Roads to Cripple Creek

The main road to Cripple Creek is CO 67 but there are three others roads that will take you there. One would be what could be called the back way to Cripple Creek, from U.S. 50 near the Royal Gorge, via CO 9 and Fremont County Roads 11 and 1. The other two are gravel roads, so motorcyclists who avoid gravel will miss out on these. They are the Shelf Road and Phantom Canyon Road. Both of them come up from U.S. 50 just east of Canon City.

The main road, CO 67, also comes over what is arguably designated Tenderfoot Pass. As far as I can tell it was only recently designated a pass but pass or not, it's a very nice motorcycle road. It winds around through hills, coming south out of Divide, and then descends steeply directly onto Cripple Creek's main street. That apex just before that steep drop is considered Pioneer Pass.

The other paved road to Cripple Creek is from the south, CO 9 and Fremont County Roads 11 and 1 (the southern leg on the left on the map). This is a really terrific motorcycle road, full of serious twists, turns, and ups and downs as you get closer to town. Plan on throttling back quite a bit on this stretch.

Coming straight north out of the east end of Canon City, the Shelf Road is an old railroad route. Any dual-sport or adventure bike will love this ride--and you will, too. This road comes directly into Cripple Creek itself.

The fourth road, also an old railroad bed, is Phantom Canyon Road. At the south end, Fremont County Road 67 runs off U.S. 50 right at the Fremont County Airport, heading north. Crossing into Teller County it becomes Teller County Road 86 and runs up to Victor, an old mining town just a few miles from Cripple Creek. Once you get into Victor the road is paved all the way to Cripple Creek, as well as a different loop that will connect you up north again with CO 67 coming down from Divide.

In truth, I'm skipping a couple other routes you could take to get to Cripple Creek. These roads come from Guffey or Florrisant and run into the back road coming into town. The fact is, you could spend a couple days in Cripple Creek just riding them all. And that's the whole point here. There's a lot of good riding packed into a surprisingly small area.

I'll be putting up some photos of these roads as soon as I can but in two cases I need to actually go shoot them. Some have already been shot and I just need to put them up.

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