Passes & Canyons Blog

I heard yesterday about two airplanes making contact in mid-air, just a very short distance from here, over Cherry Creek Reservoir. Not a full-on collision, but one plane clipped the other. Both planes got down safely and nobody got killed.

But doesn’t that make you think: How in the heck, in all that space up in the sky, do two planes manage to hit one another? I bet I know one factor that played into it: target fixation.

The way target fixation works, if you see something you wish to avoid, but you keep looking at it, you will almost certainly steer directly to it. It happens on a motorcycle, in a car, on foot, and I’m sure it happens in airplanes, too.

I have numerous personal experiences with target fixation. When I used to fly a hang-glider I was flying once up in South Park and I was headed toward a pole with a wind sock on it. The trouble was, I was losing altitude and I was not going to be high enough to go over it. I tried to steer away but I kept looking right at it and inexorably I continued straight for it. Finally, in order not to hit it, I flared upward to go over, but that put me into a stall and I came nose down just on the other side of the pole. That hurt.

On my CB750 once we were coming down Poncha Pass toward Poncha Springs and there was a rock I’d say that was about four inches in diameter in the road ahead. I definitely didn’t want to run over that but as I tried to maneuver away I kept staring at it and ended up going right over it. This threw my front end up in the air, the only wheelie I’ve ever done on that 600 pound motorcycle. I did manage to ride it out safely.

But the point was, I kept looking right at it. That seems like the normal thing to do–you want to be sure to avoid it so you keep your eye on it. But your brain works a little differently. What you really need to do is look away from it. You will go where you’re looking. So look away and you will steer away. Look right at it and you will go straight toward it.

I can just imagine one of those pilots yesterday. He sees this other plane and wants very much to steer clear of it. But he keeps looking at it, and hard as he tries to steer away he continues to find himself on a course directly toward it. Even when the other pilot tries to evade him, the pilot who is fixated adjusts his course unconsciously to continue toward the other plane. And crash.

Look away! Look away! That’s what you’ve got to do. Practice it while you’re out riding. Identify a spot in the road ahead and deliberately look elsewhere and avoid it. Or look right at it and try to steer around it. Good luck with that. Practicing now to look away will make it easier to do it when it matters; it will be more reflexive.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 21. From March until October is roadracing season. We’ll watch it all: races, qualifying, free practice, even testing.

My 1980 Honda CB750 Custom was my first motorcycle and I still have it and I have always loved it. That said, nobody–and nothing–is perfect.

I can say for one thing that I’m not crazy about the chain drive. Having to lube that chain, adjust it occasionally, and replace both it and the sprockets at times is a bit of an annoyance and also a bit of expense. But I live with it. And from what I’ve read, chain drive has some advantages over shaft drive, though I’m not particularly attuned to those sorts of things. I just ride the bike.

There is one thing, though, that is just an out and out pain: unmounting and mounting the seat.

Motorcycle design has changed in a huge way since 1980 and getting the seat off and on is one in which the improvement is especially huge. On both my 1999 Kawasaki Concours and my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom all you have to do is insert the key and turn it, then pop the seat off. To put it back on you just position it properly and press down till it clicks. Couldn’t be simpler.

Not so on the CB.

On this bike there are two bolts that go through holes in two flanges that extend downward from the seat frame. You can see the flange in the photo at right. These bolts screw into the frame of the bike. Under the best conditions this is a simple process with a wrench. I do not enjoy the best conditions.

First off, the seat, after 41 years, seems not to be completely symmetrical and so I find it necessary to lay across the seat from the left, putting my weight on the seat to push it down just enough to free up the bolt. Then on the right I have to lift the seat just enough to free up the bolt.

On top of that, when I first bought the bike it came with a sissy bar already on it, which is great, I like that. But the rail attaches the sissy bar to the frame of the bike in a way that blocks access to the seat bolts. I don’t have to take the sissy bar off, but it is definitely awkward reaching around it to get at the bolts.

What this amounts to is that an operation that takes about three seconds on my other two bikes takes at least five minutes on the Honda and I need to have the proper tools to do it. OK, so if this is the toughest thing I’ve got going in my life I know I’m not getting any sympathy from anyone. And I’m not asking for sympathy–just making note of one of life’s little irritations. I’ll live with it. Heck, I’ve lived with it for more than 30 years already.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if your ponytail comes off with your cap.

I took the Honda for a ride to see how the set-up I had used on this new Viking Bags tank bag was going to be secure. It was, but I figured I could configure it better. So I did.

As you can see from the picture above I no longer have the straps looping back over the sides of the tank. As the other picture shows, they now go into the cleft where the tank fits over the spine of the frame and around the steering column. Dipping below the tank it then loops around a couple frame members to hold it securely. In doing this I was very conscious of positioning the strap to not crimp any cables or wires or anything, and to not be located such that movement of the bars left and right would cause rubbing and wear.

In short, I think it’s well set up and should be fine for the long term, though I will check it periodically at least for a while so as to be sure.

So, so much for set-up. What about the bag itself? The first thing you have to understand about any Viking Bags product is that they are targeting the lower-priced end of the market. If you want premium quality and are willing to pay for it, buy Harley gear. If you want something that is perfectly satisfactory but maybe a little rough around the edges for a very affordable price, then Viking does a very good job.

That said, the bag has a fairly large storage space that can unzip to create a really large space. If you wanted to stand a water bottle upright at the back end, closest to you, there would be no problem at all. The detachable map case (Velcro) is a good size: 8-1/2 x 10. That’s big enough to fit a full two-panel section of most maps.

There is also a small zippered pocket on the bottom portion of the rear, rider-end of the bag that you could use small items you want quick access to. Some tank bags have a softer, grippy base layer that is actually in contact with the tank, that keeps the inevitable rubbing from wearing away at your paint. That’s one of those premium items that you pay more for; don’t look for that with this bag. I may try to come up with something to put under there to protect the paint–it seems like maybe a chamois cloth would work well–or I may just ignore it. Probably the latter. I mean, I’m assuming the material is nylon, and nylon won’t scratch the paint; it’s the grit that gets in between the bag and the tank that does the damage.

I really think I’m going to like having this bag. It’s a good size and can carry my rain suit so I won’t need to put the saddle bags on for that. I’ve been sold on tank bags for a long time. Now I finally have one on the Honda.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you lie to your wife in order to spend more quality time with your bike.

I’ve had a tank bag for my Kawasaki Concours for years and it’s been great. More recently I got a tank bag for my Suzuki V-Strom and it’s a very welcome addition as well. But I’ve never had a tank bag for my Honda CB750 Custom. I’ve felt that lack. Well, now I have one.

I took the bag from the Kawi with me on the Honda one trip and utterly regretted that. Whereas on the Connie it sits–with magnetic attachment–on a broad gas tank with wind protection from the fairing. On the Honda the tank was probably OK, not great, but with no fairing the wind wanted to lift it up and throw it around and I spent that whole trip fighting to keep it in place. A real horror! Nope, I needed a tank bag that straps down securely for the Honda.

So, as I often do, I received an email from the folks at Viking Bags offering to give me some gear in exchange for my testing and reviewing it. Usually I ignore these emails because one person really only needs just so much gear. But this time I figured what the heck, it would be nice to have a tank bag for the Honda.

Of course, nobody makes bags today designed specifically for a motorcycle made in 1980. But Viking does offer bags designed to fit many specific makes and models so I looked at what they had for Honda and picked one that struck me as possibly working on my Honda. I chose to go with the Viking Dirtman Medium Black Dirt Bike/Enduro Tank Bag.

I received the bag Saturday and immediately took it out to put it on the bike. I knew this might be less than straightforward.

The first thing I knew I needed to do was to remove the seat and loop the back strap under the slot where the tongue on the seat slips in to be held in place. That was easy, although removing the seat on this bike is never easy. That particular design element is so much better these days than it was in 1980.

Attaching it in front was not so simple. On this old bike, the gas tank straddles the backbone of the bike’s frame and wraps around the steering post. I slipped the straps into that V and then brought them back up to the bag. I wasn’t sure this was going to work but when I tightened everything down it did seem to do the job. The real test will be when I take it for a ride and see how it does.

I also had to figure out just what to do with the rest of the straps and I kind of jerry-rigged that.

It appears secure. What I like about it is that, as the name implies, this bag is designed for a dirt bike so it sits back on the tank, pretty much in the space where the actual tank on my Concours is. This leaves me free access to my gas cap so unlike with the other two, I won’t need to remove the bag to put gas in the tank.

Right now the strap comes up the side of the tank and that is a bit unsightly so I will probably try setting it up differently but for now it looks like it will work. I’ll be following up this post with an actual description of the bag and discussion of its features. I’ll also explain there how I finally decide to handle all this set-up.

In the meantime, I think it’s going to be really nice to finally have a tank bag on this bike. Heck, I’ve had this motorcycle for 33 years.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 5. Bonus at work? We’ll buy shiny bits for our bike instead of taking you on a romantic vacation.

It turns out that I have drawn from this Adventure Rider thread more recently than I remembered. Oh well, there’s a lot more where this came from. The idea is, what stupid questions have people asked you when you’re on your bike and stop somewhere? Here are some of them.

• Who makes Triumph? (I get this one a lot at gas stations).
• Stupid woman: “Motorcycles are dangerous!”
  Me: “Don’t you mean ‘riding motorcycles is dangerous’?”
  SW: “Yes.”
  Me: “Most people die in bed. So, where do you sleep?”
• In ’64 my buddy and I rolled up to the ranger’s hut at the Wildrose Station entrance to Death Valley on a pair of Vespa 125s on our way from San Jose to the Grand Canyon. Hard to mistake those Vespas – floor board / fairing front end with “VESPA” in big letters. The ranger leans out and comments,
  “Hondas, huh? How do they take the hills?”
• Got the Classic again last week.
  Nitwit “What is that?”
  Me “KTM 950 Adventure”
  Nitwit “Who makes it?”
  Me “KTM”
  Nitwit “Oh Its a Kawasaki”
  Me “Uhm,,,,,, Yeah”
  Pulled my helmet on and rode away laughing
• Stopped at a stop light in ATGATT. Crotch Rocket Guy pulls up next to me in T-shirt, shorts, and sneaks.
  CRG: “Planning on falling down?”
  Me: “Nope. Planning on getting up if I do.”
• Had a girl ask me not long ago how I was able to get my pipes such a pretty blue color!
• Riding to work each day in winter, other employees getting out of their cars in the parking lot without coats or jackets would ask me, “Aren’t you cold?”
  Nope, I’m the one with the warm coat.
• The receptionist has asked me if it’s hard to keep the motorcycle upright and if I can go as fast as a car.
• I stopped at a deli the other day and this woman looked at my jacket & boots and asked me if I was going skiing.
• A guy walks up from the rear of the bike and asks “How far of a trip are you on this time” I am less than 5 miles from the house, no luggage, tank bag, or anything strapped down on the tail rack, and I have Indiana plates on the bike in Indiana.
• Does that jacket make you hot?
  Nawww… but my wife thinks it does.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you own more black T-shirts then underwear.

Yeah, we’ve all been asked that question. Or else told by others, despite their dearth of experience, that motorcycles are dangerous.

Well sure, there is some danger but it’s not as if cars are totally safe, and yet these same people think nothing of driving.

But yes, we all know that riding motorcycles comes with its own unique dangers and we need to ride carefully. Despite all our care, however, sometimes bad things do happen. For instance, I have personally known two people who have lost a leg in a motorcycle crash. One is Randy, in the photo above. His loss didn’t stop him from riding.

The other was a guy named Warren. This goes way back, and it really leads me to my topic today.

I have told the story many times about how I was all hot to get a motorcycle when I turned 15, the legal age where I lived at that time. I saved my money and when I hit the age and had the money I announced that I was going to do this and only then did my mother say, “No you’re not. You’ll never own a motorcycle as long as you’re living under my roof.” Totally crushing my dreams.

What I find interesting is that no one has ever asked the question, well, assuming that you moved out of your parents’ house at some point, why did you not get your first motorcycle until the age of 38?

There were a number of reasons, really. For one thing I was extremely poor. By choice, mind you, but poor nevertheless. I got out of school and had no desire to get a job and go to work five days a week, 40 hours a week. So for a number of years I cycled through numerous low-paying part-time jobs that I worked just enough to pay the rent and eat. Heck, I never even owned a car until I was 25, and then I bought one for $250. And I only did that because by then I was living in Denver and hitchhiking, my main mode of transportation, was so abysmally bad in Denver. I couldn’t even hold some crap job if I couldn’t reliably get to it. So I bought a car.

But eventually I did get into working full-time for longer than a couple months here and there, and I even bought better cars. But no motorcycles. Why not?

This is where Warren comes in. I met Warren when I was a senior in high school. He was friends with a friend of mine so the three of us spent a good bit of time together. And Warren was cool. And he rode a motorcycle. Doubly cool.

But then I left town, only coming back to visit. And one time I came back and my buddy told me Warren had been in a crash on his bike and he had lost a leg. Yow! That really hit me. It didn’t stop me from riding someone else’s motorcycle any time I got the chance but it threw serious cold water on my desire to own a bike, at least for quite a while. It wasn’t until more than 15 year later that John got his Virago and started taking me for rides on behind that I got revved up about bikes again and finally bought my own.

So yeah, I know bikes can be dangerous. I totally understand that. But I also know you can ride safely, and I have taken numerous rider training courses to ensure that I do so. I just wish John had gotten that Virago a lot sooner.

Biker Quote for Today

Why am I wearing leathers? I’m just riding to the office.

For the first time in quite a while I have added a new page to the Passes and Canyons: Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website. The new page focuses on the numerous good motorcycle roads that lead to Cripple Creek, and I have named it “Roads to Cripple Creek.”

I don’t add many pages to the site these days because I’ve basically got it built out. It’s not like the roads in Colorado change all that often. I did add a new page for Guanella Pass when they finally paved that road all the way. But that’s not a common occurrence.

I first started thinking about Cripple Creek when I read somewhere that the high point of the road coming into town from the north, from Divide, is considered Tenderfoot Pass. If it’s a pass, I figured, I ought to have it on the site. But it’s kind of iffy as a pass. There is some more or less official registry of geographic place names in the U.S. and Tenderfoot Pass is not included on this list. And as many times as I have been over that road I never thought of it as a pass.

But then I got to thinking. While the road out of the north does have some good twists and turns, and goes up and down, and has some terrific views in places, it’s really probably not the nicest motorcycle road to get to Cripple Creek. There are others I would rate higher. So how about a page focusing on all of them. That’s what I did.

The other paved road into town is generally considered the back way, coming up in a roundabout manner from U.S. 50 a bit to the west of the Royal Gorge. If you’ve never been on this road you really need to do it. It has some terrific twists and lots of changes in elevation. Definitely better than the main road.

Then there are two gravel roads, both along old railroad beds. One comes directly into Cripple Creek, and that’s the Shelf Road, which comes north out of Canon City. Then the Phantom Canyon Road comes north from U.S. 50 a little to the east of Canon City and runs up to Victor, which is just a few miles east of Cripple Creek. Both of these are really nice, scenic road and are ride-able on street bikes as long as your bike is OK on decent gravel. For instance, I would not hesitate to take my Honda CB750 on them, but I would never consider riding them on my Kawasaki Concours. And of course, my Suzuki V-Strom loves that kind of stuff.

The page is not yet complete; I still need to add photos of these four roads. I have some already and just need to add them. For the others I’m going to have to go ride these roads again and get some shots. Oh the horrible burdens I bear!

Biker Quote for Today

The ride keeps me sane. I would like to call it my church.

The RMMRC had an actual get-together in the flesh recently to map out some rides for the upcoming warm months. Anyone with an interest ought to consider coming along.

The RMMRC is now using the Meet-Up site as its home, and actually, as I write this, additional rides are being added.

First, and by the time you read this it will be in progress, is a Death Valley Rondevous. OK, so Mike, who set up this event, doesn’t know how to spell rendezvous; you get that in these days of media open to everyone. We’ll ignore it. This is actually a bit odd as a group ride in that the plan is for anyone interested to get out to Death Valley on their own and meet up there. Here’s how it is described:

Plan to meet at the Ranch at Death Valley – Inside the Park, whichever way you choose to get there. I am planning with several club members to ride 3 days there, leaving Saturday April 17. Will not make firm plans until the week prior, and will adjust the dates if it looks impossible to travel. Most likely will ride to Blanding and Kanab for overnight stays on back roads with as many twisties as possible. You are welcome to come along, and/or choose a different daily route, as you wish.

Undecided for return trip at this time. Probably south via Palm Springs, Joshua Tree National Park, South Rim Grand Canyon, and Pagosa Springs. Something like that. Again, weather determinant.

Flexibility, personal capability, and responsibility to take care of self and others is required. Ride at your own pace and discretion – always.

The next event on the agenda is a ride out to the St. Francis Vintage Motorcycle Museum in St. Francis, Kansas. This is a one-day, out and back ride. Looking at around 375 miles altogether.

Then comes a short day ride in the foothills, followed by a run out to High Plains Raceway for some motorcycle races. Then there will be an overnight ride out to Alliance, Nebraska, to Carhenge. If you’ve never been to Carhenge you need to go. This is a scale replica of Stonehenge, built out of old cars. The OFMC just chanced upon it many years ago when we stopped in the shade of some trees. Someone stepped back in the trees to take a leak and saw something bizarre over on the other side. We were totally blown away.

The whole scene has totally changed since then. The grove of trees is gone and it has been substantially commercialized, but it’s still a mind-blower.

So that’s just a few of the many rides coming up. The RMMRC made the decision a couple years ago to say let’s forget about all this club stuff with meetings and officers and all that. Let’s just ride. If that’s the kind of club you would find interesting you should come along on some of these.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when the only destinations are sunrise and sunset.