Passes & Canyons Blog

Dennis up on top of Cottonwood Pass.

After a night in Cripple Creek the OFMC had a couple options on getting to Gunnison, our next stop. I had figured to just backtrack to U.S. 50 and go over Monarch Pass. But I had been in contact with my friend Kevin, in Gunnison, and he texted me saying, “I highly recommend Cottonwood Pass. Best asphalt in the state.”

Judy and I had just been over Cottonwood in the car a week earlier so I wasn’t thinking about it, but I mentioned it to the guys and they liked the idea. Obviously we had never been over Cottonwood on the trip before since it had only just been paved. So Cottonwood it would be.

We headed out of Cripple Creek by the back way but then bent north to Florissant. We went over Wilkerson Pass again, as we had two days earlier, into South Park and down to Buena Vista, again.

Approaching Buenie we could see that the area around the pass was enveloped in deep purple clouds so we figured we’d better suit up. During our stop I texted Kevin, who was planning to ride out and meet us on top. I warned him to wear rain gear. By the time we headed up the pass, however, the weather was moving along and while the road was wet we never did encounter rain. On the other side of the pass, however, Kevin got pounded.

We met up top and spent a good half hour shooting the bull with each other and also Charlie, who was up there on his Indian. Charlie just moved out to Buena Vista from Wisconsin and is just in the stage of exploring all that Colorado has to offer. I pointed him to this website but he said he had already visited and found it very helpful. Those are the words I love to hear.

We headed on down to Taylor Reservoir and stopped to peel off the rain gear because now it was sunny and warm. Riding down through the Taylor River canyon was sweet but we got to Almont and came out of the protection of the canyon and got hit by powerful winds. Those winds kept up on us all the way to Gunnison and for a couple hours more. A windy day in Gunny, I guess.

Now we were in Gunnison for two nights because this was our golf stop. The next day we hit the links but on the driving range I took a practice swing and my right shoulder hurt–a lot. I whacked a couple balls and the pain was intense! I had hurt my should back in February and had had no pain for a couple months so I thought I was OK, but obviously I was not. “I can’t do this,” I told the guys. I took my clubs back and got a refund and drove the cart for Bill while playing ball spotter for him and Dennis.

Next day we’re heading for the Million Dollar Highway.

Biker Quote for Today

Top 10 signs that a computer is owned by a Harley rider: 07. — Number key pad only goes up to two.

I don’t usually use images this large but it was necessary to show this route.

On the second day of this year’s OFMC trip we had to break a mold or two to get from point A to point B. We were in Alamosa, after originally planning to head from there into New Mexico. But a coronavirus closure in New Mexico forced a change. Our destination was now Cripple Creek.

Unfortunately, the easiest way to Cripple Creek from Alamosa would have had us retracing our ride from the day before, all the way up to Poncha Springs. That’s basically a long, straight shot up the San Luis Valley. We didn’t want to do that. But with the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness in the way, we had to go around. So we took the southern route.

That consisted of a blast to the east on U.S. 160 to Walsenburg, a short jog north to CO 69, and then a ride up through Gardner and Westcliffe to hit U.S. 50 just east of Cotopaxi. From there it was just a little ways east to where Fremont County Road 9 heads north, then county roads 11 and 1 as the back way into Cripple Creek.

We got an early start, in the cool of the morning, and it was a beautiful ride across the valley and up over La Veta Pass. There’s something almost magical about riding through the countryside as the day is dawning, and it was like that this morning.

At Walsenburg we needed gas and were amazed to find every gas station in town packed with vehicles lined up waiting their turn at the pumps. So we joined the queue. Then we found the not very well marked CO 69 right there where we got gas. OK. We had been pretty puzzled.

Heading north on 69 I soon realized that I had been here only once before and that was in about 2000 when Judy and I came this way on a ride with the Concours Owners Group. We hadn’t known going in that this group liked to do fun, 400 to 500 mile day rides. We didn’t go on many COG rides after that.

The terrain running up 69 was very similar to the area between Buena Vista and Salida: a broad valley, hills on both sides, and a bit arid.

We stopped for a break in Westcliffe and what a surprise that was. That little town seemingly in the middle of nowhere was very, very busy, mostly with RVs and campers with Texas plates. Who knew? I thought Lake City was the Colorado capital of Texas.

North from Westcliffe to U.S. 50 was getting into the hills and when we got on 50 we were on fresh, totally smooth pavement that is always nice. Then the back way into Cripple Creek is beautiful and very hilly and twisty. If you’ve never gone that way, either coming or going, you owe it to yourself to do so. Besides, there’s a whole lot less traffic than coming down to Cripple Creek from Divide.

So we were there in Cripple Creek on a Saturday night. You have never seen this town so empty ever since they opened up gambling. But we got a really nice room really cheap.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you think that the Harley-Davidson plant should be one of the seven wonders of the world.

Overlooking South Park from Wilkerson Pass. That’s Dennis on the left with his Indian, Bill in the middle with his Harley, and me on the right with my Concours.

We’re back from the 2020 OFMC ride and despite initial uncertainty about the wisdom of the whole thing it went smoothly and I’m confident we avoided any serious threats of Covid 19 infection. I mean, we spent most of our time either on motorcycles or else with no one else around but each other. Restaurants were about the only place we could have run into the virus and every one we went to was taking serious precautions.

So we took off on a Friday morning, meeting up as we so often have before at the King Soopers in Conifer. Our destination for the day was Alamosa and Bill was interested in getting away from the standard ride down U.S. 285 over Kenosha Pass, through Fairplay, and then south from Buena Vista. Instead, we turned south at Pine Junction and went down through Deckers to Woodland Park and then west into South Park over Wilkerson Pass. That’s where that photo above was shot.

Continuing across South Park on U.S. 24 it occurred to me that although I had personally been on this road numerous times, it was actually the first time the OFMC has done this road as a group. So chalk up what turned out to be a number of firsts.

At Antero Junction we got back onto 285 and ran down to Buena Vista, where we stopped for lunch and a break. Rain was threatening but we didn’t think rain gear was needed so we headed south. We did run into a sprinkle or two but were fine. We made a stop at Poncha Springs to say hello to Bill’s daughter and other family members who were at her place for the weekend and then headed out again.

We had been looking at the sky in the direction we were headed and we each had geared up to some extent, but not fully. Coming up Poncha Pass the sky was black but looked like the worst was already to the east of us. Then it hit us hard. My riding pants are waterproof and I had my rain jacket on but my gloves were getting very wet and I could feel water soaking into my boots. Then it all cleared away and pretty soon everything was dry again.

If you’re headed down 285 going to Alamosa there is a point where you need to get off that road onto CO 17 and as is common for Bill, who was leading, he shot right past the turn. Dennis and I made the turn and pulled off to wait for his return. Fortunately, this particular time, we didn’t have long to wait.

Powerful winds hit us from the west as we came south past Great Sand Dunes National Park, which we could see to our east, and it occurred to me that these were the winds that had built those dunes.

We got into Alamosa, checked in our motel, and had a very good dinner at Nino’s, which I heartily recommend. And that was our first day. How great to be out on the road on the bikes again.

Biker Quote for Today

But she can hide, hide in the pouring rain. She rides the eye of the hurricane. — David Wilcox

The OFMC will not be going to New Mexico this year as we had planned.

With departure for this year’s OFMC trip drawing near, we were through into confusion when Dennis got word that New Mexico has issued an order that anyone coming into the state must quarantine for either two weeks or the length of their stay, whichever is shorter.

So, right. We were going to be in New Mexico for three days and they’re saying we should quarantine for that entire time. Plus, the Indian casino hotel we had booked in Espanola told Bill when he called that all their restaurants are closed, with only their snack bar open. Short notice but revisions were clearly in order.

There are two things that are givens on any OFMC trip: golf and gambling. Frequently we combine the two. That didn’t look possible now, so we figured out a new plan. Our first night will be in Alamosa and we agreed to head from to Gunnison for two nights, including a day of golf, and then go for one night to the Sky Ute Casino Resort to get in the gambling segment. Everyone had their assignment as to who to call.

Text messages started flying quickly. Bill found out the Sky Ute was closed. And I found out that the motel we like to stay at in Gunnison, which is directly adjacent to the golf course, had changed hands and names and their prices had about doubled. Yikes. Let’s go to Plan C.

Dennis called Cripple Creek and made us reservations at the Double Eagle Hotel & Casino. We’ll go there from Alamosa. Bill was able to get us a tee time in Gunnison so I had to look around a bit, finally finding a different motel with rates that are not sky high. We just won’t be able to walk out the back door directly onto the golf course.

After that the trip will get back on track as planned so long ago.

I have to admit, I was starting to have reservations about the whole trip. Infections rates across the country are now reaching record levels, although not where we’re headed. Plus, what better social distancing can you do than riding a motorcycle? The one issue will be eating. Restaurants are open, and we’ll have our masks with us, and at worst we can go to grocery stores for food. At motels it will just be us in our rooms and obviously we all accept that we’ll be exposed to each other, but none of us has had any exposure we know of.

Some people might argue that we should cancel the trip, but some people made the same argument when Judy and I went to New Orleans in early March (after Mardi Gras, not during). We decided to go and we don’t regret it. We had a good trip, we didn’t get sick, and it proved to be the only trip we’ll probably get to do this year. We did cut it short by one day, however, when we found the world closing down around us.

If this turns out to be a bad idea I guarantee I’ll be telling you about it. But I’m optimistic.

Biker Quote for Today

I can see Elvis
Throned like a king astride a golden Harley
Smoking a reefer he just rolled
Full of Acapulco gold
With Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley — The Waterboys

A larger OFMC in 2013.

The OFMC started off as just three of us, John, Bill, and me. Over time it grew to where we once had about 11 guys on our annual ride. Now we’re back to three: Bill, Dennis, and me. As this year’s trip nears I’ve been thinking about all those guys who came and left.

The big number one is John. John got this thing started. He was the first of us to buy a motorcycle, and after riding behind him for a while I figured I had to buy my own bike. When Bill saw us having so much fun he decided he needed one, too, and the OFMC was born.

So why is John out? Age and health. He’s suffering from macular degeneration as well as a number of other health issues. He has finally grown into the original name of the group, Old Farts Motorcycle Club. We weren’t old farts when the name was chosen with tongue in cheek but he has definitely gotten old now. We’re sorry to lose you John.

Not everyone ages at the same rate, however, and Bill and I are both much younger than our years.

Johnathon, John’s son, was the fourth member of the group. John bought a new Honda Shadow and gave his old Yamaha Virago to Johnathon. So Johnathon started coming along. After a number of years though, he felt the pressures a lot of dads of young families feel: his kids need a dad and motorcycling is too hazardous. So he gave it up, and has not come back.

Bill’s son Jason followed a similar arc. His dad gave him the old bike when he bought a new one and he rode with us for a few years. Then he decided he needed to do the dad thing and choose his kids over the bike. Jason, however, was recently given another bike and is riding again. But he’s still not coming on the trip; too much of a time commitment for someone with a family and not a lot of vacation time.

Friggs was the fifth member of the group. Friggs is Bill’s older brother and while he is in good health, he took a spill down in New Mexico a couple years ago and that convinced him to give up riding. He’s not the first to make that decision.

Back in 2004 we were joined by Todd, who was the friend of Jason. We figured Todd would become a regular but a couple months after the trip he got in a very serious crash and that was it for Todd. No more riding.

Along the way Dennis joined us. Dennis is married to Friggs and Bill’s sister Janice. And Dennis is still with us.

Randy was a friend of Johnathon’s and he came with us for a good number of years, even after Johnathon dropped out. But now he has just faded away. Didn’t come a couple years ago and not since; no real explanation.

Brett was a friend of Jason’s as well, and he came along for plenty of years. He doesn’t have any kids but following a divorce and a new wife he seems to have concluded he would rather spend vacation time with her than with us. So he has faded as well.

Brett has a brother, Matt, who came with us one year, but I think he felt he was a bit young to be hanging with the geezers so he never came back.

Ray is the cousin of John’s wife, Cheryl. Ray is a hard-core biker and he joined us on a couple occasions but with John out I doubt we’ll be seeing Ray again, although he definitely still rides with his own group.

That’s where we stand today. I expect the three of us to continue riding for many years yet. Maybe Jason will rejoin us in a few. Who knows, maybe Johnathon, too. Or maybe someone else–you never know.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if when you plan a vacation you set up time to visit the bike shops first.

Jason’s new bike is a 2014 Harley Road Glide. That’s him on the right.

The OFMC has grown and then shrunk. We started out as three and we are three again. One of the guys who rode with us for many years was Jason, Bill’s son, but he had young kids and gave up riding, doing the dad thing.

Well, Jason is back. For one things, his kids are older, and both boys are now taller than he is. But more importantly, his former boss gave him his Harley. Sort of.

It’s not an altogether happy story. Jason worked for this guy, Don, and Don treated Jason like a son. Recently Don died. Don’s widow gave the bike to Jason. This is a 2014 Harley Road Glide and to make it official Jason paid one dollar for it and has a bill of sale and the title.

Not that he’s going to start coming on the OFMC trips again, at least yet. He still has limited vacation time and finds it hard family-wise to give over one whole week to the bike trip. But he’ll once again be joining us on day rides, such as the one we did Sunday.

It wasn’t all that much of a ride. As far as I can tell, most of Bill’s riding other than the annual trip is from his place on the west side of town up to Black Hawk to a casino or two for lunch and some gambling. I wasn’t sure what the plan was on Sunday but that turned out to be it. So we gathered, as we do, at the Starbucks near Bill and headed on up Clear Creek Canyon.

We got to Black Hawk but kept going to Central City because Bill had heard that he Century Casino up there was open. That turned out to be incorrect. That didn’t altogether disappoint me because I’ve been laying low pretty much and if there is only one casino open, how likely is it to be packed? Once they all open up it will be different.

Still, things are opening up and people are being less cautious. In our group it was really four members of a family and me. There was Bill, his son Jason, his sister Janice, and Janice’s husband Dennis. They were not socially distancing at all between themselves and my uncertainty resolved immediately when Jason reached out to shake my hand. That was the first hand shake I’ve had in a long time but I hadn’t seen Jason in several years. He extended his hand and I took it.

This ties in with my evolving concept of social distancing. I’m figuring that going forward we need to not unnecessarily expose ourselves to potential infection but in this case it was a group who see each other regularly and who know that none in the group has been sick. Plus, if one of us does get sick we will know to inform the others so they can get tested. It’s not that way with strangers.

The point here, too, is that we’re still planning the 2020 OFMC trip, in about six weeks, and there is no way I’m going to be distanced from Bill and Dennis for this whole trip.

So anyway, with the casino closed we noticed that another one, Dostal Alley, was open in the back serving food and drinks at tables set up in the parking lot. We had lunch. Then we headed up the Peak to Peak to the Golden Gate Canyon road and headed back down. Great day for a ride. Nice to ride with Jason again.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than men: Motorcycles don’t grow huge beer bellies.

If you spend time out on the road, something is bound to go wrong sooner or later. Then what?

OK, first let’s address the question, is it jury-rigging or jerry-rigging. We’ve all seen both. A quick search took me to Dictionary.com where I found this bit of clarification:

Jury-rigged means something was assembled quickly with the materials on hand. Jerry-built means it was cheaply or poorly built. Jerry-rigged is a variant of jury-rigged, and it may have been influenced by jerry-built. While some people consider it to be an incorrect version of jury-rigged, it’s widely used, especially in everyday speech.

So I’m going with jury-rigged.

On to topic.

Things go wrong sometimes, don’t they? And when you’re miles from home with no help nearby you just have to figure out how to make things work. Anyone who has done much traveling by motorcycle surely has run into this a time or two.

My first was early on in the life of the OFMC. Bill and John and I were heading for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and I had taken my bike in for some significant work well in advance of the trip. Long story short, after promising me for weeks that it would be done in time it was not and Bill and John left without me. About three days later I finally had my bike and I took off to meet up with them at the North Rim.

I rode that first day to Durango, where I intended to spend the night with a friend and her husband. I had not gotten far when I discovered that the shop had failed to put one of my highway pegs back on. I really, really like highway pegs and I have them on all three of my bikes. But what could I do?

I mentioned this to the folks in Durango and he went out and got a six-inch length of aluminum tubing and some duct tape and presto, I had a highway peg where before there had been none. Thank you so much Neil. That thing held just fine for the whole trip and believe me, I used it.

A few years after this we were ready to head out and Bill was late. Finally he called (this was before cell phones) to say his bike had died on his way over to John’s house–could we come give him some assistance?

After nearly killing ourselves pushing him up and down this parking lot he finally got the bike started and headed off to his mechanic. He called later to say it was his stator and the bike would not be fixed soon. John and I took off without Bill.

I can’t remember but we must have had some arrangement to stay in touch because in a day or two we got word that Bill would be meeting up with us in Thermopolis. Great. When he showed up he explained to us that he still had no functioning stator but he had a battery charger and a long extension cord and he had removed the fuse powering his lights. The idea was to use as little electricity from the battery as possible all day and then fully charge the battery overnight. That’s what he did and the rest of the trip was uneventful. Needless to say, we didn’t do any night riding.

John was always into jury-rigging something on his bike. Back in the early days, when we all had bare bones bikes, none of us had throttle locks. Nowadays, we all consider throttle locks or cruise control to be essential. And sure, these things were available but they cost money and we were all pretty poor.

So John got a Popsicle stick, drilled a hole in the end through which he tied some string, and tied the other end to his handle bar. While cruising down the road he would shove this stick between the grip and whatever was next to the grip, wedging it in there so when he would release the throttle the thing would not rotate back off the gas.

These were simpler days. In this current day, any one of us would simply pull out the card and pay for whatever it is we want/need. It’s easier but I’m not sure it’s better.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if every time you spend money, you think about what you coulda bought for your bike.

The OFMC stopped along the road a couple years ago.

The OFMC–at least the three of us who remain–now have a route set for 2020.

Now that I’m the designated planner, this is a consensus thing. Last year it was agreed that everyone was fine with doing some longer days and going farther. This time around the guys say they would prefer shorter days and also like the idea of staying in one place for three nights. You got it.

We’ll be leaving Denver on a Friday and cruising down to Alamosa. On Saturday we’ll go further south, to Espanola, New Mexico. This will be our three-night stop. What does Espanola offer to make it worth three nights? Well, everything the OFMC looks for.

First off there is an Indian casino hotel where we will stay. A gambling stop is a must on OFMC trips. Second, Espanola has what appears to be a spectacular public golf course. A golf stop is also an OFMC must. And third, Espanola is in a spot where there are several very good options for day rides. So one of the two days we stay there will be for golfing and the other for riding. Arrive–night one; golf or ride–night two; golf or ride–night three; leave.

The OFMC started out with just Bill and John and me. Then it grew, and then it shrunk. We’re back to three now, and Dennis has replaced John. But John lives outside Montrose and he said he and his wife, Cheryl, will almost certainly be interested in coming down and joining us in Espanola for some golf and gambling. So that will be fun.

From there we’ll head up to Durango and the next day on to Monticello, Utah. The day after that a very scenic route will take us to Hotchkiss, Colorado, for a favorite stop at the Hotchkiss Inn. Then the last night will be in Leadville before heading on home.

So. No long days, gambling, golf, three nights in one place, lots of good riding. My job here is done.

Biker Quote for Today

Why bikes are better than women: Unlike women FAT motorcycles aren’t cheap dates.