Passes & Canyons Blog

I’m still not riding yet, due to my surgery, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. And if you lack people to ride with I definitely recommend the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club (RMMRC) because this very active group has a lot of fun and interesting rides planned.

The riding season starts early with this group so there are several trips that have already happened. Let’s go through what’s coming up.

The big trip this year is the Northwest Passage Tour, June 2-16, approximately 4,700 miles: We will be riding from Denver north through Wyoming, Montana, and Alberta then to British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and back into Colorado.

Flaming Gorge Camping Weekend, June 22-24.

Full Mountain Loop, June 30, approximately 285 miles and four mountain passes (Berthod, Gore, Vail, and Loveland).

Taylor Canyon Camping Ride, July 6-8.

Autumn Southwest Ruins Ride, October 6-11: This 6 day fall colors ride will take us through the central and southern Rockies to the SW canyons, south into New Mexico’s Rio Grande Rift valley, around the Valles Caldera, and northwest to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

There are other events planned, too, as well as spur-of-the-moment impromptu rides you can ask to be notified of as they happen. One of these days you’re going to see me on one of these but that’s still a ways in the future. I’m getting to the frustration point where I feel absolutely fine but any strenuous activity at all reminds me big time that I’m still in recovery. Heart surgery will do that to you.

Biker Quote for Today

Leave it all behind and just ride.

I was still in the hospital after my heart surgery and Bill came to see me. He figured I had a lot of time to read and brought me a copy of Two Wheels Through Terror. This is a book that tells the 2001-2002 motorcycle journey of the author, Glen Heggstad, down through Central America and South America. The big problem was that in Colombia he was kidnapped by guerillas and held for a month.

Bill was really wrong about me having a lot of time to read in the hospital because for the most part I didn’t have the strength and spent most of my time sleeping. But almost six weeks out of the hospital I have picked it up and started reading it. Oh my god, what a story! And this guy Heggstad is one tough guy.

During his month with the guerillas he was force-marched long distances over steep mountains while being almost starved to death. Then as part of his strategy to get released he took to starving himself deliberately, making the point to the bad guys that if they wanted any benefit from releasing this gringo they had better do so quickly while he was still alive.

He notes that, once safely with the Red Cross, he was brought a clean shirt. Normally he wears size XXL but this was a medium–and it fit perfectly. The guy went through some serious abuse.

Anyway, it really came home to me after he was released. Most people would have given up the trip and immediately flown home but Glen was determined to keep going, even though he needed a new motorcycle and all new gear. But first he had to recover. He had to battle back to the bike. Oh yeah, I can identify with this!

Here are a few of the things he said about his condition:

So physically weakened, it would take nearly a week just to be able to walk a city block without passing out, and several more just to build up the strength to balance a motorcycle.

Oh, yeah, I know. I was two weeks after surgery before I could go out and walk part of the way up the block and back.

Add to that, time with the ELN has left me weakened mentally and physically. After a brief trip to a local gym, I found myself too weak to bench-press an empty bar.

The good thing for me is that all along I have had the total support and never-fading smile of my saintly wife, Judy. Glen had guerillas deliberately trying to break him mentally. But that bit about pressing the empty bar: I started out doing curls with one-pound weights and was tired after a set with those.

The long miserable wait has ended. After pumping up the tires, I blast down the road for a two-hour, get-to-know-my-new-friend ride into the countryside, complete with rain in the darkness on the way back. Yet even the foul weather is a welcome relief as I’m just happy to be back in the wind under any circumstance. It’s as though life flows back into me again, while the excitement of being on the road permeates my being.

OK, this is what I’m still waiting for. It’ll be about another month.

Biker Quote for Today

Forget a knight in shining armor, I’ll take a biker in dirty leathers any day.