Guanella Pass Now Has A Page Of Its Own

June 1st, 2017
Guanella Pass page.

I just got a new page up for the recently paved Guanella Pass.

Well, it took me awhile. It always does. Guanella Pass has been completely paved for at least a year now, maybe longer, I don’t recall, but I only just now got it up on its own page on the website. Plus, a few days earlier, I set up the Motorcycle Camping on Guanella Pass page, with info about each of the four campgrounds along this road.

Previous to this–and previous to it being paved–I had this pass up on the Dirt Roads and Side Trips in Colorado page. Not any more.

The reason it takes me so long to get these things done is that there is so much involved. First I had to go ride the pass a few times, shooting photos and jotting down pertinent information. Then in the middle of it all I got this GoPro camera so I went and rode it again shooting video so I could include some video highlights of the ride.

Well, you can chalk that one up to learning how to use the GoPro. I won’t bother you with more detail of that, only just say there is no video on the page at this point. And the photos are basically OK for now; I had to patch together a bunch from several different trips up there over the course of several years. At some point I’d like to make it less of a hodge-podge.

I also decided I want to make Guanella the first of a second batch of web pages that are designed to be mobile friendly. Something you can view easily on your smartphone. And along with that I wanted to use an interactive Google map rather than the static Microsoft Streets and Trips maps I’ve always used till now.

Once again, there was a learning curve but I figured it out and that is what this new page has. There is an issue, though, in that at least on my desktop computer the map loads very slowly. Like, five to ten seconds, during which time there is just this empty rectangle. I may swap out the desktop version with a Streets and Trips map, while keeping the mobile-friendly page with the Google map.

And oh yeah, I haven’t got the mobile-friendly page ready yet. You can’t just do a copy and paste. What works on a big screen usually doesn’t work very well at all on a tiny screen.

I won’t bore you either with all the little tweaks necessary to integrate a couple entirely new pages into the overall website. Let’s just say there is a ripple effect that no one but me would even be aware of.

Now it appears they are finally paving the west side of Cottonwood Pass. I guess in about a year I’m going to need to do this all over again for Cottonwood.

Biker Quote for Today

Oh, you ride a motorcycle? That explains why you’re getting so many women.

Tags:
Posted in Info to Add to Website, motorcycle touring | No Comments »

You Find The Nicest Places On A Honda

May 29th, 2017
Carhenge

Carhenge the first time we saw it. It doesn’t look like this today.

Motorcycle touring is not like traveling in a car. A car is like a magic carpet: you just sit there and after a while you’re somewhere else. Riding a bike takes much more concentration and physical involvement. Consequently, for many of us, 200-300 miles is often a full day’s ride.

Motorcycle touring is more about discovering great places than it is about burning miles. Sure, there are the Iron Butt guys who go out and ride 1,000 miles in a day, but that’s not what I’d call touring. The beauty of the relaxed, easy-going riding approach is that you stop a lot, and sometimes those stops are the best part of the trip.

Case in point: My riding buddies and I were cruising down from the Black Hills, through western Nebraska near Alliance, and saw a place to pull off. (We’re really big on places to pull off – after an hour or so on the bike your legs are getting stiff, your butt is getting numb, and what could be better than to bask in the sun somewhere out in the middle of nowhere?) Looking around, we noticed there were trails heading into the trees, and somewhere off in there was something odd sticking up. We decided to go investigate, and then, our jaws dropped. “Oh my god, what is this?” we asked.

This was Carhenge. Imagine if you will, a farmer with a playful bent gathering a bunch of dead cars, planting them in the ground, stacking them up, and then painting them gray, to imitate Stonehenge, the Druid relic in England. And not just in haphazard fashion – the positioning of this oddball piece of art was carefully measured out to make Carhenge as true to the original as possible.

And we stumbled right into it. If we’d been in a car we would have just blasted on past.

Jerome, Arizona, was another of those serendipitous finds. Sure, today Jerome has been “discovered” and reborn with galleries, restaurants, and all the other things that come when a town becomes trendy. But we found it first.

A number of years ago, having spent the night in Sedona, Arizona, a trendy town that had already been discovered, we were heading to Las Vegas. Anyone whose intent was to get to Vegas would have taken the road to Flagstaff and flown west on I-40. That was not our intent; we were on motorcycles.

Instead, we headed west on 89A toward Clarkdale because the map showed some mountains and some twisty roads going over to Prescott. For a biker, twisty roads equals heaven. But we never dreamed we would find ourselves winding through switchbacks up the sheer face of a mountain, to find ourselves in a town built vertically on that face. This was Jerome, an old, nearly-abandoned, mining town.

Jerome has one main street that comes up the face of the hill, switches back and climbs higher, then switches back and climbs higher still. Some buildings have their front door on the same street as their back door, just at a different elevation. And of course the views are spectacular. We fell in love with this place. Apparently a lot of other people did too.

It’s not necessary, however, to stumble onto some unexpected gem to have a great stop on the bike trip. Just this summer my friends and I were heading toward Kamas, Utah, about to go over a pass, and there were black clouds up ahead. Prudence convinced us we’d better stop and put on rain gear. (Even though putting on rain gear is a pain and we try to avoid it unless it’s really necessary.)

In this case, as most of the guys were pulling on their rain pants, one guy suggested that if we just took a break there for a while the rain would pass and we could ride on without the gear. There was no shade where we were, and the sun was beating down, but just about then a cloud came over and the idea of waiting became very appealing.

Off came the rain gear, out came the cold beers, and for 45 minutes we sat and relaxed and reveled in the soul-fulfilling sweetness of just hanging out in some beautiful middle of nowhere. And then we rode on under clear skies. Beautiful indeed.

Biker Quote for Today

You don’t have to be a cowboy to ride off into the sunset.

Tags: ,
Posted in motorcycle touring | No Comments »

CDOT Not Abandoning MOST Program In Transition

May 25th, 2017
CDOT's MOST webdsite

Part of CDOT’s MOST website.

The Colorado Legislature officially moved the Motorcycle Operators Safety Training (MOST) program from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to the Colorado State Patrol (CSP) during this recent legislative session but that doesn’t mean CDOT is casting it aside during the transition. In fact, it seems like they may even have kicked things up a bit.

MOST is a program intended to promote rider training, with the idea that a rider who receives real training in operating the bike will be a safer rider than one who just learns by doing. I know this to be the case because I learned by doing and years later took some training courses. Guess what: I learned a bunch of stuff. I became a better and a safer rider.

May is commonly declared Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month and so with that theme in mind I was recently contacted by Megan Tobias, a public relations rep working with CDOT to promote the safety effort. She was asking if I could do something in this space to help promote training efforts. And in fact, she offered that if I wished, they could set me up to take a course on their dime. “Even if you’re a skilled motorist, we have an array of more advanced classes that can help fine tune your skills. Locations and class levels can all be found here: https://www.codot.gov/safety/live-to-ride/get-training.html/.”

This is a new level of promotion that I haven’t seen before. And I suspect I’m not the only one Megan has contacted to try to get this information out to the public. I say good on CDOT.

So initially I declined Megan’s offer but thinking about it now I may take her up on it. For one thing, I know that the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, whose curriculum the MOST instructors follow, has revamped its programs, so if I take the Experienced Rider Course a second time it is presumably going to be different from the first time. Plus, I don’t care how good or experienced you are, there’s always more you can learn. You’ll read about it here if I do.

Biker Quote for Today

Never twist the throttle with your ego.

Tags:
Posted in Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

Fighting The Wind Blast From Oncoming Trucks

May 22nd, 2017
Car passing motorcycle

The wind blast from this guy isn’t going to do much; it’s very different with trucks.

During this last ride Judy and I did I made some interesting observations I want to pass along.

It was kind of windy as we set out but not bad. The road we were on was not too busy, either, until we reached Limon and turned southeast down US 287. This is a major highway and that translates into “lots of trucks.”

Anyone who has ridden a motorcycle for long knows how powerful the wind blast can be on you as trucks go by in the opposite direction. Accordingly, I braced myself every time one came along but after awhile I started noticing that not all truck wind blasts were the same. Judy noticed it, too.

Sometimes a truck would go by and the blast would like to blow you off the road. Other times they just seemed to slip by and you hardly felt it. Once I got my mind focused on the question it didn’t take long to recognize the answer.

Very simply, the more aerodynamic the truck, the less the wind blast. It’s pretty dang intuitive, if you think about it.

You know those fairings that many trucks now have, the ones on top of the cab that deflect the wind from hitting the flat surface of the trailer? Those things help semis get better gas mileage because they reduce the wind resistance. No surprise there. But the real issue is that the more smoothly the truck can just slice through the wind, the less turbulence is created. And the less turbulence created, the less wind blast felt by vehicles going the other direction.

Now surprisingly, this is not as predictable as you might think. I found that almost universally, the big trucking companies all have their trucks faired and stream-lined and they kick up very little wind. The you-rent guys apparently don’t care so much about gas mileage since you are buying the gas, not them, and they generally are not faired.

And then it matters what the truck is hauling. If it is an enclosed unit, the wind is minimized. Very open and/or oddly shaped loads kick up more wind. So a truck hauling a bulldozer on its bed can be expected to rattle you a bit as it goes by.

So I got pretty good at knowing when to brace myself and when it was not likely to matter. But every now and then, I would be expecting one thing and get the other. I can’t explain that. All I can say is that this business about aerodynamics is a good rule of thumb but there are exceptions.

Biker Quote for Today

Tunnel? Allow me to play the song of my people.

Tags:
Posted in Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

My Scariest Ride Ever

May 18th, 2017
motorcycle in the snow

This is why we stayed three days in Lakin, Kansas.

After stopping in Coolidge, Kansas, the first night out on our proposed ride to Barber Motorsports Museum we awoke in the morning to snow and high winds, as I discussed a few days ago. After wavering all morning I finally decided it looked like we could continue safely so we geared up and left.

I started to regret that decision almost immediately. Although the road was only wet, and the snow had stopped at least for now, the wind was hellacious. We were headed due east and it was blasting down from due north, doing all it could to push us off the road. No matter. I’ve ridden in these conditions a number of times and while it’s no fun, I know I can do it. It was also cold, and while we both had our electric vests on, I had not brought my heated gloves because I had not expected this kind of cold.

Inevitably, when vehicles passed us going the other way they blocked the wind and our lean into the wind ran us toward the oncoming lane. I knew this and made ready to compensate each time. Fortunately there was not much traffic.

We made it the first 15 miles to Syracuse where we stopped for gas, as planned. So far we were a bit chilled but our vests were doing their jobs and my hands were not particularly cold. I had intended to see about getting some of those chemical heat packs at the gas stop but managed to forget. We pushed on.

The next town was Lakin, 27 miles further. Conditions were exactly the same: powerful wind, wet but clear road, and cold. By the time we were maybe a bit more than half-way there my hands were getting cold. I definitely planned to stop in Lakin for heat packs.

We were going 65 but the miles crawled by as my hands got colder and colder. And then the road surface changed. What had been wet was now becoming ice. And there was no way to skirt around the ice patches; this was ice across the entire lane. I had to go right over it.

I immediately slowed down to about 40. My entire focus now centered on keeping the bike as stable as possible so as not to go into a slide–not easy to do when you’re leaning into a powerful wind. Almost impossible when oncoming traffic momentarily blocks the wind and you swerve sharply to the left. And when it’s a truck, just when you’ve gotten stabilized again, it’s past and the wind blasts you and you swerve again.

Plus, now that we were going slower, people were passing us. And unlike oncoming traffic, which blasts by in a second or two, passing vehicles take a lot longer to get by. And then the truck passed us.

We were leaned into the wind, which he blocked, which made us swerve toward him. As he crept by in what seemed like slow motion we moved further and further to the left, toward him, as I worked desperately to angle more to the right. It may have been the physics of it all or it may be that I was target-fixated on him, but we just crept closer and closer–scary close–until finally he got past and wham! The wind hit us again, sending us toward the shoulder. All of this on ice, mind you.

It would have been one thing if it had just been me. But Judy was with me, and I have said many times that when she is riding with me I am carrying the most precious cargo in the world, and I will do absolutely everything in my power to deliver that cargo safely. But here I was in a situation where what happened might well be out of my control. I’ve never in my life been so scared on a motorcycle.

But apparently I wasn’t scared out of my wits; apparently I kept my wits about me. At the point the road got bad we were five miles or so from Lakin. I held on, fought with everything I could muster, and just prayed for Lakin to come into sight, and that there would be a motel there when we got there. We finally reached town and I spotted a motel and I didn’t even care that I had to plow through about eight inches of snow to get into their parking lot. I rode up to the office, parked the bike, and it didn’t move from that spot for three days. Safety!

In retrospect I do see one option I could have turned to, and if anything bad had happened I surely would be kicking myself for not thinking of this. When conditions turned horrid I could have just pulled off the road and parked the bike. We had cell phones and could have called 911 and asked for emergency services to be sent out to whisk us to warmth and safety, regardless of whether that included hauling the bike or meant leaving it there.

That thought never crossed my mind at the time; I was too focused on just keeping the bike upright. But if I ever find myself–us–in that situation again, I’m going to have to seriously consider it. But I suspect that if there is the possibility of getting into that situation again I’ll cut it short at the earlier phase, and not get on the road in the first place.

My whole body is quivering now from reliving this story in such detail.

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t always try to act cool when I ride, but when I do, I miss second gear.

Tags:
Posted in Motorcycle Safety | No Comments »

The Barber Trip That Wasn’t

May 15th, 2017
Motorcycle in snow

This is what we woke up to our first morning on the road.

Judy and I headed out on this Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club (RMMRC) “Pilgrimage to Barber” but we never got there. Mother Nature intervened.

The group was planning to leave on Saturday but Judy and I didn’t want to do the 450-mile day entailed in going all the way to McPherson, Kansas. We decided to leave on Friday and make that stretch a two-day trip. I found what appeared to be a delightful BnB in Coolidge, Kansas, and made a reservation.

Meanwhile, weather reports were saying a big winter storm was blowing in. The rest of the group decided to leave on Friday, too, and book a second night at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, so as to get the rest of the trip (and motel reservations!) back on track. We figured fine, we’d meet up with them in Eureka Springs instead of McPherson. We figured we’d be fine, because we would stay ahead of the storm.

Wrong.

We rode to Coolidge that first day and the BnB was everything I hoped it would be. If you’re ever out there and need to stop for the night I strongly recommend the Trail City Bed & Breakfast. It’s clean and very attractive, exceedingly well maintained, comfortable, and Lori is a great cook. Plus, it’s dirt cheap.

In the morning we got up to what you see in that photo above. OK, let’s think about this.

First off, you’ll notice that the pavement is only wet. It was windy for sure but the roads appeared clear, and after vacillating all morning I finally said let’s go for it. The weather radar was telling us if we could get east of Garden City we would be out of the snow. Into rain probably, but not snow. And Garden City was only 69 miles away.

We didn’t get that far. We were happy to make it 42 miles to Lakin where we pulled in to the first motel we saw. The wind was blowing like a banshee and the roads were not as clear as they had been in Coolidge. I’ll tell you about that 42 miles in my next post.

We stayed in Lakin three days. We had no choice. We were snowed in and the following day the highway was officially closed.

In the morning we were clearly snowbound. There were eight inches on the ground, it was still coming down hard, and the wind was still blowing like a banshee. Also, the power was out, so there was no heat in the motel. The road was closed because the powerlines had fallen down all along the highway.

Long story short, it was two more days before we could leave. We got east of Garden City and we both immediately noticed that the temperature went up 10 degrees. And there was no snow anywhere to be seen. So if we only could have gotten past there . . .

Initially we figured we would catch up with the group even later, and eventually later stretched to after they had visited the Barber Motorsports Museum–the object of this pilgrimage–and were headed back. But after three days in Lakin we decided to just go on to Wichita and visit a cousin of mine who I hadn’t seen in 60 years. And after that we went down to Oklahoma City and visited a nephew of mine and met his wife for the first time.

Then we spent three days getting back to Denver, playing tourist, stopping at several national park units, and seeing new country. It was a good three days.

Nearing home, we ran into a downpour between Elizabeth and Franktown, suited up, immediately rode out of the rain, started to cook in the rain gear, but then got closer to town and saw dark clouds. Sure enough, the last five miles home was in another downpour. And that was our 10-day trip.

Biker Quote for Today

What if I told you you need to actually ride a motorcycle to be a biker?

Tags:
Posted in motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »