Passes & Canyons Blog

A beginning rider course.

This is another story I did for Examiner.com that has been deleted due to incompatible technology. I think it’s worth republishing here.

“Are you crazy?!”

It wasn’t hostile, but it was clear what he thought the answer to the question was.

I’m going to keep you in suspense for a moment while I set the stage for this encounter.

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Do you know how to ride a motorcycle? I mean, do you REALLY know how to ride a motorcycle? Are you such a good rider that it would be beneath you to even consider taking a Basic Rider Course? You might want to think again.

I took the Basic Rider Course this past weekend, courtesy of T3RG Motorcycle Schools, and I’m pleased to say I passed. Granted, I expected to pass. After all, I’ve been riding for more than 20 years and I make my living writing about motorcycles and motorcycling.

So would it surprise you if I told you I found parts of the course extremely challenging?

OK, let’s see a show of hands. How many of you have dropped your bike going about two miles an hour in a parking lot? Quite a few of you I see. I certainly have. Sure, it’s easy to stay upright going down the road when you have the force of momentum and the gyroscopic force of the wheels keeping you up. But can you crank the bars all the way left or right and just go around in circles at walking speed?

Here’s the proposition: If you can maintain confident control of your bike at slow speeds, how much easier is it to do so at higher speeds? And unless you’re out there competing in some Top Gun competition and winning, you could probably benefit from getting some rider training, even taking a Basic Rider Course.

And if that’s something you can’t quite go for, how about an Experienced Rider Course? I did them backward. I took an Experienced Rider Course about 12 years ago. I had been riding about 10 years at the time and I definitely came out of that a better rider.

This is not an academic question. The fact is that a very large percentage of motorcycle fatalities occur in single-vehicle accidents. In Colorado last year, 39 percent of all fatalities involved riders who did not even have a motorcycle validation on their drivers’ license. Do you suppose some of those people would be alive today if they had taken and passed a Basic Rider Course? Plus, you have the added benefit that if you pass the course you can take your card down to the DMV and they’ll issue you your validation. At least that’s how it works here in Colorado.

So here was my double lesson in humility last Sunday. First off, in the testing that completed the course, another student who had never ridden a motorcycle before, but did have a lot of experience on BMX and mountain bikes, scored better than me on the skills test.

Then, as I headed home on my bike, I came to where I wanted to turn left onto the highway. There was a fender bender that had just occurred in the turning lane and they were waving people around. I checked the next lane and there was a car there, but he was stopped to allow us to pull out and around. I did, intending to make the turn but when I got even with the front car in the fender bender the turn signal was red.

Momentarily perplexed as to what to do, I stopped dead in the traffic lane. Then I decided I’d have to go forward and turn around to get on the highway. I did, and as I then pulled into the next left turn lane the driver behind me pulled up and yelled at me, “Are you crazy?!”

It dawned on me then that he probably came close to rear-ending me when I unexpectedly (to him) stopped to consider what to do.

Which only goes to show that rider training classes can teach you the skills to operate your machine, and they can even teach you procedures that will help you ride safely. But in the end it comes down to you. If you don’t constantly stay on your guard and make smart riding decisions, the rest of it doesn’t matter. I got lucky this time.

Biker Quote for Today

The reason the front tire lasts so much longer is that it spends less time on the ground.

Live to ride. Ride to live.

That’s a slogan we all know and appreciate. And clearly the first half of it is especially important. In Colorado last year there were 90 riders and passengers killed in motorcycle crashes, the highest ever recorded. You’ve got to live or you’re not going to ride.

It seems appropriate then that when the State of Colorado set up a motorcycle rider training program they named it the Live to Ride Program. Here’s a look at what the state put together.

The Live to Ride program is based around what is called “MOST,” which stands for Motorcycle Operator Safety Training. The MOST mission is “to provide high-quality, low-cost motorcycle training to residents and active-duty military personnel.” The fees we pay for motorcycle endorsements on our driver’s licenses and motorcycle vehicle registration fees fund MOST. The law that set all this up specifies certain minimum requirements for trainers who wish to participate in the program. MOST training classes are based on the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) model.

A list of certified MOST trainers is listed on the site. Currently there are 12 organizations on the list, including, not surprisingly, ABATE, and a bunch of others that I have frankly never heard of. That sort of raises my interest. Maybe I’ll have more to tell you about some of them later.

So anyway, Colorado is putting our money where our mouths are by setting up this program. Now it’s up to us. I know I took an Advanced Rider course through the MSF some years ago, as well doing a training day at a racetrack that was set up through the Concours Owners Group. It’s probably time for a refresher.

If we don’t want the state imposing safety measures we don’t want, such as helmet laws, we have to make it our duty to bring down these accident statistics. Helmets are great if you go down but it’s more important to not go down in the first place. Fewer accidents, not safer accidents, should be the primary goal.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride To Eat! Eat To Ride!

OK, this particular post is not for all of you who already ride, but it might be for some buddy of yours who you’ve been working on to get a bike. Try this logic on them. Tell them it’s really easy to have a motorcycle free of charge.

No, I don’t mean come hop on and ride away with no money changing hands. I’ve done the math so you don’t have to and what I’m going to show you is how $4 gasoline presents an opportunity.

Let’s say you have never owned a bike and you want to start out easy. First, pick a day at random. How about today? OK, I went over to craigslist.org and clicked on the motorcycle link just to see what people have for sale. There are several good-looking bikes that would do well for new riders. Here’s one many newbies might find very interesting:

The owner of this 1981 Honda CM250 with 7,000 miles on it is asking $1,400. From what the guy says, and from the photos, it looks like a very clean, very well-maintained bike. One possible issue you would definitely want to check is that, with that few miles in that amount of time, the carbs may need cleaning. But he says it runs great, so maybe he took care of that already. And he says it get more than 60 miles per gallon.

OK, now let’s do the math. What kind of gas mileage does your car get? I’m going to use some fairly conservative figures here. Let’s say your car gets 25 MPG. We’re hoping to err on the high side. Then let’s err on the low side with the bike and just say 60 MPG. That’s a 35 MPG difference.

Then figure an even $4 for gas. In 1,000 miles it would take you 40 gallons of gas in your car, at a cost of $160. For the little Honda it would be 16.7 gallons, costing $66.80. That’s almost $100 less. Again, for convenience, let’s just round that off to $100. So, in round figures, for every 1,000 miles you drive you could ride this bike and save $100.

How many miles do you drive in a year? Is 14,000 a fair number? If you did that full 14,000 on the bike, in the space of one year you would save enough money on gas to purchase the bike. Your own motorcycle, for free!

OK, we know you’re not going to replace all your driving with the bike. In the winter most of us prefer the warmth of a car. Plus, when you go places with other people along a bike just won’t do, usually. And hauling eight bags of groceries on this bike would not work.

Well then, let’s say it takes you two years to pay off the bike. Or heck, even three years. Is that so horrible? You still get the bike essentially for free, plus, in the meantime, your daily commute has become a lot more enjoyable.

Then, if gas prices continue to go up, you’ll pay off the bike with your savings in even less time. I read yesterday that some “experts” are expecting oil at $200 per barrel in the not too distant future.

Of course, we can’t all buy this one bike. But there are a lot of used bikes for sale out there. And let me say this about buying a used bike: Don’t be afraid of used bikes. You can get some great deals, but of course you have to be careful, just as you would buying a used car. I bought my 1980 CB750 Custom for $900 with 19,500 miles on it. It gets an easy 45 MPG. I’ve ridden it for 19 years now and if I wanted to sell it I’d probably ask $700, so at some point in a bike’s life the depreciation becomes a non-issue.

What else is on craigslist today? You may notice if you look over on the left that I now have an RSS feed from that site, so you can see the very latest listings right here while you’re reading this.

For instance, there’s a 2006 Suzuki M50 with 6,400 miles on it. This is an 800cc bike that is fuel-injected and has shaft drive. I found comments from owners of these bikes and it is considered an excellent starter bike. The owner is asking $5,900 for this one.

Then there’s a 2004 Yamaha FZ6 with 12,000 miles at $4,000. He says it gets in the high 30s. Another good starter bike.

If you’re the Harley type there is a 1999 FXD Super Glide with 11,500 miles for $6,000. He doesn’t say what the gas mileage is but you can do some research and find that out.

And then there’s a 1983 Yamaha Virago 750 with 12,000 miles for $2,000. He says it gets 43 MPG.

You get the picture. Take the numbers and play with them. Maybe your car gets much worse gas mileage. Maybe you drive a lot more than 14,000 miles a year. Or maybe you don’t. I’ll tell you one thing, though. I felt pretty happy today when I filled the tank on my Concours and the bill came to just $16.52.

Biker Quote for Today

Never mistake horsepower for staying power.