Passes & Canyons Blog

Congress is in session and the Motorcycle Riders Foundation continues to press on motorcycle-focused issues that have arisen over the years. Shaping and passing legislation is not a one-shot effort, it requires tireless, persistent, sustained effort to finally get an idea enacted into law.

Each year the MRF organizes an event called Bikers in the Beltway, where organizations and individuals make an effort to speak with senators and congressmen and women to promote this legislation and to educate these elected officials about the issues. This year and last the effort was less in person than usual and more virtual. But it was done, and that was in early May.

The number one priority for the MRF this year has been the once-every-five-years highway bill. The group’s position states: The highway bill is a vital part of our transportation policy making system. The opportunity to dramatically impact our surface transportation system comes around only once every five years. Using this legislative vehicle to include important motorcycle specific priorities is a must. The House wisely included many of these provisions during committee markup in 2020. The Motorcycle Riders Foundation is encouraged by the work of the House in 2020 and seeks continued support for motorcyclists in any permanent bill.

The priorities in the bill are:
• Preserving the Motorcycle Education & Awareness Program Grant Funding. (Sec. 3001)
• Preserving the ban on federal funding for motorcycle only checkpoints.(Sec. 3011)
• Preserving the Motorcyclist Advisory Council (MAC) to advise the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration).(Sec. 3013)
• Preserving language that collects motorcyclist profiling data.(Sec. 3505)
• Preserving mandate that autonomous vehicles must detect and respond to motorcycles.(Sec. 5304)
• Preserving the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) Lobbying Ban and expand to other federal agencies.
• Preserving the language that motorcycles are not considered single-occupancy vehicles for HOV lane access.
• Ensure that motorcycles are not banned from federally funded roads.

Some of these issues are obvious. Motorcycles not banned from federally funded roads? Well, duh. Why is it even necessary to state that explicitly in law?

Others not so much. Preserve the NHTSA lobbying ban? I’ll go into details on some of these in my next couple posts.

Meanwhile, if you care about your rights and safety as a motorcyclist you might consider supporting at least one of the several groups working for all of us at both the federal and state levels.

Biker Quote for Today

Oh, my lifestyle offends you? Go hold your breath till I give a damn.

Covid 19 has changed a lot of things. The real question is, will these changes last or will they stick around long after the virus is no longer an issue.

For instance, after being stuck at home interminably, people are hungry to get outside and do stuff. Judy and I like to camp but when we went out last year we had trouble finding a campsite because everyone else was out camping, too. And from the reports, this included a lot of people who had never camped before, not just those of us who have done it since forever.

Will this continue to be the case? Will all these new campers decide they really like this, and will they continue to jam the campgrounds? We’ll find out, won’t we.

A similar thing has happened in the motorcycling world. Motorcycle sales are through the roof.

In a report from the Motorcycle Industry Council, dated May 13, new bike sales increased 37.2 percent in the first quarter of 2021, compared to last year. And the increases were reflected in all of the on-highway, off-highway, dual-purpose, and scooter categories.

That’s incredible. And unlike camping, where lots of new campers can crowd out those who have done it for a long time, getting one new motorcyclist on the road doesn’t negatively impinge on us old-timers at all. It’s definitely a case of the more the merrier.

It could get a little congested on the off-road areas, however. The MIC report says that “Year-to-date sales of dual-purpose motorcycles were up the most, by 47 percent.” Wow. But maybe these folks are more like me, not necessarily wanting to go off on trails so much as just not wanting to pass by all these gravel roads and never finding out where they go.

There are so many ways that Covid has changed things and some of them are for the better. Let’s hope we can hang onto the good ones.

Biker Quote for Today

Look at that badass on that Can-Am Spyder said no one ever.

My 1999 Kawasaki Concours is a far better bike than my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom. So why is it that it has always been very clear in my mind that it is just more fun to ride the Honda? I think I figured it out awhile ago: Weight.

It just make sense. I’ve ridden scooters a number of times and the one thing I keep saying about them is that scooters are fun! And of course, scooters are light. When you’re riding a scooter – at least a small one; there are some big scooters – you’re not concerned about tipping over. There is zero chance when you come to a stop that you’re going to drop the thing. It’s too light. That leaves you free to just go zipping around and enjoy the ride.

It’s a very different matter when you’re on a heavy motorcycle. My CB weighs around 580 pounds wet. At 580 pounds, the CB is nowadays a mid-sized bike, though when it was new it was considered a big bike. It also sits reasonably low, so all that weight is easy to manage – usually.

My Connie, on the other hand, weighs 675 pounds wet and the 7.5-gallon gas tank sits way up high, making it pretty top-heavy. Especially when it was new, you’d better believe I put a lot of my focus on just keeping it up whenever I was stopping or standing. I’ve had the bike for 22 years now, so I’ve gotten used to it but I still don’t take it for granted. I’ve dropped it a couple times and I know that if it leans a little too far there is nothing in the world I can do to stop it from going all the way over.

Then one summer I had the chance to ride a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Classic for two days. This bike weighs about 860 pounds. Talk about struggling to keep that thing up at times! On the highway it was a great motorcycle but I hated it in city traffic, and the weight was the biggest part of what made that so unpleasant.

More recently, although we’re talking about eight years ago, I bought a Suzuki V-Strom 650. This bike weighs 490 pounds wet. Compared to my Connie it feels so light and easy to handle that it’s just a kick. Which is to say: Fun!

So it hit me, way back whenever. The more weight, the more focus you have to put on the bike. The less weight, the more you can focus on the ride. And I’ve said many, many times, I’m not into motorcycles, I’m into riding motorcycles. I love it when all of sudden things make such sense.

Biker Quote for Today

What’s sexier than a curvy girl with tattoos and a cute face? A curvy girl with tattoos and a cute face who riders her own motorcycle.

I hadn’t even heard it was being considered and now I get a note that Oregon has in fact approved lanesplitting, although the governor has not yet signed the bill. Yahoo. Little by little acceptance of this entirely sensible practice continues to spread across the country.

UPDATE–Much to the surprise of many, the governor vetoed this bill. Here’s the story: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/05/26/gov-kate-brown-vetoes-bill-allowing-lane-splitting-by-oregon-motorcyclists/

Of course, each state handles it differently so that will make for some real confusion at some point. California is the most permissive. Here’s a breakdown of what Oregon will be enacting, courtesy of a post on Adventure Rider.

SB574 would legalize lane sharing under limited conditions:
Highways only:
lane-sharing allowed only on roads with a posted speed limit of 50MPH or higher
Traffic on the road:
must be stopped, or moving at 10 miles per hour or less
The rider:
may travel no more than 10 miles per hour faster than traffic
must not impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic
must safely merge with traffic, if traffic speed exceeds 10 miles per hour
must pass traffic traveling in the same direction
Riders cannot lane share:
between a traffic lane and the curb and bicycle lane (on either side)
between a traffic lane and a row of parked vehicles (on either side)
on the right side of the rightmost lane of traffic, or the left side of the leftmost lane of traffic
in a school zone
Riders should also use common sense when lane sharing, and err on the side of caution: “If you can’t fit, don’t split”.

That looks fairly reasonable to me. Three cheers for Oregon.

Biker Quote for Today

We know you’re a poser if you spend more time shining your bike than riding it.

With the weather warm and everyone getting back out on the road it’s time once again to be aware of the hazards. Here’s another installment of the crazy things motorcyclists have encountered on the road, courtesy of Adventure Riders.

• Freaking goat was standing in the middle of the road recently! Fairly big dude with a serious set of horns. Figured he got out of someone’s pasture and was wandering so I stopped, he didn’t get aggressive when I approached (ATGATT, helmet still on) so I led him to the side of the road and down a driveway. Called 911, local sheriff laughed when I told them what I found. I said – your problem, I’m leaving and rode away.
• I found a pig wandering down the Middle of the Blue Ridge Parkway near the VA/NC border. When I finished laughing I stopped. Pig came running up, obviously someone’s pet. Texted a picture to my wife – she said hell no! So I called the rangers and rode away.
• This summer I was T-boned by a domestic sheep. Scooted the back end sideways but that’s it. In the spring in a canyon going to Red River, NM a Big Horn sheep ram challenged a couple on a Harley. The ram did a head on with the bike, sent the woman over the handlebars and she died. Crazy Big Horns will run into anything, moving or sitting still!
• I’m not sure if this counts. I was riding in The Villages FL. I was stopped at a traffic signal minding my own business and some old dude side swipes my front wheel while crossing the intersection in his Yamaha golf cart. This was a Hit & Run! I was laying on the ground laughing in disbelief at what just occurred. I wasn’t hurt, just amazed at golf cart traffic in that retirement community.
• I hit something with my chest while road riding in eastern PA several years ago. I’m not sure what it was, because it exploded. It was about softball sized covered in fur, full of blood, and suspended in midair in the middle of the day. My guess is either a confused bat or an unlucky squirrel that had fallen out of a tree at just the right time for me to intercept it.
• I was riding 100′ behind my son in North Washington and watched a huge Bald Eagle swoop off it’s nest, down toward my son and extended it’s talons and swept inches by his helmet. Like he was trying to pluck a fish from the water. That thing had a 4-5′ wingspan. Never a camera on when you need it.
• Night time. Three lanes of traffic. Arlington Va. Two lanes full of tractor trailers. I’m in the #1 lane just whizzing by, minding my own business when the trucks swerve partly into my lane as I’m even with the lead truck’s cab. Just then, I see what I thought was a paper bag blowing around in my lane, but it was a big hub cap, spinning and skittering all around in front of me. I barely managed to not get hit by the truck, swerve my way around the hub cap, just in time for the little sedan that had the tire blow-out and subsequent hub cap ejection, to swerve into my lane, missing me by literal inches.
• On a very windy afternoon ride home on I-580 many years ago, I was drafting a pickup towing a boat. Evidently, the boaters had left a number of bags of groceries in the open boat and the wind was whipping them around/tearing them up. The truck rolled over a chunk of lumber laying in the road and when the trailer hit it, something popped up out of the open boat. As I swerved to avoid the hunk of 2×4 in the road, a full can of beer went sailing by inches from my head. I saw the can explode in my mirror when it hit the pavement behind me.
• Buzzard. Buzzards actually. On my 250, I hit two of them in one day. For some odd reason, the were running across the road and I hit them with my left footpeg and foot. You would think that they would cross at crosswalks, but NOOOOO. They have to cross wherever they damn well please. No self discipline whatsoever. But then I hit one on my Beemer. I live in the Ozarks and was having way too much fun on a roller coaster road. Came up over a steep hill and saw some movement on my left. Hit the brakes and watched it fly right into my clutch lever, explode, roll up my arm and smack me in the helmet. Hit hard enough that I saw stars and repeated the mantra ” don’t pass out, don’t pass out, don’t pass out” until I could pull off to the side of the road. Put the sidestand down and fell off of the bike. Crawled over to the side of the road, drank water and breathed deeply for awhile until recovered. I was getting tired of the stench of the feedyard I had parked next to until I realized there was no feedyard nearby. The front of my jacket was covered with buzzard guts and whatever it had for lunch. I skipped lunch that day.
• Magpie, at speed and it flew through my front wheel, well part way through anyway. Then I had to put up with the smell of KFC for the next 40km, stopped for gas, went into pay and the guy at the cash register leapt backwards. “Um?” He couldn’t speak, just pointed at the mirror behind one of the racks, yeah I took a step back as well, covered in blood and feathers. I looked like a walking satanic ritual.

Yep. Ride motorcycles. Come for the fun; stay for the excitement!

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if when she says “It’s the bike or me!!” you have to think about it really hard.

I got a notification from Jerry Pokorny of an event that might be interesting if you’d be inclined to head up to Steamboat Springs in a couple weeks. It’s called the Premier & Classic Weekend.

So what is this Premier & Classic Weekend? Well, for starters, the AHRMA is the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association. Which is to say, this is a group that stages vintage motorcycle races. You can fill in the rest.

This event will be held at the Jenny Ranch, outside Steamboat, at 37850 Routt County Road 45. It starts on Friday, June 4, and runs through the weekend. There will be a dual-sport ride on Friday, vintage trial racing on Saturday, and premier and classic scrambles on Sunday. If you just want to watch, admission is $10 per day. If you want to bring your old bike and participate, entry fees are $30 or $40 depending on the event. If you want to stay the weekend, there are local accommodations or you can camp on the ranch for $10 per night. A catered dinner is available on Saturday night for $15 per person.

So what’s actually going to be going on, besides the chance to see some very cool motorcycles in action? Let’s take trials. Per the AHRMA website:

Observed trials is a very significant part of historic motorcycle competition. It began as a wintertime sport for European enthusiasts, who tested themselves by tracing ancient Roman roads. These riders negotiated various obstacles along the way, all of which gave test to both man and machine. As the “gentleman’s sport” developed, such obstacles became more specific, and more challenging. From the 1980s until today, the obstacles presented to trials competitors have been inconceivable for most motorcycle riders.

AHRMA’s observed trials goal is to provide its members a safe, historically accurate environment to showcase and experience vintage machinery. The key to this enjoyment is the observed sections. From the 1950s into the ‘70s, sections were mainly composed of wide-open areas of challenging terrain, with the rider’s choice of line determining his/her success. Observed sections reminiscent of this era are critical in AHRMA’s representation of classic observed trials. With period-accurate sections, machines will remain true to their original concept, and the techniques required to ride them will do the same, enhancing the entire vintage trials scene. The trials-riding experience will undoubtedly result in good friends, good rides and good fun.

So. Could be a fun weekend. Will I be there? No, I’ll be in some state about a thousand miles to the east on that weekend. But you might consider it. If you do, and you want to send me some photos and a report I’ll be glad to publish them. Thanks.

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t ride my bike to win races, not do I ride to get places. I ride to escape this world. I ride to find peace with myself. I ride to feel free and I ride to feel strong.

The folks who put together the Backcountry Discovery Routes have had a lot of fun, I’m sure, putting together backcountry routes through 10 states in the last 10 years. Butler Maps offers maps of these routes and they have sent me several of them. I’ve never ridden any of these routes but that’s not from lack of desire to do so.

Every year they put together a film of the development of that year’s route and now, at 10 years, they have put together a 10-year retrospective film. While that film will not be available for viewing until June 1, there is a trailer available now. Yeah, it looks like fun.

So, I don’t have a link right now but they say the full film will be available for free viewing as of June 1 on YouTube, Vimeo, and Amazon Prime. I’m sure a simple search will get you to it. Particularly if you search for “Ride BDR: A 10-Year Retrospective Film.”

I had hopes when they were mapping out the Colorado BDR that I might get to be part of the group but that didn’t happen. I have a somewhat distant connection to these folks and that connection seems to get weaker each year, but back then I had hopes. Didn’t happen. I’m sure they had plenty of people who wanted to go but they had to be selective.

So come June 1 we can all go see what we’ve been missing.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: You can ride a motorcycle any time of the month.

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.