Passes & Canyons Blog

I have some heated motorcycle gear I’ve been given by EXO2 The Heat Inside to test and do a product review on, so I was looking for some cold weather here in August. Not the easiest thing to find, except that in the mountains it gets cold no matter what time of year it is. At least at night, and up real high.

I already had plans to be up in Keystone one evening for the return of the Adventure for the Cures “Dirty Dozen” riders from their seven-day cancer research fundraising ride. Fine, I figured I’d stay as late in the evening as I cared to and then return home over Loveland Pass. At 11,900 feet, especially at 11 p.m. or so, I figured it would be pretty dang chilly–perfect weather for testing the gear.

So it got late and it was time for me to head home and I put on the heated vest and gloves, connected the wires, pulled on my leather jacket and helmet, and set off up the pass.

The gear worked fine. I’ll tell you all about that later, once I have more time to do more testing, but I certainly had no complaints that night. I did have some concerns setting out at night in the mountains that I might encounter deer, because they can be deadly if they run out in front of you and you are unable to avoid them. But none of them showed their faces.

What I did not anticipate was issues of equilibrium. Let me set the scene.

It’s a dark night. Cloudy, so no moon or stars. No electric lights going up over the pass, and no guardrails with their reflectors. On top of that, on the lower stretches of the road up the pass, no horizon. The blackness of the trees and mountains blended totally with the blackness of the sky.

What could I see? White and yellow lines. White and yellow lines that curved and rose and fell, all in relation to . . . nothing. In just a short while this started playing tricks on my equilibrium. Am I leaning or is the road curving? I know I’m leaning because I’m in a curve, but am I leaning too far or is the road rising through the curve? I could not tell. There was no point of reference. It was downright scary.

I got over the pass by going about 15 to 20 miles per hour and being super, super cautious, and I was glad I only encountered one other vehicle along the way. That ride was not fun. I’ll be restricting my gear testing to daylight from now on.

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Biker Quote for Today

I always slow down if my riding buddy in front of me disappears or launches skyward unexpectedly.