Review: Bluetooth Stereo Headphones

On the longer rides, I sometimes would wear some wired sound-isolating earbuds with speakers built-in for music or ebooks from my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet which has an MP3 player.

The sound isolation kept the wind/engine noise down to an acceptable and safe for my hearing level and I did not have to turn up the volume on the music too loud to be able to hear it and still be able to hear things around me as I rode.

However, it was a wired system and I had to rig a quick-disconnect or risk yanking the dang earbuds from my ears while I still had my helmet on while dismounting the motorcycle! Not good.

One day, I saw these on woot.com and for $20 it seemed like a good trial. You can apparently buy them from walmart, though not online, see link below pic.

Link

It's got a bluetooth transmitter box (tiny) which I hooked up to the output jack on my Amplirider Amp inside my BigMak tankbag. Both the transmitter and receiver use rechargeable batteries and I've gone over 8 hrs on one charge with no issues or fading of power.

The receiver earbuds work fine in city driving where the wind noise is not great. On highway speeds though, I found I had to crank the volume way up and probably contribute to hearing loss.

So I cut off the stock ends and spliced in my sound-isolating earbuds which I'd used before this bluetooth gadget came into my life. A couple of trial and error attempts later, since I suck at splicing apparently, I got it working reliably with the N800's MP3.

Wonderful sound quality when couple with sound-isolation earbuds. Not having to disconnect from the amp when dismounting is great stuff. I can even go about 20ft from the motorcycle, still be hearing music while taking pictures when stopped! : )

Highly recommended, if you're lucky you can get them for a reasonable price and they work well for me.

A short, cold ride on Thanksgiving Day

Temps the 18-24 degree range, sunny, not much wind. In other words, a perfect "rounder" kind of day to get in a short ride before sitting down to Thanksgiving Dinner with friends and giving thanks for the riches and blessings in our lives.

I left the house around 0830 and cruised southwards along the backroads to Parker. As I was heading West of Lincoln Avenue and perhaps heading south on Parker Road or CO83, it came to me I did not know what layed west if I stayed on Lincoln. So I kept heading west, over the I-25 Slab and the road became Highland Ranch Parkway! This is a road I'd been on before, but heading East from the foothills.

It was nice riding, very little traffic and the electric vest, ATV grip covers and heated grips were keeping me nice and warm on the motorcycle. The paved roads were bone dry and what remained of the little snow we had yesterday was mainly on the grass along the sides of the road and on the roofs of houses and buildings.

I spotted this church steeple from about a mile off and thought it'd make a good background scene for a picture of Maria on this ride. It's apparently going to be a religious high school, and you can see below it the Cherry Creek Community Church. The unusual cross built into the church's wall drew my eye.



I kept heading West on Highland Ranch Parkway till it dead-ended on US85 which I took North towards the E-470 slab. I got on the slab for a few minutes to get to the Wadsworth Blvd exit which lead me to my favority local twisty road: Deer Creek Canyon.

Here's some pictures of the rock formations I found interesting in the South Valley Park area which one rides by on the way to the twisty parts of Deer Creek Canyon.






After meandering through the South Valley Park area for the above pictures, I started back on Deer Creek Canyon Road to see how far I could get before ice would force me to turn back.

Turns out the road was pretty good and clear for a while but about two miles west of where Grizzly Road intersects with Deer Creek Canyon road the ice patches were more prevalent and the clear paths between them narrower and narrower so I stopped and turned around. No big surprise, the canyon walls here prevent much sun from hitting the road and melting off the snow/ice.

I made my way back to the dry portions of Deer Creek Canyon without incident. I turned South on CO121 towards Waterton Canyon Road and from there to US85 again which I took South this time towards Sedalia and Castle Rock.

By this time, it was around 1100hrs and my toes were feeling a bit cold. I wiggled them vigorously and things were fine after that, just had to remember to keep wiggling the toes! The thought of electric socks came to mind but I don't know if I'll get some. If I could figure out a way to keep the toes out of the airstream, I think they'd be fine. Oh well.

I took CO85 South to Castlerock and from there took the Crowfoot Parkway back towards Parker. I was back home before noon after tanking up at the usual gas station.

I'd worn my summer gloves within the ATV grip covers and my hands never got cold, in fact I had to turn down the heated grips a few times as the palms of my hand got almost too hot! I think next cold ride, medium gloves since the outer portion of my summer gloves are vented and were letting the cold in just a tiny bit.

Not a single other motorcycle spotted during the entire ride, I guess everyone's getting ready for Thanksgiving Dinner.

So how's this for cold? I could, at times, see my own breath inside my own helmet while riding along. Couple of times I had to crack open the visor because my eyeglass lenses were fogging up! The Fogcity Fogshield on my visor did it's job nicely, it scratches easy, but it's nice to have on cold rides.

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers, I hope you have many things to be thankful for, I surely do.

A better map for future passbagger rides

Hindsight being 20-20, I should have researched and produced the second map below BEFORE I set off on the overly ambitious passbagger ride yesterday. Oh well.

Thanks to the great website run by Randy Bishop of the Colorado COG: LINK.

Randy Bishop's site not only shows the passes he's accumulated towards his previous earning of the Passbagger 50 achievement from the ColoradoBeemers Motorcycle club but includes pictures and written assessment of each pass that includes very helpful data such as what kind of motorcycle he says should be able to handle getting to each respective pass! This would have been most helpful with some of the passes I encountered yesterday! My fault for not doing my homework.

It is this site where I got the spreadsheet that I originally imported into Microsoft Streets and Trips and which got me going on my own Passbagger 50 effort. Here's what the spreadsheet looks like after being imported into Microsoft's mapping software:

Over 500 "Named" passes!

That's a lot of passes isn't it? I did not realize that some of the passes shown were really difficult passes to get to and traverse. Some of them I found are really only passable on foot! So I made my previous passbagger attempt with little research besides checking out likely candidates on the map that seemed to be near roads....what a mistake that was.

Today I did more research, eliminated the stuff that Randy Bishop lists as reachable only via dual-sport or dirt motorcycle, took out most but not all of the passes that were not on a state level road or better, and made sure to include the passes he'd been to that were deemed doable by road motorcycle.

Target List

The pushpins in green are passes which I've ridden already and have the required photographic proof for submission/validation. The yellow pushpins are passes that I plan to ride AND take a picture of Maria at for eventual submission/validation for the Passbagger 50 achievement. Some of the yellow pushpins I've actually ridden over but did not take a picture dang it. Oh well, more riding for me I guess.

Passbagger Attempt 1: Only bagged 3 out of 13!!!

A tad overambitious perhaps but I had set out this morning to try and "bag" 13 passes along the following route:


Yuri Pass in NW Boulder was the first pass on the list I'd planned yesterday. Unfortunately, though the GPS got me close I could not ride the pass as there was a locked gate barring the way up the hill towards where I assume the pass was. The below picture depicts a building sitting on what I imagine is an overlook of Yuri Pass.


So, not a great beginning to this particular quest. No problem I thought to myself, it'll be better at the other 12 passes surely! This was not to be.

Next stop was Sunshine Saddle which lies near Boulder as well on Boulder County 83, off of Sunshine Canyon Road which is Boulder County 52. The way there was mostly packed dirt and slow going. I had to drop down into the city to refuel before I made my way back to Sunshine Saddle. County 83 is a narrow dirt road, filled with loose gravel and no fun at all but I made it to where the GPS declared the saddle to be with no issues. Little did I know then that this dirt road would be cake compared to the other trails I'd be on today!

Sunshine Saddle

Next stop was Culbertson Pass which was not that far away. You head West on Sunshine Canyon Road which becomes Gold Hill Road after the little town of Gold Hill. These roads were packed dirt and gravelly but I made good progress on them.

Culbertson Pass, at intersection of Gold Hill Rd and Switzerland Trail

The GPS at this point failed to find a route to the next pass, Rollins Pass. I dug out the map book I carry with me on such trips and decided to continue on Gold Hill Road until it hit CO72 which would take me south to Nederland and I thought to take it down to I-70, Winter Park and Rollins Pass.

So I get to Nederland and saw a brown wooden sign for Rollins Pass! Naturally I took it, the road was County Rd 16 and naturally it was yet another packed dirt road with lots of loose rocks. Still, good progress was made until I got to where the road to Rollins Pass became this rock strewn steep climb. I stopped short of this and managed to get turned around since I was not sure even a GS could handle that terrain. So, scratch that pass! Made my way back the way I came, back to Nederland and from there down to I-70.

On way to Rollins Pass, shortly after this point, I turned around

No pictures, was having enough trouble keeping the motorcycle upright where I stopped to turn around. Upon further examination at home later, it was still miles to go to get to the actual pass so it would have been bad to continue.

After Nederland on CO119, I spotted a sign for Jones Pass on the way to the slab so I thought I'd check it out. Alas, it was not to be. Yes, yet another dirt road, this one a bit rougher than previous roads but still I made good progress until after a particular rocky patch I saw the trail was snow-covered. No go, turned around and headed back to CO119, scratch that pass as well!

I finally got to the I-70 superslab which I took West towards US40 and Winter Park. I got to Berthoud Pass heading North and found the plaque which marks the pass:

Berthoud Pass, easiest one of the day!

My next stop was Fawn Creek Pass which was just up the road in Winter Park so that's where I headed. Following the GPS I got pretty close to the pass but then found my way barred by a barrier made of logs. Apparently, housing is going up at the pass and the way was barred to all traffic. Dammit. Scratch this pass as well!

Made my way south out of Winter Park, through Berthoud Pass, heading towards Empire and Empire Pass. This was to be the last pass attempt of the day. The way to the pass was yet another dirt road but it was pretty well maintained and I thought it'd be the same as the others in terms of difficulty. Soon though, as I neared the pass, the rocks and boulders embedded in the road became quite large and road conditions were pretty bad. After a pretty bad stretch which had me swearing off these little mountain passes, I spotted an adult Big Horn Sheep looking back at me. As I approached I saw him head, slowly, up this steep grade with really big rocks in the even narrower rocky trail. No way I could make it up that I realized so I stopped on the uphill slope.

This is where things got interesting. I was facing uphill, a 20% grade at least, loose large rocks and gravel underneath me and a heavy motorcycle to try and turn around. I tried backing up with the wheel turned all the way to the right and got the motorcycle almost parallel to the hill. At this point I tried full lock to the left with the wheel and started easing back down to try and point the motorcycle downhill.

My downhill foot slipped, not sure but must have grabbed the front brakes, and down the motorcycle went with me being thrown off! I was not hurt at all, in fact, did not even feel the impact with the ground. Damn Damn Damn. There was my poor motorcycle, on her left side, engine still running.

I used the emergency shutoff and tried to catch my breath. I tried picking her up while she was parallel to the slope but no go. I took off my helmet, the tankbag and gloves. I then had to drag my poor motorcycle by the handlebars downhill so that she ended up facing downhill. Now I was no longer fighting gravity as before and slowly and surely I was able to pick up the motorcycle and keep her upright.

I was hyperventilating by this point, but managed to put the sidestand down and move a flat rock near it so the motorcycle would not lean over too far and fall over again! A quick damage check revealed some gas had leaked onto the ground, probably from the overflow tubes, the left-side mirror was scratched up and a small hole was punched in the plastic signal blinker lens. The valve cover guard had done its job and protected the valve cover and kept the motorcycle fairing from contacting the ground.

So really, I had been pretty lucky in terms of damage to the motorcycle that I could see. Once I got my breathing under control, I started hacking up all the dust I must have hyperventilated into my lungs while righting the motorcycle in multiple attempts. That was nasty. I could not clear my throat for quite some time but finally got it under control.

By now some hikers had come up to me and the guy and I started talking. Turns out he's a BMW RT rider as well, he's got the 2002 model and he'd been wondering if I'd been stupid enough to try and get over the pass with my RT. I told him no but that I'd dropped her while I tried to turn her around. We talked for a bit and then he went back to his hike with his family.

I got all my gear back on, started up Maria and nervously made it over the really rough patch of rocky trail and safely back to the packed dirt road leading to the town of Empire. Got over that rough patch safely if a bit tenuously, and stopped once again to continue clearing my throat.

It was close to 4pm at this point and I decided that I'd pushed my luck as far as I should for the day, not to mention I did not want to be on the road after dark since I was tired and who knew what damage my motorcycle had incurred that I could not see.

I made my way to I-70 which was close by and without any further incidents made my way home via I-70 East to C470 to E470 and home. What a day, I sure could have used a F650GS motorcycle on most of the passes I attempted today. I sure am going to bypass these little dirt mountain passes in future passbagger rides!

Results of the fall: Scratched up mirror housing, and a punctured amber lens.

I covered perhaps 250 miles or so today, over 8 hours of saddletime and bagged only three passes for sure, perhaps four if the verifier cuts me some slack about Yuri Pass but I doubt it. No more dirt passes for this rider, if it's not on pavement, I'll be passing it by, pun intended.