Passes & Canyons Blog

We were heading down Golden Gate Canyon Sunday when, at some point, we got intertwined with a guy on a bicycle. Dennis was leading, with Janice behind him, followed by Bill, then Jason, then me. The first three passed the bicyclist but the road was twisty and Janice is the least expert rider among us, so she set the pace.

The guy on the bike kept right up with us.

On some of the slower corners it almost looked like he might slip past Bill but didn’t. He was definitely close behind Bill and Jason saw little room to get past him.

Then the road opened up a little and Jason did blast past. And then the guy on the bike was hanging close behind Jason, at times making me wonder if he would pass Jason. I had little doubt that we were in fact slowing him down but again when the road opened up and the motorcycles sped up, rather than affording me a chance to pass the bicycle, that guy sped up and stuck close to Jason’s tail. We were definitely slowing him down.

I figured there was no point–not to mention little opportunity–for me to pass the bicycle so I laid back and gave him plenty of space. He saw this and starting using the full lane rather than sticking to the side of the road. I’m betting he was pleased about that. He would look back periodically to be sure I was still giving him space, and I was, so he enjoyed the use of the full lane all the rest of the way down the canyon.

Welcome to the gang, buddy. Nice riding with you.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when grabbing a burger takes all day.

The OFMC has grown and then shrunk. We started out as three and we are three again. One of the guys who rode with us for many years was Jason, Bill’s son, but he had young kids and gave up riding, doing the dad thing.

Well, Jason is back. For one things, his kids are older, and both boys are now taller than he is. But more importantly, his former boss gave him his Harley. Sort of.

It’s not an altogether happy story. Jason worked for this guy, Don, and Don treated Jason like a son. Recently Don died. Don’s widow gave the bike to Jason. This is a 2014 Harley Road Glide and to make it official Jason paid one dollar for it and has a bill of sale and the title.

Not that he’s going to start coming on the OFMC trips again, at least yet. He still has limited vacation time and finds it hard family-wise to give over one whole week to the bike trip. But he’ll once again be joining us on day rides, such as the one we did Sunday.

It wasn’t all that much of a ride. As far as I can tell, most of Bill’s riding other than the annual trip is from his place on the west side of town up to Black Hawk to a casino or two for lunch and some gambling. I wasn’t sure what the plan was on Sunday but that turned out to be it. So we gathered, as we do, at the Starbucks near Bill and headed on up Clear Creek Canyon.

We got to Black Hawk but kept going to Central City because Bill had heard that he Century Casino up there was open. That turned out to be incorrect. That didn’t altogether disappoint me because I’ve been laying low pretty much and if there is only one casino open, how likely is it to be packed? Once they all open up it will be different.

Still, things are opening up and people are being less cautious. In our group it was really four members of a family and me. There was Bill, his son Jason, his sister Janice, and Janice’s husband Dennis. They were not socially distancing at all between themselves and my uncertainty resolved immediately when Jason reached out to shake my hand. That was the first hand shake I’ve had in a long time but I hadn’t seen Jason in several years. He extended his hand and I took it.

This ties in with my evolving concept of social distancing. I’m figuring that going forward we need to not unnecessarily expose ourselves to potential infection but in this case it was a group who see each other regularly and who know that none in the group has been sick. Plus, if one of us does get sick we will know to inform the others so they can get tested. It’s not that way with strangers.

The point here, too, is that we’re still planning the 2020 OFMC trip, in about six weeks, and there is no way I’m going to be distanced from Bill and Dennis for this whole trip.

So anyway, with the casino closed we noticed that another one, Dostal Alley, was open in the back serving food and drinks at tables set up in the parking lot. We had lunch. Then we headed up the Peak to Peak to the Golden Gate Canyon road and headed back down. Great day for a ride. Nice to ride with Jason again.

Biker Quote for Today

Why motorcycles are better than men: Motorcycles don’t grow huge beer bellies.

When I got my first bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, my friend John, who had ridden motorcycles off and on his whole life, gave me a bit of advice: Don’t use the front brake or you’ll go flying over the handlebars.

I was a novice so I believed him but after awhile I learned better. In case anyone out there still believes this you should know that more than half of your braking ability comes from your front brake. Not to use it is absurd. If you shouldn’t use it, why do they put one on the bike?

Sure, you have to use it properly. You don’t want to use it hard on loose gravel because that’s a sure way to go down. I learned that on my own. And then I relearned it. On some bikes you have to use that front brake very judiciously. I was test riding a KTM 1190 Adventure some years ago and that thing had such a terrific front brake that if you were going fast and hit it hard you very well could go over the handlebars. The KTM guys warned us before we went out about not hitting that brake too hard.

But do use the front brake; that’s what it’s there for.

Another practice I had to unlearn was the way I was leaning my bike on curves. Nowadays, for fun, I lean way off the bike even on easy curves just to see how upright I can keep the bike through the curve. But early on, I found it very comfortable to lean the bike way over while I continued sitting pretty much upright. A totally bad idea.

Somewhere along the way I learned about traction and how the more the bike is leaned, the more available traction is used. And the more it is used, the less you have left in case you need to lean even further.

So what do you do? You lean your body to the inside of the curve, out away from the bike, to counterbalance so the bike can be kept as upright as possible. When those racers lean so far out that their knees are gliding along the track surface on their knee pucks it’s pretty clear that their bikes are leaned over really far, too. But think what would happen if they didn’t have the benefit of their counterbalancing lean. Can you say low-side?

There must be other bad practices that I have learned to overcome, although those are the two that come readily to mind. Anyone out there have any of their own to offer?

Biker Quote for Today

Learn to do counter-intuitive things that may some day save your butt.

I feel like I beat the same dead horse almost every year when I do this post promoting Ride to Work Day. Nobody cares. And yet, I have always thought it was a great idea.

You know, why not, once a year, have a day when everyone who rides motorcycles rides to work or wherever, just to show our numbers to the rest of the world? This year that day is Monday, June 15. A week from now.

For one, think of the shock to the non-riding public to see just how many bikes and riders there are. And if that strikes them then it is at least possible that they will think to themselves, “gosh, there are lots of motorcycles out there, maybe I ought to pay a little more attention when I change lanes to be sure there isn’t one in my blind spot.”

Or, as the official ride to work people say on their site:

Ride your motorcycle or scooter on this day to demonstrate:

• The number of motorcyclists to the general public and to politicians.
• That motorcyclists are from all occupations and all walks of life.
• That motorcyclists can reduce traffic and parking congestion in large cities.
• That motorcycles are for transportation as well as recreation.
• That motorcycling is a social good.

Come on–do it this year. I’ll be out riding somewhere. Join me.

Oh, and a quick, unrelated aside: did you experience that extreme weather that swept through on Saturday? I was at home and I looked at the sky and decided I should cover the bedding plants we had just bought and barely 30 seconds after I did the sky opened up with winds that the weather service said exceeded 80 mph and hail came pounding down. Then it blew right on past in about three minutes.

Can you imagine if you had been on your bike when that hit? If you didn’t get blown over the whole thing would have gone past before you even found a sheltered place to pull over. It was crazy.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker when you know what a grasshopper feels like at 100 miles per hour.

Have you ever seen someone on a motorcycle go down? I only have once, and it was a minor get-off, but it’s an amazing thing to witness.

What’s amazing about it is how quickly it happens. My buddy John and I were up in Laramie, it was late at night, and we were headed back to our motel. We cruised down the main street till we reached the corner to go left to the motel, John in the lead. He started to turn but hit some gravel and he went DOWN! I mean, right NOW! Instantly. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

You might think when something like that happens that you’ll have a moment to react, either to try to keep the bike up or to at least think about getting your leg out of the way so the bike doesn’t come down on it. Forget it. This was literally blink-of-an-eye fast.

Now fortunately, John wasn’t hurt badly. He just had a little road rash on his butt and he broke the windshield on his bike. He was just as amazed as I was.

I was talking about this sort of thing awhile back with Zigy Kaluzny, whose world travels I’ve written about a couple times here. His experience has been the same. As he put it, “There’s no transition. I’ve been down twice. There’s no transition. It’s just astonishing. In Italy once I was cranked over, going around a turn, a nice turn, probably going 55, 60, I don’t know. And next thing I know I’m sliding down the road on my back and I’m watching the motorcycle slide along with me, with the footpegs sparking everywhere.”

Zigy, of course is very much an ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time) kind of guy and he was fine.

“The bike was fine. I got up and rode. It freaked me out for a long time.”

Freaked him out, huh? Well yes, I guess. I don’t know how you have the courage to get back on that thing and just ride off after something like that happens. Fortunately I’ve never had that experience.

And it can happen at slow speeds just as easily as when you’re going fast. Zigy also told me about one time when his wife at that time went down.

“We were coming up to a stop sign. She wanted to move over to my other side, and as she crossed a line of some sand or gravel in the middle, she crossed the gravel and touched the brake and of course she was down in a heartbeat. Luckily I had bought her a pair of armored Dainese pants in Italy. I heard that crack as her helmet hit the ground, and she was fine.”

There’s a saying among motorcyclists, at least those who don’t think of themselves as immortal, that “You dress for the crash, not the ride.” Once you see a rider go down you know exactly what that means.

Biker Quote for Today

Top 10 signs that a computer is owned by a Harley rider: 08. There’s an oil stain on the floor just below the computer.

As a casualty of the Covid-19 disruption the Colorado legislature was recessed and, now back in session, is killing bills wholesale so as to focus solely on those must-pass bills such as the state budget.

One casualty of this mass slaughter is SB-65, which would have made it illegal for drivers to operate cellphones or other electronic equipment while driving unless they were using a hands-free device. The bill had passed the Senate but did not make it through the House. Maybe next year.

Unfortunately, the bill to extend the MOST program is among those being pushed forward. The bad news and the bad news–there is no good news in this area.

But wait, there’s more. At the national level, the highway bill has had language proposed that would boost states that have mandatory helmet laws for riders under 18. Here is what the Motorcycle Riders Foundation has to say about this.

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) was alerted by our contacts in the U.S. Senate regarding a proposed change to the dedicated 405 Motorcycle Safety funds in the National Priority Safety Programs that is authorized through the Highway Bill. The proposed change to this program would add another criteria for states to qualify for motorcycle safety funds. In order to qualify, states have to meet two of the six current criteria. In addition to the current criteria, the additional qualifying area would add a category for states that have a mandatory helmet law for anyone under the age of 18. While meeting the under 18 helmet law is not mandatory to receive these funds, we at the MRF oppose any such change. We cannot allow any amount of erosion of our rights on this issue. The MRF is adamantly opposed to any federal law that would require the use of a helmet, apparel or conspicuity standard.

I guess we’ll see what happens there.

Biker Quote for Today

Top 10 signs that a computer is owned by a Harley rider: 09. System sound effects now play a Harley kicking over when a program starts.

There were ten of us on nine bikes heading out on an RMMRC lunch ride Thursday–the first lunch ride in a long time. And we went at least some places I had never been before. That’s amazing.

We met out at Morrison and headed up along Bear Creek to Evergreen. From there we turned west on CO 73 toward Conifer, but stopped for lunch at the Marshdale Store. This place is at the spot where 73 intersects Turkey Creek Road. It’s a convenience store/gas station and they serve food. There are picnic tables out back in the shade where you can be outside and maintain a distance, which we did.

As an aside, I have to say it’s a bit disconcerting being outside Denver lately. In Denver, any place you go into you must wear a mask. But you get outside the city and very few people are wearing masks. At the Marshdale Store the employees had masks and we all did but almost none of the other customers did.

Anyway, we continued to Conifer and caught US 285 west to Pine Junction and headed south on Pine Valley Road, through Pine to Buffalo Creek, where we turned left (east) onto SW Platte Valley Road, which runs along the Platte. If you stay on this road it turns to gravel and continues along the river but we turned north again on Foxton Road. I know this comes out at 285 just a little west of Conifer. But I knew we weren’t doing that, so I was puzzled. Something about a right turn somewhere.

Well, that right turn is there in that Google Maps aerial photo above, bottom left, just beyond the “S Foxton Rd” identifier. The place where you turn in Running Deer Road and you then make a quick left onto Black Bear Lane, which connects you to Broken Arrow Drive, which you stay on the rest of the way.

We wound our way through this area–which was very, very pretty, with some nice views–and came out onto Pleasant Park Road, there in the upper right quadrant. I had no idea this connection existed.

I had been on Pleasant Park Road numerous times, and I knew it ran from near Conifer down to where it ends at Deer Creek Canyon Road, having become Deer Creek Road along the way. But I had no idea you could turn off Pleasant Park and work your way down to the river. This was a nice ride.

On Deer Creek Canyon Road, of course, you come out at Wadsworth on the west side of Chatfield Reservoir. Then it was time to start scattering as everyone peeled off toward their homes. What a nice day for a lunch ride in the hills. How nice to even be able to do a lunch ride again.

Biker Quote for Today

We know you’re a poser if you only ride on weekends, when you can.

The RMMRC was planning a ride over Guanella Pass last week and I was very much inclined to go. But the day was extremely windy and that dampened my enthusiasm. I’ve been out on days when it was windy in town, and when I got to the high country, especially above timber line, it was howling. That’s not my idea of fun, and I ended up not going.

Well, I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to anyone who did go but the next day I read in the Denver Post that Guanella was not open yet. OK. Did they find that out when they got to Grant? Or when they got near the top? Or did they get over despite it being officially closed? I’m curious to find out.

This tied in very conveniently with a post I was already planning, which was to check out the status of all of the larger Colorado roads that close in winter. Here’s what CDOT, the Colorado Department of Transportation, has to say.

Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park is closed for the season and will remain closed until further notice due to ongoing Covid-19 concerns. To hear updated road status please call the Trail Ridge Status Line at 970-586-1222.

Independence Pass. Closed for the season. (OK, does that mean it closed last fall and is not yet open? Are they not going to open it at all this year? I find that doubtful. CDOT could be more helpful here. But the Post article said it will open on June 1.)

Cottonwood Pass. Same. The Denver Post also says this will open on June 1.

Guanella Pass. Same. The Post says to be opened at a date to be determined.

Mount Evans Highway. To be determined.

Pikes Peak. Is expected to be open to the top as of June 1.

So the bottom line here is, check before you go. Don’t count on things opening up at the time they usually do. But I tell you, once it does open I really want to do Cottonwood Pass. They finally got it paved all the way last year and I have not been on it since they were done. This is number one on my list.

Biker Quote for Today

If the countryside seems boring, stop, get off your bike, and go sit in the ditch long enough to appreciate what was here before the asphalt came.