Passes & Canyons Blog

I’ve kept a journal off and on all my life, and consistently for the last 40 years. While, for me, the simple act of putting things down on paper is beneficial, it’s also a very interesting thing to go back later and read what you wrote. Here’s something I just ran across, from October of 1992. This was on my Honda CB750, the only bike I had back then.

I stayed a while longer, then got on the bike and headed home. Turning off Federal onto 67th my chain jumped off the sprocket and I had no power but could roll, and did, till the rear wheel locked up right out front. Jack (my neighbor across the street) helped me get it to the garage and this morning he helped me get it back to where I can at least ride it to Legends (a motorcycle shop just up on Federal a couple blocks from me) tomorrow. I’ll need a new chain and who knows what else.

OK, several things here. I had just come across town and this could have happened anywhere but it did happen just about 200 feet from home. How lucky is that!

Also, the chain jumped off the sprocket? How loose must it have been, and how negligent of me not to have noticed. I had been on I-70 much of the way home and what would have happened to me if the chain had come off at 70 mph? I mean, the rear wheel locked up. I might not be here writing this today.

Then there was this a few days later.

Got my bike from the shop. $55 for a new chain and installation but now the foot brake is sticking and causing a problem.

Yeah, you read that right. Just $55 for the chain and installation. Of course back then that was actually a big hit to my wallet. That’s inflation. But inflation is also the reason you can buy a house and have a payment that is a real stretch, but some years later it’s not a stretch at all. I’ve been a beneficiary of that and I’m sure many of you have as well.

I haven’t yet reached the next chapter in this story in my reading but I’ll reconstruct it here from memory.

As I noted, the brake was sticking. I had no idea why. I soon found out.

I was out at about Colfax and Monaco a few days later and the brake seized completely. And it wasn’t the rear brake it was the front brake. I must have gotten things confused previously–I was still pretty new to riding motorcycles at this time.

I pulled off the street and got down to check on the problem and in doing so I touched the brake disc with my finger. Yow! That sucker was so blazing hot it scorched my fingertip and left me with a second-degree burn. This is not good.

I was way across town but I figured this had to have been a result of something the shop did, something they did not set up properly. So I called them and told them where I was stranded and why. And here’s another thing I don’t think you’re likely to see any more: They sent a guy over with a truck and picked me up and hauled me back to the shop–no charge.

It turned out they had adjusted the cable on the brake a little too snugly and apparently the pads were in constant contact with the disc, gradually building up heat and expanding, until things seized. They readjusted it and that was that.

OK, so here’s one caveat. I know both of these events occurred. I’m going from memory saying one led to the other. I may read on in my journal and find that they were separate events. I’m simply not sure at this point. But they both did happen. And they both hark back to my title up above: Things Change. They certainly do. For one thing, that shop is long gone, as motorcycle repair shops seem to have a penchant for doing. And you’re not very likely to get that kind of service these days either. Heck, you go to an Italian restaurant these days and the bread sticks they used to give you are now available for a price.

The only constant is change.

Biker Quote for Today

“My dreams for the future are simple: work, a happy, healthy family, a lovely long motorcycle ride, and continuing the struggle to awaken people to the need for serious human rights reform.” — Mike Farrell

OK, watch this video. Then come back.

Who are these jerks? What the hell do they think they’re doing? I mean, they planned this. They got together, removed their license plates, and then went on this spree. What kind of dips–t does something like that? And this is right here in Denver. That intersection is Colfax and York.

I guess I have nothing more to say.

Biker Quote for Today

What do you call a Harley Davidson with no tires? A groundhog.

I mentioned last time how when I went to plug in my electric vest there was nowhere for me to plug it into. Removing the seat on this 1980 Honda CB750 Custom is enough of a pain that I didn’t get to that right away but I did turn my attention in that direction over the weekend.

Removing the seat would theoretically be easy but in practice it is anything but. The seat has a tongue that you insert into the compartment for it just below the gas tank. But first you have to remove two bolts, one on each side. Easy, right? Well, it might be except I have a sissy bar on the back and the two bolts are very close to each other. Then the bar that is one of the main structural members of the sissy bar, which includes back rest, tool bag, and luggage rack, passes directly over the bolt that holds the seat on.

In other words, I can’t get at it directly. So I slip a box-end wrench under the bar to work the bolt. But that’s not all. When the seat is in place there is stress on the frame of the seat such that the bolt does not turn freely. I have learned that I need to first lay across the seat from the left side to the right, putting my weight on the seat to push it down. In this way I position the bolt hole on the seat frame perfectly around the bolt and then it screws out easily. Next I have to raise the right side of the seat to get the bolt and bolt hole aligned, and then I can unscrew that one.

OK, taking the seat off is really not that big a deal. And I got it off and sure enough, the shop failed to put the two pigtails back on when they worked on the bike this spring. I have two pigtails. One is for my electric vest and the other is for my trickle charger. Neither were there.

Fortunately I have extras because when I sold the Concours earlier this year I stripped off equipment like that. Now I just had to find where I had put them. I wasn’t having much luck finding them but in the process I came across a spare vest connector that I had forgotten I had. Brand new, never been used. They must have been packed two to a package. Cool.

It took a lot of looking but then I did find the stuff I took off the Concours. And wasn’t it fortunate I had found that spare vest connector. I had forgotten that to hook the vest up to the Connie’s circuitry I had to snip off the loops that normally go over the battery posts and replace them with plugs that were inserted into the bike’s outlets. I had kept the loops and I could have reversed the process but with the spare I didn’t need to. Nice.

Next I removed the two side panels in order to get to the battery. Again, theoretically you should be able to remove the side panels with the seat in place. In practice it really isn’t possible. No problem, the seat was off.

So I hooked it all up and was about to put the other things back in place but on this bike the battery has a metal strap holding it in place and that strap has a bumped out spot where the battery cable needs to go. So before you reattach the battery you have to bolt this strap back in place and position the cable properly. I had not done that, so I had to undo the connections, put the cable in place, then redo the connections. Fine, now put the rest of the bike back together.

I got the seat back on, which is a lot harder than getting it off. To get the bolt started you have to hold it with two fingertips and position it just right and then turn it to get the threads started. This can be–and usually is–very awkward. But I got it done. Then I realized I had not put the side panels back on. So I had to remove the seat again, put the side panels on, and then put the seat back on again.

Fun, huh? I know it was my own carelessness that caused me to have to do these things twice. I really shouldn’t forget them because I have made these same mistakes more than once in the past. But dang it, I shouldn’t have had to be doing any of this. If the guy at the shop had done his job properly my connectors would have been where they were supposed to be.

And this was not the first time I’ve had this kind of thing happen. I once started out on a week-long trip after finally getting my bike back from the shop, only to realize about 50 miles out of town that the mechanic had failed to put one of my highway pegs back on. I like highway pegs. I use my highway pegs. And there I was gone on a long trip and one highway peg was not where it was supposed to be.

Yes we all make mistakes, but when I make a mistake no one is paying me for my efforts. I’m paying these mechanics. I think it’s not unfair for me to hold them to a little higher standard. But if I learn any lesson from this it should be that when I get a bike back from the shop I need to go over it carefully looking for exactly this sort of thing. Will I learn that lesson? I’ll keep you informed.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 29. We wake up at 4:00 AM to watch the MotoGP race in Australia.

I wasn’t born knowing how to ride a motorcycle. I had to learn. Neither were you? What a coincidence. Eventually I did learn, however. You did, too? Good for us.

I did not learn by taking a class. Heck, I’m not sure I was even aware back then that classes like that were offered. If I had been I wouldn’t have taken one because I was poor. I was so poor, in fact, that I had to borrow money from my parents to buy my first motorcycle, although I never let them in on that secret till many years later.

Before I bought that bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, I had ridden motorcycles occasionally, although not recently. I had friends when I was younger who had bikes who occasionally let me ride, but it was only good fortune that kept me from crashing them. I didn’t know how to steer properly.

When I bought my Honda, a friend who had ridden scooters as a kid told me he assumed I understood about counter-steering. Nope. Never heard of it. He didn’t know how to explain it, other than you push the bar right to go left, so I was still none the wiser. But I now understood there was something I needed to learn more about.

Whenever I’m new to something I dive in and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, mostly by reading. John’s first bike (as an adult; he had a scooter as a kid) was an old Gold Wing that someone gave him. (Nice, huh? Would like this free Gold Wing? Oh gosh, I don’t know. Sure, I’ll take it.) That was a bit too big a bike for him right off the bat but he rode some with another teacher at his school. Then when that guy died unexpectedly his widow asked if John would like to buy his Virago at a very low price. So John got rid of the Gold Wing and bought the Virago.

Along with the Virago, the widow gave John a bunch of her husband’s motorcycle magazines. These he shared with me. The first issue I ever saw of Rider magazine was the one with the newly introduced Honda Pacific Coast on the cover. I read those magazines cover to cover, including the ads, soaking up every bit of knowledge I could. Soon I was subscribing to Rider and Cycle and passing them along to the guys after I had read them. I still do that.

This–along with practice on the road–was where I learned about counter-steering. Along with a whole lot more.

I also learned about traction management. I’m talking about how you have the most traction when the bike is completely erect and the farther you lean the less available traction you have, right up to the point where you lose traction altogether and go into a low-side crash.

First John got a bike, then I did, then Bill did. We rode together a lot. One thing I quickly noticed was how both of them were able to go faster in the twisties than I could. I initially attributed this simply to the fact that they had both had scooters as kids and so were more experienced than me. Later I also figured out that both of their bikes had lower centers of gravity than mine, which just simply made it easier for them. (It’s funny to think of my Honda as having a high center of gravity. My two other bikes, a 1999 Kawasaki Concours and a 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650 are both very tall bikes and I have long come to consider the Honda as the low one.)

Trying to learn to ride better, and to keep up with them, I took to sitting up straight and leaning my Honda way over. I did not understand the risk that entailed as opposed to leaning my body to the inside of the curve and keeping the bike as upright as possible. But I never crashed and eventually I learned the ins and outs of maintaining traction.

Most of my friends to this day have never taken a riding class. Eventually I was no longer poor and I did take riding classes–a whole bunch of them ultimately. By then I could ride competently and what I ended up learning were some finer points that I had still missed. It may surprise you but even an experienced rider can learn something from a riding class.

I did learn to ride. And I like to think I eventually got pretty darn good at it. So here’s a thank-you to everyone–writers, teachers, other riders–who helped me get to this point. I don’t think I would have gotten this good without you.

Biker Quote for Today

On the bike, time stretches, and I glimpse moments of forever.

The forecast in a couple days is for freezing weather but Sunday was very nice. I was not the only motorcyclist out on the road. Not by a long shot.

I fired up the Honda and headed out. First thing I needed gas so I stopped at my usual nearby station. I did the thing with the credit card and selected the grade of gas I wanted and as I lifted the hose out of the slot gas started pouring out. The trigger thing you squeeze to get the gas flowing had been left in the locked-on position when it was put back in the slot. I don’t know if this was just chance–it has never happened before–or it was some jerk’s malicious trick. But there was gas splashed across the ground and over a good bit of my bike.

Heading west on Hampden I soon passed another bike going the other way, with the guy doing big swerves, slaloming. I thought, he has a new tire and is scuffing it up. That reminded me that, oh yeah, I have a new tire and I need to be scuffing it up. (If you read my previous post just stay with me.) So I started doing that a little, too.

I turned north on C-470, just to the Morrison exit, went into Morrison and then north again on Hog Back Road (CO 93), which runs up past Red Rocks. Then just past I-70 I turned west on old US 40, which runs alongside I-70 into the mountains. So nice not to be on the slab.

On this stretch of road you have two stop signs, at I-70 intersections, to accommodate people getting on or off the highway. Then there’s a third stop and if you keep going you have to get onto I-70 briefly. I got on I-70 and then off again quickly at Evergreen Parkway, then made the right to head back to I-70 and across it to resume US 40.

US 40 wanders further away from I-70 here but you can sometimes see it up above and to the left. As I started drawing near again I was surprised to see three feed lots alongside 40. These may have been there and I just haven’t noticed but they presumably never had livestock in them. This day two of them were full — of bison. Wow. OK. Didn’t expect that.

There are a couple more stop signs along this stretch, except there weren’t. I got to the first one and it was gone, replaced by a roundabout. This is very new, and I do approve. It has always been an annoyance to have to stop when there was usually nobody to stop for.

And then as I reached the top of Floyd Hill, where there has always been one more stop sign, it was gone, too, replaced by a very large and more complex roundabout and bypass around the whole mess if you’re staying on 40. I definitely like that!

Heading down the back side of Floyd Hill I could see some of the work they’re doing to straighten out I-70 at the bottom where it bends into Clear Creek Canyon. But even yet there doesn’t seem to be much to see other than some widening. I met US 6 at the bottom of the hill and turned left to get on westbound I-70 again and then the construction really became evident. The entire stretch between the junction and Idaho Springs is one big construction zone. There are interstate lanes you have known forever that are closed and new ones that didn’t exist before. And all kinds of lane shifts. Good to get past all this.

I stopped at the park in Idaho Springs to use the facilities and the dangling cord of my electric vest reminded me that I had forgotten to plug it in before leaving home. I had noticed it right away and when I stopped at a red light I put the bike in neutral in order to use both hands to plug it in but there was nothing to plug it into. Has it been like this ever since I had this bike in for service back in the spring? Is the plug there, just tucked under the seat? I’d have to check on this later.

Well, this stop at the park was later and I looked and could not see the plug anywhere. If it’s under the seat that’s no problem except on this old bike removing the seat is a major pain, not like the modern key release seats of motorcycles today. That was an answer I would have to come up with later. I hoped it would not be too chilly up on top of Squaw Pass, where I was headed.

From Idaho Springs I headed up toward Squaw Pass, on what I guess is now called Mount Blue Sky Highway rather than Squaw Pass Road. The road runs up Chicago Creek and then makes a sharp left and starts climbing. It was at that point that I was at about 50 miles on this new tire, so that meant the center was well scuffed but the edges not so much. That was about to change. I passed a sign that read “Steep grades and sharp curves next 7 miles.” Oh, please don’t throw me in that briar patch.

And then it dawned on me, hey you idiot, you’re on the Honda, not the V-Strom. You got the new tire on the V-Strom. Heck, the rear tire on this bike is probably going to need to be replaced soon. That scuffing you’ve been doing was pointless. Doh.

Fine. So I headed up Squaw Pass and yeah, it got darn chilly up there. How chilly? There was snow on the ground, the first I’ve seen this fall. That’s how chilly. If I’d had the option of turning on the electric vest you can bet I would have. Oh well, better to figure this out today than some really cold day later when I’ll really need the warmth.

Over the pass and heading down the other side I came up behind a couple on bikes. She was in the lead and they were not riding at all aggressively. I just tucked in behind. Then we came to a blind right-hand turn that surprised in how sharp it suddenly became. I know I had to grab a bit of brake unexpectedly.

I had the impression that this was a couple, him an experienced rider, her just learning. This curve may have alarmed her because just a short ways ahead she spotted a place to pull over and did. Or maybe she was just being courteous, figuring I wanted to go faster. I’ll never know.

From there it was just down to Evergreen Parkway, the leftward jog to pick up Kerr Gulch Road, to Kittredge, and then down to Morrison and on home. What a nice day’s ride! Big cold coming on Tuesday.

Biker Quote for Today

All a gal needs is a little black dress and a big bad bike.

I knew leaving on the OFMC trip this summer that as soon as I got back I would need to get a new rear tire on the V-Strom. We got back from that trip on August 1. I finally got the tire on yesterday. Yep, right away.

Of course that means I got more miles out of the old one. Really getting my money’s worth. Really running on no tread at all. You get busy, you know, and things get put off.

I’ve still been trying to work out this issue of where to take my bikes now that Joel is no longer running his own shop and this time I figured I’d take it to One Down Four Up, a place out on West Colfax where I’ve had some work done before. They’re pretty far and not particularly convenient but what the heck. I’ve been happy with their work.

So I called a few weeks ago to see about getting it in and I asked the woman I spoke with what they suggest now that the parts store that used to be right next to them had closed. It was really convenient because you could go in and buy the tire and carry it next door and hand it to them. But not any more.

She said they suggest you get the tire at Performance Cycle and bring it in. That seemed pretty odd to me because Performance Cycle is pretty far away. Why not point me to a place on Colfax? I know there are some out there.

It was good that I wondered about that. That ticked off an idea in my head. Have they perhaps moved? Well, score one for me. They have moved, and now Performance Cycle is still not exactly close but it’s a heck of a lot closer than it was before. Also, more importantly, this makes One Down Four Up a lot closer to me, too. I may just have finally solved my problem of where to take my bikes for service.

However, that did not address the issue of how to get the tire from the store to the shop. I have never, ever had to face that issue before. I’ve always just taken the bike to the mechanic and he ordered the tire and put it on. I wasn’t crazy about picking up the tire in my car and then driving it over to the shop and leaving it there, then bringing the bike later. But then I figured it depended on whether they would be able to put the tire on while I waited. If they wouldn’t then I would need to have Judy pick me up there and bring me back later, and she could just bring the tire with her when she picked me up.

Well, they could put it on while I waited so that was out. I thought about putting the tire around my waist and riding over like that but that seemed silly. Here’s a daring thought: how about if I just tie the tire on the bike behind me?

I know that, for a lot of you who probably have done this yourselves, this is the obvious and simple approach. But remember, I’ve never had to do this before. Well it was simple, as you can see in the photo. And yeah, I didn’t get it tied on as stably as I thought, so it shifted a little in transit, but it worked fine. OK, now I know.

So when I called the shop to make an appointment they said, well, we can get you in later today or first thing tomorrow. Really? That quickly? Sounds good to me, let’s do today. And they did the job promptly, for a very reasonable price. And they were nice folks. I think I know where to take my bikes from now on.

Then just a side note. On my way home I was coming across on Belleview and saw this pick-up in the right lane with a sheet of plywood hanging out of the back of its bed bent almost to the road surface. I thought that was odd but assumed it just didn’t fit in the bed any better than that. I also noticed that the car behind this truck was giving them a lot of room.

As I pulled up alongside I could see that in fact the plywood had shifted back from the cab several feet and looked like it might slide out at any moment. I waved to get the driver’s attention and motioned urgently toward his rear. He pulled right over to see what I was telling him. I just wonder if he started out with more than one sheet of plywood, because that was all he had when I saw him.

Biker Quote for Today

We mature with damages, not with age.

I’ve been to Europe several times and over that time I have developed what I considered a pretty good basic understanding of the reality over there in regard to motorcycles, or motorbikes as it were. But this recent trip has cast some doubt on what I had taken the case to be.

In short, my take had been that in cities–at least the bigger cities–many, many people ride motorbikes because traffic is dense, streets in many areas are very narrow, and really the best way to get around easily, with the minimum of aggravation, is to do so on two wheels. Sure, outside of the city you don’t tend to see so many bikes but in the cities it’s a given.

One caveat there, too. On a trip where we spent our time in the poorer, Eastern European countries, I expected to see lots of bikes but saw almost none. Inquiring, I was told that these people aspire to greater wealth and motorbikes were viewed as something only someone who had no money chose to use. It was a status thing.

My general take on the situation was formed from my experiences in places like Rome, Paris, Madrid, Rotterdam, and Barcelona. But on this trip we went to Portugal.

We got to Lisbon and the difference from Barcelona, where we had just been, was dramatic. Yes, there were a good many bikes, though nothing close to what you see in Barcelona, but a great many of those we did see were food delivery people. Like Uber Eats, which we did see, though the really big company seems to be Glovo.

But then, while there were some areas with narrow streets, Lisbon was different, not as medieval. This I learned is a direct result of a devastating earthquake that flattened most of Lisbon in 1755. And to top that off, the earthquake caused a huge tsunami that then wiped out much of what little remained. Lisbon was almost completely rebuilt after 1755, with broader, straighter streets. Still, the traffic is horrible so I don’t understand why motorbikes are not more favored.

Then we went north to Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city.

Porto definitely retains more of its medieval structure and it is extremely hilly. Narrow, winding streets, steep hills, streets jam-packed with traffic–this would seem a natural spot for motorbikes to be king. Nope. There were even fewer of them here than in Lisbon. What gives?

I have not been able to come up with a good answer to that question. And there’s really nothing more to say–I have no answer. But I sure an curious.

Biker Quote for Today

I just heard somebody say that “real women ride men with Harleys.” No way. Real women ride their own damn Harleys.

We just spent five days in Barcelona (Spain) and as always, I observed the traffic scene–i.e., the two-wheeled type–closely. I’ll tell you two things: No non-California city in the US is ready for this scene, and it is then a good thing that no such city will soon be experiencing this.

Barcelona streets are packed with traffic so vehicles frequently move slowly and even when they move fast they are slow by our norms. And because traffic moves so slowly, the filtering and lane-splitting are constant.

We took a cab one day. The right-hand curb lanes on busy streets are reserved for buses and taxis so those types of vehicles can make better time. Of course motorcycles use that lane a lot. And apparently they’re allowed to, either officially or unofficially.

Let me make a side note here. In Europe they tend to use the word “motorbike” and that’s actually probably a better word for them. The highly dominant two-wheeler is the step-through scooter, like the Vespas of old. There are also real motorcycles but anything over 500cc is rare. Baggers are non-existent.

But you also have plenthy of the stand-up scooters that have become popular, plus lots of power-assisted bicycles–ebikes. And of course plain old people-powered bicycles and skateboards. All of these, for our purposes, can be grouped under the term “motorbikes.”

OK, back to the narrative. I was saying we took a cab.

The one problem with taking the right-hand cab and bus lane is that both of these conveyances are prone to making stops. And when they do you can end up sitting a while before they move again.

The obvious thing to do is go around them but that means merging into the next lane and on our cab ride, as the cab would start to insinuate its way in, the motorbikes behind the cab would dart into the opening and block the cab out of the space it had created. We missed getting through red light cycles a couple times for exactly that reason.

Our cab driver stayed totally cool, showing no frustration or aggravation. I’m sure because he deals with this all day every day. And he was vigilantly watchful for these scooters and all.

How do you suppose a typical American driver is likely to respond to something like this? Rhetorical question. We know the answer.

So no, no non-California city in the US is ready for this but it’s not going to happen anywhere any time soon. In Europe motorbikes are everywhere by the thousands. Until Americans take up two-wheeled travel in those kinds of numbers that kind of scene cannot develop. And hopefully, as it will happen gradually–if it ever does–we’ll all have time to adapt to it just as gradually. Until it feels normal.

How crazy would that be?

Biker Quote for Today

Why did the motorcycle stay at home? It was two-tired.