Passes & Canyons Blog

I figure that considering I’m not riding due to my surgery, this is a good time to repost some more of these Examiner Resurrections. I wrote for Examiner.com for about eight years but they shut down and all the stuff I published there was taken down. Much of it is still good and relevant.

Motorcycles 101: Combatting Handgrip Vibration

People helping people. That’s one of the really nice things about online motorcycle forums, and here’s a good example. On one forum I frequent, a guy who goes by “bull 156″ asked this question: How to keep mirrors from shaking so much? Can’t even use them when going faster.”

I was one of a number of people who responded to his question, and I was very interested in the wide range of options presented. Enough so that I figured it might be interesting to pass them along.

Here are some of the answers.

• Weights inside the bars help. My Concours has weights that are attached at the very end of the bars. Rides very smoothly but I’ve been told without them it would vibrate a lot. (This was my answer.)
• http://www.barsnake.com/ — This URL was the complete response, and when you follow the link it takes you to a site where the sell something called the “Barsnake.” It’s essentially a weight to insert inside your handlebars.
• If the valves have tappets, they should be checked for proper gap. From the photos, it appears that it came with end weights in the handlebar; if they’ve been removed, the mirrors will shake.
• Try unscrewing the mirrors and put in a rubber washer; it might help absorb some of the vibrations.
• Or, install some nylon washers. With bar end weights, you should be good.
• I think you need to check the bike over for: bad bearing (front), bad axle, bad tire, bad or loose steering head. Does the engine run smooth or rough? If the roughness or vibration comes from the engine, cure that. That engine should run smooth as silk, if all is well. Might be carb sync, valves, bad compression, whatever would make it run rough.
• Here we have some roads that are smooth as silk, and others that are bumpy like gravel. The bumpy roads will make any bike vibrate. But you can tell on the smooth parts, no vibration.
• For standard or cruiser mirrors try J.C. Whitney shock absorbing chromed mirror mount: SKU 1JA 060517.
• I’m thinking maybe you’re shifting into a higher gear too soon.

So there you go. Got a question? Get an answer, fast. You gotta love online motorcycle forums. I do.

Biker Quote for Today

On the eighth day, God created motorcycles.

I’m still not riding yet, due to my surgery, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. And if you lack people to ride with I definitely recommend the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club (RMMRC) because this very active group has a lot of fun and interesting rides planned.

The riding season starts early with this group so there are several trips that have already happened. Let’s go through what’s coming up.

The big trip this year is the Northwest Passage Tour, June 2-16, approximately 4,700 miles: We will be riding from Denver north through Wyoming, Montana, and Alberta then to British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and back into Colorado.

Flaming Gorge Camping Weekend, June 22-24.

Full Mountain Loop, June 30, approximately 285 miles and four mountain passes (Berthod, Gore, Vail, and Loveland).

Taylor Canyon Camping Ride, July 6-8.

Autumn Southwest Ruins Ride, October 6-11: This 6 day fall colors ride will take us through the central and southern Rockies to the SW canyons, south into New Mexico’s Rio Grande Rift valley, around the Valles Caldera, and northwest to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

There are other events planned, too, as well as spur-of-the-moment impromptu rides you can ask to be notified of as they happen. One of these days you’re going to see me on one of these but that’s still a ways in the future. I’m getting to the frustration point where I feel absolutely fine but any strenuous activity at all reminds me big time that I’m still in recovery. Heart surgery will do that to you.

Biker Quote for Today

Leave it all behind and just ride.

I was still in the hospital after my heart surgery and Bill came to see me. He figured I had a lot of time to read and brought me a copy of Two Wheels Through Terror. This is a book that tells the 2001-2002 motorcycle journey of the author, Glen Heggstad, down through Central America and South America. The big problem was that in Colombia he was kidnapped by guerillas and held for a month.

Bill was really wrong about me having a lot of time to read in the hospital because for the most part I didn’t have the strength and spent most of my time sleeping. But almost six weeks out of the hospital I have picked it up and started reading it. Oh my god, what a story! And this guy Heggstad is one tough guy.

During his month with the guerillas he was force-marched long distances over steep mountains while being almost starved to death. Then as part of his strategy to get released he took to starving himself deliberately, making the point to the bad guys that if they wanted any benefit from releasing this gringo they had better do so quickly while he was still alive.

He notes that, once safely with the Red Cross, he was brought a clean shirt. Normally he wears size XXL but this was a medium–and it fit perfectly. The guy went through some serious abuse.

Anyway, it really came home to me after he was released. Most people would have given up the trip and immediately flown home but Glen was determined to keep going, even though he needed a new motorcycle and all new gear. But first he had to recover. He had to battle back to the bike. Oh yeah, I can identify with this!

Here are a few of the things he said about his condition:

So physically weakened, it would take nearly a week just to be able to walk a city block without passing out, and several more just to build up the strength to balance a motorcycle.

Oh, yeah, I know. I was two weeks after surgery before I could go out and walk part of the way up the block and back.

Add to that, time with the ELN has left me weakened mentally and physically. After a brief trip to a local gym, I found myself too weak to bench-press an empty bar.

The good thing for me is that all along I have had the total support and never-fading smile of my saintly wife, Judy. Glen had guerillas deliberately trying to break him mentally. But that bit about pressing the empty bar: I started out doing curls with one-pound weights and was tired after a set with those.

The long miserable wait has ended. After pumping up the tires, I blast down the road for a two-hour, get-to-know-my-new-friend ride into the countryside, complete with rain in the darkness on the way back. Yet even the foul weather is a welcome relief as I’m just happy to be back in the wind under any circumstance. It’s as though life flows back into me again, while the excitement of being on the road permeates my being.

OK, this is what I’m still waiting for. It’ll be about another month.

Biker Quote for Today

Forget a knight in shining armor, I’ll take a biker in dirty leathers any day.

How do you feel about handing over the keys to your motorcycle to a total stranger–even a thoroughly vetted stranger–in exchange for a bit of cash.

For most riders, that is not going to happen.

Imagine, you’ve got your totally farkled out baby, your only bike, that you love like it’s your child and that no one–absolutely no one–better mess with it. Rent it to a stranger for a day or two? Not gonna happen.

But what if you own six bikes, and while you love them all, none of them are all that special. And they all cost money to maintain and keep running, and by renting one or another of them out from time to time you can significantly defray that expense. You just might consider it.

Enter Twisted Road. Think of AirBnB for motorcycles. You register, you meet the requirements (valid, current license), and when you’re going to be somewhere with some cool riding, you locate a bike and rent it. For a whole lot less than the approximately $200/day that the big boys charge.

Or if you’re the one renting out the bike, you set the daily price you’re comfortable with while Twisted Road vets the potential renters in advance.

This is a business that might work.

So Judy asked me, would I rent out one of my bikes? (Because I would totally rent someone else’s.) Let’s see. My friends who rent bikes as a business tell me how often their dual-sport bikes come back damaged, so no, I don’t think I would rent the V-Strom. The Concours has a lot of expensive bodywork and it is my number one bike these days so no, I would not be inclined to risk it in anyone else’s hands.

That leaves the CB750. Let’s face it, I only paid $800 for it when I bought it nearly 30 years ago and while I love it–it’s my first bike I ever owned–I’m not afraid of letting other people ride it. So yeah, maybe I’d rent the Honda. Maybe.

You might think that other people would be equally reluctant to rent out their nicer bikes but a look at what is available might surprise you. Let’s just list a few.

• 2011 Triumph Street Triple–$110/day
• 2017 Harley Softtail–$99/day
• 2014 Ducati Diavel–$125/day
• 2012 Yamaha Road Star–$130/day
• 2014 Yamaha WRR250R–$89/day
• 2004 BMW R1150R–$95/day
• 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale–$250/day
• 2003 Honda Shadow 750–$75/day

OK, there are a lot of bikes listed that are not at all shabby. If all you wanted was a bike to run around on for a couple days and have fun, I for one would be very interested in that Shadow 750 for $75 a day.

One thing that’s funny about it all is this “Dumb and Dumber” aspect. In the news article I saw that brought this to my attention, the guy running this business, Austin Rothbard, said he polled riders to see how many would be willing to rent their bikes out and how many would be willing to rent someone else’s bike to ride. He found that 85 percent of owners would not be willing to rent, while 70 percent of riders would not be willing to rent someone else’s bike.

“So you’re saying there’s a chance!?”

Right. That means 15 percent of owners would be willing to rent their bikes while 30 percent of riders would be willing to rent.

And so we have Twisted Road.

Biker Quote for Today

Warning: Tampering with my motorcycle may result in an ass whoopin’ you’ll never forget!

Author’s Note: Unless you are reading this on http://motorcyclecolorado.com/blog/ you are probably reading it on a rip-off site where they steal my work and publish it as their own. If you are not reading it on http://motorcyclecolorado.com/blog/, please exit and do not return to this rip-off site.

My string still holds, but it is destined to break soon. Ever since I bought my first motorcycle about 28 years ago I have ridden each bike I own at least once every calendar month. For the Honda that’s more than 300 consecutive calendar months. For the Kawi it comes to more than 200 consecutive months. For the V-Strom we’re looking at maybe just 45 months or so. But there will be no rides in April 2018. And probably none in May.

Thank you, heart surgery. Three weeks ago I had a quadruple bypass, along with repair of an aortal aneurysm and I’m not even supposed to drive for two months, much less ride a motorcycle. Heck, I’m not supposed to pick up anything weighing more than 10 pounds. How much weight do you suppose it involves just to rock a bike upright from its side stand? More than 10 pounds, I bet.

But I have to get back on the bike as soon as I can. Judy and I have plans to take a ride with our friends Willie and Jungle up to Bampf and Jasper in early July. I don’t intend to miss out on that trip. But that means that when I am able to ride, maybe around the first part of June, I’ll have just a month to get my stamina back and get my confidence up where it needs to be.

That confidence factor is a big one. I’ve never had to dust off rusty riding skills because I have never put the bikes away for the winter. This will be by far the longest I have gone without riding. And then there is the strength issue. I know I’m going to be nervous on my first couple rides so I’ve arranged with Alan to ride with me a few times. I know I’ll feel better knowing there is someone there to provide assistance if I need it.

This is all uncharted territory for me. I’m doing what I can already to build up strength, but so far it can be simply exhausting to walk around the block. Starting perhaps next week I’ll be going in regularly for rehab. No one is going to need to push me to do my rehab exercises; I intend to be pushing them.

So I don’t know how frequently I’ll be updating this blog for the interim. If I feel like I have anything interesting to discuss I’ll be here. Certainly I’ll be highlighting the big steps forward.

And also, just by way of explanation of that Author’s Note at the top, just recently two different websites have started stealing my blog posts and putting them up as their own. I’m trying to work with their web hosts to have them taken down but until that happens I want to try to make it clear to anyone coming to their rip-off sites that they are in fact rip-off sites.

Biker Quote for Today

A Biker’s Prayer: As I lay rubber down the street, I pray for traction I can keep. But if I spin and begin to slide, please dear God protect my sweet ride.

How is it that things come in bunches? I went out on my CB750 a couple weeks ago and three times during that one ride I had drivers in the lane to my right try take my lane, never mind that I was in it.

The first was the most egregious. This lady obviously did not look and she just pulled right over barely six feet in front of me. I blew my horn and shook my fist at her and she hit the gas. Made sure to get well ahead of me.

The next time was better. This guy seemed like he initiated his lane change and looked my way at the same time. He very quickly corrected and got back in his own lane.

The third was the least of the three: she signaled and had barely begun moving my way when she saw me and moved back.

You might ask whether I was at fault here. Was I paying no attention to being in these people’s blind spots? No, I assure you I was not. I pay a lot of attention to that issue, coming up on cars I’m overtaking cautiously and then hitting the throttle to blast past them quickly, getting into and out of their blind spots as rapidly as possible.

But there’s no avoiding being in their blind spot at least momentarily, and if that’s when they decide to change lanes and they don’t do a head-check, watch out!

Call Me The Breeze
That Saturday was an utterly gorgeous day so I did something kind of unusual: I went for a ride up in the hills. Normally I just never venture up to the high country on a bike until about May. This year, however, it has been so very warm of late, and we’ve had so little snow, that I figured I’d do it. Plus, I had just been up on the Peak-to-Peak the week before in a car and it was all clear.

So I was on the Concours and I headed up Mount Vernon Canyon on U.S. 40. It was a really nice run up to Genesee but when I got to that high point the wind was whipping a bit. I went on to Floyd Hill and the wind was howling. Of course, the Concours has complete bodywork so I always describe it as a sail. Not fun in high winds.

My original idea was to hit U.S. 6 in Clear Creek Canyon and then jump on I-70 just up to the exit for the Central City Parkway. I planned to take it over to Central City and then run down to Black Hawk, then go north on the Peak-to-Peak and back down to the flatlands via the Golden Gate Canyon road.

Well, considering the wind at Floyd Hill, going on up to Central City Parkway, which is higher and more exposed, was not at all appealing. So when I hit U.S. 6 I turned right and headed down Clear Creek Canyon. I could have then taken the left that would have taken me to Black Hawk and on to Golden Gate Canyon as planned but my gas gauge was acting weird so I was nervous.

Gas Or No Gas?
Ever since I had left home my gas situation was unclear. I always reset my trip meter to zero when I fill up but when I started off, the trip meter was reading about 80 miles while the gas gauge was showing near empty. Then as I went up and down hills the needle swung back and forth from half a tank to almost empty. I understand this, I’ve ridden this bike for for nearly 20 years, but I’ve never seen this kind of wild swinging. I was starting to wonder if a gas line had rotted through and was leaking. But I checked at a stop and found nothing dripping so I kept going.

I just kept heading down, to Golden, and made my way back home. I stopped and filled up on the way, and it only took 4.2 gallons. The Kawi holds 7.5 gallons. I was nowhere close to empty. But I filled it and set the trip meter to zero so now I know that next time, if things get weird again, there must be something wrong. Otherwise, I have no idea what was going on.

Speaking of gas issues, I had a different one on the previous Friday when I was out on the CB750. Normally I go to Reserve on that bike at about 145 miles. I was hitting 160 and going strong so I was wondering, watching closely for the first sign of the engine coughing so I could switch over.

I was coming up I-25 when it did seem to cough and I quickly flipped the petcock. But it didn’t take long before it started coughing even more. I hadn’t planned to get off at Orchard but in this case I did. On Orchard I got stopped at the first traffic signal and then the engine died altogether. I pulled over onto the sidewalk and considered my options.

The one thought I had been having was that maybe I had left the petcock set to Reserve ever since the last time I had had cause to use it. I put the kickstand down and got off to take a look. Sure enough, it was now set in the “On” position, not the “Reserve” position. I flipped it back to Reserve, pushed the starter button, the bike fired up and I rode on home.

No harm done, of course, but I know from experience what can happen if you have the lever set to Reserve without knowing it: you run out of gas entirely. Yes, I’ve done that.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if you’ve never ridden long enough to know that stock seats are never comfortable.

Emiliano contacted me about this new “Biker Coffee” they are now releasing in the states and asked if I was interested in passing the word along. I believe the gist of my response was “What makes coffee ‘biker’ coffee and of course if you’d like to send me some I’ll try it out and tell people about it.”

Biker Coffee was the brainchild of my uncle, Frank Rossi. Frank is a “no nonsense” kind of guy; he’s passionate about certain things like motorcycles, great coffee, freedom and family. He thinks political correctness is overrated so he prefers to tell it like it is. If it’s s–t, Frank is the first one to say so. That’s where “beans with attitude” comes in. Frank didn’t want to sell any old coffee – he wanted to craft coffee blends that said something. With every cup, you’re making a statement.

Frank started Biker Coffee Company in Canada in 2009 where it was a huge success. He decided to buy the rights from his partner to sell in the U.S. market so we’re now geared up and rolling in the U.S.A.

What makes Biker Coffee different is that the beans are roasted to order. That means when customers place an online order, the beans are roasted and the flavor-sealed bag is delivered to their doorstep. It also means our coffee is at peak freshness when you open the bag. The robust aroma, accompanied by a rich, bold flavor, will get you ready for whatever the road (or day) brings. Our beans are sourced from free trade, sustainable farms in the mountains of Costa Rica and Guatemala. We add the attitude in the states.

Biker Coffee Company embodies everything we hold dear – quality, freedom of expression and the adventure of the open road. We will gladly support biker causes by providing rallies or clubs with a percentage of revenue when Biker Coffee is served at their events. Interested groups can contact me for details.

So I received the coffee and made a pot. The first thing you need to understand is that I usually drink a pretty dark roast. I’ve read that with the really dark roasts, almost all the coffee flavor has been replaced by the taste of char. So if you drink a milder roast you may find yourself experiencing actual coffee flavor for the first time and that may be surprising. Emiliano sent me the Medium roast.

My wife and I both thought it tasted like dishwater. I realized I had made a mistake using the same proportions of water to coffee that I do with my dark char standard. I contacted Emiliano again.

You can adjust the percentages to taste. Here is how we recommend brewing:

Here are some brewing tips:
Drip method is best.
1. Use 1 oz of coffee for 16 fluid oz of water or .625 oz for 10 oz of water.
2. Heat water to approximately 200 degrees F
3. Pour water over beans.
Enjoy!
i.e. one pound bag of coffee yields 16 delicious 16 oz cups. or 25, 10 oz cups!

Yes, that is a bit more coffee than I was accustomed to using. In fact it was so much more that I didn’t go straight to the 1-16 ratio right away. But the further I pushed in that direction the more I started feeling like, OK, this is good coffee.

I should make the point here that Biker Coffee offers three versions: the Original Blend medium roast, Disc Brake decaffeinated, and Full Throttle dark roast.

So I took my taste buds on a learning tour, although we got side-tracked by a hospital visit. Much hospital food is as horrid as you have probably heard but at least the coffee was only bad, not undrinkable. (The chicken noodle soup was inedible. How do you ruin chicken noodle soup?) So when I was released and back home to drink real coffee again the Biker Coffee was a blessing. Coffee with taste. What a concept!

Biker Quote for Today

Drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested. — Hunter S. Thompson

If you’re a regular reader here you know that something has gone wrong. Ever since April 2006 I have posted regularly, with the exception of a short hiatus in December last year while my Mom was dying. Now it has been two weeks.

That photo to the right should give you a pretty good idea where I’ve been. It was shot in the cardiac ICU at Porter Adventist Hospital. I had quadruple bypass surgery with complete aorta replacement thrown in.

Needless to say, I’m a bit out of commission. I have three motorcycle-related posts already prepped that I’ll be putting up in the next week and a half. After that I’ll be taking another hiatus, although to the extent that I’m able, perhaps when something presents itself in my email, I will have an occasional post. Also, because the writer in me never shuts down, I may put up a couple posts here now and then that have nothing to do with motorcycles, but rather chronicle a motorcyclist’s battle back to the bike. (I kind of like that. That’s going to be my theme: The Battle Back to the Bike.)

I understand if you are here for motorcycles and are not particularly interested in some guy’s recovery from surgery. You don’t have to read them. Check back later and we’ll definitely be all motorcycles, all the time. For now I’m just going to do what I’m able to do.