The Gift of Independence: Why I ride with my kids.

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In today's world, so many of our young people are overstimulated and under-encouraged. Our kids spend hours upon hours lost in a digital fantasy world while we parents cater to their every need and insist on doing everything for them as if they might crumble to pieces if they have to get up off the couch and do it themselves. As an avid outdoorsman, and especially a motorcycle rider, I insist that my son be a part of my adventures. It is my belief that in doing so, I am combatting the harmful effects that today's digital society is having on our youth. In having him with me out on the road experiencing life and all of its hardships, I hope to give him the skills for adulthood that seemed to come naturally to those of us in previous generations.

My son is 13 years old going on 25 like most kids today. He has been exposed to things on the internet that my generation would have had no way of knowing anything about when I was young. While there are certainly many, many good things that have come about with the invention of the internet and the near-instant access to knowledge from around the globe, there have also been numerous drawbacks and disadvantages, that we as a society have not yet begun to fully understand. It seems pretty clear to me that the generation of kids under 20 years old, who grew up in the modern age of digital access to just about everything, are soon going to find themselves out in the workforce with no marketable skills, as well as finding themselves out on their own with no ability to fend for themselves. Or worse yet, they will find themselves living with their parents well into their middle ages. Todays kids have lost all of their ambition and drive, and prefer to sit around all day long watching 10-second clips on youtube or Tik Tok, instead of having human interaction with friends and family.

So why do I say that taking my son riding is “Giving him the gift of independence”? It’s simple really. By putting him on a motorcycle, I am giving him complete control over something that has real-world consequences if you don’t show the machine the proper amount of respect. If you do something dumb on the bike, you will most likely see instant results of your stupidity in the form of a crash or wipeout. Now, I know that sounds horrible and no parent wants to see their kid get seriously injured but the fact is, that when you are first learning to ride a motorcycle, the injuries are, generally speaking, not that severe. They are however a lesson in having respect for your machine, as well as having respect for your own well-being. While riding through the woods or out on the trail, I put my son in front often. I do this for various reasons. 1. It gives me a chance to evaluate and critique anything he may need to improve on, 2. It lets me know immediately if he needs help, as opposed to being in front and having to turn around and look for him every so often. But, mostly, it gives my teenage boy a chance to do all the decision-making. It not only gives him instant feedback on whether or not his decisions were good ones or not, but I believe it helps his young mind with the daunting task of having to make grown-up decisions…..decisions that have real-world outcomes. The science is fairly settled on the fact that the brain is a muscle and like any other muscle it must be trained to be strong and efficient. By giving kids an opportunity to “train” their brains in this manner, I think it helps them throughout their lives with regard to making good choices.

This past weekend, my son and I made the six-hour drive out to Moab where we would have the opportunity to ride several different types of terrain. We started out on Onion Creek, twenty-some-odd miles east of town on Highway 128. Onion creek trail is really just a high clearance vehicle road that runs east from the parking lot just off the highway near Fisher Towers, but it is an awe-inspiring 11-mile ride through a red rock canyon that makes over 20 stream crossings while climbing steadily toward the expansive opening of the La Sal valley with the mountain range just to the east. The road offers many challenges, including sharp blind corners, drop-offs, and steep climbs that must be navigated properly or you could get really hurt. The creek crossings are of course super fun, but you never know what lies under the water so staying sharp is required.

Once we got through the eleven miles of fast and flowy road, we got into more technical riding on the jeep trails in the La Sal Valley that offered obstacles like rocks, jumps, and sharp switchbacks. It was great fun and gave my son a chance to really stretch his “mental” legs while traversing the challenging terrain. There were certainly many areas where my son had reservations about going forward in the lead, but I would encourage him to give it a shot and see what happens. Sometimes he wasn’t able to get it done and would need me to demonstrate the proper techniques or correct line to get over the obstacle, but oftentimes, with a little forethought, he would sail right through whatever was standing in his way. This creates a great sense of accomplishment in a young kid's mind while at the same time giving them positive feedback on making good decisions. It also gives instant feedback on making bad decisions, unlike many other things in life where they just shrug their shoulder and blow it off. Pain is a great teacher and causes a person to make better decisions in the future.

After several hours of riding in the Onion Creek area, we loaded up the trailer and made our way into Moab and over to the Slickrock area. After paying our very reasonable day-use fee at the check station, we drove the half mile to the parking lot and got everything ready for the second ride of the day. This time, at the famous Slickrock trail. I had never been there before and didn’t really know what to expect from the ride. I hoped that my son would have the skills necessary to ride the trail because the last thing I want during any riding session is to end on a bad note or fail to accomplish our training goals for the day. After getting the bikes off the trailer, and suiting up for the ride, we headed out. I decided to take the practice loop as the sign said that it was just as hard as the normal route, but since it was shorter I would be able to gauge the difficulty level of the trail. I instantly realized that Slickrock is everything that they say it is. Rolling Navajo sandstone with an incredible amount of traction but constantly changing angles and elevation. It was so much fun to ride that within minutes, I knew that I would be back there often. But enough about me. My son was able to learn a ton about bike balance and counter steering in order to keep the bike upright on the constantly changing surface angle. A large part of the turns were blind, off-camber turns that really test the skill of even the most seasoned riders. The constant climbs followed by seriously steep descents made body position on the bike very important and when you add in the sharp turns that accompanied each of them, it really meant that you had to stay aware of what you were doing, lest you fall off the bike and slide down very, very large drops.

At the time we started Slickrock, it was late in the day, 3 o’clock, and we had been riding for most of the day. We were tired and sore and riding new terrain that neither of us had ever ridden before. It was seriously challenging for both of us. I couldn’t be more proud of my son for the way he handled the bike throughout the day, and for having the courage to face his fear in many situations. As I stated at the beginning of this article, by having to make decisions that have real consequences, it is my belief that we set our kids up for future success, and isn’t that the ultimate goal of being a parent, sending your kids out in the world with all the tools they need to survive and succeed? I believe it is.

• I would love to know what you think with respect to my theory on this subject. Please leave a comment in the comments section is agree, disagree, or have other thoughts on the article.

MOTOZ Tractionator Adventure Tire

As I get ready for my solo ride of the Arizona BDR in April, I decided that I need a new set of tires for the BMW 1250 GS that I’ll be taking on the journey. The tires I had on the bike were Dunlop Trailmax Missions with about 7000 miles on them. While they still had lots of life left, they were certainly getting a little worn. I’ll be riding just over 800 miles from my home in Denver to the start of the BDR in Sierra Vista, Arizona, near the Mexican border. That will take a serious toll on the tires and though I suspect there would still be about 1000 miles or more life left on them, they would be severely diminished. Plus, the Trailmax Mission tires, while they are great 50/50 tires, probably aren’t the best choice for one of the more sandy BDR’s in the U.S. I will say that the Dunlop’s are a fantastic all around tire that took me through the entire Northwest portion of the U.S. last summer and I highly recommend them.

But this article isn’t about the Dunlops. This is about the new tires I decided to use, the MOTOZ Tractionator Adventure tire. After reading some really good reviews of the tire, I decided to have them mounted on the BMW. I had heard that they got really excellent mileage for a super knobby tire that is classified as a 70 percent off-road tire. People have claimed life in the six to seven thousand mile range. That is very impressive for a mostly off-road tire. While I don’t expect to get near that amount of life from the tire, my hope is that they will get me through my entire trip of just over three thousand miles next month.

This ride will take me from Denver to Southern Arizona, back north on the BDR to the Utah border, then west to Mojave California, where I’m going to the Revzilla Get On! Adv Fest, and then back to Colorado. All tolled that is more than 3000 miles of hard riding on black top highway, and harsh sand and rock in the Arizona and California deserts. That is asking a lot from a set of 70/30 tires, but the price on the tires suggests that I should be able to ask that and more. At roughly $450 for a set, they are not cheap tires. But if the reviews and the claims made by the manufacture are true then they will be well worth the investment.

Today I dropped the bike off at my local BMW dealer, BMW of Denver, to have the new shoes mounted and after it was done and I settled up with the cashier, I put on my jacket, helmet and gloves, and hit the road for the short 20 mile drive back to the house. When I got on the street and started making my way toward the freeway, the first thing I noticed is that the front tire made a hell of a racket. I mean it was noisy. I thought maybe I screwed up, as the 800 mile super slab trip to Arizona would be unbearable with all the noise the tire was making. As it turned out however, once the bike got up over about 30 miles an hour, practically all of the road noise went away. I’m sure some of it had to do with the wind in my face getting stronger but the tire noise definitely settle down a lot. The tires felt pretty stable for being really chunky and knobby and even with being brand new and slippery, they cornered well and were confidence inspiring after just a few minutes on the road. The ride home was nice with the only thing that I noticed about the tires is that they have a tendency to drift around a lot on the grooved freeway surface. It wasn’t nerve racking by any means, but I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to tame them and I would just have to let the bike wander in the lane a little bit. The Michelin Anakee Wilds that I ran on the bike last summer didn’t seem to wander in the grooves near as much and honestly felt more stable in that situation than the MOTOZ’s, but those tires only lasted 2500 miles so if the new MOTOZ’s get even a thousand miles more than that, I feel it will have been worth the money.

My trip starts next month, and I will give updates on how the tires perform and weather I believe they are worth the top end of the spectrum price. My initial impression however, suggest they are going to be an excellent tire in the sandy and rocky portions of the journey.

NEW GEAR DAY: Giant Loop Moto set up for my AZBDR trip

NEW GEAR FOR A BIG TRIP

It is mid-March and I’m getting ready for my solo Arizona BDR adventure. I’m super excited to start this trip, which will take me from my home in Denver south all the way to Bisbee, AZ near the US/Mexico border. From there, I will start the Arizona Backcountry Discover Route on a six-day solo ride, where, after completion, I’ll point the bike west and ride another two days to Mojave, CA for the Revzilla Get On! Adv Fest. In total the trip will be about 15 days of riding everything from snow-covered passes in Colorado and high alpine mountains in Arizona to desert sand in California, eventually traversing Nevada and Utah before finally returning home.

For this trip, I wanted to leave my aluminum BMW panniers behind and try a set of soft luggage. While the factory hard bags certainly offer a great amount of protection and water-repelling capabilities, this trip that will be mostly off-road, and I want to have a set of bags that not only sits closer to the bike but give the added ability to strap things down much tighter than those just placed inside the hard bags. Having a set of luggage that packs tighter, sits lower, and is less wide than that of the metal box-type bags, is much easier to control while riding through more technical terrain.

About a week ago, I reached out to Big Loop Moto to see what they thought would be a good setup for me. I sent them a picture of my bike and told them about my trip and asked what gear would be good for this type of adventure. Right away, Paolo, the marketing manager for Big Loop Moto had responded to my inquiry with a full rundown of the gear he thought would be a good match for me. It sounded great, so I told him to send it out! It shipped that day. I have to say that the team at Big Loop Moto is fantastic and I am incredibly grateful for their support.

Now, on to the gear. I received several items including; The Round the World (RTW) pannier system with 95 liters of carrying capacity, the mounting brackets and adaptor for the BMW factory pannier racks, 2, 6 litter Impossibles dry bags, a Tillamook roll top bag with a huge 48-liter capacity, the Diablo 6 liter tank bag, and an Armadillo fuel bladder. All in all, over 160 liters of carrying capacity. This setup is going to ensure that I can carry everything I will need to survive a solo trip of more than 3000 miles.

Since I will be tent camping for most of this trip, there are two major factors that go into choosing what type of luggage to take. First, it has to be large enough for all the gear that I would not have been taking for a hotel/motel trip. I’ll need to carry everything for a campsite, like a tent, sleeping bag, chair, hammock, and mattress pad. Plus I’ll be bringing all of my own cooking equipment like a stove, pans, water, freeze-dried food, etc. Not to mention clothing, cameras, and a drone. Second, I need to be sure that the luggage will not only be able to keep out water, mud, sand, and everything else that gets picked up on the road, but it must be durable enough to survive harsh conditions in the backcountry. If one of the bags fails, that means I lose the equipment that I need to survive during the trip. It has to be tough enough to survive the day-to-day rigors of adventure riding.

The first thing I noticed un-packing the gear is that it appears to be exceptionally well made, in fact, it is “overbuilt”. I feel confident at this point that it is up to the task. While it looks to be very durable, the luggage doesn’t have a lot of extra, unnecessary frills. It is simplistic in design which leaves fewer things that can fail. Many of the companies out there today try to pack everything but the kitchen sink into their equipment. I don’t feel that is needed. Just give me a piece of equipment that does the job I’m asking it to do. I’ve always believed that when it comes to tools and equipment, you can either do one thing exceptionally well, or you can do many things with mediocrity.

All together, I have more than 150 liters of carrying capacity with this set.

The Round The World Panniers

The RTW pannier system is really just two large-capacity roll-top bags. There are no divided compartments to them, just a huge open container to store your gear in. There are two pouches that are sewn in on the front and the back of the bag that are independent of the pannier itself and that’s really nice. Once filled with gear and rolled closed, the top flap is secured with 3 fastex buckles. Each pannier also comes with a dry sack to add extra assurance that your gear will stay dry. I will probably use dry sacks to separate out my different pieces of gear such as campsite stuff, clothes, tools, etc, and place them into the bags so that I can just access what I need instead of having to dig through the bag every time I need something. Where the panniers really shine is how well thought out the strap system is. Once you have everything stowed inside the bags, you can cinch it down so well that there is no play whatsoever in the bags once they are loaded with gear. They stay nice and tight up against the pannier mounting bracket and won’t budge. I feel that these bags will stay completely attached even going over the most unforgiving terrain. I don’t think that you could get these to flop around even if you are jumping the bike all day.

To mount the bags to the motorcycle, you use the Giant Loop Moto adaptor plates that mount directly to the factory rack. The bags can be mounted to the adaptor plate in one of two ways; either run the pannier straps through the holes in the bracket or, for a more secure mounting, you can hard mount the bags to the adaptor plate by placing holes in the back of the bag and fastening the bags to the adaptor plate with the provided hardware. This is the route I chose and it wasn’t hard to do at all. Anyone who is halfway handy should have no problem with the task.

With 45 liters of storage capacity and straps in all the right places, the RTW pannier can hold a ton of gear and keep it safe and secure.

If you have a GS, don’t forget to add the top hook extension for the offset of the exhaust.

The pannier mounting brackets utilize three hooks to mount to the rack. They have so many different positions to place the hooks that I don’t think you’ll be able to find a rack system where you can’t mount these guys. Once you have positioned the hooks where you need them, you simply push the mounts down on the rack and the top hook will lock in with a very secure system that cannot be removed from the bike unless you want it to be. Another very slick feature of the pannier mount is that on one of the bottom hooks, there is a thumb screw that, once the mount is positioned on the bike, can be turned against the bottom rail to really give even more security to the system.

The impossibles pouch holds 6 liters and can be mounted just about anywhere. It’s super tough and very convenient.

The Diablo Tank bag holds a massive amount of stuff with it’s 6 liter capacity, yet stays completely out of the way even when standing up.

The Impossibles Pouch

The Impossibles pouch is a 6-liter roll-top bag that you can fill with just about anything you want. I fill mine with tire repair equipment. It comes with plenty of webbing on the side and two straps per bag so that you can mount them just about anywhere. They appear to be super tough and I don’t think I will have a problem with wherever I want to mount them.

The Diablo Tank Bag

This is a really great tank bag. The most impressive feature about it is that it is so large, 6 liters, but when mounted on the bike, is completely out of the way. It looks very large sitting there on the bike, but when you mount up and stand on the bike, it doesn’t even come close to getting in your way. The way the bag is mounted to the bike is also a really interesting design. The straps are basically independent of the bag. Once you route the mounting straps the way you want them and get them cinched down, you simply zip the bottom of the Diablo bag to the mounting system. This allows you to unzip the tank bag and take it with you without disturbing the mounting straps, so once you have it cinched down exactly where you want it, it never moves after that. Great design if you ask me.

The Tillamook Roll Top Bag

The Tillamook bag is 48 liters of rolltop, waterproof storage with tons of mounting options and it is open at both ends so you don’t have to empty the bag on the ground to get to gear you may have packed at the bottom. It is super rugged and once filled with gear and strapped down on the bike you get great piece of mind that your gear is safe, secure, and waterproof. I’m really excited about using this bag for all my clothes, camera equipment, and creature comforts I plan to take on my trip.

At the moment, I haven’t had a chance to fully evaluate the bag, because I want to actually get out on the ground and carry it with the accompanied backpack straps to see how it feels on the back. Once I get a chance to do that, I'll do a more thorough review.

THE ROAD IS CALLING AND I MUST GO: A lifelong love affair with motorcycles.

Crested Butte, Colorado.

The mountains are a special place for me

Why does one ride motorcycles? For some, that question will inspire a thought-provoking, deep-dive discussion into the human soul. But not for me! Nope, for me the answer to that question is simple: My mother told me that I couldn’t. As a young boy growing up in southern California in the 1980s, I was witness to the cutting edge of all that was cool and desirable in the world of fashion, speed, music, and extreme sports, and most of all, the birth of what would later become known as the modern “Super Bike”, and I was in heaven. I had always been attracted to motorcycles since the time I could walk and anything with two wheels was more of an obsession for me than most kids my age. If the stories told around the dinner table at family gatherings over the years are true, I was riding my first bicycle at just under 3 years old. And I never looked back. Of course, that was back when the coolest bicycles all had banana seats and if you were lucky, maybe even a “springer” front end. Over the years, two-wheeled machines, whether motorized or powered by our own two legs, have changed immensely, but my obsession with bikes of every kind has remained unchanged since childhood. 

Now, back to the part about how my mother, through her insistence that I not ride a motorcycle, unwittingly sparked a lifelong love affair that is still going strong some 40 years later.  As I alluded to in the opening of this article, I spent my formidable teenage years in the streets of Southern California’s most iconic cities. Huntington Beach, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Venice Beach…..You get the point! It was the early 1980’s and back then hanging out was the thing to do. Young boys and girls spent countless hours hanging out at the beach, the mall, the skating rink, the pizza joint, or any other type of fun venue that got us out of the house. On one particular summer day, I was walking to the local convenience store with a group of friends to get an Icee and play some video games when suddenly, I heard a noise coming from down the street behind us. It sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. I had no idea what it was, but I knew as I turned myself around to see, that it was going to be the coolest thing I’d ever laid eyes on. As I came fully around and my eyes eventually found their target, I was blinded by the sun reflecting off the front of a narrow silhouette approaching us at a speed that seemed utterly impossible back then. As the unidentified rocket ship came closer and closer, it sounded as if there were a million possessed demons howling to escape the confines of the narrow machine's metal restraints. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it had reached, and passed us by, continuing out of sight with nothing but the sound of the tormented screaming exhaust teasing my imagination long after the futuristic space bike had disappeared from view. I had no idea what I just saw, but I knew that I wanted one. Later that day, when I finally returned home from a day of video games, skate rink, and boardwalk shenanigans, I remember excitedly telling my dad about the motorcycle I saw and how one day I wanted one just like it. My mother overheard the conversation from the other room and moved with a speed only a mother on a mission to crush a young boy's “evil Knievel” dreams could do. She made it quite clear that there was no way on this earth she would ever allow me to get on one of those death traps. It was an “over my dead body” type of affair. Well, this of course only made the thought of riding a motorcycle more enticing. I went to my room, put on my headphones stared at the posters of all my favorite rock stars, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and the like, and dreamt about the day I would own one of these awe-inspiring testaments to man's ability to push through the laws of physics and as Jim Morrison said, “break on through to the other side.” I know, I know, that’s not what he was talking about, but if you ask me, it applies just as well to riding motorcycles at a certain threshold. 

So what kind of bike was it I saw that day that set my life on a trajectory of riding countless motorcycles over unknown thousands of miles in several countries around the world? It was a Honda VF750 Interceptor, what many say was the very first sport bike. The VF750 was Honda’s reaction to the onslaught of the offerings from the competition that was intended to knock “Big Red” off the podium. Suzuki had introduced their Katana, Yamaha had the FJ1100 and of course, there was the Kawasaki GPZ900 of “Top Gun” fame. All of this competition among the Japanese motorcycle makers meant that I could count on being exposed to all the latest and greatest innovations in the world of motorcycle racing at a constant pace. Especially in southern California in the 1980s. It was a great time to be a young kid growing up dreaming about riding bikes. The next couple of years went by excruciatingly slow for a kid who was only about 12 or 13 at the time and still under the watchful eye of his disapproving mother. 

In school, I was lucky enough to have a few friends that either had dirt bikes like the Honda XR and Yamaha YZ, or in some cases mini bikes. which was all the rage back then.  A mini bike was really just a homemade frame that was built to accept a lawn mower engine. It wasn’t exceedingly fast, but it was fun and introduced us young kids of the era to a feeling of freedom that is hard to define to the uninitiated. On a weekend or maybe after school I would rush over to a buddy’s house and beg him to let me ride his motorcycle. It was probably a little annoying to my friends because I was the textbook definition of obsessed with riding and could not get enough. Of course, my newfound hobby came at extreme risk of being found out by my mom, which would no doubt be met with a lengthy grounding, and endless guilt trips about how I was driving her to an early grave with my mischievous behavior. I would have to be very careful not to end up with an injury or cut, scrape or bruise of some sort that couldn’t be explained away as a normal part of a teenage kid's rambunctious day-to-day behavior, lest I be put under a microscope by my over-protective mom who would ensure that it never happened again. Of course, my intentions were never about rebelling against my mother, all although there is always a level of satisfaction a young boy gets from rebellion, but no, this was never about that. I was genuinely obsessed. Motorcycles had infected me. They were all I thought about. I didn’t want to ride, I HAD to ride. 

Unfortunately, until such a time as I could escape my parent's authority over me, a bicycle would have to do. And when I tell you that I made the most of it, you can believe it. I remember my Redline BMX bike I got from the bike shop when I was about 13 years old. I immediately set about stripping it of every part that wasn’t essential for basic operation. It had to be light because it had to be fast. I did all the common upgrades of the era. Replace the gooseneck handlebar clamp with a square 4 bolt one, new, taller, and wider handlebars, Z rims for the wheels, and of course anodized inner tube stem caps. I took the breaks off and would wedge my right foot in between the top of the front tire and the bottom of the steering head and forks to stop the bike by way of friction. (This of course meant I went through a pair of Vans sneakers pretty darned quick, which my parents hated). The best set of 3 piece cranks had to be installed as well. Finally, a fresh jet-black powder coat on the frame rounded out the ensemble. I must have put a million miles on that bike. I rode everywhere, regardless of the distance. Even going around the block to a friend's house, there would be at least three of four things I could jump off of or over, or if there wasn’t anything to jump or shred, hey, I could always just pull the front end up and ride a wheelie. Wheelies were of course the most fun, and you better believe that thrilling endeavor transfers over to riding motorcycles with even greater excitement. At that particular time in the greater Los Angeles area, houses were being bought up in droves and being replaced with luxury apartment complexes. What did this mean to me and my friends? Tons of fresh lots where houses had stood, were being prepped for the development of the new complexes. These dirt lots would sometimes sit for several months before construction would begin, so we’d set about building dirt tracks with jumps, berms, whoops, you name it. And once construction started to get underway and they ran us out of the lot, what came next was a future luxury apartment complex complete with tennis courts, exercise areas and POOLS! Yes, pools. The newest craze in things we wanted to ride back then. Once the foundations were laid and the pools were set in, we had another few weeks of endless pool riding before the next phase of construction started and we were given the proverbial boot once again. But there was sure to be another project underway in the neighborhood soon. It was a dream come true for a kid who was obsessed with riding. 

Taking a road trip out to Leadville for the weekend

Escaping the city on motorcycles is the best feeling in the world!

I rode my Redline BMX through the end of my middle school days, into high school and beyond. Of course, the thrill of getting a driver's license and being able to drive a car meant the bike would have to take a back seat to driving for a bit, but once the initial thrill of driving started to wear off, I was back to riding my bike whenever and wherever I could.

I graduated high school at seventeen and for some still unknown reason, decided to join the army. I went to basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and after 16 weeks of One Station Unit Training or OSUT, I was given orders to Germany. I was excited about the prospect of seeing another country, but at the same time was completely bummed out about the fact that I would have to wait at least two years, the minimum overseas tour of duty back then, before I could buy my first street legal motorcycle and begin the rest of my life as a motorcycle rider. Germany ended up being a lot of fun and I actually extended my tour over there, eventually doing just shy of four years before returning to the US. As a side note, I dated an Italian girl for a bit while I was stationed there who rode a motorcycle. It was very unusual at the time for a woman to ride and I think that is what I liked about her. She had the same love of the freedom and excitement generated by a motorcycle that I had. At any rate, I would occasionally ride her bike around town and it was both exhilarating and a terrible reminder that I would not have a bike of my own until I could get back to the states. 

After my tour in Germany, I was assigned to the National Training Center (NTC) about 40 miles outside of Barstow California in the Mojave desert. The NTC was a vast expanse of harsh terrain that was unbearably hot in the summer and remarkably cold in the winter. The US Army would send their combat units there to participate in war games against a presumed Russian army. Our job at the base was to play the part of the Russian army and conduct war maneuvers against our Army brothers and sisters in order to prepare them for an actual conflict with the Soviet Union. As far as I know, the base still has the same mission to prepare units for actual conflict, but I assume the “enemy” force has probably morphed since the days of the former communist Soviet Union. But I digress…After leaving my post in Germany, I was given one month's leave before reporting to my new duty station outside of Barstow. I went to the airport in Frankfurt Germany and boarded a plane for my home of record in Lodi, CA to see my folks and catch up with some old friends. But first, I had some business to attend to. I was home for about 6 hours when I asked my dad to give me a lift to the local motorcycle dealership in Stockton. If you recall my story in the beginning about my first memorable encounter with a motorcycle on my way to the convenience store several years earlier, it was a Honda VF750 Interceptor that had started me on my path to find motorcycle nirvana. Well, that model had come and gone with much success but in 1992 the Honda CBR600 F2 was burning up the pavement and I had to have one. I walked into the shop, found the bike I had been dreaming about for the past couple of years and I told the first guy that walked up to me “I’ll take it!”. After singing some papers and parting with a large pile of cash I’d been saving prior to returning home from Germany, I was given the keys and the bike was mine. Once they pulled the CBR around to the parking lot in front of the shop, it was already dark and they were closing for the evening. It was late November in the San Joaquin Valley of Central California, and it was damp and cold. If you’ve ever been up that way, you no how cold it can get. The entire area is agricultural and the moister humidity created by the crops along with the wind can make it damn cold. It had been years since I had ridden and I was a little nervous to get right out on the road so I spent a little time riding around the now-empty parking lot with only a couple of dimly lit street lights to help guide me. After a short amount of time getting acquainted with my shiny new state-of-the-art Japanese crotch rocket, I got on the street and pointed the bike east toward my folk's house 10 miles down a country road to the heart of central California farmland. The temperature was probably about 45 degrees and very wet and cold but the exhilaration of finally being able to ride a bike that I can call my very own was so exciting that I barely recognized that I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes on the ride back to my parent's house.

KTM Super Duke 1290 R

I love all types of motorcycles, but I’m definitely partial to the sport bikes

After putting over 1000 miles on the bike in my first three weeks of ownership, I took it back to the shop for its first service and packed up a couple of things in a backpack, and started my 300-mile trip south from the San Joaquin Valley, to the Mojave desert to report to my next duty station. As luck would have it, California was having one of its 10-year monsoon seasons. I remember that it rained from December of 1992 to March of 1993 almost without stopping. The ride to the Mojave desert took me past Tehachapi in the Sierra Nevada mountain range down into the high desert area that housed Edwards Air Force Base and China Lake Navel Test Facility. You could always spot some sort of cool new plane being tested or some awe-inspiring missile being launched into the atmosphere in that area. The roads through the desert, as many people will know are usually long desolate stretches of straight pavement through rolling terrain. It’s the type of road I remember driving on as a kid on family trips where my dad would get really excited as he sped up the family sedan going over the top of a rise and then laugh as the car would suddenly change pitch and head straight down over the crest of the hill and my sister and I would feel our stomachs rise up into our throat. The road resembled a frequency wave of crests and troughs that stretched out for sometime twenty or thirty miles or more. Well, during a monsoon season of course, those roads would become flooded in the low portions. This particular year, the rains were so incessant that almost every low portion of the road had almost  a foot of standing water. I can still feel the water sloshing around in my riding boots during my rides to and from the base that year. I didn’t care though. I was young and I loved riding motorcycles. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Oddly enough, now in my early 50s, I actually go out and find water to ride through still to this day.

After a few years of ownership, I sold the CBR and bought a 1965 Chevy pickup. It was fun and I also love old cars and trucks but after a few months of having it, I had the itch once again to be on a motorcycle. Of course, as a young 21-year-old soldier, I didn’t have the funds for a car and a bike. That wasn’t a luxury most young GI’s could afford back then. So I traded my truck to a friend in my platoon for a Honda Nighthawk 750 and all was once again, right with the world. I spent the remainder of my time at Fort Irwin riding that Nighthawk all over the high desert of southeast California.

Once my time was up in the California desert I decided I wanted to try out to become a Green Beret in the Army Special Forces. I contacted a Special Forces recruiter and got the ball rolling. After some initial prerequisite stuff like a physical fitness test and background check to ensure I’d qualify for the required security clearance and whatnot, I was given a date to attend the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course or SFAS. Selection, as most of us would come to call it, is a 4-week course designed to allow members of the Special Forces to assess your potential as a Green Beret. It consists of one month of very little sleep, not more than 4 hours a night, long grueling days of physical exertion, and endless amounts of mind games designed to make the mentally weak candidates quit. The soldiers of Special Forces must be the type of individual who can continue to prevail against overwhelming odds with little to no support or outside help. It has to come from within and they intentionally put you in situations where your intestinal fortitude and will to succeed are all you have. Fortunately, I met the qualification that they were looking for and was selected to continue training. Yes, continue training. The grueling selection phase is just the beginning and after being selected to continue trading to become a Green Beret, you’ve only just begun. Candidates who are given the opportunity to continue to train are given a report date to Fort Bragg North Carolina where they will start a one-and-a-half to two-year training program specializing in one of four occupational specialties. As they say after you get selected, “congratulations, you’ve just finished the easy part, from here on out, the challenges become greater, the weight becomes heavier, and distances become longer.” And that is not a joke, I can attest to that. After I completed training and had the honor of donning the coveted Green Beret, I was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Carson Colorado in Colorado Springs. I still remember when I got to my first team.

My Team Sergeant, the heart and soul of a Special Forces team, shook my hand, told me there are three things you gotta have to be a good Green Beret and asked me three questions. Him: You got an ex-wife? Me: Yep Him: You got a pickup truck? Me: Yep Him: You got a Harley? Me: Nope Him: Get a Harley! It didn’t seem rhetorical so I went and got a Harley. Level Up! I had never owned a Harley Davidson before and never really had the itch to buy one, but they are quite popular among service members and once I got my first Harley Davidson, a 2003 Springer Softail, I fell in love with the feeling I got while riding it through the Colorado mountains. I’ve had several of them since.  

I spent the next 17 years in Special Forces before retiring in 2013. I had the extreme honor of serving with some of the finest men that this country has ever produced in not only Iraq and Afghanistan but also countless other countries helping them bolster their ability to fend off threats from both within and outside of their own borders. These are the memories that really make my 25-year army career special. During these deployments, I was also able to ride motorcycles. And this time, the Army was paying for it so that made it even sweeter. I had many adventures on dirt bikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the thrill of which most will never know. I’ve shot down little side streets of a post-communism, developing nation like Albania on old Russian and Chinese versions of Japanese motocross bikes, taken 4 wheelers places they shouldn’t be able to go in the forests of Kosovo, Bosnia, and Serbia, and most importantly, I’ve been able to explore thousands and thousands of miles of this beautiful country of ours, with still many thousands more mile still to explore.

As I write this article from my home here in the Denver area, many streets are covered in a hard-packed mix of dirt and ice attributed to an above-average amount of snowfall for the season and the very unusual fact that for the past 30 days, the temperature has been at or below freezing for a record amount of time. Add those two conditions together and you get a phenomenon that we here in the East Range of the Rocky Mountains are not used to; Snow that just will not melt. Generally speaking, when we do get a good snowfall, which isn’t near as often as people think, the snow will be completely melted within a day or two. Although it may be pretty darned cold here in the winter, if you are willing to bundle up and brave the elements, you can still ride in most parts of Colorado, most of the year. Not the case however this year. And for someone like me, it has become a sense of cabin fever I’ve never known. While this once-in-a-quarter-century weather phenomenon has been hard to deal with, it has provided me with lots of good planning time to figure out what rides I want to do this year, once the climate conditions become favorable. And believe me when I say that it has given me plenty of motivation.

This April, I have plans to head to the southern Arizona border town of Sierra Vista where I will ride the Arizona Back Country Discovery route in its entirety to the finish point near the Lake Powell gateway city of Page on the Arizona/Utah border. As soon as I finish, I’ll turn left and point the BMW 1250 GSA west toward California’s Mojave desert to meet up and ride with hundreds of other adventure riding enthusiasts at the Get On! Adv Fest, sponsored by Revzilla. This promises to be a fantastic 4 days of riding great new terrain and enjoying the company of some of the most prolific names in the motorsports realm. When it’s all over with, I’ll head east for home, where I’ll refit, get the bike tuned up, and prepare for a ride out to Salt Lake City UT to attend the final AMA Supercross event of the 2023 season and spend a few days riding my KTM 300 XCW-TPI in the lush forested hills that surround the greater Salt Lake region. In late May, I will make my way out to Flagstaff, AZ for the 2023 Overland Expo and then back to Salt Lake City for my oldest son's wedding in July followed immediately by a mad dash to the Get On! Adv Fest in the Black Hills of South Dakota. There are several more rides to be had this year and at this point, I’m trying to sort out my schedule so that I can make as many of them as possible. 

So far, 2023 looks to be an epic year of adventure riding and I look forward to seeing just how many miles I can put on the bikes. Having the opportunity to do all this travel and document what I see through different social media venues and capturing it all through my writing is such a blessing and I am so very glad that I’ve been offered the opportunity to use my life as a means of exploration.

CABIN FEVER: I just want to ride.

Interstate 70 in Utah

Winter is always a difficult time for me. You see, I ride motorcycles, that’s what I do. When I’m not riding a motorcycle, I’m usually working on one, and when I’m not working on one, I’m dreaming about riding or working on one. However, living in Colorado presents some obvious challenges to riding motorcycles. Primarily, the long winters. Now, sure, we get plenty of sun during the winter and lots of days that you would probably call “riding weather” days, but that’s not the whole story. The problem is that when it does snow here in the “Mile High City” the department of transportation will throw out tons and tons of salt and magnesium chloride on the roads trying to keep them as free of snowpack as possible.

While the caustic mixture of undercarriage rotting, high power salt does a great job of melting snow and ice, it tends to stay around on the road for weeks and even months, depending on the area. This sand and salt will turn your motorcycle into a 500-pound sled in a heartbeat if you hit it while in a turn or while trying to stop quickly. It is very slippery, and when you only have two wheels to make contact with the ground, it can be quite impossible to navigate through. There is also the problem of encountering side streets that may not have city and county maintenance or plowing. On these streets, the south side never gets any sunshine during the winter months and if it stays cold enough, there will be snow and ice for extended periods of time. In fact, we are currently in one of those situations here in Denver where it just hasn’t gotten warm enough for the snow to melt. 

     So, what is a motorcycle fanatic to do in order to scratch the itch? For me, it usually includes watching the weather forecast in an area nearby that I can trailer my bike to for a few days and enjoy some warmer weather while out on the road. I have a Kendon, stand-up trailer that fits in my garage. It is super light and easy to move around, has wheel chocks for 3 bikes, and goes down the road straight as an arrow. One of the drawbacks, however, of having a light, mobile trailer is that it is completely open. It has no sides, no wind deflector on the front, or anything else that will keep the elements off of the motorcycles. In the winter, if I am traveling to a warmer destination, it means that I have to drive through snowy areas to get there. Those areas will obviously have the magnesium chloride mixture that is so corrosive to metal products. That being said, it is crucial that when you get where you are going you get the bike(s) to a car wash and get all of the road grime off of the machines.

I have a KTM 300 XCW that I trailered out to Grand Junction a couple of months ago so I could ride for a few days. Last week I noticed that I had a seal leak on both of my forks. I took them to my suspension guy here in town and he immediately noticed that I had mag chloride deposits on both of the forks that were starting to eat away at the chrome. This happened while pulling the bike down the highway on my way back home when it was snowing in the passes. Fortunately, it was caught in time and I don’t need to replace the forks, but you can see how important it is to keep your bikes clean and free of these kinds of road deposits.

A couple of weeks later, I trailered my Husqvarna 701 Enduro out to St. George, UT where I offloaded the bike and headed south through the desert to Las Vegas on a 3-day trip. When the ride was finished and I got back to St. George, I loaded up the truck, pointed the front end east, and drove home. The drive home was 10 hours of snow and sleet and tons of magnesium chloride. When I got to my hometown, I drove straight to the car wash and made sure to get the bike spotless before putting it in the garage until the next opportunity to ride came along.

January 2022

I loaded up the truck and headed south to Arizona to escape the cold and get in some riding.

As I write this article, it is late February, and like all years past, it is time to start dreaming of the riding season again. But Mother Nature plays her cruel jokes on us Coloradans every year. At some point in mid-February, when we are all as tired of the miserable cold as we can be, she will throw in a warm couple of days, getting our hopes up that spring is finally just around the corner. Nope, just kidding. Last week we had a couple of days that were true t-shirt weather. This morning as I loaded up my kids to haul them off to school, it was -1 degrees. As I said, it happens every year at this time. That delusional hope that it is finally over. That we can finally shed our winter coats, and maybe even start prepping our paddle boards for the lake, or filling the motorcycles with new fluids and taking them off of the battery tenders. When in reality, last week was just the first of three or four false springs that we are famous for here in the Centennial state.

In this region, we can’t really count on spring to be here until about late April or early May. And then it will only last about a week or two until we are fully into summer with temps nearing the 90 and 100-degree mark. But at last, I can feel spring coming right around the corner. I don’t care what that oversized groundhog in Punxsutawney, PA says, spring is on the way. I can feel it in my bones. However, as any smart man would, I have a plan in place in the event that spring doesn’t quite get here as soon as I would like. In mid-April, I’ll load up the BMW GS1250, put on some of my cold-weather riding gear, and point the front end south to Arizona, the land of year-round sun and warmth. In my eyes, Arizona is heaven on earth and I can’t wait until the day when I can move there full-time and ride year-round.

Last year, I wasn’t able to get the whole AZ Back Country Discover Route completed due to some logistical issues, so this year I am going to go back again and do the whole thing. As I make my way from Denver to the Mexico border, the first part of the journey will likely be less than ideal, temperature-wise. I will have to cross the eastern planes of my home state in a month that is known to be quite windy and oftentimes very cold. Then I’ll have to navigate my way through the Raton pass crossing from Colorado into New Mexico. Even if there isn’t snow and ice in the area, the roadway is sure to be littered with sand and debris from the recent winter storms. Once I’ve managed to get through all that, there are still about 500 miles of New Mexico wasteland to cross before I get into what is sure to be 70 to 80-degree bliss in southern Arizona.

Chasing warmer weather, just for a chance to ride a motorcycle for a few days might seem a little excessive or compulsive for some folks, and I can certainly see their point. And, maybe I am a little OCD, but that is neither here nor there. As I've stated before, I don’t want to ride motorcycles, I HAVE to ride them. Riding is the thing that lights a fire in my soul. It is what keeps me dreaming about tomorrow and the days to come after that. Everyone has something that they just must do in order to feel truly alive, and for us two-wheeled enthusiasts, it’s no different. Except, if you are unfortunate enough to live in an area that limited your riding time as my state does, you sometimes have to travel far from home to fill the need.