Passes & Canyons Blog

Morning in Alpine, Arizona, and we had to wait for the tow truck to haul Bill’s Harley to Eager, where a shop would put a tube in. We had been told it would be noon but the guy was able to make it by 11, so that was good.

Meanwhile, I took this opportunity to remove the body work from my Concours so as to put my highway peg back on. Taking the body work off is an involved process that I hate but what better time to do it than right now. And it all went smoothly so it was good.

The tow truck arrived and loaded Bill on and we took off for Eager. There, the shop was ready for us and got on it right away but it was still several hours before the job was done. We finally got off from Eager about 3 p.m., and this was our longest day’s ride of the trip. Time to burn some miles.

We headed north on US 191, up to AZ61, which became NM53 when we crossed the state line, and then north to Gallup on NM602. At one point heading up 191 Bruce blasted past us on his ST1300 and in a flash was lost from view up ahead. Cool. What’s up?

Dennis was leading and at the AZ61 intersection he pulled over for a pit stop. Good thing, as it turned out, because he had not understood that we wanted to turn here and it was only after a couple minutes that we noticed Bruce had made the turn and was waiting over there. So we were back together. Turns out Bruce, who hasn’t owned the ST all that long, figured he wanted to see what it could really do and this road was so open and unbusy that he figured let’s go. And go he did. Everybody needs to do that now and then, don’t they?

So we made the turn and made it to Gallup, where we picked up US 491 headed north to Farmington, our destination for the night. This is a long stretch and we just blasted. Dennis was leading again and his GPS told him our best route would be to take 491 as far as Indian Service Route 5 (BIA-5; this is reservation) and then go east to NM371, then north to Farmington.

Dennis almost missed the turn and we found ourselves past the turn with a median preventing us from doing a U-turn and heading south so we waited till there was no traffic and then turned and rode the wrong way down the highway back to the turn. Of course, by the time we got there there was a lot of traffic coming off BIA-5 so I’m sure we looked kind of funny facing that way on that side of the road waiting to be able to turn. But it worked.

By now it was getting toward dusk. We don’t generally ride after dark these days. This was going to be interesting. Dennis was riding hard because he wanted to get to Farmington before the light was too much gone. But hey, sunset in New Mexico is frequently pretty gorgeous and so the ride did have its charms.

It was almost fully dark by the time we pulled into Farmington and we checked in our hotel and immediately went to dinner so as to get to the restaurant before they closed. Finally we can relax. Except that Bill had noticed his bike handling a bit off coming into town, and now especially going to and from dinner. ???

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you move your bike and the grass is brown under the wheels.

I tried to find a used mirror at Steele’s–with no luck–and when I looked on the Concours Owners Group forum to see if anyone was parting a bike out I found one note that said “don’t waste everyone’s time asking for a used mirror, just buy one from Murph’s.” So I did.

By the time the new mirror arrived I had pretty well figured out what I needed to do. First I needed to remove the windshield, which was easily accomplished by removing the screws along its base. Easy enough. Then I needed to remove one screw just inside the base of the windshield, which was now reachable because the windshield was off. Then reach in each of the two pockets in the fairing and take out one screw in each spot. Theoretically the dashboard of the fairing then comes off. In reality, that took some jockeying and trial and error. Plus, I was concerned about getting it back on again. But I managed.

Then it was a simple job to undo the two bolts holding the mirror assembly onto the fairing. And it turned out not to be difficult to put it back together. Could it really be this easy?

No. I now had the new mirror on but it would hardly move. That armature within the accordion boot connecting the mirror to the fairing was supposed to allow the mirror to be moved in and out, up and down, and rotated on its axis. It would not do these things. Now what?

With the old mirror off I could now take it apart and see just how it worked and what had broken. There’s a ball and socket and the socket had been snapped. But you’ll also notice the big nut there holding the two together. I reasoned that if that thing was loosened it would allow the joint to move freely. But how do I get to that nut?

Here’s where logic and common sense come into play. To get inside I had had to first disassemble the mirror housing. There is a deep cup and a thin border piece. I slipped a thin screw driver between the two and popped them apart, then popped the mirror itself out. Now I could remove the bolt that attaches the housing to the armature.

The rubber boot was like a bag with the open end at the mirror side and at the fairing side there were just two holes in the bottom of the bag for the attaching bolts. To get inside I had to come from the mirror side. Peeling back the boot gave me access to the big nut.

This was very good. At first I had thought I might need to take the fairing apart again but when I saw all this it meant I would not need to do that. Phew!

So I loosened that nut a bit and tried flexing the armature. Sure enough, it moved the way it is supposed to. Hooray! Then it was just a matter of reassembling the housing. But that didn’t want to work.

The thin border piece that was supposed to snap onto the deep cup would not hold. Close examination showed that what holds those two pieces together are small tabs on the cup side that a lip on the border side is supposed to slip over. When I had popped the border piece off it apparently had not just slipped over the tabs, it had broken many of them off. Dang.

At this point I was ready to just get it done, so I took some small strips of the Gorilla Tape I had used to temporarily fix the broken mirror and used them to hold the two housing pieces together in strategic spots. Kludgey once again but I can live with it. And now I’ve got two functioning mirrors again.

Biker Quote for Today

No therapy in the world can do what burning a tank of gas, chasing the setting sun can do for you.

From Socorro we did not have a long day’s ride ahead so we took our time leaving. This gave me time to go next door to the Ace Hardware and purchase a steel rod and some Gorilla Tape. With some luck and creativity I hoped to jerry-rig my busted left mirror so it would be at least semi-usable.

As it turned out, there was a small opening in the fairing of just the right size in just the right place to insert the rod. I taped it to the fairing and then lined the mirror up and taped it to the rod. It was ugly but at least functional. Plus, the Gorilla Tape is black so that blended better with the black fairing than some grey duct tape would have. Still, the only position I could get it in was too far out, so to see behind me I had to lean way to the left. If someone was passing me, though, I had a good view of them, so that’s a good thing.

We took off, headed west on US 60 for Alpine, Arizona. Along the way the plan was to stop and visit the Very Large Array (VLA), which is an installation of radio-telescopes just to the south of the highway about 50 miles west of Socorro.

Shortly before reaching the VLA there was a rest area and Dennis blazed ahead of me to make sure we stopped. I hadn’t planned to because we would stopping just ahead but what the heck, we’re in no hurry. Right where we parked there was a smashed watermelon on the ground as well as what must have been more than five pounds of totally black, mushy bananas. ??? This was dubbed the watermelon stop.

We spent about 45 minutes here because there was no hurry and the weather was nice and we had good shade. While here Bruce, who was now on his second day riding with the OFMC, asked why we cruised along so slow, generally about five miles per hour below the speed limit. I replied that in this case at least it was because we weren’t going far and there was no hurry so why go fast? He noted that he had never ridden with any group of bikers who didn’t just blast along as fast as reasonable. Welcome to the OFMC.

It was only about five miles from that rest area to the VLA but we had learned while stopped that it was not currently open to the public. Rats. I really wanted to see the place. It has a whole bunch of disks pointing to the skies and what I’ve heard is that you don’t realize the size until you’re up close to them. Then it’s an oh-my-god moment. So it was good that we stopped at the rest area.

Still, there was a view area along the highway where you could view the array from a distance, so we pulled over. It was interesting from afar but I’m sure it was nothing like walking around right there. And by the way, I see on the web that they just reopened to the public on October 1.

Taking off from here we were ready to roll when Bruce got off his bike and removed his helmet. OK, what’s up? Turns out he left his lights on and apparently was needing a new battery, so that was all it took for the battery to die and the bike not to start. Dang. But Bruce had a jump starter in his gear so he dug that out. Then, being on an ST1300, he had to strip off a bunch of the body work to get to the battery to connect the jumper. He did, got it ready, it fired up instantly, and then he had to put it all back together. But we could roll.

In another 20 miles or so we reached Datil, where US 60 goes northwest while NM12 goes southwest. We stopped for lunch and Bruce made sure to park somewhere where he could roll downhill to start if need be.

Bruce had noticed that up ahead on US 60 the road goes through Pie Town, which is a small place known for what its name implies. Did we want to go that way and stop for pie? Plus, the map showed that on past Pie Town to Quemado there was a road heading south that intersects NM12 to put us back on course. This drew a strong yes but then there was bad news: Pie Town shops were closed on this day of the week. Darn. Back to Plan A.

So we took off and as we headed southwest the sky to the north, where we would have been if we had gone to Pie Town, was turning a very nasty shade of purple. We seemed to have dodged a bullet here.

As we rode along and reached NM32, the road coming down from Quemado, I recognized it as where we had turned north after coming the other direction on our last ride down in these parts. From there we retraced our route from that trip until we reached US 180, which we had taken up from Silver City that day. Now, at that intersection, we would be turning north, getting onto a stretch of road we had never ridden before. And we had managed to avoid rain all this way but now we would be heading right into it. Time to suit up.

We had no doubt we were going to get wet but Bruce remarked that it would be typical if we rode through just a bit of rain and then came out into that bit of blue sky we could see between two mountains. We pooh-poohed that idea but he turned out to be absolutely correct. It was raining when we were ready to ride and it quickly turned to a downpour. And then in just a few miles the rain started tapering off and soon there was no rain at all. Typical.

However. In the midst of the downpour, riding on this canyon road, there had been a large rock in the middle of our lane. A big one, maybe eight inches by five by four. Dennis saw it and steered around it. I saw it and steered around it. Bill only saw it at the last moment and did not steer around it. Big crunch. Big jolt. But he stayed up and all seemed well.

We continued up US 180 to Alpine and found our quarters for the night. As we pulled into the parking lot Bill’s bike was acting really squirrelly and by the time he stopped his front tire was completely flat. Double dang.

It didn’t take long to discover that the rock had bent his rim so that the tire couldn’t hold air. How it had managed to last till he rode 20 miles and got to our destination is a total mystery as well as a miracle. But there was no way he was going to be riding out of here.

Our hosts here at Escudilla Mountain Cabins, Greg and Shelly, did what they could to be helpful. Greg inflated the tire and we thought in the morning we could ride on to the next town and get a tube put in the tire. It went flat so quickly though that clearly that would not work. There was a towing service but they could not be there to pick the bike up till noon the next day. Of course the next day was to be the longest ride of our whole trip.

Later Greg suggested that they had a trailer and maybe Shelly would be willing to tow Bill to Eager, the next town. She had left and wouldn’t be back for awhile but he suggested Bill ask her then. When she was back and Bill asked Shelly seemed a bit put out at Greg for suggesting this because the trailer was way up in the hills and getting it and bringing it to Alpine would not exactly be a short, easy trip. Nope, we were going to be waiting for the tow truck the next day.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you relate more to a dog hanging its head out of a passing car than you do to humans.

After three nights in Espanola the OFMC, now augmented with Bruce, was ready to head out. Once again we weren’t going all that far so I had worked out a more roundabout route that was intended to keep us out of the metro mess of Albuquerque as we headed to Socorro. Going directly down I-25 that would have been only 160 miles. By the time we got there we had ridden about 280 miles.

First off there was no avoiding taking US 285 to Santa Fe and then we at least could avoid that busy town using the NM599 bypass. That brought us to I-25 and here’s where I missed a bet. We could have done a short jog over to NM14 and gone down through towns like Madrid, which is well known as the site of the “Wild Hogs” movie and is a nice route. But no, I had us routed down I-25 to Bernalillo and then east on NM165 so as to run to the east of the Sandia Mountains. Albuquerque is on the west of the hills.

The idea was to take NM165 to the road up to Sandia Crest, a view spot where all of Albuquerque and beyond are laid out below you. The problem was that NM165 is “unpaved and not maintained” from a few miles east of I-25 all the way up to where it meets the Sandia Crest road. We got to where the pavement ended and had to turn back.

That meant we needed to ride down I-25 through Albuquerque and then turn east on I-40 to where we could approach Sandia Crest from the south–a big detour. So we did that and it was exactly the kind of thing you try to avoid but it got us there. We got off I-40 at Tijeras, NM14, and turned north. We then turned west onto NM536 to get up to the crest. Of course, this NM14 is the same one that comes down through Madrid so if I had looked at the map a little harder this could have been our route all along. But oh man, if only NM165 was paved I’m sure we would have loved it. If only I’d known it wasn’t paved.

Sandia Crest is a place you really ought to go. The road is terrific, very twisty and full of great views and then there’s the crest. The signs say the city is a mile below you and yes it is spectacular.

We headed back down and retraced our route to Tijeras and then crossed I-40 to continue south along the eastern side of that next row of hills that run south of the Sandias. This is NM337 and it curves its way up some hills, down through some canyons, and is just generally a very good road to ride. Highly recommended.

NM337 runs a long way down until it hits a T intersection with NM55. We turned west and followed NM55 all the way down to Mountainair, through which US 60 passes. Along the way we felt it wise to stop in Tajique at Ray’s One Stop gas and convenience store for gas. I had intended for us to fill up in Tijeras but there was no gas there. So, as Bill noted, we paid probably the highest price for gas in all of New Mexico at Ray’s just to play it safe.

We made it down to Mountainair and turned west on US 60. This was a pretty nice road for a ways but eventually became an arrow-straight run toward I-25. As we headed that way we could see the sky getting threatening. We needed to reach I-25 and take it just a few miles south to Socorro, but as we got nearer it looked for all the world like Socorro was at that moment getting clobbered in a downpour.

Up ahead it didn’t look a lot better. My thinking at that time was to get to the interstate and take shelter in a gas station. Bruce had other ideas. He looked at that wall of water ahead and pulled off to suit up. Dennis did the same. Bill and I rode on until the drops started falling. We were not going to make it to the highway. Dennis and Bruce caught up with us as we suited up and by the time we were rolling the sky had opened up. We rode through a deluge and when we reached I-25 there was no gas station, no buildings at all. So we pulled over in the underpass beneath the highway.

After a while the guys were thinking that it was time to ride. I thought they were a bit premature but didn’t say anything and we took off. They were right. The rain was barely coming down and soon stopped entirely. Then it was just a few miles to Socorro and we found our motel for the night. A long day but a good day.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you don’t ride in the rain.

I dropped the Concours and busted the left mirror when we were in Angel Fire so I’ve been looking to get that fixed.

I checked online and a replacement is available from about $95 to $150, depending on if its new or used and who you buy it from. I wondered if I could get a better price from a salvage yard. Time to check with Steele’s. They have a website and on the site they tell you you can send them a message asking if they have what you need. I tried that but after no reply over a week I just got on the CB750 and rode on over there.

First I checked in at the front desk and the guy checked in their computer to see if they had one listed in there. No. So he told me I could go look around the yard myself. He told me not to just take something off one of the wrecks, but to shoot a photo and come back to them and they’d decide who should do what.

I don’t know if you’ve ever walked around in a motorcycle salvage yard but it’s kind of like a fantasy land. In fact, after I’d looked at what they had out front and didn’t find anything I was about to leave when another employee asked me if I’d checked in. Yes I had, but I didn’t find anything. Oh, there’s more, he said. It goes all the way around the building. “Have fun.” So I went and looked further.

I did find three Concourses but they were all in almost totally stripped-down shape. No mirrors, except on one. And these were not the stock mirrors, they were clearly aftermarket. This suggested to me that busting a mirror was not all that uncommon, and some people opted not to replace with stock.

Around back I found shopping cart after shopping cart filled with assorted side panels. Many years ago I did lose one side panel off my Honda but I found a replacement. Still, it is from a different year so it doesn’t actually match, even though it fits. I figured if I came across the real thing I would at least ask what they wanted for it. No dice. Lots and lots of side panels but not the one I want.

Different parts of the yard were devoted to different things. In one section there were lots and lots of wheels. There were great numbers of stripped frames. And there were all kinds of bikes in all kinds of condition just in pieces everywhere you looked.

There were also the proverbial junkyard dogs, although during business hours I guess these guys are friendly enough. They were rough-housing so hard and so obliviously that twice they crashed right into me as they chased each other around, having a ball.

I didn’t find anything. I’ll have to get something online. But it was worth the run over there.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than women: If your motorcycle doesn’t look good, you can paint it or get better parts.

The OFMC has discovered that it is nice spend more than one night in a place. First we started staying two nights and playing golf the non-travel day. Then we found it was nice to spend three nights and play golf one day and do a day ride the other. This is what we continue to do.

So we got to Espanola and settled in for three nights. Our first full day there was the golf day. You might not guess it but they have an extremely nice municipal course there. We had a good day.

The next day was time for a day ride. I had a thought in mind but wondered about a connection I only hoped might exist.

The idea was first to go north on the High Road to Taos, which we had planned to ride but took a wrong turn two days earlier. No getting on the wrong road this time. So up the High Road to the south end of Taos, then east on US 64 over to Angel Fire, then south on NM434 all the way down to the little town of Mora. My question: might there be a road connecting Mora back to Espanola so that we would not need to go all the way down to Las Vegas and then take I-25 around to Santa Fe before completing the loop back to Espanola?

Yes there is. Nice!

The road you hit at Mora is NM518 and if you go west out of Mora it brings you back to the High Road at Penasco. That leaves you backtracking on the High Road from Penasco back to Espanola but that’s fine. So our route was set.

We headed up the High Road (NM76) and just before we got to Truchas I spotted something I had been thinking about: a cemetery with a motorcycle-themed grave marker. I had seen this marker as we rode past years ago and really wanted to stop and shoot some pictures but I was with the group and it’s just not easy to decide to halt the entire group so you can shoot a picture. So with deep regrets I rode on past. This time I was determined to stop, and we did. That’s that picture up above.

We continued on our route, to Taos, then over to Angel Fire, and I pulled into a tourist information center so we could have a pit stop. When we were leaving I needed to either roll back or I could pull forward and do a U-turn. I’m a pretty competent rider so I figured I’d just do the U-turn. Bad choice.

It was a tight turn and I dropped the bike. Dang, I hate when I do that!! I suffered some inconsequential bruises, and two weeks later I still have a knot below my right knee where I believe my leg hit the end of the handle bar on my way over, but basically I was OK. Can’t say the same for the bike. The left mirror was busted so it just hung limply to the side, as you can see below.

So we headed on south out of Angel Fire. The last time we had ridden down NM434 it was this tiny little road, not even two full lanes wide in many spots. Back then they were doing some “improvements” but it was a really sweet little road that I wished could just stay as is. Nope. Now they are engaged in fully expanding it into a full-blown two-lane highway, complete with shoulders. This means carving big chunks out of the hillside and things like that. So sad.

It also means we got stopped for nearly half an hour by construction. During that time we were joined by a young guy on an Aprilia who was on a lengthy tour alone. To say his bike was in rough shape would be putting it mildly. But he was out there loving it and we all wished him a great trip. Then another guy on a Gold Wing came up. When they let us go the two of them took off ahead of us and within seconds they were out of sight and we never saw them again.

We got to Mora and it was time for lunch. We sat on the patio at this place and also on the patio were two people who obviously belonged to the two bikes we had seen in the parking lot. They were an older couple and the really odd thing was that the guy ate his entire meal without taking off his helmet. And this was not a half helmet. Bizarre.

We watched them as they left and the guy loaded their two little dogs into a carrier that he strapped onto his passenger seat and the woman got on her bike, putting on a helmet but otherwise in shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers. Away they went. To each his own.

We headed west on NM518 and were just getting out of town when we saw a blockade up ahead. The New Mexico State Patrol was conducting a stop-all drunken driver check. The lady trooper asked me nicely if I’d been drinking, I said no, and she smiled and said “Have a nice day.” I had been stopped at a similar blockade in New Mexico years ago and it had been really creepy with a bunch of dudes skulking all around my car, peering in the windows to see if they could see anything to harass me about. Maybe this kind of stop is just something New Mexico does.

On we went and this was a very nice road, except that it clearly had been the scene of a forest fire not long ago. But it was a really nice road and a road we had never been on before so that made it really cool.

Just a little ways before we got back to Penasco to rejoin the High Road and started backtracking I kicked my right leg up to rest it on my highway peg . . . and the peg fell away out of sight. What the heck?

I couldn’t stop right there but as soon as I found a space where three bikes could pull off I did. Miraculously, my highway peg was hanging suspended from the fairing and it hadn’t even lost the bolt or washer. Apparently the last time my mechanic had had to remove it to work on the bike he had not tightened it securely. Or maybe he has never removed it and it just worked loose after all these years. Either way, it truly was a miracle that I didn’t lose it or the bolt and washer. But putting it back on would be a hassle because that would entail removing the body work. Not something to be done on the spot.

We made it back to Espanola much later than originally expected and by that time the fourth and final member of our party had arrived. Bruce is someone I have met through the RMMRC and I had invited him along on this trip. The three of us had agreed long ago that four would be a better number than three so we were glad to have Bruce join us. Welcome to the group.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you feel like every car is out to get you.

On our second day of the OFMC trip we were looking at a short ride, just 96 miles south on US 285 from Alamosa to Espanola, New Mexico. That was just not going to happen.

So we headed east on US 160 to Fort Garland and then turned south on CO159. Besides being more scenic, it was a much less busy road and it led us down to even more good riding. I had suggested we go down to Questa, in New Mexico, on what became NM522 when we crossed the state line, and then go east around the mountain to Red River, Eagle Nest, Angel Fire, and west to pick up the High Road to Taos, which goes to Espanola. That was a bit more riding than Bill wanted so we nixed that but did continue on 522 to Taos, where we intended to catch the High Road.

But things got interesting before that happened. Looking at the map I saw that if we took a right turn onto US 64 where it intersects 522, and then very quickly take a left onto what I now see listed as Blueberry Hill Road, we could bypass Taos entirely. We’ve been to Taos plenty of times and we know the traffic it entails. Plus, there were signs warning of road construction in Taos, so all the more reason to bypass.

And Blueberry Hill Road was really nice. It follows the ridge line through a very pretty area and at the southern end ties into NM240, which continues on down to NM68. Sweet road. Terrific to completely avoid Taos.

At NM68 I was set to go left when Dennis pulled up next to me and told me his GPS said go right to get to Espanola. Because of some unexpected turns in the road I was not totally sure of our location so I figured to trust his GPS. It turned out this road did indeed go to Espanola but it was not the High Road.

What it was was a road we had never ridden before. So with Blueberry Hill Road this was two new roads for us in one day. And it was a nice road, too. It runs through a gorge on the Rio Grande much of the way and then the terrain opens out into a valley with a lot of wineries. And then it does get down to Espanola and is considerably shorter than the High Road.

We still got into Espanola way too early and had to wait about three hours before we could even check into our hotel. Imagine if we’d gone straight down US 285! But now we were set for the next three days because this was our customary gambling and golf stop that we always make on this trip.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if your leathers still have creases.

It was a very auspicious beginning to this year’s OFMC trip. The day before the temperature had hit 100, but this morning it was about 60 and I put on a couple extra layers, and was glad I did.

We planned to meet up in Conifer so I headed out of town on US 285. Over the foothills there were clouds that seemed to promise rain right off the bat. I was ready to stop at any moment to put on rain gear but the drops never fell. Then, as I came down the hill into Conifer it was suddenly sunshine and blue sky, with not a single cloud ahead of me in the west. Sweet!

Bill and Dennis were there and we quickly got rolling. On out 285, over Kenosha Pass and down to Fairplay. West of Fairplay they’re replacing a bridge, so a detour sends everyone south on CO9 to Hartsel, where we turned onto US 24 and then west to Antero Junction to rejoin 285.

Then it was 285 nearly all the way. Through Buena Vista, Poncha Springs (with a stop at Bill’s daughter Jenna’s), over Poncha Pass, and down to CO17, which goes straight to Alamosa whereas 285 gets there but only by detouring over to Saguache and Monte Vista.

All in all an easy-going day with great weather and no problems or surprises.

Really, it’s such a different feel on the first day out on a trip vs. taking a day ride. There’s an energy and an anticipation you just don’t have on a day ride. We’re off!! We’re out for a week! Yahoo! And if the heavens are smiling on you, so much the better.

Biker Quote for Today

“On a motorcycle, you can’t really think about more than where you are. There’s a freedom that comes with that – from stress, worry, sweating the small stuff.” ? Laurence Fishburne