Passes & Canyons Blog

Unlike with the Concours when its valve stem went bad, there was no way I could ride my Honda CB750 to the dealer to have the valve stem replaced. I have no idea why that Concours tire still held air but the Honda tire did not. I had already had it towed to my house and was reluctant to have it towed again to the dealer, so the other option would be to remove the wheel and take the wheel to the dealer.

I had never taken a wheel off a bike before. But I looked at it and figured it couldn’t be all that hard, especially if I had someone helping me who knew what they were doing. I called Roy. Roy was very accommodating and came over right away.

The first thing we had to do was put the bike up on its center stand. I knew from when I had a flat on the Concours a few years ago how hard that can be. But that had been a back tire and this was a front tire. It went up easily but then when we tried to jack the bike up high enough to get the tire off it started raising the rear off the ground. The answer was to put a piece of plywood under the center stand, but now it was really hard to get it up. We managed.

Then we needed a block of wood to put between the jack and the crank case. Scraps of wood are something most any guy has laying around but during the Covid lockdown I had done an extensive garage cleaning and had thrown out stuff like stray pieces of wood. I finally came up with a two by four and it was not optimal but it worked. Up on the jack the bike was very unstable so Roy’s job was to hold it steady and give me guidance while I did the work.

It really couldn’t have been much simpler. Remove two bolts and slide the disc brake caliper off, drop the C-clamps at the base of the forks, and disconnect the speedometer. Voila.

I took it to Vickery the next day and a while later they called to say it was ready. I got there and immediately saw they had not put on a 90-degree valve stem, which I had stressed I absolutely had to have. So they got right on it and quickly had it done and I headed home. I should have been clearer on that 90-degree stem but they made it right immediately so I have no complaints.

The next day Roy came over again and we put it all back together. Spread the caliper wide with a couple screw drivers, reassemble the fork ends, reattach the speedo. What I would not have known to do was to compress the shocks a few times to make sure everything set in properly. Roy also warned me not to touch the brakes while it was apart because otherwise they would have needed to have been bled, which would have been an unnecessary pain.

And that was all there was to to it. Great. I love learning how to do new stuff, and this is the kind of thing that may well come in handy in the future.

Biker Quote for Today

My brother recently got into a bikers gang that worships Norse monarchs. They call themselves ‘The Bikings.’

I think I’ve got something figured out here. I have the vague notion that when you have a dealer put a new tire on your bike, they routinely put in a new valve stem. Maybe I’m mistaken, but that’s my notion. Regardless, I’m pretty certain now that Joel, my mechanic, does not. And in the future, any time I have him put on a new tire I will specify that I also want a new valve stem.

I had my first valve stem problem when I was getting ready to leave on the RMMRC‘s Great River Road ride. That necessitated that I take a different bike; not a big deal.

Well now I’ve had a second valve stem problem, and this was a lot bigger pain in the butt.

I’ve been taking some music classes over at Swallow Hill Music and so a couple weeks ago I headed over there on the Honda CB750 Custom, which had yet to be ridden in July. Just a few blocks away I noticed the handling on the bike was not as it should be, and it reminded me of the time when I had a flat back tire on the Concours. I got to Swallow Hill and parked and looked at the rear tire. It was fine. Great. I headed in.

When I came out and returned to the bike it was very obvious that my front tire was flat. Oh, dang. OK, I got here on it, if I can get air in the tire hopefully I can get home on it. I called Judy and asked her to bring my pump, figuring I’d put air in and she could follow me home, stopping if necessary to add more air along the way.

Judy arrived and I hooked the pump up but after way too long the pressure gauge was still showing no increased pressure. I turned it off and was disconnecting it when I heard a hiss at the valve stem. Sure enough, that’s where the problem was. And there was no way this bike was rideable.

I have roadside service through my American Motorcyclist Association membership so I called for a tow. It took a while to get through but I finally reached someone who took all my info and said I would be receiving a text message with the data on the company dispatched and their estimated time of arrival. We knew we had a wait in store.

The first part of the wait was not boring. We were at the corner of Lincoln and Yale, standing by the bike, when we heard tires screeching and a crash. Turning around, there was a Harley on its side, a rider on the ground, and a car stopped, all in the middle of the intersection. Holy crap. I went running to the guy, thinking about my recent crash scene management training.

The guy, an older, very gnarly-looking sort of old school Harley rider, was sitting up and bleeding badly from the left side of his head. The first step in crash scene management is to secure the location, and there were cars stopped in all directions so clearly nobody was going to come driving through and hit someone. The guy asked for a hand up and I hesitated. Another initial point in crash scene management was to do all you can to prevent the person from getting up and riding off, because they may suffer shock and once the adrenaline wears off they may find themselves completely incapable of even standing.

He asked for a hand up and I told him he really ought to just sit there for a few minutes. “F— that” he bellowed and insisted I help him up, which I did. Then he asked me and another guy to help him get the bike up, which we did. I was hoping he just wanted to move it out of the intersection but he climbed on, fired it up and rode away. Meanwhile, we could all see that the lobe of his left ear was almost completely ripped off, hanging by just a slender strip of skin.

Judy’s speculation was that he either had warrants out or else maybe he had been drinking or drugging and either way had no intention of dealing with the police. Who knows. Meanwhile, the young woman driving the car was on the phone with 911. She had not hit him; there had been no contact. I’m not sure what she had been doing, maybe a U-turn in the intersection, definitely not a left turn in front of him. All I got from her was that she was making her turn and he just wouldn’t wait for her to complete it. He must have swerved to avoid her but even that is odd because the bike fell on its right side and he was on the ground on its left. I have no idea what happened. The police were apparently never even dispatched to the scene.

We know this because we were there for another three hours, and they never showed up. After talking to the person I gave the tow request to we were told we would receive text updates and all we got were three messages saying sorry for the delay, we’re still trying to get someone to provide your service. After awhile my phone was going dead and Judy suggested we call again, using her phone, so I did.

Once we got through again I explained the situation and they escalated it to the supervisor and once again we were told we’d be messaged with update info. We finally did get a message, telling us who was coming and that it would probably be an hour and half more. Thank goodness we had Judy’s air conditioned car to sit it because we had no shade and the outside temperature was about 85.

Finally the tow guy showed up and I have to say, he was super nice. We were now late for a birthday party we were supposed to be heading to and he said go ahead to the party, I’ll get the bike safely to your house. Which he did, and then called to tell us he had done so. Nice guy.

So that’s twice now I’ve had valve stem issues. Valve stems are now very much on my radar.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if other people you consider bikers scare you.

I’ve spoken a lot in my narrative of the RMMRC‘s Great River Road ride about the conflicting preferences of different riders. Some of our guys want to just get out there and burn up the miles. They don’t want to stop until it’s time for gas.

Others of us, and I am definitely in this group, prefer to take a more relaxed approach, with more frequent stops just to stretch our legs, rest our butts, and maybe stop to spend some time at a few points of interest.

The answer here seems obvious to me: we need to break into two groups so everyone can ride the sort of ride they prefer.

We had originally planned to do this ride in two groups simply because there were going to be enough of us it made sense not to ride in one large pack. But then as the departure date drew near several people had cause to drop out, so the morning of the ride the decision was made to go as one group.

I submit that even if we were looking at one group of three and another of five, that is what we should have done. And on any future multi-day ride I do with the RMMRC I will strongly argue for just that.

As it was, on this ride there were three of us who made our desires known to stop more frequently. Probably we should have just informed the others that we were going to be our own separate group and just do it. But we hadn’t really had the discussions and thought it through that far.

Yes, at one point Bob replied to our calls for a shorter leg by saying that anyone who wanted to peel off from the group at any time is free to do so, and I did. But I really think that’s a bit disingenuous. One aspect of riding in a group is the feeling of safety in numbers. If you break down, you have someone there to help you out. If one person just takes off on their own and then that person has problems, there’s no one to assist.

Now, in my case, that was not an issue. I’m accustomed to riding alone. I like riding alone, and I feel that I’m prepared to deal with issues if they arise. But not everyone is like me. Some people who might wish to have a different ride could easily be reluctant to venture out all by themselves.

Two groups makes sense to me. Or, I’ve thought that maybe I ought to set up a ride that caters to my style of riding. Rather than blast across eastern Colorado and all of Kansas and Missouri in just two days, do it in three. A number of years ago I rode Friggs’s bike out to St. Louis for him and I know I took at least three days, maybe four. I had a fun, relaxing ride. I’ve ridden several 500-mile days and fun and relaxing are two adjectives I would not use to describe them. And if it’s not fun, why are you doing it?

And yes, if I do set up this sort of ride I’ll make a point of suggesting to anyone who is more in the Iron Butt mindset that they should go ahead, we’ll see them at the end of the day.

Biker Quote for Today

Bikers are the happiest people when they have their boots on the pegs, their ass in the seat, and nothing but the rumble of pipes in their ears.

When I split off from the rest of the RMMRC group doing the Great River Road ride, on our final day headed for home, to check out the St. Francis Motorcycle Museum in St. Francis, Kansas, I didn’t expect to get to go in. But I got lucky–Kent was already in for the morning and he saw me and opened the door.

After Kent showed me some of the highlights of the museum I spotted one thing in particular I was looking for and led him to that. This was just a couple sheets of paper tacked on a bulletin board and hanging on the wall, telling about the “famed” motorcycle racer Roy Blakeney. Of course, this is the Roy who had been riding sweep on our whole trip. He said oh yes, they know Roy well, was that who I was with, too bad he didn’t stop in, too.

Then he showed me the “vault,” a room in the center of the building where the most valuable bikes are kept locked in when they’re not open. These, he said, are mainly one-of-a-kind bikes that you won’t see anywhere else. So here’s a bunch of photos of some of the bikes the museum has on display.

So there you go. If you’re ever in the vicinity of St. Francis, Kansas, I’d recommend you stop in. You can’t go wrong.

Biker Quote for Today

Yes I’m addicted to my bike because it’s way better than being addicted to fake love.

From McCook, Nebraska, on to Denver was the last leg of our Great River Road ride. It’s about 260 miles and most of the folks were just ready to get home.

There was some discussion of stopping in St. Francis, Kansas, at the St. Francis Motorcycle Museum. It was right on our route and I for one had never been there, though I had heard about it and was interested.

Not gonna happen, was what Tom said. He pointed out that we had on several occasions on this trip discussed stopping at various points of interest but nothing ever came of it. For instance, we had discussed spending some time in Hannibal, Missouri, visiting sites related to Mark Twain. Didn’t happen. Stopping along the Mississippi River at a dam and lock to see the lock in action. Didn’t happen. There may have been others, I don’t remember.

Then someone else pointed out that as early as we were hitting the road, by the time we reached St. Francis the museum would not yet be open. So that was settled, presumably.

We left our motel singly and in groups with the idea to stop at the nearby gas station and fill up. Pulling out from the motel there were two exits and while one had a free shot to go left on the road, the other required you to do a U-turn around the median. I ran over to the straight shot exit but Roy went out the other. Then, as I got ready to pull out after he made the U-turn, he went into the turn and dropped the bike right onto the very end of the median structure. Oh crap.

I quickly shifted to neutral and put the side stand down and ran out to offer assistance. Roy was unhurt, and the bike was undamaged so we got him back upright and he took off, with me close behind. So that was the fourth time on this trip that someone had had a mishap. We’re not doing so good here guys.

We got gas and headed out. Nothing much in the way of scenery along here, this is just Kansas and Nebraska.

But by the time we got to St. Francis, about 87 miles, I was ready to take a break. Plus, I wanted to at least check out the museum as much as I could even if it wasn’t open. So when I saw a sign pointing to downtown announcing the museum I waved toodle-oo to the group and turned.

From what I hear, their ride on home was uneventful, although Roy told me that he got home, moved his car out of the garage so he could get his bike in, and the coil on the bike failed. Right there at home. The most convenient inconvenience you can ask for.

I pulled up in front of the museum and parked, noticing the “Closed” sign on the door. I took a quick look up and down the street at the town, and when I turned to the museum again there was a guy in the window waving to attract my attention and when he saw that I saw him he took the “Closed” sign and flipped it over to say “Open.” This was Kent.

Kent and Scott are the two guys who mostly run the museum and he told me they always try to accommodate riders who come through and want to see the museum, even outside of regular hours. He pointed out that the sign on the door has their phone numbers so you can call and if they’re able to do so they will come open the place for you. They figure that if you’re traveling and you want to stop it may not always be those regular hours but they want to accommodate you. Nice people. I’ll do my whole next post on the museum.

So I got the break I wanted, used the rest room, saw the museum, and had a nice visit. And then I was ready to ride again.

I’m sure the other guys stopped at least once to get gas on their way home but I was now riding alone. And I made three stops. One was for gas but the other two were because I was getting drowsy and just plain wanted to stretch my legs a bit. This is the way I like to travel.

Altogether, my odometer showed I had ridden 3,150 miles on this trip. On a ten day trip, with one day off from riding, that comes out to exactly 350 miles a day. Sure was nice to have that one day off in the middle of it. And it was nice to be home, too.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 11. We drive the same way we ride.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled telling of the tale of the RMMRC Great River Road ride to alert you to an event that there was no other way to fit in: Rigs in the Rockies 2 2022 USCA National Rally.

In case you’re wondering, USCA stands for United Sidecar Association. And that’s what it is, a gathering of folks who ride sidecar rigs.

This event will be happening Thursday, July 7 to Sunday, July 10, at the Delta County Fairgrounds in Hotchkiss. I’ve looked on their website and Facebook page but can’t find any info about activities but I guess if you ride a sidecar rig the only thing that really matters is that these are your people and you want to go be with them.

And if that’s not your ride, but you’ll be in the vicinity, I would definitely stop by, just to see them all.

Have a good Fourth!

Biker Quote for Today

There are too many ways to lose your life besides dying.

The one participant on this RMMRC Great River Road ride who I have not mentioned previously was Phil, Tom’s cousin from Ohio who rode out and met us in St. Charles, Missouri, and rode with us a few days. The reason I bring him up now is that at one point he spoke about how a group he rides with back home have a rule that if you’re going on a group ride you ride with the group, you eat with the group, and you stay at the group hotel.

I’m not normally the sort who takes to demands of conformity like that but I see their point. And I see it a lot more clearly now after this ride.

The part about riding with the group is the one place where I diverge. This ride was set up to be a ride-your-own-ride kind of thing, with people going their own ways as long as you know where to end up at the end of the day. In reality only a couple of us did that at all but I like doing it that way.

As for lodging and eating, I get it a lot more. Because I was slow in signing up for this ride I was stuck trying to find someone to room with. I ended up tying in with Tom for most of the trip but for the nights when Phil would be with us I ended up rooming with Charley. Not a problem.

Except that Tom, originally not having a roommate, had opted to make his reservations at different motels that were less expensive than the group motel. With me to split the cost it would not have made a lot of difference but alone it would have amounted to some significant cash.

The result of this, though, was that we’d ride all day and then they’d go to their motel and we’d go to ours. And they usually were not particularly close to each other. So we frequently did not eat dinner with those guys.

What that meant was that we ended up missing out on any end-of-day camaraderie that is a big part of doing a group ride.

And then the last night out, in McCook, Nebraska, we did have the same hotel because the one the group had intended on staying at was being remodeled and they had had to change their plans. So what happened?

Well, first, we couldn’t agree on where to eat. Tom and I aren’t keen on chain places if there are one-off local places available. And fast food is OK for lunch but not dinner. And there was a nice local place not far but it was hard to persuade the others to go there rather than the Wendy’s across the street. And once they agreed another voice spoke up saying Wendy’s was his destination. So they all went there while Tom and I went elsewhere.

We all got back to the motel at the same time but what happened? Everyone just went to their rooms and that was that. No hanging out in someone’s room, in the lobby, or at a nearby bar. Just good-night.

What I’m accustomed to with the OFMC is that even if we split up for dinner we still get together afterward and have some beers. Out by the pool, in someone’s room, in the parking lot–somewhere.

Is this what we had been missing all those nights? Nothing? Except for dinner, of course.

So yeah, I get it with Phil’s group saying the group stays together. I can see I’m going to need to have some conversations with some people before I go on another long ride with the RMMRC. Surely there are at least some other guys who are in tune with my inclinations.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: You can ride a motorcycle as long as you want and it won’t get sore.

The penultimate day on this Great River Road ride we were just planning to head south out of Yankton, South Dakota, and then zig-zag our way across Nebraska to McCook. The skies had other plans, however.

We got up and there was no question one heck of a storm was passing by to the south of us. A quick check of the weather apps confirmed that we did not want to go into that. So we ran about five miles south to get to NE 12 and then turned west. That turned out to be serendipity. The country we went through was really, really pretty and then we reached the Missouri River and it was hilly and gorgeous in all its spring green. We came to the town of Niobrara.

Here we turned south and the time and distance put us behind the storm now–mostly. The terrain soon became the flatter, less beautiful sort that you typically think of when you think of Nebraska.

Starting off that morning it had been pretty cool and was stormy so I had put on my rain pants. Per our arrangement the day before I rode in the two spot and when I felt it was time for a stop I pulled ahead and pulled over. By now I was too hot so I took the rain pants off. We headed out and soon we were headed right into rain. Now I was faced with the age-old choice of stopping to put my rain gear back on or trying to ride through it. I chose the latter and it turned out to be the right choice, though there were a couple points where it looked like the wrong choice for just a few minutes. Yes I got a bit wet but not enough to matter.

We stopped for lunch south of Grand Island and talked about getting gas there and riding 160 miles non-stop to McCook, or stopping for gas along the way and thus having a break. Tim, Mike, and I spoke in favor of the break. But others said get gas here and just go. I pushed back–there were three of us who specifically said we did not want to do that long ride. Bob said anyone who wants to break off from the group at any time can do so. Very true.

So I did. At Minden I wanted to check out Pioneer Village. Pioneer Village is a sprawling museum spread across about 23 buildings with a vast collection of cars, farm equipment, and lots more. I had never been there but I’d known about it most of my life. I had no plans to go in–you’ll want to spend an entire day there–but I wanted to see about days and hours of operation, admission fee, and get an idea of the place. I was also hot and wanted to shed layers, I was drowsy, and I had a buggy visor I wanted to clean. Plus, I just wanted to get off the bike.

This was totally a good decision. I spoke with a woman at the ticket booth who seemed thrilled to have someone to talk to and who told me all kinds of interesting things about the museum’s history. And then I left rested and refreshed and ready to ride the rest of the way to McCook.

I did have one bit of adventure on this last leg. As is not uncommon in Nebraska I found myself behind a line of cars following a couple huge pieces of farm equipment that really put the “wide” in wide-load. Cars coming the other direction were pulling off to let them pass. But I was on a motorcycle; I could easily pass them with room to spare.

So I took off. I quickly passed the cars and then as I was going past the machinery a pick-up that had pulled onto the shoulder decided to get back on the highway. Um, dude, do you not see me? Yes what I’m doing is a bit bogus but I am doing it. Can’t you just wait another 15 seconds for me to get past? He did stop and let me go by.

When I reached McCook the other guys had only just gotten checked in and were heading to their rooms. And Tom said it was a mistake not to take a break. They were overheated and fagged out. So my rest stop had been just enough to save me from twiddling my thumbs at the destination and didn’t cost me one minute of useful time. That’s what I keep saying: what does it matter if we get somewhere half an hour or an hour later? We don’t exactly have appointments to keep. But I also know getting seven guys rolling again takes longer than one person taking off again.

Biker Quote for Today

More headroom than any car in any class.