Passes & Canyons Blog

That squiggly yellow line means good motorcycling.

I see there’s one particular part of New Mexico I need to spend more time in. I’m looking right now at another map I recently received from Butler Maps, and this one is for New Mexico. The area is the mountainous section east of Alamogordo that includes Ruidoso. Butler rates motorcycle roads by color–yellow, red, and orange in descending order–and there’s a good bit of yellow here.

Of course I know there’s a big motorcycle rally each year in Ruidoso, and you know they don’t hold those things in places without good motorcycle roads. But I guess I’ve never been there. I say “I guess” because I thought sure the OFMC had been to Ruidoso one time but checking our trip logs I sure can’t find any trip where we did. We generally do our annual ride in July or August and neither of those months are good for going that far south in New Mexico.

We have, however, been all over the northern part of the state, many times, and there is an awful lot of color up there, too. Absolutely no surprise. Northern New Mexico is mountainous and gorgeous.

A surprise for me, however, is how much orange there is on this map. That is, there are a whole lot of roads that perhaps are not spectacular but that Butler says are still pretty darn nice. None of them are interstate however (surprise!) so if you really want to see the good parts of New Mexico you definitely need to get off the slab. Forget about burning up the miles, slow down and see the place.

Not a surprise is that Butler has identified a road I’ve been extolling for years. This is New Mexico 152 running from San Lorenzo over to Hillsboro and down to Caballo. I did a piece for Examiner.com calling it New Mexico’s Tail of the Dragon. Butler calls this the Emory Pass Road and marks it in yellow. Here’s what they have to say about the road.

Named for Lieutenant W. H. Emory, who chronicled the U.S. Army of the West expedition over Emory Pass in 1846, the highway was finally opened for travel in 1938. Highway 152 is without question one of the most breathtaking routes in the state, a little known treasure off the beaten track that is well worth experiencing. As with most roads built during early statehood, this too was engineered to follow natural landmass contours as closely as possible.

That means curvy, you know? “. . . follow natural landmass contours as closely as possible . . .”

One other point of interest: Butler points out more than 100 dual sport adventure roads, so if that’s your style of riding, you want to ride New Mexico. I’m thinking March might be a good time to head that direction.

Biker Quote for Today

I do not know where I’m heading. Let the road decide.

There is a lot more color in the northwest corner of Montana than anywhere else.

I’ve probably been through more of Montana than most people who don’t live there. So I was very interested looking over my newly arrived Butler Motorcycle Maps Montana edition to see that the one part of the state I’ve never been to seems to be one of the best for motorcycle riding. How did that happen?

Well, I know how it happened. The area in question is the far northwest corner of the state where only the narrow panhandle of Idaho separates Montana from Washington. As much of the western US the OFMC has ridden, including Glacier National Park, we have never been to the Pacific Northwest because it’s just too far to go when you only have a week. Now, that limitation doesn’t apply to me, but it does to most of the other guys, so we’ve never done that ride.

Looking over the whole map confirms what most people presume about Montana: the eastern part of the state is wide open with many, many miles without a lot of curves. The juicy part is in the west, where the mountains are. And we’ve been through those mountains, from the Beartooth Highway on the southeast up to Butte and Salmon, Idaho, but not north of that. This summer I got further north, to Missoula, and down over Lolo Pass. But never, ever north of Missoula.

Well, on Butler maps, the more color you see the better the riding. Guess where the most color is on this map? Let’s just say it’s not south of Missoula. That portion of the map above is what I’m looking at.

Another thing I like about this map, something I don’t think I’ve seen on other maps, is that they have a listing of the best dual sport adventure roads and the coordinates on the map so you can find them. And there are dotted red lines all through the mountains, which are identified on the legend as “Recommended Dirt Rd.” On the enlarged map of this northwest area the red dotted lines are everywhere. This is not the kind of riding the OFMC is ever going to do but maybe next year I can convince Kevin and Jeff to head up that way.

This is that time of year, isn’t it, when motorcyclists pull out maps and start dreaming about next year’s trip. Montana’s looking really good.

Biker Quote for Today

I like to ride dirt bikes to meet women. Nurses mostly.

I was pleased, though a little surprised, to get this email recently.

Hi Ken!

The OFMC does cover some miles each year.

How are you? My name is Ally Siegel and I work for BBC Worldwide. I am currently casting a new documentary, looking for ‪adventurers who are traveling the country on their motorcycles, meeting locals and exploring different sites. In my research I came across your blog and LOVED what I saw. Would you be interested in speaking with me? Either way, please let me know. I think this could be a great opportunity for you.

Thank you! I look forward to hearing from you.

Ally Siegel

Well gosh, of course I’d be happy to speak with her and somehow end up in a BBC documentary. So I replied to that effect.

Still, I wondered if I was really the guy she wanted. It’s not totally clear but I get the impression from that email that they’re looking for serious riders, the Iron Butt kind of guys who do many thousands of miles. I’m a more average joe who rarely does a trip of more than 2,500 miles. But if she’s read the blog and likes what she sees, and she’s interested in me, let’s go!

But we didn’t. We went through a bit of back and forth and then I got this note.

Hey Ken,

So sorry I missed your call earlier this morning. They have pulled me onto a different project for today through mid next week. I’ll be back casting motorcycle camping/travel Thursday. Can we chat then?

Sorry for the late notice,

Ally

And after another exchange or two, this one.

Hi Ken,

Sorry for the delayed response. Yes, I will call you this week.

Thanks!

Ally

Bottom line, I’ve never heard back from her. Once again, it makes me think she’s really looking for the guys who burn up three or four sets of tires in a year. If she found someone else who better fit what she was looking for, good for her. But hey Ally, if that one project got put on the back-burner for awhile and you still want to work with me, just call. I’ll be happy to hear from you.

Biker Quote for Today

I ride a bullet… a two-wheeled, multiple-explosion powered machine with enough moving parts to remove entire fingers and surfaces hot enough to cook flesh. It propels me at neck-breaking, bone-snapping, flesh-shredding, speeds over and around obstacles I can see only as blurs. It’s a sport that kills the careless, maims the best, and spits at the concept of mercy. Now what were you saying about your new golf shoes?

This was a good trip a few years ago. I shot photos of where I was every 100 miles and this was the last 100-mile stop on the trip. Burned a lot of dinosaurs.

“My goal is to see how many gallons of dead dinosaurs I can send through my bike.”

I used that for a “Biker Quote for Today” several years ago and you know, it really rings true. I pride myself on putting as few miles as possible on my car each year, but then I turn around and pride myself equally on how many miles I can put on my bikes.

Let’s keep this in perspective, of course. For my friend Dan, who is an Iron Butt guy, hitting only 30,000 miles in a year is an off year. For me, a really, really good year is in excess of 10,000. I’m probably looking at something between 6,000 and 7,000 this year. And when you consider that I’ll probably only put about 6,000 miles on my car this year, that’s not bad. As far as I’m concerned, any year where I put more miles on my bikes than on my car is a good year.

So the end of the year is not far off now and as always I’m identifying some goals that I may not achieve but that I want to at least shoot for. Some are fairly arbitrary: get each bike up to the next 1,000 on the odometer by year’s end. This year, however, that’s going to take some doing. The Honda right now is in the 100s, while both the Kawi and Suzuki are in the 200s. That’s a good bit of riding when you’re not going on any trips soon.

Now, I am going to be taking the Honda up to Boulder on Saturday, and that will be about 100 miles altogether. But most of the simple riding around that I do is a lot shorter: go to the dentist–18 miles; go to the bank–3 miles; go to the wine story–19 miles; run to the grocery store–4 miles. Those kinds of trips don’t add up very quickly. When I just go out for a cruise on a nice day those rides generally run between 25 and 75 miles. It will take a lot of those to get to the next thousand on any of the bikes.

And then there’s riding to work. Yeah, I know I said I had ridden to work for the last time but maybe that’s not the case. The National Park Service has asked me to come back on an emergency, 60-day basis. The emergency is that they have a little more than 400 of these foundation documents to get completed and the deadline is past the 75 percent point but the work is only around the 65 percent point. “Can you help us catch up?”

So I said yes, and I’ll try to get in as many days riding to work as I can. It’s a 35-mile round trip. But this also means these are days when I can’t just go out for a cruise.

Whatever. It’s no big deal if I don’t turn over the next thousand on any of the bikes. The point is to ride as much as possible. I just want to maximize dinosaurs.

Biker Quote for Today

Reason takes a holiday as Dr. Horrible spends money he doesn’t have, on a motorcycle he doesn’t need, in a misguided attempt to recapture his youth which, upon reflection, wasn’t all that great in the first place.

The website for the Sisters' Centennial Motorcycle Ride.

With acknowledgements to Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin for the title here, I want to direct your attention to an event my friend Alisa Clickenger is organizing around something a pair of motorcycling sisters did for themselves 100 years ago.

Way back in 1916, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren set out to ride across the U.S. on motorcycles. As Alisa’s website for the event says, “In 1916 the Van Buren Sisters were the first women to cross the continental United States, each on her own motorcycle. They became the first women to reach the 14,115 foot summit of Pikes Peak each on her own motorcycle. In 2002 the Sisters were inducted into the American Motorcyclists Association Hall of Fame and in 2003 they were inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum & Hall of Fame.”

And what exactly is the event? Scheduled for July 4-24, 2016, and titled the Sisters’ Centennial Motorcycle Ride, “The ride will loosely follow the Van Buren sisters’ 1916 route, primarily following the Lincoln Highway across the United States from New York to San Francisco. Combining scenic routes and major metropolitan areas, the route will allow for great riding as well as promotion and visibility of female motorcycling role models.”

In addition to the riding, events are planned at a number of places along the way:

• Brooklyn, New York – Departure City Party
• Springfield, Massachusetts – Springfield Museums, www.springfieldmuseums.org
• Pickerington, Ohio – AMA Hall of Fame, www.motorcyclemuseum.org
• Latrobe, Pennsylvania – Lincoln Highway Experience, www.lhhc.org
• Anamosa, Iowa – National Motorcycle Museum, www.nationalmcmuseum.org
• Colorado Springs, Colorado – Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum, www.themotorcyclemuseum.com
• Pikes Peak, Colorado – Pikes Peak Highway, www.PikesPeak.US.com
• Visits to Zion National Park and Bryce National Park
• San Francisco, California – Arrival City Party

The ride is open to men as well as women with only 100 registrations open for the full-blown ride, although you can do portions of it and participate in a variety of ways. Check the website for details. Says Alisa, “We promise an epic ride and a plethora of new riding friends.”

Biker Quote for Today

If you think I’m cute now wait till you see me on my motorcycle.

Creede To Slumgullion Pass.

Free Eggs blasted out of Ignacio on his way home, after hearing that his lady friend had broken her foot in a car crash. The rest of us left later, at a much easier pace. Into Ignacio proper, then east on CO 151 through Arboles and up to US 160 a little west of Pagosa Springs. Then up over Wolf Creek Pass to South Fork and northwest on CO 149 to Creede. Here we made an obligatory stop for ice cream. An army may travel on its stomach but the OFMC travels on ice cream. At least if Dennis has anything to say about it.

Then up and over Slumgullion and Spring Creek Passes to Lake City and down to Gunnison. The nearly constant rain and overcast had finally abated and was replaced with sun and heat. Personally, I’ll take the rain and cool.

In recent years we have taken to stopping for two nights somewhere along the line, generally playing golf on our day off from riding. This was our Gunnison stop. We stayed at the Water Wheel Inn, which backs immediately onto the Dos Rios golf course so we didn’t even have to do anything except walk on over to the clubhouse. We liked the course and the motel so I suspect they have not seen the last of the OFMC.

On golf day, however, some members needed to head out so Ray and Johnathon took off. The remaining six played golf, and then most of us enjoyed the weekly catfish fry at the clubhouse for dinner. It was very nice to take a break after riding so much.

Saturday morning came and it was time to split up. John headed west to Montrose while Dennis, Randy, and Bread headed to Denver. I had been in touch with my friend Kevin, who I had just been on another long ride with a few weeks ago, and he invited us to breakfast. Bill and I accepted, so we got a more leisurely start.

Soon enough, though, it was time to roll and we headed toward Monarch Pass. Even on Saturday, however, there was road construction in progress so there were delays. Then at Poncha Springs Bill peeled off to stop at his daughter, Jenna’s, place and I rode on alone. By 3 p.m. I was home, uneventfully, and this year’s trip was over. And I have no desire whatsoever to go anywhere else any time soon. Three long trips in two months has satisfied me. For now.

Biker Quote for Today

Murphy’s Motorcycle Laws: 5. The only part you really need will also be the only part on permanent back order.

Riding through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

The OFMC rolled out of Vernal heading for something special: new roads. We’ve been all over Utah but in plotting out this trip John realized there is a section in the middle–south of US 40, north of I-70–where we had never been. And looking at the Utah map by Butler Maps, he saw there was some red and yellow on some of those roads. Time to fix this deficit.

We headed west to Duchesne, a town we’ve been familiar with since the very earliest days of the OFMC, but then did something different–we turned south on US 191. This took us through a canyon and over a range of mountains that were pretty nice all on their own, but they were only the beginning. We hit US 6 as it comes out of Price and jogged northwest a short distance until we turned west and south again on Utah 96, which goes past Scofield State Park and the town of Scofield. This is called the energy loop and we passed a variety of mines, power plants, and a (presumably) hydro lake name Electric Lake.

Past Scofield the road became Utah 264 and twisted and curved its way up on a high ridge. This was some of the red on the Butler map. Red means good. Up on top we hit Utah 31 and it descends through a long canyon, more red, then yellow, all the way to Huntington, where we picked up Utah 10, to Ferron. Ferron was our stop for the night. A little town out in the middle of not much that makes you wonder how people make a living way out here.

The following day we stayed on 10 until it hit I-70 and after a short jog west we continued south on Utah 72. More yellow and red as we cruised up a canyon and over a pass. More gorgeous country we had never seen. And I might add here that so far we were missing all the July heat we could easily have encountered. Each day was cloudy, even rainy, so going over passes we were bundling up and every once in awhile we were putting on the rain gear. We’ll take that over 100 degree heat any time.

Running down Utah 72 toward Loa we took the more roundabout route of Utah 25 around Fish Lake. More red and yellow. Judy and I had been on this road some years ago but we were going the other direction so it’s always good to take a road the other way. Then we hit Utah 24 and turned east to Loa and Bicknell and Torrey and through Capitol Reef National Park. Out the other side we were at Hanksville, our stop for the night.

The Hanksville Inn was gritty but very biker friendly and they gave us our own corner of the place with a patio all our own. We added some excitement to this little burg when John suffered a medical issue he is familiar with but which we had no warning of. We found him seemingly comatose and called 911 but a quick call to his wife, Cheryl, by his son, Johnathon, gave us the tactics we needed to revive him. Cheryl was totally calm, having been through this numerous times, but we were taken unawares, and the ambulance did show up, siren wailing and lights flashing. And John, of course, was embarrassed by it all and wished we hadn’t called 911.

And oh yes: at Hanksville we met up with Ray and Randy and Johnathon, who had ridden from Denver that day. So that made us nine.

The next morning we turned south out of Hanksville on Utah 95 headed through the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The last time the OFMC had been on this road we were headed the other direction and we had come to Hite on the south side of the lake and spent the night before taking the ferry across in the morning. In the years since then the level of the lake has dropped precipitously and the Hite marina has been abandoned. They built a bridge or two to get you across and so this time we took the bridges.

Just south of Blanding we hit US 191 and turned south to Bluff. Here we took a less well known series of roads that cut across north of the Four Corners area, saving us time and avoiding that tourist attraction. About 10 miles out of Cortez we ran into new chip seal and oh boy was that a mess. If I’d been on the V-Strom or even on my CB750 it would have been better but the Concours hates gravel. But we endured.

Then from Cortez on to the snarl that is Durango and finally to Ignacio, the the Sky Ute casino and hotel for the obligatory gambling spot we always have on these trips. Along the way Friggs (Free Eggs, that is) got word that his lady friend, Vicky, had been in a car accident and early this Thursday morning he set out for home. The rest of us are on to Gunnison today. Right now, though, it’s breakfast time.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding my motorcycle around L.A. is like my own video game. But unlike many folks at the wheel, I am occupied with getting where I’m going and keeping myself safe. Most people are applying makeup, texting, and checking out the beauty in the next car. — Hugh Laurie

Riding Trail Ridge Road.

Our third day of riding on this year’s OFMC trip is done and we’ve gone all of about 450 miles. This is an easygoing trip.

Starting out the first day our meet-up point was the Century Casino in Central City. Bill, John, Dennis, and I came together there and got on the Peak-to-Peak Highway headed for Estes Park. The wind had been gusting pretty hard when I arrived and Dennis especially was concerned about rain, so there was some suiting up before we left. Of course the sun came out brightly as soon as we left so by Nederland it was time to stop and peel off this unbearably hot stuff.

An uneventful, but very pretty, ride brought us to Estes Park where we checked in to the Twin Owls Motel. I truly believe that perhaps 30-50 years ago this may have been one of the premier lodging establishments in Estes Park but boy, this old girl is showing her age. It’s still attractive, with a nice patio and a lobby full of extremely large plants, but the place needs repair and many of the old repairs are themselves in need of repair. Kind of Sad. But a nice view.

In Estes we were joined by two more, Free Eggs and Bread. John tried to speak a text message to Friggs and Bret and his phone interpreted their names in a way we found sufficiently comical to saddle them with those names for the rest of the trip.

A little confusion ensued in the morning as John led the way toward Rocky Mountain National Park. When the lead four made a traffic light and two did not, nobody waited around for us to catch up. A conversation had been held discussing the route but certain of us were not privy to that discussion. So I took the lead and Bread and I headed to the Fall River Road and into the park that way. I knew there were two entrances, however, and suspected the others had gone the other way so we cruised on to where the two roads meet before heading up Trail Ridge Road. Sure enough, they were coming the other way and we met them there.

Trail Ridge was good. Not horrible traffic and not overly chilly. And the elk were having a field day. We saw herds in three different spots and they were out there just prancing and showing off their racks like they owned the place. Which they pretty much do. All the crowds of tourists stopping to look and shoot photos were restricted to the road and the paths while the elk had free run of the whole mountain. Very cool.

Down where that road meets US 40 just outside of Granby we stopped for gas and a break and the new Indian Dennis is riding got a lot of attention. The bike that caught my attention, however, was the one ridden by Dave of Missouri, who pulled in on a 2002 Kawasaki Concours. I’m on my 1999 Concours on this trip so we had to talk and exchange notes. Turns out Dave just bought this bike two weeks ago specifically for this trip he and his buddy are on. We compared gear and I was very interested in his Givi top bag while he was very interested in my highway pegs. He was definitely feeling the lack of those.

Heading west on US 40 we ran into light rain at Hot Sulphur Springs but John, in the lead, made the decision I would have made, which was to keep going and ride out the other side of it. We did get wet going up Byers Canyon, and there were placing when you could just see the rain in the air up ahead of us, but we did ride out the other side and by the time we got to Kremmling we were dry again.

A little past Kremmling we turned onto the road over Gore Pass and it soon became very clear we would be getting wet, so we stopped and suited up. And a moderate rain did come down. But hey, if you don’t ride in the rain you don’t ride. We ride. And by the time we reached Toponas it was pretty well over with.

We turned north from Toponas just the short distance to Oak Creek and that was our stopping point for the day. The Oak Creek Motel is very nice and the two restaurants in town both serve good food. After we had walked over for dinner and were back at the motel the rain started and this time it was coming down pretty hard, along with some powerful winds. We were sitting out under the eaves of the motel when a couple on a BMW came into the parking lot, obviously looking for shelter. Sadly for them, though the motel was not full, the proprietors had turned on the No Vacancy sign, presumably they did not want to be bothered late at night by new arrivals. The beemer folks saw the sign and rode a circle and headed back out. We commented on how that poor guy was probably hearing it big time from his lady friend about why he hadn’t wanted to make reservations. We sure were glad not to be in their predicament.

It was raining in the morning when we got up so we had breakfast and got all suited up. It rained lightly for a while but soon the clouds started to lift. We were heading west on US 40 again and stopped before we got to Hayden to unsuit. On to Craig, Maybell, and Dinosaur and then we were into Utah. The first town of any size is Vernal and that was our destination today. Fourth time I’ve been in Vernal in the last two months. We didn’t have lunch so we had an early dinner and now the guys are out in the pool. It’s hot here! And now I’ve got this blog post written I guess I’ll go join them.

Biker Quote for Today

The only time you’ve got too much gas is when you’re on fire.