Passes & Canyons Blog

Take a good look at this photo. It tells the whole story.

“We’ve got a diesel truck running out there.”

Those are not the words you generally want to hear about your motorcycle. Dennis was ecstatic.

We’ll start at the beginning.

We stopped for gas in Livingston, Montana, at a big station where the pumps in front were all busy. So we went around back and filled up. Then we headed west on I-90, destination Missoula. But right from the start Dennis could tell the big Indian wasn’t running properly. Bill, just behind Dennis, smelled something that puzzled him.

After about 60 miles Dennis decided to pull off at another station. He figured he had gotten some bad gas and that adding some good gas would dilute the bad. But after he filled the tank the bike would not start at all. It wouldn’t even turn over.

Maybe that bad gas had fouled the plugs. He didn’t have the tools to pull the plugs so Bill gave him a ride to the nearest town where he bought tools. Pulling the first plug it looked just fine. Now he was truly stumped.

Checking online Dennis found that the nearest Indian dealer was in Idaho Falls, about 235 miles away. The towing company he reached said that would cost $900. A U-Haul truck, 25 miles away, would cost $260, plus he would have to buy tie-downs. A no-brainer. Bill took him to Whitehall to get the truck and we returned to the station that was now becoming a second home to us.

Now, how do you roll a non-running 800-pound motorcycle up a steep ramp into a truck? When we first got to this station there were several burly young guys around who we sorely needed. None now. We finally recruited a couple older guys who seemed kind of iffy but you take what you can get. Miraculously we were successful. Tie it down securely and off we go.

The dealership was closed by the time we got there and there were supposedly zero motel rooms available in town. Dang. However, luck was with us and we found one small, older place that had a room for us. Big sigh.

Dennis was over to the dealership before they opened in the morning and immediately got the bike checked in for work. Then we walked a few blocks for breakfast. Returning after breakfast, Dennis asked at the counter about his bike. “The dead one?” the guy asked. He turned and carried over that vial you see in the picture. It had come out of Dennis’s tank and it was red diesel. How the heck did that happen? Was the gas station accidentally dispensing diesel from a gas pump, wreaking havoc with who knows how many vehicles?

More importantly (for Dennis) was what damage might have been done. Worst case scenario is that the pistons might have seized up. Nothing to do but clean it out and see if the bike will run. This will take an hour or two.

Meanwhile Dennis pulled out his gas receipt and it said right there, “red diesel.” He was the one who made a mistake. How?

Looking at the pumps he had seen a couple with green handles and he knew that was diesel. The other handle was red. Now here’s the thing: in Colorado for the most part, red is the color for gasoline. But in the more rural areas in a place like Montana, green means regular diesel, red means red diesel, and black is the color for gas. When I filled my tank I looked at the labels on the pump. Dennis only looked at the color of the handles.

So by the way, what the heck is red diesel? Red diesel is for farm implements and construction equipment that does not use the highways. Because they don’t use the highways they are exempted from the taxes that pay for the highways. Regular diesel has a red dye added. If your semi is stopped and they find red diesel in your tank you are in trouble.

With the dire possibilities in that worst case scenario you can now see why, when the mechanic came out and said, “We’ve got a diesel truck running out there,” that Dennis was ecstatic. His motor was not destroyed, and it was running so we could actually get back on the road.

Be aware, they told him, it may smoke for awhile.

Biker Quote for Today

Why Motorcycles are Better than Men: If your motorcycle smokes, you can do something about it.

Touring season is upon us. Are you ready?

The Boy Scouts have it pretty well nailed with their motto, “Be Prepared.” And if you’re getting ready to take off on an extended trip on your bike, following those words of wisdom can help ensure that you get to really enjoy that trip.

The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) polled their highly experienced staff and came up with “33 Secrets For Smart Touring,” and there are some good ideas here. Some are common sense but some are just good ideas you might never think of on your own. Let’s look at a few of them.

Eat at weird times. Everyone and their dog eats around 8 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. To get in and out of restaurants in a hurry, don’t be hungry then.
OK, you can’t always do this. Especially at breakfast, unless you’re getting a very early start or a very late start, you’re going to be eating at the same time as a lot of other people. But if you can do it, it makes a lot of sense. Last summer we spent a night in Lake City, CO, and went out for breakfast along with the crowds. We picked a place where you order at one window and pick up at another. It looked like a pleasant, homey, non-chain kind of place and there were a lot of people there.

Well, a crowd can mean something good or it can mean something bad. In this case, there was a crowd because of the incredibly slow service. If you put in an order for a cup of coffee and a roll, they put your ticket at the end of the list. They worked on one order at a time, and even if they were waiting for some eggs to fry for that order they wouldn’t jump ahead and rush out something simple like coffee and a roll. Stopping there at a different time of day probably guarantees you much faster service.

On high-mileage days, you’ll feel a lot better if you carry eyedrops and use them every time you stop for gas.
Interesting. Never thought of that. Might be worth a try.

If you’re nearing the end of your riding day and want to set yourself up for a quick getaway in the morning, consider riding to the far side of the next city you reach before you stop for the night, eliminating urban traffic the next morning.
Good idea. Makes a lot of sense. But did that thought ever occur to you?

Before you take off from the hotel or campground in the morning, double check every strap on tankbags or soft saddlebags, and every latch on hard luggage.
Good idea.

Take a look back at where you were parked every time you leave someplace. You’d be amazed at what you find.
Really good idea.

On a long tour, plan for at least one day every week of doing nothing. Time is the ultimate luxury, and can mean the difference between a vacation and an endurance run.
We totally go along with this idea. We try to organize our summer trips so that we spend two nights in one place each year, and we generally play golf on our day off. Everyone likes not having to pack and load up at least one day of the trip.

If you’re traveling east or west, schedule your breakfast or dinner times near sunrise or sunset so you don’t have to stare into the sun when it’s low on the horizon.
Once again, just good common sense.

So that’s a few of the 33 tips. You can go here to see them all. (No you can’t. When this was published on Examiner.com there was a link there that led to that list, but the list appears to be gone now.)

Biker Quote for Today

Respect the proud Tar Snake.

Group motorcycle riding requires cooperation and coordination.

There are motorcyclists who get together with friends and go for a ride as a group. And then there are motorcyclists who go on group rides. The two can be vastly different. While the former can be very loose and unstructured, with different riders taking the lead periodically as they feel so moved, the latter is a very structured event.

On a group ride, particularly the sorts of rides that Harley Owners Groups (HOGs) affiliated with dealerships do, safety is generally a top priority and clearly defined leadership and rules are paramount. At minimum you’ll have a Ride Captain in the lead and a sweep rider bringing up the rear, often in communication with each other via radio.

Alan Baumbach is an experienced Ride Captain who lives in Denver. As a Harley rider he belongs to several local HOG chapters and ridden with many groups. Alan has very definite ideas about motorcycle safety and he has stories to tell. We let him talk.

“We were with a sizable group coming down I-70, coming back to Denver from Grand Junction. I was leading. I think there were 12-15 bikes in the group. I’m checking my mirrors all the time and everybody’s all lined up and I can see everybody, and we’re good. But every so often I’d look back and it was like half the group was gone. What happened?! A minute or so would go by, and I’d be checking my mirrors, and they’d catch back up to me. And then I’d look back again and they’d disappeared again. Finally we stopped for a fuel stop and one of the people who was in the last half of the group came up to me and said, ‘Alan, I think you need to talk to so-and-so because he’s sightseeing and he is slingshotting.’ He was slowing down because it was his first time in Colorado, he wanted to see the sights, and then he was speeding up. And he was slowing down and he was speeding up. So he was slingshotting in the group and driving everybody nuts. Because you don’t want to pass when you’re in a group.

“There have been times when I’ve been on rides where people are novices and don’t quite know how to ride. I don’t know if it’s a situation where they feel they have to keep up with the group, or they are not riding their own ride, or what. But they crash. And that’s always sad to see. I’ve never been on one that was too serious, but I’ve been on some where people broke bones. They had to have the ambulance come and take them away.”

Why did they crash?
“Target fixation. I’ve even seen it in myself sometimes. I think anyone who rides any time, any distance, has seen that there’s a natural tendency to fixate on a target. And where you look is where you’re going to go. And if you look for the side of the road you’re going to go to the side of the road. And if you look for the chuck hole, you’re going to go into the chuck hole.

“I think a lot of people, too, just never learned how to counter-steer. It’s counter-intuitive to what you think. You describe it to someone who has never ridden a motorcycle or a bicycle and they think that you’re nuts. It’s like, no, that’s really how you steer.”

Do many of the people on dealer rides tend to be new riders looking for someone to ride with?
“I’ve been on rides with a number of dealerships and it varies by chapter. I’d say of the rides I’ve been on there have been a lot of new riders. But I’ve been on other rides where you’ve got a lot of experienced riders. It is so nice to ride with experienced riders who know what they’re doing. They know the signals, they know how to stagger, they know single-file when you’re on a twisty mountain road. It’s automatic. I think it’s intimidating for a new rider to come into a group and everything is unfamiliar. That’s one of the things I think, anytime you’re riding with a group, the Ride Captain and the leaders and the sweeps all should go over who’s new, ride your own ride, go over all the signals, do you have any questions, do you have any concerns, things of that nature, before you ever step over the bike and fire it up and go. I think that helps a lot and if there’s a new rider, people are watching out for him. If someone doesn’t raise their hand and say ‘I’m new and I’ve never done this before and I don’t know quite what to do,’ people are making assumptions that you’ve ridden before.

“I think six to eight is the ideal size for a group. When it gets beyond eight the leader can’t see all the way to the back. Even if you’re on radios with the sweep at the end you can’t see everything that’s going on.

Ride your own ride
“I tell people all the time, if something happens that you feel you need to pull over, pull over. Don’t think, ‘Oh I’ve got to stay with the group.’ If you’re running out of gas, if you hit something, if the bike’s not operating right, something of that nature, don’t be pressured by the group to continue the ride.

“I’ve ridden on rides where we want to try to keep it a reasonable space as far as distance, but not excessive, and if you start pushing it too excessive you know exactly what’s going to happen: cars are going to pull in, and the next thing you know your one group is now two groups or three groups, and you’ve got a mess. Trying to keep it tight . . . with experienced riders, not a problem. With new riders, they’re still uncertain of their capabilities, they’re uncertain what they can do as far as handling the bike and stopping the bike, and it may be intimidating to ride in a relatively tight formation, even though it’s staggered. And so they start leaving some space. I’ve talked to some of them and said, ‘You know, if you can, tighten it up. I understand if you’re not feeling comfortable with it, but if you can tighten it up that will help to make sure that cars don’t try to split us up.’ Again, having a group that is a small group instead of a large group so the cars can feel comfortable getting around the group is a big thing. Like I said, six to eight bikes is probably ideal as far as size. If you are not comfortable in the situation that you’re in, regardless if it’s a big group or a small group, they’re going too fast, they’re going too slow, whatever, if you’re not comfortable, pull out and do your own thing. But if you’re part of the group, be part of the group.

“I have ridden with a number of chapters and they all have varying levels of discipline. One of the reasons I ride more frequently with the chapter that I do is because they are very disciplined. When we want to ride we want to ride safe. We don’t want an accident. We want people to feel comfortable on the ride. We want it to be an enjoyable experience for everyone. And these are the rules so we can accomplish that. I’ve been on rides where everybody’s clustered around waiting for the ride to start and the leader comes out and says, ‘Well, everybody ready to go?’, jumps on his bike, and takes off. And it’s like, nobody else has started up their bike, maybe they’re adjusting their helmet or something of that nature, and now all of a sudden everyone is scrambling to try to catch the leader just to go on the ride. I’ve been on rides, too, where the leader has been oblivious of the group and he’s doing 80-plus miles an hour and the group is just a mile behind him because, it’s like, you shouldn’t be going that fast. Not on the road and the conditions we were on.

No bar hopping
“I’m not a bar hopper. I enjoy a drink after the ride as much as anyone. But I’ve ridden only once with groups that I find out have got to have six beers in three miles. I’m like hold it! Time out! No, no, no, no. This is not what I want to do. I realize there are people like that out there and that’s what they do but I don’t want any part of that. I want to ride safe.

“We were riding over to Grand Junction and I-70 was shut down at the tunnels, shut down in both directions. And they were sending all the traffic over Loveland Pass. This was early September, it was one of those freak weather things where there had been a little bit of snow at night and because it was still early September it had been warm and the snow had melted when it hit the road and it froze. And Loveland Pass was glare ice all the way up to the top and all the way down to the bottom. We had six of us who went up and down that pass and nobody lost it. I mean, there were a few close calls but nobody lost it. But we were doing 10 and 15 miles an hour trying to get up and down that pass. If somebody had gone down, or if we had not been able to control the bikes I think we would have called the ride immediately and said this isn’t worth it. But we had experienced riders, we had people who knew how to handle their bikes. Everybody was conscious that, we’re on ice guys. Watch it! We’re going into a hairpin turn you’d better be darn sure that you’ve got control of that bike. That was one of the best group rides I have ever been on. We put on 650 miles that day but it started out early in the morning and on Loveland Pass, glare ice. Don’t want to repeat that one again any time soon.”

Biker Quote for Today

Life is about moments. Don’t wait for them, create them.

The DualSportMaps.com website.

I was looking at old Examiner.com articles with an eye toward doing another Examiner Resurrection and I came across something I had forgotten about. A little preface first:

I totally loved the dual-sport ride I did with others in the RMMRC recently and was trying to figure out how to make more of those happen. I joined the group about three years ago with at least part of my intent being to meet up with other folks to do that kind of riding. But this is the first such ride in all that time.

I realize that if I want to do dual-sport rides I can take the initiative and put it out there and presumably others will join me. But the weak point in the chain is that I don’t know a lot of good unpaved roads to ride. I will frequently be heading somewhere else and see a gravel road going off somewhere and wonder where and whether that might be one to explore. But I don’t want to take a group out there only to find out that it runs up in the hills a ways and then dead-ends.

No, the obvious thing to do is to pre-ride the route first to make sure it’s something to take a group on, but that gets me back around to my first issue: needing someone to ride with. I don’t want to head off into the boonies on some lonely road all by myself and run into trouble, with nobody likely to come along to help me any time in the next three days.

End of preface.

So this old Examiner post I came across is about this website, DualSportMaps.com. And as I looked it over I figured that rather than posting the old piece I might as well do a new piece–and here we are.

DualSportMaps.com is a pretty basic site but it offers exactly what the name implies. It has some rides put up by the going doing the website but also–probably predominantly–rides put up by people like you and me. You start with a broad map and then zoom in and in to the area you are interested in and you see what there is on offer.

For instance, when I zoom in enough to get clear separation by state it shows two blobs in Colorado, one with 209 rides and the other with 268. Zoom in once more and you now see smaller blobs with 3, 34, 48, 68, 67, 77, and 19 rides. Keep zooming in and the blobs keep dividing until you are looking at individual rides. For example, the Bill Moore Lake ride north out of Empire is shown here.

Now, unless you register, the site doesn’t give you much information on the condition of the road. But it’s free so there’s no reason not to register and then a great deal of information becomes available. It would still be necessary to pre-ride the thing before leading a group there. And once again, that gets back to needing someone to go with me, but at least now I have a tool to explore and select the routes that look most promising. And then heck, if nothing else, Judy and I can go exploring in her Subaru Outback and then I could lead a group there.

Of course, this is exactly why I do these Examiner Resurrection pieces. Most of the stuff I wrote for Examiner years ago is old news and of no interest today. But some are what writers call “evergreen,” meaning they are timeless and just as relevant today as 10 years ago.

Biker Quote for Today

A lot of fun when you get it right but the other side of the coin is when you crash. — Mick Doohan

Where do you want to go from here?

I’ve been doing a lot of RMMRC rides lately, which of course is the reason I joined the group, to have someone to ride with besides the OFMC guys, who do one big trip a year but little else. Most recently, I met the guys for a semi-regular Wednesday morning impromptu ride.

These impromptu rides are unplanned, it’s just a matter of meet for breakfast and then see what ideas different folks have in mind. Last week Dave was figuring he needed to pre-ride a route planned for Saturday through Walden and Rocky Mountain National Park. That was more than the rest of us were looking for so we bid him farewell and took a different route. I’m not sure whose idea it was but we headed out C-470 and up Deer Creek Canyon for starters.

About two-thirds of the way up Deer Creek we made a left onto a road I had explored once before, which appears to be called Pleasant Park Road. It’s hard to believe that was already five years ago that I went up that way but that link to my post then shows the date as October 2014.

Pleasant Park Road was better than I remembered it, so this was a good choice by whoever was leading. It’s really twisty, and does a good bit of climbing. The one thing to watch out for if you go this way is that there is a lot of gravel right smack in the middle of some of the tightest curves. The guys in front of me were whipping right along but I chose to slow down.

This road comes out to U.S. 285 a bit west of Conifer and we turned right, headed back toward town. However, at Turkey Creek Road we turned left and headed on up that twisty, winding canyon for more fun riding. When we reached Jefferson County Road 73, which runs from Conifer over to Evergreen, we pulled off for a stop.

“What do you guys want to do now, head back or go somewhere else?” was the question put forth. The consensus was to head back to town but hey, let’s all swing by BMW of Denver. OK.

That’s when one of the guys (whose name, embarrassingly, I still don’t know) exclaimed happily, “This is exactly the kind of group I wanted to find–a bunch of guys who are happy to just go out and ride somewhere and have a good time without having any plans.” (Or words to that effect.)

I couldn’t agree more. In the early days of the OFMC that’s exactly what we used to do. None of this planning a route and making reservations. John and Bill and I would get together and say “which direction do you want to go?” and then we’d make it up along the way. Those days are long gone.

So we headed on back to town but I peeled off before heading to the BMW shop. I don’t have one of those so that was of no interest to me. But I sure enjoyed the ride.

Biker Quote for Today

Sometimes the road you travel doesn’t lead to the destination you had hoped for. But if you can look back on the trip and still smile . . . then it was worth it.

I’m developing a bit of a love-hate relationship with the electronics I (try to) ride with.

For years I was the hold-out who still didn’t have a cell phone. Now I do and so when I ride I want it with me in case I have trouble and I want it to work. But I want more from it than that.

I have this REVER app on my phone that will track your rides, which for someone like, me who blogs about my rides, it’s really convenient so I can show the routes, such as that one above. But to use it you first need a cell phone with power and you also need to remember to launch the app and start tracking.

I did a ride with the RMMRC recently over Guanella Pass and had intended to track it but when I turned my phone on to start tracking I saw I only had about 19% power. First I figured I’d start tracking and let it die at whatever point it did, but then realized I had not brought a camera, needed to shoot at least one picture, and if I ran the battery dead I would have no picture. So I turned it off so I could get a photo, no tracking today.

Then I went on the Ice Cream Ride and this time I tracked. That’s the map above. But REVER uses GPS and that sucks a lot of juice so I brought along a back-up power source to supplement. Between the phone battery and the back-up I barely made it home with any power left. But I did.

I also found on this ride that they have upgraded REVER so that it now automatically powers down when you’re stopped and starts itself up again when you start moving again. That saves power (I guess, maybe not, the GPS must still be functioning) and it saves you having to constantly turn it off and on again. So thanks guys, that upgrade is appreciated.

Then this past Saturday I went on this dual-sport ride and definitely wanted to track it. And this time I took my camera along so I wouldn’t have to depend on the phone for pictures. So we started out from Performance Cycle and it dawned on me I had not started REVER. Oh well, I’ll fire it up at Sedalia when we stop there.

At Sedalia I pulled out the phone and pressed the start button and nothing happened. I pressed and held it and it came alive, started booting up, and shut down. Somehow I was down to about zero power. How the heck did that happen? Did I leave some app running that sucked all the power? Who knows.

So now I’m going to add a new item on my prep list: make sure all electronics are fully charged the night before the ride. I had done that with the camera, but that’s not even so important because with that I have a spare battery I can easily swap in. But I need to make sure that dang phone is fully charged and also that back-up power source. And then I need to bring them both! And then I need to remember to start REVER!

I may eventually figure this out.

Biker Quote for Today

I pull out the choke and turn on the key, I squeeze the clutch, press the button and I’m free. — Nsmith82990

Norvin took a spill but was unhurt and there were plenty of folks to help him get back upright.

OK, now, this is the kind of riding that I bought the V-Strom for. And finding people to do this with is a large part of why I joined the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club.

I met up on Saturday with three guys at Performance Cycle and we were joined by three others in Sedalia. This ride was billed as a non-technical dual-sport ride. You bet I clicked the button to say “count me in.”

Leaving Performance we headed south on I-25 to Happy Canyon Road, down to U.S. 85, where we turned north to Sedalia. Our bikes included two 650 V-Stroms, two Africa Twins, one GS 650, a Super Tenere, and a street bike that I guess I didn’t bother to look at to see what it was. Or else I don’t remember.

With everyone gathered, we headed west out of Sedalia on what I see is called Jarre Canyon Road for a ways before it seems to just become CO 67. Once it gets past the Rampart Range dirt-biking area the pavement ends and we were on our first stretch of gravel. It’s good gravel and while I was concerned it might be muddy due to all the rain we have had, it turned out only to be a bit wet. I only slid once going down this really steep grade (19% I’m told) when I downshifted thinking I was in third but was actually in second, so it was a bit of a jolt to hit first.

CO 67 brought us out to the Platte River onto pavement at the Platte and we wound our way on around to Deckers, where we stopped for a break. Then we turned north for a short distance on Douglas County Road 126, to Wigwam Creek Road, which heads over toward Tarryall Reservoir. This was our second stretch of gravel, and by far the longest of the two.

Now, I had had this stretch in mind for some time as a potential ride because a couple years ago Judy and I had driven this road in her Subaru. At the time, though, there were large stretches where it was deeply rutted and largely washed out, and would have been challenging on a bike. It has since been graded and was a good road all the way.

So we headed up the gravel, me in third position, and within less than a half mile I came around a bend to see Norvin, the group leader, on his side at the side of the road. Whoa, what happened?! He said he hit some sand with his front wheel and the whole thing just went right out from under him. Norvin was unhurt and the bike was pretty much undamaged, except the latch for his right side bag, which he reattached. This was a good example of why it’s nice to have friends along. He was back up and ready to go quickly.

But only a very short distance. That bag attachment was more badly damaged than he thought and in very short order the bag was just hanging loose. So we stopped again and someone produced a bungee cord. That did the trick and all was well.

The rest of the ride on this road was beautiful. This whole area got burned in one of the really big fires a few years ago but with all the rain it was deeply green everywhere. And the one very small upside of forest fires is that they open up the view and you can see rock formations and vistas that for decades had been blocked by trees.

We met the pavement again at Park County Road 77, Tarryall Road, and turned south to U.S. 24 at Lake George. Lunch time, at the Bla Bla Blah Cafe. Yes, that is its name. After lunch I believe the plan had been to head back north past Tarryall to U.S. 285 at Jefferson and home via that route, but the sky up that way was black and threatening so the decision was made to head east on U.S. 24. Three members of the group turned north at Woodland Park on CO 67 but I stayed with the others on U.S. 24 down into Colorado Springs.

Cindy, who lives in the Springs, peeled off there and Norvin and Kevin and I got on I-25 up to Monument. We turned east on CO 105 over to CO 83 and then north. Coming along past Castlewood Canyon State Park I could see over in the foothills how black and wet it looked and was very glad I had opted for this route. I came up CO 83 to I-225 and got into some rain going past Kennedy Golf Course but then I was home and dry.

This was a terrific day. I really, really want to do more of this.

Biker Quote for Today

While the big GS is a competent street mount, and great on back roads, don’t even think about riding it fast off road. This would be as absurd as a fat transvestite running in high heels.

Making a stop at the top of Berthoud Pass.

OK, I admit it, I wimped out on the Ice Cream Ride. This annual RMMRC ride makes three stops for ice cream and I couldn’t do it. I did eat ice cream twice that day but at the third stop I just couldn’t.

But it was a really good ride–beautiful day and a good group to ride with. And it turned out to be a good bit longer than initially planned. It seems Sara and Sean went out to pre-ride the route the day before and ran into construction on U.S. 285 that was a major blockage. So the ride was re-routed.

We met up at an ice cream shop (where else?!) in Lakewood for the first treat of the day. I tried to go easy on myself by ordering the frozen yogurt. It was already hot out so it didn’t seem terribly out of place to eat it at 10 a.m.

There was a good-sized group, about 15. Of course, with this group, there were some BMWs, my V-Strom, Alan and Cheryl in their Honda sidecar rig, one Spyder, a Boulevard, one Harley, and a few others. An eclectic group.

We took Jewell west to C-470 to I-70, heading for U.S. 40 west of Idaho Springs. And soon ran into a huge traffic jam leading to Floyd Hill due to what the sign said was “a fiery crash at exit 244.” So much for avoiding delays.

Eventually it was up and over Berthoud Pass and on to Granby, where we stopped for lunch. Then on to Kremmling for the second ice cream stop. Here I followed another guy’s suggestion and ordered an “Electric Fence.” This was a milk shake with a shot of espresso. It was definitely good.

By the way, along the way we shed probably half of the group, all with their own ideas as to where they wanted to go, so when we left Kremmling we were down to about nine.

We headed south on CO 9 to Dillon, continued on as though we were going over Loveland Pass but then turned and took Swan Lake Road around the reservoir and reached Frisco–our actual destination–that way. And here we stopped for ice cream again.

So I was just sitting in the shade outside the shop, chatting with folks, when suddenly there was this huge crash and the sound of shattering glass and the thunk of a window screen falling down. Right behind me about a foot. Turns out it was a double-hung window that gave way and when it hit the sill one pane shattered and hit the screen so hard it knocked the screen out. Thankfully, the screen protected me and the two people beside me from the glass. As the shopkeepers rushed out asking if we were hurt we were able to say no, not at all. If not for that screen I think we might have had to give a different answer.

From here the group pretty much dispersed, each taking off on their own way home. It was late enough in the day that I-70 was clear sailing, which was a real blessing. A good ride, about 265 miles for me.

Biker Quote for Today

I’d rather ride my hog then sit around drinking beer. — Nsmith82990