Passes & Canyons Blog

I ran across this question on the Delphi motorcycle forum:

Ok, who is a good ride planner? We plan on being at the KOA in Estes Park in a couple of weeks. We have 3 day that we will be riding day trips out of there. Any recommendations? Not looking for a ton of miles, maybe 200-300 per day or less.

Thanks,

J.R.

I posted this reply:

JR–

From Estes Park you will definitely want to take the ride up over Trail Ridge Road. For a 200-mile ride you could go over Trail Ridge, then from Granby to Walden, then take Coloado 14 over Cameron Pass and down through Poudre Canyon to Fort Collins, and then south to Loveland and back up Big Thompson Canyon to Estes Park.

Beyond that you’re a bit limited. Unless you go over Trail Ridge again to go in other directions from Granby you’re faced with going back down to the plains or coming back at night over the same roads you left on.

You can go south out of Estes Park along the Peak to Peak Highway, to where you meet US 6, to Idaho Springs, up Squaw Pass, and to the top of Mount Evans. Then backtrack, more or less, or return over Trail Ridge.

Then for your third day you might consider going over Trail Ridge again, from Granby head to Kremmling and Steamboat Springs, over Rabbit Ears Pass. Then south on Colorado 131 either to Toponas and back over Gore Pass to Kremmling and backtrack. Or, continue south from Toponas to Wolcott and pick up I-70 and take it back over Vail Pass and get off at Silverthorne and take Loveland Pass to regain the interstate on the east side of the tunnel. Then back just east of Idaho Springs to get back on the Peak to Peak. But that runs close to 300 miles and a very long day. It’s tough from Estes Park because you’re really limited on where you can go from there.

Anyway, I hope that helps. You can find out a lot more about these roads on my website, www.motorcyclecolorado.com. Have fun.

I’m always happy to help. Anyone else looking for motorcycling information in Colorado, just write. I need to make note here, however, that because of the spam bastards I had to turn comments off on this blog. So to write, send your email to ken at motorcyclecolorado dot com.

This coming Wednesday, July 18, is Ride Your Motorcycle To Work Day. Do it!

The idea here is to get as many people on the road on their bikes on the same day to show people how many of us there are and to thereby make people more aware that they need to be aware we are there. We’ve all had the “he didn’t even see me” experience. If people are more aware that we might be there then hopefully they’ll be more careful to check to see if we are there. Wishful thinking? Probably, but what the hey, it can’t hurt and riding to work is more fun than driving anyway. I try to do it once a week. Aside from anything else, it also saves money on gas.

Oh, and here’s the disclaimer. Here I am pushing Ride to Work Day and I won’t be riding to work on Wednesday. Why? Because I’m fortunate in my current job to be able to work at home two days a week and one of my two days is always Wednesday–that’s July 18.

Here’s the URL in case you want to learn more: http://www.ridetowork.org/

_____________

On a different note, I always welcome comments and responses to these posts but the spam bastards have made it so I had to turn off that function. I can’t spend an hour every day deleting hundreds of spam postings, which is what it had turned into. So if you want to contact me, send me an email to ken at motorcycle dot com and I’ll put your comment up, or respond to you, as appropriate. Thanks. Sorry for the hassle.

That’s the question I got from M Rockey. With all the motorcycle roads I have posted info about on the website, where is the road up Mount Evans. Actually, I’ll let him speak for himself:

Nice site, very enjoyable…but where is MT Evans? :) It’s the best ride of them all in my opinion….I couldn’t find it if it is there..:)

But thanks..this gets me all worked up for this summer’s CO trip!

He’s right, you know, and I had realized that last fall. I’ve spent so much time putting up info on routes that get you from A to B that I forgot about rides where you just go and come back. So I’ve had it on my list of things to do soon to add Mount Evans. The thing is, I can’t do it now because that road is closed for the winter, and is probably under six feet of snow at the moment. But check back in June or so and you’ll see Mount Evans. Thanks for the prodding.

Today has got to be earliest in the year that I’ve ever ridden to work. I went in today on my Kawasaki Concours and even with daylight savings time started early it was a warm ride in. On March 13!

Speaking of riding to work, Ride to Work Day is set for July 18 this year. In case you’ve never heard of it, it’s a day for us all to ride our motorcycles to work to show our strength and make people aware that we’re on the road–so don’t run us down!

I saw someone today who needs to learn that lesson. I was leaving work and another guy came along on his bike and passed me in the left lane. Then he moved over to the right lane and right after that, in an area where traffic entering the highway was merging, some idiot streaked over two lanes to the left, almost clipping the guy on the bike in front of me. I was cursing at the asshole and I can imagine what the other rider was saying. Let’s face it, if we didn’t ride defensively we wouldn’t ride at all–we’d be dead!

But hey. It was a great riding day in March, and a lot of us took advantage of it. How sweet.

My record is intact! I was able to overcome the snow gods and ride today!

We’ve had six snowstorms in six weeks and when I woke up yesterday and it was snowing I thought I had finally lost the game. I ride both bikes at least once every month but there it was January 27 and it just didn’t seem possible. Fortunately the snow ended and the sun came out and melted all the snow that had just fallen. Kind of like what Colorado is usually like. But that didn’t change the fact that we still have six inches of snow and ice on our street. The asphalt is finally starting to show through but only in spots. The answer for me was the sidewalk.

I had been looking for days at the sidewalk. Everyone has shoveled their walks, but melting snow has formed ice here and there and cars parked on the streets keep some places from getting sunlight. But mostly it was clear. I got up this morning and saw the sun shining and immediately went out with sand and salt and checked out all the trouble spots. A little later I went back with a spade and scraped and chipped as much away from the trouble spots as I could. Then I sanded and salted them again. Then came back with the shovel an hour later. One more sanding and salting and once more with the shovel and by about 1 pm my way was clear. There were still 15 feet of snow and ice to cross to get to dry pavement down at the cross street but that’s manageable.

I suited up and rode down the sidewalk. My wife helped me carefully walk the bike across the ice and I was on my way. She thought I was crazy and suicidal. But I had a nice ride and came back and took the other bike down and did it again.

So for 18? 19? I lose track of the years. For however long I’ve had the CB750 I have ridden it at least once every single month, no matter what. And in the eight years I’ve had the Kawi Concours I’ve done the same with it. Sometimes you grab the opportunities. Other times you just have to make your own opportunities.

I know this is a little early but I just want to remind everyone that in 2007 Ride Your Motorcycle to Work Day is set for July 18.

You are familiar with Ride Your Motorcycle to Work Day, aren’t you? If not you should be. Here’s your chance.

On one day each year all motorcyclists are encouraged to ride their bikes to work. The idea is to get as many of us out there at the same time in order to make everyone else aware of how many of us there are. Also to make it clear that we are there and folks in cars and trucks need to drive as if we are there. Because we are. I don’t need to go into a discussion of the bazillion times every one of us has had to dodge someone who didn’t realize we were there.

So anyway, I’ll be mentioning this again several times as the day draws closer. In the meantime, you can find out all about this national event at the website: www.ridetowork.org.

Ride safely. Ride.

If you’re thinking of riding in the Deckers area you need to be aware that CO 67 south of Deckers to Woodland Park has been closed and will remain closed for several months. This is an area that was hit hard by forest fires a couple years ago, so when we had heavy rains a couple weeks ago the denuded hillsides just slid. The road was totally washed out in several places and will need to be completely rebuilt.

You can still get to Deckers, however–just not from the south. You can come in on CO 67 from Sedalia or along CO 126 from Pine Junction. As a day ride from Denver that loop is not a bad ride at all.

I’ll put up another posting once the road reopens.

I had been tentative all along but always felt it would work out. But it didn’t. Today is the first day of the ADVRider West Fest 2006, a three day bike rally in Buena Vista. And I’m not there. And though I still hope I might make it there for at least part of a day it’s not looking good.

I’m bummed. There are several other rallies I’m hoping to make it to this summer but this is the only camping motorcycle rally I know of and there are hundreds of people coming from all over. I wanted to be one of them. Rats. I hope you guys all have a great time. Send me some photos, OK?