Archive for the ‘motorcycle touring’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Long Day, Great Ride, Trouble

Monday, June 26th, 2023

I guess this is one way you can work on steep slopes alongside a highway.

As John Lennon famously remarked, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. This was one of those days.

The plan the RMMRC had in mind was simple: head south out of Gallup to Alpine, turn east and then south to Silver City. Right. We did head south out of Gallup, retracing the route the OFMC took last year going the other direction. For a long time it didn’t look familiar to me until we stopped at the same junction–AZ 61 and US 191–we stopped at last year. Roads look different going in different directions, plus it was probably a lot greener this year than last.

Then on to Alpine. John was leading and at Alpine the only gas station is where the two highways meet. The plan was to get gas in Alpine, John made the turn and kept going. Several of us knew this was wrong. Tom was behind John motioning for him to turn around but no response. I finally just pulled off and stopped but everyone behind me kept going so I went after them. Outside of town everyone finally stopped and turned back. There was discussion at the gas station of whether we wanted to go the way we first started to go, US 180, or not turn and go south on US 191. We would take 180, but first, it’s a little early but maybe we should have lunch here.

We went in a restaurant and seated ourselves but got no service. They were very busy. Forget this, we agreed, let’s just ride.

Back out on our bikes we were ready to go and several took off after John in the direction agreed upon when Bruce motioned toward Tom’s bike sitting there with no Tom in sight. OK, whoa. Charley radioed John to stop, that we weren’t all ready yet. Just then Tom came out of the store across the road and was startled to see everyone ready to ride. So he geared up and got ready but by the time he was ready, the ones who had gone ahead had apparently conferenced and made the decision to go the other way. They came back, passed us, and made the left turn. We shook our heads and followed.

I knew the way we had planned to go was beautiful, going through a canyon and over a couple passes, but US 191 turned out to be a motorcyclist’s dream: 50 miles of tight turns, ups and downs, scenic views, and almost zero traffic. I mean, like almost zero. And if you look at the map you’ll see why: it doesn’t really take you anywhere you can’t get to a lot easier and quicker on other roads. It makes you wonder why this road was ever built. But for motorcyclists it is heaven.

Not so much for other vehicles. Dave was following us in his Ford F-250 with trailer on behind and he noted when we stopped at one point that it was really work for him and he knew we were all just having fun. But 10 mph and 15 mph turns with his rig are just not fun.

And then at one point Tom pulled off at a place where there was a bit of shoulder. What’s up? The other guys were gone up ahead but there were Bruce, Tom, and me, and then Dave pulled in with his truck.

Tom had no power and was barely able to keep moving. Seemingly a fuel issue, either filter or pump. But his bike was not going any further under its own power. For Tom’s incredible good fortune, however, there was Dave with a truck and a trailer and lots of tie-downs. This whole business of getting the bike loaded deserves and will receive its own separate post; suffice it to say for now that we got the bike loaded and strapped down and took off again.

Just ahead we found that the road goes right through–not around, through–one of the biggest open pit mines in the world, the Morenci Mine. I’ve seen huge open pit mines before but this had to be 10 times the size of the biggest I’ve ever seen. It’s really hard to comprehend until you see it, and even then. And you really do go right through the thing. On all sides of you there are these humongous earth movers carrying their loads of ore and it’s astonishing.

So that was a highlight. We then met back up with the rest of the guys in Morenci, the town, and were on our way. We missed the turn we intended to take and so followed AZ 75 to where we got on US 70 almost all the way to Lordsburg, back in New Mexico, and turned northeast on NM 90 up to Silver City. Long day; nice to park the bike and walk away from it.

Biker Quote for Today

There is absolutely no excuse for what I’m about to do – let’s ride.

Tags:, ,
Posted in motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club | No Comments »

Easy Day Montrose To Gallup

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

A break to use the facilities south of Telluride.

The second day of the RMMRC New Mexico ride had us heading south from Montrose to Gallup, New Mexico. This is a ride with two distinct parts.

In Colorado it was a nice ride along the east side of the Uncompahgre Plateau to Ridgway on US 550. Then we turned west toward Placerville on CO 62 and south past Telluride on CO 145. This takes you over Lizard Head Pass.

I’ve ridden this road many times but apparently it has been a long time since I’ve been over it heading south. Particularly after we got past Telluride it turns incredibly scenic. There are some amazing views! And I really did not remember that.

Then, heading down the pass, John, who was leading, pulled over. It was time for a break. Wow, this is not something I’m accustomed to with the RMMRC. But it turned out that with the leader and the sweep communicating by radio, when one guy decided he needed to stop and indicated such to Charley, at sweep, he told John, at lead, and it happened. This may seem absolutely normal but in my experience with this group I assure you it is not. But I like it.

Heading on we eventually came up behind a camper going slowly with about five cars just sitting behind it. Now, the courteous thing to do would be for him to pull off now and then and let all the folks behind him pass. This guy showed no courtesy.

John bided his time, presumably to let the cars pass when the opportunity arose but when it finally did, not a one of them made a move. So when it was almost too late John pulled out to go around the lot of them. That was a little too much. He got past all the cars but passing the camper another camper appeared ahead coming the other way. John goosed it and slipped in but not before the oncoming camper braked and swerved onto the shoulder. Not a good thing, really.

That opened the door. At this point others ahead of me started passing and darting in and out of the row of cars. The people in the cars made no move to spread out to open space for the bikes so the bikes ended up forcing their way in when necessary. I watched all this saying hey guys, don’t be stupid, but in some cases they were. Fortunately nothing bad happened. I made no rush to get around but got past when there was no risk.

We got down to Cortez and it was time for lunch so we stopped at a major intersection where we figured Dave, trailing behind in his pick-up, would easily spot us. You see, Dave got stuck behind this line for a lot longer than we did. It was a whole lot different for him in a Ford F-250 pulling a trailer than for us on bikes. But signals got crossed and Charley, phoning Dave, told him we were stopped in Shiprock, New Mexico, rather than where we actually were, in Cortez. You can look all day in Shiprock for the intersection of CO 145 and US 160 but you’ll never find it. Finally Dave just said see ya in Gallup.

The second of the two parts of this ride was the New Mexico part. This is mainly just a mile-burning trek. US 491 goes south to Shiprock and continues on through mostly flat, dry, brown territory, mile after mile after mile. No more twisty mountain roads; just crank that throttle and ride.

We got to Gallup, got checked in at the El Rancho, and it was time to have dinner and some beers and settle in in the bar to watch the Denver Nuggets in the championship play-off game 2. Nice way to end the day, except the Nuggets lost. Oh well, next time.

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t know the question but a motorcycle ride is definitely the answer.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club | No Comments »

An Excellent New Mexico Ride

Monday, June 12th, 2023

I’m back now from that RMMRC New Mexico ride I mentioned previously and it really was an excellent ride. Here’s a quick synopsis and I’ll follow up with a more detailed narrative.

   The route.

On Day One we started out with eight riders on bikes and one in a pick-up pulling a trailer. Our very own sag wagon. This was Dave, who had had surgery just the week before and couldn’t ride. But he was the one who organized the ride and on Saturday morning he got up and thought how much he hated to miss it so on the spur of the moment decided to drive the truck. The trailer was a totally generous thought that might easily have entailed pulling this trailer for 1700 miles for no real reason.

Montrose was the destination that day, over Monarch Pass, and we got there uneventfully. It was raining a bit in Denver as we departed but the skies cleared and it was a good day to ride.

On Day Two we turned south. Over Lizard Head Pass, past Telluride, down to Cortez, and then a long slog to Gallup, New Mexico. The first half was a sweet ride and the second half, as I say, was just a slog.

Day Three had us heading further south and we made our way on to Alpine, Arizona, where we stopped for gas. The route Dave had mapped out had us turning off here and heading east on US 180 but some roadside reconsideration led us to continue south on US 191. That turned out to be a great decision as we ended up on one of the twistiest roads you’ll ever find. And if you look at the map you’ll that this road doesn’t really seem to go anywhere so there was almost no traffic at all. But what a fun road to ride. Ultimately we ended up for the night in Silver City.

On Day Four we headed north, taking US 180, which we would have been backtracking on if we had followed the original plan the day before. Because we hadn’t, this was new road. NM12 connected us to NM32 up to Quemado and then other state roads up to I-40 at Grants, this day’s destination.

Day Five was definitely not a typical day on the road. We were headed east but to get there we first went west on I-40. North on NM371 and then east on County Road 9, over to Cuba. Then things got a bit screwy. The plan was to make it over to the south end of Taos and then ride the Angel Fire loop around Wheeler Peak, to Red River. But we ended up on the north end of Taos and the sky to the south was threatening so we turned north to Questa, then east to Red River.

And then we were at Day Six, with the destination being home. Some folks were in a hurry, some were not, and we left in several smaller groups taking various routes. Rain was anticipated but we made it all the way home dry. Nice.

That in a nutshell was the trip. But there’s a whole lot of meat in that nut and I’ll get into that next.

Biker Quote for Today

You’re only as old as you feel when you ride your motorcycle.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club | No Comments »

How Far Is Too Far?

Monday, May 29th, 2023

The EagleRider tour does a group shot in Yosemite.

I’ve seen a number of online articles lately about a subject I strongly identify with. Here’s one headline that sums it up: Teenager fined by airline after attempting luggage ‘hack’ of wearing six layers of clothes.

What’s the deal and why do I care? I did the same thing back in 2010. But I didn’t get fined. That’s kind of extreme, in my opinion.

As the story explains, this Australian teenager put on 13 pounds of clothing in order to avoid paying extra for overweight baggage. They made her pay 62 Australian dollars ($40.54 US), which I presume is about what the charge would have been for another bag. OK, fine. If you follow that link and look at the photo it does appear she pushed the whole concept a bit too far.

In my case it had nothing to do with weight; it was totally a matter of lack of room in my bag.

As the National Motorcycle Examiner for Examiner.com, a now extinct crowd-sourced website, I had been among a group of international motojournalists invited by Eagle Rider to do a one-week tour in California. I tend to travel light so I only took a nylon bag with the stuff I needed for the week, as a carry-on.

What I had not planned on was that as we toured around southern California for a week, we made a lot of visits to cool places. And every place wanted to promote itself with this group of writers from all over the world, so they loaded us up with swag. In addition to probably more than a dozen T-shirts, I was bringing home about 10 jump drives (very small, no problem), a leather motorcycle jacket, 8 large bags of beef jerky, several hats, and I can’t remember what else.

As I packed to go to the airport I found that I could not get it all into my one medium-sized bag. It seemed to me the only option was to take as much clothing out of the bag as necessary in order to get everything else in, and then put that clothing on my body. Kind of like the Australian teen. Sure, I’d be a little warm for a while but I could tolerate that.

Well, airport security did not ignore the obvious. But I thought the way they handled it was a bit ridiculous.

They never once asked me why I had so many clothes on. If they had I would have explained and then told them if they want to search me go ahead and do so to your heart’s content, but at least now you have heard my explanation.

No, they didn’t say a word, but they patted me down, X-rayed me, pulled everything out of my bag–just went to great lengths to see if I had something dangerous on me. At one point I tried to offer an explanation but the security agent very harshly told me to keep my mouth shut or things could get much worse. OK, I was just trying to be helpful.

Ultimately they didn’t find anything and I was allowed to board the plane. And I’m sure they were all pleased that by the time their shifts were over my plane had completed its flight uneventfully and all was well. But if it had been me, I would have been very interested to hear the explanation for this passenger’s peculiar behavior. Maybe, just maybe, one of them still remembers it and still wonders what the heck was going on with me that day. Sorry sucker, you’ll wonder till your dying day.

Biker Quote for Today

“If you brake, you don’t win.” – Mario Cipollini

Tags:
Posted in motorcycle memories, motorcycle touring | No Comments »

A Good Ride You Might Consider

Thursday, May 4th, 2023

Preparing to barge through a herd of cattle outside of Chama, New Mexico.

If anyone wants to accuse me of promoting the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club that’s OK, because I am. I’ve really enjoyed all the rides I’ve been on with this group. With the OFMC we do one ride a year and then only occasional day rides. The RMMRC does a lot of day rides and several big rides every year. And we’d love to have more people joining in.

So here’s another good ride that was just posted for the RMMRC. This is listed on the site as New Mexico Tour 2023.

Leaving on Saturday, June 3, and returning on Thursday, June 8, the first night’s stop will be Montrose. Day two will be down through Colorado into New Mexico, to Gallup. We’ll be staying in Gallup at the historic old El Rancho hotel. This is a very cool place. It’s where all the Hollywood people used to stay when they were filming movies up in Monument Valley and all the rooms are named for the various stars who stayed there.

Day three will end up in Silver City, another very nice place. I’m not sure what hotel we’ll be at but there are a couple really nice old, refurbished places in town. I have no idea what route Bob plans on taking but getting to Silver City pretty much requires that you ride some of the nicest roads in New Mexico.

The next day will be heading back north, to Grants. There is no obvious route I see looking at the map so this is a question mark. It could be one of the less interesting rides of the trip. Or not. I just don’t know.

Then on to Red River. This is another nice town. Nice enough that they hold a motorcycle rally there every year. What more do you need to know?

On the last day it’s just a run toward home. There are several possible routes so hard to say.

Altogether, by a very rough estimate, it looks like about 1,500 miles in six days. That’s really low mileage for an RMMRC trip but very much of the sort I prefer. I’m pretty sure I’m going on this one. What about you?

Biker Quote for Today

The motorcycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.

Tags:,
Posted in motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club | No Comments »

Virtues Of Planning

Thursday, April 13th, 2023

If you’re riding behind you might want to do the planning yourself if he won’t.

The groups I ride with, the OFMC and the RMMRC, make plans in advance when we take longer trips. It just makes sense and is really necessary when you have a larger group. But deep down I’m not that kind of guy. I like to play it by ear.

Sometimes playing it by ear will bite you in the butt. In the early days of the OFMC we didn’t plan, and sometimes that proved to be an issue. I remember one time we got to Laramie and found that there were no motels room available anywhere in town. Another time we got into Pinedale, Wyoming, and it was Pioneer Days. We got the very last motel room in town.

One of the very worst times I ran into this was early on when I took just a two-night trip with my lady friend of the time. We were on the CB750–the only bike I had back then–and we planned to stay in Gunnison that first night. What a little planning would have told us was that college graduation was going on that weekend and there was not a room to found anywhere in Gunnison. Unlike in the early days of the OFMC, we did not have a tent or sleeping bags with us so this was a bit of an issue.

Fortunately, it was early enough in the day that the local Chamber of Commerce visitor’s office was still open. We inquired there and that helpful person made some phone calls and found that we could still get a cabin up in Almont, about 20 miles north of Gunnison. So that worked out.

The next day turned out to be quite an ambitious ride. We headed south through Lake City, to South Fork, to Pagosa Springs, and into New Mexico through Chama. That would have been a good ride but we were going further. We continued south, ultimately headed to Ojo Caliente. I wasn’t sure how to get from US 84 over to US 285 but figured I knew how to read a map.

Well, the day was getting long, and it was getting dark. And it turned out there was no really clear route to take to get to 285 other than going way south to where the two highways meet. That would just have been more miles. So I took what looked like a likely route . . . and we wandered.

We did find US 285 finally but now we were quite a few miles south of Ojo Caliente, and we were tired. And it started to rain. In the dusk with raindrops on my visor, seeing was not particularly easy. But what can you do? We pushed on.

We finally reached Ojo Caliente and made our way to the hot springs spa they have there. We also stopped at the two restaurants in town looking for dinner but they were both already closed. Dang.

Another couple came in at the same time we did and between us we got the last two rooms in the place. But dinner? We consulted with the other couple and they were in the same boat. One thing they did have that we did not have was granola bars. Four of them. These incredibly generous people gave us two of their four granola bars and that was the dinner we all had that night.

The ride home the next day was sufficiently uneventful that I have no memory of it at all.

So did this experience persuade me that planning really is something you need to do? No. Judy and I still travel at times with no idea where we’ll end up that evening. Sometimes we’ll make reservations for a particular night but leave the rest open. It’s just the way I like to do it, and she trusts in me enough to go along. And the bottom line is, we always find something.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 64. The passenger seat on the bike is a cruel after-thought, but we don’t wanna hear any complaining.

Tags:
Posted in motorcycle touring | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »