Passes & Canyons Blog

That’s Roy, fourth from left, before our Saturday ride to celebrate his 92nd birthday. We can all wish we’ll still be riding when we’re 92.

On Saturday I rode out with other RMMRC members to a lunch down in Monument for Roy to celebrate his 92nd birthday. That’s right, Roy is 92 and he is still riding. Not just riding. In any given year he probably rides more miles than you do.

It’s no surprise that Roy is an inspiration an awful lot of us in the club. I know I want to be Roy some day. I always end these posts with a Biker Quote for Today and the most apropos of these would be “We don’t stop riding because we get old, we get old because we stop riding.”

This all ties in with an email exchange I’ve been having with Nick, who a couple weeks ago came out from Chicago with his BMW R1250RS. We did three day rides and then a three-day ride while he was here.

Nick had been reading this blog and saw that I was talking about maybe swapping my V-Strom and Concours for one bike that would be between them in size and capable of replacing them both. One bike I’ve identified as a possibility is the Yamaha Tracer. It seems that everyone who I mention this to is wildly enthusiastic about me making the swap. Which, frankly, makes me a little more hesitant.

Anyway, Nick emailed me last week and offered this thought:

I was thinking about your process for potentially getting a new bike. It is understandable you take a lot of time to pull the trigger. My question is what is your “riding life expectancy”? At some point in the not-too-distant future you will likely stop for one reason or another. (This is obvious to you I am sure).

I for one would encourage you to do it sooner rather than later. I am not sure how much longer I will ride but although my bike is expensive to maintain, it is pretty satisfying to ride. If going lighter makes sense, that Tracer seems like a decent bet. I think the GT version runs about 485 lbs wet, vs my 550 lbs with bags.

My reply sums up my current thinking pretty well:

As for riding life expectancy, just yesterday I went out with a bunch of guys for a lunch celebrating birthday 92 of Roy, the RMMRC president. Roy still probably rides more than you and me put together in any given year. I aspire to be Roy, as do many others in the group.

Realistically, I see no reason for me to give up riding any time soon. Having had my heart surgery, without which I would probably already be dead, I’m in extremely good, robust health. If my largest bike–currently my Concours–ever gets to be just too big and heavy I will move to something smaller. I could be riding that V-Strom for a long, long time.

So I’m in no hurry to pull the trigger. And while I have plenty of money, in terms of cash on hand this has been an expensive year. On Tuesday of this week I finally got my final crown on a new implant–the end of about an 11-month process. That tooth cost as much as a new motorcycle.

No, I’m not going to rush into anything. In about a year, if I’m still even thinking about it I may get more serious. Meanwhile, looking at the possibility of getting rid of any of the bikes I have has got me thinking more deeply about what I like about these bikes and why I got them in the first place. In fact, I’m already thinking that heck, I may end up replacing the Concours but I’ll probably not let go of the V-Strom. Stay with three bikes rather than cutting back to two.

It’s that kind of evolution of my thinking that leads me to move slowly.

So don’t expect to be reading anything here anytime soon about me and a new bike. But someday . . .

Meanwhile, yeah, I want to be Roy. I intend to be Roy. And then all these younger guys in that future RMMRC can aspire to be Ken.

Biker Quote for Today

“If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your s—, then you deserve it.” — Frank Zappa

Bill (on his bike) and John on one of our earlier trips when it was still just us three.

The OFMC took its first trip in 1989, and has done a trip every year since. The original three were me, John, and Bill. Other members have come and gone over the years but we three were regulars until just a few years ago when John could no longer ride due to health issues. Now Bill is talking about bowing out.

Dennis and I had a pretty good idea this was coming while we were out on our recent trip. We had decided to do Lolo Pass and that meant we needed to do some longer days and also an extra day. Several of these longer days were also blazing hot. Bill was not enjoying a lot of this and he was making comments such as “Remind me again why we do this.”

So it was no surprise the next to last night out when he said flatly that he doesn’t want to do it anymore. OK, let’s get into particulars. What exactly don’t you want to do anymore.

Well, he doesn’t want to do these long days. He also doesn’t want to be out for as long. And he really doesn’t like doing long days in 100+ degree weather.

Fair enough. What would you say to shorter days and fewer days? As for the heat, I’ve pushed for years to move the week of the trip later than the last full week of July. But you insist on doing it that week.

Dennis had the idea that we could do an all-Colorado trip where rather than ride past all the tourist attractions we actually stop and visit them. Take it easy.

Well, OK, something like that Bill said he could probably get into and enjoy. Fine, said I, the official trip organizer. Let me give this some thought.

The next day I had some ideas. A lot of ideas, actually, but the best–I thought–was to do this all-Colorado ride where we spend our last night some place like Estes Park–close to home–and all the wives carpool up and we stay at some fancy bed ‘n’ breakfast and have dinner at some really nice restaurant. Dennis liked the idea. Bill’s response was pure Bill.

“My wife will still be in Brazil.”

Bill’s wife is from Brazil and every summer she goes there to help her sisters care for their aged mother. She is a teacher so she comes back just before school starts, which is not the last full week of July.

But Bill, we don’t have to do the ride that same week in July every year, and if you don’t want the heat all the more reason to move it to something like the last week of August or first week of September. Or the second week of September, after the kids are back in school and the tourist crowds thin out.

No, no, that won’t do.

Now, Dennis and I are of a different mind. Earlier in the trip we had discussed what we saw coming and Dennis had said that if he didn’t have his wife at home he’d be saying let’s take a month. We’re retired, for Pete’s sake. I totally agreed.

So the thought arises, if Bill dropped out would Dennis and I continue and maybe finally do some of the longer rides I’ve been wanting to do for a long, long time? Apparently not. Dennis didn’t elaborate on his thinking but he did say at one point that if it got down to only two he would not be inclined to go on. So that would mean the end of the OFMC. Wow.

I don’t think that’s going to happen next year. I do think Bill will be interested in a shorter trip. But things continue until they don’t. And then they end.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 32. You’ll have a burn mark or two from the exhaust.

Ten minutes earlier this road was jam-packed with stop and go traffic. Now you can see the first car that filtered past the burning truck down the hill.

We got an early start out of Spanish Fork on the next to last day of this year’s OFMC trip and I figured we’d be climbing into the hills east of the extended Salt Lake City metropolitan area but in fact we plunged down a canyon. We were on US 89, which led in a short while to US 6.

Another surprise was that at the mouth of this canyon there were about 10 wind turbines. You normally think about those things being out in the open where they catch a lot of free-flowing wind. I figure it must be that the wind blows in across the salt flats and then hits these hills and gets channeled into this canyon.

So we went down and down and finally started climbing. Very pretty along this part. Then we started down again, a long way, and finally came out on the desert floor at Price. Now it’s going to get hot and boring. It did. We got lunch and gas at Green River and then just blasted the rest of the way to Grand Junction, our stop for the night. Not an eventful day.

Leaving Junction early in the morning we were figuring on getting down the hill on I-70 before the inevitable crush of traffic that happens every Sunday afternoon. Wrong. We started getting into heavy traffic at about Vail. But before I get into that, something else happened just west of Vail.

As I said, traffic was getting thick and we got behind someone going too slow in the right lane, so Bill and Dennis moved over to the left and when I had the chance I did, too. I looked back and was about 50 feet ahead of the guy coming up in that lane so, as I always do, I threw my left arm straight out to clearly signal my intent and simultaneously moved into the left lane. Totally normal move.

About five seconds later I heard the familiar sound of a car coming around me on the left . . . but I was in the left lane. I turned to look and there was the guy I had pulled in front of, now about even with my rear fender, going past me half way on the shoulder. I moved right to give him more room and threw up my hand in a “what the heck” sort of motion. He threw up his left hand in a sort of “oops, sorry” kind of motion. And we rolled on.

The way I figure it, he must have been looking at his phone and looked up only just in time to realize he was about to murder a motorcyclist.

Back to the story. I told the rest of this story here but there was a lot that I left out in that account. For one thing, I was not alone sitting there by the highway broken down. I could see, in the space of about a quarter mile, five other vehicles all pulled over with problems. I walked back and spoke with the two women in the car behind me, and they had also overheated. But for them it was normal. They had a bottle of coolant and once they could safely remove the radiator cap they poured some in and took off. The couple in front of me had overheated and had called for a tow. I didn’t walk up to the three vehicles ahead of them.

All this time the interstate was a parking lot. Three lanes full of traffic stopping and starting. Then about 500 feet down the hill there was a bang and a lot of smoke or steam or something and within a few minutes there was not a single vehicle on the road in front of me. I learned later from the tow truck driver who picked me up that there was a truck on fire back there.

Obviously, when this truck erupted in flames everyone behind him stopped. Then, after maybe five minutes cars started filtering past and one by one they would go speeding past me. And gradually there were more and more as they all got bolder.

What impressed me was how quickly the emergency folks handled the situation. It took a while for them to get to the scene but once they did they had the truck moved and whole road open again within 15 minutes. And then it was the same old parking lot again.

I did eventually get home that day, at 10 p.m., and that was finally the end of this year’s OFMC trip for me–though not yet the end of my hassles getting the bike home. But it could have been a lot worse. What if I had overheated out in the middle of the salt flats, in blazing heat with no shade? What if it had happened at any of the other times we were stuck in 100-degree-plus weather with no shade? At least when I broke down up on the mountain my actual concern was the oncoming rain storm. And I had rain gear.

Meanwhile, the Kawi is now in the shop for service and to find out if the overheating was due to a bad thermostat or heat sensor. Stay tuned.

Biker Quote for Today

If I were to die from riding a dirt bike my crash better look awesome.

The Harley-Davidson Pan America is the first Harley I might consider owning.

Anyone who rides motorcycles knows how easy it is to strike up conversations with other bikers just about anywhere you encounter them. That’s especially true out on the road. You’re in a gas station or at a motel and there’s someone else with a bike and you talk. Just that simple.

No surprise then that on this latest OFMC trip we encountered our share of interesting folks.

We were in Arco, Idaho, and there were two bikers in the room next to Bill and Dennis. This was a father-son duo who were headed back to Salt Lake City after a few days out. The dad was on an Indian much like the one Dennis used to have and his son was riding the Harley he handed down to him. Nice kind of dad to have. Actually, Bill had done the same with his son Jason some years earlier.

After dropping the son off, the dad still had some riding to do. He was going to keep on going and would meet up with a friend a day or two later somewhere else. The details are hazy now but this guy was definitely enjoying himself. They had come down the day before through Challis, which was the way we were headed the next day and it was good to be able to ask a few questions.

For one, Google maps wanted to route us east a bit to go up between a different row of hills. Who knows, maybe that’s a nice route. No, said the dad, that’s nowhere near as nice as through Challis, but do be aware that we might encounter smoke from several forest fires burning up the way we were going. Also, if we are planning to head south from Cascade, Idaho, later, be aware that that road has closures due to blasting as they widen that highway. We never had any smoke but days later we did have a stop at the blasting site. It’s good to have a heads-up about these things.

Also at that motel in Arco there were three young guys on Harleys. They were doing some hard riding and told us they were hoping to make it all the way to the Oregon coast the next day. All the way to the coast? Holy crap. Plus, while two of them said their bikes were very comfortable for these long rides, the third said his was not. He was definitely regretting his choice of bikes. Not fun.

In Kemmerer, Wyoming, we came back to our motel after dinner to see a dirty, well-ridden bike we could not recognize loaded down with gear, parked right in front of the motel main door. Not long afterward, this guy came walking over from the same restaurant we had been at and yes, it was his bike. And the bike was a Harley Pan America. None of us had ever seen one before.

As for well-ridden, he was on his way home to Amarillo, Texas, after having ridden to the Arctic Ocean in Canada and then doing a loop around Alaska. And, by the way, this was not the bike he started out on.

Turns out he left home on a different Pan America but he said that one had always been a lemon, giving him lots of problems. So he rode up to the Arctic Ocean, into Alaska, and barely limped into Fairbanks, to a Harley dealer. There the guys checked out his bike and it definitely had problems but there on the showroom floor they had another just like it, brand new. Would he like to trade? Yes, he would.

So this beat-up, dirty bike we were looking at had 4,000 miles on it and was only 10 days off the showroom floor. But unlike the other one, it was not a lemon and he had had no problems at all with it. And he was figuring going all the way from Kemmerer to Lamar, Colorado, the next day, and on to Amarillo the next. He denied being hard-core, and when the discussion turned to gear he said he always wears all the gear because he falls down so much. Different people have different perspectives. And you meet all kinds of different people on the road.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when picking bugs out of your beard becomes part of your daily grooming ritual.

Rest areas with shade are very, very welcome when the heat is this bad. This one was in Buhl, Idaho.

After that ride through Boise and then down to Jackpot all of us were happy to stay put for two nights and get off the bikes. It’s an OFMC standard to spend an extra day somewhere and play golf, and also to do some gambling. Jackpot, Nevada, offers both.

That day in Jackpot would have been a good day to ride. There was cloud cover all day, right up to the time we were walking back from the golf course at about 5. But it also made for a nice day out playing golf.

The next morning we headed out early, with similar cloud cover. Nice. But it didn’t last. By the time we reached Wells the sun was out and it was getting hot. We got on I-80 and cranked along till we got to Wendover and stopped there for lunch. If you’ve never come into Wendover from the west you’re missing an impressive sight. You come over a hill and there ahead of you is the vast flatness and bleakness of the salt flats. It really is an “Oh god!” moment.

Then we blasted across the flats. Hot, hot, and more hot. There are two eastbound rest areas and we stopped at the second and fortunately it had a building with air conditioning. Bad news for other people, it had a sign that as of the following day it would be closing, presumably for renovation considering that the grounds looked like they had just been thoroughly redone.

We didn’t want to go through Salt Lake so we turned off I-80 at Grantsville, down to Tooele and around the south end of Utah Lake and the ridge that separates the valleys. En route we passed right by what used to be called Miller Motorsports Park, now the Utah Motorsports Campus, and it was swarming. There were people and campers everywhere, with all these folks just out there in this blazing heat with no shade except of their own making. Not for me, thanks.

We came around the hills and angled back north, headed to Spanish Fork. Dennis, with his GPS, was leading and we got to Spanish Fork and the exit off I-15 and traffic was crazy. It turned out that to get to our motel we needed to cross two packed lanes of traffic to get into the left turn lane immediately. Dennis managed to shove his way into the left lane but there was no way to merge into the turn lane. So he went ahead and made the next left turn, to turn around and head back. He had gotten separated from Bill and me and as we sat in the left turn lane I saw Dennis do a U-turn and then a right heading back the other way. I looked at the traffic situation and at a moment I deemed safe I just did a U-turn right there, with Bill hurrying to follow me. Not exactly legal but it worked.

We pulled up behind Dennis as he sat waiting to take a right turn off this busy highway and we followed him, much to his surprise. He had no idea we were there and had planned to pull over where we could see him and know to turn there. But there we were right behind him. So we got to our motel and what a relief to get out of that heat. Later, at about 10 p.m., I took a walk and the temperature was still around 85. But hey, at 7:45 it had been 99. Way too much heat.

At least we managed not to have to ride through Salt Lake. That would have been worse than Boise.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you worry about what bikers are supposed to look like.

Motorado has a lot of bikes but not a lot of space.

It’s funny how you get an idea and if you let it it takes on a life of its own. I got this idea of swapping two of my motorcycles–the ’06 V-Strom 650 and the ’99 Concours–for something in between them that would fill both their niches. Then I mentioned it to the guys, who enthusiastically supported the idea. And now I’m looking at bikes.

Whoa. Hold on. Do I really want to do this? The more I think about it the more, when riding the old bikes, I find myself appreciating the things I have always liked about them. Why mess with what is already good?

But the thing is in motion. After looking at some new bikes and test riding one, I turned my attention to used bikes. Two reasons: a used bike costs less than a new bike, plus a used bike–if you choose selectively–will come with a lot of the extras you would need to pay extra for on a new bike.

I had looked at web sites and seen some bikes of possible interest so last week I decided it was time to see some of these bikes in person. I headed first to Aces because it was reasonably close but also because this is where my now former mechanic, Joel, now works. What I found was very different from my expectations.

I had the mistaken idea that Joel was the head of the service department at Aces but in fact, Aces does not do service. Joel is the mechanic on site with the job of doing whatever is needed by any of the bikes on the premises. So my search for a new mechanic goes on.

Then, second, pretty much every bike they had in their spacious showroom was a late model bike, mostly 2019 and newer. Yes you would pay less for these than for new models but we’re still talking pretty big bucks.

I did, however, get an idea for one model to consider and that was the Yamaha Tracer 900. The sales guy Joel hooked me up with said it was one of his three all-time favorite bikes and it seemed to fit in the middle ground where I was hoping to find something. Unfortunately, the 2019 model they had on hand does not have cruise control. That was only added to that model in 2020.

Leaving Aces I figured I was already over on the west side of town so I might as well go on over to Motorado at 6th and Sheridan. This proved to be a very different place.

In contrast to the huge showroom at Aces, Motorado has a much smaller space with bikes crammed in every square inch. They had several bikes I had seen on their website and I could check them out but only within limits. For instance, one bike was on its sidestand and I couldn’t stand it upright because the bike on one side was literally leaning onto it, just as it was leaning onto the bike on the other side. I figure if you are really interested in a bike you better have a check or credit card in your hand before you ask them to pull one out so you can really check it out.

On another I was interested in the seat height but it was on its center stand and there was no way I could rock it down to see how my feet touched ground. But at least at Motorado they had plenty of bikes that were not just late model, and they were therefore at better price points.

I don’t know. I guess next I’ll look more into buying from private owners. The problem there is that it’s much more of a buyer beware situation. And while it’s easy to take a used car to a shop to have it inspected by a mechanic, try that with a motorcycle. I’m trying to find a new mechanic to even work on my bikes and I’m not having a lot of luck.

So that just sends me back to the question of whether or not I even want to do this. But as Judy pointed out, if I had a newer bike I could take it to a dealer and they’d be happy to work on it for me. At least until it got old enough that they fired me as a customer again.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: Motorcycles don’t get pregnant.

Construction delays are just an opportunity to stretch your legs and adjust your layers.

We got up early in Cascade, Idaho, that morning of this year’s OFMC trip. We had a long way to go and wanted to take advantage of the morning coolness. As we were getting ready we saw a group of 31 Harleys rumble in and stop for gas across the road, and about 20 minutes later another group of comparable size followed them. Heading to Sturgis?

They were heading north but we were heading south. One of the first things of interest we saw was a guy skinning a deer right beside the road. Road kill we assume and no reason to let it go to waste. Certainly not here in Idaho.

We continued to follow ID 55 across this huge alpine park when all of a sudden the road veered to the west and soon we were plunging down a steep, narrow gorge. And it just kept going. We had to be giving up a lot of altitude. Along the way we encountered a delay at a place we had been warned of by another biker we spoke to several days earlier in Arco, where they were widening this narrow road, and doing so by blasting. Not a very long delay, though.

We knew if we continued on this road it would take us straight into the heart of Boise, which was something we did not want. Checking the map we could see that if we took a left at Banks, over to Lowman, and then south again we could catch I-84 just on the east end of Boise. That was our plan. But we came to Banks and at the intersection was a sign saying the road was closed between Lowman and More’s Creek. We had no service way out here and no map showed More’s Creek so we didn’t know what to do. There were cars coming from the direction of Lowman, though, so as one came to the stop sign I waved to him. Yes, the road to Lowman is open but the road south–which is where More’s Creek is–was closed. We had no choice but to go through Boise. Dang.

Meanwhile, all of this was still just gorgeous riding so it was not as if we weren’t having a good time. We stopped for gas on the north side of Boise and as I was checking my phone for routes a woman at the next pump asked if I was lost. No, not lost, just trying to figure out how best to get around Boise. Is there a bypass? No, there’s no bypass, she told me, but here’s the best route through.

So we took off from there but where she had said to go right Dennis’s GPS said go left, so we went left. That took us pretty deep into town and we decided it was time for lunch. After lunch we needed to turn left out of the parking lot but traffic was horrible. Deciding to go right and then make a left and double back, Dennis took off. But Bill and I were blocked by traffic and by the time we could do anything we had totally lost Dennis. We flailed a bit and finally figured we would just ride on to the spot we had discussed getting gas next. (Dennis had not filled up when Bill and I did.)

We got headed back the other direction and soon saw a sign for I-84. OK, if we can get on the interstate right here this won’t be too bad. We got on and rode just a couple miles and this road–what I now see was I-184–just dumped us onto the city streets in downtown Boise. Not at all what we wanted. So we made it through that mess and then finally picked up the main road south of town and started blasting.

By now we were in phase two of this bifurcated day. All the green and cool were gone and now we were deep into the brown and hot. And if you weren’t going at least 80 mph you were practically going to get blown off the road by everyone else who was going that fast and more.

We got down to Glenns Ferry, where Dennis was to get gas, pulled off the highway into town, turned down the mail street, and found Dennis pumping gas. At least that worked out fine. Something about this town just cried out to me that it must have an ice cream parlor so I asked at the station and they said yes, and here’s how you get there. That was one very welcome break in this long, hot day.

From Glenns Ferry it was only 18 miles till we got off I-84 again, at Bliss, where we picked up US 30, which runs through the Snake River Valley for quite a ways. This got us off the interstate, through some pretty country, and enabled us to not have to go all the way to Twin Falls and then double back to the west to reach US 93 south to Jackpot, Nevada, our destination for the day.

We found a nice rest area in Buhl, Idaho, and took a break there and then hit 93 and turned south. Another 45 miles and we came over the hill and down into Jackpot. This crew was ready for a day off the bikes.

Biker Quote for Today

“On my tombstone they will carve, ‘It never got fast enough for me.’” — Hunter S. Thompson

The new V-Strom 650 that I test rode.

As I said I would, I went to Fay Myers Motorcycle World on Friday to test ride the latest V-Strom 650. This is with an eye toward possibly replacing my ’99 Concours and my ’06 V-Strom 650 with something in between them size-wise and moving to an updated machine. Not at all a certainty to happen.

I suppose it was because it was Friday and people were at work but there were not a lot of people looking to do test rides. There were only three in my group. One guy was testing the V-Strom 800DE and the other was on a Husqvarna street bike.

Sitting on the V it was clear to me that this seat height was lower than on my 2006 V. It makes sense. The V-Strom started out as a dual-sport bike but as it became ever clearer to Suzuki that most of their buyers never or almost never take the bike off the pavement they made it progressively more of a street bike. And then now they’ve side-stepped over to cover the dirt niche again with the new 800DE. But the basic V-Strom is now a full-on street bike.

It felt good to ride. I definitely like the bike. We headed east a bit on Arapahoe and then turned south on Lima, which became Inverness Drive East. Who knew Inverness Drive was a racetrack!? But it is. And these demo guys know that. It has some curves, a lot of open stretches, and not a lot of traffic, at least not at this time of day. I believe we violated some traffic laws.

The V handled well but it really did not seem to have the acceleration I’m accustomed to with my ’06. Everything felt good, though.

Swinging around at the south end and starting north on Inverness Drive West we were still on the racetrack but at one point the guy on the 800DE slowed way down. Just seemed to be coasting. To a stop? Did his engine die? Just as the other guy and I were about to blast past him and leave him to the sweeper to deal with he nailed the throttle and took off. He was sling-shotting. Holding back to create distance so he can really hit the throttle.

I’m sorry, but that’s a jerk thing to do. This was not the first time I’ve contended with that. Generally in the pre-ride talk they tell you not to do it; they had not done so this time, though I doubt that would have stopped him. But it creates issues for the people behind you and it’s just not cool.

Anyway, we got on back to Fay Myers and I sat on the bike a bit checking out different items. One of the demo guys came along and asked if I had any questions. Yes, I do. Does this have cruise control? One of the things I want if I’m going to move to a new bike is cruise control, and I could not identify anything that would be that control.

No, it does not, he replied. Darn. That really pretty much is a deal breaker for me at this moment. So no, I won’t be buying a 2023 V-Strom 650. But the game of shopping for a new bike has been launched.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m a motocross rider because football players need heroes, too.