Passes & Canyons Blog

I’ve been having an email conversation with Mike Brown, of Exit Tours, about doing some rides with his group. To recap, Exit Tours is structured as a club and for your annual membership fee you get one free ride and then others are fairly inexpensive.

So Mike is making a big push this year to reach a higher level of participation and to that end, I’m assuming as an introduction, he is putting on a no-charge, no-membership-needed Fathers Day Ride to the Alpine Tunnel, set for June 18 and 19. This looks very interesting.

The group will gather near Greens Creek, near Salida, and camp the night of the 18th and do the ride on the 19th.

Here’s the description of the ride:

Ride to the Alpine Tunnel on Sunday June 19.
The Dual Sport ride is a 121 mile Loop with a challenging section on Tomichi Pass.
Snow may be present in late June.
We will provide an alternate Adventure bike loop option over Blacksage and Waunita Passes to Pitkin and the Tunnel site, return over Blacksage and Waunita Passes.
This route is a bit Longer, but does not include any real challenging sections.
Ride counterclockwise from Greens Creek to Old Monarch Pass, Snowblind to Tomichi Pass to the Alpine Tunnel on the Dual Sport Loop.
Then head towards Pitkin on the old Denver, Southpark & Pacific Railroad line.
Lunch & Fuel in Pitkin.
Waunita Pass to Black Sage Pass to Sargents on Hwy 50.
To over Marshall Pass to down Hwy 285. Poncha Springs on Hwy 50 to Greens Creek.
Fuel and Food available at the Silver Plume General Store in Pitkin on either loop.
Phone Compatible GPS Tracks will be provided.
This is a FREE club ride with no other Amenities provided.
Fill out the form on the Sign-Up link if you want to go on an epic ride on Fathers Day and receive GPS tracks.

If you go to the Exit Tours website you’ll notice in the pictures that all the bikes have knobby tires. I have a V-Strom and I run 80/20 Shinko tires. That’s 80% biased to street, 20% biased to dirt. I asked Mike if that would be adequate on the alternate routes that are less challenging. His answer was not reassuring.

However, I mentioned the ride to Bruce, who checked it out and immediately signed up, and he said he has ridden most of those routes before and he thinks I could do it OK.

So I’m not sure here. I would definitely like to do this, and I suppose I could have some more dirt-capable tires put on the V-Strom but I just had new tires front and back put on, and mounting tires is a real expense. Gonna have to think on this.

If you, on the other hand, are totally prepared for this kind of ride you may want to seriously consider signing up.

Biker Quote for Today

We know you’re a poser if you won’t ride down a gravel road.

I had never heard of Exit Tours until Mike Brown contacted me. When he told me he was in the motorcycle tour business I was eager to talk, and before that I hurried to look at his sites. Far from enlightening me, the sites left me puzzled. There are several references to “the club.” Now I really wanted to talk.

In brief, Exit Tours is a club for people who want to ride off-road with others of a similar inclination. To go on a club ride the fee is $199. Membership is $399 per year, with your first club ride at no charge, so really, $200 per year assuming you go on at least one ride.

The ride fee gets you GPS tracks, meals, a t-shirt, camping fees covered, and the camaraderie. Plus, sometimes, portaging your gear from one night’s stop to the next one, although most rides are loops that end back at the same spot. None of that stuff comes free, except the camaraderie, so thus you have the fee. And I assume the club pays Mike for his efforts in arranging all this. Thus you have the club as a business model. Or, as Mike said, “It makes it so I don’t have to pay to ride.”

I have known other tour operators whose main purpose is really to get their own travel either free or at a discount. This appears to be a functional business model. It also keeps down the red tape. If a business is going to operate on public land there are required permits. For a club to just ride through there is no such requirement.

And it does seem to actually function like a club. Mike said that since 2012 he has had about 800 people on these rides but there are a core of about 30 who come repeatedly and who pitch in on the work.

This is not a company offering training or that sort of thing. You are expected to bring your own bike and know how to use it. The rides are either dual-sport, adventure rides, or trail rides. Different loops are mapped out so you can choose whichever is right for your skill level.

Rides are primarily within Colorado but some dip into New Mexico and some are in California.

Summing it up, Mike described the club as being “for guys who know how to ride, but not where to ride, and want to ride with others and make new friends.” That sounds like something I could be very interested in but Mike tells me my V-Strom would not usually cut it on their routes–not enough ground clearance. He did say, however, that there is one ride they do where the V-Strom would work. I’m interested.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if you stare longer at the pictures of the bikes in Easyriders than the naked women.