Passes & Canyons Blog

A section of the RIDE BYND home page.

I didn’t deliberately decide to post twice in a row about motorcycle websites but I take things as they come, so here we are.

In my email this morning I had two messages, one from RIDE BYND and the other from Ride Apart.

I’m familiar with RIDE BYND (pronounced “Ride Beyond”) because of these VANHA magazines I found in the waiting area at Fay Myers when I was having one of my bikes worked on. I wanted to check VANHA out and found that the magazine no longer is printed but they have a site called RIDE BYND. I signed up for their notifications and have by now received about four of these monthly notices. I had never clicked through to actually see what they were doing there so today I decided it was time.

Rather than a print magazine, what RIDE BYND appears to offer is videos, although their home page is divided between “Latest Episodes” and “Latest Videos.” The episodes are often long, more than an hour, and those I checked out focus mainly on individuals doing cool stuff on motorcycles. The videos are generally short, often just showing some cool footage of riding.

Here’s how they describe themselves.

RIDE BYND is more than just a podcast about motorcycles — it’s a celebration of the passion, creativity, and untold stories of the people who ride them. Hosted by the co-founder of VAHNA, Ben Giese dives into deep conversations with athletes, artists, adventurers, industry icons, and trailblazers from all walks of life—exploring the experiences that shape their journeys, both on and off the bike. The motorcycle is our connection. The stories are what take us BYND.

As for Ride Apart, I don’t know how I came to be on their mailing list, but I’ve been getting their emails for a while. It seems to be a general motorcycle-oriented site offering news, reviews, features, makes, models, with photos and videos.

The article that caught my eye this morning was headlined, “If You’re Against Motorcycle Helmet Laws, You’re an Idiot.” Considering my own recent remarks about helmets and helmet laws, I had to check this out.

The article is written by Jonathon Klein and, to extract just a bit, his main argument is, “But here’s the real truth, humans are inherently stupid animals, and we do all manner of dumb things all the freakin’ time. We can’t leave our phones in a cupholder for a second while driving a potentially idiotic 10,000-pound electric Hummer, for Pete’s sake. Why should we then be entrusted with our own safety? And that’s sorta where I’m at in terms of helmet laws, as I’m very much for them. Not because I like a nanny state or big government, I really don’t. But because I’d rather not see my fellow motorcyclists die a horribly painful death because they were too freakin’ stupid to just wear a full face helmet while out on the road. I mean, the data says it all, they increase your chances of survival in an accident.”

OK. Not a lot of new thought or information added to this long-running dispute.

Another example of what they publish is an article titled, “Despite What Amazon Says, You Shouldn’t Follow a Motorcycle So Freakin’ Closely.” This tells about what is purported to be a page from an Amazon.com delivery driver training manual that says to leave a four-foot distance between your delivery van and a motorcycle ahead of you. OK, yeah, I’ll read to see what that’s all about.

So they have kept up a steady progression of articles I have found interesting enough to click through on. Maybe you would do so as well. Check it out if you’re interested.

Biker Quote for Today

If you go fast enough on your bike you can fast forward your life to the very end.

One of the rides I did last year.

I periodically go through the links on the Passes & Canyons website, testing them all and removing any that are no longer good. Far less frequently I go through my bookmarks in my browser to see what is still functioning and what is not.

Here are a few sites you may find interesting, as well as a few you have missed.

• Bikerpunks.com – Watch Motorcycle Videos, Sportbike Videos! — Gone. Yeah, there are plenty of videos out there, but it was nice to have a whole bunch in one place.
• blindspotcycles.com — Sorry to see this is gone. This was a guy who made a business of converting old gas-driven bikes to electric. I did a couple pieces about him and his bikes but I guess he has moved on.
• Colorado Front Range Tag-O-Rama — Not a site, but a thread on Adventure Rider. These guys go out and shoot photos of their bikes by some unique or odd building or natural feature or whatever, post them, and then the others have to figure out where this is and go shoot their bikes in the same place. Then the new winner posts another spot and it keeps going. I have participated in this but not recently so I’m glad to see they’re still going.
• Motorcycle Escape and Top Ten favorite rides and getaways — Another page on a bigger site, in this case Motorcyclist magazine. The title here is self-explanatory and the rides recommended are still good ones.
• Motorcycle Museums | Enginecycle® Motorcycle Directory—U.S. — Gone. Too bad. This was a directory to the motorcycle museums around the country. But I’m guessing others have stepped up to fill this niche. This site, Rumble On, looks good.
• Tilting Motor Works — I’m glad to see this guy is making it. He designed a two-wheeled, tilting front end for a few Harleys, Indians, and Hondas. None of this drives-like-a-car business of most motorcycle trikes. They’re not inexpensive, however.
• Motorcycle Travel in Hope, Whistler and the Sea to Sky Highway — Oh yeah, shameless plug. This is a link to a story I wrote for Rider magazine a few years back.
• Twisted Road — This one is definitely worth bookmarking. Are you going to be away from home and would like a bike to ride but don’t want to pay the high price of the big guys? Twisted Road is a peer-to-peer network where I could rent you my V-Strom, saving you money and putting some cash in my pocket.
• Byways — Subtitled “Exploring Our Nation’s Scenic Byways,” this site shows you some of the best roads in each state. Who knew there were 11 scenic byways in Kansas.
• AllPoetry.com — This one’s a bit different. It’s a poetry site and they have a page for motorcycle poetry. Check it out, there’s some interesting stuff here.
• Redleg (Dom Pacheco) is one of the most intrepid riders I know. He rides sidecar rigs and goes everywhere and almost totally ignores silly things like weather. And he chronicles it all here on his blog, A Redleg’s Rides.

OK, I’ve gone through about a third of my motorcycle bookmarks, and two things are evident. First, an awful lot of sites and blogs come and go. Second, considering I’ve been posting this blog regularly for 16 years I guess I must be one of the real old-timers. Dom is, too. We’ve both been blogging since 2006. Thanks for reading.

Biker Quote for Today

An engineering student is walking on campus one day when another engineer rides up on a shiny new motorcycle.
“Where did you get such a rocking bike?” asked the first.
The second engineer replied “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, ‘Take what you want.'”
The first engineer nodded approvingly “Good choice, the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit!”

I think I put up something similar to this awhile back, but maybe that was somewhere other than this blog. Anyway, this is different.

Do you ever have people ask you what motorcycling is all about, or what bikers are truly like, or any of those sorts of questions? Well, here’s a place you might refer them to get some answers. It’s a post on a motorcycle insurance blog entitled “Top 49 blogs for Understanding the Biker Culture.” Yeah, these are insurance guys doing this but it’s still kind of an interesting list.

Here are a few representative examples of their list. Please note that I’ve cleaned up their grammar a bit just because I can’t stand putting bad grammar on my blog.

Motorcycle slang — Here are a few slang terms in motorcycle culture.

Biker Language — Here are some more terms you will hear when biking and what they mean.

Culture — Learning how times have changed the culture around motorcycles.

Stereotypes — Look at what some of the stereotypes of bikers are.

Hells Angels — Here are some frequently asked questions about the Hells Angels group.

Now, the first thing you might wonder is just how reliable this information is. Well, some may not be, but you’ll notice that that link on the Hells Angels goes to the Hells Angels website. So I’d guess that’s pretty reliable info. Other sites linked to include familiar ones such as Clutch and Chrome, Biker News Online, Women Riders Now, as well as plenty you’ve probably never heard of.

And their use of the term “biker” is not the narrow usage some prefer, essentially referring to 1%ers, but the broader usage that includes everyone who rides. So Superbike and motocross are included as well as American Legion riders, Vietnam vets, and more. It’s a broad collection.

So there you go. Just thought you might find something of interest.

Update, Aug. 23, 2010:
Hey, this is fun. I received a note from Kristy Osgood, who is connected to this site listing these blogs, informing me that they had added my blog–this blog–to their list. Very cool. Thanks, Kristy.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
No winner named for Hoka Hey on July 4

Biker Quote for Today

Women come and go, but motorcycles are forever.