Passes & Canyons Blog

With a predicted high of 70 on Saturday it was inevitable that the RMMRC was going to get a ride together. I probably would have been inclined to go but when Judy said she wanted to go that totally decided it.

This was going to be a different type of ride than we typically do. In the summer of course we tend to head for the hills. In winter, however, you pretty much have to stay on the plains, but you can still get hills going southeast toward the Palmer Divide. On Saturday we headed northeast, to Fort Morgan.

When I first thought about it I figured it could be nice, we might do some riding along the Platte River. Then, thinking more about it, I realized that was not likely. If you look at a map you’ll see that although the south fork of the South Platte comes right through Denver, from here it heads north all the way to Greeley, where it joins the north fork of the South Platte and then flows east. And after awhile it turns north toward Nebraska where it meets the North Platte.

All of this means you would have to ride pretty far to do much riding along the Platte. So what did we have to look forward to riding to Fort Morgan? A lot of straight roads across the prairie. Section line roads requiring a lot of zig-zagging in order to go northeast. Of course I-76 goes that way as a diagonal but nobody wants to ride the interstate.

So that’s what we did. There were eight of us on seven bikes and we saw a lot of prairie we had mostly never seen before. And which, frankly, I don’t have a lot of interest in seeing again any time soon. I mean, it was nice once, but once was enough.

We got into Fort Morgan, made a stop at the local museum–which was actually a pretty nice one–and then headed over for lunch at a local Mexican place.

And then it was back to Denver and we just got on the superslab. A couple of us got off at Barr Lake in order to skip the slab through town but at that point, as Judy said, we were just covering miles because we were getting tired of being in the saddle.

Yeah, there’s a reason we don’t generally ride to the northeast.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you refer to your bike as if it had a legal first name.

I was embarrassed a couple weeks ago when riding with some folks from the RMMRC. I had told Robert, who was leading, that the road north out of Daniels Park was paved all the way now. So he led the way along that road, turned left at the T intersection as I intended, and we soon found ourselves on gravel.

Mind you, it was very good gravel, probably drowned in magnesium chloride, making it practically paved, and we kept going. But I had been certain it was paved and I could not have been more wrong. How the heck did I make that mistake? Who knows.

So I studied an online map to see what the deal is down there and I found that if we had gone right at that T then we would have been able to get all the way back up to the city on paved roads. Yesterday was a gorgeous, warm early March day so I had to ride and it made sense to head down that way to cement this route into my memory.

I headed south on Quebec down, down, and further down to the south. Quebec became Monarch Boulevard and eventually I reached Castle Pines Parkway. I turned west until I reached Daniels Park and then followed the road we took that day that bent north and then I reached the T intersection. This is North Daniels Park Road and Grig’s Road. This time I turned right.

On a side note, while coming north through Daniels Park I passed a herd of bison. I didn’t know they had bison at Daniels Park.

I knew from the map that Grig’s Road was going to do some serious bending, and it did. It turns out that it has to jog around a good-sized arroyo. Homes backing onto that arroyo must have a really nice view and setting.

Heading straight south momentarily, I reached a roundabout, as expected, and turned due east again. This was Daniels Gate Road and it made a couple curves, then bent northeast and intersected . . . Monarch Boulevard. So I had made a loop.

OK. I really, truly have a clear idea of that area now.

Biker Quote for Today

An expert is a person who has made every mistake possible in a very narrow field ~ Neils Bohr

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pikes Peak more beautiful than it was on Saturday. Between the fresh coat of snow and the perfect light and clouds I couldn’t stop looking at it.

Which made it kind of nice that we were riding in that direction and it came into view repeatedly.

There were 11 of us on this RMMRC ride and while Saturday was not as warm as forecast it was an OK day to ride if you were geared for it. I wore my electric vest and was mighty glad I did, but I left my heated gloves at home, which was a mistake. Some day I’ll learn to put them in my bag so I’ll have them if I decide I want them. But I’m a slow learner.

I want to make the point to all of you who are involved with motorcycle groups that are struggling for membership: The RMMRC has recently gone from its own website to using Meet-Up for its site and its communications. This has been a huge success. We get more riders on the rides and while I don’t know how many, if any, have joined so far I have to believe that some of them will. Especially those who keep showing up on the rides.

Our destination was Monument, to a restaurant (La Casa Fiesta) I was not familiar with, but that grossly understates the situation. You know what I learned? Monument is a real town. All I had ever seen of it was the road down from Palmer Lake to the I-25 interchange. Guess what? If you go a few blocks west from the interstate there is a real town there, with downtown, shops, restaurants–the whole shebang. Who knew?

Getting there without riding all the same roads you’ve been on countless times could be an issue. However, leading the group was Tim, who I have to say is the one person I know who knows the roads south and east of Denver better than me. I’m sure for much of the group this was their first time on nearly all these roads. For me, I had been on most of them but there were at least a few that I have never been on. What fun!

We had quite a mixed contingent of bikes. There were three Hondas, two or three Beemers, a couple Kawasakis, one Spyder, and I’m not sure what else. On the way down I got behind a woman on a sportbike that had an obnoxious exhaust going “Bra-a-a-a-a-t, bra-a-a-a-a-t” the whole way. I made sure to put several people between us on the ride home.

When we got to the restaurant we wondered if it was open because the large parking lot was completely empty. It was open, and starting about 15 minutes later they started arriving. First there was a group of 30 bikes that pulled in. And more kept coming. By the time we were leaving the lot was completely full, with only a couple cars and probably 50 bikes.

We had a good meal (I do recommend La Casa Fiesta) and Roy did his thing, pitching the Meet-Up folks on the club and telling everyone about our upcoming rides. Then we headed north on CO 105 and everyone split off at their appropriate turns and we all went home. Heck, by the time I got home it was actually kind of warm.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if over half the pictures you take have your bike in it.