Passes & Canyons Blog

I eagerly unfolded my copy of the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route map, from Butler Maps. What roads would it take, which ones have I been on, and which ones might I realistically consider riding at some point?

To refresh your memory, the Backcountry Discovery Route series is sponsored by Touratech, makers of adventure motorcycling gear. What these guys do is go out and develop a route that crosses an entire state, generally north to south, and then they make the GPS logs available for free. Butler Maps has partnered with Touratech on this, producing maps of the routes.

And what do you know, I actually have ridden parts of this route.

Of course part of it was easy. The route starts at Four Corners and comes up through Cortez and up to Dolores on paved roads. I’ve done all that. Then it gets off on the more gnarly stuff. The route parallels CO 145 along over Lizard Head Pass, taking the west side of the San Miguel Mountains and the lizard head, up to where CO 145 has now passed Telluride. Dropping back south of Telluride almost to Lizard Head Pass, it leaves the paved road again through Ophir and over Ophir Pass to connect to US 550 a little north of Silverton. Jogging north, it then crosses Cinnamon Pass over to Lake City (ridden that one) and then heads up Slumgullion Pass before getting off on the dirt again all the way to Cochetopa Pass, south of Gunnison, and on to meet up with US 50 east of Gunnison at Doyleville.

I’m not going to describe the entire route. In brief it goes something like this: Tin Cup, Taylor Reservoir, Cottonwood Pass (ridden that), Buena Vista, Weston Pass (been there), Leadville, Hagerman Pass, Crooked Creek Pass (been there), Gypsum, Colorado River Road (ridden that), State Bridge, the Trough Road (ridden that one), Lynx Pass, Steamboat Springs, Columbine (been there on the bike), and on to the Wyoming state line at Battle Creek.

The route is broken up into sections and gas stops are indicated on the map. That’s pretty handy when you’re going off the pavement and don’t run into a lot of stations, I’m sure. Alternate routes are pointed out that are a little easier (or possibly simply passable when things get wet), and nice sidetrips to places such as hot springs are pointed out. Lodging is pointed out.

Altogether this route covers 675 miles. As the map states, “It is intended for intermediate to advanced riders and can be ridden on most street legal dual-sport and adventure motorcycles.”

Hey, if you’re looking for some adventure riding, this is Colorado, after all. Go ride!

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It’s not how fast you’re going, its about how fast your fast comes to a stop.

Are you interested in crossing Colorado, border to border, on an adventure motorcycle on unpaved roads and trails? That’s what the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route is all about and the folks who mapped it out will be showing a video of their riding of this route.

The first showing will be this Saturday, Jan. 19, at BMW of Denver, 2910 S. Havana. The show starts at 5 p.m. They ask that you RSVP to save a seat. The second showing will be the following Saturday, Jan. 26, at Performance Cycle of Denver, 1990 S. Broadway. No further info on their showing. There’s no admission fee.

The Colorado Backcountry Route is another in a series of such efforts headed up for the most part by Touratech, a company that specializes in creating and selling tough gear for adventure motorcyclists. The backcountry route thing is great for off-road riders because it helps establish routes (free GPS files are available) and good for Touratech because it helps them sell more gear.

Paul Guillien is general manager of Touratech and I spoke with him at the time that the non-profit group they formed released the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route. I’d link to that article but unfortunately it was published on RumBum.com and RumBum has shut down operations and it’s not available. I’d republish it here except that I sold all rights to the piece to RumBum, so they own it, not me.

Too bad, it was a good piece. I will, however, excerpt the opening two paragraphs. That’s fair use under copyright law.

By the standard of “It’s not an adventure until someone says, ‘WTF are we doing here??’,” Paul Guillien and his riding companion were pretty certain they were having an adventure coming down from Reservation Ridge.

“Two of us were out scouting away from the group and we got stuck on Reservation Ridge. It’s about 9,000 elevation, we were buzzing along, and next thing we know a rain storm opened up on us and within minutes the bikes were falling down.”

Suffice it to say, this Colorado video is likely to be well worth watching. Even if you don’t ride in the dirt.

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We have always taken “very dangerous” and “not recommended” as indicators of where some good riding was to be had.

I’m not much of a glad-hander, so even though I’ve been an ABATE member for several years now and I go to my district’s monthly meetings as often as possible, I still don’t even know most of the people’s names, and I’ve never spoken to most of them. So I was very interested to figure out recently that one woman who has been coming for awhile, and whom I had never met, is Kathy Banning, one of the co-owners of United Dirt Bike School. And so at the meeting last Sunday I approached her afterward and we spoke.

If you’ve been reading this blog you know that for some time I have had a growing interest in riding off the pavement. I’m not necessarily interested in the serious, really difficult trail riding that some people do, I’m just tired of missing out on all these great roads that Colorado has that don’t happen to have asphalt on them. I’ve ridden a bit with Kevin Smith, of Colorado Mountain Moto, and Ron Coleman, of Western Dual Sport Motorcycle Adventures, but I want more. And most especially, I want my own dual-sport or dirt bike.

What I don’t want is to get out somewhere, all on my own, and get in trouble. Now, I’m a confident sort of person and I think I’m pretty good at recognizing my limitations, so I don’t really think that is all that likely. But what if it did? One way to improve my odds would be to improve my skills. I’ve taken the MSF Beginning Rider Course and the Experienced Rider Course, so why not take a dirt-riding course? And Kathy and her partner, Michael St. John, are both MSF certified to teach dirt riding. I told Kathy that I’m interested.

An interesting thing is that apparently, so are a lot of other people. They have limited access to the training course they use and from what Kathy tells me, they have a line of people waiting to get in their classes. That’s a good problem to have, I guess, though you would actually wish you could accommodate everyone who wants to pay for your services.

So I got the scoop on it all. They provide the bikes and the gear. You need gloves and proper footwear. A full-day class runs $175 if they provide the bike, $150 if you bring your own. Get on their email list and they’ll keep you apprised of class opportunities. And even with winter coming on, that doesn’t pull the plug on classes. As long as conditions allow it and they have interested students, they teach all year round.

I’m not saying I’m definitely going to do this, but I’m definitely thinking about it. And after working totally as a freelance writer for the past 3-1/2 years I have now taken an editor position, on contract, with the National Park Service, so I’m going to have some money again, at last. As always, you’ll read about it here if it happens.

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Paved roads…… Just another perfect example of needless spending by the government.

January 17 is the deadline for comments on a proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) put together by the Colorado River Valley (CRVO) Glenwood Springs field office of the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). After studying the plan the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) has issued an alert stating that “The current proposed RMP calls for a significant decrease in the number of miles for off-highway vehicle use as well as a total elimination of all cross country travel,” and urging motorcyclists to register their concerns with the plan. Letters should be sent to:

BLM CO River Valley Field Office
2300 River Frontage Rd.
Silt, CO 81652

Or you can email your comments to cormpkg@ttsfo.com.

Limitations proposed by the plan include the following.

• Eliminate all cross-country travel currently allowed on 123,000 acres
• Decrease designated route mileage for full-size vehicles from 760 miles to 470 miles
• Decrease designated route mileage for ATVs from 82 miles to 62 miles
• Decrease designated single-track route mileage for motorcycles from 85 miles to 66 miles
• Closure of an additional 47,900 acres currently open to snowmobile recreation
• Closure to snowmobile usage on anything other than a trail on an additional 14,800 acres

The particular issues the AMA has with the plan, and what they consider the talking points to be raised in making comments, include the following.

• There is a lot of information provided in the plan for different uses; however it is disorganized and hard to review.
• Travel management analysis and decisions appear to have been overlooked in the development of the plan and there is no analysis offered as to why all routes closed to motorized usage are assumed to be available for non-motorized and mechanized usage going forward. The lack of analysis for travel management related issues is a violation of NEPA’s requirements for a detailed statement of high quality information of why decisions in the Plan have been made.
• Motorized users are the only loser in the plan as travel management is the first tool used to address management issues that have nothing to do with travel management, like big game hunting issues and cave management.
• Alternative D is the best alternative but it still fails to address usage trends on the CRVO.
• Alternative C is very weak scientifically and violates both state and federal planning guidelines.
• The Plan moves to a fully designated trail system for all users; however the stated benefits of the proposed changes are simply not addressed. The Plan does not analyze why this protection is not enough and further closures are necessary, when most habitat management plans never identify the need for any trail closures to protect the species.
• Loss of the Gypsum Hills Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA) is unfair and runs counter to the reason it was originally created (to off-set the impacts of two Wilderness Study Areas (WSA’s). The WSA’s are still present and the SRMA should not be removed until there is a proposal to re-open the WSAs.
• User conflicts are often overstated to obtain closures for other reasons and most user conflicts can be addressed without the closures of trails and roads.
• Closure of the Hardscrabble Area for motorized access and subsequent designation of the Hardscrabble area for targeted recreational motorsports activities is inconsistent. This plan fails to give any analysis of the existing motorized opportunities that will be lost in the Hardscrabble area.
• Many of the Wilderness characteristic areas and areas of critical environmental concern designations are inconsistent or conflicting.
• Many proposed management standards violate multiple usage requirements such as the standard of managing all big game habitats to optimum standards

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Life is long enough – it just isn’t wide enough. Although I do enjoy a good single track now and then!

For the first couple years that I was working on this website the focus was entirely on paved roads. I didn’t have any off-road experience, plus there was plenty to keep me busy just putting up info on the paved roads, so I didn’t touch the gravel.

Then I got an email from Larry Matkovich, who runs Larry’s Custom Cycle in Canon City, suggesting I add some info on gravel roads (“dirty” roads as he called them) and he offered to provide me the scoop on some, along with a rating system he had devised. Thus was born the Dirt Roads and Side Trips page on the site.

The very first dirt road Larry introduced me to was the Shelf Road, which runs north out of Canon City to Cripple Creek. And although I’ve had it listed on the site for probably three years now, I had never been on it. Until yesterday.

I’m here to tell you, this is a good ride. Using the system he devised, Larry rated this road a 2, “Doable but not recommended for sport bikes, full dressers, some cruisers especially 2-up.” I might be a little more generous, maybe giving it a 1, “Fair gravel road, a bit more skill required, but OK for all bikes.”

Either way, it is a little rough in some places, with a good bit of washboard, but it’s doable. It’s better on a dual-sport, but if you’re on a street bike you can just take your time and ride around the potholes. Kind of like my friend Janet Linn does when she goes over mountain passes on her Ninja.

And boy, yesterday, with the fall colors, it was a beauty, as you can see in the photo. The weather is getting dicier so any of this kind of riding you intend to do you’d better do soon. Yesterday was a good one. It may be the best we’ll see for awhile. Hope you were out riding.

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Go ahead . . . Get married, have kids, drive a van. LOL.

I just want to pass this along. If you have older two-stroke motocross bikes and you’re in or near Colorado, there is a movie in production that may want to use your bike. And you might get in the movie yourself.

Here’s the particulars, as passed along to me by Jerry Pokorny, with the British Motorcycle Association of Colorado. It comes from a guy who goes by Whiskyman, but I guess you’d need to reply to Jerry at jerry_pokorny@msn.com.

I have been in communications with the producer of some budget movies who is now filming a production dealing with a human interest angle on a motocross racer theme.

Production is here in Colorado at Thunder Mountain in Lakewood and another site a short distance away so it’s in our backyard.

To help him out, he has asked me to try and help him find two different bikes – as follows:

Early ’90s vintage 2-stroke motocross bike in very clean to mint condition. The bike will mainly be used as static prop and only ridden for 2 laps around the motocross track by a professional stunt double in the production so it won’t be harmed in any way. It will be used in 2 scenes to be shot in Early June. No limit on displacement or brand was specified so let me know what you have in your collection that you would be willing to make available for a couple of days. The producer is going to offer the owner of the bike a small walk-on part related to the movie main characters race team in support of the “works rider” (principal actor in this production). There is no other compensation but the ego trip of having your bike and possibly you in a movie – now how cool is that?

The other need is for a few mid to late 1980s vintage 80 cc 2-stroke motocross bikes to be used in a scene with the producer’s main character YZ – 80 as “other competitors bikes.” This will be shot in late June or July. No walk-on part for this but you will still have bragging rights on having your bike in a movie………..

Ok, let’s hear from you as soon as possible. Let me know what you have (make, model, displacement, year) and if possible send a photo. I will help screen candidates and forward the best options to the producers for his consideration.

This sounds like a heck of a lot of fun so please respond at your earliest convenience!

Ride fast, life is short

Whiskyman

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When in doubt, throttle out.

I guess maybe it wasn’t particularly intuitive that Monkey Gripper was the name for a motorcycle touring company, while Go 2 Motorcycle Tours makes that abundantly clear. This is just a heads-up that my friend Dan Patino has changed his business name and created a whole new website.

Regular readers of this blog may recall me speaking of Dan and Monkey Gripper last year as the guy who helped plan the Dirty Dozen Adventure for the Cures ride. On that ride, 12 women who were not experienced dirt riders were taken on a seven-day ride through the mountains of Colorado on some roads they found more than a bit challenging. The event was a fundraiser for breast- and ovarian-cancer research.

I mentioned then, too, that Dan had asked me to work with him as an additional guide on his tours, but the economy was so lousy last year that for Dan and others there was virtually no business. This year is looking up already, and he has tours scheduled and has again asked me to help out. You bet I said yes. He even has my picture and bio up on the new site already. Hot diggety! I’m looking forward to this.

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Adventure is what happens when you thought you were going to have a good time.

Hot diggity, I’ve been waiting for this. Come Saturday I’m going to finally get the opportunity to test ride some Zero electric motorcycles.

I first started trying a couple months ago to set something up so I could see what these new-fangled electrics are like. Well, the day is nearly here. And you can bet I’ll have plenty to say afterward. Stay tuned.

I’m counting on getting to ride all four of the 2010 models, but that may depend on how many other people are there with the same intentions. Zero currently sells these four:

• Zero MX is a motocross bike, set up for the track and for jumps
• Zero X is a dirt bike, for trails and technical stuff
• Zero S is a street bike
• Zero DS is a dual sport bike

The one thing I’m wondering about is if we’ll get a chance to actually ride the dirt-oriented bikes in dirt. This event is taking place at a parking lot and if all we get to do is ride the dirt bikes around on the pavement that won’t be truly satisfying. Who knows. I guess I will come Saturday. And you will soon afterward.

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Loud pipes risk rights!