beginning of summer on a brand new Honda 305 Scrambler. And he told me that any time I wanted I was free to ride it. How many different ways can you say “heaven”?

Terry and I shared quarters at camp. We lived in a big, canvas army tent draped over a custom-built wooden, screened frame that fitted it perfectly. Terry always left the key to the bike hanging on a nail near the head of his bed. The bike was parked at the marina and any time I was headed to the marina and would have some time to ride I’d grab the key.

Adding Girls to the Mix
Of course one of the nice things about our jobs was that families would come to camp with their teenage daughters. As the guys working at camp, we were seen as very cool, and summer romances were inevitable. On one particular week, a family from North Dakota arrived with their two gorgeous daughters, Randy and Sherri.

Everybody knew about Terry’s bike, and they also knew I was allowed to ride it, so one day when I needed to run into town I told Randy and Sherri if they’d like to come along I’d take them for a ride on the motorcycle. Of course they said yes.

As I was getting ready to go I went to get the bike key. Terry was there and he told me he didn’t want me taking the girls on the bike. My memory is not clear so I’m not sure if he told me it was a safety issue with my relative inexperience or whether I just assumed that. Either way he said not to do exactly what I was intending to do.

So the girls and I headed in to the marina and I told them what Terry had said. I told them I’d still take them for a ride, just don’t tell Terry I did it. We got to the marina and Randy and I got on the bike and rode into town on whatever errand I was on. Having completed it, we got on the bike just as a couple local guys came walking along. One of them called out, “Look at the girl on the bike!” Yes, she was a beauty and I felt proud to be the guy on the bike with her.

Now, the 305 Scrambler was a torquey bike and I was still having trouble smoothly releasing the clutch and easing on the throttle. In this instance, pulling away from the curb, I inadvertently popped a wheelie, thus making the whole scene that much cooler.

Randy and I headed back to the marina, where she got off and Sherri got on, and Sherri and I went for a ride out of town for a bit. Then we all got in the boat and headed back to camp.

Back at camp, when I saw Terry, he asked me if I’d taken the girls for a ride. I hated the thought of lying so I told him yes, I had. Terry could have chewed my butt, and I was prepared for him to do so, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t say a word. But that motorcycle key was never hanging from that nail again, and I never rode that bike again.

Regrets? Yes, I’ve had a few. But I’ll never forget popping that wheelie while those other guys stood watching, thinking (in my mind at least) that I must be just about the luckiest guy in the world.

Biker Quote for Today

I saw you have a motorcycle and tattoos . . . excuse me while I take my clothes off.

Photo by Zigy Kaluzny

Zigy Kaluzny wanted to get away – far away. And he didn’t just want to visit a country, he wanted to see it. So he contacted a bike dealer and arranged to buy a 1996 BMW R1100GS, with a guaranteed buy-back at the end of his trip. Off he went to New Zealand.

It was a trip filled with serendipity. Upon Kaluzny’s arrival in Wellington, on New Zealand’s North Island, the dealer picked him up at the airport and dropped him at the hostel where he had reservations. The hostel, or “backpacker” as they are known there, was literally right around the corner from the dealership.

After checking in at the backpacker, he strolled over to the dealership to handle the paperwork with the bike. The dealer mentioned that one of his customers was planning to visit the U.S. and would love to talk to him, but was away on his sailboat at the moment. Perhaps when Kaluzny returned the bike . . .

Two Big Islands
New Zealand consists of two long, narrow main islands and is approximately the size of California or England. One thousand miles in length, there is reportedly no place on either island farther than 75 miles from the ocean. Intending to ride the South Island first, Kaluzny boarded a ferry and started riding counter-clockwise around it. New Zealand has impressive mountains, but, as Kaluzny says, “Since I live in the mountains, I wanted to stay by the ocean.”

The North Island has 75 percent of the population and two of the country’s largest cities, Wellington and Auckland. The South Island has the other 25 percent of the population, with Christchurch as the largest city.

“The South Island is more beautiful. It’s much more agricultural, it’s sheep country, lots of rolling hills. Plus, I’ve never been to a place where you can be at a glacier that then runs down through the jungle to the ocean. There’s a jungle on either side of the glacier and the run-off goes to the ocean right there. Climatically I don’t think there’s any other place like that in the world.”

Kaluzny didn’t have a plan or itinerary.

“I would just wander, and I knew about some places I was curious to go to, because I had done some research. But for me it’s more the day to day experience of being in a place and seeing what happens. I’d run into motorcyclists all the time, and sit and have dinner if we were staying in the same hostel.”

One spot of particular interest was the town of Blackball. This mining town was the site of a big union struggle years ago and has a lot of history. The main hotel is an old Victorian building that is “a target for motorcyclists,” says Kaluzny. It was named the Blackball Hilton, but the international hotel chain sent them a cease and desist letter, so they changed the name to “Formerly the Blackball Hilton.”

“I pulled up and there were about a dozen motorcycles, and I immediately sat down and started talking with the riders. With motorcyclists, unless they’re a bunch of Harley guys, in general, you’re all immediately companions of the road.”

On another day, in a tiny town whose name he doesn’t remember, Kaluzny was sitting having coffee and he looked out the window and saw a couple walking around the GS and talking about it. “I go out and I say hi and they start talking to me and I realize it’s the couple he (the dealer in Wellington) was talking about. So they invited me to come and stay with them.”

That openness and friendliness is part of what Kaluzny loves about New Zealand.

“The people are tremendously friendly, but there’s enough British reserve so it’s not like you’re always being bugged by somebody. It’s like America in the ’60s, just rip out the Vietnam war. Most stories from travel, for me at least, are either really terrible meals or really weird people, or experiences that could have been dreadful but turn out OK. I don’t have any like that from New Zealand.”

What he does have are stories of touching encounters. In a small town one day, getting ready to ride after having lunch, “I’m putting my helmet on and a little old lady comes up, a very elegant little old lady, and she says, ‘Just touring are we?’ And I said yes, that’s right, and she said ‘Well, how do you like our country?’ I went into my 5-minute spiel about how beautiful it was, how friendly the people were, how much I enjoyed the food, why I love New Zealand, and she listens and she says ‘Yes, we think so too.’ I smiled for the next 20 kilometers.”

Not All Smiles
There was one New Zealander, however, who Kaluzny would rather not have encountered.

“New Zealand has the world’s only alpine parrot. They are profoundly destructive. They’ll rip up tents, they chew boots, they love rubber and fabrics like that. I come out in the morning and some parrot has feasted on my seat.”

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been warned. There were signs in the parking lot to “Be aware the kea is here.” But what American would suspect a bird twice the size of a pigeon would do such damage?

One subtle danger for Kaluzny was the lack of traffic on the highways. It was common to be riding a major highway and not see another vehicle for minutes at a time.

“We (motorcyclists) are so used to being hypervigilant, then suddenly, when you’re in the middle of nowhere, you stop some of the hypervigilance after awhile. And of course that’s always dangerous. I’d have to tap myself on the helmet and say, Zigy, there’s a car out there somewhere, pay attention.”

An annoyance was the ubiquitous sand flies, little gnat-sized critters.

“They are everywhere. If I would stop along the road and want to take a nap I’d have to keep my helmet on. You can’t camp out without being in a tent.”

Nearing the End
After circling the South Island Kaluzny took the ferry back to the North Island, to Wellington, and headed counter-clockwise around it. At one small town of about two blocks, Onga-Onga, “I liked it so much, and it was getting late, so I wanted to stay there where it was totally quiet.” There were no hostels, and a local tried unsuccessfully to find him a place to camp, so he rolled on.

Then, on the very last day he was stopped along a beach and a car pulled up. Two people got out, a Maori (native) woman and her daughter. As they talked, she asked Kaluzny about disappointments. He replied that he had not gotten to attend a Maori hangi, a tribal feast.

Taking a pen and paper, she wrote and handed him the paper, saying, “Here’s my name, my phone number, and my email. Next time you come back over call me and we’ll invite you over for one.”

“I was really touched by that,” he says. “It still gives me goose bumps, it was just generous.”

And so typically New Zealand.

Biker Quote for Today

If you see me in your rear view on one wheel . . . stay in your $#@% lane! (OK, I do have problems with this quote but it was interesting so I figured I’d use it.)

As far as I can tell, this guy is no longer in business. I mean, this story is from January 2011. But this is still a very interesting idea.

Yes, even you can do this at home.

The future for vehicles may be electric, but that doesn’t meant the present can’t be, too. All it really takes is a motorcycle, some batteries, an industrial-type electric motor, and some know-how. Just ask Chris Ravana. He’ll be happy to show you the electric bikes he has built. Heck, he’ll be happy to take you for a ride.

And by the way, if your interest is in going green, you can’t get much greener. Doing business as Blindspot Cycles out of Fort Collins, CO, Chris sources his parts as much as possible from salvage yards.

Take his 1986 Honda Rebel. The frame and most parts were from a junker. The brakes, tires, and other equipment that affect safety are new. The electric motor was originally used in a big floor-buffing machine. The batteries are straight-off-the-shelf deep-cycle batteries like those used in RVs and boats. Voila! You’re set to go.

Now, admittedly you’re not going to go very far or very fast. The Rebel uses four 12-volt batteries that give it a top speed of about 53 mph and a range of around 30 miles. This is definitely a ride for in town, such as commuting to work, comparable to the electric scooters that seem such a good niche for electrics. The difference is, this is a real motorcycle and it’s something you can build for yourself.

Speed on electric motorcycles of this kind is directly a factor of the number of batteries used. The more 12-volts, the more power to the motor and the faster the motor–and the tires–spin. Chris recently acquired the much higher-tech battery from a Ford Escape hybrid–a 300-volt battery pack.

“I have some engineers that I work with, and we’re going to look at how to break that down and put it into a couple different bikes. I may do a bike that’s in the 96-volt arena, so theoretically a 100-mile-an-hour bike. And then I’ll look at breaking it out into a couple smaller bikes.”

Art that fools people
Chris’s interest in building these bikes is not so much the commercial as the artistic.

“Basically I’m an artist and right now my medium is motorcycles. A lot of electric motorcycles are plastic spaceships and I don’t want to create plastic spaceships. I want to tribute classic styles. People all the time see me on these and don’t know that they’re electric until they don’t hear it. And they’re like ‘Oooh’ and I get that double-, triple-, quadrduple-take. I’ve been run off the road by people doing this (turns head way round). For me, that’s the point. For me that’s the ultimate design challenge, to take something that wasn’t supposed to be and fool everyone.”

Nevertheless, he is a true believer in electric vehicles.

“I’ve been riding motorcycles my whole life, I’ve just always had a motorcycle. But I hate having gas bikes. They stink, they leak, and never seem to run right. With these, when you turn it on it’s gonna go or it’s not gonna go, or it’s charged or it’s not charged. It’s really that simple. Other than that, there’s no maintenance, they don’t leak, they don’t produce any smells, they hardly produce any noise, and they’re just really user friendly and simple.”

Honoring the look
A common question Chris gets is why he retains the gas tank on his electric bikes.

“Because it helps people understand it’s a motorcycle. I don’t want someone to think that I’m riding down the street on a trailer or some miscellaneous pile of parts. I want people to look at it and think, ‘Ah, it’s a cool chopper.’ The all of a sudden they realize it doesn’t make any noise and it’s not running on gas. I would love to do all vintage bikes, board track racers, and just really cool old stuff and keeping the tanks on, keeping them looking like motorcycles is really important to me from a design standpoint.”

Chris first got interested in converting motorcycles to electric when “I saw something online about someone who had built a bike and claiming you could do this for $1,800 or something like that. It turned out not to be the case at all. I was just intrigued and I said you know, I’ve got to build one of those.”

He works totally on a custom basis, building bikes only when a customer orders one. Each bike is made to fit the customer’s specific desires. If you want one he’d be glad to work with you, just contact him at info@blindspotcycles.com. (Nope, not gonna happen. Sorry. But these links below are still good.)

If you want to build one for yourself, there are several websites that offer instructions. Here are a few:
http://visforvoltage.org/forums/electricrides/motorcyclesandlargescooters/custom-builds-or-homebuilt
http://visforvoltage.org/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/587-my-kz750-electric-motorcycle-project

Biker Quote for Today

He was born free. And he loved to drift. He loved his motorcycle and his motorcycle loved him. But he did not believe in love and attachments. He just wanted to drift. He was addicted to his loneliness. He was free. And he loved to ride his motorcycle. — Avijeet Das