Passes & Canyons Blog

It’s not as good as it could have been but it’s better than nothing, I guess. On the final day of the latest legislative session the Colorado House and Senate worked out a compromise hands-free bill and passed it, sending it to the governor for his signature.

As passed in the Senate, SB 24-065, Mobile Electronic Devices & Motor Vehicle Driving, would have made holding your phone while driving a primary offense, meaning the police could stop you simply for violating that law. Instead, the House insisted that it be a secondary offense, meaning you can’t be stopped for it but if you are stopped for something else the officer can also charge you for this violation.

The reasoning, as I understand it, is that some legislators feared it could be used by the police to selectively profile drivers and choose to stop them or not based on things like ethnicity. Sadly, that sort of fear has had plenty of foundation in reality but honestly, if a cop wants to harass someone, if they can’t use this law they’ll just use a different one. Weakening this law will not have any effect on that at all. But it will make it harder to enforce this law.

Still, I can tell you what will happen, at least at times. Cops will see someone using their phone and they will dig as deep as they need to to come up with some other reason for stopping them, then “let them go this time” on the “offense” they stopped them for but cite them for the phone usage.

I know this will happen because it happened to me once in regard to driving without using a seat belt, which was and is still a secondary offense in Colorado. I was on I-225 going the same speed as the traffic around me but I did not have my seat belt fastened. The state patrol guy stopped me for “speeding.” But, being a nice guy (right!) he let me off on the speeding but did cite me for the seat belt.

Bottom line, though, what will happen as a result of this legislation? Will drivers finally start to realize they need to put their damn phones down and concentrate on the number one thing they are doing–driving! My guess is some will. Not all but some. And not as many as would have if it had been made a primary offense. We don’t want to reject what is good because it is not perfect. Any progress is still progress. But it could have been better.

Biker Quote for Today

Owning a motorcycle is like eating biscuits in church–many will judge you but secretly they all want to be you.

I may well be updating this post right up until it gets posted but as I write this now on Sunday afternoon it appears the Legislature is in session and at work on the bill this moment. This bill being SB 24-065: Mobile Electronic Devices & Motor Vehicle Driving.

This morning I got an email from Stump, legislative liaison for ABATE of Colorado, reporting that it had been approved on second reading in the House. When I checked a short while ago it had come up on third reading and then when I came back to it just now it had been amended.

So now what I’m unclear on is whether this means it will need to go back to the Senate to be re-approved with the amendments. I think so. Does it go to a conference committee of the two houses to be reconciled and then need to be passed again by both houses? Is there time to get that done at this late moment in the session? I’m unclear.

What I am clear on is that my initial sense that this year is different, that this year the opposition to this bill has fallen away, was correct. After easily passing the Senate the bill came up in committee in the House and passed out of the House committee by an 11-0 vote. Now I see that on the House floor there have been several votes and the most recent vote was 55-6 in favor. This baby is going to pass! And the governor darn well better be planning to sign it. I can’t imagine he won’t.

Do we dare to think that by the time I click “Publish” on this thing tomorrow that it will be on its way to the governor? It might.

Update
OK, it’s Monday afternoon and the Senate voted not to concur with the House amendments. Before that vote I heard from Stump who said, “With 3 days left in the session and a ton of work to get done, it’s hard to say if there’s enough time to get SB24-065 passed the way we want it. We don’t like the latest amendments that were added, so we hope the Senate will reject them since the bill has to be reviewed by them and then send the bill to a conference committee. That all could happen in time as I saw a bill last week pass through a committee hearing, then through 2nd and 3rd reading in one day.”

Biker Quote for Today

Great memories happen when you don’t know where you’re going.

I haven’t gone after this thread in a while: What stupid things do people ask you when you’re on your motorcycle? Let’s dig in.

• A guy in a weird car with lights and stuff, stops me and asks: Do you know how fast you were going?
• The other day in a shopping center parking lot, a guy asks me if that is my bike. As I’m mounting up, I say “no…but it’s about to be.”
• A few years ago, I was refueling in West Yellowstone on a bleak, 45° very rainy day. Across the pump island, was the father of a bunch gassing up the family minivan. The Dodge was literally rocking from all the kids jumping around inside. Mr. Griswold looked over at me, kinda smirked and said, “I’ll bet you’d like to trade with me right now.” I smiled and said, “Let me ask you: Has every day of your marriage been like your honeymoon?” He thought for a second and replied, “I get it.”
• When people ask me how fast my bike can go, I usually say, “I don’t know.” People don’t really know how to respond, so they just look at me. Sometimes they’ll ask me in a condescending tone how I don’t know, then I’ll tell them, “I may be slow, but I’m alive.”
• Situation: It’s getting toward dusk/dinner time, and has begun to rain. Q: “How are you going to get home?!?” A: “I put on my pants, jacket, helmet, gloves, turn the key, start the engine, then start my normal riding onto the road from the parking lot, and take the way I normally take. Its really quite simple.” Questioner: “Huh?”
• A few years back I was riding with 2 buddies in the Texas Hill County. As we approached a town we slowed down. Unfortunately not enough as the cop clocked us at 101. Another mph and we would have been arrested. The stupid question came when the cop asked how fast the bikes could go. Given the situation we declined to answer.
• I usually leave my helmet on when I ride the elevator on my way to work, to free up my hands and not bang it into the sides of the crowded elevator. So this guy says “You ride your motorcycle to work today?” and I said “No, just being real safe in my truck!”
• Many moons ago while on a Suzuki a guy walks by and says, wow, I didn’t know Suzuki used the same motors as Kawasaki’s, looking puzzled I assured him that they each made their own power plants, he said no they both use motors made by “Dohock,” as he pointed to the DOHC cast into the end cover.
• I was asked the dreaded “Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?” by an LAPD motor officer. I had been making way too good of time down a mid morning freeway (about 90 indicated) and I actually laughed and said “I sure do.” Ended up with a warning and a nice conversation with a fellow rider.
• Q: “Did you drive them all the way from Germany?” A: “Yes, but we had to change the water tires in New York.”

People say there are no stupid questions. I’m not so sure.

Biker Quote for Today

“Animals travel on all fours. Mankind on two. Motorcycling is not a means of transport but an ideology, a nomadic way of life.” -– Amit Reddy

Having had three motorcycles for many years it is really odd now at home with just one. I sold one–the Concours–and another, the CB750, is in the shop for some work. I have always kept the V-Strom in the garage, parked in front of my car, while the other two resided in the workshop that runs alongside the garage.

Right now the workshop is empty of bikes and, by golly, I’ve been using it as a workshop! What a concept!

I bought a new battery-powered electric lawnmower and typically I would have waited for a sunny, warm day and unpackaged it out on the driveway, but now, despite a few days of cold and snow, I just went in the workshop and took care of it there.

And I have this old, damaged chair that I have undertaken to repair and reupholster with our grandson Jack so as to give him some experience in doing things like that and also to help him understand that just because something is broken doesn’t mean you just throw it away and get a new one. We’ve been working on it out on the back porch but that’s not a wonderful place to be making a long-lasting mess. That’s the role of a workshop.

So yeah, I’ll be getting the Honda back fairly soon so it will go back in there, but I’m thinking I’ll continue to park the V-Strom in the garage and that will leave me room to work in the workshop. I like that idea.

And speaking of the Honda, I mentioned that the guys at the shop were not seeing the smoking that was the reason I took it in. I spoke with the person at the desk about the other things they say need work but I told her I’m still most concerned about the smoking. Maybe it didn’t smoke when they started it up because there was so little oil that it hadn’t seeped through. Try it again now that they added oil and ran it and now it has had a few days to sit. See if it smokes then. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ll have the carbs synced and they say that if they haven’t been rebuilt in the life of the bike that is probably going to be necessary, too. And that’s a six-hour job, and for all bikes older than 1999 they charge a higher hourly rate: $155 an hour. So that’s going to cost me about $1,000.

I’m glad to get the work done and I’ll pay whatever it takes but I’m still going to be looking for a new regular mechanic who doesn’t charge high rates like that. The really big question is who?

Biker Quote for Today

My happiest hours include a sunset and a motorcycle.

All right, so I took the CB750 in to Colorado Moto Service to have them work on the problem with the oil seeping through the valves into the cylinders, leading to heavy smoking each time I start the bike up. Get this job done finally.

Well, I got a call from them to say they had checked the bike out and . . . there was no smoking when they fired it up. What?

They did say it was very low on oil–which kinda happens when you’re constantly burning it and you neglect to top it off frequently–and maybe that was why it was not seeping into the cylinders. As in, there was no oil there to leak through. Ken you are a bad owner. You are neglecting your motorcycle again. But who knows if that is the reason.

So they added oil and checked it out and said the carbs need to be synced, which I can easily accept, and there is an oil leak from one of the lower engine gaskets. Tell me about that. This bike has leaked from that gasket since the day I bought it. It used to be a lot worse. I would come home from a ride with oil on my pants where it had seeped out and the wind had blown it back onto my pant leg.

I said go ahead and work up an estimate of what these two fixes would cost. I’m very leery of having the gasket done because I know from experience that that can run into serious money.

And one more thing. There seems to be a switch problem. When they tried to shut the bike off it wouldn’t shut off. Again, what? I have never had that kind of issue. And I did have the ignition switch replaced some years ago. I need more info on this issue but if all it takes to get around the issue is to hit the kill switch I’m perfectly capable of hitting the kill switch. Heck, I’ve done it by accident some times.

So what the heck is the deal with it not smoking for them? I can’t count the number of times I’ve been standing there revving the engine to burn out that oil from the cylinders and pumping out huge clouds of blue smoke, hoping none of my neighbors were looking out their windows at me polluting the neighborhood air. I’m going to be very unhappy if I get it back after spending a bunch of money on other things and then it starts smoking again. It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Biker Quote for Today

It is the unknown around the corner that turns my wheels.

As Senate Bill 24-065 (Mobile Electronic Devices & Motor Vehicle Driving) was coming up for its initial Colorado House hearing recently I was wondering–as I mentioned previously–if there would be opposition as there was two years ago claiming that it would be unfair to fine poor people who violated the law.

Thinking about that got me thinking about a different issues from what must have been 25 years ago. The connector here is well-intentioned people reaching conclusions that overlook extremely relevant factors. In the case of outlawing use of handheld electronics while driving (SB24) it is the idea of trying to help people who did not have to break the law while ignoring the very real impact on other people who did nothing wrong. If it’s not clear what I’m referring to please read the other piece linked to above.

The situation 25 or so years ago had to do with insurance and wearing helmets. Specifically, there were health insurance companies that were writing policies that said if you were injured in a motorcycle crash and you were not wearing a helmet they would deny your claim. Does that still happen or were laws passed forbidding that? I’m not sure but I suspect it is no longer an issue because it’s been a long time since I’ve heard it mentioned.

So anyway, my family was gathered at some point and this whole thing came up and my father offered his opinion that he saw nothing wrong with that policy. After all, people should wear helmets and why should the insurance companies pay if they refuse to protect themselves?

I nearly exploded. This is the gist of what I told him.

OK, let’s say I’m legally riding my motorcycle without a helmet. I’m obeying the speed limit and all the traffic laws and I have a motorcycle endorsement on my drivers license. Then I get hit but a guy who a) is speeding, b) runs a red light, c) does not have a license because he lost it due to DUIs, and d) is drunk. He veers off and hits a telephone pole and is also injured.

So everything I have done is 100 percent legal, while everything he has done is 100 percent illegal. Oh, and by the way, while I am badly injured, I have not sustained any head injuries, despite not wearing a helmet.

After all this, my insurance company says it will not cover my medical expenses because I was not wearing a helmet (legally!) but his insurance company will cover his medical expenses.

Are you telling me that is somehow fair and appropriate? Really?? Are you telling me this makes any sense at all??

OK, my Dad was a rational guy and he acknowledged the error of his thinking once I educated him on the matter. And that’s my whole point. There are plenty of people out there who favor or oppose policies we might know are respectively bad or good simply because they are not personally connected to the issue and have not given it more than cursory consideration. But once they are presented with more facts, a deeper understanding, they see the error of their thinking.

That’s what the motorcycling community has to do, continually. That’s what organization such as the American Motorcyclist Association, the various state ABATEs, the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, and others work to do constantly. And it’s what each of us needs to do when talking with non-riding friends and family members. We need to educate them. I mean this was my own father and he thought it made sense to deny his son coverage until I educated him.

Let’s all be educators.

Biker Quote for Today

Every ride is a tiny holiday.

I made the very unpleasant decision to sell my 1999 Kawasaki Concours to Steele’s Cycle for a pittance because it made more sense than paying a pile of money to get some problems fixed and then turning around and selling for less than I just spent on it. When I took it over there I made the pitch to Rick, the honcho, that this was a bike that was worth fixing and selling rather than just parking it in the lot to be picked over by people needing parts.

He may have thought we were having a negotiation but we weren’t. I knew he would not offer me much and I was prepared to take whatever he offered. All I wanted was for the bike to continue to roll and to bring joy to someone. But “negotiating” as he was, he told me no, with 79,000 miles on it there was no market.

Well, he lied–sort of. A couple weeks afterward I went to the Steele’s website and looked at what they had for sale. What do you know? There’s my bike, listed as being “SALE PENDING” for about 10 times what I sold it to him for.

Now, I’m sure it’s not exactly the bike I took in there. The benefit you have from being a salvage lot is that you probably have a lot of parts off similar bikes that you can use to make a really cherry bike. The listing says the condition is “Excellent” and the descriptive text refers to it as “super clean.”

What has changed about it, as far as I can see just from the photo, is that they removed the top bag and reinstalled the passenger backrest, but left the rack itself. The top bag and the back rest are incompatible–if you have one installed the other cannot be mounted. It also appears they removed the Murph highway pegs. Maybe the idea is to then offer these accessories at an additional price to the buyer.

They also put on a tank bra and swapped out the right side bag from some other Concours to replace the damaged one I had. And of course they did the repair work I did not wish to spend the money for–another advantage because the cost for them was just the repair guy’s time.

The one other thing they did is the questionable one. The bike I took in had 79,000 on the odometer. Here it says mileage 37,986. Certainly it’s not hard to swap out one instrument cluster for another, putting on one that shows fewer miles. But that motor and everything else still has 79,000 miles on it. I would think to just do this would be fudging the law a bit, but maybe they got a salvage title for the bike. I’m sure that would be easy enough for them to do. You just say hey, it’s a frankenbike, put together with parts from various other bikes, and gosh, this odometer just says 38,000. We don’t claim that that goes for the whole bike.

Anyway, it’s really not a big deal. I knew when Rick was telling me it had too many miles on it that he was BSing me because these Connies are known to go many, many miles further. These motors are pretty bullet-proof. It’s not going to break down on this new owner anytime soon. I took really good care of that bike.

So it did not get consigned to the lot. That makes me very happy. I wish the best to whoever the new owner is, and particularly with those decals on that side bag I will recognize it if I ever see it somewhere. If I do I’m going to want to chat with the guy. He got a good bike.

Update
I was throwing out paperwork on maintenance and repair on the Kawi and on my car that got wrecked and ran across an “Odometer Disclosure Statement” that I got when I bought the bike. It says it is both a federal and state crime to misrepresent the mileage on a vehicle. But. This does not apply to vehicles more than 10 years old. So there you go, swapping out that odometer and representing the bike as having only 38,000 is perfectly legal.

Biker Quote for Today

You either love going for motorcycle rides, or you’re wrong.

I have an appointment to get my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom in to the shop on Tuesday and it’s a good thing. I initially made the appointment to address the smoking that happens every time I start it up but now it seems to have another issue so that’s good timing.

The smoking is a no-brainer. While it sits parked oil seeps past the valves into the cylinders and has to be burned out when the engine is fired up. So on Sunday I wanted to take it for a ride and I started it and let that smoke blow. Then I took off but it didn’t seem to be running right. I went around the bend, down the hill, turned right up a small hill and as I was turning right again it died. Dang! What now?

It turned over and tried to start but just couldn’t. What now?

I rolled it back and turned around and coasted down the hill I had just come up and stopped at the bottom to try to figure things out. Not just “what’s the problem?” but also “how do I get back home up our big hill?” As I was sitting there a woman came along walking her dog and asked if I was out of gas. I said no, it’s some other problem, and she walked on.

Figuring I needed to get home no matter what I started pushing the bike along the level portion I needed to traverse. I figured I’d call Judy and ask her to come with her car and a tow rope I have, so she could then pull me up the hill. I called but just got her voicemail.

As I was pushing it occurred to me that the woman with the dog may have helped solve my problem. Checking my trip meter I saw that I was right at the point where I typically need to go to reserve. That would explain the not running right issue. I flipped to Reserve and tried to start it but by now the battery had been run down from trying so hard before, so I was still going to need to get up the hill to home so I could connect it to the charger.

I got to where there was nothing but uphill left in front of me and on a last hope tried starting it one more time. It started! I normally don’t ride without my helmet and jacket on and they were both off and hanging on the bike at this point but I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity, I left them hanging and jumped on, put it in gear, and roared on up the hill. Yahoo!

OK, so all is good again, right? Well, maybe not. I put the charger on and gave it something more than an hour to put a bit more juice in the battery and then got on to go for the ride that had been cut short before. It ran strongly and I headed immediately for a gas station. By the time I reached the gas station, however, it was clear it was still not actually running right. I didn’t want to risk have it crap out on me again, only much, much further from home, so I just rode on back home and parked it till Tuesday.

Maybe on Tuesday it will be running better. If not, it will just add to the total amount I end up paying the shop. Not wonderful but not the worst thing that could happen.

Biker Quote for Today

Imagine life without motorcycles. Now slap yourself and never do it again.