ABATE Lobby Day Is A Time To Make Our Concerns Known

February 9th, 2012

The term “lobbyist” often carries a negative connotation but in fact, whenever you or I contact our elected representatives about an issue that concerns us, we are lobbying. If the citizens of a representative democracy–which is what we have–did not express their concerns their elected officials would be hard put to know what mattered to the folks back home.

ABATE D-10 patch

My ABATE D-10 patch.

ABATE of Colorado has designated April 20 as ABATE Lobby Day at the state capitol. As the notice states, “This day is to introduce ABATE to new legislators and say hi to those who already know us. We’d like you to get the experience of interacting with our public servants.”

What an idea. Get a bunch of folks who have common interests–in this case, regarding motorcycling issues–to meet with their elected officials and build a relationship. And in the course of building that relationship, make those officials aware of issues and concerns they may very well have no knowledge of at all.

Take the MOST program, for example. The Motorcycle Operator Safety Training program is a program that trains riders in riding skills. It is paid for by a surcharge each of us pays when we renew our licenses and plates. It’s something we requested. And now it’s being threatened by people who don’t seem to understand that this is how it came to be and who somehow feel it is wrong that they have to pay an amount less than what they would drop on a cup of coffee at Starbucks for something that benefits all motorcyclists.

Most legislators probably have never even heard of MOST. Go meet with your reps and talk to them about it, and other issues as well. Even if you also oppose MOST, it’s better if they understand what it is and why people support it and oppose it.

So the date is April 20. This is not something ABATE is setting up; you’ll need to contact your legislator on your own and make an appointment with them on that day. ABATE is just coordinating things so, with any luck, there will be a significant amount of black leather and such all there at the capitol at one time. Strength in numbers, you know?

Maybe I’ll see you there.

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Biker Quote for Today

Eliminate safety devices and let natural selection run its course, to help rid us of all these dumbass drivers on the roads.

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A Cheaper Way to Ship Your Bike and Ride It Home

February 6th, 2012

uShip.com ships motorcycles

If you’re like most touring motorcyclists you’re limited as to how far you can go by the amount of time you have off from your job. One way to expand your horizons is to ship your bike to some far-off destination, then fly out there and ride the bike home. But I’ve looked into this and it is pretty expensive. Not out of the question but darn pricey.

There’s another option and it could save you a lot of money. Using a website called uShip.com, you can post a notice as to what you want to ship, when, from where to where. Then carriers bid on your load, trying to undercut the competition in order to win your business. Once you select the bid you want to go with you are put in touch with that shipper. Afterward you both provide feedback which builds confidence on both sides for future shippers/carriers.

I had never heard of this site until they contacted me recently to inquire about placing an ad here on the Passes & Canyons website. That’s their text link over in the right-hand column, just below my picture. When Carlos told me what their business was I said hey, I want to do a post about you guys just to let people know you exist, because I think what you’re doing is great!

As I said, I’ve looked into shipping the bike before and it’s not cheap. But looking at the listings on the site right at this moment, here’s what I see. There’s a guy in Cheyenne who wants to ship his 1997 Honda Z50 to Austin, TX, and he has a low bid right now of $225. There’s another guy in Grand Junction who wants to send his 2001 Indian Scout to Lancaster, CA, and has a low bid of $532. Then another guy there in Junction has 1975 Suzuki re5 Rotary that he wants to ship to Sydney, Australia. He doesn’t have any bidders yet.

There are a lot of bikes waiting for bids. As a matter of fact, there might be a business opportunity here for someone with a truck. String a few of these shipments together and you could make some money.

So it’s free to list your load, and presumably (I didn’t dig deeply here) the hauler pays a percentage of the shipping fee to the folks running the site. Clearly there’s no guarantee, so if you absolutely have to get a bike to particular place by a specific date this might not work for you. But it might. And you’ve got nothing to lose by trying. The more flexible you can be, the better, I’m sure.

Then couple inexpensive shipping with a cheap airplane ticket and you could be set for a terrific ride in places you’ve just never had time to get to before. I tell you what, I’m going to be checking this out myself this summer. Judy and I have spoken numerous times of shipping the bike to Seattle or somewhere like that, flying out, and riding back. It just might happen.

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Biker Quote for Today

I don’t ride because I have a death wish, I ride because I wish to live.

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Posted in Biker Issues, motorcycle touring | 1 Comment »

A Day Like Yesterday

February 2nd, 2012

Concours with mountains

Snow is on its way. By the time it stops, sometime tomorrow, we could have as much as a foot. Is it any surprise I was out riding yesterday?

Never mind my commitment to riding both of my bikes at least once every single month, though that was a factor as well. When I have a great day on the first day of a winter month I’d better ride, because how wretched would I feel if I didn’t and it snowed the next day . . . and I never got a chance the rest of the month.

But the bigger factor was just that it was a gorgeous February day, and who wouldn’t want to go riding on a day that? I’ve been keeping the Honda on the battery tender, so it fired right up. The Kawi took a bit to get going, so I went for an extra long ride with it to get a bit more juice into that battery.

A good bit of that was on the highway, too, where I could get up some speed. At a motorcycle mechanics 101 session Alan and Dan and I went to last fall the guy said you really only start charging your battery once revs get up over a certain level, so just cruising around on city streets probably doesn’t do a lot for it. I wonder, though, if that means that if you deliberately stayed in a lower gear so you’d get higher revs you would get more charging. I tried at one point last year to get some definitive information on this whole matter but found that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of definitive info out there. Which means that I have to wonder where this guy was getting his information and how reliable it was.

But hey, charging the battery was a secondary concern. Riding was number one. And I had one of those odd experiences I have from time to time. I took off and was out for awhile and then at one point it hit me, “Wow, it’s really good to be on a bike!” This is a winter thing, when we don’t get to ride so much. You get away from it for a few weeks and you start forgetting how great it feels. Then you get on and go and it’s a surprise: Oh yeah, I forgot how much I enjoy doing this.

I have a friend who tells me his wife is like that in regard to sex. Whenever they do it she loves it but in between times she seems to forget how much she enjoys it. He figures if she remembered she’d want to do it more often, but she doesn’t. Then she’s surprised every time.

So I felt that surprise again yesterday. It makes me wonder how people get by living in places where you have to put your bike away for the entire winter. ‘Tis a privilege to live in Colorado.

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Biker Quote for Today

Warning: If you value your life as much as I value this motorcycle, don’t fuck with it!

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Posted in Colorado motorcycle rides, Day Rides | No Comments »

Elephant Ride Is On For Feb. 11-12

January 30th, 2012

The Elephant Ride in 2010

PsychoSteve has come through again. The Elephant Ride is on for the second weekend in February, but the gathering point has moved a short distance.

There was initially some concern because PsychoSteve no longer lives in the house in Grant that has been the starting point of this winter ride up Guanella Pass. Veterans of the ride offered assurances that if nothing else the plan would be to camp up the Guanella Pass road a bit as has been done before, but that won’t be necessary.

PsychoSteve announced on Jan. 15 on Adventure Rider that he had arranged with the new owner of the Grant Motel to use that property for camp-out, bonfire, launch point–everything. At this point all of the five rooms in the motel are rented but Elephant Riders traditionally pitch tents or sleep in their vehicles, as I done the last two years.

To really take part in the adventure you need to show up on Saturday night (Feb. 11) for the bonfire, the eating, the drinking . . . the fun. Then on Sunday morning at around 10 a.m. or so the assault on the pass will begin. While there hasn’t been a huge amount of snow this year, PsychoSteve and a buddy went up there a couple weeks ago and report that there are indeed spots with serious ice and deeply drifted snow.

In other words, it’s a normal Elephant Ride. So drill those screws into your tires and get out your warmest winter riding gear. The fun is about to begin.

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Biker Quote for Today

Bikers are a rare breed…Harley riders are a dime a dozen.

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Posted in Colorado motorcycle rides, Day Rides, motorcycle events | 2 Comments »

Dude, Where’s My Site?

January 26th, 2012

Very annoyedLet me apologize up front that this post has nothing to do with motorcycles.

I’m a little aggravated this morning. Maybe you noticed–this site was down for 1 hour and 29 minutes. And that’s not the first time recently the site has been down, although that’s the longest time by far. I filed a trouble ticket with my web host and asked what the hell is going on, but have yet to hear anything from them. If they respond as they have in the past I’ll get some message such as “We’re sorry your site was down, it’s back up now.” No shit?

It’s enough to push me a lot farther along the way to going to a new web host. I’ve been growing increasing dissatisfied with NetPivotal for quite awhile now and this may be what pushes me over the edge.

If I do move to a new host, it will make a clean third strike for today. First I went over to my bank, Wells Fargo, to ask about some unexpected charges that showed up on our statements. Seems they have added a bunch of fees, and when I said that was not acceptable the reply was essentially, “Too bad.” Judy has wanted to dump Wells Fargo for a long time so I came home and emailed her a message saying “Let’s do it.” We’ll be moving our accounts to First Bank.

Then I went over to my gym, Bally Fitness. Yesterday the Aurora club moved into a new location and this was my first time there. Their card reader would not accept my card. The manager told me my membership is not valid at the new location, despite my having asked that exact question as soon as they announced they would be making the move. I told him that was all I needed to know and came home and canceled my automatic renewal. When my membership runs out in April I’ll join 24-Hour Fitness.

Don’t anybody mess with me today, I’m on a roll.

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Biker Quote for Today

If I can’t pass at a reasonable speed I do it unreasonably.

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Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »

Accelerate Publishes Mount Evans Article

January 23rd, 2012

The road up Mount Evans

I’m very pleased to be able to tell you that Accelerate, Kawasaki’s publication for owners of Kawasaki motorcycles, has published one of my articles in its latest issue, which came out yesterday.

With the title, “To the Sky and Back: Colorado,” it’s a piece about a day ride up Clear Creek Canyon to Idaho Springs, out of Idaho Springs up Chicago Creek, and to the Mount Evans turn-off at Echo Lake on the Squaw Pass road. Then to the top of Mount Evans, back down to the the Squaw Pass road to Evergreen Parkway, to Evergreen, and down Bear Creek Canyon to Morrison. With photos, of course.

Now, what surprises me a bit about this is that Accelerate did not also publish a piece I did for them on the Morrison Inn. They like to do pieces on good places to stop and eat while you’re out riding and I did a piece on the Morrison Inn as a companion piece to the Mount Evans story. But it’s not there. I’ll have to ask Teri Conrad, the editor, about that.

I have hopes of doing a lot more writing for Accelerate. Of course, being the official Kawasaki publication it is essential that any bikes in the stories be Kawis. Fortunately, that’s exactly what I have, my 1999 Concours. I also have hopes of perhaps getting a dual-sport bike this year, and if I can count of selling a bunch more to Accelerate that will push me to get a KLR 650. The KLRs I’ve been on strike me as a bit tall, so I might go for something else without the Accelerate connection. But then, my Connie seemed extremely tall when I bought it and now, 12 years later, I’m as comfortable on it as you could possibly be.

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Biker Quote for Today

One man’s adventure might be another man’s daily ride.

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Posted in Colorado motorcycle rides, Day Rides, Kawasaki | No Comments »

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