Passes & Canyons Blog

It’s just a fact of life that some of the best motorcycle roads in Colorado close during the winter. And the closures have begun.

First to close was the Mount Evans road, which occurred on Sept. 27. That tells you that Trail Ridge Road, Independence Pass, and the road up Pikes Peak can’t be far behind. Then there’s also Kebler Pass and Cottonwood Pass.

The best place to find out if these roads are still open or not is always the Colorado Department of Transportation’s site, http://www.cotrip.org/home.htm. On their listing they include a snowflake sort of icon circled in red to indicate seasonal closures.

Of course what this means is that it’s time to get out there and do some riding while the weather is still good. I’ll be riding all year round, as always, but you can bet I won’t be on the bike as much in the next few months as I have been in the last few. I am planning to try out some heated gloves and/or heated grips soon, however, so that will force me to do some cold weather riding. It’s a dirty job and all that. If they turn out to be wonderful then I guess I’ll do just that much more winter riding.

So today is supposed to be one of those gorgeous fall days. A good day to be out. I’ll let you guess what I’m going to be doing as soon as I wrap up this blog post and a few other chores.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Only a biker knows . . .: Motorcycle wit and wisdom, #23

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycles: “It’s just really, really cool. You guys, seriously. They make this noise that’s like BRAAMM and they go superfast…”

It was a beautiful day and we had heard the colors were good up on the Peak-to-Peak Highway, so of course we had to go for a ride on Sunday.

Heading up via Golden Gate Canyon we had the road almost entirely to ourselves. Too good to last, however, as we had every expectation that the crowds looking for fall color would be thick. We weren’t wrong on that count.

The funny thing was, on the way up and then headed north, Judy and I were both struck with how the colors were just not as stunning and intense as we expected. I suspect it has something to do with the lack of moisture. I think I remember something about how in dry years the aspen leaves go pretty much straight from green to brown, and that’s what a lot of them were doing.

Still, there were a few spots with good color, and we could always tell when we approached these because of all the cars and motorcycles pulled off the side of the road. And oh boy, did I mention motorcycles? It was like a rally on the Peak-to-Peak. We saw hundreds of bikes. There were probably as many bikes as there were cars.

So we cruised on up to Estes Park and had lunch. In case we needed the reminder, you really don’t want to go to Estes Park on a day when there are likely to be hordes of tourists. A gorgeous Sunday in the fall is one of those days. We ate our lunch and quickly departed.

Rather than go down the Big Thompson Canyon or some other canyon and then have to take CO 93 through Boulder, we just backtracked on the Peak-to-Peak, on the theory that a road looks completely different going the other way. And boy did it! Something about the change in the light, and possibly the different views north vs. south, but it was a lot prettier going south. It still wasn’t the kind of color we’ve seen up there before, but it was a lot closer to what we had expected.

So the word is that next weekend is going to be the peak on the Peak-to-Peak. My recommendation, if you’re only going one way on that stretch of road, go north to south. And be ready for crowds.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Head of motorcycle crash study exits, expresses concerns

Biker Quote for Today

Have maximum fun while preserving bike and body.

You don’t have to have a ton of horsepower to have fun on a motorcycle. And you don’t have to have a huge cruising bike to get out on the road. And let’s not even get into the times we’ve watched someone struggling to keep a behemoth from falling over and thought to ourselves how that guy has got too much bike for his size.

In celebration then of smaller bikes, Todd Wallis has organized this Small Bike Ride, for this Saturday. Here’s what Todd has to say about his ride.

Small Bike Ride is coming out of the shadows and we are going to make it official. The event is open to all motorcycles but it is geared toward small, vintage machines and speeds will normally be down to about 35-40 mph which will make it a great opportunity for sidecar rigs and prewar motorcycles as well. We will be riding about 100 miles from the Deer Creek area up through Conifer and Pine and this year we have a chase vehicle in case anyone has trouble. We will be on paved roads and we’ll have a stop for lunch in the middle of the ride. We will meet on Deer Creek Canyon Rd near the intersection of C470 and S. Wadsworth Blvd. The ride starts at 10:00 so plan on getting there around 9:00 a.m.

We will have maps printed and available for everyone the morning of the ride. If you plan to attend please call me or send an email just so I know how many to expect.

Starting Location: 9880 West Deer Creek Canyon Road, Littleton, Colorado 80127

Hope to see you there.

So hey, time to get out that little guy you generally just zip around running errands on. Get your motor running!

Note: I mentioned awhile ago that I was turning commenting off on this blog due to the comment spammers. I have now added a new captcha feature that asks you to prove you’re not a computer in order to leave a comment. So please do leave comments whenever you please.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Head of motorcycle crash study exits, expresses concerns

Biker Quote for Today

Ural miles are kinda like dog years.

We were over in Grand Junction at my brother’s place over the Labor Day weekend and wanted to visit some wineries. I’ve been through here numerous times on the bike and have wanted to stop and do some wine-tasting but I’ve always had other things going on.

Good thing. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that wine-tasting and motorcycles are not a particularly good combination. But now that concept is not only theoretical.

We headed out in my brother’s car, with him driving. We wanted to taste a bunch of wines, buy a few, and just generally enjoy ourselves. Which is to say, we don’t spit; we swallow our tastes of wine. Now, we made a point to have lunch before we left so as not to be drinking on empty stomachs. Nevertheless, by the time we left the fourth tasting room, I don’t know about the others, but I was feeling the booze. And I almost never drink so much that I feel the booze.

That was a good time to drop by the home of some friends of my brother. They have a peach tree and had harvested all the peaches they wanted and were glad to let anyone take as many of what was left as they wanted. I picked a lot of peaches. That provided a good break, so then we went on to our fifth tasting room.

That was it for our tasting trip and we headed back to my brother’s place. And the point here is simple: I was really glad I wasn’t on a motorcycle at this point. I’ve heard about people doing wine tours on motorcycles but I don’t see how they do it. Unless they spit. And spitting just seems wasteful to me. So go to Palisade and taste wines, just don’t do it on your bike. And even in your car, don’t overdo it.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Riding is the star of the inaugural Tahoe Rendezvous

Biker Quote for Today

Give big space to the festive dog that makes sport in roadway. Avoid entanglement of dog with wheel spokes.

I figured from the outset that by the time yesterday came around, when I had been on the road for 17 days and was headed home, that I would be like a horse headed for the stable. What I didn’t count on was that after a journey of nearly 3,900 miles, I would get stopped for speeding within 50 miles of home. Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

In all my years of riding, this is the first time I have ever gotten a speeding ticket on a bike. Sure, I’ve had speeding tickets in cars, but never on a bike. I mentioned that to the officer and he laughed saying he had gotten plenty of tickets on his motorcycles when he was younger.

What happened was that I had come across Nebraska and Kansas, coming into Colorado on U.S. 36. Of all the states I’d been through, the only one I didn’t have a map for was Colorado. I was running low on gas and thought for sure there was a town out there called Last Chance. Isn’t there? Figured I’d get gas there. But I reached the Adams County line and passed the hazardous waste facility out there and still no Last Chance.

So without a map, I wasn’t clear on how far it was yet to Byers, where I knew I could get gas. I figured I must be a good ways yet, so I kept blasting. That’s when I passed this Arapahoe County Sheriff vehicle going the other way. I looked in my mirror and saw him pull over and then turn around. When he turned his flashers on I pulled over.

He was a nice enough guy, and I was certainly polite, and I let him know I had been riding for 17 days and was just a few miles from home, hoping he’d cut me a break. No such luck. I asked him how far till I could get gas and he told me Byers was just 15 miles ahead. Fifteen miles? Then the racetrack must be very close by, I said. Oh yes, it’s just up that hill, he said. And sure enough, when I took off again, I crested the hill immediately ahead of me and there was High Plains Raceway. Dang, if I’d know that I really suspect I would have slacked off on my speed a bit, knowing I was so close.

Oh well. It could have been worse. Truth is, I had been going a lot faster not that long before. I’ll take my ticket for going 77 in a 65 zone, rather the 87 or so that it might have been. I understand we need things like speed laws but I still fail to see how anyone was harmed by my going that fast way out there on the prairie with almost zero other traffic.

So one thing I did not do, at the end, was to say “Thank you” to the officer. I know that is a common thing that people do, because they’re trying to be completely polite and respectful to the officer. But that just strikes me as perverse. I acknowledged him and was very pleasant, but I did not say thank you. I really didn’t feel I had anything to thank him for. I really wish I’d never met him. Oh well.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Making the rounds at Vintage Motorcycle Days

Biker Quote for Today

Don’t mind the slidin’, the crunchin’, or even the sudden impact . . . it’s wakin’ up to the wife bitchin’ that bums me out!

A lot of Colorado is in flames. Obviously the impact that has on motorcycle riders and motorcycle events is nothing compared to the impact on the people who have lost their homes but that impact does bear mention. Fact is, I got an email the other day while I was up in Eagle from a rider who asked me to provide some info about the fires because, “We are set to head to South Fork, CO, and are concerned about the current wildfires!”

So I’m going to try to pull together some information here that is reasonably current.

First off, however, is this. I just received an email from the organizers of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC) announcing that this event, scheduled for July 8, has been indefinitely postponed. Of course, the worst fire raging at this point is the Waldo Canyon Fire down by Colorado Springs, so this should not be too much of a surprise to anyone. No new date has yet been set but they say the PPIHC will be run at some point yet this summer.

So what about the fires? Here’s what I can find.

Durango area–There is a fire northwest of Durango, the Lightner Creek Fire, but traffic along U.S. 160 and U.S. 550 should not be affected. Further west, near Mesa Verde, the Escarpment Fire is about 75 acres on the Ute reservation. That does not appear to be causing problems on the highway. A little further west, near Mancos, the Weber Fire is at about 10,000 acres but only impacted travel on the county road heading south out of town.

Pagosa Springs area–The Little Sand Fire 13 miles northwest of Pagosa has burned 22,000 acres and is 29 percent contained. It is not near any of the main roads and should not be an issue for travelers.

Leadville area–The Treasure Fire started up near Leadville on Sunday, along the Fremont Pass route to Leadville from Copper Mountain. I was in Leadville on Monday and didn’t even see any smoke but apparently this fire is still burning. Traffic was moving normally.

Boulder area–The Flagstaff Fire is burning behind the Flatirons. That could create problems if you want to use Flagstaff Road or other roads back there but otherwise should not be a problem. However, up on the hill at the National Center for Atmospheric Research there is some danger as the fire moves rapidly in that direction.

Fort Collins area–The High Park Fire continues to blaze and to spread but is gradually coming under control. Firefighters are projecting complete containment by July 15. This fire can have some real impact for riders. The Poudre Canyon–CO 114–should be avoided. Also, the road up past Masonville and over through Stove Prairie will not be open. Stove Prairie has been hit especially hard. The same with Rist Canyon, coming into the hills out of Fort Collins.

That seems to about cover it for now. But as dry as it has been, and as many beetle-killed trees as there are up in the mountains, it’s a safe assumption that there will be more fires yet this summer. It’s just going to be a matter of staying on top of what’s happening and planning your trips accordingly.

Biker Quote for Today

Talk less, ride more.