Passes & Canyons Blog

The OFMC on Trail Ridge Road.

I wrote about the issues motorcyclists face with the new express lanes being built around town and there were a few things I was unclear on. This piqued Alan’s interest so he dug further and sent me more info. Here’s what he learned.

Well you sparked my interest in this subject, so I called ExpressToll this morning and confirmed/found out the following:

If you have a transponder on your bike:
1. You will be charged toll fees on E-470
2. You will NOT be charged toll fees on I-25 and US 36 express lanes.

If you do NOT have a transponder on your bike:
1. You will be charged the higher toll fee for not having a transponder on E-470
2. You will be charged the toll fee on I-25 and US 36 even though you are a motorcycle. The bill will be mailed to your address through a DMV check of the license.

There are no special rules or “grace” provisions for out of state bikes that do not have a transponder.

This addresses what I said about out-of-state bikers who may pass through and think they can use the HOV lanes at no charge. Wrong. But that just doesn’t seem to jibe with federal law. We’ll see.

I also mentioned that I had called it quits with Examiner.com, that they had finally just pushed me too far and I told them I would never again do any work for them. Well, a few days later, under the subject line “Termination of Examiner Status,” I got this little note from them:

Thank you for your participation as an Examiner on Examiner.com. We regret to inform you that we are terminating your status as an Examiner, effective immediately. Your account has been deactivated. We appreciate the time, effort and consideration you put into this work, but we feel that your content is not the right fit for Examiner.com at this time.

Gosh, it’s a little late to be firing someone who has already quit. So I sent them this last note and never want anything to do with them again.

I kissed you guys good-bye already. Good riddance. You ought to try to learn how to run a real company.

Working for Examiner as their National Motorcycle Examiner was a really good gig for awhile but I’ve never worked for anyone so inept and so prone to do exactly the wrong thing. I’m so pleased to uncomplicate my life just a bit more.

Biker Quote for Today

Murphy’s Motorcycle Laws: 7. You will never suffer a punctured tire on the road until you leave the repair kit at home.

My National Motorcycles Examiner page.

Way back in early 2008 I was contacted about doing some writing focused on motorcycling for a new website called Examiner.com. (For many of you, this is not news.) I accepted that offer and became the Denver Motorcycle Examiner, with an Examiner site user ID number of about 79. Which is to say, I was the 79th person signed up to post as “Examiners.” Examiner.com still exists today and while they no longer give you a number, if they did that number would probably be around 100,000 or even higher. A lot of people sign on and then drop off soon afterward.

At first it was exciting. We were creating something new. It didn’t pay much but the pay was steadily increasing. As other motorcycle Examiners joined I contacted each of them and we banded together to promote each other to mutual benefit. And I was then offered the option to become the National Motorcycle Examiner. So I made that move.

For a couple years the thing just grew. Every now and then they would upgrade the blogging platform (which is essentially what it is, although they don’t call it a blog), and things just got better and we made more money. Then the frequent changes in how they figured our pay took a downward turn. Every couple months they would announce some new procedure and each change meant exactly one thing: We were going to be paid less. In a very short time these changes resulted in my earnings dropping by 90 percent. Does it surprise anyone that I cut way back on my publishing on Examiner?

It might be more surprising, actually, that I continued. But by this time I had put up a substantial body of work and as these posts continued to be read I continued to earn at least a little. If I stopped publishing altogether Examiner would stop paying me, although they would continue to benefit from my work. So in the last few years I have put up usually one piece a month just to keep the payments trickling in.

And now, I recently went in to post my piece for the month and found that all of my work for the first six months as an Examiner had been unpublished. I immediately assumed that another upgrade in the software had resulted in making the very earliest stuff incompatible with the current system. I sent a note to tech support asking but when they replied they said, “Gosh no, we didn’t unpublish those.” Like I believed that. Then a couple weeks later I got a note saying, “Hey, just wanted to let you know we had to unpublish your early stuff because it was not compatible with the current software.”

So this presented a couple options. I could just let those pieces be gone forever, or I could republish them in the new system. In some cases this is a no-brainer. Initially I did a weekly thing called “Where to Ride this Weekend,” which was a listing of upcoming rides and events. In 2008. OK, those can disappear from the world and that’s just fine.

But then there were others that are more, to use the common term, “evergreen.” That is to say, timeless stuff that is relevant regardless of when someone reads it. First and foremost among those are my ongoing series of posts entitled “Only a biker knows . . .: Motorcycle wit and wisdom.” You know that thing I end each of these blog posts with, the “Biker Quote for Today”? I save each of those and when I have 20 I put them all up in an Examiner post. Well, the first half dozen of those got unpublished. You better believe I’ll be republishing those.

And you know what? This means I can keep current on Examiner and keep my pennies and nickels trickling in without actually having to write new stuff. Also, in the early days Examiner didn’t have the ability to use a bunch of photos, so I had a lot of good ones that never got used. Now I can republish some of these pieces and offer some additional good photos that no one has ever gotten to see before. In fact, I did that with this most recent post I republished, “Top Gun competitors zig and zag their way to victory — Redo.”

By the way, that “Redo” at the end of that title is what I’m using to indicate that this is a republished article.

And oh yeah, sometimes I still do original posts on Examiner because that credential, being able to call myself the National Motorcycle Examiner, gets me press passes to things I want to cover. So it’s worth it. There was a time when I could (and did) say, “I’m going to work full-time as the National Motorcycle Examiner.” It was fun while it lasted. Those days are over. But it is kind of fun going back now and reading some of this old stuff I wrote so long ago.

Biker Quote for Today

“I don’t feel like going for a ride today.” — said no motorcycle rider ever

Do what you love and the money will follow.

Have you ever heard those words? Do you believe them? Well, I’m putting them to the test. First some background.

I’ve been a writer all my life, and I’ve been riding motorcycles for more than 20 years. That doesn’t count the numerous times when I was a kid when I had the occasional chance to ride. By 20 years I mean since I bought my first bike. So what could be more natural than to put the two together?

OK, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve been in the newspaper business and various other lines of work but the one thing they all had in common was that I was a writer. Most recently I’ve been doing contract work as a technical writer. On my most recent gig I knew first of all that it would end. That’s the nature of the beast. I also knew the economy was in the toilet and that getting the next gig could be very difficult. So I put aside as much cash as I could while I had the income and when the end came I was ready.

I’ve been “unemployed” for a couple months now but I’m working harder than ever. But no, I’m not looking for a job. I’m working to make a living as a biker.

First off, I’ve turned my gig at Examiner.com into an almost full-time effort, and as of yesterday I’ve moved from Denver Motorcycle Examiner to National Motorcycle Examiner. Second, I’m doing what I can to make more money off this website. I’ve always had the Google ads, and they’ve always paid enough to support the website without me having to dip into my pocket just to pay the hosting fees. But now I’m actively trying to sell ads on the site, which has the potential to provide serious income. We’ll see.

Third, I’ve been talking with Dan Patino at Monkey Gripper Motorcycle Tours about working for him this summer as a motorcycle tour guide. Considering the focus of this website, that seems a perfect fit. Now all we need is for the economy not to totally crush the tourism industry and to get some people signed up for tours.

And fourth, I’m considering the possibility of becoming a motorcycle riding instructor. To that end, just this weekend I took the Beginning Rider Course from T3RG Motorcycle Schools. The possibility of becoming an instructor was really only one of four reasons I had for taking the course, but because the course is required if you want to be an instructor, it was fortuitous to be able to do so just at this time.

So we’ll see. I’m doing what I love and while I’m not making nearly enough to live on so far, things do seem to be moving in the right direction.

And doors do seem to be opening up. For instance, in my work with Examiner.com I have helped build a group of the motorcycle Examiners around the country. We try to coordinate our efforts and work together whenever the opportunity presents itself. Well, there is a new East Bay Motorcycle Examiner who just started, Gabe Ets-Hokin, who just today posted his second ever post, which is part two of his introduction. It turns out to my extreme interest that he has been a motojournalist since 2004 and is currently the Online Editor for Cycle World magazine. Holy smokes! I now have a contact with an outfit I’d love to become involved with. It may never happen but you never know.

Rest assured, I’ll keep you up to date on how this progresses. I’m not saying you should be all that interested in how I make my living, but I would think just about anyone would be interested to see whether you really can do what you love and end up making it your job. Who knows, it might be the inspiration someone else needs to do so as well.

Recent from the National Motorcycle Examiner
Emotional day ends Run For The Wall

Biker Quote for Today

You can forget what you do for a living when your knees are in the breeze.

I do a lot of motorcycle writing that you never see here on this blog. In addition to maintaining the Passes and Canyons website and writing this blog, I also write 3-4 times each week for Examiner.com, as the National Motorcycle Examiner.

While I do on occasion write about the same subject both here and there, for the most part I don’t. And even when I do, I generally do two different posts, rather than a copy and paste. The point is, the two have different audiences. I figure you folks reading this blog are confirmed biker types, whereas the folks reading my stuff on Examiner.com may be newbies or confirmed bikers, or they may not ride at all. What makes sense in one place doesn’t necessarily make sense in the other.

That said, there have been a number of pieces I’ve written for Examiner.com that you might find worth reading. Here then is a listing of articles and links to them. I hope you find something that piques your interest.

Only a biker knows . . .
You’ve no doubt noticed that I include a “Biker Quote for Today” at the end of each of these blog posts. I don’t do it on Examiner.com, but periodically I collect the quotes I’ve used here and present a bunch of them at once.

DNC riders: The best one-day motorcycle ride from Denver
In a group effort for the Democratic National Convention last summer, all Denver Examiners were asked to put together recommendations in their topic for the convention delegates and the press.

What cagers don’t know about motorcycling
This was an educational piece for the non-biker readership.

The ignorance we’re up against
A discussion of how clueless non-bikers are about what we do.

Best motorcycle bars in the Denver area
Another joint Examiner effort, this time a “best of” listing.

Underwater motorcycles, motorcycles that fly
Passing along some interesting items I ran across about a submarine motorcycle and one that sprouts wings and flies.

The new styles in helmets: fruit, pots, tires
An amusing report about the frantic efforts of Nigerian motorcycle taxi drivers when they realized the government was serious about enforcing a new helmet law.

If you love motorcycles you want to see Jay Leno’s Garage
Passing along a link to a terrific site, at least if you’re the kind of guy who is interested in motorcycles.

Who will fold first, Chrysler or Harley?
A disturbing analysis of Harley’s future.

So there you have it. Take a look. I certainly think there’s a lot worth reading there, but then I’m biased.

Biker Quote for Today

What does it mean to you? For me, it’s something I just do.

I have a new title. I am the official National 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, 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.

Biker Quote for Today

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