Passes and Canyons Blog

Did you know this? I didn’t. Heck, if you’d asked me I’d have had to admit I couldn’t even name the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. But I know it now. That’s her in the photo.

So Mary Peters has been making some news lately, and raising some hackles. In her efforts to promote motorcycle safety she is accused of ignoring the law that prohibits federal bureaucrats from lobbying for or against specific state laws. In the June 2008 issue of American Motorcyclist, the publication of the American Motorcyclist Association, they have this to say:

But that doesn’t appear to be stopping Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who told U.S. senators and representatives she wanted to lobby states to divert federal money away from motorcycle safety training and awareness programs and instead push for mandated helmet use.

Here’s my take on this. She crashed on her Harley and escaped serious injury thanks in part to her helmet. Now she’s a helmet evangelist. I’ve seen this before. About 15 years ago there was a young woman who suffered a head injury when the guy she was riding with hit the median on Orchard Road while going about 70 miles an hour. This was the first time she had ever been on a motorcycle but she told reporters from her hospital bed that she intended to devote her life to making helmet usage mandatory for all motorcyclists all the time. The difference between that young woman and Mary Peters is that Mary Peters is in a position to do something about her convictions.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with advocating helmet usage. There is something wrong, however, with becoming focused so totally on helmets that you dismiss other, equally important safety factors. “Divert federal money away from motorcycle safety training and awareness programs”? I’ve made the point before that wearing a helmet is not a be-all and end-all in motorcycle safety. In the report I was discussing it said that “About 42 percent of riders killed were not wearing helmets.” And I responded that what that means then is that 58 percent were wearing helmets — and they were killed anyway.

That’s why I believe that diverting funds from motorcycle safety training to mandating helmets is wrong-headed. We all need to wear helmets at times; some of us wear them all the time. We should all also take an occasional refresher training course. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation and ABATE have expanded their offerings lately due to demand. What we don’t need is some bureaucrat, even one who rides, cutting training funds.

Oh, and by the way, if the law says bureaucrats can’t legally lobby for or against specific state laws, I suggest the Secretary of Transportation ought to obey the law.

Update
I’ve written three follow-up posts on this subject:
Revisiting Mary Peters, Biker and DOT Secretary
Follow-up on Mary Peters, Secretary of US DOT
DOT Sec. Mary Peters Good for Bikers, Wrong on One Priority

Biker Quote for Today

Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don’t. Some can’t.

I have a new title. I am the official Denver Motorcycle Examiner. That means that in addition to the three blog postings I do here each week, I am now making three posts each week to Examiner.com/Denver, writing about . . . motorcycles!

Who or what the heck (you may ask) is Examiner.com? I can answer that question.

The San Francisco Examiner is an old, established newspaper in San Francisco. In recent years it has gone through a series of transformation, which you can read about here on Wikipedia.

Most recently, local Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz has purchased the Examiner and has started turning it into a national publication. One aspect of this is Examiner.com, with local home pages for cities across the country.

That’s where I come in. While the Examiner.com sites aggregate hard news feeds from other media, they enlist local experts (their term) to write about their passions. Ernie Tucker found me through this blog and asked me if I’d like to write for them. Oh, please don’t throw me in that briar patch! I said yes.

Now I won’t lie to you, I am indeed making some things do double duty on this blog and on Examiner.com. But so far I’ve only copied one item verbatim from one to the other. In a few other cases I have written about the same things but they were two distinct pieces. For the most part I really am writing six articles a week now instead of three.

So if you’re really interested in reading about motorcycles and motorcycling, and you like my stuff (thank you!), I urge you to become a regular visitor at Examiner.com/Denver.

Biker Quote for Today

Enjoy the ride . . . the rest takes care of itself.

We’ve had a phenomenal winter for snowfall in the mountains and that has an impact on some of the best motorcycle roads in the state.

The good news is that Independence Pass, CO 82 between Twin Lakes and Aspen is finally open. From what I’ve heard, though, it is still subject to periodic closures depending on conditions. I’d check first before heading that way.

CO 5 to the top of Mount Evans is also open, as is the Pike’s Peak Highway, which goes to the top of that 14,110-foot mountain.

Trail Ridge Road, on the other hand, is still closed. The Colorado Department of Transportation says the closure is “between Milner Pass and Rainbow Curve due to adverse conditions.” They don’t say when it will be open.

A couple other passes that are still closed are only of interest if you’re the sort who doesn’t mind doing some dirt.

Kebler Pass, coming down from Crested Butte toward Paonia is still closed. You can get to Crested Butte on CO 135, which is paved, but the stretch over Kebler, County Road 12, is dirt.

Likewise, Cottonwood Pass is still closed. Again, you can get up the east side of Cottonwood from Buena Vista on a paved road. Just don’t think you’re going to get down the other side, whether you ride dirt or not.

We love the snowfall. The skiers had a good winter. Our reservoirs will be full this summer. But you’re going to have to be patient before you can ride some of these roads.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride often, ride well, have fun.

I’ve always figured I was pretty good on slow, tight turns on a big bike. Heck, I passed my original motorcycle driver’s license test on my CB750. I think most people borrow little 250s or something like that to take the riding test, but not me.

Well, I saw some guys perform on Sunday that did stuff I’ll never be able to do as long as I live. This event was the annual Top Gun Symposium of the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club. All the contestants were motorcycle patrol officers riding their regular patrol bikes. Most were Harleys but there were also BMWs and Kawasaki Police Specials.

Take a look at this guy. That’s a heck of a tight turn and sharp lean angle and he’s probably going less than 5 mph. Can you do that? I can’t.

This guy wasn’t even the winner, or one of the top three winners. Altogether there were 39 officers competing from a number of different departments, with winners in three categories to correspond with the three makes of bike. The best of the best was named Top Gun. He was one of the guys on one of the Kawasakis.

All in all, it was a pretty good show, and it drew a nice crowd, mostly on bikes. What can I say? Heck, I was impressed.

Biker Quote for Today

A good rider has balance, judgment, and good timing. So does a good lover.

Riders for Health is an organization that provides money and motorcycles to transport life-saving medical supplies to remote African villages. Adventure Riders is a web forum for motorcyclists who are “generally long distance and adventure oriented enthusiasts.”

The Adventure Riders have organized a fund-raising event to benefit Riders for Health and that event is coming through Colorado June 7-9. As the group’s letter of intent states, the goal is to gather sponsors and contributions to riders.org while riding in and through:
• Each of the United States
• The Canadian Provinces and Territories
• New Zealand
• Australia
• India
• Turkey
• Scotland

Riders participating in the event are passing off a “baton,” which is a waterproof case containing a “mascot,” pictures, logs, and other items.

This relay starts May 16th 2008 at one of our Rallies in North Carolina with the US and Canadian legs finishing in August of 2008 and will continue on to many other places. During each leg of the relay, riders will take photographs, write online journals, log points of interest or include something about their region or the ride; Motorcycle rallies and enthusiast gatherings get special attention. These photos and stories will be prominently featured in an accompanying thread.

The baton is scheduled to enter Colorado on June 7 for hand-off at Burlington. It will come to Denver and on June 8 make its way to Buena Vista and on to Ridgway. On June 9 it will go to Pagosa Springs, where it will be handed off to New Mexico riders. Go to this thread on the Adventure Riders forum to see the whole route.

If you want to help out, here is the info on donations:

The ADVRider Relay, including the volunteer rider’s expenses, is completely self-funded. 100% of the donations less PayPal expenses or other funds transfer fees are forwarded directly to Riders.org. Please donate via paypal at advriderrelay@aol.com or contact us there for other options.

I think I may be taking a ride on Sunday, June 8.

Biker Quote for Today

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.

I don’t have details yet but will pass along this warning that just came to me:

Please inform your readers, Berthoud is in extremely poor condition. Rode it today, and even had it not been raining and snowing, the road would be very bad!

I replied asking if the problem is that the pavement is in bad shape, or what. I’ll add that info when I receive it.

OK, here’s additional info:

The road was in terrible shape. Lots of potholes, cracks, and still a lot of sand all over.

So there you go. Be careful out there.

Cold and rainy today, with patches of fog. What a great day to ride! Seriously.

Of course Bill had no idea what the weather would be a week ago when he proposed that we do one of our occasional rides up to Blackhawk for breakfast. It has been warm and sunny lately, so we assumed it would be a nice day. I rolled the bike out and looked at the sky and wondered if I should call to see if anyone would show up. But I figured surely someone would be there so we would join them.

Judy asked me what she needed to wear and I told her I was just putting on a flannel shirt over my t-shirt under my leather jacket, so she dressed similarly. We took off and hadn’t gone very far when I started to doubt my judgment. It was darn chilly! Oh well, it was morning and surely it would warm up as the day progressed.

We got to the meeting spot and found only Bill and Jason out for the ride today. Dennis is in Indianapolis for the Indy 500, Johnathon had a graduation he was going to, and John was using his same old excuse about being 250 miles away in Montrose. Wuss. Can’t remember why Friggs wasn’t there.

We headed on up Clear Creek Canyon and the sky was threatening but nothing else. Going a bit slower up the canyon it wasn’t as chilly but Judy and I both were wishing we had our electric vests. Judy was also wishing for long underwear. I was just glad to be on the Concours with its full fairing.

Leaving the canyon and getting onto the Peak to Peak Highway it started looking like it might clear up. That reminded me of when I lived in Golden and worked in Idaho Springs, and on some days I would drive out of a rain or snow storm up the mountain into the sunshine. Then after spending the day in the sun I would drive back down into the same storm I left behind. Not today.

We reached Blackhawk and cruised on to Central City to the Red Dolly, a small casino with good breakfast at very good prices–our standard stop. Had a great breakfast, warmed up, Bill and Jason gave the machines some money, and it was time to head back down. We stepped outside and it was raining. No big deal; we’ve got the gear. And this was Judy’s first opportunity to try out her new rain gear.

Suited up, we headed back down into Blackhawk, got back on the Peak to Peak, and continued north to the turn-off to Golden Gate Canyon. One of the nice things about this whole area is that there are multiple canyons and you can take your pick of which one to go up and which one to take down. They’re all beautiful and twisty.

Today they had a different kind of beauty than we normally see. Besides the rain, we were in and out of low-lying clouds, aka: fog. I know that Judy, having no responsibility for ensuring that we stayed on the road, was more able to appreciate the beauty than I was, but I was not unappreciative.

With the wet pavement, the on and off rain, and the on and off fog, we took it fairly slow. That, plus the rain gear, meant the ride down was quite a bit warmer than the ride up. And with the good rain gear we were perfectly dry and comfortable.

Then we were down out of the canyon, back on CO 93, and we headed over to Bill and Thais’s new house close by to see it for the first time. Some hot chocolate to warm us up again and we headed on home.

This was not the ride we anticipated but at least partially for that reason it was probably a more memorable ride. Despite being a little less well-prepared than we could have been, we have no regrets whatsoever. It was a great ride. What a great day for a ride!

Biker Quote for Today

It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed.

I picked up a copy of this book, Motorcycle Journeys Through the Southwest, on the recommendation of Steve Shards, the Kiwi rider whose pending trip to Colorado I discussed in several posts previously. It’s an interesting book and if you’re coming to the four-corners states (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) there is a lot of good information about roads you may not know exist. I mean, let’s face it, there aren’t any websites comparable to motorcyclecolorado.com for any of those other states.

What caught my interest was when Steve included some roads in Utah on his trip plans that I had never heard of. I asked him how he (in New Zealand mind you) came to know about these roads, and he told me he read about them in this book. So I bought the book.

The author, Martin Berke, breaks the four-state area up into a number of geographically logical sections.

What I personally find most interesting about this book is that Berke covers a number of roads here in Colorado that I have ignored on the website primarily because they don’t go through to anywhere. That is, these are roads that dead-end or where the pavement runs out and you would need to either turn around or venture out on the gravel — or worse. He also suggests campgrounds up some of these roads as bases for day trips.

Looking through this book pointed out to me that I’ve been a little short-sighted in this regard, both in what I’ve included on the site and in my own travels. Especially now that I’ve started including some of the better gravel roads, I’m going to let this book help me explore some parts of this state that I’m unfamiliar with. I’d say that’s a darn good recommendation.

Biker Quote for Today

Never hesitate to ride past the last street light at the edge of town.

I went to the gym this morning and there, parked in the motorcycle parking area, was a bike I did not recognize. And it was an amazing looking bike. What the heck is this? It says it’s a Honda, but what is it?

Well, it wasn’t until I got home and did some internet searching that I discovered it was a Honda Valkyrie Rune. Here’s what it looks like.

Now, this photo really doesn’t do this thing justice. Yes, you can see that it has a shape and parts that are nothing like anything you’ve ever seen on any other motorcycle, but in the flesh this thing was amazing. For one thing, it’s huge. It sits really low to the ground but it is wide and solid. You don’t see through it the way you do a naked bike or even a lot of bikes with bodywork. And it has angles and metal everywhere.

The one thing that struck me very negative about this bike was that I couldn’t see how you could ride it. The seat is way back, with the pegs way forward, and the handlebars are a lot further forward than the pegs. Obviously I wasn’t about to get on it and see what kind of body contortions are necessary but it looked to me like it would be hugely uncomfortable.

That said, otherwise it was an incredible bike. My understanding is that it was overpriced and did not sell well and there are a lot of unsold new ones stored in warehouses. What I read said 2004 was the last year it was made, but this particular one said 2005 on it in several places, so I’m not sure about that. But despite the odd design and very unusual look, I have to tell you, up close and personal it was a beautiful motorcycle.

I definitely give Honda credit for having the guts to make this bike, and I hope that the experience doesn’t stop them from taking other such risks in the future. And I hope whoever owns this bike rides it to the gym again. I’d like to take another look at it.

Update
OK, I don’t understand this, but I just found a web page that shows a 2007 Rune. Has Honda started making them again? Can anyone help me out?

Biker Quote for Today

People are like motorcycles: each is customized a bit differently.

There was a comment on a previous post from Gianluca Pezzi, who is involved with Blogo.it. In case the name and the “it” at the end of that website name didn’t give it away, Gianluca is Italian. He mentioned two things that caught my interest.

First, he was calling my attention to their Two Wheels Blog, which he describes as “for readers interested in what’s happening on the motorcycling scene in Italy.” If you click on these links you’ll see that the blog is in English, but the website is in Italian. Unless you read Italian I guess I’d stick with the blog.

Anyway, the blog is a variety of information, including a lot of videos of bikes and such. Interesting to check out if you’re a big fan of Italian bikes. Says Gianluca:

Two Wheels Blog is a new initiative from Blogo.it, and is dedicated to the motorcycling sector in Italy: with everything from championships, to new models released, our favourite brands, photos and videos, we’re hoping to give voice to the dedicated motorcycling community around these parts.

So far we’ve written about our testing of the new Beta Urban 200 pre-series, included a video on a new BMW, written about the new Halley, and reviewed all the style of the Italian scootering tradition. We have a photo of the day spot, where readers can send their best pics from around the world, and you can point us to news or make comments.

The other thing Gianluca mentioned was that he couldn’t find any way to contact me directly on the blog. Now, on the main motorcyclecolorado.com website there are a number of places where I have placed javascript no-spam email links so people can contact me directly, but I had not thought to do the same here on the blog. I’ll need to do something about that right away but in the meantime, if you want to email me just send to either ken at motorcyclecolorado.com or to webmaster at motorcyclecolorado.com. Thanks. I always love to hear from you.

Biker Quote for Today

Tomorrow is uncertain, so today I ride.