Passes & Canyons Blog

I wasn’t born knowing how to ride a motorcycle. I had to learn. Neither were you? What a coincidence. Eventually I did learn, however. You did, too? Good for us.

I did not learn by taking a class. Heck, I’m not sure I was even aware back then that classes like that were offered. If I had been I wouldn’t have taken one because I was poor. I was so poor, in fact, that I had to borrow money from my parents to buy my first motorcycle, although I never let them in on that secret till many years later.

Before I bought that bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, I had ridden motorcycles occasionally, although not recently. I had friends when I was younger who had bikes who occasionally let me ride, but it was only good fortune that kept me from crashing them. I didn’t know how to steer properly.

When I bought my Honda, a friend who had ridden scooters as a kid told me he assumed I understood about counter-steering. Nope. Never heard of it. He didn’t know how to explain it, other than you push the bar right to go left, so I was still none the wiser. But I now understood there was something I needed to learn more about.

Whenever I’m new to something I dive in and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, mostly by reading. John’s first bike (as an adult; he had a scooter as a kid) was an old Gold Wing that someone gave him. (Nice, huh? Would like this free Gold Wing? Oh gosh, I don’t know. Sure, I’ll take it.) That was a bit too big a bike for him right off the bat but he rode some with another teacher at his school. Then when that guy died unexpectedly his widow asked if John would like to buy his Virago at a very low price. So John got rid of the Gold Wing and bought the Virago.

Along with the Virago, the widow gave John a bunch of her husband’s motorcycle magazines. These he shared with me. The first issue I ever saw of Rider magazine was the one with the newly introduced Honda Pacific Coast on the cover. I read those magazines cover to cover, including the ads, soaking up every bit of knowledge I could. Soon I was subscribing to Rider and Cycle and passing them along to the guys after I had read them. I still do that.

This–along with practice on the road–was where I learned about counter-steering. Along with a whole lot more.

I also learned about traction management. I’m talking about how you have the most traction when the bike is completely erect and the farther you lean the less available traction you have, right up to the point where you lose traction altogether and go into a low-side crash.

First John got a bike, then I did, then Bill did. We rode together a lot. One thing I quickly noticed was how both of them were able to go faster in the twisties than I could. I initially attributed this simply to the fact that they had both had scooters as kids and so were more experienced than me. Later I also figured out that both of their bikes had lower centers of gravity than mine, which just simply made it easier for them. (It’s funny to think of my Honda as having a high center of gravity. My two other bikes, a 1999 Kawasaki Concours and a 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650 are both very tall bikes and I have long come to consider the Honda as the low one.)

Trying to learn to ride better, and to keep up with them, I took to sitting up straight and leaning my Honda way over. I did not understand the risk that entailed as opposed to leaning my body to the inside of the curve and keeping the bike as upright as possible. But I never crashed and eventually I learned the ins and outs of maintaining traction.

Most of my friends to this day have never taken a riding class. Eventually I was no longer poor and I did take riding classes–a whole bunch of them ultimately. By then I could ride competently and what I ended up learning were some finer points that I had still missed. It may surprise you but even an experienced rider can learn something from a riding class.

I did learn to ride. And I like to think I eventually got pretty darn good at it. So here’s a thank-you to everyone–writers, teachers, other riders–who helped me get to this point. I don’t think I would have gotten this good without you.

Biker Quote for Today

On the bike, time stretches, and I glimpse moments of forever.

I got a heads-up recently from Greg Drevenstedt editor’s column in Rider magazine that told me there have been significant advances in rider safety equipment of late. Figured I ought to look into it.

This “First Gear” column in the May 2024 issue was talking about inflatable vests made by Alpinestars. Said Greg in his column, “Recently we’ve added a new piece of protective gear to our arsenal that I’ve required all staffers to wear any time they are on a test bike or at a press launch: an airbag vest.”

The two vests he discussed are the Alpinestars Tech-Air 5 and the Tech-Air 3, priced at $789.95 and $599.95 respectively. But it turns out that Alpinestars has a much larger line of such gear. Mostly it’s jackets or vests but they do have one, the Tech-Air® 10 Airbag System, that also protects your hips. That baby will run you $1,099.95.

That ain’t cheap, and with good insurance you might pay less than that in hospital bills, but I think I’d rather skip the injuries altogether. The pain from my wallet is a lot more bearable than the pain from my body. Nevertheless, the Tech-Air 10 appears to be targeted for sale to racers so let’s go back to the vests.

First off, in terms of advances in technology, whereas old-style inflatable vests were triggered by a cord connected to your bike that activated when that connection was broken, these new units have gyroscopes with all kinds of computer programming to tell them when to deploy. Also of interest, they deactivate below a certain speed. As the material on the website explains without such deactivation you could have a situation where some buddy comes along and slaps you soundly on the back . . . only to have your vest do its thing. Not something you really desire.

When the vests do go off they pump air instantly into a series of tubes throughout the vest. It’s literally an airbag kind of thing. I don’t think it takes any imagination to see how that would provide you a lot more protection than just armored riding gear. Plus, you would wear the vest either under or over your regular riding gear so you’re not choosing one or the other, you’ve got both.

And the thing with under your other gear is that these things are remarkably slim. Uninflated it looks pretty much like another vest.

Not to make this simply an Alpinestars commercial, I searched for inflatable motorcycle vests and found that there are a variety of others on the market, too. The first one I looked at was Helite Moto. It turns out they also have inflatable jeans. Helite has both cord-activated models and electronically activated model vests. The latter run around $800.

And then on Amazon I found more, often at much lower prices, but all with the cord tech, not the gyros.

So first we had cars with airbags and they have saved many thousands of lives. Now the idea of an airbag for a motorcycle is a real thing.

When I was a lot younger I was poor and the question of whether to get something like this would never have come up because that’s just way more than I could have considered spending. Now I’m intrigued. Of course if I ever do get something like this you’ll read about it right here.

Biker Quote for Today

A motorcycle is an artist’s brush on the canvas of the open road.

I don’t usually write about what is published in magazines but in the case of the November issue of Rider there were just too many things that caught my eye. So I diverge from my norm.

It started right off the bat with the magazine cover. It’s a picture of a Can-Am three-wheeler on a dirt road, kicking up a lot of dust, and with one of the front wheel off the ground (see photo). I thought it was a terrific photo, especially with the rider flying that wheel.

I was also interested in the machine because while I’ve long been familiar with the Can-Am Spyder, just recently I had seen a couple of these much smaller ones and had wondered about them. They are called Ryker and they’re much smaller and sportier. I test rode a Spyder and did not like the handling but was wondering if these would be different.

Well, reading the article about the Ryker answered my question and confirmed my impression from the Spyder: “On the street, the Ryker Rally is quick and responsive, but it requires muscle and aggressive body positioning when tackling curves at speed.”

By “aggressive body positioning,” in my experience, this means when you turn you have to brace your outside foot against the rear-set peg and then lean your body to the inside forward and across the machine. Otherwise it wants to throw you off. I guess that hasn’t changed.

Another item of interest in this issue was one by a woman, Ellie Cooper, who rode her 2009 Royal Enfield Machismo 350 across India from north to south–solo. Yow! I would be seriously skeptical of doing something like that and she has the added disadvantage of facing the hazards that men don’t face but that are all too well known to women. I’m sure it helps that she has apparently lived in India for a long time, and thus is vastly more familiar with it than me, but I’ve got to say, this lady has guts.

And then there is an article by Steve Larsen titled “19 Motorcycle Myths.” These generally include the well-known bits like “Loud pipes save lives” and “I had to lay it down” as well as some I hadn’t heard, like “Real riders never wash their bikes.” But one in particular struck me: “Raingear keeps you dry in the rain.”

In this bit of discussion he says, “My experience, however, is that rain almost always soaks into small cracks or seams, and before I know it, I’m soaked.”

What? That’s a myth? Says who? I have rain gear and I don’t mind riding in the rain for the simple reason that . . . drum roll . . . it keeps me dry. Sure I get a bit of spray at times up around my neck where there is space between my helmet and the collar of my rain jacket, but that’s all. Steve, maybe you need to invest in some better quality rain gear.

I’ve been reading Rider for about as long as I’ve been riding motorcycles. At this point it’s one of the few motorcycle magazines that have both survived and continue to be put out on paper. Keep them coming fellas.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding is my addiction, and I’m a savage at it.

I’ve been reading Rider magazine for as long as I’ve been riding. John had a friend who rode, who died, and his widow gave John a bunch of the guy’s magazines, which John passed on to me after he had read them. One was Rider. I remember the cover photo on that first issue featured the Honda Pacific Coast, which was brand new.

A lot has changed with motorcycle magazines since then, with some folding and others going digital-only. Somewhere maybe about a year ago it occurred to me that I had not received an issue of Rider for quite some time. Had they folded? Quit publishing on paper? Had I allowed my subscription to expire? Had they gone digital-only and was I still being automatically renewed while not getting anything for my money?

I sent an email to their subscription department. (They definitely had not simply folded.) Was my subscription current, I asked, and if so, why had I not received any issues? Had they gone digital-only? Because if so I would probably choose to cancel my subscription. Or were they still publishing a hard copy that I just was not receiving?

I got a reply that due to Covid they had halted printing hard copies but all the latest issues were available online, and yes my subscription was still current. But most importantly, they were resuming hard copy publishing with the December 2021 issue, and to compensate me for missing so many issues they were extending my subscription. In fact, when that issue arrived I saw that they had extended my subscription for two full years. Nice. Thanks.

So this first hard-copy issue had a bunch of surprises in it. Mark Tuttle, the editor-in-chief since forever has left. Retired I assume. There in the lead piece, always written by Mark, was Greg Drevenstedt. Holy smokes.

This drove me to see when it was that Mark left. I’ve worked with Mark for years and am still sitting on a story I pitched to him that got delayed repeatedly. So I dug into the online-only issues. It turned out that Mark’s last issue was December 2020. I found this by working backward to see when Greg’s first issue was, and found that in January 2021. But then there was another surprise in store for me in that issue: Clement Salvadori was retiring and the January 2021 issue was his last.

Holy smokes again. Clem had been with Rider since before I started reading the magazine. He was one of my favorite writers. Oh my gosh.

Life moves on, I guess. Things change. Meanwhile, though, it’s nice to be receiving Rider in the mail again.

Biker Quote for Today

I used to own a motorcycle that couldn’t go anywhere. Later I found out it was because it was two tired.

Oh well, shucks. I just got the newest issue of Rider magazine in the mail today and my Vetter piece is not in it. I had had the impression it would be, but it’s not in my hands. Maybe next issue.

I’ve been able to do some riding lately. We get cold and snow–like today–and then we get some warm and clear. If we get enough warm and clear the roads get melted off and I can get out. On Saturday I headed down to Franktown, to the Stagecoach, as you can see in the photo. I saw a lot of guys out on bikes and the closer I got to Franktown the more I saw. There were probably 50 or so parked at the Stagecoach.

Sunday I got out again, not going anywhere in particular but doing some exploring. That can be a really fun thing to do if you pick a good area to go explore. I ended up down in Highlands Ranch and just followed some of the major streets. I fail to comprehend–as I have for years–where all the money comes from for so many people to buy so many huge houses. Yeah, I guess many of them may be owned by bank after the housing crash of a few years ago, but certainly not all of them.

The other thing that really struck me was how out of date that whole area is already. With that sprawling lay-out there is no way you can go anywhere other than to your neighbor’s or to the nearby park without driving. That’s the way they built neighborhoods for decades but times are a changin’. People want to somewhere that they can walk to the cafe or whatever other thing and those are the neighborhoods of the future. You couldn’t give me a house in Highlands Ranch.

So it seems like I never just go out for a ride anymore. I’m always testing some product or other and these rides were no different. I’ve got these high-tech earplugs I’m trying out and more recently I received a back brace that is supposed to prevent back pain on long rides. I’m not ready to report on either of them but I’ve been able to use both a few times now.

The earplugs I’m having trouble with. They’re supposed to block bad noise but let you hear people talking and road noises that you need to hear. I put them in and can hardly tell they’re blocking any sound at all, until I take them out and hear what I was not hearing before. I don’t know what to make of them.

The back brace is supposedly for long rides but because I won’t be doing any of those any time real soon I figured I’d just wear it around the house and to work. It’s not at all uncomfortable but considering that I don’t suffer from back pain it’s hard for me to really tell how good a job it’s doing. But I’ll keep using it and will have a report before too long, I expect.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if there are no wrinkled, faded, creased, or scratched areas on your leathers.

I may be working a full-time job lately but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up my freelancing. I’m pleased to be able to tell you that Rider magazine has published my latest article on its website and the piece will presumably be in the next issue. Now you get to read the story behind the story.

The piece is about motorcycle fairing designer Craig Vetter and what he’s up to these days. It started out when I went to Ohio in 2012 for the AMA’s Vintage Motorcycle Days (VMD).

Craig was the grand marshal for that event that year, and one piece of the event was the Craig Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge. I took a lot of pictures and spoke with several participants in that event. I also attended three presentations Craig gave, two about the challenge and one about his many years in motorcycling and design of motorcycle gear. I then wrote about all this for several publications.

After I got home I sent a query to Rider magazine editor Mark Tuttle, Jr., asking if he would be interested in a piece on Vetter and this whole business. Mark replied that sure, he’d be interested to read my submission. That is to say, no guarantees he would accept and publish it, but if I would write the piece he’d be happy to look at and consider it.

Then nothing happened. I got busy with my new job and months passed with me doing nothing to pursue this. About the time I was despairing of ever getting off my butt and doing it I got a fortuitous email. Craig Vetter had seen one of the articles I published elsewhere and sent me a note saying he liked it and thanks.

I knew I needed to jump right on things at that point. I emailed Craig back and thanked him for his note and told him I had gotten the go-ahead from Mark to do a piece. Could we speak? Craig said sure and so we did.

My thoughts initially had been to do something about the previous year’s event (this was the middle of 2013 by now) but at this point we were drawing near to the 2013 event, so it made more sense to make it a forward-looking piece rather than dwelling on something that was past. And Craig was totally focused on what was upcoming. In the interim he had gotten seriously amped up on the idea of electric streamlined motorcycles. As you’ll see if you read the article, Craig had gotten hooked up with Terry Hershner, who was planning–and by the time we spoke, had completed–a cross-country run on his Zero electric motorcycle. Craig’s streamlining had enabled Terry to get double the mileage out of his batteries and helped make the whole thing possible.

At this point Craig was looking forward to the 2013 VMD and expecting Terry to run away with the championship on his electric bike. I wrote the piece and sent it to Mark at Rider with the main pitch being the electric bike angle. Mark replied that he had no recollection of us discussing this piece (it had been nine months) but he liked what I sent him and he wanted to run it. I thought it would be a good piece to use coming up to VMD, setting the stage and then demanding a follow-up, but Mark said he wanted to let the 2013 challenge take place and add a follow-up note at the bottom of the piece.

So that’s what we planned. And then it fell apart. Terry was on his way to VMD and the bike broke down. The extra weight from all the extra battery packs and charging units he had added were finally too much for the stock wheel bearings. Terry would not be competing in the VMD. OK, Mark said let’s wait for the later Vetter event in October.

October came, however, and there was no fuel economy challenge at the annual Vegas to Barstow event because Craig had had surgery and was not feeling sufficiently recovered to take on that load. Push it back even further.

At this point Mark was telling me it didn’t have to be tied to one of the Vetter events, he’d just run it in an issue in summer 2014 when he had space in the magazine. But then I got a note from him not long ago saying he would have space for it sooner. And now, by golly, it’s up there. And I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next issue in my mail. Gosh, only 16 months from when I first pitched the idea to Mark to when it ends up in print.

Biker Quote for Today

I’ve done it myself in the past, ground the bike so far all the oil was gone, got up and walked to work without a scratch.

My November issue of Rider magazine arrived yesterday. I just set it aside as I always do because I’m way behind on my reading. Then I headed for the gym, taking along the August issue. That’s how far behind I am.

I was on the stationary bicycle reading that August issue when I turned a page. I immediately thought that the main photo looked familiar and as I glanced at another photo I thought it looked familiar, too, and then a third, when I suddenly realized, “Holy crap, it’s my article!” So this article was published three months ago and I just found that out.

Last time Rider published one of my articles Donya Carlson was still there. I know Donya and she emailed me to let me know what issue it was going to be in and also sent me a PDF of the piece as it was laid out so I could check for errors. That was a good thing, because I did find some things needing correcting. I assumed they did that with all articles, but apparently not.

So this piece is titled “Where the Mountains Meet the Sea,” and is about the trip Judy and I took to British Columbia last year. I pitched the piece to Rider and Mark Tuttle, the editor, accepted the idea and later accepted the finished piece for publication. But the last time around it took so long before the piece was published that I didn’t expect this one to run until sometime in 2013.

It all clicks now. I exchanged a few emails with a fellow awhile back who mentioned that he had seen an article of mine in one of the magazines recently. I assumed he was referring to the first piece in Rider, about riding old U.S. 6 across western Colorado. But now I’m betting he had just seen the B.C. piece only days before.

So hey, I’m a little late picking up on this but it’s always a thrill to see your stuff published in a major national magazine. And there’s another one coming up. I just heard the other day from Teri Conrad, the editor of Kawasaki’s magazine Accelerate, that she is including one of my articles in her next issue.

Fun stuff.

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Biker Quote for Today

Life is a journey. So take some trails.

Hooray, hooray! It took a long time but Rider magazine has published my feature article about crossing western Colorado on old U.S. 6, in the shadow of the superslab.

I had heard from Donya Carlson that it would be in the January 2012 issue, and I knew it should be arriving in my mail any day now. But over the last several days I’ve been in communication with three people who had already received their issues of Rider and seen my piece, while my issue had yet to arrive! Well, the mailman was here about 10 minutes ago and I finally got mine. Yes!

Now I’m hard at work on my next piece for Rider. Judy and I went on vacation to Seattle and British Columbia this summer and rented a Harley out of Vancouver to go riding for a few days. It was part of the plan all along to pitch the story to Rider, so I made sure to shoot a lot of pictures and take a lot of notes.

Once we got back I sent a letter pitching the idea, and they liked it. Now I need to get it written and select the photos to go with it and send it along. If they like it and want to publish it they will tell me that, and then, if things go like they did before, the note will say I can expect to see the piece in print in 12 to 18 months.

So I’m in the middle of the first draft right now, and I’ve got the photos narrowed down to about 40 or so. The article will go through three or four revisions and I’ll winnow the photos down to about 15. Then I’ll be eagerly awaiting a note that I hope will say they like it. If they do you will probably see it in print in 2013. Meanwhile, I want to be pitching them another story idea a whole lot sooner this next time.

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Biker Quote for Today

Time spent on a motorcycle is not deducted from your lifespan.