Archive for the ‘Honda motorcycles’ Category

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Checking Out A New Tank Bag

Monday, May 3rd, 2021

My first–but possibly not my last–stab at setting up this Viking bag on my 1980 CB750.

I’ve had a tank bag for my Kawasaki Concours for years and it’s been great. More recently I got a tank bag for my Suzuki V-Strom and it’s a very welcome addition as well. But I’ve never had a tank bag for my Honda CB750 Custom. I’ve felt that lack. Well, now I have one.

I took the bag from the Kawi with me on the Honda one trip and utterly regretted that. Whereas on the Connie it sits–with magnetic attachment–on a broad gas tank with wind protection from the fairing. On the Honda the tank was probably OK, not great, but with no fairing the wind wanted to lift it up and throw it around and I spent that whole trip fighting to keep it in place. A real horror! Nope, I needed a tank bag that straps down securely for the Honda.

So, as I often do, I received an email from the folks at Viking Bags offering to give me some gear in exchange for my testing and reviewing it. Usually I ignore these emails because one person really only needs just so much gear. But this time I figured what the heck, it would be nice to have a tank bag for the Honda.

Of course, nobody makes bags today designed specifically for a motorcycle made in 1980. But Viking does offer bags designed to fit many specific makes and models so I looked at what they had for Honda and picked one that struck me as possibly working on my Honda. I chose to go with the Viking Dirtman Medium Black Dirt Bike/Enduro Tank Bag.

I received the bag Saturday and immediately took it out to put it on the bike. I knew this might be less than straightforward.

Securing the bag under the seat

The back strap was easily secured under the seat.

The first thing I knew I needed to do was to remove the seat and loop the back strap under the slot where the tongue on the seat slips in to be held in place. That was easy, although removing the seat on this bike is never easy. That particular design element is so much better these days than it was in 1980.

Attaching it in front was not so simple. On this old bike, the gas tank straddles the backbone of the bike’s frame and wraps around the steering post. I slipped the straps into that V and then brought them back up to the bag. I wasn’t sure this was going to work but when I tightened everything down it did seem to do the job. The real test will be when I take it for a ride and see how it does.

I also had to figure out just what to do with the rest of the straps and I kind of jerry-rigged that.

It appears secure. What I like about it is that, as the name implies, this bag is designed for a dirt bike so it sits back on the tank, pretty much in the space where the actual tank on my Concours is. This leaves me free access to my gas cap so unlike with the other two, I won’t need to remove the bag to put gas in the tank.

Right now the strap comes up the side of the tank and that is a bit unsightly so I will probably try setting it up differently but for now it looks like it will work. I’ll be following up this post with an actual description of the bag and discussion of its features. I’ll also explain there how I finally decide to handle all this set-up.

In the meantime, I think it’s going to be really nice to finally have a tank bag on this bike. Heck, I’ve had this motorcycle for 33 years.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 5. Bonus at work? We’ll buy shiny bits for our bike instead of taking you on a romantic vacation.

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Posted in Honda motorcycles, Kawasaki, Motorcycle Gear, Suzuki motorcycles, V-Strom | No Comments »

‘Roads To Cripple Creek’ Added To Website

Thursday, April 22nd, 2021

A portion of the new Roads to Cripple Creek page on the Passes and Canyons website.

For the first time in quite a while I have added a new page to the Passes and Canyons: Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website. The new page focuses on the numerous good motorcycle roads that lead to Cripple Creek, and I have named it “Roads to Cripple Creek.”

I don’t add many pages to the site these days because I’ve basically got it built out. It’s not like the roads in Colorado change all that often. I did add a new page for Guanella Pass when they finally paved that road all the way. But that’s not a common occurrence.

I first started thinking about Cripple Creek when I read somewhere that the high point of the road coming into town from the north, from Divide, is considered Tenderfoot Pass. If it’s a pass, I figured, I ought to have it on the site. But it’s kind of iffy as a pass. There is some more or less official registry of geographic place names in the U.S. and Tenderfoot Pass is not included on this list. And as many times as I have been over that road I never thought of it as a pass.

But then I got to thinking. While the road out of the north does have some good twists and turns, and goes up and down, and has some terrific views in places, it’s really probably not the nicest motorcycle road to get to Cripple Creek. There are others I would rate higher. So how about a page focusing on all of them. That’s what I did.

The other paved road into town is generally considered the back way, coming up in a roundabout manner from U.S. 50 a bit to the west of the Royal Gorge. If you’ve never been on this road you really need to do it. It has some terrific twists and lots of changes in elevation. Definitely better than the main road.

Then there are two gravel roads, both along old railroad beds. One comes directly into Cripple Creek, and that’s the Shelf Road, which comes north out of Canon City. Then the Phantom Canyon Road comes north from U.S. 50 a little to the east of Canon City and runs up to Victor, which is just a few miles east of Cripple Creek. Both of these are really nice, scenic road and are ride-able on street bikes as long as your bike is OK on decent gravel. For instance, I would not hesitate to take my Honda CB750 on them, but I would never consider riding them on my Kawasaki Concours. And of course, my Suzuki V-Strom loves that kind of stuff.

The page is not yet complete; I still need to add photos of these four roads. I have some already and just need to add them. For the others I’m going to have to go ride these roads again and get some shots. Oh the horrible burdens I bear!

Biker Quote for Today

The ride keeps me sane. I would like to call it my church.

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Posted in Colorado motorcycle rides, Honda motorcycles, Kawasaki, motorcycle touring, Routes to Add to Website, Suzuki motorcycles, V-Strom | No Comments »

Motorcycles And The Sharing Economy

Monday, March 22nd, 2021

The RMMRC stopped at Carter Lake after leaving Severance.

The RMMRC rode up to Bruce’s in Severance a few weeks ago and while there we got in a conversation with our waitress.

It turns out she and her guy ride motorcycles and they were planning a trip in a couple weeks, going to Florida to visit family. While there they planned to rent a bike and cruise over to Daytona for Daytona Bike Week. But, oh man, the regular rental places were in full mercenary mode.

In addition to the usual high price of about $175 a day, they wanted more because it was Bike Week and they knew they could get it. As in an extra $500. It was kind of like when I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We got there a week before the official start to the event and ate every morning inexpensively at this particular restaurant. One morning we showed up and there was a new menu with all the same items but double the price. We asked why and the waitress told us, “Oh, that’s our carnival menu.”

No surprise then that these folks were not inclined to pay that much. She’s working in a restaurant in Severance, for Pete’s sake, they’re not wealthy. But they found an alternative: Riders Share.

I’ve written recently about Riders Share but I have never used the service or known anyone who has. But there she was. And presumably it worked out well for them. They had some nice cruiser bike lined up and as I recall it was going to cost them just around $100 a day for five days, with insurance included. You can’t beat that with a stick.

I’ve always found this concept interesting and seductive. I have three motorcycles. Why not make a little extra cash by renting them out on occasion? But that’s where you get into issues.

For instance, I have a 1980 Honda CB750 Custom. It’s an old bike, and not worth a whole lot. But hey! It’s the first motorcycle I ever bought. It was a dream come true, and I still love that bike. Sure, insurance would cover the financial loss if something happened to it but this bike is irreplaceable. It has so much emotion tied up in it. Exactly how horrible would I feel if someone else smashed it beyond redemption?

Well, what about my 1999 Kawasaki Concours? I don’t have the emotional attachment to this bike that I do with the Honda. And from time to time I have seen basically identical bikes in excellent condition for sale for essentially peanuts. The same is true for my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650. I love the bike but it could be replaced.

So for me it now gets to the question of what’s the point? There were a lot of years when I was scraping by and a bit of extra cash now and then would have been extremely helpful. But I’m retired now, and I’m doing fine financially. As I have said many times, if I needed more money I would not have retired. So no, I don’t think I’ll be listing my bikes for rent.

On the other hand, I do like having a bike to ride when I go somewhere, but I really don’t like the high prices the big companies charge. Something like Riders Share seems to me to be the perfect way to go. By the way, there is another company doing the same thing, called Twisted Road. If you’re planning a trip and want a bike to ride you might think seriously about checking out what is available on both these sites. I sure would.

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycles are not all about speed. It is a feeling, and emotion, but also my therapy.

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Posted in Honda motorcycles, Kawasaki, motorcycle rental, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club, Suzuki motorcycles | No Comments »

A Motorcycle’s Little Lessons

Monday, February 15th, 2021

I still love this bike–my first love.

Ongoing mechanical issues with my now 41-year-old Honda CB750 Custom some years ago had me thinking the unthinkable, as in getting rid of it rather than continuing to put money into it. It didn’t happen, but for the only time in all those years I was at least considering it.

But this is the first bike I ever owned. I had ridden motorcycles before but this is the bike that I learned to actually ride on. There really is a difference. Anyone can get on a bike and start it up and go forward. To handle that bike with skill and finesse is an entirely different matter. It takes time, and this was the first bike I ever spent enough time on to learn these things.

Thinking these thoughts had me thinking about the early days, when I had no idea how much I didn’t know. When my friend Richard heard I’d gotten a bike he commented that I must be figuring out the seeming contradiction of counter-steering. I looked at him blankly because I had no idea what he was talking about. Of course, counter-steering is that business where you put pressure on the right grip if you want to go right, the left grip if you want to go left. If you think about steering, pressing on the right grip–away from you–would seem to turn the front wheel to the left, so how does that make you go right? I’m not even going to get into that lengthy discussion here but trust me, it does. I had some learning to do.

Another thing I learned right away was to back into a curb. I read something awhile ago from a non-rider who had passed through Sturgis during the rally who wondered why it was that all the bikes were parked with their rear wheels backed in. Was this just some unspoken law of biker cool?

Hardly. Within the first week or two that I owned the Honda I ran over to the local motorcycle dealership to get something. I pulled in the parking lot, which sloped down from the building toward the street, and pulled into a space alongside the sidewalk, nose in. Guess what happened when I was ready to leave. With no reverse gear, I had to muscle this 600-pound bike uphill, backward. Of course if I had backed it in I would have just climbed on, started it up, and driven away. That’s one of those lessons you learn once and never forget.

Paying attention to the kill switch is another lesson but it doesn’t sink in quite so quickly. If you take a Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider training course they will teach you to turn the bike off every time by flipping the kill switch. I’m sure if you get in that habit you will never forget then to flip that switch back whenever you want to start. I don’t do it that way. I just turn off the ignition key.

In my mind, at least in the beginning, the kill switch was something you would use in an emergency, such as if you dropped the bike and the engine didn’t die on its own. What I had to learn is that sometimes you get all fat-fingered and hit the kill switch inadvertently. Sometimes that means you’re trying to start it and nothing is happening. Other times, you might be cruising along and all of a sudden the bike dies, and for the life of you, you can’t figure out why.

I did this once when I was setting my throttle lock and my hand grazed the kill switch. I sat there by the road for half an hour while two different bikers stopped to offer assistance. I felt pretty stupid when I finally figured out what the problem was. Eventually I just developed the habit of scanning the controls every time before starting to make sure everything is in the proper position.

I could go on; there’s a lot more. But the point is, I learned all of this on the Honda. This bike has been with me since the start, quite a bit longer even than my wife has been with me. Could I really let it go? At this point I’d say no, and back then I never had to make that choice. After getting a bunch of work done on it then, ever since it has been a dependable, good-running bike.

On the other hand, I know a number of guys who are younger than me who have decided they’re getting too old and it’s time to hang up the spurs. Do I see that happening any time soon? Not on your life! But before I hang up the spurs I’m guessing I will get rid of these heavy bikes I now ride and get something smaller. But I don’t even see that happening any time soon. Heck, Roy is 89 and still rides his big Beemer across the country. I’m planning to be Roy.

Biker Quote for Today

I’m a biker grandpa. Just like a normal grandpa except much cooler.

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Year Ends With Good Mileage On The Bikes

Thursday, December 31st, 2020
motorcycles on top of Mount Evans

The top of Mount Evans is one place I want to get to again in 2021, perhaps this time without the snow.

It’s December 31 right now so it could be a tiny bit early to lock in my 2020 mileage but it’s unlikely I’ll be going anywhere today, so here goes.

Every year I tally up the miles I put on each of my three motorcycles and on my car. Once again, as has been the case for a long time, I put more miles on the bikes than I did on the car.

Obviously this has been an unusual year and my car mileage really shows it. I only drove my car 1,979 miles in 2020. That’s amazing. In comparison, I rode the Concours alone for 2,977 miles. I also put 1,026 on the CB750 and 1,046 on the V-Strom. That’s a total of 5,049 miles on the bikes–more than two and one-half times the miles I put on the car.

While 5,049 miles on the bikes may not seem like much it is in fact more than I did the previous year. In 2019 I only rode 4,777 miles. In last year’s post where I tallied all this I set a goal for myself to ride 10,000 miles. Clearly that didn’t happen. Pretty much nobody got out and around as much as they had planned to in 2020, and I’m certainly no exception.

The one really big difference this year is that for the first time since 2010 I rode the Honda more than 1,000 miles. This was not an accident or by chance. I’ve mostly neglected that bike for a long time and I told myself in 2020 I was going to make a point to ride it more. I guess I succeeded on that goal.

So what goals to set for 2021? That’s easy. Ride a lot more. And with vaccines on the way that should be an easy goal to meet. The RMMRC had what looked like a terrific ride set up, up the Great River Road from St. Charles, MO, to the source of the Mississippi in Minnesota. That ride didn’t happen in 2020 but it is now planned for 2021. I definitely intend to go on that one.

The OFMC did take its trip in 2020 and I’m now planning the 2021 trip. And maybe 2021 will be the year I finally do the article I proposed to Rider magazine three years ago. I’m sure Mark Tuttle has forgotten I ever pitched that story to him but I’m confident he’ll accept it if I ever get it to him. But first I have to do the ride.

So here’s looking to 2021 to be a much better year. And let’s hit that 10,000 mark this time.

Biker Quote for Today

Some bikers never realize how anti-social they are until there’s a pandemic and their life doesn’t really change that much.

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Posted in Honda motorcycles, Kawasaki, Suzuki motorcycles | No Comments »

In The Beginning

Thursday, December 24th, 2020
motorcycles at motel

John and Bill and our original bikes on one of our very early trips.

Riding hasn’t been much of an option lately, which sets me to reminiscing. Like back to when first John, then I, then Bill got our first motorcycles.

Mind you, Bill and John had had scooters when they were in junior high, which gave way to cars in high school. I would have had a scooter, too, but my Mom wouldn’t let me. I’ve told that story more than once. But these were the first real motorcycles any of us ever had.

It happened largely by chance. It’s been so many years that my memory is weak on the particulars but one way or another, John knew some guy who had a 750 Virago he needed to get rid of and he offered it to John at a price that was too good to pass up.

So one day John shows up at my door on this motorcycle. Hop on, let’s go for a ride. What a revelation! One of the first things I noticed was the smells. You weren’t closed up in some box, you were out in the open and if you went past some place with odors you smelled them. This is new.

And then there were the microclimates you are normally totally unaware of. What sticks in my memory was riding at night up north on Lowell and we went down into the dip of a small stream. Quickly down and back up but it had to be nearly 10 degrees cooler down in the dip. Who knew?

And then there was the whole concept of riding. When John and I went riding we didn’t generally have anywhere we actually wanted to go. We’d just pick a destination because that was an excuse to go ride.

So it wasn’t long and I was thinking really hard about getting my own bike. Of course John was all in favor of that. And back then there was a little shop just a few blocks from my house where they sold mostly used bikes and did repairs. John and I went over there and there were three bikes I found interesting. One was a Honda CB750 C, another was a Honda CB750 K, and I can’t remember the third. I was concerned that these were all a bit big for inexperienced me but John assured me that if I bought a small bike now, in just a few months I would be dissatisfied with it and want a bigger one. Better to get the bigger one now. Of course he was right.

So I bought the CB750 C, but John had to ride it to my house because I didn’t have a license or learner’s permit and I had never had any lessons on riding. Every other motorcycle I had ridden previously–many years earlier–had been no bigger than 305cc.

I got my learner’s permit and John and I went riding. No training, just go do it. Apparently I did so successfully. I have little memory of my learning period. Then I had to get my regular license. John had the advantage that he had kept his motorcycle accreditation current on his driver’s license all these years but I had to take the test. And the only bike I had to take the test on was my 750. I’ve told that story before, too, but suffice it to say that, on the second try, I passed the riding test on my big bike. I don’t think many people do that.

Now we were really cooking. But there was one thing missing. Bill watched wistfully as his two buddies went out having fun. It didn’t take long and Bill announced to us that he had bought a brand new Honda Shadow. He was joining the club. Now we were set. The OFMC was coming into being.

Biker Quote for Today

Life is too short to let dreams sit idle. Make every day count.

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Posted in Honda motorcycles, motorcycle memories | No Comments »

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