Riding the Electric Harley

September 18th, 2014
Ken On Harley Livewire

Taking the Livewire for a stationary ride before getting out on the road on one.

I was really annoyed when I found that registration was closed for demo rides on the prototype electric Harley-Davidson LiveWire. I had gotten an email inviting me to come see it and ride it and I had replied asking if I needed to do anything or just show up. I guess it was a mass email, though they did a good job of making it seem personal, and I got no reply. So doing a quick check before heading over to Mile High Harley-Davidson I spotted a link to register and clicked it. Registration was closed. Rats.

OK, I figured, I still want to see the bike, and they say you can do a stationary demo even if you can’t go for an actual ride. Plus, it might be that some folks who registered will fail to show up and I can still get a ride. So I went on over.

I walked up and a woman asked me if I had a reservation. I said no and she immediately asked if I’d like to be put on the waiting list. You bet. She said check back in 20 minutes.

In the meantime, I got all the paperwork done and took a spin on the stationary bike they had set up with rollers. It was a real bike and it really ran, you just didn’t go anywhere. It was a good introduction to how the bike works so they wouldn’t have to explain all that when you were getting ready to actually ride. And they shot your picture and emailed it to you. That’s me up above.

At the appointed time I checked back and they had a bike available, but there was one guy ahead of me on the list. She went searching for him but couldn’t find him so I was in. Run grab my helmet off my bike.

We got the usual demo lecture and they walked us through start and getting ready. You have two modes to ride in, Range Ride and Power Ride, the first getting better miles out of a charge in the battery, the second giving you more power (read: fun). I chose Power Ride.

One thing they made absolutely clear was that “This bike accelerates and brakes unlike any other bike you’ve ever ridden.” I’ve ridden electric bikes built by Zero so the acceleration part was not true for me, but the braking part was. I’ll come back to that in a moment.

We pulled out. The ride leader was determined to let us see how these puppies ran so he set a quick pace. Of course there are no gears to shift, you just twist the throttle. Acceleration was hard and smooth. (I’d been told earlier that the bike will go 0 to 60 in four seconds.) And there wasn’t a bit of the Harley “potato-potato” rumble. You did hear the drive belt.

Handling was great. This is a sportbike with that sort of agility and that sort of riding position. Not a tight, cramped position, but rather, a comfortable one. With your feet below you, not out in front. That’s how I like it.

One thing made it totally clear that these are prototypes and that is the mirrors. Yes, in order to be street legal they had to have mirrors but I had to look for them. It turned out they are below the handlebars and were totally hidden by my hands. Worthless. Even once I found them I couldn’t see a thing in them. Heck, I almost couldn’t see them.

And then there’s the brake. Pretty much all electric bikes use regenerative braking in order to extend the battery range. This uses the turning of the motor or wheels in braking to generate power that is fed back into the battery.

Well, Harley has carried it to the max. When you want to stop on the LiveWire you just release the throttle. The bike stops quickly. But 99% of the time you stop without ever touching the brake; you just taper off on the throttle till you get to where you actually want to stop completely. Then maybe you use the brake. Maybe. Or maybe you use the brake then to keep from rolling. They did suggest that you tap the brakes once to let the person behind you know you’re stopping.

So how did I like it overall? I liked it. It was fun. It was fast, it handled well, and it’s a motorcycle. What’s not to like?

Will I buy one if Harley builds them for sale. I’ve never been a Harley guy and I’ve never wanted any Harley I’ve ever seen. If they build this thing it will be the first Harley I’ve ever even considered buying. But they’ve got a long road to go to get the range up to where they’re competitive with other electric bikes out there, and the price would have to be reasonable.

But if they do bring it out, will I want one? Yes.

Biker Quote for Today

If you want a motorcycle just because of the way it sounds, do yourself (and us) a favor and find a different hobby please.

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Posted in Electric motorcycles, Harley-Davidson | No Comments »

Going For A Dinosaur Ride

September 15th, 2014
Motorcycles on Echo Park Road

Nearing the rim on Echo Park Road.

I wanted to see if the road through Dinosaur National Monument was rideable on a dual sport bike and found that indeed it was. Of course, just a couple weeks before we went there Dom Chang rode that route on his Ural sidecar rig but OK, he had three wheels, plus, Dom goes anywhere Dom wants to go. There’s no one more hard core.

So I’m here to tell you what the road is like. We started where County Road 14 takes off from U.S. 40 at Elk Creek, went along the Yampa Bench Road to get to the Echo Park campground, and later went up the Echo Park Road to the rim where we rejoined the pavement. I was hoping to embed a Google map showing the route but for some reason, although after much hassle I finally got the route mapped, whenever I click the embed button it changes the route. So here’s the link that will take you to see the true route.

Heading in it’s your basic gravel road. Washboard in some spots, loose gravel here and there, and even a bit of sand occasionally. But no big deal. You wind around through some private land on the county road and then pass a sign and fence telling you you’re entering the monument. You’re climbing as you go and then come over a ridge and see the Yampa canyon laid out before you. As you descend and near the river–still out of sight–there are some wonderful views.

By this time you’re on the Yampa Bench Road. It runs along the so-called bench below the mountains to the south and the gorge of the river to the north. At times you can see the river but much of the time you can’t. There are three viewpoints, however, that you can turn off and go down, and then hike the rest of the way to the cliff above the river. These are worth it. Particularly the first you reach coming this direction, Wagon Wheel Point overlook, is so incredible that if you came to this park and only saw this one thing your trip would be worthwhile. Ride out to the point as far as the road goes and then walk all the way out to the point. You won’t be sorry.

Other than the overlooks there is nothing else remarkable about the Yampa Bench Road. It seems certain that it would be impassable in wet weather because you would get into some of the gummy red dirt that this part of the country is famous for. But if you have a cloudburst, just wait it out, give the road a little time to dry out, and you can go on. Plus there was one mudhole we encountered. Not big but messy.

After 42 miles you come to the intersection where the road to the top of the canyon goes off to the left. Stay on the other road and another 4 miles brings you to Echo Park. This is just a short walk from the confluence of the Yampa and Green Rivers. And yes, the echoes are amazing. Plus, the campground is surrounded by cliffs rising straight up about 1,000 feet or more. Gorgeous and awe-inspiring. And incredibly peaceful. Stay a night or two if you can, walk out to the confluence, and relax. We did.

Leaving a couple days later we took the Echo Park Road to the rim. This road they tell you straight out that it is impassable in the rain. I assumed that meant mud but in fact it is quite a good gravel road. What makes it impassable is that there are a dozen or more washes where, if it had been raining for awhile and the water had time to run and collect, these washes will be flooded. You wouldn’t even consider taking your motorcycle through that water, although some idiots would probably think their SUV would make it.

I emailed the park superintendent before we went–I work for the National Park Service so I have all this information at my fingertips–and I asked him about this road. His response was simple: Yes, the road is impassable when it’s raining. Just wait for the rain to pass and for things to dry out and you’ll be fine. Have a great trip.

It didn’t rain while we were there, in fact the weather could not have been more perfect. The road up to the rim gets steep and the view back into the canyon is superb. We went out as far as the road in the rim goes and saw spectacular scenery. We had a fabulous time. And it’s funny because when Dom was there just two weeks before he was unimpressed.

Bottom line: The monument is okay, perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the sights in other parts of Colorado, with majestic mountains in the distance and towering rock formations to pose my motorcycles in front of.

We thought of Dom a hundred times while we were there. We couldn’t have disagreed more.
He concludes saying, “Now that I’ve seen the canyon portion of this monument, I probably won’t be coming back. I guess that’s the criteria for a location isn’t it? Would you return willingly?”

Yes!!! We absolutely would! We loved Dinosaur. And yes you definitely can do it on a motorcycle. Just don’t try it on your Harley bagger. Although I am acquainted with a certain old BMW street bike that has made this trip.

Recent from the National Motorcycle Examiner
Adventure riders have unique lodging option in northwest Colorado

Biker Quote for Today

There is nothing I won’t ride on your bike.

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Posted in Colorado motorcycle rides | 1 Comment »

ADV Riders on a Good, Long Ride

September 10th, 2014
Motorcyclists at Echo Park Campground in Dinosaur National Monument.

Packing up to leave before the rains came in.

We went to Dinosaur National Monument this past weekend for three days and loved it. Besides seeing the place, I wanted to see how the roads would be if you were on a bike–a dual sport bike of course. I already had a pretty good idea you wouldn’t want to take those roads on a street bike.

We came in at the east end of the park, turning off U.S. 40 at Elk Springs onto the Bear Valley Road or County Road 14. From here to the Echo Park campground, where we were headed, it’s about 46 miles of gravel–some of it quite rough. This road later becomes the Yampa Bench Road, which runs alongside–but way above–the Yampa River.

I’ll tell you about the road some other time; it’s definitely doable on a bike as long as it’s not rainy.

What I want to tell you about now is the guys who showed up in the campsite next to ours our second night there. We had gone up on the rim for the day and when we came back in the evening there were four motorcycles right next to us. Judy headed back to our site and I plunged right in, having a good time shooting the bull with these guys for half an hour or so.

They were out of Texas and they connect with each other for these rides through ADV, the Adventure Rider forum. They had trailered up to Oak Creek, Colorado, and took off riding from there. Between them there was a smaller KTM–not one of those big new Adventures–plus a Kawi KLR 650, I believe a Suzuki DR650, and another bike I thought he told me was a BMW but the guy is a big Triumph fanatic so I’m not so sure. It definitely wasn’t one of the big, newer BMW adventure bikes. I don’t know; I just don’t know every bike on sight.

They’re on a 2,800-mile ride with no time constraints. They’ll take it day by day. One guy told me he’s got the whole month set aside but expects they’ll do it in about two weeks. Their route was prepared for them by a fellow in Utah who sells these sorts of plans. That’s an interesting concept. Heck, I map out Colorado rides for people frequently and I don’t charge a dime. I don’t plan to start charging, either.

Taking off from Oak Creek, which is south of Steamboat Springs on CO 131, their route guy did get them off to a good start by sending them over Dunckley Pass and Ripple Creek Pass. They were heading into Utah, then up into Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and then back to Colorado. And they’re doing most of it on the dirt.

These are not a bunch of young guys, either. They all have grey hair. The first one we encountered was heading to the outhouse just after they arrived and he said hello and “I’m getting too old for this.” Apparently not too, too old, though.

Riding to the rim at Dinosaur National Monument.

Heading up out of the canyon.

Their trip got off to an inauspicious start when one of them improperly engaged his clutch right at the start and before he had rolled eight inches, he told me, he dropped the bike. And then, they said, the guy we had met hadn’t gone a quarter mile on the dirt when he went down. Some people were starting to have reservations.

They got rolling though and things smoothed out. Coming over Dunckley and Ripple Creek, one said, it was gorgeous but the road was so rough you couldn’t look at the scenery, you had to keep watching the road. Bill and John and I rode over that pass once about 25 years ago and I do remember it being so rough that I didn’t remember much about the scenery. It’s truly is gorgeous, by the way. I’ve been over it in cars a number of times so I’ve had a chance to look.

Not sure quite what their route was from Meeker, where they came out, but they came into Dinosaur the same way we did, on the Yampa Bench Road. I believe they said one or two more bikes went down along this stretch. I remember there was one really muddy spot and that gave someone some trouble.

They made it in, though, and were thrilled to be out on the first night of this great trip. The next morning we all packed up around the same time and Judy and I left first. We were all going out via the road up to the rim so I was pleased to be ahead of them so we could stop and I could get some shots looking down on them as they came up the road. I picked a good vantage point, got shots of them below, then more shots of them as they passed us and went on up. We waved and they waved and that was the last we saw of them.

Biker Quote for Today

A good rider can overcome marginal equipment. However, even the best equipment can’t overcome a marginal rider.

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Posted in Adventure bikes, Colorado motorcycle rides | 1 Comment »

Don’t Miss This (But I Will); A Running (Riding) Conversation

September 4th, 2014
A bike from the 2013 Motorcycle Cannonball

A bike from the 2013 Motorcycle Cannonball.

Can someone please clone me? I don’t know how many times I’ve said here that I’m going to do something or be at some event only to have those plans fall through because I have a conflict. Here we go again.

As I announced way back in April, the fifth annual Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Run is coming through Colorado this weekend and while I want like the dickens to go see this rolling museum, I’ll be out of town. But that doesn’t mean you should miss it.

To recap, this thing is a ride from the East Coast to the West Coast on motorcycles that were built in 1937 or earlier. They’ll be stopping at the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum in Colorado Springs mid-day on Sunday and then will come to Golden for the night. Either would be a great place to catch the scene.

A Conversation

On a totally different note, I had an interesting ride to work the other day. I head east on Hampden (US 285) and just keep going when it turns into highway, getting off at Kipling.

Shortly after crossing I-25 I picked up someone on two wheels behind me, and when we came to a traffic signal at Dahlia this scooter pulled in alongside me and a little back. I turned and said hello and we chatted a bit while the light was red, then took off again.

We got stopped again at Colorado and chatted some more. It was a People brand scooter, a GTi300 and I asked if the 300 meant it was 300cc. He said it did. Does the i mean it is fuel-injected? Yes. Cool. So it goes pretty fast? Yes.

We cruised on and as we passed a street that turns into one of the ritzy developments on the south side of Hampden we saw a bunch of police cars and a motorcycle lying on its side with broken pieces all around on the ground. Not pretty at all. When we stopped for the red light at University (we caught all of them) we both shook our heads and shuddered at what we had seen. No blood and gore, no broken bodies–those apparently were already off to the hospital–but no one who rides likes seeing something like that.

At the next stop we talked our plans for the day. I was going to work. He was meeting some folks at a gas station in Lakewood and they were riding to the top of Mount Evans. Boy, did I want to come along with him.

But I didn’t. At Kipling I turned north and he blasted on past. And now it’s too late to go up Mount Evans any more this year. They just closed the road for the winter on Tuesday. Next year . . .

Biker Quote for Today

I rarely think of motorcycles without a little yearning. They are about moving, and humans, I think, yearn to move – it’s in our cells, in our desires. We quiet our babies with cyclic movement, and we quiet ourselves by going. — Melissa Holbrook Pierson (I think)

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Posted in Scooter, vintage motorcycles | No Comments »

Riders Helping Riders, Even In Cars

September 1st, 2014
Motorcycles On Pikes Peak

Bikes on top of Pikes Peak.

Motorcycles used to be pretty undependable. From what I gather, at least, breaking down alongside the road used to be pretty much an every day occurrence. If you were a rider, you were a mechanic.

Out of that reality a brotherhood developed where it was just unacceptable to pass by a brother alongside the road who might be in trouble. That ethos continues today, although I think it has gotten weaker. Bikes are more dependable now, you don’t have everyone looking at a rider alongside the road and thinking “that could be me” and stopping.

I know I’ve been stopped and very definitely having problems and watched in annoyance as other motorcycles went right on by. I particularly think about a couple BMWs one day . . .

The ethos seems to remain the strongest among Harley riders. There have been a number of times when I have had problems and a number of other times when I was just stopped to shoot some pictures. And more than one Harley rider stopped to check on me. I really do thank you guys.

Well it happened again Saturday but this time I wasn’t even on a bike. Judy and I were down in Colorado Springs for a wedding reception and we decided to drive up Pikes Peak. We were in my car.

So we got pretty high up the mountain and the car started dragging. It had no power at all. It’s fuel-injected so the altitude should not have been the problem the way it once would have been. But something was definitely wrong.

There we were just stopped on the road up the mountain; the car would not go forward. I had my flashers on but it took a while for the guy behind me to figure out that I wasn’t just stopping to shoot a picture or something, and he finally pulled around. We’re sitting there discussing what to do and a couple on a Harley coming down the mountain pulled into our lane and stopped directly facing us. We wondered what the heck he was doing until we saw that he was letting a car that had come up behind us get past.

Once that car got past the folks on the bike pulled alongside and asked if we were having trouble. You bet. So thinking quickly, I asked him to just block the road momentarily for us so I could roll backward and do a Y-turn and head back down the hill. Which he did, and as soon as we got pointed downhill the car was ready to run just fine. Had the gas just not been able to reach the fuel pump on this steep uphill?

We didn’t need any more assistance and after going a little ways we pulled over to assess the situation. The folks on the Harley pulled over and checked and we said thanks, we’re fine now, thank you very much. And they rode on.

That’s what I’m talking about. We weren’t even on a bike, they had no idea we ride, but they stopped to help. And they were on a Harley. Wasn’t there a slogan years ago, something like “You meet the nicest people on a Harley”? Kinda? Sorta? Well you do, even if you’re not the ones on the Harley.

Biker Quote for Today

Happiness is finding you still have more throttle.

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Posted in motorcycle problems | No Comments »

Writing and Riding with EagleRider

August 28th, 2014
Chris McIntyre

EagleRider President Chris McIntyre on the media tour a few years ago.

I’ve had a good bit to do with EagleRider over the years, the motorcycle rental and tour outfit, you know? They invited me on a media tour in California a few years ago, we rented a bike from them in Vancouver a couple years ago, and they used a photo of mine in a promo they did one time as well.

Back on that media tour I spoke a lot with Chris McIntyre, president of EagleRider, about doing some writing for them. Chris is a guy who generates ideas almost faster than he can spit them out and when he talked about sending me on some of the tours they lead to be the resident scribe I was all for it. Of course, the thing with people who have that many ideas is that only a very few of them actually come to pass.

It has been a while but this one has come to pass. No, I haven’t gone on any more EagleRider tours, at least not yet, but they have made the decision to put up a blog and have a variety of people from different parts of the country writing pieces for it regularly. I get to be one of those people. And going on some of the tours is very much a possibility for the future.

In fact, I’ve already written six pieces and turned them in. And I’ve already been paid for the first two. But nothing has been published yet. I haven’t been able to get the details nailed down so I’m not at all sure when the blog will launch–I believe it is going to be a blog–but you can bet I’ll put the information up here once I do have it and once these things start running.

Mostly I think it’s going to be pieces about terrific rides to go on. That’s what four of mine have been. My other two are tips about riding with a group and going for extended, long-distance rides. The kind of stuff I’ve done a heck of a lot of.

I’m really very interested, though, to see what everyone else is writing about. I know my friend Alisa Clickenger has also been taken on as a writer and I have to guess that she’ll be writing from the woman’s motorcyclist angle. I mean, she’s not exactly going to be doing regional stuff because at this moment she’s in Africa, and will be there for quite awhile yet. And then I’m also really interested to see who else they’re working with, who I’m rubbing shoulders with.

So I guess I’m just going to have to be patient until this thing starts rolling out. Meanwhile, I suppose I ought to start thinking about new story ideas to pitch. When you latch onto a good gig you definitely want to run with it.

Biker Quote for Today

The other 3-percent rule: If you want to have fun, ride with people who are 3-percent slower than you.

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Posted in motorcycle touring | No Comments »

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