Passes & Canyons Blog

As I had pretty much expected it would, my old 1980 Honda CB750 Custom has made it to Steele’s Cycle.

I was at Steele’s awhile ago following Tyler as he broke a Ninja down into parts and we were out in the yard at one point. Walking along a row of bikes I saw a bit of blue, a shade of blue that I’m extremely familiar with, and I looked closer. It was my Honda.

The funny thing was that I did not immediately recognize it as being my bike; I only thought it was another bike of the same vintage. I pointed it out to Tyler and he asked if this was in fact my bike and I told him no, it was just another like the one I had.

It wasn’t until that evening over dinner when I was telling Judy about it that it dawned on me that no, of course it was my bike. I had noticed that, hmmm, this CB750 has the same kind of sissybar my bike had. But somehow that had not jarred me awareness. But telling her I realized it was my bike. And I went back to look at it the next time I was at Steele’s and it was so obvious I can hardly believe I didn’t realize that the first time.

There was the same case guard, the same highway pegs, the same side panel on one side from a different year’s model. Of course this was my bike. But when I first saw it it did not have so much that I had come to associate with the bike, stuff I had stripped off the bike at the tow yard when I went to look at it after the crash. Without all that stuff it just didn’t seem like mine.

I pointed it out to Rick Steele and he said that considering I got hit head-on the bike didn’t suffer as much damage as it might have. But when I mentioned the cost of bailing it out of the tow lot he got it instantly–way more to bail it out than it would be worth. He said he gets a lot of bikes from that particular tow lot.

As I said, I was not at all surprised. I expected it would end up there and in fact it has probably been sitting there ever since last summer. Now two of my old bikes are at Steele’s. They’ve had my old Concours for a couple years now and at least it’s sitting inside and may eventually be fixed up and sold. It looks like the Honda is just destined for parts.

If anybody needs some parts for a 1980 Honda CB750 Custom I know where you can find them.

Biker Quote for Today

New Year, New Dreams, New Roads

My one bike these days is my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650. With less than 51,000 miles on it currently it has a long life still ahead of it. Particularly considering that the engine is considered bulletproof, as in it will just keep on going and going and going.

But. And that’s a big “but.”

Just last week I ran across an item on Adventure Riders titled “Thinking Long Term,” about this “but” and something we seldom think about.

Zac, the writer, focuses not on the big parts, like the engine or frame, but on the little bits. Things like sensors. We all know how quickly electronic parts become outdated. What do you do if your bike depends on some bit of electronics and that unit dies, and then you can’t find a replacement?

This is not a theoretical exercise. When my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom got smashed I was faced with a decision. Do I bail it out of tow-yard jail and try to get it fixed, or do I just let it go? I chose to let it go because I had a pretty good idea that even if it was fixable–not at all a certainty–the repair would also add considerably to the overall expense and then, could I even get the parts?

Then it became even less theoretical recently when I was talking with Rick Steele over at Steele’s Cycles. We were talking about the factors that come into play when they are deciding what to do with a bike they have taken in. He used my 1999 Kawasaki Concours as an example.

As they do with all bikes they take in, they put it up on the lift and checked it out thoroughly. It ran–I knew that–but they discovered that the water pump was leaking. I did not know about that. And the thing was, Rick told me, you can’t get that water pump any more. They know a guy out east who repairs water pumps and they sent it to him but when they got it back it still leaked. So now, my old Connie is sitting in one of Steele’s storage areas with its fate unclear. The engine is as bulletproof as ever but not the water pump.

I guess this is an issue that aficionados of old bikes have lived with for a long time. Sometimes you can kludge in a different part and make it work. Sometimes you can fabricate a new part if you have the tools and the skill. Sometimes you can’t.

In my mind it makes the point in favor of newer bikes. I’ve lived for years with the reality that all my bikes were old enough that no dealer wanted to deal with them. Fortunately there are independent shops that pick up that trade. But at this point I’d just rather have the convenience of taking the bike to the dealer for service, knowing the parts are available. Plus, some of the new tech is nice. I’ve never had cruise control and that is something I’d like.

All of this is on my mind as I wonder about getting a new bike. And at this point that question is totally undecided.

Biker Quote for Today

Bikes may rust, but the memories they create never fade.

I don’t have the energy to do anything active so when I’m not sleeping–which I do a lot of–I have a lot of time to think. Right now I’m thinking I lead a charmed life.

In the past year and a half I’ve had two vehicles totaled, both entirely due to somebody else. Some people might look at that and say their life was cursed but I don’t see it that way.

In the first instance some guy with his face buried in his phone blew through a red light and hit me broadside, demolishing my car. I came out of that totally unscratched. Not the slightest injury.

In this second instance a drunk ran into me head-on, and this time I suffered severe injuries. But nothing that happened to me is anything from which I will not recover. It will take time, and it is painful, but I will recover completely and be as good as new.

I’ve always tended to think of head-on crashes as the worst kind but I no longer think this. That guy hit me head on and my motorcycle took the greatest brunt of the force. It gave its life to save mine. Imagine how different it would be if he had hit me broadside, as the other guy did. For certain my leg would be crushed and I might easily have been crippled for life. That’s if I didn’t lose the leg entirely. I’ve known two people who have lost legs in motorcycle crashes.

And then there’s the vehicles. I really liked my car, and it didn’t have a lot of miles on it so I was planning to drive it for a long time to come. But you know what? I like the car I got to replace it even more. I really, really like my current car. Now, it cost me all the insurance money plus $10,000 cash to get the new one and I’m not thrilled about that, but it’s only money. My health and well-being count more than the money.

With the bike, this was a really special bike. That CB750 was the first bike I ever owned and I have owned it and ridden it for 40 years. I loved that bike. But you know, it was an old bike and old technology. There were a few things I really honestly did not love about the bike. One was removing the seat, which took a wrench, finesse, and about five to ten minutes. Then the reverse to get it back on.

Another was the way it smoked. I thought a couple times I had resolved that issue but I had not. It still smoked like crazy when I started it up and I would stand there embarrassed hoping none of my neighbors was looking out their window at how I was turning all the air in the neighborhood blue.

I intended twice to just spend whatever money it took to fix this problem but when it finally came out that to do so would cost at least $3,500, and probably more, I decided to do what my mechanic had been saying all along: just live with it. And of course, now I’m so glad I did not spend that money.

Unlike with the car, I don’t want to just absorb all this loss. I do want some sort of recompense and with whatever money I can get for it I will buy a new bike and a lot of new, really good (read: really expensive) protective gear.

Of course, through all of this my wife has been there like a rock beside me, and that most of all is why I truly believe I lead a charmed life.

Biker Quote for Today

Graveyards are filled with people who “had the right-of-way!”

I missed posting here yesterday. I spent most of the day Sunday and Monday at Swedish Medical Center. On Sunday I was on my CB750 Custom when I got hit head-on by a drunk driver. I’m hurting a bit.

I had headed out to ride a route I want to lead an RMMRC ride on, checking out time, distance, and to make sure I planned the ride for a day when the restaurant I planned to stop at for lunch would be open. I only got as far as Belleview and Santa Fe.

I was in the left-turn lane on Belleview, waiting to turn on to Santa Fe, when, in what is a very hazy memory, I noted with alarm, “That car is heading right at me!”

The next thing I remember is being loaded into the ambulance, although one of the ambulance guys told me later that I did ask him “How is my bike?” Apparently I was lucid but all that is gone from my memory. That happens when you have a head injury.

I do have a head injury. They say it is a small amount of bleeding on the brain. They gave me repeated CT scans and saw that it is not getting worse and so it will heal itself over time. Meanwhile, they gave me anti-seizure pills to take for a week.

I also had a large gash on my left thumb that required five stitches, and the whole right side of my body hurts. If I had not been wearing my helmet I hate to think how much worse I would be.

I haven’t seen the bike yet. I suspect it is totaled. Surely the front wheel is bent and presumably the fork is seriously twisted. Who knows about the frame.

The driver did not leave the scene. He was arraigned and will face charges. I’m less interested in seeing him punished than in him getting help. If he was that drunk before noon on Sunday he obviously has a serious problem. He needs help.

As always, my wife has been the most dedicated, the most caring person imaginable. She is a saint. She hates it when I say that to people but it’s true.

Biker Quote for Today

The natural state of a motorcycle is laying on its side; only due to constant care and attention do we manage to keep them upright.

About five minutes before I got home on Thursday some guy on a GS ruined the lede I had composed for this blog post. I’m always playing with words in my head when I’m riding so that when the time comes to write about the ride it usually just flows because it’s already half written.

What I intended to lead with was: One telling thing about my ride on Thursday was that I didn’t see one single other rider. Not one. It was cold.

But there I was at Boston and Arapahoe and this guy on a GS goes by. Oh well.

It was cold. Fortunately, for once I was prepared. I wore my riding pants with my heaviest long underwear, my electric vest, and my heated gloves. I almost blew it with the gloves. I figured my winter gloves would be enough but then I figured I might as well bring the heated ones along in the tank bag. Then I had a better thought and put them on right at the start, set to the lowest setting. By the time I came home I was no longer on the lowest setting so you can imagine how cold my hands would have been without the heat.

With all this gear, however, it was a very comfortable ride. It was sunny most of the time and that makes a big difference.

I knew I wanted to be out at least an hour because I needed 46 miles on the Honda to at least get more miles on it this year than last. The time is past to ride in the mountains this year so I headed for the prairie.

Out Hampden all the way till it ends at Gun Club Road and I turned south. I wanted to get onto Smoky Hill Road and then it was my intent to take that series of roads south to where I would get to CO 86 coming west from Elizabeth, then take it west to Franktown. I didn’t have plans beyond Franktown.

But out in that area there are a lot of roads and I don’t get down that way particularly often, so I sometimes am not sure which road is going to come out where. I was wrong this time. I rode Smoky Hill to where it ends with a right turn and becomes Delbert Road. This is out on the current fringes of the city, where the housing developments finally end, and I always like to see just how much more there is out there than the last time I was there. There’s always more.

Delbert ends with a T intersection at Singing Hills Road and at first I thought I was on CO 86 but I soon saw that I was wrong. Oh yeah, I know where this goes. It feeds into Hilltop Road and that leads you back to Parker Road. OK, fine. Not what I planned but it will do.

Actually, looking at the map now I see that a left turn onto Hilltop, rather than the right I took, would have gotten me onto Flintwood Road and that was the one I had been looking for. I’m hoping these details stick better in my brain now.

Now I was headed northwest on Hilltop and crossed the intersection with Parker onto Hess Road. Hess Road bends around and heads south, coming out at I-25 down by Castle Pines. As I like to do there, I got on the frontage road, not the slab, and took that north to Ridgegate Parkway, jogged east on Ridgegate to South Peoria, crossed E-470 and turned left to loop around the south end of Centennial Airport. Then north on Inverness Drive West to Clinton, the jog over to Boston, and a stop at the light at Arapahoe. And there goes that guy on the GS.

Then just north to home. I more than got in my 46 miles and I had a really nice ride. Thank goodness for electrics.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if your jeans are clean; in fact, if any spot on you is clean.

On Sunday the thermometer was showing 60 already at 10 a.m. and it was sunny so I figured a ride was in order. Especially since they’re calling for snow on Wednesday.

But also because they’re calling for snow on Wednesday there were several things I needed to get done outside while I could. And by the time I was done it was already cooling down and the wind–blowing briskly all day but dying down a bit mid-day–had kicked back up. No matter, I’m going for a ride.

As soon as I took off I got a better idea of just how windy it was. OK, a ride in the elements. I’ve got my electric vest on and my winter riding gloves.

I didn’t really expect to see a lot of other bikers out on this day but I had only gone a mile when I pulled up at a red light, one car in front of me. I had thought about filtering past him as I was pulling up but didn’t see a lot of point in it. And then moments later another guy came right past me, past the car in front of me, and stopped well out in front. Then I watched him do it again at the next red light, all properly executed. Of course he did not stay in the lane–he rode the middle line–but any cop who tries to tell you that’s not the proper way to filter is full of it. And I doubt any will try to tell you that.

And it was a classic case of filtering done legally. We, who he filtered past, were at a complete stop. He was actually on a Harley but it was not a bagger, so it was thin enough that he had plenty of room. He also waited for the light. Judy and I had been going somewhere a few days ago in the car and a guy had filtered past us up to the red light. He stopped, looked both ways, and then blasted on right through the red.

Ostensibly I had an errand I was running, though that was just an excuse to get out on the bike. So the first thing I did was take care of the errand. Then I had nowhere in particular to go so I just wandered. I ended up seeing a surprising number of bikes on the road. Maybe these were guys who headed out while the weather was at its nicest earlier and who were heading home now. Who knows. I was chilly but not enough so that I even turned the electric vest on.

When I don’t have anywhere in particular to go I usually take roads I don’t usually use just for a change of pace. Following that guideline I just wandered. As they say, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. But eventually my path bent toward home. And before I got there I even turned the vest on, not because I really needed it but because why not? I knew the heat would feel good. I really don’t understand people who ride in the winter but don’t have electric gear.

So. Nothing eventful. Nothing profound. Just a nice late-November ride.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 22. Distractions while watching a race are not allowed.