Performance Cycle Goes Big

April 11th, 2016
The new Performance Cycle store.

Performance Cycle's new digs.

As did many thousands of other motorcyclists–apparently–I received a card inviting me to the grand opening at the new location for Performance Cycle on Saturday. New location: 7375 S. Fulton, in Centennial. I figured I wanted to see the place, so I went.

trying on helmets

Just an eye-catching scene I noticed.

The card had promised a schwag bag for the first 100 in the doors and while that wasn’t a big motivator I did think it might be cool if I got one and it had some cool stuff in it. Ha! Doors opened at 9 a.m. and I walked in around 9:45. By that time there must have been more than 100 people waiting in line to make their purchases. The place was packed, and that’s saying something because it is huge.

I don’t know if this is the biggest motorcycle shop in Denver but if it isn’t it has got to be one of the biggest. Completely new building with about anything you could want. Including a lounge with complimentary beverages and an air hockey table so you can while away the time while your bike is being worked on. A section for helmets that is bigger than some shops I’ve been in. A storage area for tires that looked like it must have a couple thousand tires on hand. And of course, pretty much any motorcycle gear or apparel you could possibly be looking for.

And apparently there were a lot of people looking for gear. I was just there for a look-see but most people seemed to be there as shoppers. I would not want to stand in line that long to buy but I guess the today-only 20 percent discount coupons they were handing out made a persuasive argument to a lot of people.

Will I shop here? Yeah, it’s in my part of town and I figure they will probably have anything I’m looking for. I might want to do some price comparisons, though. We’ll see.

And one other point in their favor: they’re open on Mondays.

Inside Performance Cycle's new space.

The place is huge.

Biker Quote for Today

Note to self: Never ride a motorcycle in stilettos and a miniskirt. — Maggie Grace

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Resurrections From Examiner

April 7th, 2016

I no longer write for Examiner.com, but I did for about eight years. During that time they went through numerous tech upgrades, with the result finally that all the work I did for the first nine months or so was no longer compatible with their latest software. So all that very early stuff was removed and is no longer available. I consider that a shame because some of that was very good (my own not so humble opinion).

So I decided the thing to do would be to put some of the best stuff up here on this blog, and here’s the first. I will make note that one thing has changed radically in the interim, which is that the price of gasoline has plummeted. It’s a good indicator of how the future may not be at all like we currently envision it.

I Have Seen The Future And It Seems To Work Just Fine

Woman in skirt with scooter

They do things differently in Europe.

The middle-aged woman, wearing three-inch heels and a black cocktail dress, paused next to the little scooter. Popping open the storage compartment, she stashed the black shawl she was wearing and put on the denim jacket she took from the compartment. Pulling on a helmet, she shut the compartment, and shakily, on her high heels, rocked the scooter off its center stand. Finally, she unfurled the scooter’s protective skirt and draped it over her in order to ward off dirt or water and to maintain her modesty. Then she drove away.

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more. Heck we’re not even in the U.S. My wife and I witnessed this vignette last week in Paris. Clearly they do things differently over there.

Welcome to the land of $11 gasoline. While we moan about $4 gas, the Europeans paid that much and more for years. Now we pay $4 and they pay $11. Scooters are king on the Continent and you really know that’s true when you see this sort of scene.

Of course, it’s not as if I didn’t know about this, but our recent two weeks in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands brought home a number of points I didn’t realize.

For one, you really see the most bikes of all sorts in Paris, at least of the places we spent time. In Toulouse there are many, many scooters, too, but a really phenomenal number of bicycles. In Bruges, Belgium, bicycles constitute an even greater majority. At the train station in Bruges they had racks and racks and racks of bicycles, thousands of them, apparently parked there by their owners who were taking the train in to Brussels or Ghent to work.

In Rotterdam, the city center was destroyed during World War II and has been rebuilt with wide streets. Consequently, there were nowhere near as many bikes, motorcycles, or scooters. Still, rather than sharing the streets with cars and trucks, bikes and scooters have a separate lane of their own on both sides of the street.

The key in all these cities, however, is public transportation and two-wheeled transportation. The Europeans saw the need for fuel-efficient transportation long ago. Now that we’re feeling the bite in gas costs we’re finally seeing the light, too. I have seen the future and it appears to work just fine.

Biker Quote for Today

The only thing better than a motorcycle is a woman riding one.

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Motorcycle Self-Canceling Turn Signals

April 4th, 2016
Motorcycle Turn Signals

How nice it would be to have self-canceling turn signals on your bike.

We all know the story. Your buddy riding behind you or in front of you has forgotten to cancel his turn signal and so you ride along mile after mile with that thing flashing. Maybe you hold out your hand and open and close your fingers, trying to give him the signal that his blinkers are on but he’s not paying attention to you, either. Why can’t motorcycle manufacturers come up with self-canceling turn signals?

Actually, they have. Yamaha has had self-canceling signals for years, but they’re only based on riding a certain distance and then they shut off. Which is not bad, all in all, and definitely better than nothing. And there are also after-market producers who offer relays you can wire into your bike that will shut the signal off after a certain amount of time. But nobody has ever come up with a signal that works like those in cars, where it continues blinking until you make your turn and then shuts off.

It’s not hard to understand why–the physics of it all are very, very different with a car vs. a bike. We don’t have steering wheels that rotate one way and then rotate back the other way.

Abcs Sistem Ltd., a company out of Slovenia, has announced that it has cracked this nut and is now offering its Smart Turn System (STS) for use on any bike.

According to the company’s release, “The STS is a device that analyzes more than 300 different types of data to automatically cancel turn signals if a rider has forgotten to turn them off after making a turn or lane change. . . . The Smart Turn System is a small device directly wired into a motorcycle’s existing turn signal system and its internal sensors capture and send data through a complex algorithm to help determine the bike’s lean angle, heading, vibrations, and acceleration to detect if the turn has been completed and if the turn signals need to be canceled. All of this is done automatically, allowing the rider to focus on the road and enjoy the ride.”

The STS is supposed to be available for pre-order right now, at a price of 140 euros. That works out to about $170 at today’s exchange rate. They say installation is easy and you can do it yourself. I don’t know about you but I think this is a very welcome development. That said, am I going to pay $170 times three to put these things on each of my bikes? Not likely. But if it really works I have to believe the manufacturers will soon all either develop their own systems or perhaps license this one and put it on all their bikes. And that element of motorcycling will finally enter the 20th century.

Biker Quote for Today

Just once I would like to wake up, turn on the news, and hear “Monday has been canceled. Get out and ride.”

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Fighting Ethanol In Fuel

March 31st, 2016
motorcycle engine

How badly do you suppose ethanol would gum up this old engine?

It’s pretty well established that motorcycle engines and ethanol do not play nicely together, particularly when the proportion of ethanol in the gas get beyond a certain point. And using high-ethanol gas can reputedly even invalidate your warranty on the bike.

So it should not be a surprise that ABATE of Colorado opposes E-15, which is a newer ethanol fuel that has 15 percent ethanol, vs. the 10 percent we have had for many years. E-15 crosses the line.

I got the following alert from Stump, who keeps track of legislation for ABATE and does what he can to promote or oppose bills. That is to say, he’s a lobbyist, our lobbyist.

On Monday, 3/28, SB16-175 (E-15 Gasoline Income Tax Credit For Retail Dealers) was introduced in the Senate and assigned to the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate Finance Committee Members are: Sen. Neville (chair); Sen. Hill; Sen. Holbert; Sen. Johnston; and Sen. Kerr. I requested a meeting with the sponsor of the bill. I also plan to get a letter out to the Senate Finance Committee members and possibly meet with a couple of them before the committee meets on this bill which is scheduled for Thursday, 4/14. Now would be a good time to write / e-mail the Senate Finance Committee Members and urge them to oppose SB16-175. I’ve attached some talking point about E-15 Fuel to use in your letters. Please forward this to your district members ASAP and encourage them to e-mail the Senate Finance Committee Members.

Thanks,

Stump

You can read that letter with talking points that he mentioned here.

There are two issues as far as I see it. First there are the detrimental effects, of which Stump lists four:

PROBLEM 1: DEBRIS IN FUEL
Gums rapidly form in the fuel tank and fuel delivery systems as ethanol fuels age. However, ethanol is also a powerful solvent that will strip away and disperse this build up back into the fuel as large, performance-robbing particles. This leads to clogged filters, injectors and carburetors.

PROBLEM 2: EXCESSIVE WATER IN THE FUEL AND PHASE SEPARATION
Ethanol attracts moisture from the atmosphere, forming an ethanol/water solution mixed in the gasoline. Ethanol-blended fuel will naturally hold .5% water in suspension, but when water levels exceed this threshold, or when the fuel cools significantly, the water/ethanol mix drops out of suspension. This is phase separation. Excessive water in the fuel tank causes engines to run rough, stall, and can lead to internal damage to engine components. Ethanol provides a significant amount of the fuel’s octane, so when the ethanol/water solution separates and drops to the bottom of the tank, the remaining fuel is left without enough octane to properly operate the engine. Additionally, the ethanol/water solution can become partially combustible, which can lead to engine damage.

PROBLEM 3: ETHANOL FUELS BREAK DOWN QUICKLY
Over a short period of time ethanol fuel begins to break down. As ethanol and other components evaporate, the fuel loses octane and becomes “stale.” This causes hard starts, pinging and engine knock, which robs your engine of power and can cause damage.

PROBLEM 4: ETHANOL CAUSES LOST POWER, PERFORMANCE AND DECREASED FUEL ECONOMY
Ethanol fuel does not produce as much energy as traditional fuel. This results in inefficient combustion, decreased performance, reduced throttle response and poor fuel economy.

–Reprinted from StarTron fuel additive info brochure–

The other is that the only reason this whole ethanol thing has not died is because of the political pull of the corn farmers. Like so many other people I supported the idea of adding ethanol to gas originally, but like so many others I have now come to see that the whole things is a waste. It takes nearly as much energy to produce the stuff as you get from burning it and it’s not good for your motor. We tried it. It failed. Let’s kill the program and move forward. Oh, no–now we have vested interests.

At least if we could get SB 16-175 killed we wouldn’t be giving a tax credit to the stations that sell the stuff.

Biker Quote for Today

Gone riding, be back whenever . . .

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Ride The Texas Mountain Trail?

March 28th, 2016
map of the Texas Mountain Trail

The Texas Mountain Trail.

I’ve been to Texas quite a few times but nearly always in the east or central areas. While it’s pretty flat in a lot of places there are some hills, especially in the Austin area and east over by Louisiana. But mountains? Texas has mountains?

Well, yes, it does, and I’ve now seen quite a bit of them. And they even have something called the Texas Mountain Trail, which seems like a natural draw for someone on a motorcycle. But it’s not quite that simple.

First off, these mountains are real, but they’re not like mountains in Colorado, or even in New Mexico. Whereas we have a lot of greenery, the mountains in Texas are almost entirely barren of greenery and are brown and very much like the desert. More cactus than pine, or even juniper.

That said, mountain roads inevitably have twist and turns and high vista points. Even in Texas. The other consideration is that in between the mountains it’s basically Texas, which is to say, pretty flat, dry, and hot. Even now in March we encountered temperatures as high as 98 degrees. So if you’re interested in riding the Texas Mountain Trail the time to do so is no later than March. February might be better. Or November.

We crossed into Texas just southwest of Carlsbad, New Mexico, and almost immediately reached Guadelupe Mountains National Park. These were real mountains and this is where we picked up the trail. And this was the highest point in all of Texas.

We headed south to Van Horn and then east on I-10 to Texas 118, which was where we first realized there was such a thing as the Texas Mountain Trail. We picked this route down to Fort Davis because the map showed a loop that was marked scenic. It definitely was. There was even some green in the hills. And Fort Davis was beautiful.

On from there to Alpine and we left the trail to go to Marathon and then south into Big Bend National Park. After a couple days on the east side of the park, looking across the Rio Grande about 40 feet into Mexico, we headed to the west side of the park and picked up the trail again. Coming out of the national park you’re almost immediately into Big Bend Ranch State Park. This is where the road got really extreme. At one point we passed a sign warning of 17% grades ahead. 17% grades!!

At Presidio, we and the trail turned inland again, toward Marfa, and that was really the end of the mountains as far as we could see. We followed that trail in green on the map all the rest of the way to El Paso but this was just gaps between the high points. So take the idea of this trail with a grain of salt.

Still, if you can get the bike out of the winter down to where it’s warm, at least some portions of the Texas Mountain Trail would offer a good destination. Just be ready to burn up a lot of miles between the high stuff.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.

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Great Roads You Never Heard Of

March 24th, 2016
Washinton Butler Map

North Cascades National Park looks to me like a must.

One of the things I look for most in a motorcycle roads resource is tips on roads I don’t even know exist. That’s one of the things I like best about the motorcycle maps made by Butler. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m an unabashed fan of Butler maps. In a very you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours manner, they give me all the maps they produce and I look them over and write about them. Make no mistake, if I thought they were crap I’d say they were crap, but I don’t and I don’t.

So the latest one I’ve been looking at is for the state of Washington. Washington is far enough away that the OFMC has never gone there on our yearly trips, though I’m lobbying for those of us who are now retired to remedy that deficiency. Let’s take any of the wives who are interested (I know Judy would be) and make a two to three week trip of it.

And there’s one place in particular I see us heading: North Cascades National Park. Now this is kind of funny. I worked for three years at the National Park Service, on planning documents dealing with a couple hundred different park units. I’m pretty sure I worked on this one. So how did it slip by me?

More specifically, here is what Butler has to say about this yellow stripe (the best roads) called “North Cascades Highway”:

Highway 20 slices through North Cascades National Park — you won’t have to ante up the typical park fee to ride this beauty. It’s not terribly demanding, but no problem — the scenery is off the charts: glaciers and glacial lakes, dense forests, and giant rock formations abound. The route is roughly 80 miles and without services, so fuel up on either end of the park before making the trek. The road is wide, curves gently and often sees little traffic. Truly, this journey carries with it some of the most spectacular mountainous scenery of any road in the continental U.S. — in fact we rate it in the top 5 “must do” motorcycle routes in the entire country.

Yow! Top five in the entire country? I’m going to Washington! Are you other guys coming with me?

Of course, that’s not all Washington has to offer. I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympic Peninsula, but I see from the map that there is surprisingly little in the way of good motorcycle roads there. Fine, just go for the peninsula, not the riding.

Where the best riding is, it appears, is around Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. That’s the really good stuff. And then the northeast corner of the state has a heck of a lot to offer, as well. Tie that in with Montana and Idaho, where there is also fabulous riding in this area, and you could spend a month.

Off in the southeast corner of the state, on the other hand, it’s almost all flat and open. Best to go around this either to the north or west, where you have mountains. Still, just in the very corner, there is one patch of yellow, which is Oregon 3 coming out of that state and becoming Washington 129. This is Rattlesnake Pass, “a canyon climbers’s dream.”

This is the kind of stuff you could miss. That’s why I love these maps.

Biker Quote for Today

Push your limits until you crash.. then back off just a bit.

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