Archive for the ‘OFMC’ Category

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Riding The Million-Dollar Highway

Thursday, October 1st, 2026


As far as the general public can go on the road at the bottom of the Black Canyon.

Nick was underwhelmed. His number one objective in coming out from Chicago was to ride this magical “Million-Dollar Highway” that he had heard so much about. I guess he thought the sheer canyon portion of it ran most of the distance between Durango and Ouray. When it turned out that stretch is only about 10 miles he was let down. Oh well. It’s still a terrific ride in my opinion.

We left Durango that morning and I needed gas. Nick had just filled up in South Fork so he was fine. Because he only buys gas from “top tier” stations I rode past a couple I would have stopped at, plus one he would have stopped at that was on the other side of the street. It’s just so much easier if the station is right there on your right.

But there isn’t much gas on the right side of the road on your way north out of Durango. No matter, I knew there was a station ahead before we would get up on Molas Pass. If Nick didn’t want to get gas there that was his choice.

Well, it was a Marathon and he’s OK with Marathon, so we both filled up. I had been leading and expected to continue to lead but we pulled up to get on the highway and he took off, at a point where there was traffic approaching that I would have let get by.

So I took off, too, and as we got into our lane he nailed his throttle. I did the same but my 650 Suzuki does not have the acceleration his 1200 BMW does. Just then I was startled to find a truck hauling a couple cars screaming past me on the right. I’m sure that driver had many choice curse words for me. Why did this idiot pull out in front of him like that when he was moving so fast!!?? You really do need to ride your own ride.

That left us separated, which was fine with me at that point, until Nick stopped at the top of Molas Pass, as I figured he would. We had no desire to stop in Silverton so we just continued past and headed on up Red Mountain Pass. On over the top, down, and through the relatively short section of canyon. Down into Ouray and it was time for a break.

We had been kicking around going up to Montrose and then east by way of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison or up to Delta, then east to Hotchkiss. We decided to go to Montrose. We got to the turn-off for the national park and headed on in. We had ridden up CO 92 along the north rim of the Black Canyon the last time Nick had been out so this time we agreed to ride the south rim. After that we headed for the East Portal Road.

The East Portal Road is a very steep, twisty road that goes from the rim all the way down to the river at the bottom. It’s a favorite with motorcyclists. We went down and road the stretch at the bottom that goes as far upriver as you can. Got off the bikes, shot a few pictures, and headed back up and out. Then back to US 50 and on to Gunnison.

Going past the Blue Mesa Reservoir it was more empty than I have ever seen it. The word is that they are draining most of the upriver reservoirs in order to keep Lake Mead from dropping so low that the hydro plant can no longer produce electricity. We’re in a serious drought.

At Gunnison we checked in at our motel, a place the OFMC has stayed but which more recently had tried to shift to a more upper crust clientele. Apparently that effort did not work out well because we had gotten our room there that night at a very good price.

And that was day three of this four-day trip.

Biker Quote for Today

100 reasons not to date a biker: 23. Can’t find us? We’re in the garage again. We live in the garage.

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The OFMC Loses One

Monday, August 31st, 2026


Friggs shows the impact his helmet saved his head.

Friggs died on Sunday. Five years after a cancer diagnosis it finally did him in. He is the first of the OFMC to go.

The OFMC was started in 1989 and then consisted of John, Bill, and me. The first newcomer to the group was John’s son Johnathon. The second was Friggs, Bill’s brother, in 2000. Friggs started out on a Virago but eventually moved up to a Harley.

After joining us a few times he took a contract job in St. Louis, so he missed a few. He wanted to ride out there, though, so I rode his Virago to St. Louis and he bought me a plane ticket home. That was a win-win.

Back in Denver, he rode with us every year up until 2018. On that trip we were cruising on some winding road in New Mexico, with brand new (within the last week) pavement and suddenly he was not there behind us. But Dennis, in front of him, heard the crash and went back, finding him and his bike lying in the road. Friggs was able to finish the trip but as soon as we got home he sold the bike and never rode again. No one, not even he, ever had any idea why he went down.

The OFMC got ever smaller after that trip and we made our last ride together in 2024. By that time it was down to Dennis, Bill, and me. And Bill told us he was done.

But we were all still here, if not riding together any more. Some not riding at all. But now the circle is broken.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you have little eagles on all your clothes.

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Biker Encounters With People While On The Road

Monday, September 8th, 2025

The OFMC at the Grand Canyon.

People always want to talk to you when you’re out on motorcycles, have you noticed? Of course you have. They look at us wistfully and reminisce about when they had a bike, or how great it must be to just get out on the road and go, or whatever thoughts we stir. Bikers are so daring, so cute and lovable, right? How can you not strike up a conversation with them?

Usually those conversations go pleasantly and everyone parts with good feelings. Usually.

Then there was the time the OFMC was at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, in the parking lot by the lodge (burned down in summer 2025!) when a family on vacation struck up a conversation. Cool bikes. Hey, would it be OK if our son climbed on board one? Oh sure, what the heck, no harm.

Well, no. The boy climbed on, wearing shorts, and managed to let his bare leg press up against one of the exhaust pipes. Blazing hot exhaust pipe. Yow!!!

OK, that didn’t go so well.

Then there was the time in Aspen when we struck up a conversation with a couple cougars who seemed to think we were of interest. Things went pleasantly right up to the point where I asked one of them if, way back years ago, Hunter Thompson ever had any chance of winning his run for election as sheriff of Pitkin County.

This was a simple question based on my honest interest in whether the answer was yes or no. You would never know that from the response I got. She replied scornfully that no, he never had a chance, and did we think they were all stupid? Well, I never suggested that, I was asking a simple question.

I did reply that it would be nice to have a sheriff who wouldn’t arrest anyone for simple possession of marijuana. She then got quite nasty, pointing out that marijuana was illegal (back then), whereas her drug of choice was alcohol (which was legal by then but back in the 1920s this was not the case). And by this point she had certainly had plenty of her drug of choice. We didn’t stick around a lot longer.

Fortunately, these less than great encounters are vastly outnumbered by the good ones. But the not so good ones make better stories, don’t they?

Biker Quote for Today

If you are going faster than everything else you only have to worry about what is in front of you.

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Tales Of The OFMC: Encountering The Herd

Thursday, September 4th, 2025

How the heck do we get through this herd?

If you’ve been around the West much you may have encountered this sort of thing yourself: There’s a sheep herder moving his flock, or maybe it’s a bunch of cowboys moving a herd of cattle to new pasture. Either way, they’re taking up the entire road and you’re kind of stuck.

It happened to Judy and the kids on a summer camping trip many years ago. They were going along this little-used road when they came upon sheep. Everywhere. The sheep herder was apologetic and said he’d get them moved out of their way as quickly as possible but Judy and the kids were fascinated watching the sheep dogs do their work. Take your time, they told him.

It also happened to the OFMC one year. We were heading northeast out of Chama, New Mexico, toward Antonito, Colorado, over Cumbres and La Manga Passes when we encountered a herd of cattle. The cowboys and their dogs were doing their best to keep the herd moving but they could not have been less concerned about this group of bikers being held up by the cattle.

We didn’t see that we had much option other than to wait, but that might have been a long wait. Not certain what to do, we did nothing for a bit. Then a guy in a large pick-up came up behind us, sized up the situation, and pulled past us and started blowing his horn as he came up on the cows’ rears. They started jostling and pushing the crowd away, opening up a path for the pick-up.

We were thrilled. Let’s go guys, make some noise!!

We did our best to fall in behind the truck, though it got further ahead of us after a while and the herd filled in the space. All of us were blowing our horns, the Harley boys were revving their engines as loudly as they could, and we just counted on the cattle to get out of our way, which they did, sort of.

So we’re shoving our way through the herd and John, who was leading, took to pulling some shenanigans. We didn’t get it at the time but he told us later that he would deliberately ride through a cow pie and then rev his engine to break traction and–hopefully, for him–throw chunks of the cow pie up onto those of us behind him. Nice guy, John. Fortunately for the rest of us, his plan didn’t work.

This was slow going, and a good number of cows left the road and started climbing up the hill on the left or down the slope on the right. The cowboys and dogs kept busy guiding them back to the herd. And we finally got through. That was one unexpected highlight to this trip.

Now every time I go over those passes I wonder if I’m going to run into another herd. And I try to identify the stretch along which it happened but you’re out in the forest, you know, and one stand of trees looks pretty much like any other stand of trees.

But it makes a great story.

Biker Quote for Today

“What happened on the way, who I met, all that was incidental. I had not quite realized that the interruptions were the journey.” — Ted Simon, Jupiter’s Travels

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Getting Sick Of The Guys

Thursday, June 5th, 2025

When you have a group of bikers out on a road trip you end up with some group shots.

Do you ever just really want to get away from the guys you’re hanging out with? Like your riding buddies? Like you’ve been on a trip and while you love the trip you’re really looking forward to getting home so you won’t have to be with these guys for awhile?

I keep a journal and I’ve been reading back through it and there have been a number of times when I have remarked that I was really sick of being with the guys. Now, these are my best and closest friends–excluding my very closest friend, my wife–here in town. (I do have really close friends in other towns.) These are the guys I go camping with, play poker with, meet out for coffee. And after a week on the road with them I’m really sick of them.

Here are some remarks from my journal, circa 1992:

So I got really tired of being with XXXX but it wasn’t like last year when I came home with an active dislike for him. Our relationship really is shallow, to the point where we ran out of things to talk about and sat around bars at night not saying a word. This was a good trip but clearly I would rather have been on one bike with a lady friend.

Wow. Yeah, I guess just because you hang out with someone for a lot of years that doesn’t necessarily mean you are close to them. Doesn’t mean they’re not your friends. They are.

My good friend Jungle told me emphatically a few years ago that I need to get some new friends. But that’s the thing. When it’s these guys who you discovered the wonderfulness of motorcycles with, and they like to ride, you kind of go with the guys who like to ride.

Anyway, I know just from memory–I haven’t gotten that far reading my journal–that on most OFMC trips by the time I got home I was really glad to get away from the others. I always presumed they were equally glad to get away from me. It’s a test of any relationship to be together that much. In the early days we always, the three of us, shared one motel room. We were together all day, and all night.

So it was the desire to find some new riding buddies, people interested in riding more often, that led me to join the RMMRC. I do feel like I’m making friends in this group and like I’m a core member of the group. It’s good to have riding buddies. And maybe in 20 years I won’t personally be any closer to any of these new friends than to my old ones, but I will have been on a whole bunch of really good rides. With people I enjoy being with.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s a dangerous game we’re playing here. Walking the tightrope between nirvana and disaster, with no margin for error. But that’s when things really start to get interesting.

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The Cost Of Aging And Affluence

Monday, March 24th, 2025

I’m definitely going on this trip but it’s going to cost me a bundle.

I told my wife, Judy, at lunch the other day that I had spent the morning spending an obscene amount of money. I was making my motel reservations for this RMMRC ride to California in April. I’m figuring that by the time you add in motels, gas, and food I’m going to be spending around $3,000 on this trip. Yikes!

Why so much? Mostly it’s motels. There are only four of us going and two have agreed to share rooms. I would have been fine sharing with the fourth but he prefers to have his own room. I have no idea why; I just know that some people do prefer their privacy, even if it means paying more.

What a difference from the early days of the OFMC. Back in those days, long ago, we were not anybody’s idea of flush. John and Bill and I would get into town, split up, and go check prices and availability at several motels, then regroup and choose. Most of the time we got rooms with two beds and we rotated whose turn it was to sleep on the floor. We also carried tents and sleeping bags to we could camp if we wanted to or needed to. We didn’t make reservations in those days so sometimes that camping gear saved our butts.

So affluence is a big part of this spending escalation. We never went the expensive route back then for the simple reason that that was money we did not have. Cheap was a necessity. Fortunately those days are over. I’m not crazy about spending so much on this trip but I have the money and it is money I can afford to part with.

The other thing is aging, although for myself that really is not an issue. The group of us who are going got together the other day to prepare and they all agreed that camping is well in their pasts. Gosh, I still enjoy camping, as does Judy. But beyond camping, these guys have certain standards for accommodations that rule out most of the cheaper places. For instance, we’ll be in St. George, Utah, one night and there are a lot of places where you can get a room there for less than $100. The place the group selected, however, runs about $200. This is one instance where I opted to stay down the road a couple miles and pay about $60 less. It’s still a plenty nice place and I don’t know what the reason was for choosing the higher-priced place but I just can’t see any reason to pay that price.

In other cases there really was no choice. We’ll be spending one night in Death Valley and there are not a lot of accommodations available in Death Valley. And then, the place we’re staying has much higher rates on the weekend and we will be there on the weekend. So I’ll pay about $270 for one night in a two-queen suite all by myself. The point here is that we’re going for the real Death Valley experience. I’ve never been there so I’m not sure what that consists of but I’ll pay the fee and find out.

So it ought to be a really good trip. And I suppose there is an off chance that some fifth person will yet show up who I can share rooms with. But I’m not expecting it. It’s just money, you can’t take it with you when you die, and I have no heirs. Why not spend it.

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t want to know how much your motorcycle cost, shut up and ride.

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