Passes & Canyons Blog

The Twenty-Mile Road. If you’ve never ridden it you should.

Before all this mess with the crash came up I was in the middle of telling about our overnight ride to Meeker. Let’s rejoin this story.

As you may recall, four guys only went as far as Craig while the other four of us went on to Meeker. Bob, who stayed in Craig, had said the run to Meeker was uninteresting and not worth it. As I said in the previous post, he is wrong. I knew from doing it in 2023 with Nick that the road from Meeker to Craig, especially in the early morning, is enchanting.

This year was no disappointment. Bob is just wrong. We got to Craig then, I got gas, and the other guys were about ready to roll. We headed east on US 40 to Hayden and then took the Twenty-Mile Road from right by the power station down to Oak Creek. What a beautiful ride, and still so green at this point. Some of the guys had never been on it and they were blown away.

Riding CO 131 we cruised south through Toponas and State Bridge to the interstate is Wolcott. We made a short hop on I-70 to Edwards for gas and then another short hop to the Minturn exit. From there we headed up Tennessee Pass to Leadville. Lunch in Leadville.

As we were parking it looked like rain, and indeed it did rain while we were in the restaurant. Just a very light dripping when we came out but we all suited up. The sky still looked threatening. On south to Buena Vista we avoided rain, then turned east on US 285.

We stopped again in Fairplay for gas for some, and after that it became pretty much every man for himself, the rush to the stable. We didn’t hit rain but did have wet pavement, with splashing. Then at Bailey we turned up Crow Hill and it had all been roto-milled, with only a little pavement. Kind of nasty. Then pavement again but now some rain.

I was constantly wiping my visor but after awhile I could not get it clear and I thought I was getting mud kicked up onto it. Then I realized it was fogging on the inside so I cracked it and the fog was gone. But now I was getting spray up under the visor. I alternated opening and closing it.

We were all separated at this point and I was only with Alan and Gene as we came into Conifer and it was raining harder. I bailed there and sat at the King Soopers until it cleared, then headed on again. Just a very short time later I came to dry pavement, suggesting we had been at the front of the storm and if I had kept going I would have been out of it in just another mile or two. No matter, I enjoyed the break and then rode all the way home—after that couple miles—on dry pavement with no rain.

Rush hour traffic was really bad so getting across Hampden took a long time. Then I was home. The next day the RMMRC had its monthly meeting and those of us who had been on the ride who attended agreed all around that it was an exceptionally good trip. We need more of those.

Biker Quote for Today

Melancholy is incompatible with motorcycling.

I don’t have the energy to do anything active so when I’m not sleeping–which I do a lot of–I have a lot of time to think. Right now I’m thinking I lead a charmed life.

In the past year and a half I’ve had two vehicles totaled, both entirely due to somebody else. Some people might look at that and say their life was cursed but I don’t see it that way.

In the first instance some guy with his face buried in his phone blew through a red light and hit me broadside, demolishing my car. I came out of that totally unscratched. Not the slightest injury.

In this second instance a drunk ran into me head-on, and this time I suffered severe injuries. But nothing that happened to me is anything from which I will not recover. It will take time, and it is painful, but I will recover completely and be as good as new.

I’ve always tended to think of head-on crashes as the worst kind but I no longer think this. That guy hit me head on and my motorcycle took the greatest brunt of the force. It gave its life to save mine. Imagine how different it would be if he had hit me broadside, as the other guy did. For certain my leg would be crushed and I might easily have been crippled for life. That’s if I didn’t lose the leg entirely. I’ve known two people who have lost legs in motorcycle crashes.

And then there’s the vehicles. I really liked my car, and it didn’t have a lot of miles on it so I was planning to drive it for a long time to come. But you know what? I like the car I got to replace it even more. I really, really like my current car. Now, it cost me all the insurance money plus $10,000 cash to get the new one and I’m not thrilled about that, but it’s only money. My health and well-being count more than the money.

With the bike, this was a really special bike. That CB750 was the first bike I ever owned and I have owned it and ridden it for 40 years. I loved that bike. But you know, it was an old bike and old technology. There were a few things I really honestly did not love about the bike. One was removing the seat, which took a wrench, finesse, and about five to ten minutes. Then the reverse to get it back on.

Another was the way it smoked. I thought a couple times I had resolved that issue but I had not. It still smoked like crazy when I started it up and I would stand there embarrassed hoping none of my neighbors was looking out their window at how I was turning all the air in the neighborhood blue.

I intended twice to just spend whatever money it took to fix this problem but when it finally came out that to do so would cost at least $3,500, and probably more, I decided to do what my mechanic had been saying all along: just live with it. And of course, now I’m so glad I did not spend that money.

Unlike with the car, I don’t want to just absorb all this loss. I do want some sort of recompense and with whatever money I can get for it I will buy a new bike and a lot of new, really good (read: really expensive) protective gear.

Of course, through all of this my wife has been there like a rock beside me, and that most of all is why I truly believe I lead a charmed life.

Biker Quote for Today

Graveyards are filled with people who “had the right-of-way!”

I was finally feeling able so I went to the impound lot yesterday to take a look at my Honda CB750 Custom. After Sunday’s crash I knew it would not be pretty.

As expected, the front end was totally mashed and twisted. I couldn’t tell that the frame was bent so with some money it might be rebuilt, I don’t know. The pipes on the left side were mangled.

I figure it’s totaled but if not, the lot has its own way of forcing you to that conclusion. That bike is probably taking up about 14 square feet of a multi-acre lot and for that space they are charging $135 a day. To get it out of impound even now would cost $675. They’re closing for four days for the 4th of July and I assume the cost keeps adding up on those days. That’s got to be some of the most valuable real estate on the planet.

The guys working at the lot were super helpful in removing my bags and the pigtails on the battery for my heated vest and trickle charger. That entailed lifting the tank to get one bag off and removing the seat to get to the battery. Seats didn’t used to just lift right off like they do today. It’s a major pain.

One of the guys asked me if I had a lawyer. I said no, though several of my friends have been telling me I need to. He said he got in a bad motorcycle crash some years ago and the guy he worked with was great. He dialed him up right there and handed me his phone. I’m sure he gets a finder’s fee.

So I talked with him but this was not a very good time to get into any kind of real discussion, so he agreed to call me later. He did and we talked. I told him that if the guy who hit me is some poor schlub who has no insurance and barely has two dimes to rub together that I’m not interested in going after him personally and loading him up with crushing debt for years to come. He agreed that that was not what he wanted either, that they would go after whatever insurance company could be found legitimately obligated, and then work for a settlement without going to court.

My wife is an attorney and she abhors litigation but agreed that if I wanted anything out of this I would need to get a lawyer. I would like to be made whole. That motorcycle, besides being something I loved, had some value. The helmet that saved me from severe injury was not inexpensive and will need to be replaced. And I just put a lot of money into that bike in the last year, getting it into top running order. It was running great.

And yeah, I am hurting. The pain shifts around. Sometimes it’s my thumb with its stitches. Other times my right knee hurts like hell. But pretty much my whole right side hurts. And just today now my whole left hand has turned purple.

So yeah, I guess I’ll be hiring a lawyer. Then I’ll just be able to leave it all in his hands and whatever comes out of it is what it is.

I’d much rather this had never happened.

Biker Quote for Today

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” — Ernest Hemingway

I missed posting here yesterday. I spent most of the day Sunday and Monday at Swedish Medical Center. On Sunday I was on my CB750 Custom when I got hit head-on by a drunk driver. I’m hurting a bit.

I had headed out to ride a route I want to lead an RMMRC ride on, checking out time, distance, and to make sure I planned the ride for a day when the restaurant I planned to stop at for lunch would be open. I only got as far as Belleview and Santa Fe.

I was in the left-turn lane on Belleview, waiting to turn on to Santa Fe, when, in what is a very hazy memory, I noted with alarm, “That car is heading right at me!”

The next thing I remember is being loaded into the ambulance, although one of the ambulance guys told me later that I did ask him “How is my bike?” Apparently I was lucid but all that is gone from my memory. That happens when you have a head injury.

I do have a head injury. They say it is a small amount of bleeding on the brain. They gave me repeated CT scans and saw that it is not getting worse and so it will heal itself over time. Meanwhile, they gave me anti-seizure pills to take for a week.

I also had a large gash on my left thumb that required five stitches, and the whole right side of my body hurts. If I had not been wearing my helmet I hate to think how much worse I would be.

I haven’t seen the bike yet. I suspect it is totaled. Surely the front wheel is bent and presumably the fork is seriously twisted. Who knows about the frame.

The driver did not leave the scene. He was arraigned and will face charges. I’m less interested in seeing him punished than in him getting help. If he was that drunk before noon on Sunday he obviously has a serious problem. He needs help.

As always, my wife has been the most dedicated, the most caring person imaginable. She is a saint. She hates it when I say that to people but it’s true.

Biker Quote for Today

The natural state of a motorcycle is laying on its side; only due to constant care and attention do we manage to keep them upright.

I give Charlie big kudos for putting together a terrific two-day ride for the RMMRC. The weather was good, the roads were great, and with all the recent rain, everything was incredibly green. And the folks were pretty companionable, too.

We started out Tuesday morning from the Phillips 66 in Morrison, eight riders. Kicks stand up (KSU) was 9 and I got there about 8:50 and needed gas so I didn’t have time to get myself linked in on the Cardo communicators. But Gene was the last to arrive and it turned out somehow that he and I were linked to each other, so we did some chatting during the day.

We ran up past Red Rocks to get on old US 40 running up Mount Vernon Canyon. This road serves as a frontage road alongside I-70 for a ways but frequently bends away from the interstate. Onto I-70 briefly and then off again and back to 40. Here’s where we lucked out.

US 40 goes away from the interstate for a while but then comes back as you go up Floyd Hill. Then you go down the other side and get on old US 6 just long enough to get on I-70. As we headed down we could see the interstate totally stopped. They’re doing major work on the bend at the bottom of the hill and we must have passed about 500 stopped cars as we cruised on down. When we merged onto I-70 at the bottom it was starting to move and we had to go slow but never had to stop at all. Sweet.

We only stayed on I-70 a few miles to Idaho Springs and then got off and rode old US 6 up to the Empire turn-off onto US 40 and then headed that way toward Berthoud Pass. We made a quick stop just past Empire, by the Guanella Ranch, which was good for me because I was cold and this gave me a chance to put on more layers.

Then it was a lot of fun blasting up Berthoud Pass, cruising past all the other traffic. We were rockin’!

Down the other side into Winter Park and on to Granby where we made a brief stop, then on to Kremmling for lunch.

Next it was on to Rabbit Ears Pass and down into Steamboat Springs. It had been a long time since I’d been over Rabbit Ears because I do my best to avoid Steamboat, so it was nice to see the pass again. Everything is just so incredibly green at the moment.

Steamboat wasn’t as bad as it sometimes can be and then it was on to Hayden and then Craig. Four of the guys were stopping in Craig while the rest of us were continuing on, down CO13 to Meeker. Bob, who was staying in Craig, said he saw no reason to go to Meeker because there was nothing out there and it’s a boring ride. Bob is wrong. This is a really pretty ride and we had a good time.

We got to the Meeker Hotel and checked in and proceeded to kick back. Meeker is a really nice little town–unlike Craig, which is not much of anything. And the Meeker Hotel has been completely renovated just recently and is quite nice–but incredibly cheap! Only $80 a night for a single! Can’t beat that.

So it was a sweet day’s ride. And tomorrow we get to do more.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s what I love about fast motorcycles. Because when you find yourself balancing on that razor’s edge of mortality, all the rest becomes dust in the wind.

Today is June 23 and I have not ridden either of my bikes yet this month. What the hey?

June has been extreme. We’ve had a lot of spring this year, and that means a lot of rain. Then, in between the rain storms, we have had blistering heat. Neither one makes you yearn to get out on the road. But today was going to be different.

Today is cool with rain forecast for the afternoon. Fine. I’m getting on the Honda to go for a ride in the morning. The Suzuki will take care of itself; I’m taking off tomorrow–regardless of the weather–with the RMMRC on an overnight trip up into the hills.

So what happens? I geared up, rolled the Honda out, swung my leg over, and hit the start button. And the motor turned but didn’t quite catch. I kept trying, and it kept trying, but eventually it wore down. This bike is going nowhere until it has more juice in the battery.

I put the charge unit to work, which is where it is now, and will try to get it going in about an hour.

The thing is, I thought about exactly this yesterday but didn’t do anything about it. I had the thought that because it had been a while since I’ve run this bike, maybe the battery would be low. I could have tried starting it yesterday, or I could have just put the charger on figuring there was no downside to that. But I didn’t. And now here I sit.

And it’s not like I can give it three or four hours if need be and then ride. I have a standing engagement on Mondays at 2:30 p.m. I intended to be on the road before 10 a.m. and then be back in plenty of time. I can still do that if it starts an hour from now. If not . . .

Oh, and I checked my records. I just bought this battery in August 2023, so it should still be good. That should not be the problem. Apparently it just sat too long. Dang.

Update:
Now 11:10 a.m. and I had a thought. It occurred to me that the mileage on the tripmeter was right at the point where I need to go to Reserve. Maybe it would have caught if it had been getting gas. So I flipped to Reserve before pushing the start button. The motor turned over strongly but still did not catch, like it needed gas but the line was dry. It takes a moment in this kind of case to get gas flowing again, so I’m hoping the next time I try it will catch. We’ll see.

Biker Quote for Today

If I was interested in dying, I wouldn’t dress up like a neon green clown before every ride.