Archive for the ‘motorcycle touring’ Category

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An Excellent New Mexico Ride

Monday, June 12th, 2023

I’m back now from that RMMRC New Mexico ride I mentioned previously and it really was an excellent ride. Here’s a quick synopsis and I’ll follow up with a more detailed narrative.

   The route.

On Day One we started out with eight riders on bikes and one in a pick-up pulling a trailer. Our very own sag wagon. This was Dave, who had had surgery just the week before and couldn’t ride. But he was the one who organized the ride and on Saturday morning he got up and thought how much he hated to miss it so on the spur of the moment decided to drive the truck. The trailer was a totally generous thought that might easily have entailed pulling this trailer for 1700 miles for no real reason.

Montrose was the destination that day, over Monarch Pass, and we got there uneventfully. It was raining a bit in Denver as we departed but the skies cleared and it was a good day to ride.

On Day Two we turned south. Over Lizard Head Pass, past Telluride, down to Cortez, and then a long slog to Gallup, New Mexico. The first half was a sweet ride and the second half, as I say, was just a slog.

Day Three had us heading further south and we made our way on to Alpine, Arizona, where we stopped for gas. The route Dave had mapped out had us turning off here and heading east on US 180 but some roadside reconsideration led us to continue south on US 191. That turned out to be a great decision as we ended up on one of the twistiest roads you’ll ever find. And if you look at the map you’ll that this road doesn’t really seem to go anywhere so there was almost no traffic at all. But what a fun road to ride. Ultimately we ended up for the night in Silver City.

On Day Four we headed north, taking US 180, which we would have been backtracking on if we had followed the original plan the day before. Because we hadn’t, this was new road. NM12 connected us to NM32 up to Quemado and then other state roads up to I-40 at Grants, this day’s destination.

Day Five was definitely not a typical day on the road. We were headed east but to get there we first went west on I-40. North on NM371 and then east on County Road 9, over to Cuba. Then things got a bit screwy. The plan was to make it over to the south end of Taos and then ride the Angel Fire loop around Wheeler Peak, to Red River. But we ended up on the north end of Taos and the sky to the south was threatening so we turned north to Questa, then east to Red River.

And then we were at Day Six, with the destination being home. Some folks were in a hurry, some were not, and we left in several smaller groups taking various routes. Rain was anticipated but we made it all the way home dry. Nice.

That in a nutshell was the trip. But there’s a whole lot of meat in that nut and I’ll get into that next.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re only as old as you feel when you ride your motorcycle.

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How Far Is Too Far?

Monday, May 29th, 2023

The EagleRider tour does a group shot in Yosemite.

I’ve seen a number of online articles lately about a subject I strongly identify with. Here’s one headline that sums it up: Teenager fined by airline after attempting luggage ‘hack’ of wearing six layers of clothes.

What’s the deal and why do I care? I did the same thing back in 2010. But I didn’t get fined. That’s kind of extreme, in my opinion.

As the story explains, this Australian teenager put on 13 pounds of clothing in order to avoid paying extra for overweight baggage. They made her pay 62 Australian dollars ($40.54 US), which I presume is about what the charge would have been for another bag. OK, fine. If you follow that link and look at the photo it does appear she pushed the whole concept a bit too far.

In my case it had nothing to do with weight; it was totally a matter of lack of room in my bag.

As the National Motorcycle Examiner for Examiner.com, a now extinct crowd-sourced website, I had been among a group of international motojournalists invited by Eagle Rider to do a one-week tour in California. I tend to travel light so I only took a nylon bag with the stuff I needed for the week, as a carry-on.

What I had not planned on was that as we toured around southern California for a week, we made a lot of visits to cool places. And every place wanted to promote itself with this group of writers from all over the world, so they loaded us up with swag. In addition to probably more than a dozen T-shirts, I was bringing home about 10 jump drives (very small, no problem), a leather motorcycle jacket, 8 large bags of beef jerky, several hats, and I can’t remember what else.

As I packed to go to the airport I found that I could not get it all into my one medium-sized bag. It seemed to me the only option was to take as much clothing out of the bag as necessary in order to get everything else in, and then put that clothing on my body. Kind of like the Australian teen. Sure, I’d be a little warm for a while but I could tolerate that.

Well, airport security did not ignore the obvious. But I thought the way they handled it was a bit ridiculous.

They never once asked me why I had so many clothes on. If they had I would have explained and then told them if they want to search me go ahead and do so to your heart’s content, but at least now you have heard my explanation.

No, they didn’t say a word, but they patted me down, X-rayed me, pulled everything out of my bag–just went to great lengths to see if I had something dangerous on me. At one point I tried to offer an explanation but the security agent very harshly told me to keep my mouth shut or things could get much worse. OK, I was just trying to be helpful.

Ultimately they didn’t find anything and I was allowed to board the plane. And I’m sure they were all pleased that by the time their shifts were over my plane had completed its flight uneventfully and all was well. But if it had been me, I would have been very interested to hear the explanation for this passenger’s peculiar behavior. Maybe, just maybe, one of them still remembers it and still wonders what the heck was going on with me that day. Sorry sucker, you’ll wonder till your dying day.

Biker Quote for Today

“If you brake, you don’t win.” – Mario Cipollini

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A Good Ride You Might Consider

Thursday, May 4th, 2023

Preparing to barge through a herd of cattle outside of Chama, New Mexico.

If anyone wants to accuse me of promoting the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club that’s OK, because I am. I’ve really enjoyed all the rides I’ve been on with this group. With the OFMC we do one ride a year and then only occasional day rides. The RMMRC does a lot of day rides and several big rides every year. And we’d love to have more people joining in.

So here’s another good ride that was just posted for the RMMRC. This is listed on the site as New Mexico Tour 2023.

Leaving on Saturday, June 3, and returning on Thursday, June 8, the first night’s stop will be Montrose. Day two will be down through Colorado into New Mexico, to Gallup. We’ll be staying in Gallup at the historic old El Rancho hotel. This is a very cool place. It’s where all the Hollywood people used to stay when they were filming movies up in Monument Valley and all the rooms are named for the various stars who stayed there.

Day three will end up in Silver City, another very nice place. I’m not sure what hotel we’ll be at but there are a couple really nice old, refurbished places in town. I have no idea what route Bob plans on taking but getting to Silver City pretty much requires that you ride some of the nicest roads in New Mexico.

The next day will be heading back north, to Grants. There is no obvious route I see looking at the map so this is a question mark. It could be one of the less interesting rides of the trip. Or not. I just don’t know.

Then on to Red River. This is another nice town. Nice enough that they hold a motorcycle rally there every year. What more do you need to know?

On the last day it’s just a run toward home. There are several possible routes so hard to say.

Altogether, by a very rough estimate, it looks like about 1,500 miles in six days. That’s really low mileage for an RMMRC trip but very much of the sort I prefer. I’m pretty sure I’m going on this one. What about you?

Biker Quote for Today

The motorcycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.

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Virtues Of Planning

Thursday, April 13th, 2023

If you’re riding behind you might want to do the planning yourself if he won’t.

The groups I ride with, the OFMC and the RMMRC, make plans in advance when we take longer trips. It just makes sense and is really necessary when you have a larger group. But deep down I’m not that kind of guy. I like to play it by ear.

Sometimes playing it by ear will bite you in the butt. In the early days of the OFMC we didn’t plan, and sometimes that proved to be an issue. I remember one time we got to Laramie and found that there were no motels room available anywhere in town. Another time we got into Pinedale, Wyoming, and it was Pioneer Days. We got the very last motel room in town.

One of the very worst times I ran into this was early on when I took just a two-night trip with my lady friend of the time. We were on the CB750–the only bike I had back then–and we planned to stay in Gunnison that first night. What a little planning would have told us was that college graduation was going on that weekend and there was not a room to found anywhere in Gunnison. Unlike in the early days of the OFMC, we did not have a tent or sleeping bags with us so this was a bit of an issue.

Fortunately, it was early enough in the day that the local Chamber of Commerce visitor’s office was still open. We inquired there and that helpful person made some phone calls and found that we could still get a cabin up in Almont, about 20 miles north of Gunnison. So that worked out.

The next day turned out to be quite an ambitious ride. We headed south through Lake City, to South Fork, to Pagosa Springs, and into New Mexico through Chama. That would have been a good ride but we were going further. We continued south, ultimately headed to Ojo Caliente. I wasn’t sure how to get from US 84 over to US 285 but figured I knew how to read a map.

Well, the day was getting long, and it was getting dark. And it turned out there was no really clear route to take to get to 285 other than going way south to where the two highways meet. That would just have been more miles. So I took what looked like a likely route . . . and we wandered.

We did find US 285 finally but now we were quite a few miles south of Ojo Caliente, and we were tired. And it started to rain. In the dusk with raindrops on my visor, seeing was not particularly easy. But what can you do? We pushed on.

We finally reached Ojo Caliente and made our way to the hot springs spa they have there. We also stopped at the two restaurants in town looking for dinner but they were both already closed. Dang.

Another couple came in at the same time we did and between us we got the last two rooms in the place. But dinner? We consulted with the other couple and they were in the same boat. One thing they did have that we did not have was granola bars. Four of them. These incredibly generous people gave us two of their four granola bars and that was the dinner we all had that night.

The ride home the next day was sufficiently uneventful that I have no memory of it at all.

So did this experience persuade me that planning really is something you need to do? No. Judy and I still travel at times with no idea where we’ll end up that evening. Sometimes we’ll make reservations for a particular night but leave the rest open. It’s just the way I like to do it, and she trusts in me enough to go along. And the bottom line is, we always find something.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 64. The passenger seat on the bike is a cruel after-thought, but we don’t wanna hear any complaining.

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Tales Of The OFMC: Ask The Locals, And Follow Your Impulses

Monday, April 10th, 2023

Later in the same trip when John laid down his brand new Honda Shadow twice, before we reached Salt Lake City, we were in Heber City, Utah, and trying to figure the best route to Salt Lake. It seemed our choices were to go southwest on US 189 and pick up I-15 near Provo or go north on US 189 and pick up I-70 north of Park City. Both called for skirting around the mountains between us and Salt Lake City and both entailed riding interstate. Neither looked wonderful.

There was a third option. Looking at our paper map we saw a little road winding its way through the hills. After our less than wonderful experience on Ripple Creek Pass the day before we were more than cautious. But we had the brilliant idea to ask a local: Is this road paved? Would it be a good choice?

Asking a local is one of the best things you can do in an unfamiliar area. They can not only tell you yes or no about the condition of a road, they can point you to places and routes you aren’t even aware of. I’ve had that experience again and again. Women like to say that guys don’t ask for directions but I sure do, and I’ve benefited from it many times.

This particular road was UT92, known as the Alpine Loop Scenic Byway. We took 189 south and turned onto 92 about halfway to Provo. The first community you pass through here is Sundance, the place made known by Robert Redford and his Sundance Film Festival.

And the road was awesome! It’s very narrow, barely more than one lane much of the way. It twists and turns up over the hills and eventually works its way down American Fork Canyon out onto the flat lands again over by a place called Point of the Mountain. I’m familiar with Point of the Mountain. I crashed a hang-glider there many years ago, an event that ultimately led me to take up the much safer interest of riding motorcycles. I sold my hang-glider to get money to buy my first motorcycle.

Along the way the road passes through Timpanogos Cave National Monument, a place I still have yet to visit although I’m familiar with it from my years working at the National Park Service.

But the road is great, absolutely one of the best we have ever been on. Well paved and gorgeous. You just have to take it easy because when you encounter traffic coming the other way it gets tight. Thank you whoever it was who we consulted on this one.

We spent a couple days with friends in Salt Lake City, as we had done the year before, and then headed west across the salt flats to Wendover, Nevada, and on west to Wells, where we turned north on US 93. We stopped for the night at the little town of Jackpot for the first time. Jackpot has become one our favorite stops as it has gambling–an OFMC must on each trip–and also golf. Golf is also a must on each trip now, but at this point it was something we had never done.

Our first time playing golf on the OFMC trip. And that’s the bridge over the canyon in the background.

About golf. We only stayed in Jackpot that one night but the next day we continued north to Twin Falls, where US 93 crosses the Snake River. This is where Evel Kneivel tried years ago to jump the canyon on a motorcycle. If you’ve never seen the Snake River Gorge here you simply cannot just cross without stopping to have a look. And we did, and we were amazed to see, down in the bottom of the canyon, a golf course. Incredible. Let’s ride down there and check it out.

Don’t even try to do this anymore, but we rode down there that day, liked what we saw, asked if we could have a tee time, they said sure, and we then rode back up, found a motel, dropped off our stuff, and rode back down to play golf. We had only gone 25 miles on the day but we didn’t care, this was too cool to pass up.

It’s a really nice golf course, in a fantastic setting, and we had a great time. So this was the first time we ever played golf on the OFMC trip. From then on, though, it became an every year thing. But Twin Falls has grown a lot since then and you’ll never get a tee time the same day there now. Make your reservations well in advance.

So the lesson learned? If something is just too cool to pass up, don’t pass it up. Do it! It may soon turn into a tradition that you wouldn’t dream of not doing. But first you have to do it the first time.

Biker Quote for Today

Corners for some motorcycle riders is a time to slow down, for others it’s just a reason to get closer to the pavement.

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Tales Of The OFMC: Know What Kind Of Roads You’re Taking

Thursday, April 6th, 2023

John and Bill on their Honda Shadows (years later).

It’s a whole lot easier these days to get a good handle on the places you intend to head to and the roads you’ll be on getting there than it was in the early days of the OFMC. Getting onto some dicey roads on a brand new bike is a good way to get your first scratches right away. This is a lesson John learned one year.

When the OFMC first got going, John bought a used Yamaha Virago, I bought a used Honda CB750 Custom, and Bill bought a brand new Honda Shadow. After we’d been riding about five years John decided to upgrade and he bought a new Shadow almost exactly like Bill’s, except newer. These were the bikes we set out on in 1994.

We headed toward Kremmling, where John’s Mom was living, and stopped to pay her a visit. We left town continuing northwest on US 40. Just a little further up the road we turned off US 40 onto CO134 over Gore Pass to Toponas. Nice ride. First time I’d ever been over that road.

From Toponas CO131 heads back up to US 40 but John had looked at the map and was interested in Routt County 8, which goes over Ripple Creek Pass from Yampa to Meeker. He had scoped it out and figured out (or so he thought) that it was paved all except for about 10 miles of gravel. Were we willing to do that bit of gravel? Back in those days these guys were more adventurous and we said yes; later on they concluded they did not wish to do gravel at all. I’m still willing, except on my Concours but I’ve always been more adventurous than them.

John was wrong. This road was 40 miles of gravel, much of it washboard and much of it deep with sand. It was probably the hardest riding any of us has ever done. And John managed to put his brand new bike down for the very first time.

John was leading and I was right behind. At one point he decided to stop and take a break and pulled off to the side of the road. Unfortunately for him, right at this point the side of the road was deep sand. I braked cautiously as I saw him go down. Fortunately there were the two of to help him get that bike up.

Ripple Creek Pass, by the way, is a beautiful road if you want to do it in a car or on a bike that is equipped for that kind of thing. I highly recommend it.

But that business of so much serious washboard had another impact. I noticed later that day that a couple of the welds on the sissy bar on my Honda had vibrated so hard that they broke. My sissy bar, with most of my stuff strapped onto it, was dangling precariously. But we stopped in Vernal, Utah, that night and then went on to Salt Lake City the next day and spent a couple days there. While there I went to a welding shop and got it fixed. So not a big deal. But that’s how bad the washboard was.

Heading from Vernal to Salt Lake the next day Bill was in the lead as we came alongside Strawberry Reservoir, near Duchesne. He saw a dirt road running down to the water and decided he wanted to check it out. John followed and I was right behind John.

It turned out the road was deeply rutted from erosion. Bill had no problem but John got himself in a fix and was about to lose it. He called out to me, “Ken, come help me! Quick!” I wanted to help him but I was in the same rough ground he was in and before I could do anything to help him I had to find a place to stop and park my own bike. By the time I did that he was down, his brand new bike laying on the ground.

As I recall, Bill came back on foot and helped us get John’s bike back upright, and we then rode on down the rest of the way to the water. We hung out for awhile and then managed to get back up to the highway uneventfully.

Now fortunately, neither of these two spills did any real damage to the bike, just a few cosmetic scratches and such. But it was no longer the brand new bike he had started out on just the day before.

We got more cautious about the roads we took after that.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s not the falling off that hurts, it’s the landing.

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