Passes & Canyons Blog

My article "Where the Mountains Meet the Sea" was published in Rider magazine in August.

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

If you read Rider magazine you may have gotten a bit of a shock when you opened the latest issue (March 2011) that arrived this past week: There’s a picture of me in it, and it ain’t pretty.

You can see it in this section of one page that I scanned and have included here. That’s me and Klaus Herder, who is with Motorrad magazine, at dinner on the last night of the EagleRider media tour we went on in October out in California.

We were sitting across the table from Donya Carlson, who is an editor at Rider, and who had been on the tour as well. She shot this picture and later sent it to me, with no hint that she actually planned to use it with her article. What a surprise when I saw the article!

Of course, we both made it into another picture as well, because it’s a group shot and we’re all in it. And then there’s the matter of one of my pictures also being used in the article. The day we rode along Big Sur I went ahead and waited for others in the group to come along so I could get pictures. I was waiting on the far side of a bridge and Donya came along with Simon Weir, who writes for RiDE magazine in England. I got a good shot of them on the bridge and sent it to both of them later. Donya contacted me to ask if they could use it with her article, so at least I knew about this one.

So anyway, it’s a silly picture of us but that’s OK. Everybody gets a laugh. And thank you, Donya, for the fun. Not to mention the opportunity to get published in a major national magazine. I usually pass my magazines along to my friends after I read them but in this case they’re going to have to buy their own copies–I’m hanging on to this one.

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You want me to go where??? On that???? OOOOKKKKKAAAYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

My latest issue of Rider magazine arrived yesterday and the irony was very heavy. There inside was the regular column on motorcycle safety by Lawrence Grodsky, who has been writing that column for Rider at least as long as I’ve been reading the magazine, about 17 years. The irony is that on April 8 Grodsky was killed by a deer that ran in front of his bike. Long lead times on hard copy national magazines mean this issue was already put to bed when he died. I’m sure the next issue will have the story.

You can read about the tragedy on the AMA site or at the magazine’s site.

Here in Colorado there are many collisions between cars and deer, though I don’t hear of many motorcycle/deer collisions. I know in other states there are riders who won’t even ride outside of the city after dark for fear of hitting them. I’ve had a couple close encounters and I’ll bet most of you have, too. It’s not a reason not to ride; it’s a very good reason to ride carefully.

Our sympathies are with the Grodsky family. We’ll miss you buddy.