Don’t Be A Statistic

May 11th, 2023

A bit of police and biker interaction in Laughlin, Nevada.

If it has never happened to you, you are an extreme rarity. By “it” I mean getting stopped by the cops. And when you do get stopped by the cops there are certain things you really should or should not do.

There is a Midwestern law firm called Hupy and Abraham that has put out an article called “10 Rules for Dealing with Police,” which is worth reading. None of this is mind-blowing; it’s really just common sense. But we know how little common sense some people exhibit sometimes. It won’t hurt to run through the list quickly just to refresh your memory about these sorts of things. I won’t just copy and paste it here because I’m not sure about copyright issues, but I’ll give the list and a few comments of my own.

Remain Calm and Cool — This is self-explanatory. We’ve seen all to often of late what can happen if you try to run or you get aggressive toward a police officer. Remember, they have guns. Just cooperate with them.

Never Touch an Officer — Again, totally self-explanatory. Don’t be stupid.

Do Not Give Up Your Rights — If you agree to a search of yourself or your vehicle you won’t have much of a leg to stand on if things go some way you did not expect. Be polite but firmly decline a search. If you choose not to speak or answer questions without a lawyer present, tell them that and then keep quiet.

Ask if You’re Being Detained or Are Free to Go — You have a right to know what’s happening. Ask politely.

Refuse Most Searches — Insist that they have a warrant. They can still pat you down for weapons, and do not resist this.

Do Not Confess to Wrongdoing — You have a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Keep Silent, Do Not Lie — If you wish to remain silent until a lawyer is present, state that clearly. Then keep quiet. And certainly don’t talk and lie–you would really be asking for it then.

Ask for a Lawyer — If you want a lawyer say so immediately. If you are permitted a phone call and you call a lawyer the officers are prohibited from listening to your conversation.

Demand a Warrant for Entry into Your Home — Again, self-explanatory.

Report Misconduct Later and Do Not Argue — Do not resist. This is not the time to argue. Make mental notes of what you feel is wrong and write those down as soon as possible afterward. Then file a formal complaint.

OK, clearly, these are not all “stopped going down the road” sorts of tips. These are tips for any time you deal with the police. Again, I have paraphrased and abbreviated. If you want to read the whole thing visit the website.

The number one key thing here, in my opinion is, Don’t Be Stupid. Being totally in the right means nothing if you’re dead.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you have more pictures of your bike than your kids and grand kids.

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Tales Of The OFMC: The Price Of Curiosity

May 8th, 2023

Having a beer beside the road, but in this case it was when we knew we were stopping for more than an hour, and we only had one.

Years ago, in the early days of the OFMC, we were young and dumb in a lot of ways. We seldom wore helmets and in the beginning we had almost zero actual gear. We also would stop at bars and have a few beers and it was de rigueur for us to stop a couple times every day to smoke some pot. You know, we were immortal and when you’re immortal you do these things.

So one day as we were heading across southern Idaho we stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument and took a hike down into some lava tubes. We went way back in deep and turned off our flashlights to see if we could see anything at all in the total darkness. Give your eyes a few minutes to adjust, then see if you can see your hand in front of your face. No. Not at all. It really is that dark.

Having settled that, John pulled out his pipe and lit up. Just as there is no light down there, there is very little air movement, so I’ve always assumed that when the next visitors came down that tube, long after we were gone, they would smell what we had been up to. Hey, we’re just young guys having fun.

We got back to our bikes with a good buzz on and you might have thought that would have been sufficient but when we got to Arco shortly after there was a bar in the middle of town that was calling our names. We stopped.

It was a typical small-town bar, with a handful of locals enjoying a beer on a hot afternoon. We sat at the bar, returned the greetings from the locals, and ordered beers. Somewhere along the way I noticed this thing hanging from the ceiling. This was one of those bars that has a lot of old implements and stuff to add decor and this thing looked like a pair or big ice tongs except that the ends, rather than being pointed like ice tongs, were rounded. There was also a cord attached to this thing but I didn’t think much about that.

What is this, I wondered. It was just above me, within easy reach, so I reached for it and pulled on it. A bell attached to the other end of the cord rang out and the locals went silent. And they were all looking at me. Oops.

It turns out, as they were all too happy to explain to me, the rules in the bar were that anyone who rang that bell had to buy the house a round. (The object, by the way, was for leading a cow around by the nose. Cow nose tongs. Thus the rounded rather than pointed ends.)

Oh gosh, this is going to cost some money. And you have to understand this was back when I was a poor young guy and didn’t exactly have tons of money to throw around. Bill and John and I quickly conferenced and in the meantime the locals were saying that they would excuse us from the rule this time but we agreed that no, by golly, we would honor the tradition. So another round of beers went out, including to us. The locals thought we were a good bunch of guys.

Came time to head out and we did, with more than a little bit of a buzz. We were headed on to Idaho Falls and we were in a good mood. And it was fun to ride really fast. Inebriation will do that to you.

Fortunately all ended well and we just had a good story to tell. Would we dream of doing something like that today? Of course not! But we did it then, and we always enjoy telling the story. How boring would your life be if you didn’t ever have stories to tell. I know my life has not been boring.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 58. Beer is the base of our food pyramid.

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A Good Ride You Might Consider

May 4th, 2023

Preparing to barge through a herd of cattle outside of Chama, New Mexico.

If anyone wants to accuse me of promoting the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club that’s OK, because I am. I’ve really enjoyed all the rides I’ve been on with this group. With the OFMC we do one ride a year and then only occasional day rides. The RMMRC does a lot of day rides and several big rides every year. And we’d love to have more people joining in.

So here’s another good ride that was just posted for the RMMRC. This is listed on the site as New Mexico Tour 2023.

Leaving on Saturday, June 3, and returning on Thursday, June 8, the first night’s stop will be Montrose. Day two will be down through Colorado into New Mexico, to Gallup. We’ll be staying in Gallup at the historic old El Rancho hotel. This is a very cool place. It’s where all the Hollywood people used to stay when they were filming movies up in Monument Valley and all the rooms are named for the various stars who stayed there.

Day three will end up in Silver City, another very nice place. I’m not sure what hotel we’ll be at but there are a couple really nice old, refurbished places in town. I have no idea what route Bob plans on taking but getting to Silver City pretty much requires that you ride some of the nicest roads in New Mexico.

The next day will be heading back north, to Grants. There is no obvious route I see looking at the map so this is a question mark. It could be one of the less interesting rides of the trip. Or not. I just don’t know.

Then on to Red River. This is another nice town. Nice enough that they hold a motorcycle rally there every year. What more do you need to know?

On the last day it’s just a run toward home. There are several possible routes so hard to say.

Altogether, by a very rough estimate, it looks like about 1,500 miles in six days. That’s really low mileage for an RMMRC trip but very much of the sort I prefer. I’m pretty sure I’m going on this one. What about you?

Biker Quote for Today

The motorcycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.

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Electric Is Great, But . . .

May 1st, 2023

A couple of the early Zero electric bikes. They’ve come a long way since then.

I received an interesting email recently from the Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) about the shift to electric vehicles. It discussed the move by some states, most notably California, to set a point after which no new gas-driven vehicles will be allowed to be sold in the particular state.

In California, for example, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that all new passenger vehicles be zero-emission by 2035. And apparently–I don’t know the mechanism involved here–a number of other states have their laws or regulations tied to California such that if California enacts something like that, it will go into effect in their state, too. That itself is something interesting and news to me.

As you can well imagine, a lot of people in a lot of states are not inclined to follow that lead.

I personally have no issue with having electric vehicles available. They reduce noise and they reduce air pollution. Who could possibly oppose those? Especially if you have solar panels on your roof feeding your electric motorcycle, all you really need is better batteries to enable you to go farther on a charge. And those better batteries are on their way.

But let’s take Harley as one example. Many Harley purists have for years voiced their preferences for sticking with the old tried and true of decades ago. Yes, Harley has steadily introduced high tech improvements, but the basic engine configuration and styling has met the demands of this group. What if, in 12 years, they had no choice but to buy an electric motorcycle? Screaming bloody murder is pretty much a guarantee.

Let me hasten to note that apparently this executive order does not as of yet speak to motorcycles; it’s just passenger cars and trucks. But don’t think that something addressing cars and trucks won’t eventually filter over to motorcycles. Meanwhile, according to this note from the MRF, “In Colorado, the Energy Office said, ‘While the governor shares the goal of rapidly moving towards electric vehicles, he is skeptical about requiring 100% of cars sold to be electric by a certain date as technology is rapidly changing.'”

The bottom line to all this, ultimately, is that at some point–perhaps not within our lifetimes–the simple act of riding a gas-powered motorcycle, or driving a gas car, will be restricted to hobbyists who have the time and money to source the very scarce fuel needed to run them. There will be charging stations available everywhere but gas stations will be a thing of the past.

Hey, the only constant is change. Just 125 years ago nobody ever heard of such a thing as a gas station. And 125 years from now probably most people will be grossed out at the idiocy of vehicles that spew toxic fumes to foul the air.

For now though, I have three gas-powered motorcycles and I intend to ride them as much as I can. It’s not that I don’t care about clean air, . . . I don’t know how to end that sentence. I do care about air pollution but I’m still going to ride my bikes. End of discussion.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you think any motorcycle is too loud.

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Getting It Right

April 27th, 2023

At least on the Elephant Ride nobody guesses wrong about how warmly they need to dress.

How many times have you gone out on your motorcycle and discovered you had not dressed appropriately for the weather? More to the point, how many times have you found yourself thoroughly chilled because you had not anticipated how cold it would be?

If you’re like me you can’t begin to count how many times it has happened because it has happened so very often.

Of course, if you pack away extra layers you can easily stop and put on more if need be, but stopping is an annoyance and also not a great thing if you’re riding with other people. So I try to take a worst-case approach and over-dress just a bit. But sometimes even then I underestimate the cold.

The times I kick myself the most is when I have underestimated the cold and did not pack extra layers. Now I’m really sunk. And I have done that more than just a couple times.

With that kind of background, I inevitably end up over-dressing at times. Boy did I do that the other day.

I looked at the weather app on my phone and it said it was only 40 degrees outside. Yeah, OK, that calls for some very warm layers. Besides my usual t-shirt and flannel shirt I put on my electric vest and a sweatshirt under my leather jacket. That should do it.

I fired up the bike, my Concours, and only then realized that when I had replaced the battery a few days earlier I had left the dongle for the vest tucked under the seat. Now to plug the vest in I would have to stop the bike and pull the key to get the seat off. I didn’t want to do that so I figured OK, if I really get cold I will stop and do it then. But first I’ll just see. Besides, it really didn’t seem like only 40 degrees.

I took off and it was a terrific day to ride. Very comfortable; no need for electrics. I rode a bunch of roads I’ve been on numerous times but this time I put together the route a bit differently than I ever have before, which made it more interesting. And I noticed I was pretty darn warm. But I didn’t do anything about it.

When I go riding by myself it is common for me to just ride–no stopping. And as long as I was riding I was not overly hot, although I was definitely aware that the warmth was a bit much.

Then I got home and stopped and suddenly I was roasting. Did it really warm up that much in an hour? I pulled out my phone and checked the weather app and it was still saying 40 degrees. Really? I tapped it and then it updated. Now it said 68. OK.

One weakness in this app that I have noticed before is that it only updates whenever it darn well feels like it. I’m guessing if I had updated it before I took off it would have shown something closer to 50 or even higher. Just another lesson learned.

Biker Quote for Today

Nothing is harder to start than a used motorcycle being shown to a prospective buyer.

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More Life Than I Could Have Dreamed

April 24th, 2023

Just roll it on in here and plug it in, they told me, so I did.

The weather was nice a few days ago, with a forecast for a lot worse, so I planned to take the Concours for a ride. I geared up, rolled it out, climbed on and pushed the starter. Grunt, grunt, sigh. That motor is not going to start like that. So I hooked it up to my trickle charger and left it for a few hours.

Second try, grunt, nothing. Uh oh, I think I’m going to need a new battery.

I pulled the seat off and removed everything else you have to move to get to the battery and oh man, were those terminals corroded. I couldn’t remember when I put this battery in but clearly it was not any time recently.

First I had to struggle to disconnect the terminals. A screwdriver was not going to do it, and after dissolving away the corrosion they still would not budge. A screw bit in an adapter on a ratchet wrench–lots of leverage–did the job. OK, now I can go get a new one.

But as I set it on the workbench I saw a plastic holder with paperwork stuck on the side and when I looked at the papers I was stunned. I bought this battery in 2010. Thirteen years ago!

I remembered it then. I was writing for Examiner.com at the time and I rode out to Laughlin, Nevada, for the Laughlin River Run. When I was ready to leave home I had to charge the battery a bit to get it to start but didn’t think much about it.

Somehow I made it to Laughlin but once I got there the battery was giving me problems again. I was staying at a private campground and the only place to plug it in was in the club house. The guys who lived there told me to go ahead and just roll the bike into the club house and plug it in. So I did. That’s that photo above.

That really didn’t solve things so I bit the bullet and went to get a new battery. I paid what I recall being an exorbitant price for a new battery, but the guy told me it was a 10-year battery. I wasn’t sure I believed that but I was pretty much over a barrel. And then I pretty much forgot about it, apparently for a very long time.

When the bike was new it always fired up instantly as soon as I pushed the starter button and it has not done that in a long time. Now I see that what was probably going on was the battery was dying a slow, extended death. I put in the new one as soon as I got home with it, hit the starter, and it fired up instantly. How nice.

So now I have a new battery. I’m sure I paid a lot more for this new one, with a three-year warranty, than I did for the old 10-year battery way back then. Inflation. But now I’m going to mark it on my calendar and in three years or so I’m going to start looking around in advance to see where I can find another 10-year battery. Those things are worth it.

Biker Quote for Today

The only part you really need will also be the only part on permanent backorder.

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