Blue Knights Demonstrate Amazing Low-Speed Skill

June 4th, 2008

I’ve always figured I was pretty good on slow, tight turns on a big bike. Heck, I passed my original motorcycle driver’s license test on my CB750. I think most people borrow little 250s or something like that to take the riding test, but not me.

Well, I saw some guys perform on Sunday that did stuff I’ll never be able to do as long as I live. This event was the annual Top Gun Symposium of the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club. All the contestants were motorcycle patrol officers riding their regular patrol bikes. Most were Harleys but there were also BMWs and Kawasaki Police Specials.

A Blue Knight shows his stuff.Take a look at this guy. That’s a heck of a tight turn and sharp lean angle and he’s probably going less than 5 mph. Can you do that? I can’t.

This guy wasn’t even the winner, or one of the top three winners. Altogether there were 39 officers competing from a number of different departments, with winners in three categories to correspond with the three makes of bike. The best of the best was named Top Gun. He was one of the guys on one of the Kawasakis.

All in all, it was a pretty good show, and it drew a nice crowd, mostly on bikes. What can I say? Heck, I was impressed.

Biker Quote for Today

A good rider has balance, judgment, and good timing. So does a good lover.

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Posted in Miscellaneous, Rides and Rallies | 2 Comments »

Hot Dang, the Website’s Back Up! (and New Record Set!)

June 2nd, 2008

My apologies to anyone who tried in vain to reach this blog or website in the last 36 hours. A fire at what is reportedly the largest web server facility in the world, in Houston, put thousands of servers and tens of thousands of websites — including this one — out of commission for a day and a half. Here’s the notice my web host put up:

Server Issues:
We would like to make our customers aware that we are currently have some issues with our NS1.NETPIVOTAL.COM Primary nameserver and the Rose.netpivotal.com server. On Saturday evening at 4:55 in the Houston data centre where the two servers are located, an electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room. Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no servers were damaged or lost and the data is still safely on the server. There is no impact in any of our other servers.

So if you were inconvenienced, I’m very sorry. But I’m glad you’ve returned.

It was a really bad time for this to happen because I know from the statistics that this is the busiest time of year for this website. You may recall just two months ago that I was crowing that the website had had 3,000 unique visitors in one month for the first time ever. Well, just two months later we hit 4,000 unique visitors.

Now, this is really exciting for me but let me put it in perspective for you. This website went live in November of 2005. The first month it had 1,000 unique visitors was July of 2006. It was then June 2007 when it first had 2,000 unique visitors in one month. The 3,000 mark was hit then in March 2008 and now, May 2008, it already hit 4,000! And the very next morning the servers went out and everything was offline for 36 hours!

So welcome back, and now maybe we can get back to discussing important things, like motorcycles.

Biker Quote for Today

If you can’t get it going with bungee cords and electrician’s tape, it’s serious.

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Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Designing a Truly Different Motorcycle Magazine

May 30th, 2008

I’ve been receiving three motorcycle magazines for a lot of years now and they’ve all been pretty interchangeable. That is, they’ve all had the same “favorite rides” features, they’ve all focused on the new bikes each year, and they’ve all had columnists writing about various motorcycling issues. No more. One of them has changed.

American Motorcyclist is the membership publication of the American Motorcyclist Association, to which I belong. I recently received the June 2008 issue and oh my gosh has it changed!

Just for starters, to show how much it is now NOT like the others, there is not one bike to be seen on the cover. I’m not sure any motorcycle magazine has ever published an issue that did not have at least one bike on the cover. What is on the cover is a picture of Jay Leno. We all know Leno is big into bikes, so he’s an appropriate subject for a motomag feature, but it’s not him and one of his bikes, it’s just a tight head shot of Jay.

Inside the issue other changes leap out at you. The opening four pages, once you get past the ads, are photos of AMA members and their bikes — apparently a new feature. When you get to the letters from readers, those pages also feature pictures of members and their bikes. Real people, real bikes. Not these unobtanium show bikes that you so often used to see.

In fact, there are a phenomenal number of photos all through this magazine. Apparently the editors decided that they had way too many words and not enough pictures of bikes, so they rectified that problem. Rather than articles that go on for pages with lots of words and just a few photos, the ratio has been reversed.

Then you come to the feature article, “Hangin’ with Jay.” Again, lots of pictures and rather than a wordy interview, they just quote Jay on various topics: On his first ride; On buying his first motorcycle; On old bikes vs. new; etc. And it makes for good reading. They also took a couple AMA members along on the interview and the whole crew took a ride on several of Jay’s bikes. The two members have a chance to say a few words about the experience. One of them, Nicole McMurray, ends her piece saying:

My favorite story of the day, though, came when we had stopped at the top of the mountain overlooking the Pacific Ocean. After Jay put on his helmet to go, a guy on a white Ducati pulled up and parked. Its rider walked over to comment on Jay’s bike. The guy said, “Yeah, I was watching TV and saw Jay Leno riding one of those.” Jay’s response, “Nice to meet you. I’m Jay Leno.”

So there’s still a lot of information in the magazine. But the packaging of that information is radically different. I like it. I’m really impressed with what they’ve done. And hey, no extra charge for the subscription when you’re a member.

Biker Quote for Today

To me it’s more fun to ride a slow bike quickly. Going slowly on an old Indian or Henderson is a lot of fun. I used to say that I don’t like any motorcycle you can’t see through, and there’s something to that. I like to see the motor.
–Jay Leno

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Posted in American Motorcyclist Association, Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Motorcycles Save Lives in Africa — You Can Help

May 28th, 2008

Riders for Health is an organization that provides money and motorcycles to transport life-saving medical supplies to remote African villages. Adventure Riders is a web forum for motorcyclists who are “generally long distance and adventure oriented enthusiasts.”

The Adventure Riders have organized a fund-raising event to benefit Riders for Health and that event is coming through Colorado June 7-9. As the group’s letter of intent states, the goal is to gather sponsors and contributions to riders.org while riding in and through:

  • Each of the United States
  • The Canadian Provinces and Territories
  • New Zealand
  • Australia
  • India
  • Turkey
  • Scotland

Riders participating in the event are passing off a “baton,” which is a waterproof case containing a “mascot,” pictures, logs, and other items.

This relay starts May 16th 2008 at one of our Rallies in North Carolina with the US and Canadian legs finishing in August of 2008 and will continue on to many other places. During each leg of the relay, riders will take photographs, write online journals, log points of interest or include something about their region or the ride; Motorcycle rallies and enthusiast gatherings get special attention. These photos and stories will be prominently featured in an accompanying thread.

The baton is scheduled to enter Colorado on June 7 for hand-off at Burlington. It will come to Denver and on June 8 make its way to Buena Vista and on to Ridgway. On June 9 it will go to Pagosa Springs, where it will be handed off to New Mexico riders. Go to this thread on the Adventure Riders forum to see the whole route.

If you want to help out, here is the info on donations:

The ADVRider Relay, including the volunteer rider’s expenses, is completely self-funded. 100% of the donations less PayPal expenses or other funds transfer fees are forwarded directly to Riders.org. Please donate via Paypal at advriderrelay@aol.com or contact us there for other options.

I think I may be taking a ride on Sunday, June 8.

Biker Quote for Today

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.

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Posted in Biker Issues, Suggested Rides | No Comments »

Alert on Bad Conditions on Berthoud Pass

May 27th, 2008

I don’t have details yet but will pass along this warning that just came to me:

Please inform your readers, Berthoud is in extremely poor condition. Rode it today, and even had it not been raining and snowing, the road would be very bad!

I replied asking if the problem is that the pavement is in bad shape, or what. I’ll add that info when I receive it.

OK, here’s additional info:

The road was in terrible shape. Lots of potholes, cracks, and still a lot of sand all over.

So there you go. Be careful out there.

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Posted in Biker Issues, Day Rides, Motorcycle Safety, Suggested Rides | No Comments »

If You Don’t Ride in the Rain You Don’t Ride

May 26th, 2008

Cold and rainy today, with patches of fog. What a great day to ride! Seriously.

Of course Bill had no idea what the weather would be a week ago when he proposed that we do one of our occasional rides up to Blackhawk for breakfast. It has been warm and sunny lately, so we assumed it would be a nice day. I rolled the bike out and looked at the sky and wondered if I should call to see if anyone would show up. But I figured surely someone would be there so we would join them.

Judy asked me what she needed to wear and I told her I was just putting on a flannel shirt over my t-shirt under my leather jacket, so she dressed similarly. We took off and hadn’t gone very far when I started to doubt my judgment. It was darn chilly! Oh well, it was morning and surely it would warm up as the day progressed.

We got to the meeting spot and found only Bill and Jason out for the ride today. Dennis is in Indianapolis for the Indy 500, Johnathon had a graduation he was going to, and John was using his same old excuse about being 250 miles away in Montrose. Wuss. Can’t remember why Friggs wasn’t there.

We headed on up Clear Creek Canyon and the sky was threatening but nothing else. Going a bit slower up the canyon it wasn’t as chilly but Judy and I both were wishing we had our electric vests. Judy was also wishing for long underwear. I was just glad to be on the Concours with its full fairing.

Leaving the canyon and getting onto the Peak to Peak Highway it started looking like it might clear up. That reminded me of when I lived in Golden and worked in Idaho Springs, and on some days I would drive out of a rain or snow storm up the mountain into the sunshine. Then after spending the day in the sun I would drive back down into the same storm I left behind. Not today.

We reached Blackhawk and cruised on to Central City to the Red Dolly, a small casino with good breakfast at very good prices–our standard stop. Had a great breakfast, warmed up, Bill and Jason gave the machines some money, and it was time to head back down. We stepped outside and it was raining. No big deal; we’ve got the gear. And this was Judy’s first opportunity to try out her new rain gear.

Suited up, we headed back down into Blackhawk, got back on the Peak to Peak, and continued north to the turn-off to Golden Gate Canyon. One of the nice things about this whole area is that there are multiple canyons and you can take your pick of which one to go up and which one to take down. They’re all beautiful and twisty.

Today they had a different kind of beauty than we normally see. Besides the rain, we were in and out of low-lying clouds, aka: fog. I know that Judy, having no responsibility for ensuring that we stayed on the road, was more able to appreciate the beauty than I was, but I was not unappreciative.

With the wet pavement, the on and off rain, and the on and off fog, we took it fairly slow. That, plus the rain gear, meant the ride down was quite a bit warmer than the ride up. And with the good rain gear we were perfectly dry and comfortable.

Then we were down out of the canyon, back on CO 93, and we headed over to Bill and Thais’s new house close by to see it for the first time. Some hot chocolate to warm us up again and we headed on home.

This was not the ride we anticipated but at least partially for that reason it was probably a more memorable ride. Despite being a little less well-prepared than we could have been, we have no regrets whatsoever. It was a great ride. What a great day for a ride!

Biker Quote for Today

It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed.

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Posted in Day Rides, Motorcycle Gear | 3 Comments »

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