Passes & Canyons Blog

Judy and I were facing a hard day’s ride this day. Not having gone to Red Lodge as we sort of planned to, we really needed to cover ground.

We blasted on I-90 to Columbus, where we went south on Montana 78. The wind was also blasting so this was the windiest day we had had so far. I had been on Montana 78 once, going north, and Judy remarked correctly that it was a lot prettier going south because that way you have mountains in front of you. We figured that to make it a long distance we needed to stop often, even if only for a few minutes, so we stopped both in Columbus and Red Lodge.

From Red Lodge it was east to Belfry on Montana 308, then south on Montana 72 into Wyoming, where the road became Wyoming 120. South on 120 to Cody (gas stop in Cody) and on south, to Meeteetse (stop for lunch) and to Thermopolis (rest stop).

At Thermopolis we picked up U.S. 20 and followed it south to Shoshoni, then south west on U.S. 26 to Riverton (long rest stop). South out of Riverton we turned southeast on the easy to miss Wyoming 135, which was the start of the really brutal part of the ride. But first the road went up a hill/mesa where we got a fabulous view of the valley and mountains to the west of us. Then it was into the heart of Wyoming’s desert.

At the intersection with U.S. 287 we stopped at the rest area and observed the chip seal going on in both directions on 287. Oh crap. Seeing at one point that the line of cars that had come the way we had come was going to get to move, we hurried to gear up and join them but were just too late. Time to sit, no longer in the shade, for 15 minutes. I guess I didn’t mention that the weather had once again turned blazing hot.

Once we were able to move, we were delighted to find that the chip seal was only going on for about half a mile in our direction. We lucked out there. But then it was a long drone across this barren wasteland in the center of the state. I’ve been across this numerous times and it is never pleasant. Amazingly, the map shows it as a “scenic route.” Someone has a different definition of “scenic” than I do.

The map also showed another rest stop midway between the junction and Rawlins so we planned to stop there but there was no such thing so we rode on the last 80 miles with no breaks. Getting in to Rawlins we were dismayed to find that although the town has many big motels, they were all full. Fortunately a woman at one where we asked looked on her computer and told me the Best Western at the other end of town had two rooms left and they were the last in town. She very nicely went ahead and made our reservation for us and by the time we actually got there the other room had been taken. We didn’t even know what we were paying but we didn’t care. We had ridden 430 hard miles that day and for us that is a lot. We don’t have iron butts.

Heading home the next day, it was going to be a relatively easy day so we didn’t hurry to get going. When we hit the road it didn’t seem windy heading east on I-80 but as soon as we turned south on Wyoming 130 we realized we had simply had a nice tailwind. Now it was a crosswind, and it didn’t let up until we were climbing Berthoud Pass south of Winter Park.

We cruised through Saratoga and stopped at Riverside for gas. Then on to Walden on Wyoming 230, which became Colorado 125 when we crossed the state line. A quick rest stop in Walden and on south on 125 over Willow Creek Pass. I’ve been over Willow Creek Pass several times but have never thought it was grand enough to put on the website but I’ve changed my mind now. This is not a high pass, it’s definitely a minor pass, but it is quite nice and there is almost no development along the way. Just a bunch of hills and forests and streams. Worth the ride for sure. OK, add that to my to-do list.

The road comes out on U.S. 40 just west of Granby so east we went on 40. Got gas in Granby, stopped for lunch in Winter Park, and then over Berthoud Pass and down to I-70 after an ice cream stop in Empire. Then I-70 down the mountain, C-470 south to U.S. 285, east on 285, which becomes Hampden, a right turn, a left turn, and a curve to the right and we were home.

Altogether, 3,310 miles. Great trip. Great to be home. Now tomorrow I’m leaving on the OFMC trip with the guys for another eight days. I’ll take the V-Strom on this one.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding is my meditation, mind flush, cosmic telephone, mood elevator, and spiritual communion.

Well, it took me awhile. It always does. Guanella Pass has been completely paved for at least a year now, maybe longer, I don’t recall, but I only just now got it up on its own page on the website. Plus, a few days earlier, I set up the Motorcycle Camping on Guanella Pass page, with info about each of the four campgrounds along this road.

Previous to this–and previous to it being paved–I had this pass up on the Dirt Roads and Side Trips in Colorado page. Not any more.

The reason it takes me so long to get these things done is that there is so much involved. First I had to go ride the pass a few times, shooting photos and jotting down pertinent information. Then in the middle of it all I got this GoPro camera so I went and rode it again shooting video so I could include some video highlights of the ride.

Well, you can chalk that one up to learning how to use the GoPro. I won’t bother you with more detail of that, only just say there is no video on the page at this point. And the photos are basically OK for now; I had to patch together a bunch from several different trips up there over the course of several years. At some point I’d like to make it less of a hodge-podge.

I also decided I want to make Guanella the first of a second batch of web pages that are designed to be mobile friendly. Something you can view easily on your smartphone. And along with that I wanted to use an interactive Google map rather than the static Microsoft Streets and Trips maps I’ve always used till now.

Once again, there was a learning curve but I figured it out and that is what this new page has. There is an issue, though, in that at least on my desktop computer the map loads very slowly. Like, five to ten seconds, during which time there is just this empty rectangle. I may swap out the desktop version with a Streets and Trips map, while keeping the mobile-friendly page with the Google map.

And oh yeah, I haven’t got the mobile-friendly page ready yet. You can’t just do a copy and paste. What works on a big screen usually doesn’t work very well at all on a tiny screen.

I won’t bore you either with all the little tweaks necessary to integrate a couple entirely new pages into the overall website. Let’s just say there is a ripple effect that no one but me would even be aware of.

Now it appears they are finally paving the west side of Cottonwood Pass. I guess in about a year I’m going to need to do this all over again for Cottonwood.

Biker Quote for Today

Oh, you ride a motorcycle? That explains why you’re getting so many women.

I owe thanks on this one to Steve Farson, author of the newly released The Complete Guide to Motorcycling Colorado. I reviewed his book last week and mentioned that he did not tell his readers that Guanella Pass is closed. They closed it in 2008 and the most recent thing I had heard was that there were no plans to reopen it.

Well, what do you know, Steve emailed me to thank me for the positive review AND to tell me that in fact, Guanella was reopened earlier this year. Finally. And he said the road was beautiful, that they have done a terrific job.

Of course Judy and I had to go see for ourselves, and we did on Saturday.

Holy smokes, what a nice road! The asphalt is beautiful, there are a lot of guard rails where there didn’t used to be any, and the new retaining walls are impressive. On top of that, the pavement goes a lot farther than it used to. Used to be, it was paved all the way to the top on the Georgetown side and then just over the crest it turned to gravel. Then it was gravel all the way to Grant, except for some spots where the asphalt from many years ago was still holding together a little.

We checked it on the odometer and here’s what we found. From the top headed toward Grant, the new pavement extends another 3.8 miles. At 8 miles from the top the old surviving pavement starts to get bad and at 9.2 miles it ends altogether. There are then 3.6 miles of gravel before you hit pavement again 0.5 mile from Grant.

So there’s really no reason not to ride this pass. The 3.6 miles of gravel are easily traversable on any street bike as long as you take it nice and easy. Heck, before they closed it for nearly 3 years I used to see Harley baggers and everything else up there, and there was a lot more gravel back then.

Truth is, this road is so much better than it was before I’ve concluded I need to promote it on the website from just a “Dirty Road” mention to its own full page. Look for that sometime next year, as I doubt I’ll have time to get to that right away.

Thanks for the update Steve.

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Biker Quote for Today

So many roads, so little time!

I know I’m a bit behind the times but I still don’t have a GPS unit. I know a lot of people do, and I have been asked several times if the maps on the Passes and Canyons site are available in GPS. Up till now I’ve had to say no.

Well, the answer now is “Yes.” Thanks go to Gord Ripley, who has been using the site to plan his Colorado trip. He plotted the routes for the rides I’ve highlighted on the site and then sent me his GPS file. You can download it here.

Now, it won’t look like this map here; I just put that up for illustration purposes. Fact is, I can’t really say what it will look like because I don’t do GPS. But I suspect that for those of you who do, you know all about it so I’m not going to worry about it.

I really want to thank Gord for this. I have always welcomed any efforts you folks out there make to make this a better site for everyone using it. And I’ll take this opportunity to put in a plug for riding stories. If you make a trip to Colorado and have a great time, send me an email telling me about it and I’ll post it on the Riding Stories page. And if you’ll tell me about the places you stayed, good, bad, or indifferent, I’ll put that info up on the Motels and Hotels page. That way other people can benefit from your experience.

Thanks.

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Biker Quote for Today

Be a biker–kick start your day.

Eight months ago I went up Taylor Canyon and over Cottonwood Pass shooting pictures and gathering information to put these places up on the Passes and Canyons, Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website. Taylor Canyon is a beautiful canyon, with lots of good motorcycle-accessible camping spots. Cottonwood Pass is only paved on the east side but the gravel road is passable on the west. Both deserved to be on the site.

I’ve been busy. But I finally got it done. Here are some photos from these places.

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Biker Quote for Today

To me, the best kind of trips are the ones you planned on the way, allowed yourself to change, and maybe didn’t end up where you expected.

After cruising Kebler Pass last weekend we went on up Taylor Canyon and over Cottonwood Pass. This was another of those Colorado roads that I haven’t been on because it wasn’t paved and I wasn’t sure how good it would be on a motorcycle. I had been hearing that it was decent gravel, however, and needed to check it out.

Well here’s the verdict. It is not as good a gravel road as Kebler Pass. It is passable, however. I know this for a fact because there were Harleys and all sorts of bikes doing the ride.

I knew that Cottonwood Pass was paved on the eastern side, from Buena Vista, and I have been up there on my bike previously. What I didn’t know was that on the western side, coming east out of Almont, you pass through Taylor Canyon, which is absolutely gorgeous, and the road is paved all the way to Taylor Reservoir. It’s only about 12 miles then from the reservoir to the top of Cottonwood Pass.

Considering all that, I would definitely add this road to my list of good rides in Colorado. Personally, I would prefer going east to west so all of the gravel would be downhill. I just feel more comfortable on a street bike going downhill on rough gravel. And some of it is rough, make no mistake. But if those Harleys can do it anyone can.

I’ll be adding Cottonwood Pass and Taylor Canyon to the website as soon as time permits. I have a lot of good photos but you’ll have to wait until I get the new page up to see the rest of them.

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Biker Quote for Today

Destinations are merely excuses to ride.

Man, have I got a lot of work ahead of me. If you have gone through the Passes and Canyons, Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website thoroughly you know that even three years in it is still weak in information on some roads. The simple fact is that although I’ve been all over this state numerous times, there were some places I had not been back to since I started the website. Therefore, although I could show a map and talk a little about the route, I did not have the photos and other information I routinely collect and post.

Well, that’s about to change. The OFMC trip last week could not have been better tailored to meet my needs if I had planned the route myself with that in mind–which I did not do. I had made a list some time ago of 27 places I needed to get to. On this trip I hit 15 of those spots. It’s going to take time to work through it all but in the next few weeks you can expect to see improvements on a lot of pages, including:

• Colorado 92 from Hotchkiss to the Blue Mesa Reservoir
• Colorado 65 across Grand Mesa
• McClure Pass
• Monarch Pass
• Red Mountain Pass
• Slumgullion and Spring Creek Passes
• Wolf Creek Pass

And more. Here’s a map showing our route. What a great ride we had.

Biker Quote for Today

The ride IS the destination.

There was a comment on a previous post from Gianluca Pezzi, who is involved with Blogo.it. In case the name and the “it” at the end of that website name didn’t give it away, Gianluca is Italian. He mentioned two things that caught my interest.

First, he was calling my attention to their Two Wheels Blog, which he describes as “for readers interested in what’s happening on the motorcycling scene in Italy.” If you click on these links you’ll see that the blog is in English, but the website is in Italian. Unless you read Italian I guess I’d stick with the blog.

Anyway, the blog is a variety of information, including a lot of videos of bikes and such. Interesting to check out if you’re a big fan of Italian bikes. Says Gianluca:

Two Wheels Blog is a new initiative from Blogo.it, and is dedicated to the motorcycling sector in Italy: with everything from championships, to new models released, our favourite brands, photos and videos, we’re hoping to give voice to the dedicated motorcycling community around these parts.

So far we’ve written about our testing of the new Beta Urban 200 pre-series, included a video on a new BMW, written about the new Halley, and reviewed all the style of the Italian scootering tradition. We have a photo of the day spot, where readers can send their best pics from around the world, and you can point us to news or make comments.

The other thing Gianluca mentioned was that he couldn’t find any way to contact me directly on the blog. Now, on the main motorcyclecolorado.com website there are a number of places where I have placed javascript no-spam email links so people can contact me directly, but I had not thought to do the same here on the blog. I’ll need to do something about that right away but in the meantime, if you want to email me just send to either ken at motorcyclecolorado.com or to webmaster at motorcyclecolorado.com. Thanks. I always love to hear from you.

Biker Quote for Today

Tomorrow is uncertain, so today I ride.