Passes & Canyons Blog

I rode the Honda up to Loveland today to check in with the Steel Horse Sisterhood Summit that is now in progress but as of yet there really wasn’t anything going on. I knew there was not much on the agenda but figured there would be lots of bikes and plenty of people. Wrong. I guess the first real main event is tonight’s welcome reception.

You might think this was a wasted ride. After all, what I came for wasn’t happening. I don’t think that at all. The fact is, I had a really good day out on the bike. Not just a bit of a ride as I so often do, but the better part of a day just on the bike doing what I felt like.

I left home in the morning and worked my way through town rather than blasting around on the interstate. That got me through some areas I haven’t seen in a long time and man, do things keep changing!

Then I got on I-25 and cruised to Loveland. Went by the hotel first but very few bikes there so I headed over to Thunder Mountain Harley-Davidson, which is a major sponsor of the event and where a lot of the activity will take place. Just a few people there at a registration desk and that was it. So I decided to pay a visit to the local Honda shop, Interstate Honda, since I was on my Honda, but it was a good thing I asked because they weren’t where I thought they were. Neither was Northern Colorado Euro Motorcycles, which has moved since I was there last. Both are further north along the highway. Obviously I needed to do some updating of my Dealer and Repair Shops page.

I left the Honda shop then and wanted to go back to the Sisterhood location because I still hoped to speak with Joan, the honcho. Not being inclined to jump back on the interstate I took the frontage road. Guess what? The frontage road does not stick to the interstate. I found my self veering pretty far from I-25 and even on some gravel for a ways. I hadn’t had the Honda on gravel for a long time but was pleased to find it really does do as nicely as I remembered on that stuff. Not like my Kawi, which hates gravel.

When I finally did get back to the highway I was still an exit away so I got on I-25. Do you know what rush hour traffic on I-25 is like in Denver? It seems I-25 traffic in the Loveland-Fort Collins area is like that all the time. It sure was today. I went down the ramp and as I was forced to come to a complete stop I saw one of those Colorado phenomena: a line of demarcation between wet and dry. And as is often the case, the line was moving my way.

I jumped off the bike and threw on my rain gear as raindrops started pelting me. The skies opened up, I rode to the next exit, and by then the rain had stopped. By the time I got back to the Harley shop my rain gear was almost dry.

I don’t mind riding in the rain; in fact, I kind of enjoy it, although not necessarily on an interstate highway in heavy traffic.

So I checked for Joan again; no dice. Went back to the hotel hoping to find her there but again, no dice. So I figured I’d just head on home. The sky didn’t look too bad that direction.

Ha! I got on I-25 and again it was a parking lot. And by the time I was approaching the very next exit I once again saw that line of demarcation between wet and dry. Only this time, it wasn’t coming my way. It was going perpendicular to my route. This time I took my time putting on my rain gear and even put on my rubber mittens, which I had not the last time. I also figured I didn’t want to be on this interstate in this rain so I would get off and head west to pick up US 287 south.

By the time I got halfway up the exit ramp it was coming down in buckets. There was a Conoco station right there so I pulled in under their awning and waited out the rain. That’s the photo above. I was there for 15 minutes and it was an absolute gulley-washer of a storm. I was glad not to be riding anywhere. But it was kind of enjoyable nevertheless to just be out here on this day on my bike, just doing whatever. I wasn’t impatient and I sure wasn’t bored with this huge storm going on around me.

While I was stopped there I figured I might as well go ahead and put on my last bit of rain gear, my rubber booties. Darn! I only had one. What happened to the other? I’m going to have to look for that.

The rain didn’t stop but it slacked off and I headed out again. The interstate didn’t look as crowded so I took it and had an uneventful ride back to Denver. Stopped halfway and stripped off the rain gear because it was once again a beautiful day. Not too long, though, and the sky ahead was again threatening. I only got a few raindrops though before I got home.

So yeah, I totally failed to accomplish what I set out to do. But what an enjoyable day! A motorcycle can do that for you. I intend to let mine do it for me a whole lot more times.

Biker Quote for Today

“Anybody can jump a motorcycle. The trouble begins when you try to land it.” — Evel Knievel

Tags: Steel Horse Sisterhood

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2015 at 7:04 pm and is filed under women motorcyclists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.