Search by tags The Bike

LEDs for Your Ride

How do you get your motorcycle to look just a bit cooler? OK, a lot cooler? One increasingly popular option is adding LED lighting. Two members of the OFMC took the plunge this year. Once Johnathon caught up with us in Chama, NM, and after it got dark, ...

Would You Rent Your Ride?

I ran across a new business recently that really made me stop and think. Called Fun2Rent, it is a peer-to-peer site set up to connect owners of motorsports equipment, such as motorcycles, boats, and snowmobiles, to people who want to rent them. The idea ...

Into the Great Wide Open

There has always been a direct link in my mind between motorcycles and exploring. Back when I was saving my money and waiting for the day when I’d be old enough to buy one and get my license I had visions of breaking out of the very limited range that I ...

Back on Two Wheels

Janice Carrington had one thing going for her when she decided to buy a motorcycle and learn to ride at the age of 61: She had owned and ridden a bike 30 years ago.

OK, that really wasn’t such an advantage.

“I didn't ride very good back then. I ...

Here Comes Winter

Snow on the ground this morning, and in the air as well. No riding today. Somewhere, in the less-temperate parts of the country, motorcyclists are probably already putting their bikes in storage for the winter. So sad.

Not here. In Colorado, at least on ...

This Means Fun

My 1999 Kawasaki Concours is a far better bike than my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom. So why is it that it has always been very clear in my mind that it is just more fun to ride the Honda? I may have finally figured it out: Weight.

It just make sense. I’ve ...

Highsiding

Do you know what it feels like to get tossed through the air like a rag doll? I do now. I had my first highside last week.

There are two ways for a motorcycle to tip over. A lowside crash generally happens when you’re leaning way over to one side and ...

Risks of the Road

The light turned green and both lanes of traffic pulled forward and then left. As I swung my Kawasaki Concours from the right-hand lane of one street through the arc and into the right-hand lane of the other I saw a common sight. A driver in the left-hand ...

Bike's Little Lessons

Ongoing mechanical issues with my 31-year-old Honda CB750 Custom have me thinking the unthinkable, as in getting rid of it rather than continuing to put money into it. Don’t get me wrong. This won’t happen next week. When it comes to things like this ...

Flying on the Ground

I’ve read that pilots make better motorcyclists, or motorcyclists make better pilots – I can’t remember which. Probably the latter. Both go beyond the basic right, left, forward, backward movement that you get in a car. Both have to lean.

...

Biker Wit

Bikers say the darnedest things. I know, that old line generally starts with “kids,” but there are just too many great quotes out there from motorcyclists, about motorcycles, or in some way related to motorcycling. One of my favorites is “Only a biker ...

The Fix that Didn't

When I fail at something I want it to be my fault. I don’t want someone else’s failure to do their job to thwart me. I don’t want a broken tool to thwart me. If I fail I want it to be simply that I didn’t do my job well enough.

I’m probably ...

Rent to Ride

Judy went straight to the core: “The worst thing about renting a motorcycle is that it’s not your own.”

She was right on the money in two senses. First, unless you rent a bike that is just like the one you ride at home, you’re on an unfamiliar ...

One Extreme to Another

After riding with the OFMC for so long it was a whole new world riding with Alan Baumbach and Dan Leffert. I met Leffert while working on a piece about the Iron Butt Association and the folks who do that butt-burning kind of riding. Leffert and Baumbach ...

Dude, You've Got Bad Tires

At our last stop, as the OFMC headed toward Espanola, NM, I had mentioned to Randy that the tread on his front tire was getting pretty thin and he’d be needing a new tire by the time we got home from this trip. He shrugged it off, saying he figured he’d ...

What Biker Type Are You?

Having just wrapped up another week on the road with my biker buddies I’ve had a lot of time to observe and think. That happens when you’re out burning up mile after mile, alone in your own head.

One of the things I had a lot of time to ponder is ...

Rides with Cows

We were on our motorcycles just a little past the crest of Cumbres Pass, on our way down to Antonito, CO, from Chama, NM, when we met up with the herd of cattle. There were a good couple hundred of them at least, as well as five or six cowboys on horses and ...

Between Here and There

When you head out on a week-long motorcycle trip every year for more than 20 years – as we have in the OFMC – some things just happen naturally. You don’t stop because you want to cover more ground. You do stop because if you don’t, ...

Ripple Creek Pass

John and Bill and I were headed to Utah on our bikes. Having been that way so often before, John, our master of maps, was looking for a route we hadn’t been on. He found it in Ripple Creek Pass.

The further we rode, the ...

Convert to Mesh

I had always worn leather riding gear, as long as I’ve owned motorcycles, until I picked up a textile jacket about two years ago. The trouble is, leather gets pretty hot on hot summer days. I kept reading about how the textile sort provides good ...