Archive for April, 2026

Utah Ride In May

Monday, April 20th, 2026


The OFMC going down a canyon in Utah.

Riding season is getting into full swing–are you ready for your first long ride of the year?

I am. I’ll be joining other members of the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club (RMMRC) in late May for what the organizer, Tom, has dubbed the Utah Scenic Ride. You’re welcome to join us and I hope you do. Here’s the itinerary.

We’ll be leaving on Tuesday, May 26, from the Phillips 66 station at Morrison at 9 a.m. That’s kick stands up at 9 a.m. In this group we really do leave at the appointed time.

The first day is going to be the longest ride, 343 miles, to Green River, Utah, but that’s all interstate so it’s totally doable without too much stress. I know I hate really long days, but this is a ride I’ve done several times.

While as far as interstate goes, there’s not much nicer slab than going through Colorado, but the fun really starts on the second day. We’ll take Utah 24 down through Hanksville, to Torrey, passing through Capitol Reef National Park. Then down Utah 12 to Escalante and through Bryce Canyon National Park to US 89, then up to Panguitch.

On Thursday we’ll take 89 north to Utah 62 to Loa, then to I-70 and east to US 191, and south to Moab. The next day will be further south on 191, to La Sal Junction, then east on Utah 46/Colorado 90 to Ridgway, US 550 north to Delta, east on Colorado 133 over McClure Pass and on to Carbondale.

The final day will be Colorado 82 over Independence Pass to Buena Vista, then home on US 285. A total of approximately 1,318 miles arriving home on Saturday, May 30.

Should be a really good ride. Utah in May is great. I’m ready.

Biker Quote for Today

Speeding along an open road on my motorcycle, flanked by the great outdoors, the engine hums and the noise in my mind disappears. — Judith Roberts

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Posted in motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club, Suggested Rides | No Comments »

Motorcycle Fatalities Down In Latest Statistics

Thursday, April 16th, 2026


A particularly sweet motorcycle road in Utah.

Bringing news of 2024 statistics may seem a bit old but that’s the way it is with statistics of this sort. Once a year ends it takes time to pull it all together and make sense of it all, so the norm is that we see today what happened not last year, but the year before.

So the good news is that motorcycle fatalities declines by 2.2 percent in 2024. That is 138 fewer deaths. This data come from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) report, “Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes In 2024.”

On the other hand, injuries to motorcyclists increased from 2023 by 4,320, which is a 5.2 percent rise. Not so good. And I guess I’ll be one of those statistics when the report for 2025 comes out next year. Glad I’m in this group and not the first group.

The actual fatality numbers are not good even if they are lower. There were 6,228 people killed on bikes in 2024. And there were 144,050 injured. That last figure seems high enough that each of us should probably know at least one of those people. I know when the 2025 numbers come out I will have known one of those killed. It was a member of the RMMRC and he had only been part of the club a short time. We were glad to have him and really hate having lost him.

Another positive statistic has to do with alcohol impairment. The report shows that alcohol-impaired motorcyclist involved in fatal crashes declined in 2024 by 3 percent. That’s 1,606 compared to 1,656.

Urban areas have the larger proportions of motorcyclist fatalities vs. rural areas (18 percent vs. 13 percent). Interestingly, urban areas have a higher percentage of fatalities in cars and trucks and buses.

Colorado had 689 motorcyclist deaths in 2024, which is a decrease from 2023 of 4.3 percent.

That about covers the motorcycle-related stats in this report. Let’s all be careful out there. I’m going to be a number in next year’s report. Don’t you be a number in the following year’s report.

Biker Quote for Today

If there’s a there there, there’s a road that’ll take you there.

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Posted in Biker Issues, Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

Watching The City Grow

Monday, April 13th, 2026


Yeah, that’s the bike but it’s not the setting it was supposed to be.

When I go for a ride I generally head out of town. The thing is, as the years pass it takes longer and longer to get out of town. What that means, though, is that I see it happening as the city grows.

I went out Sunday (funny how I never have to specify what bike I was on any more) and headed out to the southeast. My only destination starting out was Tagawa Gardens where I wanted to see if they had something I wanted to wrap up some landscaping we just had done out front. Might as well make this ride productive as well an enjoyable. They didn’t have what I was looking for but a lady there suggested a way I could handle the situation with materials on hand. Good suggestion–thanks.

Now where to? I was on Parker Road so I just kept going to Parker. Through Parker and then I took a right onto Hess Road, heading west. Hess is far enough south that it’s still largely undeveloped along there, particularly on the south side of the road. That won’t last. Check back in two years, unless we have a recession and the housing industry tanks. Then maybe three or four years.

Oh, and I might mention, it was a beautiful, sunny, warm spring day. Great day to be out riding. As usual I was over-dressed but never felt too warm except once when I was stuck going slow. Certainly never turned the electric vest on. But I was wearing it.

As I was approaching I-25 I came upon some huge earth-moving operation. This is new. The road is rising to meet the interstate and along the north side there was this large retaining wall. Hmm?

I got a little higher and there was a completely flat, broad expanse, with another retaining wall rising up at the other end. The cut the hill away at the high end, used that dirt as fill at the low end, with the two walls to hold it all in place. What the heck are they doing here? You could fit a high school onto that flat.

They are also realigning the road that I intended to go north on, just before reaching I-25. So I missed it and had to do a U-turn to get back to the new turn. Crossed the area being altered on a temporary bit of pavement and a really interesting perspective. I stopped and got off and shot a couple photos.

It was a good shot. The bike parked in the middle of what had been the road, with barriers behind it, asphalt suspended in midair behind the barriers, and off behind that a good bit of the construction project visible. The sun was so bright I had a hard time seeing the image on the screen but I trusted the camera would do its work just fine. Except that when I got home and tried to take a look they were not there. How did I screw that up?

From there it was the usual roads home. But they’re nice roads, basically frontage roads along I-25 and pretty, with the mass and mess of the interstate in clear view right over there.

So–a good ride.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding a motorcycle is like tasting freedom with every breath.

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Dealing With Obsolescence

Thursday, April 9th, 2026


Maybe by the time you see this it won’t look like this anymore. This is what a default WordPress theme looks like.

You may have noticed this blog was offline the last few days. Well, hooray, it’s back, but at a cost. I’ve lost my theme and now it looks like some default WordPress blog–which is exactly what it is. For the time being.

It all started on Sunday when I sat down to write my post for Monday. I could not get to the blog. All that happened when I clicked on the link is that a dialog box came up asking where I wanted to save the file to. What? I tried on different computers, using different browsers, but same result each time. Fine, I would wait till Monday morning and see if the problem fixed itself.

It did not. So I made a call to my web host, HostGator. I had moved the site to HostGator, which is in Austin, Texas, after having issues with my previous web host. One of the things I found most appealing about HostGator was that all its tech support people were right there in Austin and were all native English speakers. I’ve got nothing against people for whom English is not their native language, but I really don’t like it when I have a very hard time communicating with someone on an important issue. So I’ve been very happy with HostGator.

Until the last time I needed help and called and got someone who was not a native English speaker. We managed, but I was concerned.

This time I called and the tech support person was a non-native English speaker. OK, let’s just get this issue addressed. This guy did some checking and he told me it appeared I had some malware on the blog and he would need to do scan to see how many files were infected. He told me he would call me back in about an hour. He did not. This was Monday. On Tuesday I called HostGator again.

On this second call I reached a tech who was a native English speaker. Great. He pulled up my account and saw that a scan had been done and it found no malware. The problem, he said, was that I was running some out of date software. I knew this, and I had spoken just recently to someone about updating my site but he told me it was working, updating would be a huge issue, and if I could live with the nag messages I get so frequently I should just go ahead as normal. Obviously that advice reached its expiration date.

So the tech told me he would need to pass me over to more technical tech support and I was handed off. I heard one ring tone and then silence. Minutes ticked by and finally I hung up and called again. I again got an English-speaking person on the line. I told him the story and he transferred me to tech support, making sure I got transferred. I did and found myself talking to a woman who was not a native English speaker. Fine, as long as we can communicate and she can fix things.

She started digging in and found one of the issues, which I had told her about because I had received an email from WordPress telling me they had spotted the issue. She put me on hold several times while she took care of things but then as she was going to put me on hold again I told her I had an appointment I needed to get to and could she continue without me. She said yes and she would send me an email telling me what she had done.

I never received an email from her and when I tried to reach the blog I still got one of the two error messages I had received before.

On Wednesday I called again. I got a non-native English speaker who basically solved the problem but did so in a blunt object, meat cleaver manner. He just updated everything to the most current default theme, and all my design be damned. At that point I was more interested in getting the blog back online even if it didn’t look so good any more. So that’s what you see now.

I contacted my brother, who did the original design but who no longer does WordPress work and he said he would see if he could at least resurrect some of the previous design. If it does not now look the way it did in the photo above you know he has been at work.

Maybe next week I can get back to writing about riding motorcycles. At least I can offer a quote.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride paranoid. It has always kept me away from crazy cagers and scary roadside animals. — CVBruce

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Any Stupid Questions Lately?

Thursday, April 2nd, 2026


Is that a motorcycle?

Oh sure, let’s see what other stupid questions riders have been asked. Haven’t done this for a while.

  • “How fast will it go?” I get this one a lot with my 1150GS.. I usually reply with.. “It will do the speed limit anywhere I go…”
  • Stopped at a roadside peanut stand when I rode a Ducati ST3. Guy says, “Ducati… who makes that?”
  • The most common comments I get on the Strom are 1: “What the hell is that thing?”and 2: “Do you ever wash it?”
  • I was sitting around a coffee shop the other day, using my laptop, when this dude sitting nearby points to my pile of riding gear and says, ‘Sweet helmet. Do you have a bike?’ So I looked at him and responded in deadpan, ‘No, I just spent $400 on riding gear to look like I have a bike when I’m stopping for coffee and an email-check.’ He responded with, ‘Awesome idea. I should do that. … … So you’re really kidding, right?’
  • I pulled into a carpark once and while getting off the bike some guy came up and asked me straight out without hesitation ” Did you Just ride here?” I was stumped.
  • After installing luggage racks and 3 Givi 36L cases on my NH, at least three people came up to me and asked: “Why does your bike have big suitcases on it?” “What in the world do you need to carry in those?” “If you are going to bring that much s–t, why not take the car and save yourself the grief?”
  • I have a picture of my KLR and I at the Arctic Circle sign in the map pouch on my tank bag. One day a 20-something looked at it and said, “That is a cool picture; how did you get the bike there?”
  • I had a fellow college student (was in my class to boot) ask me if I carried that helmet to pick up chicks, cause he wanted to get one to do that. Not a motorcycle just a helmet.
  • Walk inside gasbar with helmet on to pay for my gas and the attendant says “Would you like a carwash today sir?”

And one last one, the sort we don’t like to hear:

  • Can I see your license sir?

Biker Quote for Today

I carry groceries home on the tank of my motorcycle.

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