Passes & Canyons Blog

It shows you what can happen if you ignore other events going on around you. I don’t care about bicycle racing, so I didn’t pay any attention to the USA Pro Challenge races that were going on around the state last week. Apparently neither did Judy or Friggs.

So we met up on Saturday morning, took a ride up to Black Hawk to have breakfast, and then headed north on the Peak to Peak Highway headed for Estes Park. What a beautiful day for a ride in the mountains.

Then we reached Nederland. Coming into town the traffic was stopped, advancing slowly, car length by car length. As we worked our way ahead we could finally see some flashing lights, so we thought maybe there was an accident.

Getting even closer we were now seeing a lot of cars pulling out and turning around or else taking a left turn into the business district. There was nobody coming the other direction so some braver folks just pulled into the oncoming lane and drove a block or so to get across the creek that divides the town. Then they turned left.

OK, we’re on motorcycles, and motorcycles ought to be allowed to lane split, regardless of whether our legislators think so. I pulled out and cruised along and we made the turn. Now (I thought) we’ll be able to skirt around the roundabout in the center of town where the blockage was centered and get onto the road going west before it swings north again.

Wrong. All access to the highway was blocked by tape. It was apparently part of the route of the bicycle race. But it didn’t make a lot of sense. We could see that the highway was open to the north and the road was then shut down just barely to the west of where we could get to. If they had positioned the barricade about 50 yards further east, everyone could have come that way and gotten through. Couldn’t they have possibly modified the route that much?

Oh well. Nothing to do but go back the way we had come and head down Coal Creek Canyon. Still a beautiful day for a ride in the hills, just not quite the ride we planned.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Demo riding the 2012 Victory Hard-Ball

Biker Quote for Today

All too easy to dump money into these . . . but smile per $ is up there.