Pokorny and Crew Set Records at Bonneville

August 19th, 2013
Jerry Pokorny and bike at speed week

Jerry Pokorny with a bike he ran at Speed Week in 2010.

This piece pretty much wrote itself. I just watched as the emails came in.

You may recall me writing about Jerry Pokorny before, or you may know him. Jerry is connected with the British Motorcycle Association of Colorado (BMAC) and he owns quite a few old bikes. In the past few years he has made it out to Utah each year to take a crack at setting land speed records on the salt flats on various of his bikes.

This year’s event is just over and here are some emails I received.

August 11 —
Good news – Bmac teams of George N, John Stoner and Jerry are in the Impound area tonight after qualifying for different Land Speed Records. Tomorrow we are all out before daylight to get in line to run at daybreak. With a little luck and some guidance from Sherm we expect to set three new records tomorrow.

But that’s not all! Frank and Ray will be then following for another record with the Sherminator and George and John will also be going after additional recods later in the week. And Jack Begman is working hard tto get his bike a little faster to reclaim his record so this is going to be quite a week for the BMAC.

Stay tuned, more to follow.

Carpe Diem,

Whiskyman

August 12 —
Great news from the Salt. BMAC teams have set 3 new land speed records. John stoner on Salt Flats Sally, George on his Triumph and Jerry on the Sherminator all are now in the record books. Ray Puckett is in impound tonight (a good thing) and will be running at dawn tomorrow for another BMAC record. Jack Bergman made a great showing but not quite fast enough to regain his record. Now he has retired for the year with a bent valve. And we still have days to go and might see even more records fall.

full details pending – stay tuned!

Whiskyman

August 12 —
John Stoner burned a hole in the piston of his Honda SL 175 making his record run today. He needs a replacement FAST. We only have a few days left here on the salt so we need to see if somebody can overnight one to him RIGHT NOW. No time to order on line so if anybody has one floating around and can help please contact John – his address is in the cc.

Thanks in advance,

jerry

August 16 —
This will give you an idea of what it’s like “racing on the surface of the moon” :>)
Bonneville Speed Week 2013

Following is video from John Stoner’s second run for his record on Salt Flats Sally, and Raymond Puckett’s rookie run on the BMAC Sherminator. These were taken with the GoPro helmet video. Please send out to the BMAC members and thank them for their support!!!

Frank Puckett

Johns run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-zo_Hw2e-k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

My run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTq8i29Lmo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

August 18 —
http://scta-bni.org/Bonneville/SpeedWeek%202013/BonnCertifiedRecords.pdf

Colorado Springs area Teams setting World Land Speed Records include bike’s numbers:

194B
286B (Sherminator)
3286B (Sherminator)
679B
6779B
735B

And our friends from Wales shattered the 125cc vintage records with their BSA Bantams:

375B
376B
3751B

What an awesome year!

A big thanks to all our sponsor for helping us achieve these records! Note the photo of the Sherminator fairing – Advertisers and Sherm on board for all the runs! He was an inspiration!

Whiskyman

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Biker Quotes List Unpublished by Examiner

August 15th, 2013
Unpublished on Examiner

Unpublished on Examiner.

For five years now I have written for Examiner.com as their National Motorcycle Examiner, though of late I’ve been doing a minimum of work for them. Here’s an example of why.

I was putting up an article recently and found that when I filtered my content list for just the unpublished pieces there was more than the one I was working on. Turns out someone down there in their infinite wisdom decided to unpublish a piece I put up in 2010, presumably because it contained objectionable material. Now? After all this time? And what was objectionable about it?

So I’m going to republish it right here and let you see if you can figure out what they decided they didn’t like.

Only a biker knows . . .: Motorcycle wit and wisdom, #15

Dang, those bikers are quotable. It all started with the line, “Only a biker knows why a dog sticks its head out the window” and now we’re back with out 15th batch of amusing, sometimes thought-provoking, frequently dead-on biker quotes. Enjoy.

  • You ain’t livin’ unless you’re livin’ on the edge.
  • Bounce like you’ve got hydraulics in your G-string.
  • Never look where you are going, always look where you want to go.
  • On a motorcycle, you’re penetrating distance right along with the machine. In a car, you’re just a spectator; the windshield’s like a TV. — Von Dutch
  • If it’s too loud you’re too old.
  • You’re a biker wannabe if you spit out the bug that just flew in your mouth.
  • Some people ride to enjoy life, some ride to travel, and some people ride to bars.
  • Don’t die wondering, die wandering.
  • Adventure is not the road we travel, it’s the obstacles we overcome.
  • At the end of the day, you’ve still got to twist that throttle.
  • Gravity: Obeying the law is for pussies.
  • I don’t know, it’s kinda weird, but the constant chest pains seem to go away when I let the clutch out on my bike.
  • Scars are tattoos with better stories!
  • Remember kiddies, bikers have more fun than people.
  • Remember when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous?
  • If motorcycles are not allowed in heaven then I’ll ride mine to hell.
  • Midnight bugs taste just as bad as noon time bugs.
  • I’m a highway junkie! Lord, I love a white line!!!
  • Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today. — James Dean
  • It’s not the bike so much as it’s the rider. Put the stock pistons back in the bike and quit messing with stuff you don’t understand.

OK, there you go. Something in there is pretty offensive, right? My best guess is that it’s that line about gravity, and they got some cock-eyed idea that it was referring to female anatomy as opposed to being a synonym for wussies or wimps or something like that. There are a lot of reasons I don’t write much for them anymore and this is just one more on the list. Too bad, it was a good gig for a while.

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycles are better than men because motorcycles don’t pass gas and belch all the time. If they do, you can do something about it.

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The Most Detailed Motorcycle Tour Book You’ll Ever Need

August 12th, 2013

I’ve been looking through a copy of Great American Motorcycle Tours, by Gary McKechnie, and I am blown away at the amount of effort he has put into this. And oh yeah, he’s also laid out 25 rides that would probably be a lot of fun.

Great American Motorcycle Tours cover

Great American Motorcycle Tours by Gary McKechnie.

This is actually the fifth edition of this book so I guess he’s had a lot of time to do his research but with all the detail he includes it would be a full-time job just trying to keep that all current. I have a hard enough time just trying to keep my Colorado Motorcycle Dealers and Repair Shops page semi up to date, and this is so much more.

The tours are distributed all over the country. That is by design, Gary says: “In this volume I have tried to be equitable in representing different regions of the country, so you should find at least one tour that’s near you.”

That’s fine, but in my mind it’s the information about the tours that are not near me that are of interest. One of the 25 is titled “Colorado’s San Juan Skyway” and that’s a great ride. I know that because I’ve ridden it and pieces of it many times. But I don’t need a book to tell me about that ride. What I like is the information about all the others all over the country.

Now, truth be told, I’ve done enough touring that I’ve also ridden a bunch of the other rides as well. But the large majority are places I’ve never been on a motorcycle and this book just points out what I’ve been missing. So far.

Which ones look the most interesting? Well, there’s “Oregon’s Best Run,” which runs down the Pacific coast from Cannon Beach to Florence and then goes inland to a town named Sisters. I’ve been all along the Oregon coast, though not on a motorcycle, but I have no idea what the terrain is like heading east there. Apparently it’s a good place to go. I’ll keep that in mind.

Then there’s the “Blues Cruise,” which starts in Memphis and follows the Mississippi River all the way to New Orleans. Again, I can say, “Oh, I’ve lived in Memphis and I’ve been to New Orleans several times,” but I’ve never been to either place on a bike. (I was 10 when we moved away from Memphis.) And the real strength of the book is the detail. Gary doesn’t just tell you the roads to take, he probably offers more than most people want. That’s fine, you don’t have to read it all, but whichever parts you do want to read, they’re there.

He starts each section with a “primer” that gives you some basic history and background information about the town or area. Then he runs through a list of some of the best tourist spots, again with background and history. In the case of Memphis, we’re talking about places like Sun Studio, where Sam Phillips discovered and made history with recording artists such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. And Graceland, Elvis’ home.

There’s more to Memphis than those places, though, and Gary continues with plenty of spots you’ve never heard of. This is followed with a small section on shopping, then restaurants, then bars, and then motels. This is the stuff that I’m certain must be a lot of work to keep current. Knock yourself out, Gary.

So anyway, the section continues with some highlights of the ride south and then goes into all this detail again about Vicksburg, the next sizable town on the route. And then on to New Orleans and the same treatment for New Orleans.

Now, for me, I don’t care two hoots about the shopping. I’m not going to spend my time reading that. But the rest of it, if I’m there or going there, I’ll probably read it all.

The obvious question–and Gary raises this himself–is, are these the best 25 rides in the U.S.? And as he says, well, some of them may be but the intent is not to point out the best, the intent is to point out some really good ones so if you’re going somewhere you’re not familiar with, you’ll have an idea about where you might want to go when you get there.

That works for me. I’ll be hanging onto Great American Motorcycle Tours and when I’m planning future trips, if I’m going anywhere near any of these rides I’ll be considering how I might incorporate some of these roads in my itinerary. Thanks for the heads-up, Gary.

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Learning More Boulder County Back Roads

August 8th, 2013
V-Strom on gravel road

Ron Coleman on one of his V-Stroms, ahead of me on mine.

I recently bought a Suzuki V-Strom because I have ridden them and I like them. Ron Coleman is part of the reason for that. Ron runs Western Dual Sport Motorcycle Adventures and he rents V-Stroms. It used to be that was all he rented but now he has a BMW GS800 and several Suzuki DR650s. I’ve gone riding with Ron a number of times, usually on one of his V-Stroms. This past weekend, though, we went riding and I was on my own V-Strom.

When Ron and I ride he generally takes me on gravel roads in the hills above Boulder that, in many cases, I had no idea existed. That was the case once again.

We headed up Boulder Canyon and then turned north on the road up Fourmile Canyon. Fair enough, I’d been up that road before. But we kept on going, way beyond anywhere I had ever been before. We got up into the area where the big fire burned a couple years go and I could see there were a lot of lucky people there. Whereas a lot of folks lost their homes, especially in the Wall Street area, all along Fourmile Canyon there were homes beside the road and scorched trees coming down the slopes but stopping just shy of the houses. I don’t know if that was due to the efforts of firefighters or just plain luck, but those places survived.

Eventually we came upon a sign that warned that the pavement was ending. This is what I love about this bike: we didn’t slow down for a second. These bikes love the gravel.

So the road wound around and around, climbing ever higher, and I just had no idea so many people lived up there. From riding through the canyon we emerged onto the ridge above and now we had some really nice views. Eventually the road came out at Gold Hill. Ron had led me on another gravel road to Gold Hill another time so I was a bit surprised to discover there is another route. From there we took a road we have ridden on before to the Peak-to-Peak Highway. We turned north and headed to Allenspark for lunch.

Unfortunately the Mountain Meadow Cafe was closing when we got there. Ron said he goes there a lot and it is a terrific place but they close at 2 p.m. and it was about 1:56 when we walked in. Oh well, another time.

So we headed back south and took the turn-off to Jamestown. From the Peak-to-Peak the road is unpaved, so once again it was just cool to turn off onto the gravel without giving it a second thought. I’ve been on that road before but I’m not sure I’ve ever been on it on a bike. Maybe once on my Honda. Not sure. Anyway, it’s a nice ride, a bit steep in places, and perfectly comfortable on the Suzuki.

We were headed for the Mercantile in Jamestown and it was a busy place when we arrived. We walked in, though, and the waitress told us that, sorry, they were just closing. Rats–again!

What to do, where to go . . . We were hungry. There has to be someplace we can eat. So we continued on down Lefthand Canyon to where it came out to U.S. 36 and turned north to Lyons. Here, on a straight and fast piece of road, I finally got to try out this little throttle lock device Ron had loaned me, which worked amazingly well considering how simple it is. I’ll tell you more about that soon because I’m buying one. We finally ate at Smokin’ Dave’s in Lyons and then headed back toward our various homes. On the way we zig-zagged across Boulder County avoiding the heavily populated areas and at one point Ron led the way off the pavement onto another piece of gravel that cut a diagonal and was therefore a short-cut. Again, it was no hesitation, just go. I love that. You don’t go another route in a car when you come to gravel. Why should you do so on a motorcycle?

And then we parted ways and headed on home. Another good day of riding.

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Biker Quote for Today

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The Road to Silt

August 5th, 2013
The road to Silt.

The road as it descends to the north, toward Silt and New Castle.

OK now, before I was so rudely interrupted by this OFMC motorcycle trip I was going to tell you about the road to Silt from down around Vega State Park. Back to where we left off.

As I had described, we had turned off the McClure Pass road (CO 133) to cruise a gravel road that runs over to Collbran, with Vega State Park on the way. After camping overnight at the park we were planning to backtrack a few miles and take the road that runs north to Silt.

In the morning, though, before heading out, we went around Vega Lake and stopped at the Vega Lodge to check it out as a potential overnight destination for the OFMC. It was a nice place with good rates so I have since told John that he ought to consider adding it as a stop on some future trip.

While talking with the lady who runs the place we mentioned we were planning to go back east a bit and take the road to Silt.

“Oh, we hate that road,” she said. “We go to Collbran and take the Debeque cut-off.” She told us it was a bad road in good weather and in bad weather it gets “really greasy.”

But the weather was good and we were not planning on being in any kind of hurry so off we went.

For quite a ways the road was not bad at all. It climbed a bit and we got up fairly high, and then came over the crest and started down. (You can see what I mean in the photo.) That was where things got quite a bit worse. It was obvious that cars and trucks going the other way had had struggles getting up this hill in the wet. In places there were ruts in the road dug by four-wheel-drive tires in mud and the going was pretty rough. Still, there was plenty of smooth road surface if you took your time and avoided the ruts. I definitely would not want to be on this road going either direction is a rainstorm, though. You could really see what she meant by “greasy.” Slick road surface that would give no traction at all when wet. Bad news.

But the weather was good and we had a nice trip. The road went down quite a ways and then we started running into farmland. The road was paved as we got further north and we reached a T intersection. Go left and it took you to Silt. Go right and it took you to New Castle. It’s called the road to Silt but there’s really no reason to go to Silt unless you plan to head west on I-70. If you were going east, as we were, you might as well turn right. We did and it was a nice run to New Castle.

And then it was time to do some slabbing. All good things do come to an end.

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Biker Quote for Today

The destination is not important, only the ride there…

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Overall V-Strom Appraisal Now With Some Miles On It

August 1st, 2013
me on my Suzuki V-Strom

Me on the V-Strom on a pass in New Mexico. My jacket even goes with the color of the bike!

Having just ridden 1,611 miles over nine days on my new V-Strom 650 I’m finally able to state some opinions and give an appraisal. Here’s my take.

I know for certain I’ll be spending some money on this bike to make it fit me. It didn’t take very long before I found myself reaching repeatedly for highway pegs that were not there. I reckon it’s going to take installation of a case guard–not a bad idea on its own–to have something to mount highway pegs to. That’s exactly what I did with my Honda CB750 Custom many years ago and its definitely going to happen with the V-Strom.

I did find that it’s a reasonably comfortable alternative to shift my feet to the buddy pegs. On the Honda I do that all the time and it’s probably the most comfortable position of the three. On the V-Strom it’s not as good, but it’s OK. Better than nothing. But highway pegs will be very good.

The next thing I’ll be getting is a throttle lock. We had pretty short days on this trip but it still got to my right wrist after numerous hours. This will be simple and cheap.

Third, I’ll be getting a top bag for the rear. The side bags on the bike now are huge, so much so that I loaded everything I needed and had a phenomenal amount of space empty. In fact, they’re really too big for daily needs. I park in a pretty tight space at home and it’s much easier to do so without the bags on the bike. But a top bag won’t get in the way and will be plenty to carry all the day to day stuff I need. The side bags will just be for traveling.

The bike has incredible range. Suzuki says it holds 5.8 gallons of gas and I never got less than 52 miles per gallon. That’s a minimum range of just over 300 miles. And one time I got 70 miles to the gallon, so at that pace you could go more than 400 miles on a tank of gas. Amazing.

The seat is very broad and reasonably comfortable for quite awhile but it’s not as good as the seat on my ’99 Concours. The Connie will continue to be my main traveling bike, especially when I’m going a long way. But that’s not what I bought the V-Strom for anyway. I bought it to ride on gravel roads.

The seat is a little high but so is the one on the Connie so that didn’t even take any getting used to. It feels perfectly normal.

The little bikini windshield does remarkably well. I’m used to the big, full fairing on the Connie but I was never uncomfortable. I guess as long as the main blast of wind is deflected that’s all that matters.

On the gravel, where I intend to use it, the bike handles very nicely. I got a little nervous one time when the loose gravel on the road surface started getting pretty thick but there were no problems. And I’m sure the more I ride it on those kinds of roads the more comfortable I’ll get.

In the twisties the bike really shines. It’s so light and agile that it’s really fun to ride fast. After I met up with Brett and Jason in the Poudre we stopped to say hi and then I took off in the lead. They said later that they saw me for about 15 seconds before I disappeared ahead of them. I was having fun.

The one thing that does not excite me is that this bike has a chain that needs oiling and adjustment. So does my Honda, and it’s done in exactly the same manner, so it’s not onerous. But it is an annoyance. Shaft drive is so nice.

The riding position is just about perfect for me. I like to sit up straight and I like my feet underneath me. None of this feet-forward, slouched back sort of thing. On my Concours even after I added risers there is still a slight reach forward. That’s OK, I’m not unhappy with that. But on the Suzuki I sit bolt upright and that’s very nice. Of course, being a dual-sport bike, it is also designed to be ridden standing up on the pegs and the fit there is perfect as well.

All in all, I’m extremely pleased with it. If I didn’t already have the two other bikes I might not buy either of them, except, as I say, the Connie is the better traveling bike. Not that I’m going to get rid of anything; I’ll just get by with three motorcycles. It’s that old business of a dirty job that someone has to do, you know? And I’m glad to have added this third one to the fold.

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Biker Quote for Today

That road less traveled is a toll road, and sometimes the charge is more expensive than we ever expected. Most of the time, it’s a one way road. Make the decision, hope for the best, and start traveling. Carry lots of coins. — PecosBill

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