Passes & Canyons Blog

OK, this will be a shameless promo. Looking on Thursday at the seven-day forecast, the best day coming up should be Tuesday, December 31. How convenient. That’s the day of the Last Brass Monkey Run.

The Last Brass, as it is called for short, is an ABATE of Colorado event intended to be the last ride of the year. Although ABATE tried moving it to the last Saturday of the year, in order to get more people to come, that didn’t have much effect so it was moved back to the last day of the year.

This year the Last Brass will be held at the Rock Rest Lodge, 16005 Old Golden Road, out in Golden. If you haven’t ever been to the Rock Rest you might want to come just to see the place.

Back a long, long time ago I lived very near there with my girlfriend, Sue, and we used to go there on Saturday nights for the country swing dancing. I hadn’t been there in probably 40 years but it was one of the stops on the ABATE D-17 Dart Run this summer so I stopped in again. Holy smokes, has that place changed. Forty years ago it was basically a dive bar with a huge dance floor. Now it is still rustic but it has been updated in a way that retains and enhances the ambience. And it’s a lot more popular.

So the Last Brass used to be an event where you would come to some distant starting point, sign up, and ride to the location. For many years that location was always the Grizzly Rose. Years ago you would come to the Rose and the parking lot would be jammed with motorcycles of all kinds. Then, for reasons unclear to me, attendance started to drop. The Grizzly Rose was no longer a viable venue because it was much, much too big for the number of people showing up. So it started moving around. It was at Wrigley’s for a couple years and then last year was the first at the Rock Rest. (I didn’t make it last year.) This year it’s the Rock Rest.

There will be music, food, door prizes, “games of skill/chance.” Now there are no far-flung starting places, you just come on down. Registration starts at 11 a.m. For ABATE members it’s $15; for non-members $20. If you join or renew your membership it’s $10. I originally joined ABATE at the Last Brass and I always renew there if I go. I’ll definitely be going this year. I invite you to join me. And if you do come, be sure to find me and say hello.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you ever quit a job to go to Sturgis.

Tags: Last Brass Monkey Run

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 26th, 2019 at 2:39 pm and is filed under motorcycle events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.