Passes & Canyons Blog

I got home from work on Monday and Kevin was sitting in his truck waiting for me. I was glad to see him because I had had some fears that he might be stuck in a white-out on the prairie east of town. As it was, it was snowing and rolling that bike down Kevin’s narrow ramp off the trailer was made extra dicey by the fact that our footing on the trailer was very slick due to the snow.

But we got it down safely and wheeled it into the garage where it’s going to sit for awhile. I need to get it registered and get plates and that’s not going to happen right away because I don’t yet have the title. I’m buying the bike from Kevin’s brother-in-law in Tennessee and he hadn’t found the title by the time Kevin was leaving. They did find it, though, and it’s in the mail.

In the meantime, I’m in possession and that means I needed to get it insured. I logged in to my insurance company’s website and it showed me the policy I had on the other two bikes. I clicked on “Add a vehicle” and it stepped me through the process.

I was a little surprised when I found that the insurance on the new bike would be more than the insurance on the other two combined. I guess that’s because one of the old ones is 33 years old and the other is 14 years old. But I fiddled with the coverage, increasing my deductible a little, and knocked the total down enough to satisfy me. So I got that taken care of. Of course, it never hurts to shop around any time you’re changing your insurance coverage–you never know where you might find better coverage for less money.

Just as soon as I get plates on it I need to spend a little more money. As Kevin had told me, the front tire is pretty much shot and he says the chain is in bad shape. In my experience that means I’ll probably be replacing the sprockets, too. The really, really nice thing about having a job these days is that I have a paycheck coming in and that means I have the money to pay for these things. Hallelujah!

Of course then, the other thing that needs to happen is that it needs to stop snowing. I was talking to my friend Dan the other day and he was saying that due to two foot surgeries over the winter he hadn’t had the chance to ride in five months. Now he can ride and it just won’t stop snowing! One way or another though, he said, he’s leaving here on May 5 to ride to Maine by way of Florida. Can you tell he’s an Iron Butt guy?

My time will come. Patience is a virtue. And then I’m figuring on seeing a whole lot of Colorado I’ve never seen before.

Biker Quote for Today

There is something wrong about pics of motorcycles in the snow that is just wonderful….

Mine, that is.

See that photo above of that 2007 V-Strom 650 on that trailer? That’s my new bike and at the moment this post is being published it is on that trailer on its way to me here in Denver. Here’s how this whole thing came down.

As anyone who knows me or who reads this blog is aware, I’ve been wanting a dual-sport bike for a long time. Working full-time as a motorcycle freelance writer, however, I never had the money. Since November I’ve been working a contract gig as an editor at the National Park Service so I finally have some spare cash.

In the meantime, my friend Kevin Smith, who runs Colorado Mountain Moto out of Gunnison, had gone down to Tennessee to do some remodeling work for his sister. He drove down and took his trailer with him because his brother-in-law had a V-Strom he wanted to sell and Kevin figured he could use it in his motorcycle rental business. Kevin favors V-Stroms and it is largely through him that I have ridden V-Stroms quite a bit. I like them quite a bit.

As Kevin tells it, however, he got down to Tennessee and the more he thought about it the more he got to thinking that money was tight and he really needed the money more than he needed another bike. So he sent me the following email:

Hey Ken if your still thinking about another bike I found a Vstrom in TN. Not sure I need it yet 07 17000 miles I could bring it with me if your interested. $3500. Cheers Kevin

I quickly did some checking to see how that price matched up to others locally and it looked pretty good, although some local bikes had extras this one does not, and Kevin said it will need a front tire and a new chain soon. I hesitated. I’ve finally got a bit of a financial reserve again and draining it significantly was a hard thing for me to decide to do.

However, much to the envy of a lot of guys, I’m sure, my wife Judy was all for it. She kept pushing me. “Come on, you’ve wanted this for a long time. Do it!”

So I did it. And now it’s on its way here. Kevin will be here later today and will spend the night with us before heading on to Gunnison. And I’ll add a Suzuki to go with my Honda and my Kawasaki. People who I meet and to whom I mention that I ride invariably ask, “Do you have a Harley?” No I don’t. Harleys just don’t interest me. I guess that’s pretty clear by now. Not dissing you guys who do; it’s just not my kind of bike. But oh boy, I’m going to like having this V-Strom.

My friend Dan, who does ride a Harley, also has a GS800 from BMW. He’s been wanting to sell it but hasn’t yet. I was telling him on Saturday about the V-Strom and he said “let’s go ride.” I’ll definitely be taking him up on that.

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Biker Quote for Today

I’m not lost. I’m explorin’.

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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Biker Quote for Today

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

For those of you who favor getting off the pavement, the time has come to put the biggest event of the year on your calendar. Every year Adventure Riders holds regional events and Westfest is the one for this region. Westfest 2013 will be held August 9-11 up outside of Buena Vista, headquartered at the Arrowhead Point campground. This is a private campground so in addition to paying the $45 Westfest registration fee you’ll also pay $45 per person for tent camping at Arrowhead Point, if that’s where you stay. Of course there are other options, but all the non-riding fun will be centered on the campground.

Make no mistake, this is a dirt bike/dual-sport event. They do have some rides planned for street bikes but other than routes like Independence Pass you should still figure on gravel. If that works for you, that’s great. These folks are out there to ride the hills and have a good time back in camp later. And several meals are included in your Westfest registration.

I had hopes of going to this thing a couple years ago, and wrote about it here several times, but circumstances conspired to prevent that happening. I’m not even going to fantasize this time because with the silly thing called a “job” that I have now I know it just isn’t going to happen.

But if you can get away and like that kind of riding you should definitely go. I’ve been to several Adventure Rider events and they’re a fun group of people. And I will get to this one of these years.

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Biker Quote for Today

Rode down black bear pass on fully loaded bikes–we knew better–but did it anyway.

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.

This is just perfect for me. I’ve got a job again, so my disposable income is huge compared to what it had been for so long. And I’ve been wanting a dual-sport bike for several years, but didn’t have the money. Well, I learned at the ABATE meeting on Sunday that the state organization has decided to do a raffle, with a dual-sport bike as the prize.

Tickets will be $10. As poor and broke as I have been for so long, I would have had a hard time persuading myself to even buy one ticket, though I really want what they’re giving away. I mean, how tiny would my odds be of winning? Well, my odds will still be tiny, but I can afford it now.

Here are some particulars. The exact bike has not been determined yet. They were passing around a flyer on a Kawasaki KLR 650, but Terry Howard, the state coordinator, said they’ll be calling around to dealers to see what the best deal they can get might be.

Tickets will be $10 and a maximum of 2,000 will be sold. So that tells you right there exactly what your worst odds will be: 2,000 to 1. Of course, if they only sell 1,500 then your odds will be 1,500 to 1. Or if you buy 3 tickets you’ll be 500 to 1. Those aren’t great odds but they’re one heck of a lot better than your chances of winning Powerball.

The bike will be on display and tickets will be sold at several big events in the next few months, including the Last Brass Monkey Run, on December 30, and the Motorcycle Show and Swap February 2 and 3. They’ll also be sold online through the ABATE website.

The drawing will probably be held in June, at the Randy Run. The Randy Run is ABATE’s annual fundraiser to help out riders who have gone down hard and need assistance. Considering that you don’t have to be an ABATE member to receive financial assistance, this is a run everyone really ought to consider taking part in.

So I’m going to buy some tickets. I know I probably won’t win, but oh man, what if I do!? And if I don’t win, then I AM going to buy a dual-sport. The time has come.

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Biker Quote for Today

People don’t understand what I’m doing. But it’s not for the lack of me telling them about it.