Passes & Canyons Blog

OK, it may be too late to put this on your Christmas wish list so maybe you’ll just have to buy it for yourself.

Gerbing, the heated riding gear folks, have just announced a new heated jacket, the Hybrid LT, that plugs into the bike, but can also be hooked up to a battery so you can be warm even off the bike. The battery fits in the jacket pocket and is supposed to be good for keeping you warm up to three hours.

I don’t know if you’ve tried heated gear but I love it. As long as I’m riding, my electric vest keeps me nice and toasty. It’s when I get off that things get chilly. I’ve thought for a long time that it would be good to have a battery-powered vest so it would work away from the bike. Heck, you could wear it to football game or any other outdoor activity that doesn’t have anything to do with riding.

But what I particularly like about this idea is that you get all the heat you need while you’re riding and then only start using the battery after you’ve arrived. If you only had a battery and rode half an hour to get somewhere, you’ve only got two hours of power if you also intend to use it riding home. With both sources you ride however long it takes, stay warm off the bike three hours, and then ride home as long as it takes.

This goes on my list of good ideas. Plus, it’s an attractive-looking jacket.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
More motorcycle thieves get busted via LoJack

Biker Quote for Today

Keep the bike. Ditch the fiancee.

A big Oopsie! award goes out this week to Kawasaki. It seems the producer of the super hot Ninja sportbikes had a bit of a design or production glitch.

The Ninja ZX-10R is the 998cc member of the Ninja family and a popular bike. However, if you want one of these babies just at this moment you’re out of luck. In fact if you already bought one you’re out of luck.

Kawasaki announced a couple days ago that it was putting a “technical hold” on all 2011 ZX-10Rs and telling dealers to return any unsold models to the company’s warehouses. What’s more, they are contacting all buyers who have already taken delivery to reimburse their purchases and take the bikes back. That’s right, you bought that, and paid for it, but you can’t keep it. We’re taking it back.

Of course, after whatever fixes that are needed are made, the bikes will be distributed again to dealers and they’ll go on sale. Buyers, on the other hand, are apparently not guaranteed to get “their” bike back, even if they had already done some customizing. Instead, they will “be among the first to have the option of receiving a new unit once the technical hold has been lifted.”

In its statement about the technical hold, Kawasaki was not specific about the nature of the issue. They did say that the ZX-10R will only go back on sale once “Kawasaki is 100 percent confident they reflect company standards for this highly technical, race-bred machine.”

OK, and so here’s a question: What’s the difference between a “technical hold” and a “recall”?

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Holiday gifts for winter motorcyclists

Biker Quote for Today

It’s not the bike so much as it’s the rider. Put the stock pistons back in the bike and quit messing with shit you don’t understand.

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) sent out a release the other day that will make you just shake your head. They tell about a recent meeting with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) where the gap between the motorcyclists and the safety bureaucrats could not have been wider.

Rather than paraphrase it all I’ll just quote from the release:

The government safety group continues to deny that the recent drop in motorcycle fatalities could have anything to do with education and awareness, instead maintaining that that the decrease was a result of people riding less. However, the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) reported that during the same time period, 2008-2009, vehicle miles traveled for motorcycles were up 6.8% or 27.6 billion miles in the U.S. The MIC also reported that tire sales, a unique measure of motorcycle use, were also up 9.6% in 2008-2009.

NHTSA also continued to defend their discriminatory practice of funding motorcycle-only roadside checkpoints, including their recent $40,000 award to Georgia’s Department of Public Safety. The idea is based on no science or research, but simply the notion that pulling every motorcycle off the road at the discretion of law enforcement will “save lives.”

Another interesting note in this broadly focused release is information on how the incoming Republican Congressional leadership relates to the motorcycling community. The MRF says that John Boehner (R-OH), who will be the next Speaker of the House, “has been a long-time friend of the MRF and ABATE of Ohio, and we look forward to continuing working with him in his new role.”

The MRF also notes that “The new chair of the powerful U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) will be John Mica (R-FL). Representative Mica has been a constant supporter of the MRF and all of our initiatives, as well as a very staunch advocate for ABATE of Florida.”

That bit about Boehner puts an interesting perspective on things. I know that for far-left Democrats, Boehner is seen as really evil. And yet if you’re a motorcyclist you have to think that maybe there’s more to him than just “evil.” It goes both ways, of course. Far-right Republicans also seem to see certain Democrats as pure evil. Gosh, maybe that’s not really true.

You’ll notice I used the terms “far-left” and “far-right” rather than just “Democrats” or “Republicans.” That’s to make the point that most Americans are much closer to the middle than to the extremes, regardless of which party they’re affiliated with.

Excuse the political interjection into what is normally a motorcycle-focused blog, but just this morning I’ve been watching online the launch of an organization called No Labels, website www.NoLabels.org. The group’s basis is in pushing elected officials of both parties to put aside partisan bickering and do what’s right for the country. Wow, what a concept.

I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll stop demonizing your guy if you’ll stop demonizing mine. And then let’s both push them to get things done to get this country moving again, even if it means compromising with each other.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Holiday gifts for motorcyclists

Biker Quote for Today

Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today. –James Dean

My life got complicated yesterday. I’ve been in touch with Ben Hochberg at ABATE of Colorado about taking their motorcycle trainer training so I can work as an MSF instructor teaching new and experienced riders to be better riders.

My interests are numerous. First, I’m trying to make a living as a motorcyclist, primarily by writing about motorcycling for any publication that will pay me. Being an MSF instructor doesn’t pay a lot but I’m in an every-little-bit-helps situation, trying to piece together a bit here and a bit there to equal a living wage.

Also, being an instructor would undoubtedly provide me with a lot of material for my writing. Heck, just taking the training course will provide me with material even if I never teach a class. Plus, taking the training and teaching the courses would inevitably make me a better rider myself.

And third, I enjoy teaching. I’ve had a few jobs over the years where part of what I did was to train others and I find it very rewarding.

So what’s my dilemma? Well, Ben told me yesterday the dates of the class, two weeks in June, and those are the same two weeks in which I was planning to do a motorcycle trip to California with some friends. Dang!

Of course that trip would also be fodder for my writing, and I don’t take vacations, so I’d be cranking out articles for Examiner.com and RumBum.com and others the whole while I was gone. But it would still be play as work, whereas doing the training would be more work as work. And who wouldn’t rather play than work?

I know the logical choice here is to stay home and do the training. Both the training and the trip would cost me money, some of which I would recoup through my writing, but the potential earnings of becoming a trainer far outweigh what I’d earn from the trip. And paying the bills is a nice thing to be able to do.

But I’d rather go on the trip. Wouldn’t you? Gosh, it just sucks to be me, doesn’t it? Don’t I wish I just had some job sitting at a desk and pushing papers all day! Yeah, right.

So anyway, if you have any thoughts to offer me on this decision I’d be happy to hear them. It just had to be those two weeks, didn’t it?

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Electric superbike to compete in 2011 season against gas models

Biker Quote for Today

I’m a highway junkie! Lord, I love a white line!!!

I picked up some new work the other day and I’d love to tell you where to go to read what I’m writing, but at the moment I don’t even know myself.

Just to bring anyone up to speed who isn’t familiar with what I do, I’m a writer and a rider and I’ve made it my job to combine the two. In addition to this blog, I write for Examiner.com, RumBum.com, do occasional pieces for CycleConnections.com, and have various other outfits that sometimes will hire me to do a piece.

My dance card is not full, however, so I’m always looking for another gig, and this time I decided to check out Elance. That as in E for online and lance, for freelance. It’s a digital meeting place for freelancers and the people who need freelance work done.

An there it was, a gig posting titled “Motorcycle Articles Needed.” I put in a bid and the next day got an email from Michael A. saying “You’re exactly the guy I’m looking for.”

Michael has hired me to write eight pieces for him, with complete freedom to choose my own subject matter, provided that I somehow draw into the discussion some of the brands and models sold by the dealership Michael does work for. Which is to say, this is more or less advertising copy, though only in the sense that many websites where the focus is on selling want honest to goodness content to draw readers to the site. I’ve done some of that before.

At this point I have no idea where this stuff will appear, whether I’ll be identified as the writer, or even how it will be used. There is likely to be more of this work in the future, though, so I’m sure I’ll learn all this eventually. It’ll be interesting to see.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Electric motorcycles: Dirtbikes and dual-sports kicking up dust

Biker Quote for Today

Midnight bugs taste just as bad as noon time bugs.

I had a really interesting visit today with Chris Ravana, of Blindspot Cycles, with him showing me a couple of his homemade electric motorcycles.

The way Chris does it there’s nothing magical, or even particularly high-tech, about building an electric bike. He goes to a salvage yard and buys an old junk motorcycle body, picks up a few necessary parts, and then puts an electric motor in it. The motor runs off a stack of standard automotive-type batteries, although they are of the deep-cycle variety that can stand to be deeply discharged before being charged again.

And there’s nothing all that special about the motor. It’s just a basic industrial-type electric motor.

The whole business couldn’t be much more straightforward. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here because I’ll be writing a lot more about Chris and his bikes for RumBum.com and Examiner.com, but, as always, I wanted to tell you the backstory here.

I just ran across an article about Chris and what he’s doing by chance, somewhere on the web, and it turned out he lives just up north in Fort Collins. I emailed him about getting together but didn’t hear anything back, so I called. He apologized for not replying but told me his wife had just had a baby the day before. So he’s been a little, shall we say, busy. Oh yeah, some excuse.

Today was a beautiful and warm day so I jumped on the Kawi and headed up there but along the way it got very cold. I was glad I had my electric vest. We talked about his bikes why he does all this, as well as the other things he does, and then it was time to ride.

Chris had two bikes prepped for us and off we went. This is not the first time I’ve ridden electric motorcycles but it’s still a kick. They’re silent when you’re sitting still, but twist that throttle and you absolutely do go forward, as in right now. Then you can cruise along side by side and talk, because there’s no engine noise. Not shout, talk.

What can I say? It was a lot of fun. He’s an interesting guy.

And then, just to show you how fickle the weather in Colorado can be, I headed back to Denver and rode back into sunshine and warmth. I knew there had been a beautiful day somewhere around here.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Ranks of electric motorcycles continue to grow

Biker Quote for Today

If motorcycles are not allowed in heaven then I’ll ride mine to hell.

We were coming down from the Black Hills and had been in Nebraska for about an hour when we stopped at a table along the road. There was another guy there, in a car, and we struck up a conversation with him. Along the way he mentioned, “This is a bucket state, by the way.”

Oh really? We hadn’t known that and we had been riding without helmets on. Oops. We had done the same thing a year or two earlier when we rode into Nevada for the first time. Somehow we got all the way to Las Vegas before we learned they required helmets.

Of course that was a long time ago, before the Internet, and we could be excused our ignorance. Back then it wasn’t easy to know what different state laws are. And if a state does require helmets, why the heck don’t they put up a sign at the border that says so?

There’s no excuse anymore for being ignorant of the laws in a state you’ll be riding to. The Internet does exist now, and one excellent place to check up on all states is a handy page on the American Motorcyclist Association’s website. You go there and there’s a map of the U.S. Click on the state you want to know about and it takes you to a listing of what they require and forbid.

The very first item on the list, presumably because this is the most common question, is the helmet requirements, if any. Other information includes the following:

• Safety Helmet
• State Funded Rider Ed
• Eye Protection
• Daytime Use of Headlight
• Passenger Seat
• Passenger Footrest
• Passenger Age Restriction
• Helmet Speakers
• Periodic Safety Inspection
• Mirror Left(L) Right(R)
• Radar Detector
• Turn Signals
• Muffler
• Maximum Sound Level
• State Insurance Requirements
• Handlebar Height
• Rider-Education
• Accept Motorcycle Endorsement From Other States
• Accept RiderEd Completion Card From Other States
• Motorcycles operating two abreast in same lane
• Lane Splitting
• Lemon Law Coverage

I’ll bet you didn’t even know that some states have requirements or prohibitions in some of these areas. Heck, you might even learn something about your own state laws.

Any by the way, the page also has separate legal requirements for off-road bikes. All in all it’s a lot of good information.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Fly and be groped or ride and have fun: Your choice

Biker Quote for Today

Remember when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous?

Yahoo! I got my CB750 Custom back from the shop and had the chance to ride it again. As I mentioned last week, I’d had electrical problems with it all summer, but now it’s fixed.

At least it better be, I paid more than $400 for a new stator and rotor. That’s after having it in once before where they cleaned the contacts and thought that was all that was needed. At this point I’ve paid almost as much in repairs this year as I’d judge the bike to be worth if I were to sell it.

Not that I’m going to sell it. This bike has a ton of sentimental value to me, starting with the fact that it’s the first bike I ever owned. How many people have you heard remark wistfully that they’d sure love to have that first bike back? For me, the answer is “a lot,” and I’m happy to be able to say I still do have that first bike.

And you know, I’ve been everywhere on this bike. That’s us in California there in that picture, and I’ve been all over the west on it. We’ve been together for more than 20 years, and that’s more than I can say even for my wife and me. Lyle Lovett has a line in his song, “Don’t Touch My Hat,” that goes ” . . and we’ve been together through many a woman.” Well that’s the deal here, too.

Of course, keeping a motorcycle running as it gets older gets harder and harder. The dealership I used to take the Honda to eventually fired me as a customer because they don’t want to work on older bikes. So I switched over to Mountain Thunder Motorsports, where Joel specializes in these old guys. I’m wondering how long it’s going to be before my Kawasaki dealer fires me and my 1999 Concours. I’ve already started taking it to Joel for some things.

Our first extremely cold weather hit the day after I picked up the bike, so we’ll see just how much I get to ride it in the near term. Doesn’t matter, though. It’s running good again and I’ll be on it whenever I can. Hopefully for at least another 20 plus years. Dang, maybe someday it will be worth a lot of money, like a lot of 50-year-old bikes of other kinds are now. Then I’ll be riding something classy.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Motorcycle shopping with your iPad

Biker Quote for Today

Remember kiddies, bikers have more fun than people.