Passes & Canyons Blog

I wrote here about my trip to Arizona Bike Week when it happened, but looking at what I wrote I see that what I put up on Examiner was quite different. That makes sense since it would be boring to write essentially the same thing a second time. So here’s what you didn’t read previously.

A rest stop in New Mexico on my way to Arizona Bike Week.

The Pre-Rally is already in full swing but Arizona Bike Week itself doesn’t start until Wednesday. I’m en route and will be there tomorrow, Monday. I’m happy to be able to say that because it wasn’t a sure thing earlier today.

The weather gods seemed to be smiling on me this morning in Denver, with temperatures higher than they had been in a week and clear, sunny skies. I climbed aboard my Kawasaki Concours and took off with my only concern being whether I could keep my hands warm.

That particular question was starting to feel a lot more important by the time I got to Castle Rock, just 20 miles from home down I-25. My finger-tips were very cold but I didn’t have a lot of time to think about them because as I climbed toward the Palmer Divide I noticed that about half the cars coming the other way had snow on them. Then the highway started looking suspiciously wet and I wondered if that moisture was in liquid or solid form.

Then came the fog. I got over the divide and started the descent toward Colorado Springs and it was pea soup. To say that the warm, welcome sun I started out with was nowhere to be seen is an understatement. I tucked in behind a pick-up pulling a trailer that was going about 40 and just crept along. And I was getting a lot colder.

Of course I had my electric vest on, as well as my warmest longjohns and a bunch of other warm clothes. If not for the vest I would have turned back. No way would I ride on in that cold without that warmth. But by the time I got to the south end of Colorado Springs my fingers were screaming in pain from the cold and I pulled off to get a cup of hot cocoa at a convenience store.

With my freezing hands wrapped around the hot cup of cocoa, I questioned people coming in the store as to whether they knew how the weather was on south. No one knew for sure but the presumption was that it should be warmer heading toward Pueblo. I asked a guy where he was coming from that he had snow on his car and he said, “My house. Right here in the neighborhood. We had snow this morning, but I think it’s all done for now.”

With my hands warm again I got back on the bike and pressed on. Sure enough, the farther south I got the warmer it got. It was a little chilly going over Raton Pass but by the time I reached Santa Fe I switched the vest off because it was getting too hot.

Meanwhile, about the time I reached Walsenburg, before reaching the pass, I got hit by the first blast of the powerful crosswinds I was destined to contend with for the next several hours. Almost all the way to Albuquerque the winds played their cat and mouse game, easing off when the road dipped beneath the general landscape and blasting me as soon as I came out in the open again. I’d pass a truck on the downwind side and have to stand the bike up quickly to keep from steering right into it, and as soon as I would pull ahead the wind would blast me toward the median. I took to diving back into the right-hand lane as soon as I got ahead of the truck because while that’s exactly what happened most of the time, other times the blast hit me so hard that if I hadn’t already been leaned in like that it would blow me off the road.

At Albuquerque I turned west on I-40, so now at least, any westerly wind would be blowing in my face rather than from the side. I pressed on to Grants and considered continuing to Gallup. But the sun was at that point where if I had, it would have been setting and I would have been riding right into it the last part of that leg. I opted for Grants. That’s about 530 miles of the 850 from home to Scottsdale, where I’m headed. Another 320 miles tomorrow won’t be bad. Plus, I get to leave the interstate at Holbrook and the last 140 miles will be on two-lane through some mountains I’ve never seen before.

So all right! First bike trip of the year. Yee hah!

Biker Quote for Today

Riding fast is one thing, riding in a hurry is a completely different thing. Never ride in a hurry.