Passes & Canyons Blog

Viewing my first Rever ride from my desktop computer.

I was recently introduced to a new tool that I may very well put to a lot of use on this website. Brought to us by many of the same folks responsible for Butler motorcycle maps, we now have Rever.

Rever is a ride-tracking app for your GPS-equipped cell phone. In brief, you create an account, download and install the app, and then turn it on when you go for a ride. Shut it off when you’re done with the ride and you then have, stored in the cloud, a complete record of your ride, including route, miles, time, average speed, and more. That image above shows my very first ride with Rever tracking me.

It’s dead simple plus it has a variety of uses. Offered in a freemium manner as is so common these days, the basic app is free but if you pay to subscribe it offers a lot more. But at its most basic, you can track rides and also plan rides in advance.

Once you do a tracked ride or plan out a ride, you can save it. Any friends you are connected to on Rever can see your rides. So if you’re taking a group on a ride you have done before, or that you have planned out on Rever, each of your friends can open up that ride and they have the complete route plan right there in their hand.

One issue group riders encounter at times is getting separated. If each of your riders is on Rever and is tracking, lose somebody and you can pull out your phone, go to their rides, and see where they are right now. How cool is that?

For the paid membership you can also get Butler Maps overlays on your map so you can plan the route to hit all the good roads Butler points out to you.

What really interests me about Rever is that back when I built this www.motorcyclecolorado.com website we did not have smart phones that were essentially desktop computers in your hand. But full-sized web pages don’t generally display well on a cell phone. In order to at least not get too far behind technology I have rebuilt the main pages of the site to be mobile-friendly, but that’s only 11 pages out of more than 100.

Of course, the main point of the website is to present the best rides in Colorado. I have created maps but they are static. You can’t zoom in or do anything else other than look at them. With Rever I see the opportunity to create new, mobile-friendly pages for all these routes that should really bring the site more up to date. So look for that to happen over the next couple years.

Meanwhile, in order to present all these routes via Rever maps, I’m going to have to ride them all again. Oh, what a dirty job. Please don’t throw me in that briar patch.

Biker Quote for Today

If you think I’m cute now, wait until you see me on my motorcycle.

I love having three bikes, partly because they’re so different and each has its own strength.

For a little more than two weeks Judy and I were on a ride to British Columbia on my 1999 Kawasaki Concours. We got home on a Thursday and on Friday I took off with the OFMC for another week, this time on my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650. After basically living on the Connie for two weeks, was it an adjustment to be on the V-Strom, alone? You better believe it.

First off, Judy and I have helmet-to-helmet communicators, and I was totally accustomed to just talking with someone (her) as I rode along. Heading off on the OFMC trip, several of the guys had left earlier but I headed out with Brett. I can’t tell you how often I started to just talk to him, only to be reminded that, oh yeah, he can’t hear me. It’s silly how many times I did that.

As for being on a different bike, that played out in a variety of ways. For one thing, wow, what a change to go from a 670-pound bike with a 110-pound passenger to a 420-pound bike and no passenger. Can you say “light” and “agile”? I thought you could. This was like night and day. Smaller, lighter bikes are just fun to ride. I love my Connie as a highway, let’s-do-some-traveling sort of bike, but the Wee Strom is made for other pleasures, although it does fine on the highway.

Now, the seat is less comfortable than the Connie. I know most people think the first thing you should do is get an aftermarket seat, but I’ve never found that necessary or even desirable. I like the seat, and it is definitely better than the one on the V-Strom.

A different consideration is that the V has chain drive, while the Connie has a shaft. Not a big deal, but I did pay attention to the chain on this trip, even stopping to buy some W-D 40 because I forget to bring chain lube along.

The other significant thing about the V is that it has a digital read-out, not dials the way all older bikes do. One option on this digital read-out is the odometer and two trip meters that you have to punch a button to select. Also, a fuel gauge with five bars: full is five and when you get to only one it starts flashing to warn you that you are low.

These controls may be simple but it took me a while to figure out how they worked. As long as I’ve had the V-Strom I have had it just set to the odometer. That means that if you want to know what kind of gas mileage you’re getting you have to remember what the mileage was when you last filled up. I usually didn’t.

So on this trip I started using the trip meter for the first time. I wanted to understand how many miles each of those five bars represented. I quickly found that the first one did not go away until I had ridden at least 100 miles. The second one would generally disappear about 40 miles later. But I was riding with the guys, and none of their bikes can go as far on a tank of gas as my V-Strom so we were always stopping for gas before I got far into the third bar. I’ll have to figure out what the others represent sometime when I’ve riding alone.

But even the little I do know now has come in useful. As long as I’ve had the bike I’ve noticed that when I start it up after it’s been sitting for a while I smell gas. Once I saw gas dripping and I took it in for work that seems to have addressed the issue for the most part. But after I got home, with about 50 miles on the tank, I let the bike sit for a few weeks. Next time I got on it I was already down to the third bar. Whoa! Clearly I have a leak. Something is wrong. I’m hoping it will just require replacement of some rubber fuel lines. That’s going to be up to Joel to figure out.

Biker Quote for Today

If you need me I’ll be riding.

Part of our group at Lake Louise.

Everyone is an individual and so it is a simple truism that every group is different and group dynamics are different from one group to another. Plus, group dynamics change as a group changes. When you become part of a group it behooves you to figure out the group dynamics.

With the OFMC, it started out very simple. Each of us took our turns leading, not by any formal process but simply based on who felt like being in front at this moment. That would change if someone got a wild hair and wanted to put on some speed for awhile. Bill goes blasting past and we either pick up the pace to join him or we catch up with him when he slows down. John wants to stop, he either pulls over when he chooses or, if he’s behind, he blasts ahead and then stops. It’s easy with three.

As the group got bigger it got more complicated. Friggs became the one who set the pace in terms of taking off from a stop. We learned that it just didn’t make any sense to even put on your helmet until Friggs put on his. He was always the last to be ready to ride.

If you didn’t want somebody right on your butt, make sure not to get immediately in front of Randy. Randy would target fixate on your rear bumper and stay close, right behind you, rather than staggering to one side or the other.

Don’t try to ride a staggered formation with Dennis because Dennis is all over the road. If the folks behind you want to ride in staggered formation, just pick one side of the road or the other and stay there, so the folks behind can all stay in one spot. Sometimes Dennis will be right ahead of you and sometimes he won’t. Live with it.

What am I in all this? It embarrasses me a little to have to say I don’t really know. You’d need to ask the other guys. I do know that I was one guy who everyone figured knew where he was going. With a larger group John became the leader almost all the time but sometimes he had to berate the guys for not paying attention to our route. The only one he had confidence to know where we were going was Ken, he would tell them.

Now that John’s health has him not riding any more, I have become the leader. I planned our last trip and rode in front most of the time. But I did make a point, when I knew one guy was clear on the route and destination, to suggest he lead for awhile. And it seemed like they kind of enjoyed taking that spot occasionally.

Riding this summer to British Columbia with Willie and Jungle and others, the dynamics were set. This was their ride so Jungle always rode lead and Willie always rode sweep. Except, with two Slingshots and a Porsche Carrera 2 in the mix, people sometimes had other ideas.

Terry, in her Porsche, was sometimes impatient with the group going what she considered slow. So she would take off on her own and we’d see her again whenever we did.

As the den mother for the group, Willie often found herself telling the rest of us to go ahead, she and JC, in his Slingshot, would catch up. It seems JC has a wont for shopping and thought nothing of wandering off to some shops just as the rest of us were getting ready to go.

Meanwhile, Jean has her issues with JC and to the extent possible, she stayed as far away from him as possible. With seven or more of us in the group that was fairly easy, and Willie–again the den mother–went out of her way to ensure they didn’t end up sitting next to each other at meals. JC, of course, was unaware of any of these machinations.

So what got me thinking about this is that after Judy and I peeled off to blast home so I could turn around and leave on the OFMC trip, she wondered how our departure would affect the group dynamics. And especially how much harder it would now be to keep Jean separate from JC.

People are people. Each is unique. When two or more come together you get group dynamics. The patterns are infinite. This is life.

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t wait for life, ride to meet it.

Riding as a group comes with certain responsibilities toward your other riders.

When you’re riding with a group on motorcycles there will always be someone in the lead and someone at the back, riding “sweep,” whether you think about it that way or not.

It’s a really good thing if the leader knows where he or she is going. Unless you’re using GPS, however, that is not always possible. For instance, when we were with Willie and Jungle’s group going to Banff this summer, there was one point where I was in the lead because the group had had to split up, with Jungle back in Cranbrook, BC, with a broken down bike.

We pulled into Radium Hot Springs, our destination for the day, and at an intersection neither Judy nor I noted that the highway we were following took the right turn. We went straight, as did all those behind us.

We quickly realized our error and turned around, motioning for the others to follow but for some reason they stayed put at the turnaround. Apparently they expected us to come back to tell them, yes, this is the correct way to go. Eventually everyone found their way to the motel but that’s the kind of problem you can have when the leader doesn’t know the route exactly.

Generally, however, everyone has GPS these days and as long as everyone knows the destination, they can get there. It’s just that sometimes you have to stop to pull out the phone and check the GPS.

Riding sweep is entirely different. Theoretically, each rider is responsible for making sure they do not lose sight of the rider behind them. If you do, you slow down until they show up and if they don’t show up you stop. If they still don’t show up, you go back. This ripples through the ranks up to the leader.

Unless the sweep is the one suffering problems, their general responsibility is to stop and assist anyone ahead who has problems. If the sweep has problems then the first rider in front of them should notice and come back.

That’s where it can get sticky. At least in the group I ride with, not everyone is paying all that much attention. They should, but the truth is, some do not. I like to ride sweep mainly because that way I don’t have anyone behind me crowding me or target fixating on my rear. We do have at least one person who will do that.

But I have been the one who has had problems, or the one who has stopped for another reason, and had the guys in front of me just keep on riding. When I finally have rejoined the group it’s generally, “Where were you?” to which I reply “Well, where in the heck were YOU?!”

It can be a fine line, though, between going your own speed and dropping way back and dropping back so far that the folks ahead of you start slowing down wondering about you. This is something about which Friggs has aggravated the rest of us at times. For instance, on this year’s OFMC trip, I was riding sweep but Friggs was going so slow for so long, with the others nowhere to be seen ahead, that I finally just blasted past him. He’s on his own! I have no feelings of guilt over passing him and leaving him behind.

Talking with the other guys later, they agreed that they had had the same annoyance with him at times and done the same thing. Dude, it’s fine to ride your own ride but you really need to at least maintain a minimum of contact with the group. If you’re not going to, say so in advance and we’ll see you when you get there.

Biker Quote for Today

Keep calm and take a back road.

Those scuff marks show you exactly where Friggs’s face would have been ripped open.

The best motorcycle protective gear does you no good at all if you don’t wear it. This is summed up in the term ATGATT: All The Gear, All The Time.

I’ve gotten better about this as the years have passed. I used to frequently ride without a helmet; I never do now. I didn’t always ride with a jacket; now it is seldom I ride without. And I almost never ride with my leather chaps on, even now. So I can hardly ever claim to ride with ALL the gear. But what I do wear I do wear almost all the time.

Friggs is another one who is about on a par with me. He always wears a helmet and almost always wears his jacket. I’m not sure he even owns chaps.

Friggs was not wearing his jacket when he crashed his bike in New Mexico. He was wearing his helmet. That made all the difference.

Take a look at his helmet. See all that scuffing above the visor, and how the top part of the visor is scraped up, too? That would have been his face. And you have to look a little harder but just below the visor, above the “Harley,” and also on the chin portion there is scuffing. That could have been a dislocated jaw, or worse.

This is why I always wear a helmet these days.

As for not wearing his jacket, Friggs got off lucky. His shirt was ripped up and his shoulder was bruised but he came out of it remarkably intact. But we all commented on how, gosh, Friggs almost always wears his jacket. What bad timing on his part to leave it off this particular day.

His pants were also torn up, which chaps would have limited, but hey, we don’t ride with that kind of gear most of the time. We’re just not true, to the core, ATGATT guys. But even more so than before, after seeing this, I will NEVER ride without my helmet.

Biker Quote for Today

A good friend knows all your best stories. A biker friend has lived them all with you.

At the top of Emory Pass, successfully past the chipseal, moments before Friggs (right) crashed his bike.

We all know that anywhere that you have winter, summer is the season for road work. This can mean delays but more importantly, on a motorcycle, it can mean riding through rough conditions that your street bike does not necessarily take well to. One of those conditions is chipseal.

What we’re talking about here is where the basic road surface is in decent shape but there may be cracks, which, left on their own, will cause the road to deteriorate at an accelerating pace. The answer in this case is to coat the road surface with oil or some more sophisticated semi-liquid, sticky substance. Then sand and/or gravel is spread over the stickum and it is left for the weight of vehicles to bear down on the loose stuff and make it adhere to the surface. After a while, when it is deemed that the maximum amount of gravel has adhered, the remaining loose stuff is swept up. Presto, you have an essentially new road surface at minimal expense.

The problem for motorcycles, of course, is that all that loose gravel or sand makes riding very iffy. Plenty of motorcyclists totally avoid riding off the pavement but when you’re on a highway and run into chipseal you have little choice but to ride on the stuff you hate.

For three weeks this summer I was out on my Concours, first, and my V-Strom, second. Would it surprise you if I said we ran into a lot of chipseal? It was almost a daily thing, sort of like the chipseal du jour.

The first chipseal we ran into, on the trip Judy and I took up to British Columbia, came in Montana when we headed north out of Anaconda on U.S. Highway 10A headed to Philipsburg. Here we rode for 15 miles on some of the finest (as in smallest) aggregate I’ve ever encountered as chipseal. It was like plowing through sand, and it had just been laid down that day so it was deep in spots. My Concours hates gravel so it was not at all happy on sand. It’s probably a good thing I had a brand new tire on the back with deep tread. We got through.

Off With The OFMC
My next encounter with chipseal came after Judy and I had split off from the group and were blasting home. We were crossing central Wyoming and the road out of Riverton intersected U.S. 287 a little west of Jeffrey City. There was a chipseal in progress on 287 in both directions from the junction. We were going east.

With only one lane of traffic open on 287, we had to wait until east-bound traffic was allowed through and we then tucked in behind them. This was more of a gravel-sized chipseal, the kind I’m a lot more familiar with, so it was just a matter of staying far enough behind the car in front so that thrown stones were no concern. (I’ve been hit with those in the past.) To our surprise and delight, however, most of the work was to the west of the junction and after less than a mile we were out of the work zone. Big smiles.

The next chipseal showed up after Judy and I got home and I set out with the guys on the OFMC 2018 trip. We were headed north on I-25 out of Las Cruces and turned west on New Mexico 152 to reach Silver City. This took us up over Emory Pass, along the road New Mexicans call “the snake.” This was going to be fun.

Except that after we passed through Hillsboro we came to a chipseal operation in progress. We stopped to wait sitting on new chipseal that had been put down that morning. When we got the go-ahead we had already heard that we would be on this stuff all the way to the top of the pass. And no, it was not any fun at all. I was just glad I was now on my V-Strom, which is better equipped for this sort of thing. The other guys were not so lucky. Mark this road down as one we’ll need to head for again so the guys can have the fun we missed out on this time.

We did get to the top uneventfully, but immediately after, on the run down the other side, Friggs crashed, for no reason he can discern. Go figure. You ride the squirrelly stuff OK and then go down on the smooth pavement.

We ran into more chipseal the next day. Working our way north from Silver City to Gallup, we turned onto New Mexico 32 just east of Cruzville and soon ran into the work zone. They were working our way so what we encountered first was the freshest, i.e., the loosest. This was also the longest stretch of chipseal we encountered–about 30 miles.

Here at least it was not a twisty road. It was the extremely twisty road the day before that made that run so miserable; going straight is easier. In fact, with my V-Strom I felt pretty confident and was hitting almost highway speeds. The other guys lagged behind; they were not going to get up much speed.

You could tell the crews had been working this project for a good while. The further we got the better the packing down got, although we never reached a place where the road had been swept of the remaining loose stuff.

It was after this day that I told the guys that while mapping out this trip I had consulted chipseal.gov to find all the work zones and be sure to visit as many as we could. They agreed I had done my job well.

And that was it. No more chipseal the rest of the trip. Oh, shucks.

Biker Quote for Today

Those voices are telling me to go riding. If I don’t they won’t stop.