Archive for the ‘Colorado motorcycle rides’ Category

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Checking for Color in the High Country

Monday, October 7th, 2013
CB750 on Squaw Pass

I took the Honda up on Squaw Pass on Sunday. What a great day to ride!

All right, we had some snow, a hard frost, and now the weather has warmed back up. This is Indian summer, and yesterday (Sunday) was an absolutely perfect day for a ride in the hills. I figured I’d ride the Honda, partly because it gets the least use of my three bikes but also because those tires are getting old and ought to be replaced. Let’s wear them out!

I headed out to Morrison, where the bikes were thick as flies on something rotten, and cruised on up Bear Creek Road to Evergreen. Evergreen was the same as Morrison, bikes everywhere you looked. I wasn’t the only one who concluded it was a perfect day to ride. A time and temperature clock in Evergreen read 61 degrees and you couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.

I turned north on Evergreen Parkway to the left turn onto Squaw Pass Road. I was wanting to either find some fall color or see how far away we were from having the aspen leaves turn golden. I had seen a little color coming up the canyon but it seemed I needed to go higher. But the higher I went all I saw was aspen tress with their leaves already gone or else just brown. I’ve heard that moisture can affect the change of color so maybe we’re just not going to get a gorgeous fall this year.

Cruising up Squaw Pass Road I still didn’t see much color, but I did see some major work on the road. A lengthy stretch was brand new asphalt, so new it isn’t even striped yet. I had one particular spot in mind where I wanted to stop and shoot a picture but when I got there they were working on the road, despite it being Sunday. In fact, they were laying asphalt at the exact spot I planned to stop at the moment I got there so I kept going and got the shot above a little further down the road.

I didn’t go all the way over and down to Idaho Springs because I didn’t want to get stuck in the Sunday afternoon mess on I-70 coming back to town. Instead, I went on a ways and then turned back. That way I saw the road in both directions and can give you this report in case you’re up there soon.

The road work starts once you enter Clear Creek County. The road surface is smooth and perfect, unstriped as I said, but also with no shoulder in place yet. What that means is that if you wanted to pull off you’d be looking at a sheer drop-off from the asphalt of four to six inches. Not too many people are going to want to try that.

Going west, which puts you in the north lane, the lane is clear and perfect. Heading back east however, in the south lane, there is still some snow and ice on the road. Off the road, in the shadows, there was a good bit of snow. While the road has been cleared, there were just a few small patches where not all the snow was cleared off the pavement. Plus, there are some spots where melting snow flows onto the pavement and then freezes. When I came over around 2 p.m. this was mostly melted and the road was just wet, but earlier or later in the day it could be a different story. And there was still some ice in a couple spots even at that time.

I’m presuming this is indicative of other roads in the high country at this point. If this government shutdown continues and I continue to not be working I plan to check out a few more in the next few days. Hey, it’s a great opportunity to ride and it gives me something to write about here. I will make the point, by the way, that while Congress is planning to pay federal workers for their time off from work, I am not a federal employee, I’m a contractor. For me it’s unpaid time off. But I still get to go out and ride during this perfect weather.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
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Biker Quote for Today

Two roads diverged in a wood, and / I took the one less traveled by, and / now where the hell am I?

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No Riding in the Big Thompson Canyon Any Time Soon

Thursday, September 19th, 2013

If you live in Colorado this is not news, but if you live elsewhere and have plans to come ride in Colorado it’s important news. No one is going to be doing much riding in the Big Thompson Canyon any time soon.

Big Thompson Canyon

An elevated portion of the road down the Big Thompson Canyon before the recent flooding.

Probably everyone across the country knows we’ve have major flooding here in Colorado recently but what has happened in the Big Thompson may have escaped your attention. I knew it got hit pretty hard but it wasn’t until I watched this TV news video that I realized just how bad it was.

Let’s get some history. Back in 1976 there was a huge flood in the Big Thompson that killed more than 150 people. When they rebuilt the highway they built it to prevent that sort of devastation again. Or so they thought.

In places in the narrow parts of the canyon where the road used to run right alongside the river, the new construction raised the roadway 20 feet or more above the previous level. Watching that video you can see that a large part of that raised construction got washed away. It’s an aerial view so it’s hard to see for sure, but the walls of the elevated portion seem to have come through reasonably well. Nevertheless, the decking, i.e., the road surface, is totally washed away in some places and substantially missing in others. Not quite sure how that happened but it did. So much for the best laid plans of highway engineers.

So of course you have to wonder what they’ll do this time to rebuild the road and make it last. The one thing you don’t have to wonder about at all is whether there will be any riding in that canyon in the next six months or more. If they just put things back the way they were it would probably take that long. If they try something new it will first take time to come up with ideas and develop those ideas and then put them into place.

The Big Thompson is a beautiful canyon and it’s a great place to ride. Just don’t plan on doing that till next year some time.

Biker Quote for Today

Half the adventure is trying to figure out when and where to stop for a photo.

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Two Motorcycle Events You May Want to Attend

Monday, September 16th, 2013
Civilian Top Gun competition

The Civilian Top Gun competition a couple years ago.

There are a couple things coming up very soon that I want to direct your attention to.

First is the 5th annual Civilian Top Gun Rider Competition. The non-civilian Top Gun competition is for motorcycle cops. That’s an annual exhibition that is really good, with those guys putting their big cruiser bikes through tight turns that most people can’t even do on a small bike.

So this other event is for the rest of us, but don’t think for a minute that that means the riding you’ll see is second-rate. You don’t have to be a cop to know how to ride really, really well.

This thing will be taking place this coming weekend, Sept. 20-21, at Fay Myers Motorcycle World, 9700 E. Arapahoe. And it’s free–no admission charge. Apparently it will be going on both days so cruise on down, and prepare to feel like you really aren’t that good a rider after all, no matter what your ego would like you to believe.

The other event is a week later, Saturday, Sept. 28. This is the Small Bike Ride.

Todd Wallis is the organizer of this event, which is in its fourth year. Todd is a guy who likes to restore old bikes, and he particularly likes the smaller ones. So he put together this event–it’s just a ride; go have fun–for old bikes with engines 250cc or smaller. Or, if you ride a pre-WWII bike of any size you’re welcome, too.

Riders will be starting out from a spot in Deer Creek Canyon, 9880 West Deer Creek Canyon Road, to be exact. The ride starts at 9 a.m. and will be cruising–rather slowly–through the hills, for about 100 miles.

So go have fun.

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Biker Quote for Today

Think of your thumper as a big pump, happily sucking and blowing down the road.

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The Road to Silt

Monday, August 5th, 2013
The road to Silt.

The road as it descends to the north, toward Silt and New Castle.

OK now, before I was so rudely interrupted by this OFMC motorcycle trip I was going to tell you about the road to Silt from down around Vega State Park. Back to where we left off.

As I had described, we had turned off the McClure Pass road (CO 133) to cruise a gravel road that runs over to Collbran, with Vega State Park on the way. After camping overnight at the park we were planning to backtrack a few miles and take the road that runs north to Silt.

In the morning, though, before heading out, we went around Vega Lake and stopped at the Vega Lodge to check it out as a potential overnight destination for the OFMC. It was a nice place with good rates so I have since told John that he ought to consider adding it as a stop on some future trip.

While talking with the lady who runs the place we mentioned we were planning to go back east a bit and take the road to Silt.

“Oh, we hate that road,” she said. “We go to Collbran and take the Debeque cut-off.” She told us it was a bad road in good weather and in bad weather it gets “really greasy.”

But the weather was good and we were not planning on being in any kind of hurry so off we went.

For quite a ways the road was not bad at all. It climbed a bit and we got up fairly high, and then came over the crest and started down. (You can see what I mean in the photo.) That was where things got quite a bit worse. It was obvious that cars and trucks going the other way had had struggles getting up this hill in the wet. In places there were ruts in the road dug by four-wheel-drive tires in mud and the going was pretty rough. Still, there was plenty of smooth road surface if you took your time and avoided the ruts. I definitely would not want to be on this road going either direction is a rainstorm, though. You could really see what she meant by “greasy.” Slick road surface that would give no traction at all when wet. Bad news.

But the weather was good and we had a nice trip. The road went down quite a ways and then we started running into farmland. The road was paved as we got further north and we reached a T intersection. Go left and it took you to Silt. Go right and it took you to New Castle. It’s called the road to Silt but there’s really no reason to go to Silt unless you plan to head west on I-70. If you were going east, as we were, you might as well turn right. We did and it was a nice run to New Castle.

And then it was time to do some slabbing. All good things do come to an end.

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OFMC dips into New Mexico

Biker Quote for Today

The destination is not important, only the ride there…

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First Ride Up Phantom Canyon

Monday, July 29th, 2013
V-Strom On Phantom Canyon Road

The V-Strom on Phantom Canyon Road.

I’ve known about the Phantom Canyon road for years but had never been on it until Saturday. Chalk up one more first on the V-Strom.

There are two roads leading up from Canon City to the Cripple Creek/Victor area. One is the Shelf Road, which I have been on before, and the other is the Phantom Canyon road.

On the last night out of this year’s OFMC ride we stayed in Canon City. Brett and Randy got going early wanting to get home to Denver as quickly as possible. John was heading back to Montrose, and Dennis, Friggs, Bill, and I weren’t in such a hurry to get home and decided to get there via Cripple Creek. As John headed west, Dennis, Bill, and Friggs headed north, following the pavement. I headed east and then north on the gravel.

The Phantom Canyon road is an old narrow-gauge rail bed so it is narrow and twisty and goes through some gorgeous country. At first it was very smooth, the sort of thing a street bike could handle easily, but up close to Victor it got rougher, particularly where the water runs across the road and eats trenches. It was nothing the V-Strom couldn’t handle with ease but again, a street bike could have done it. In fact, as I went up the canyon I encountered several bikes going down. The first were two dirt bikes, so of course they were fine. Then there was Can-Am Spyder and two trikes. With three wheels they were fine. And then there was a couple on a Harley. I’m sure as long as they took it easy and picked their path along they did just fine, too.

The canyon is very tight with steep walls at first, opening out later into something a bit more spacious. While the road does not show any “improvements” over the basic rail bed there are a few bridges that are clearly much more recent. And there are a couple railroad tunnels that give you an idea just how small those old trains must have been, because they would have been tight for two bigger motorcycles passing in opposite directions. In fact, much of the road is one lane and while a car and a bike could pass, two cars could not have. My biggest concern was not the road surface so much as the thought that a car might come fast around a blind curve and we might have an encounter. But that didn’t happen. A few cars going the other way were moving a bit fast on the more open stretches but on the tight curves it seemed everyone recognized that taking it slow was mandatory.

So this was the third time on this trip that I took the gravel while the other guys stayed on the asphalt. That totally works for me. I’m not keen on riding in such a big group to start with, and the reason I bought this dual-sport bike was to go places I would never go on a bike before. My wishes are now coming true.

Biker Quote for Today

Where a motorcycle takes you is more important than where you take it.

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Posted in Colorado motorcycle rides, motorcycle touring, OFMC | 1 Comment »

Kebler Pass on the V-Strom

Wednesday, July 24th, 2013
V-Strom on Kebler Pass

V-Strom on Kebler Pass.

It’s not a challenge in any way but I’ve now ridden Kebler Pass on the V-Strom.

After spending the night at Powderhorn, at a ski condo, we ran over Grand Mesa and down to Cedaredge and turned east. At Hotchkiss all the other guys headed south through Crawford, to the north rim of the Black Canyon, over to Gunnison and up to Crested Butte. Me, I kept going at Hotchkiss, through Paonia, and turned off to ride Kebler Pass to CB.

I told these guys Kebler is a great gravel road but I had no idea just how great it would be at this time. My friend Kevin, in Gunnison, who I called once I got here, said they went hog wild with the mag chloride on Kebler this year and it’s practically paved. I would agree. Heck, there was even a guy on a bicycle. You don’t ride bicycles on really bad gravel roads.

Of course I’ve been on Kebler before, too, so the only thing noteworthy about this whole thing is that once again I’m getting out on unpaved roads–the reason I bought this dual-sport bike.

I did have a little trepidation heading for Kebler, however. Talking with a guy at a gas station at Cedaredge, he told me they had had a lot of rain lately and there had been mud slides and roads had been blocked. He thought Kebler Pass might be bad. He told me to take it easy because I might come around a curve to find a boulder lying in the road.

Then I pulled off at a station in Paonia and spoke to some guys there who were on dual-sports and they said they had just been over Kebler recently and it was the best they’d ever seen it. That was reassuring. And they were right.

So it wasn’t an adventure, but it was fun nevertheless. And of course it was gorgeous. Kebler Pass runs through some terrific country and if you haven’t been up there you owe yourself that treat. And if you’re on a Harley, do it anyway. You won’t find a gravel road in better condition.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if you won’t ride down a gravel road.

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