Archive for the ‘Motorcycle Safety’ Category

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Ever Drink (More Than Just One) And Ride?

Monday, June 16th, 2025

Bill gets beered after we’re done riding for the day.

We get less extreme, and we like to think smarter, as we get older. At least everybody I know has.

Do you ever drink and ride your motorcycle? I never do now but I sure can’t say that about years ago.

Take for example one night John and I spent in Laramie. He and I had taken just a two-day ride, up through North Park and the Snowy Range to Laramie, motel, home down I-25 the next day.

This was in the really early days, maybe our second overnight trip ever. The first had been a three-night thing with Bill along. Bill couldn’t get free for this so it was just John and me.

We were young and out for a good time. And what is there to do in Laramie on a Saturday night but hit the bars? So that’s what we did. This bar. That bar. That bar. And how about that bar.

As you might assume, we drank quite a bit. But no problem, we were only about two miles from our motel. And we weren’t drunk. No, I’m sure of that. Absolutely. I think.

Either way, we were not going especially slow heading back to the motel, and with John in the lead, we got to the turn into the motel and he just whipped right into that turn . . . and I’ve never seen a bike go from upright to on the ground so quickly in my life.

John was just scraped up a little and his bike just dinged up a little–worst thing was his windshield was smashed–but he was thinking about other things. Like the cops coming along and stopping and then having him do a breathalyzer test. He yelled at me to help him get the bike back up quickly and then he pulled on into the safety of the motel parking lot. Fun night.

Then there was another time, when the OFMC was in Idaho and we pulled over at this bar in Arco. We had a good time with the locals in that bar, even bought a round for the house, and then we were on our way again. We weren’t drunk. No, I’m sure we weren’t. But we sure did find that going really fast was a lot of fun. Who knew it could be that much fun? And nothing happened. We reached our destination OK.

There were plenty of other times when we had a drink or two along the way, and that doesn’t even address the many times we would do a joint or a pipe at a stop along the road.

We don’t do any of those things anymore. But man, we sure used to. And we’re still alive and in one piece. It’s nice living charmed lives.

Biker Quote for Today

The turbulence of the mind begins to calm, and all the noise of modern life becomes quiet. Regrets of the past, worries of the future, anxieties, loneliness and the fear of death. Those demons . . . they all fade into the background in a cloud of dust as your body tunes into the present. It’s like that momentary state of enlightenment that monks and mystics spend a lifetime chasing.

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Posted in Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

Distractions On The Bike Are Just As Bad As In The Car

Monday, May 19th, 2025

On the road to California.

Colorado has a newly instituted law prohibiting hands-on use of a cellphone while driving and from all accounts it is doing some good. Distracted driving is of great importance to motorcyclists because we know far too well how easy it is not to see us even when you’re not distracted.

Well guess what. That’s just as true on a motorcycle as in a car. Case in point:

On this recent (aborted for me due to sickness) RMMRC California trip we immediately got separated from one guy. Alan, who was leading, pulled off at Idaho Springs to try to find out where he was. He called and found he was in Evergreen so we just agreed to meet up at lunch in Eagle.

In order to make this call, Alan pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant and we all followed him. I tend to be fairly conscientious and so as not to take up a lot of parking spaces in this small parking lot I pulled into the same slot as Alan, a bit behind him.

Alan got on the phone and made his call and got the matter settled. At this point he was in communication with the other guys because we all had Cardo communicators but we had been unsuccessful earlier in trying to get me paired into the group. So I was not connected.

Well, Alan was so involved in making his call and then talking to the other guys that he apparently had not noticed that I was behind him. So we’re ready to roll again and I started to roll back but Alan came rolling back faster than me and though I scrambled to get out of his way he backed right into me. Down I went.

Now, there was no damage and I was not hurt but my point is, he was busy on his phone–his communicator in this case–and not paying attention to his driving. What if instead of me on my bike, there had been some person walking to the restaurant behind him? That person could easily have been hurt. Or heck, I could have been hurt. I wasn’t, but I could have been. Clearly he wasn’t looking very carefully where he was going.

So yeah, hang up and drive. Or maybe just look where you’re going. It applies on a motorcycle as well as in a car.

Biker Quote for Today

As long as you are on planet Earth, you’re not lost.

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Posted in motorcycle clubs, Motorcycle legislation, Motorcycle Safety, motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club | No Comments »

Reports Suggest Hands-Free Law Is Working

Thursday, April 3rd, 2025

The CMT web page with the report.

Two recent reports suggest that Colorado’s law forbidding use of a cellphone while driving, except in hands-free mode, is having an effect.

The more significant of the two is from the Colorado State Patrol, which, according to an article in The Denver Post on April 1, said that distracted driving citations have increased in 2025 by 135% over the previous year.

As far as I can tell, it’s playing out exactly as I said it would. Driving with your phone in your hand is now illegal, but it is only a secondary offense, meaning you can’t be stopped just for that. So what will happen is that the cops will stop you for something else and then tack on the citation for using your phone, while perhaps being “nice” to you by not citing you for what they “actually” stopped you for. Or maybe they’ll cite you for that, too.

And the point, really, is that if they see you engaged in careless or reckless driving they could stop you for that before. It’s just that now, with the emphasis on getting people to be aware of and obey this new law they are apparently focusing more on stops for careless/reckless driving.

Either way, I’ll take it.

Meanwhile, a report from Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) says that the data “reveal a 3.3% reduction in phone motion distraction statewide, an improvement that CMT estimates to have prevented 88 crashes, 49 injuries, and $3.5 million in economic damages since the law began.”

CMT uses data drawn from cellphone tracking. Just in case you wondered if your moves are being tracked, presumably anonymously, be assured that they are. According to the report, “CMT defines phone motion distraction as when a phone moves with its screen on while a vehicle is in motion. The study analyzed over 3.8 million trips in Colorado between December 1, 2024, and February 11, 2025, measuring changes in distraction before and after the law took effect.”

Mind you, the improvement is measured in seconds, but all it takes is about one or two seconds of inattentive driving for you to totally change your life or the life of someone else.

One question here that I wonder about is how they distinguish between phone use by a driver vs. by a passenger. I would guess they can’t, so the figures are overall. Still, considering how much of the time people are alone in their cars, sussing out how much of the phone use is passenger vs. driver is not of overriding consequence. If the amount of time is declining that’s a good thing.

Still, let’s not fool ourselves. Just in the last week I’ve been behind a car that repeatedly wandered over into the next lane and when I was able to shoot past the guy he was looking at his phone. In another instance I was behind a guy who had his phone on a mount on the dashboard. I watched as he repeatedly reached up and tapped it, scrolled it, and pretty much constantly interacted with it. That is not hands-free. We’ve got a long way to go to fix this problem but at least we’re making a start.

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Posted in Motorcycle legislation, Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

New Tire Pre-Trip Or Not

Monday, March 31st, 2025

Using the old penny trick it looks like I need a new tire before this trip.

Here’s a question I know most of you have asked at one time or another: Should I get a new tire on my bike before I leave on this trip?

I’ll be heading out in late April on this 3,200-mile California trip with several guys from the RMMRC, riding my V-Strom. The front tire is definitely not shot but 3,200 miles is a lot. Does it have enough tread to make it?

My friend Jungle has always taken the approach of putting new tires on all around any time he and Willie are setting out on a long trip. But Jungle is a motorcycle mechanic and he can do the swap himself at no cost and then keep the old tire(s) around to put back on when the new one(s) are wearing out. For me or you that swap is going to cost about $60. Or more.

So how to decide? I pulled out my paperwork and found that I bought this tire two years ago and it has 6,000 miles on it. Now, I had the tire put on by one shop and six months later I had that bike in to another shop where they told me I should replace it, not because it was worn out but because it was built in 2017. Well, I just had it put on six months earlier and there was no way I was going to replace it then.

How many miles can I expect to get on this tire? I consulted the Stromtroopers forum, which is for V-Strom riders. Although those guys acknowledge that you might wear out this tire in as little as 5,000 miles, the consensus was that you should generally expect to get 10,000 to 12,000 miles on it. That suggests that I’m good. But I figured I’d check further.

I had the idea of measuring the tread in the brand new tire I just had put on my Honda and comparing it to what is left on the V. It was a rough measurement but the new tire seems to have about twice the tread that the old one has. That would suggest again that I do have enough rubber to do this trip, with the expectation of replacing the tire soon after getting home. I wasn’t done looking around, though.

The next question I Googled was how to know when a motorcycle tire needs to be replaced. Here I came up with an old rule of thumb I had not thought about: They say to put a penny in the groove and if you can see all of the top of Lincoln’s head it is time to replace the tire. I tried that and yeah, I can see all of his head. That suggests I should replace it.

I was talking with my wife about this at dinner last night and her thinking was that putting a new tire on would allow my wife (her, of course) to have peace of mind while I’m gone. And wouldn’t I hate to have trouble on the road, and put my riding companions at such an inconvenience? Particularly when for under $200 I can eliminate all such concern?

I think I can see where this is headed.

Biker Quote for Today

Keep the wheels turning and the adventure burning.

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Posted in motorcycle mechanics, motorcycle problems, Motorcycle repair, Motorcycle Safety, motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club, Suzuki motorcycles, V-Strom | No Comments »

MOST Hearing Is Wednesday

Monday, March 17th, 2025

ABATE testimony at the most recent MOST hearing.

If you think the money you pay each year to enhance rider safety should be spent to defer costs for rider training the time to contact your legislative representatives is now. A hearing will be held Wednesday afternoon for the re-authorization of the Colorado MOST (Motorcycle Operator Safety Training) program. The hope is to have the simple re-authorization bill amended to mandate that the money–at least some of it–be used in that manner. I mean, come on, “Training” is in the name. Putting up road signs that say “Motorcyclists use extreme caution” does not constitute training in anybody’s book.

The word from Stump, ABATE of Colorado’s legislative liaison, is that there’s no good way to know when in the afternoon the bill will come up, but it would be good to have at least a few interested members of the public on hand to testify. ABATE members will presumably be there so that base is probably covered. The other thing that matters–what you can do, and should do if you care about this–is to immediately contact your reps to let them know what you want them to do.

This hearing is with the Senate Transportation and Energy committee. Here are the members who need to be contacted.
Faith Winter (Chair) — 303-866-4863 — faith.winter.senate@coleg.gov
Lisa Cutter — 303-866-4859 — lisa.cutter.senate@coleg.gov
Marc Catlin — 303-866-5292 — marc.catlin.senate@coleg.gov
Tony Exum — 303-866-6364 — tony.exum.senate@coleg.gov
Nick Hinrichsen — 303-866-4878 — nick.hinrichsen.senate@coleg.gov
Kyle Mullica — 303-866-4451 — kyle.mullica.senate@coleg.gov
Byron Pelton — 303-866-6360 — byron.pelton.senate@coleg.gov
Cleave Simpson — 303-866-4875 — cleave.simpson.senate@coleg.gov
Tom Sullivan — 303-866-4873 — tom.sullivan.senate@coleg.gov

Stump provided a little background on what’s going on. Here’s part of it:

Also related to our bill, Larry (Montgomery–ABATE’s state director) and I met with Chris Corbo (MOST Director) this week to express ABATE’s concerns with the program. He actually requested the meeting because he said he’s been getting inquiries from Legislators about the MOST Program. The hour and a half meeting was MOSTly good (excuse the pun) but a lot of his answers were, “You have to ask MSF about that.” He conceded that the 9 years till the next sunset review is too long and should be 5 years. He also gave reasons (excuses) why there shouldn’t be subsidies: too much paperwork, too much time to write checks, need another person to do the extra work, abuse by vendors, etc.

So it’s “too much trouble” to do what the program was set up to do. At least this shows that people have been contacting their reps and the reps are pursuing the matter. That’s good news.

Biker Quote for Today

Like dogs, motorcycles are social catalysts that attract a superior category of people.

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Posted in ABATE, motorcycle clubs, Motorcycle legislation, Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

Is Hands-Free Working? Maybe

Monday, March 3rd, 2025

Hands-free is now the law in Colorado. And some people are actually obeying the law.

I took a short, no-big-deal ride on Sunday, just my monthly run to the wine store that I do on a bike as often as weather permits. But then I started checking to see if I could spot anyone using their phone in their car.

That practice became illegal earlier this year and theoretically there should be fewer people doing it. And also theoretically, you ought to be able to notice a lot more cars with hands-free attachments on their dashboards or windshields. I don’t search extensively; I’ve got a motorcycle to ride after all. But especially when I’m on a multi-lane street and I’m easing past someone it’s not hard to take a quick glance in as you go by them.

What surprised me was how many hands-free mounts I saw. Wow. People really are taking their safe driving seriously. Some at least.

That’s not to say that everyone is. I did see one woman with her phone pressed up to her ear, and another one who was looking into her lap rather than at the road ahead. I actually favor the one with her phone to her ear because at least her eyes were on the road. At that moment. Who knows where they had been a few moments before or after.

Mostly what I saw was people driving their cars. What a concept.

Driving while using your cellphone is not specifically a motorcycling issue, it’s really a motorcycling, driving, walking, bicycling and whatever else issue. Those people cause crashes. I know this first hand; fortunately I was uninjured by this red-light runner. My car was totaled.

Be smart. Be considerate. Don’t use your phone when you’re driving. And call out any of your friends who still just don’t get it. The life you save may be your own.

Biker Quote for Today

You own a car, not the road.

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Posted in Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

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