{"id":7011,"date":"2016-01-21T13:39:04","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T20:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/?p=7011"},"modified":"2016-01-21T13:39:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T20:39:22","slug":"finally-a-clear-exit-path-barely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/finally-a-clear-exit-path-barely\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally A Clear Exit Path–Barely"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

I gouged this passageway out of the ice about an hour earlier.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

The snow that was predicted but didn’t come over the weekend made all the difference in our street getting clear. On Monday we got a dusting but it was gone by afternoon. Finally on Wednesday, thanks to a little gouging with my heel, a lane just wide enough for my tires was open and I could ride out of the neighborhood without using the sidewalk for the first time in weeks. So I did. <\/p>\n

Having no set route in mind I did what I often do, riding across the top of the Cherry Creek Dam heading southeast out of town. I got down to Parker and decided to go east on Main Street. Probably the last time I had gone east out of Parker on Main Street was about 35 years ago. I don’t know what the population was then but a quick search shows me it was 5,450 in 1990. Today that figure sits at about 50,000. So yeah, there have been a lot of changes.<\/p>\n

I proceeded east past streets whose names I didn’t recognize–which is to say they are not major north-south streets–until I came to a T intersection at Delbert Road. I had never heard of Delbert Road. I figured I’d go north.<\/p>\n

I was definitely out on the very eastern edge of the metro area here, with primarily 2.5-acre “ranchettes” and their McMansions.<\/p>\n

Delbert Road effectively ends when it hits County Line Road, although it does go a little beyond. I stayed on it and to my left I could see the newest neighborhoods under construction. And after about a block Delbert turned to mud so I turned around. I was on the Honda so I would not have objected if it was just dirt, but mud was a different matter, especially since the tires on that bike are ready to be replaced and there is very little tread left.<\/p>\n

Heading west now on County Line Road, I found that it does not even go through right here, hitting a T intersection at Powhaton Road. So I turned north on Powhaton and very soon it started looking familiar. When I reached the very end of Smoky Hill Road I knew why it looked familiar; I had been here coming the other direction once before.<\/p>\n

So that gave me a very direct shot back into town along Smoky Hill. I headed home. The mileage on this ride was around 40, which was fine on a January day. I wore my electric vest and had it turned on and I even bumped my heated gloves up from the lowest setting to two notches higher. I would have been cold without them. I’ve also been wearing my fleece-lined chaps<\/a> lately. They’re much warmer than my leather ones.<\/p>\n

So the forecast for this weekend looks great. Anyone who isn’t out on their bike on Saturday just isn’t even trying.<\/p>\n

Biker Quote for Today<\/h3>\n

Race the rain. Ride the wind. Chase the sunset. Only a biker understands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The snow that was predicted but didn’t come over the weekend made all the difference in our street getting clear. On Monday we got a dusting but it was gone by afternoon. Finally on Wednesday, thanks to a little gouging with my heel, a lane just wide enough for my tires was open and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[371],"class_list":["post-7011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado-motorcycle-rides","tag-winter-motorcycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7011"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7024,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7011\/revisions\/7024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}