Excellent Two-Day Ride
Thursday, June 26th, 2025
Hanging out in front of the Meeker Hotel.
I give Charlie big kudos for putting together a terrific two-day ride for the RMMRC. The weather was good, the roads were great, and with all the recent rain, everything was incredibly green. And the folks were pretty companionable, too.
We started out Tuesday morning from the Phillips 66 in Morrison, eight riders. Kicks stand up (KSU) was 9 and I got there about 8:50 and needed gas so I didn’t have time to get myself linked in on the Cardo communicators. But Gene was the last to arrive and it turned out somehow that he and I were linked to each other, so we did some chatting during the day.
We ran up past Red Rocks to get on old US 40 running up Mount Vernon Canyon. This road serves as a frontage road alongside I-70 for a ways but frequently bends away from the interstate. Onto I-70 briefly and then off again and back to 40. Here’s where we lucked out.
US 40 goes away from the interstate for a while but then comes back as you go up Floyd Hill. Then you go down the other side and get on old US 6 just long enough to get on I-70. As we headed down we could see the interstate totally stopped. They’re doing major work on the bend at the bottom of the hill and we must have passed about 500 stopped cars as we cruised on down. When we merged onto I-70 at the bottom it was starting to move and we had to go slow but never had to stop at all. Sweet.
We only stayed on I-70 a few miles to Idaho Springs and then got off and rode old US 6 up to the Empire turn-off onto US 40 and then headed that way toward Berthoud Pass. We made a quick stop just past Empire, by the Guanella Ranch, which was good for me because I was cold and this gave me a chance to put on more layers.
Then it was a lot of fun blasting up Berthoud Pass, cruising past all the other traffic. We were rockin’!
Down the other side into Winter Park and on to Granby where we made a brief stop, then on to Kremmling for lunch.
Next it was on to Rabbit Ears Pass and down into Steamboat Springs. It had been a long time since I’d been over Rabbit Ears because I do my best to avoid Steamboat, so it was nice to see the pass again. Everything is just so incredibly green at the moment.
Steamboat wasn’t as bad as it sometimes can be and then it was on to Hayden and then Craig. Four of the guys were stopping in Craig while the rest of us were continuing on, down CO13 to Meeker. Bob, who was staying in Craig, said he saw no reason to go to Meeker because there was nothing out there and it’s a boring ride. Bob is wrong. This is a really pretty ride and we had a good time.
We got to the Meeker Hotel and checked in and proceeded to kick back. Meeker is a really nice little town–unlike Craig, which is not much of anything. And the Meeker Hotel has been completely renovated just recently and is quite nice–but incredibly cheap! Only $80 a night for a single! Can’t beat that.
So it was a sweet day’s ride. And tomorrow we get to do more.
Biker Quote for Today
It’s what I love about fast motorcycles. Because when you find yourself balancing on that razor’s edge of mortality, all the rest becomes dust in the wind.
