Don’t Miss This (But I Will); A Running (Riding) Conversation
A bike from the 2013 Motorcycle Cannonball.
Can someone please clone me? I don’t know how many times I’ve said here that I’m going to do something or be at some event only to have those plans fall through because I have a conflict. Here we go again.
As I announced way back in April, the fifth annual Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Run is coming through Colorado this weekend and while I want like the dickens to go see this rolling museum, I’ll be out of town. But that doesn’t mean you should miss it.
To recap, this thing is a ride from the East Coast to the West Coast on motorcycles that were built in 1937 or earlier. They’ll be stopping at the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum in Colorado Springs mid-day on Sunday and then will come to Golden for the night. Either would be a great place to catch the scene.
A Conversation
On a totally different note, I had an interesting ride to work the other day. I head east on Hampden (US 285) and just keep going when it turns into highway, getting off at Kipling.
Shortly after crossing I-25 I picked up someone on two wheels behind me, and when we came to a traffic signal at Dahlia this scooter pulled in alongside me and a little back. I turned and said hello and we chatted a bit while the light was red, then took off again.
We got stopped again at Colorado and chatted some more. It was a People brand scooter, a GTi300 and I asked if the 300 meant it was 300cc. He said it did. Does the i mean it is fuel-injected? Yes. Cool. So it goes pretty fast? Yes.
We cruised on and as we passed a street that turns into one of the ritzy developments on the south side of Hampden we saw a bunch of police cars and a motorcycle lying on its side with broken pieces all around on the ground. Not pretty at all. When we stopped for the red light at University (we caught all of them) we both shook our heads and shuddered at what we had seen. No blood and gore, no broken bodies–those apparently were already off to the hospital–but no one who rides likes seeing something like that.
At the next stop we talked our plans for the day. I was going to work. He was meeting some folks at a gas station in Lakewood and they were riding to the top of Mount Evans. Boy, did I want to come along with him.
But I didn’t. At Kipling I turned north and he blasted on past. And now it’s too late to go up Mount Evans any more this year. They just closed the road for the winter on Tuesday. Next year . . .
Biker Quote for Today
I rarely think of motorcycles without a little yearning. They are about moving, and humans, I think, yearn to move – it’s in our cells, in our desires. We quiet our babies with cyclic movement, and we quiet ourselves by going. — Melissa Holbrook Pierson (I think)
