Passes & Canyons Blog

All right, this is going to be great. A couple times now I’ve mentioned Steve from New Zealand who is coming here in 2009 with a few friends to do some motorcycle riding. Steve found www.motorcyclecolorado.com and found it helpful in his planning and sent me a few questions. At my urging he has sent me his rough first draft of an itinerary and what I’m going to do over the next few weeks is show their proposed route, any alternatives I might suggest, and discuss the places they will be going. I’ll also give daily mileage and estimated time. It is my hope that this will be helpful to other bikers planning their Colorado trips.

I’ve been trying to write this blog on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I figure to devote one post to each day of their trip. Steve and crew are planning 10 days of riding, with 2 of those days in Utah. I probably won’t have as much to contribute on the Utah days so I may combine those two into one post.

The first thing that struck us when my wife and I pulled out the map and started looking at their proposed routes was how a couple of those days seemed a bit overly ambitious. Not so much in terms of miles but in terms of the time they would take. Covering 300 miles in one day is easy on the flatlands but when you’re negotiating switchbacks and getting stuck behind campers and semis you can find 300 to be almost impossible. I mentioned this to Steve and he made some changes to their plans, but I’ll discuss this along the way, whenever appropriate.

By the way, one other thing that is somewhat off-topic: I have had an ongoing battle on this blog with spammers and had to turn comments off for awhile. I would really be pleased if any of you out there reading this has any input into these day routes. All of us know more than any one of us. But if the spam gets too bad again — and it has already started — I may have no choice but to turn comments off again. If that happens, please email me your comments at ken at motorcyclecolorado.com and I’ll post them myself. In the meantime, I’m working with my web host to set up a javascript that requires you to prove you’re a human before posting. I tried doing that before, but the script would not work with the way the host had their server set up. They tell me it should work now. Keep your fingers crossed.

Back in August I got an email from SECO saying

I can’t hardly believe that you have Bishop’s Castle listed and not hwy 165 (the hwy that runs past the Castle from Rye to McKenzie Jct)?

Near the Bigelow Divide has to be the most awesome double hairpin in the state.

I had ridden that road but it was long before I built the website and I hadn’t been back. Well, this got me fired up so about a month later we went back there and I shot pictures and gathered information. Unfortunately, I’ve been very busy so it only now that I managed to get the stuff up on the site.

Here it is, go check it out.

http://www.motorcyclecolorado.com/colorado_165_west_from_colorado_city.htm

If anyone else has thoughts as to what ought to be added let me know. I may not get it up right away but I will get it done.

Do you ever visit online motorcycle forums? I have about seven or eight I like to visit periodically. Just recently, for example, I posted a question on a Kawasaki Concours forum asking if anyone had any experience with the speedometer housing issue I discussed in my last post. I also like to introduce people to this MotorcycleColorado site, so I go and search for people asking for touring ideas on upcoming Colorado trips. I try to help them in any way I can, from route planning, to what to wear, to whatever they need to know.

Here are some of the forums I’ve joined. There are a lot more out there. Check out a few.

Adventure Rider – http://www.advrider.com/forums/index.php
HondaBikes.net – http://www.hondabikes.net/forum/
KawasakiMotorcycle.org – http://www.kawasakimotorcycle.org/forum/kawasaki-motorcycle-forums/
RiderInfo.com – http://www.riderinfo.com/forums/index.php
Motorcycle-usa.com – http://forum.motorcycle-usa.com/

That’ll get you started. Find an interesting thread and have fun.

I picked up the January 2008 issue of Rider magazine with interest as the covered touted a story about “Descending the Black Canyon in CO.” Of course I’ve been to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison many times. It’s steep and gorgeous and deep, and the first night out on one of our earliest summer motorcycle trips we camped there. But I’ve never been to the bottom. The only road I knew of going to the bottom was a very steep (7% grade) gravel road going down from the dam that forms the Blue Mesa Reservoir, and I couldn’t conceive of taking that on anything but a good dirt bike, with a lot more dirt biking experience than I can claim.

So of course I was very interested when I saw that the writer, Clement Salvadori, took some road to the bottom on a fully dressed Harley Ultra. What road is this? Why am I not aware of this?

Out comes the map, with the magazine open beside it. Where is this turn-off?

Aha! Now I see. Clem says to continue west on US 50 “a few miles west of Cimarron.” That would be about 12 miles west, and lo, there it is, CO 347, going off to the north. I have to wonder about this road. It’s right there on my new-for-2007 Colorado state map, but it doesn’t exist on the Microsoft Streets & Trips software that I use for the maps on this website. And Clem says it leads you up to an entrance to the park. I have to wonder how long that road has been paved.

Of course I’ve never been on this road so I’ll just share with you what Clem has to say:

. . . it is a well-paved road with a very, very steep descent; I heat up those three brake discs while having a high old time. Down by the river it is a few degrees warmer than at the top, with a small dam and a camping area. . . . I have a look around and then rush back up, which is equally fun and a little less adrenaline-inducing.

Who knew? I sure didn’t, but I’ll promise you right now that the first chance I get I’m going down that road and it will be up on the website soon afterward. Thanks for the heads-up, Clem!

For any of you who have been to the Sturgis rally, or have dreamed of going, I’m going to let you in on a secret: The riding in the Black Hills is fabulous, and it’s a lot better without the rally. Sure, everyone ought to go to the rally at least once. It’s an incredible experience and you’ll never see so many motorcycles concentrated in one area anywhere else. But if you’ve gone, and you’ve taken some rides through the Black Hills, you know that it’s a constant stream of bikes in both directions wherever you go. That’s pretty mind-blowing, sort of like a Jew going to Israel and being in the majority for the first time in their life, but do you really like riding in all that traffic?

It’s September 29 and we just got back from the Black Hills. The difference couldn’t be greater. It’s now the off season, so all accommodations are marked down from their high-season norms. We won’t even mention the prices during the rally. It’s now off season, so the roads are practically deserted. It’s just the locals, a few tourists, and actually a good number of bikes. It seems there are a least some bikers who have figured this out. You get to cruise on nearly empty highways, through gorgeous fall foliage, in weather that can only be described as glorious.

We’ll definitely be going back. You should go, too. The fall colors were just past their peak so probably the very best time would be early to mid September. This was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had.

I ran across this question on the Delphi motorcycle forum:

Ok, who is a good ride planner? We plan on being at the KOA in Estes Park in a couple of weeks. We have 3 day that we will be riding day trips out of there. Any recommendations? Not looking for a ton of miles, maybe 200-300 per day or less.

Thanks,

J.R.

I posted this reply:

JR–

From Estes Park you will definitely want to take the ride up over Trail Ridge Road. For a 200-mile ride you could go over Trail Ridge, then from Granby to Walden, then take Coloado 14 over Cameron Pass and down through Poudre Canyon to Fort Collins, and then south to Loveland and back up Big Thompson Canyon to Estes Park.

Beyond that you’re a bit limited. Unless you go over Trail Ridge again to go in other directions from Granby you’re faced with going back down to the plains or coming back at night over the same roads you left on.

You can go south out of Estes Park along the Peak to Peak Highway, to where you meet US 6, to Idaho Springs, up Squaw Pass, and to the top of Mount Evans. Then backtrack, more or less, or return over Trail Ridge.

Then for your third day you might consider going over Trail Ridge again, from Granby head to Kremmling and Steamboat Springs, over Rabbit Ears Pass. Then south on Colorado 131 either to Toponas and back over Gore Pass to Kremmling and backtrack. Or, continue south from Toponas to Wolcott and pick up I-70 and take it back over Vail Pass and get off at Silverthorne and take Loveland Pass to regain the interstate on the east side of the tunnel. Then back just east of Idaho Springs to get back on the Peak to Peak. But that runs close to 300 miles and a very long day. It’s tough from Estes Park because you’re really limited on where you can go from there.

Anyway, I hope that helps. You can find out a lot more about these roads on my website, www.motorcyclecolorado.com. Have fun.

I’m always happy to help. Anyone else looking for motorcycling information in Colorado, just write. I need to make note here, however, that because of the spam bastards I had to turn comments off on this blog. So to write, send your email to ken at motorcyclecolorado dot com.

This coming Wednesday, July 18, is Ride Your Motorcycle To Work Day. Do it!

The idea here is to get as many people on the road on their bikes on the same day to show people how many of us there are and to thereby make people more aware that they need to be aware we are there. We’ve all had the “he didn’t even see me” experience. If people are more aware that we might be there then hopefully they’ll be more careful to check to see if we are there. Wishful thinking? Probably, but what the hey, it can’t hurt and riding to work is more fun than driving anyway. I try to do it once a week. Aside from anything else, it also saves money on gas.

Oh, and here’s the disclaimer. Here I am pushing Ride to Work Day and I won’t be riding to work on Wednesday. Why? Because I’m fortunate in my current job to be able to work at home two days a week and one of my two days is always Wednesday–that’s July 18.

Here’s the URL in case you want to learn more: http://www.ridetowork.org/

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On a different note, I always welcome comments and responses to these posts but the spam bastards have made it so I had to turn off that function. I can’t spend an hour every day deleting hundreds of spam postings, which is what it had turned into. So if you want to contact me, send me an email to ken at motorcycle dot com and I’ll put your comment up, or respond to you, as appropriate. Thanks. Sorry for the hassle.

It’s hard to believe, but we’re leaving on our annual bike trip in less than three weeks, June 15. This is kind of early for us, but we’re going south, to Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada, so it will be warm. There will be nine of us this year in this Old Farts Motorcycle Club excursion.

We’re going to ride the Unaweep Highway, which several of us have been on, but other haven’t, and it’s a good one. Then we’ll head on down through the Monument Valley and on to Fraser, AZ. In case you’ve never been to Fraser, let me tell you about it. It’s an old mining town not far from Sedona, and it sits up on the side of a mountain so steep that the road zig-zags back and forth through town. The front of a building faces the street in one direction and the same street passes by on the back side of the building. There’s no such thing as a cross-street.

From there we’ll head on to Laughlin, NV, where we’ve been a couple times before. It’s a lot like Las Vegas was before it got huge, and it’s on a river just down from a dam and reservoir. Nice place. Then we’ll work our way on home again, spending a couple days in places in Colorado that we’ve passed through but never stopped at.

Less than three weeks! Hot dang!