Passes & Canyons Blog

Wednesday seemed like it would be a great day to ride, so Roy planned a fall color RMMRC ride up the Peak-to-Peak. As I headed out, though, going west on Hampden, I couldn’t even see the foothills. Either I was heading into a serious rainstorm or a ginormous cloud of smoke.

I assumed it was smoke from the forest fires, and counted on that because I did not have my rain gear with me. As I got further west I started smelling the smoke, so that question was answered.

As I approached C-470 I could see that the smoke was much much thicker to the north, where I still couldn’t see the foothills, versus the south where I could see the hills. Not good, considering that we were heading north.

When I got to the meeting place I immediately asked Roy if he had a Plan B. He said of course he did, but he apparently didn’t hear the “B” portion because he proceeded to detail the route originally set. That is, he definitely had a plan. Not a Plan B. I asked about the smoke but he didn’t think it was of any concern.

We headed up the Golden Gate Canyon road and I wondered if, as we got higher, the smoke would either clear or perhaps the wind would be blowing up there and chasing it away. In the meantime, it was killing my sinuses and I coughed constantly.

Up on the Peak-to-Peak it was better than down below but not good. But it wasn’t terrible. We headed north and whenever we came to places where we went down, such as coming into Rollinsville and Nederland, you could see the denser smoke in the lower areas and you could sure smell it as we came down.

Just past the turn-off to Ward we turned left to go up into Brainard Lake Recreation Area, our destination. I was a little surprised but the fact is I had never been there. It’s a really nice ride up to the lake and very pretty once you get up there. More importantly, we really seemed to finally shed the smoke as we climbed this little bit higher.

So we got up there and had the lunches we had brought and the sky was blue and sunny and it was beautiful. How nice. You couldn’t have asked for better. And the place was busy. Don’t all these people have jobs to go to? Apparently not. We didn’t.

Heading down it was startling how quickly we hit smoke again. We hadn’t even made it back to the ranger building where you pay your entry fee when it started looking and smelling smoky. And then by the time we were back down to the Peak-to-Peak we were right back in it.

From there we scattered. There are so many ways to get down from there. Some of us went down through Ward through Left Hand Canyon. Others headed for Coal Creek Canyon. Others, who knows?

Riding down Left Hand Canyon I realized I had only been this way a few times, not like the dozens or hundreds of times I’ve ridden the other canyons coming up to the Peak-to-Peak. It’s a nice ride and I realized I ought to be adding this canyon to my “The Peak-to-Peak Highway and Adjoining Canyons” page. Something else to add to my to-do list.

Biker Quote for Today

Top 10 signs that a computer is owned by a Harley rider: 02. — The keyboard is mounted at the level of the user’s chin and his seat tilts backward — ape-hanger keyboard!

I was riding with the RMMRC recently and there was a new guy on his first ride with the group. I didn’t catch his name. What I did catch was that he had a throttle lock I’d never seen before.

Of course, the large percentage of modern touring bikes come with cruise control built in. Cruise control is superior to a throttle lock because you set the speed and the engine revs more going up hills and less going down so you stay a constant speed. With a throttle lock, unless you adjust it, you’ll slow down going up and speed up going down.

Plus, in my experience, they have a tendency to slip so you periodically have to adjust them.

And I do have extensive experience here. I have throttle locks on all three of my bikes. Two of them are the type that clip on the bar and to set it you snap it shut. With a flange braced against the box that houses your kill switch and starter button it stays in place and keeps the throttle from backing off.

The other kind, which I have on the V-Strom, is just a lever that rotates when you turn the throttle. To set it you push it forward with your thumb so when you release the throttle it rests against the brake lever, blocking the throttle from backing off.

The first kind, which I have on the CB750 and the Concours, works best. It can slip but you can tighten it. Still, I’ve never been able to get it set on the Concours so it doesn’t slip. The second kind would probably work best if it tightly grabbed the bar but at least on my V-Strom it does not. So it slips a lot and there is no adjustment. Basically I have to speed up more than I really want, set it, and then I have a short time to relax my grip before I have to do it again.

So I was very interested in this throttle lock on this Honda ST. It is made by Kaoko and it’s more expensive than the others: about $130 versus $15 to $20. What the guy told me is that he had to take the weight off the end of the bar and then jam the coned end inside the plastic tube that allows your throttle to rotate on the bar. Then to use it you push the knob forward and set the throttle where you want it. Then let go.

How well does it work? He didn’t say a lot about that but he sure didn’t complain about it. If you ask me about my throttle locks I’ll tell you about their deficiencies and well as their benefits.

So will I try one? Oh, maybe, but spending $130 on something that might not be better than what I have is a hard choice to make. What I would really like would be if the company offered to either give me one or let me try one so I can then test it and write about it. That’s how I get a lot of my gear. But if I do end up with one, one way or the another, you can bet I’ll be telling you about it here.

Biker Quote for Today

If I was a motorcycle, a Vincent red Rapide, I’d ride around to your house, baby, get you up to speed. — Mark Knopfler

A lot of motorcyclists insist on keeping their bikes spotless. I am not one of those. I figure that I can spend hours cleaning a bike and then go for a ride and get in some rain and by the time I get home it’s filthy again.

No, I just try to make a point to clean each of my bikes at least once every few years. I’d rather just spend that time riding.

But it had been a few years so I’ve done some cleaning recently. I had Joel give my Concours a complete tune-up while he had the bike to put on a new front tire. After I got it back I figured what the heck, if I’m doing all that I might as well clean it. So I did. Looks nice.

That got me going. Next I decided I ought to clean the Honda. I had to admit, it was pretty dang dirty even by my standards. Plus, Joel was going to be working on it because I had had an issue with the fuel line. I figured he might appreciate working on a cleaner bike.

So I dove in. That was when I noticed the right front fork tube was spectacularly dirty, and the left tube was not. Uh oh, this looks like a failed fork seal. Who knows how long it would have been before I noticed this if I hadn’t started cleaning.

Of course it’s a good thing to notice it. And the timing was good. I just added it to the list of things for Joel to work on. So now it’s the fork seals, the fuel line, and I’m having Joel do a tune-up on this bike, too. Lord knows how long it’s been since it had one.

Considering how filthy this bike was, I’m sure Joel is glad I cleaned it.

And I have this consolation: it took a long time for that bike to get that dirty. It won’t be anywhere near that dirty again any time soon. Yahoo! Let’s go ride.

Biker Quote for Today

Reasons not to date a motorcyclist: One bike is fine, but five bikes are better.

Sometimes free is too expensive. I was given a brand new top bag to put on my 1999 Kawasaki Concours and I was tickled. I’ve seen bags on other Concourses so I know it can be done but now I’m scratching my head wondering how.

For starters, the bag has no hardware for attaching to a Concours. It does have the parts to attach to a rack but the Connie has no rack. Here’s the bag in question. Note that it has absolutely no brand identification either on the bag itself or on the one page instruction set.

I went digging through the forum on the Concours Owners Group (COG) website, figuring there couldn’t be any better place to start my search. I didn’t find much there but I did find several posts from guys who said they had to fabricate the brackets they used to mount their bags. That’s not encouraging.

I was handing my Honda CB750 Custom over to Joel, my mechanic, for some work so I asked him if fabricating a bracket was something he could do. He was pretty skeptical but said he knew someone with a Concours with a top bag. He didn’t volunteer to contact that person but I told him if he found a moment to do so I’d sure appreciate it. We’ll see if that goes anywhere.

So I scoured the internet. I did find a bracket that said it would fit a Concours 1000 and looking at it I thought, wow, that would work. It had a couple angled flanges with holes drilled through and I figured that would fit right over the bracket that holds the passenger backrest on. So I ordered one.

Then my brain kicked in as it should have done earlier. Hold it, I thought, if that was going to fit my bike the widest section would have to go around the back of the seat with the drilled flanges just inside the bar. These come way inside and the two closest holes are only 7.5 centimeters apart. I took a tape measure and found that to fit the backrest bracket the wider set would need to be 31.75 cm and the narrower would need to be 29 cm apart. Heck, the full width of this bracket is shown as only 29.5 cm. This picture below shows the brackets holding the backrest on. How do they get off saying this will fit a Concours?

So I went to cancel the order. It was only 10 minutes since I had placed the order and all I got was a message that Ebay (this was where I had found it) would contact the seller and see if it was possible for them to cancel. I’ll know within three days, they said. Boy, if they can’t cancel the order 10 minutes after it has been placed that’s going to seem pretty bogus.

So this is a dilemma. I’ve got this nice bag and I’ve wanted one for a long time, but how do I mount the dang thing? If I come up with an answer I’ll let you know. If you have any suggestions I would welcome them very much. Thanks.

Biker Quote for Today

We know you’re a poser if your tattoos wash off.

After rejoining U.S. 285 just near Conifer (see part one, “The Hills Are Full Of People“) we only stayed on it going west long enough to get off again just past Conifer at CO 73, which runs from Conifer north to Evergreen. After just a few miles we turned west on Shadow Mountain Drive, which is Jefferson County Road 78.

Now, I had been on that stretch between Conifer and Evergreen any number of times, and I had seen that turn-off and wondered where it went. I had it in the back of my mind to find out some day; well, today was that day.

Turns out this is a really nice road. It goes up, winds around a lot, and eventually comes out at Evergreen, although by the time it does it has morphed into Black Mountain Drive and then Black Forest Road. It rejoins CO 73 less than a mile from where you hit downtown Evergreen. And just as so many other roads we traveled this day, it demonstrated just how full of homes and people these hills are. So now I know.

At Evergreen we got on Evergreen Parkway north just a short way and then turned west on Stagecoach Boulevard. This winds its way up through the canyons, eventually reaching Witter Gulch Road. This is a very nice road that runs very steeply, with a lot of switchbacks, up to meet the Squaw Pass Road, CO 103.

I had only ever been on this road once before, on a different RMMRC ride, and that time we were going down. This time we were headed up, so it was very different. If you like tight twisties you need to go ride this road.

Here we turned east again, back down to where Squaw Pass Road meets Evergreen Parkway. Then we turned north.

In about two miles, going past Bergen Park, we came to Jefferson County Road 23, Kerr Gulch Road. This is the kind of road you’ll drive past forever without really even noticing. The only marking is a small sign that reads CR 23–there’s no indication where it goes.

Once again, this is a good road, not busy, quite scenic and it runs down to Kittredge, on Bear Creek Road, which runs up from Morrison to Evergreen. Who knew this was here? You’re even less likely to notice this road down at the Kittredge end. It’s a little east of the main part of town and looks just like any of the other roads that run off into the hills to the homes around there. For anyone heading up Bear Creek, looking to get over eventually to I-70, this is a terrific short-cut. But who even knew it was there? I sure didn’t.

From Kittredge we turned east toward town, and once we emerged from the canyon at Morrison it was time for everyone to split up and head their own ways home. This was a heck of fun day’s ride.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if anyone who doesn’t ride is just ‘OK.’

Kudos to Bob for planning and leading an RMMRC ride that went well off the beaten track and introduced me to roads close to town that I had never known existed. One over-riding aspect of this route was the demonstration of just how fully built out the hills west of Denver are. I had heard before that if you flew in a small airplane above the foothills you would see that there are people everywhere. This ride really proved that out.

We started out from Morrison, jumping on C-470 briefly to get over to U.S. 285 heading southwest. Very shortly we turned off at the Tiny Town exit onto Turkey Creek Road. Just past where Deer Creek Canyon Road runs off to the left we made a right turn that took us up into the heavily developed (relatively speaking) area between Turkey Creek Road and 285. Following a variety of local roads we looped through the area and ended up back on Turkey Creek Road probably only a mile or so from where we got off. But in the interim we would around through a very nice area on some nice roads. With houses all along the way.

Continuing south and west on Turkey Creek Road we then turned off to the south on Hilldale Drive and into another area of houses. Here, though, the road climbed and we ended up on what is aptly named City View Drive. The city and the plains are clearly visible from up here, as is U.S. 285 off to the north.

This is where things got a bit out of kilter. Looking at the map today I see what I think must have been Bob’s planned route. If you make the right turns–GPS probably your best bet–you can work your way over to Pleasant Park Road and back onto 285 at Conifer. Bob’s GPS was not serving him well. We made several wrong turns, ended up on dirt roads and generally groped our way until we found our way back to where we had turned off Turkey Creek Road.

But we were still seeing some roads and some views we had never seen before. I had no complaint. I was on my Concours, which generally hates gravel, but in fact it really hates loose gravel. Because this was hard-packed dirt I had no problem.

Besides the demonstration of just how full the hills are of homes I was also struck by how very many people we saw out walking, either on their own or walking their dogs, along these roads. They were everywhere and for the most part they were very friendly and waved–and in one case even cheered– as we went by. I suspect they don’t get many motorcycle groups cruising through their neighborhoods.

We then followed Turkey Creek Road to where it terminates back at U.S. 285 over by Meyer Ranch Open Space Park. That ended the first segment of this ride and the other segments warrant their own space so I’ll save them for later blog posts following this one. There is one other thing I want to mention here, though.

This was a fairly lengthy ride altogether. Bob had promised “111 miles, 1 million curves” and that really gives you an idea of what this ride was like. With that kind of promo I knew I would be most comfortable on the V-Strom but I had not yet ridden the Concours in September so despite knowing the V would be the better bike for the ride, I rode the Connie.

That was OK because I’m a pretty skillful rider and I had no problem maneuvering that big bike through the many switchbacks and tight curves we traversed. To my surprise, though, by the time I got home I was exhausted. Riding a motorcycle is not a passive activity the way that driving a car can be, and hours of steering a big bike through serious twisties adds up to significant effort. I got home just in time to go to my appointment at the gym and by the time I was walking home from the gym I found myself stopping every place I found shade to rest. I was tired!

Biker Quote for Today

Top 10 signs that a computer is owned by a Harley rider: 03. — Expansion slots have Genuine Harley-Davidson bike parts installed in them.