Passes & Canyons Blog

This is the kind of road you don’t want to run out of gas on.

Dennis has a saying we all like: The only time you can have too much gas is when you’re on fire.

Yeah, we’ve all run out of gas a time or two, right? I certainly have. Little things like forgetting to reset your trip meter after getting gas. That sort of thing. Too much optimism about how far what you have will take you.

Well, there’s thread for that. Over on the AdventureRiders site. I like to check in on it now and then. Especially at times like now when riding is out of the question and I’ve got a blog post to write. So here are a few people’s stories.

• I had the tank off to check the valves and change the air filter. Put the bike back together and rode it like I usually do. I used the trip counter as a fuel gauge. I noticed that I had gone well over my usual range before the light normally came on. I congratulated myself on improving my fuel mileage by looking after my bike…. and it sputtered and died. Apparently the idiot light needs the idiot who took the tank off to remember to plug the wires back in on reinstall. Girlfriend at the time brought me fuel and had a great time telling everyone about it for weeks afterwards.
• The Triumph Daytona, on the first ride home from the dealership. $h…s must have filled the tank with a cup of gas and told me to “have a nice ride.” Had to knock on a strangers door for “lawnmower gas” to get home.
• Most adventurous fuel flame-out was in Moab with a rental dirt bike. Coming out of the White Rim Trail, I was trying to make a gas stop in Moab. The bike had no fuel gauge and I was trying to make this happen using memories of the odometer. Ran out a mile from the station and had to bum lawnmower fuel.
• 1984, I switched my Seca 650 to reserve ten miles from home at the end of a two week tour. It had been a long, wet, 800 mile day (and night) and I just wanted to see my own bed. Had to work the next day, made a mental note to get gas in the morning. (Yeah, that did not happen.) After work, in rush hour traffic on the freeway, bike starts to stutter. Oh, now I remember!
  Between Ft Morgan and Julesberg CO I ended up chilling on the side of the road for entirely too long not realizing what the problem actually was. It wasn’t a stretch where I ever had an issue before, but apparently had enough headwind and weight to drop my range a good 15-20 miles. I was also caught off guard not realizing that I’d forgotten to flip it off reserve from the last stretch, and the Shadow doesn’t die quite the same. Normally low on fuel is a quick loss of power but plenty of time to go to reserve, if you’re already on reserve it’ll cough a couple times and then just die. So I call my brother in NP, he comes out with a trailer, and the next day I fart around with it trying to figure out what I broke or wore out for at least an hour before I notice that the plugs have solid spark but are bone dry. D’oh.
• I was 16. My friend was taking me as pillion on my 1984 Yamaha 400 Maxim to do my driver license test. I filled the tank the day before. Little did I know that my sister had conveniently drained most of the gas from my tank that night to fill her car and left me only just enough to ride about 10 miles. We ran out of gas, at the bottom of the hill, had to push the bike nearly 2 miles to the next gas station. I missed my scheduled appointment for my drivers test and had to reschedule for two weeks later. Guess who I don’t call for Christmas every year.
• The last time I ran out of gas was in 1973 when I overestimated how far I could go on a tank of gas with my RD350. I was close to home so my dad (who just happened to go by) picked me up. I didn’t have tie downs so I sat on the bike in the back of his truck. I had rather long hair at the time and wasn’t wearing a helmet. My Dad was laughing at me the whole way home because I looked like an Indian Chief with a headdress on.
• Our day started out great, we were on an ADV ride from Northern CA in late May headed to Oregon and had tracks we were following around the backside of Mt. Shasta on a Forest Service dirt road when after 30 miles of riding we were blocked by snow. Unfortunately, the blockage occurred 10 miles from our intended gas stop, but turning around meant gas was almost 45 miles the other direction routing us on roads, with the gas gauges all having come on simultaneously on our BMW R1200GS’ with a “low fuel” warning flashing 40 miles of range left on the gauge. The funny thing is we hit ZERO miles remaining 5 miles from the gas station and decided to chance it (nothing to lose at this point and our fortune favors the bold attitude). When we arrived (yes we did not run out of gas) the gauge on the bike showed negative (-) 5 miles of range left which we all laughed about as we had never seen a negative number on the gas gauge before and thanked the BMW engineer who had designed it with the “Pushing Your Luck Attitude” in mind.

Here’s a story of my own. Sometime, many years ago, Judy and I were out on the CB750 and ran out of gas. Don’t remember where. As we wondered what to do a guy in a car pulled up and asked if he could help. You bet! So he drove us to get gas, and he even had a gas can with him. Along the way he explained that he was kind of a professional good Samaritan. That is to say, he would very much appreciate us paying him for his assistance. Man, at times like that you are so glad to have assistance. We readily gave him a large “tip.”

Biker Quote for Today

The road to hell is very grippy, with fabulous camber and some wicked left-handers.

That instrument cluster in the foreground tells me I was on my Honda this day.

How is it that things come in bunches? I went out on my CB750 a couple weeks ago and three times during that one ride I had drivers in the lane to my right try take my lane, never mind that I was in it.

The first was the most egregious. This lady obviously did not look and she just pulled right over barely six feet in front of me. I blew my horn and shook my fist at her and she hit the gas. Made sure to get well ahead of me.

The next time was better. This guy seemed like he initiated his lane change and looked my way at the same time. He very quickly corrected and got back in his own lane.

The third was the least of the three: she signaled and had barely begun moving my way when she saw me and moved back.

You might ask whether I was at fault here. Was I paying no attention to being in these people’s blind spots? No, I assure you I was not. I pay a lot of attention to that issue, coming up on cars I’m overtaking cautiously and then hitting the throttle to blast past them quickly, getting into and out of their blind spots as rapidly as possible.

But there’s no avoiding being in their blind spot at least momentarily, and if that’s when they decide to change lanes and they don’t do a head-check, watch out!

Call Me The Breeze
That Saturday was an utterly gorgeous day so I did something kind of unusual: I went for a ride up in the hills. Normally I just never venture up to the high country on a bike until about May. This year, however, it has been so very warm of late, and we’ve had so little snow, that I figured I’d do it. Plus, I had just been up on the Peak-to-Peak the week before in a car and it was all clear.

So I was on the Concours and I headed up Mount Vernon Canyon on U.S. 40. It was a really nice run up to Genesee but when I got to that high point the wind was whipping a bit. I went on to Floyd Hill and the wind was howling. Of course, the Concours has complete bodywork so I always describe it as a sail. Not fun in high winds.

My original idea was to hit U.S. 6 in Clear Creek Canyon and then jump on I-70 just up to the exit for the Central City Parkway. I planned to take it over to Central City and then run down to Black Hawk, then go north on the Peak-to-Peak and back down to the flatlands via the Golden Gate Canyon road.

Well, considering the wind at Floyd Hill, going on up to Central City Parkway, which is higher and more exposed, was not at all appealing. So when I hit U.S. 6 I turned right and headed down Clear Creek Canyon. I could have then taken the left that would have taken me to Black Hawk and on to Golden Gate Canyon as planned but my gas gauge was acting weird so I was nervous.

Gas Or No Gas?
Ever since I had left home my gas situation was unclear. I always reset my trip meter to zero when I fill up but when I started off, the trip meter was reading about 80 miles while the gas gauge was showing near empty. Then as I went up and down hills the needle swung back and forth from half a tank to almost empty. I understand this, I’ve ridden this bike for for nearly 20 years, but I’ve never seen this kind of wild swinging. I was starting to wonder if a gas line had rotted through and was leaking. But I checked at a stop and found nothing dripping so I kept going.

I just kept heading down, to Golden, and made my way back home. I stopped and filled up on the way, and it only took 4.2 gallons. The Kawi holds 7.5 gallons. I was nowhere close to empty. But I filled it and set the trip meter to zero so now I know that next time, if things get weird again, there must be something wrong. Otherwise, I have no idea what was going on.

Speaking of gas issues, I had a different one on the previous Friday when I was out on the CB750. Normally I go to Reserve on that bike at about 145 miles. I was hitting 160 and going strong so I was wondering, watching closely for the first sign of the engine coughing so I could switch over.

I was coming up I-25 when it did seem to cough and I quickly flipped the petcock. But it didn’t take long before it started coughing even more. I hadn’t planned to get off at Orchard but in this case I did. On Orchard I got stopped at the first traffic signal and then the engine died altogether. I pulled over onto the sidewalk and considered my options.

The one thought I had been having was that maybe I had left the petcock set to Reserve ever since the last time I had had cause to use it. I put the kickstand down and got off to take a look. Sure enough, it was now set in the “On” position, not the “Reserve” position. I flipped it back to Reserve, pushed the starter button, the bike fired up and I rode on home.

No harm done, of course, but I know from experience what can happen if you have the lever set to Reserve without knowing it: you run out of gas entirely. Yes, I’ve done that.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if you’ve never ridden long enough to know that stock seats are never comfortable.

Stopping beside the road is not always your desire.

I read an article some while ago that said, “Nobody runs out of gas any more, not with dash lights and other geegaws reminding you to stop and fill up.” Obviously, they weren’t talking about motorcycles.

Most motorcycles don’t even have gas gauges. What they do have is a petcock that you turn to Reserve when the bike starts to sputter. Then you know you had better find a gas station fairly soon. Presumably you know how much fuel your reserve holds, you know how many miles you get to a gallon, and that tells you approximately how far you can get on what you’ve got left.

My Kawasaki Concours does have a gas gauge, but it’s in a minority. And even that is only a half-way measure because it still has reserve and once you flip that petcock the gauge just registers Empty and you’re judging your range as you would on any other bike.

I have run out of gas. More than once, on both the Honda and the Kawi. And you’ll rarely meet a rider who hasn’t also run out, at least on occasion.

Now, riding with the OFMC I have never run out, for the simple reason that all my bikes have bigger gas tanks than any of the other guys’ bikes. They need to gas up long before I do so as long as I do the same I’m golden. And I carry a long plastic surgical tube so that if need be we can siphon gas from my tank to one of theirs, though that has never been necessary.

That fact is largely due to John’s experience on one of our early trips. He and Bill and I were blasting north through Wyoming on I-25, heading for Deadwood, SD, and I was in the lead. I noticed they had dropped back so I slowed down and after awhile I pulled over. The customary thing in this situation is to wait, with the assumption that they’ll be along soon. If they don’t come along soon you head back to see what the hold-up is.

So I sat there a while, too long, and turned back. I hadn’t gone far and there they were, going the direction I was now coming from, so I turned around again. We all pulled off and they filled me in.

John had run out of gas and hadn’t thought to flip to reserve, so he coasted to a stop. Bill pulled over to offer aid. They quickly deduced the problem, but even after John switched to reserve the bike wouldn’t start because the fuel line had been drained dry and he couldn’t get any gas to the carburetor. Most motorcycles don’t have fuel pumps, it’s simply a gravity flow system.

So they tried jump starting. We were on flat land and Bill pushed and pushed and pushed while John tried to get the thing going. Finally, about the time Bill was ready to die from his work-out the bike did start, and after he trudged his way back to his own bike they were finally on their way again.

Ever since then John is a total fanatic about getting gas long before he even reaches reserve. He also instructed his son, Johnathon, in this approach so a few years later, on another trip, when the bike Johnathon was on started sputtering he had no idea what was happening because he had never gone to reserve before.

Me, I hit reserve regularly. The only problem is when you forget to switch the petcock back to the regular tank when you gas up. Then, if you’re not paying attention to how many miles you’ve ridden, when the bike starts to sputter, guess what? You’re out of gas. Trust me on this, I know.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if you spend more time shining your bike than riding it.