Passes & Canyons Blog

Motorcyclists lane split in Bangkok, Thailand. Lane splitting is common practice in much of Asia and Europe. (Roland Dobbins via Wikimedia Commons)

While I don’t think anybody expects the lane splitting/filtering proposal currently in the Colorado legislature to pass, at least not this session, there continues to be discussion within the biker community of the issue. Here’s some of what is being said.

Not surprisingly, Stump, ABATE of Colorado’s legislative liaison, has been talking with legislators and others. This is from Stump:

One main concern is lane splitting with traffic moving at 40 mph. The sponsor’s main premise for lane splitting is that motorcyclists stuck in stop-and-go traffic when it’s 90+ degrees out, sitting on top of an engine making it a lot hotter, with an air cooled engine that isn’t getting any air, is both dangerous for the motorcyclist and bad for the motorcycle. But if traffic is moving at 40 mph, isn’t the rider and motorcycle getting air? I’m thinking it should be more like Utah and Arizona where traffic has to be stopped or at most traveling at 10 mph.

Another concern is that the bill specifies CSP and CDOT do the study. How about involving stakeholders such as motorcycle organizations, insurance companies, the trucking industry, and manufacturers. Virginia’s Lane filtering study invited 22 different organizations to participate and got a lot more pertinent data.

Also, the sponsor hasn’t explained the difference between lane splitting and filtering, which is something the legislators should know. Lane splitting is done primarily on freeways and filtering is done mainly on urban streets with speeds posted at less than 45 mph, filtering to the front of stopped traffic at traffic lights.

At my meeting with the bill sponsor this week, he informed me that these issues are going to be addressed. I don’t know if he plans to introduce an amendment about these concerns or just discuss them at 2nd reading. So, I’ve been addressing these concerns with 4 of my “friendly” legislators ensuring that these issues are addressed at 2nd reading, either with amendments or at least meaningful discussions.

Stump also sent around a photo with the the message, “Is this what Colorado is going to look like if lane splitting passes? (Note all the helmets too!)” That would be the photo above. And no, I seriously doubt this is what Colorado would look like. There are just a heck of a lot more motorcycle riders in Thailand than there will probably ever be here.

Deb had this to say:

Thanks for the update, Stump. Now I wonder if any/all of you saw the 9news report on this bill. The video shows a bike splitting between two cars on the highway while doing a wheelie.

Here’s the link to the video that showed yesterday. The part with the wheelie is about 1:57 in. Study may allow motorcycles to split lanes | 9news.com The reporter also made a short comment on the wheelie. The video this morning ran the part with the wheelie twice.

The segment really seems mostly pretty fair but the inclusion of that lane-splitter wheelying his way through traffic is very much over the top and does not strike me as a good journalistic thing to do. And guaranteed to make the general public strongly object to allowing this change.

So anyway, the thing is just hanging at this point. I’ll do an update when there is actual news.

Biker Quote for Today

Put vibrations in your life, marry a motorcycle rider.

The home page of the A&M Moto Toys website.

This is long overdue. I have been acquainted at a distance for quite a few years now with Mark Odette. We have never met but we connected back when I was writing for Examiner.com and I was putting together a series of articles on the antipathy in the sportbike community to ABATE. (It was pretty much all about helmets.)

At one point way back then Mark suggested we meet up somewhere and do a ride together. That never came together, though. But we’ve been connected on Meetup for years now. And it was through Meetup something over a year ago that I became aware that Mark set up his own motorcycle rental outfit. I made a note immediately to contact him and do a blog post about his endeavor. This is finally that post.

The company is called A&M Moto Toys LLC and they have a website plus a Facebook page. Everything I’m about to tell you comes from those two sources because I never have connected directly to Mark.

The thing that really stands out here is that unlike so many motorcycle rental places offering street bikes, Mark is offering dirt bikes. What bikes does he have? Here’s the list from the website: 2022 Talaria Sting; 2022 GPX Moto FSE450R; 2022 GPX Moto FSE300R; 2022 GPX Moto FSE250E; 2022 Rieju MR300 Pro; 2019 Beta 390 RRS. He also list these as bikes he intends to add to the fleet: 2022 Moto GPX TSE300R; 2022 Moto GPX 450 Rally; Moto GPX Adventure 500; Kawasaki KLR 650 Adventure.

The company is located in Monument. It says they serve Colorado Spring, Denver, and Pueblo. No prices given but the banner across the home page touts “Affordable Rentals.” Considering that some Harley rentals will run you up to $200 a day, I wonder what affordable means here. In my mind I’d be looking for maybe around $100 a day, but I have no idea really.

It also appears that Mark deals in parts. He lists a variety of manufacturers being represented.

That’s kind of it in a nutshell. You can reach Mark at contact@ammototoys.com.

And then there’s one other interesting note I turned up looking over the A&M Moto Toys website. Mark generously lists information on another rental outfit run by a friend called Ride With Will Rentals. This outfit offers ATVs as well as dirt bikes and will even handle lodging for you if you’re coming in from out of town. This company is headquartered in Pueblo West.

So hey, want to go dirt riding but don’t have a dirt bike? Now you know where to go.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you can t imagine your life without riding or the memories of riding.

Aren’t you going to get wet going through that water?

In a lot of instances you’ll hear that there are no stupid questions and that’s because it’s not stupid to ask if you don’t understand. At times, though, the answer seems so obvious that you do have to wonder. Adventure Rider has a thread for people to post the stupid questions they have been asked and I’ve dipped into it before. Here are some more.

• The one I seem to get most often is: “Nice bike, who makes KTM?” At first I tried to explain it to people. Now I just tell them KTM is my initials and that I put it together in my garage.
• At the end of August, I was on a group ride in the Gorge with about 6 other guys, all dressed in various types of MC gear. It is a blazing summer day, 95+ degrees. We stop for ice cream at Cascade Locks. I’m trying to take a group pic when a woman comes up, points at my day-glo yellow mesh jacket and asks in an incredulous tone: “Have you boys been skiing?”
• The Kawi Voyager XII has louvers in the lowers and of course the question is ” Does that have A/C?” “Yes it does, A/C in the winter and heat in the summer.” Some get it, others, not so much.
• A cute little blond girlie with large mammaries, sidles up to me as I was donning my gear after quaffing a cold beer and asks “Would you take me for a ride on your bike?” Duh!
• Had a girl ask me not long ago how i was able to get my pipes such a pretty blue color!
• “Alberta, what state is that in?”
• Can’t tell you how many times I have just gotten off my bike (I’m wearing my one-piece Aerostich) during the summer months and somebody just has to ask: “Are you cold?” Standard answer: “I’m freezing, aren’t you?”
• Him: That run OK? Me: You didn’t see me push it here now did you?
• Lady: what’s that wire for coming out of your jacket? (electric vest) Wise-ass answer: that’s a booster for my pacemaker.
• Dumbest thing was a 20ish year old guy’s comments at a gas station. He looks at my boxer and says, “must be fast with 2 big ‘motors’ like that.”

OK, what’s your vote? Are there stupid questions or not?

Biker Quote for Today

What kind of a motorcycle does a pirate ride? An Arrrrley Davidson.

That’s snow coming, those clouds off in the distance.

The first of the month was two days earlier, so that meant I had three motorcycles to ride. It was an overcast day but not particularly cold and the forecast was for much colder soon. I figured it was a day to ride; I chose the V-Strom.

I wasn’t going to be fooled this time; I wore my riding pants with the lining in plus long underwear. It didn’t take any time at all to find that this was definitely the right choice. I’m stupid sometimes but not all the time.

I had no idea where to go. I just got on DTC Boulevard and headed south. That road turns into Yosemite and I just kept going. At County Line Road I turned west. It occurred to me that it had been years since I’d gone more than a few blocks on County Line Road so what the heck, I’d just take it all the way to Santa Fe Drive.

It was a nice ride, not a lot of traffic at all. And all the way west I could see clouds bunching up over the foothills. That’s weather coming in. Maybe I could find a good spot to do a picture of the bike and the clouds. This is the kind of thing that drives a lot of my rides. I don’t have any clear destination but I decide I want a particular type of photograph and then I go somewhere that I can get that shot.

The temperature was dropping, but I had my electric vest keeping me warm so it was not at all unpleasant. Meanwhile, it was fun being out on the bike. None of us get in enough riding time at this time of year.

I blasted north on Santa Fe, to Belleview, then turned east to home. Ten minutes after I got home I looked out and it was snowing. OK, I guess that worked out pretty darn well. Now I have two more bikes that need to be ridden.

Biker Quote for Today

A motorcycle shop is the only place riders like window shopping.

In the fourth year of our OFMC trips we were starting to get our act together. At least we were a little more prepared. Mainly we were learning to make our decisions contrary to what most people do. The benefit is avoiding crowds.

We headed up to Laramie that first day not at all tuned into the fact that Frontier Days was going on in Cheyenne at that time and, just as with the Sturgis rally, the crowds fill up accommodations far beyond the one town. There was not one motel room available in Laramie. But in those days we carried tents and sleeping bags so we found a KOA, and they always have a spot of grass you can claim as your own.

Next day we blazed across Wyoming, just burning up miles, stopping that night in Lander. We cruised the next day to Jackson but even in those days Jackson was getting out of hand. I had last been there in 1976 and it was then just a small town and not yet the tourist Mecca it became later. By the time we got there it was well on its way toward Mecca. So rather than stay there we headed over Teton Pass down to Victor, Idaho.

That was our first really good decision. No hustle, no bustle, rooms cheap, good food. Plus, the pass was a nice ride. We liked Victor so much that we stayed there again a few years later, this time by planned intent. I will note, however, that these days, Victor has now seen much of the same sort of expansion and development that Jackson was going through then. A sleepy little town no more.

Most of the tourists to the Tetons head for the east face of the mountains, over at Jackson and in the park. Coming to the west side we got to enjoy a view of the mountains that most tourists never see, and there were zero crowds. And really pretty country.

We headed north along the west side of the mountains and got to West Yellowstone. We didn’t want to get into the thick of the crowds in Yellowstone so we stayed in the northern part of the park, crossing over to the northeast exit out of the park. Another good choice.

We came out of the park at Silver Gate and went on to Cooke City and here we had a decision to make. It was the middle of the afternoon and there were hours of sunlight left but we wondered if we wanted to push on over the Beartooth Pass today or spend the night and go tomorrow. The decision was almost made for us by the fact that we were having trouble finding an available room in town. But finally we spoke with a woman who told us she did have a cabin that she didn’t normally rent out and it wasn’t made up but if we just wanted a place to roll our sleeping bags out on bare beds we could have it quite inexpensively. We took it.

The next day we bundled up with all the warm clothes we had and started up the pass. Up at the top of the pass there is a little store and we stopped there to warm up and stretch a bit. Talking with the proprietor we learned what a very good choice we had made the night before.

He said the night before they were just closing up shop for the night when a group of riders on Gold Wings had stopped in. It was starting to be dusk and the road was starting to ice up. Would it be OK, they asked, if the proprietor and his wife could drive down into Cooke City behind them, slowly, so they could take advantage of their headlights to help see the road, and the ice on the road, better? Sure, you bet.

So down they went, slowly, white-knuckled. He said they winced numerous times as they saw one bike or another slipping on the icy road, but they all made it down safely. And this was exactly what we would have encountered at the other end if we had gone over the night before. Except we wouldn’t have had the benefit of his headlights. We were learning a good lesson: Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t push it.

The next couple days were uneventful until we got into Nebraska and were bending toward home. At a rest stop we met another guy on a bike who informed us that Nebraska was “a bucket state.” Oh, we didn’t know that, and we had not been wearing our helmets. Thanks. And then we rode on further till we pulled off on a wider area of shoulder to stretch our legs. There was a hedgerow of trees on the east side of the highway and the shade was welcome.

But Bill thought he saw something odd through the trees and wanted to go investigate. We followed a path through and came out onto the most amazing sight we could have imagined. Here were all these cars, planted upright in the ground, and a few spanning other upright cars. We had stumbled onto Car Henge, outside of Alliance. What craziness was this?!

Nowadays if you visit Car Henge it is a well-known tourist stop and there is a shop and toilets and it’s all developed. Back when we first found it, it was just out there in a field. No signs to explain it, nothing. Just a bunch of cars painted gray and half buried in the ground. We only learned what it was all about when we got into Alliance and asked somebody. If someone asked me what is the strangest thing you ever stumbled onto it would be Car Henge hands down. And the trees are all gone now so it’s plainly visible from the road. But not back then.

No more adventures the rest of this trip. But we still talk about this one. What a great trip.

Biker Quote for Today

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to ride a motorcycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.

Ever ridden here? You could. (Google Maps)

I got wind of this trip that is being planned just before I went to this month’s meeting of the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club. I was very interested. Until I heard the dates. Count me out, guys.

As currently scheduled, the day after the guys and I leave on the annual OFMC trip, whichever of the RMMRC folks who end up going will board a plane and fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they will rent motorcycles and do a two-week trip around Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. Does that sound like a killer trip? I sure thought so and I was definitely planning to go.

But we’ve already got the OFMC trip planned, scheduled, and reservations made. Sadly, I will not be going to Canada.

You could, though. You may not be an RMMRC member but you could be easily enough. You just join on Meetup for $12 a year and you’re in.

Make no mistake, this is going to be an expensive trip. The airfare is expected to run around $500–not bad. But plan on the bikes costing around $150 per day. Figure 12 days with the bikes and that comes to $1,800. Figure hotel rooms, double-occupancy, to run maybe half that, or $900. Then there’s food and gas and all the extras–maybe figure another $800. These are just rough figures but that rough figure comes to about $4,000. Still interested? Do it. I sure would. That money’s not going to do me any good when I’m dead. And what a trip.

Or This One
OK, maybe that trip doesn’t work for you. Here’s another one the group is planning, and I do hope to be able to do this one.

With dates not yet set, this trip would head northwest to Idaho and Oregon. Dubbed the Columbia River Gorge Tour, the western-most point of this 10-day ride is to be The Dalles, in Oregon. The stops each night, in order, will be Vernal, Utah; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Missoula, Montana; Enterprise, Idaho; The Dalles, Oregon; John Day, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; Ogden, Utah; Steamboat Springs, Colorado; and home.

Now there are a couple days there that would be a lot of riding, though none so long as several we did on last year’s Great River Road trip. But there is one–and only one–400-mile day. So it’s doable.

And presuming I do go on this ride I plan to very much ride my own ride. I learned on the Great River Road trip that many of these guys like to go long distances without stops, and that is not my style of riding. I’ll be starting out with them in the morning but as soon as I want to make a stop–to stretch my legs, get some photographs, visit an interesting spot–I will say “see you later” and be off on my own. Anyone else on the trip who is more into my kind of easy-going riding would be welcome to join me.

To that end, really, I’m thinking I need to set up my own RMMRC ride and offer it on the website to all who are interested, specifying that this is not a bust-your-butt ride, we’re going to be doing shorter days with plenty of stops. I just have to figure out where to go. Any suggestion?

Biker Quote for Today

Life is like a motorcycle ride. Sometimes it is high speed on the highways, and sometimes it is low speed on rural roads full of potholes. You have to complete it bumps and all.