Passes & Canyons Blog

We went to Dinosaur National Monument this past weekend for three days and loved it. Besides seeing the place, I wanted to see how the roads would be if you were on a bike–a dual sport bike of course. I already had a pretty good idea you wouldn’t want to take those roads on a street bike.

We came in at the east end of the park, turning off U.S. 40 at Elk Springs onto the Bear Valley Road or County Road 14. From here to the Echo Park campground, where we were headed, it’s about 46 miles of gravel–some of it quite rough. This road later becomes the Yampa Bench Road, which runs alongside–but way above–the Yampa River.

I’ll tell you about the road some other time; it’s definitely doable on a bike as long as it’s not rainy.

What I want to tell you about now is the guys who showed up in the campsite next to ours our second night there. We had gone up on the rim for the day and when we came back in the evening there were four motorcycles right next to us. Judy headed back to our site and I plunged right in, having a good time shooting the bull with these guys for half an hour or so.

They were out of Texas and they connect with each other for these rides through ADV, the Adventure Rider forum. They had trailered up to Oak Creek, Colorado, and took off riding from there. Between them there was a smaller KTM–not one of those big new Adventures–plus a Kawi KLR 650, I believe a Suzuki DR650, and another bike I thought he told me was a BMW but the guy is a big Triumph fanatic so I’m not so sure. It definitely wasn’t one of the big, newer BMW adventure bikes. I don’t know; I just don’t know every bike on sight.

They’re on a 2,800-mile ride with no time constraints. They’ll take it day by day. One guy told me he’s got the whole month set aside but expects they’ll do it in about two weeks. Their route was prepared for them by a fellow in Utah who sells these sorts of plans. That’s an interesting concept. Heck, I map out Colorado rides for people frequently and I don’t charge a dime. I don’t plan to start charging, either.

Taking off from Oak Creek, which is south of Steamboat Springs on CO 131, their route guy did get them off to a good start by sending them over Dunckley Pass and Ripple Creek Pass. They were heading into Utah, then up into Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and then back to Colorado. And they’re doing most of it on the dirt.

These are not a bunch of young guys, either. They all have grey hair. The first one we encountered was heading to the outhouse just after they arrived and he said hello and “I’m getting too old for this.” Apparently not too, too old, though.

Their trip got off to an inauspicious start when one of them improperly engaged his clutch right at the start and before he had rolled eight inches, he told me, he dropped the bike. And then, they said, the guy we had met hadn’t gone a quarter mile on the dirt when he went down. Some people were starting to have reservations.

They got rolling though and things smoothed out. Coming over Dunckley and Ripple Creek, one said, it was gorgeous but the road was so rough you couldn’t look at the scenery, you had to keep watching the road. Bill and John and I rode over that pass once about 25 years ago and I do remember it being so rough that I didn’t remember much about the scenery. It’s truly is gorgeous, by the way. I’ve been over it in cars a number of times so I’ve had a chance to look.

Not sure quite what their route was from Meeker, where they came out, but they came into Dinosaur the same way we did, on the Yampa Bench Road. I believe they said one or two more bikes went down along this stretch. I remember there was one really muddy spot and that gave someone some trouble.

They made it in, though, and were thrilled to be out on the first night of this great trip. The next morning we all packed up around the same time and Judy and I left first. We were all going out via the road up to the rim so I was pleased to be ahead of them so we could stop and I could get some shots looking down on them as they came up the road. I picked a good vantage point, got shots of them below, then more shots of them as they passed us and went on up. We waved and they waved and that was the last we saw of them.

Biker Quote for Today

A good rider can overcome marginal equipment. However, even the best equipment can’t overcome a marginal rider.

Can someone please clone me? I don’t know how many times I’ve said here that I’m going to do something or be at some event only to have those plans fall through because I have a conflict. Here we go again.

As I announced way back in April, the fifth annual Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Run is coming through Colorado this weekend and while I want like the dickens to go see this rolling museum, I’ll be out of town. But that doesn’t mean you should miss it.

To recap, this thing is a ride from the East Coast to the West Coast on motorcycles that were built in 1937 or earlier. They’ll be stopping at the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum in Colorado Springs mid-day on Sunday and then will come to Golden for the night. Either would be a great place to catch the scene.

A Conversation

On a totally different note, I had an interesting ride to work the other day. I head east on Hampden (US 285) and just keep going when it turns into highway, getting off at Kipling.

Shortly after crossing I-25 I picked up someone on two wheels behind me, and when we came to a traffic signal at Dahlia this scooter pulled in alongside me and a little back. I turned and said hello and we chatted a bit while the light was red, then took off again.

We got stopped again at Colorado and chatted some more. It was a People brand scooter, a GTi300 and I asked if the 300 meant it was 300cc. He said it did. Does the i mean it is fuel-injected? Yes. Cool. So it goes pretty fast? Yes.

We cruised on and as we passed a street that turns into one of the ritzy developments on the south side of Hampden we saw a bunch of police cars and a motorcycle lying on its side with broken pieces all around on the ground. Not pretty at all. When we stopped for the red light at University (we caught all of them) we both shook our heads and shuddered at what we had seen. No blood and gore, no broken bodies–those apparently were already off to the hospital–but no one who rides likes seeing something like that.

At the next stop we talked our plans for the day. I was going to work. He was meeting some folks at a gas station in Lakewood and they were riding to the top of Mount Evans. Boy, did I want to come along with him.

But I didn’t. At Kipling I turned north and he blasted on past. And now it’s too late to go up Mount Evans any more this year. They just closed the road for the winter on Tuesday. Next year . . .

Biker Quote for Today

I rarely think of motorcycles without a little yearning. They are about moving, and humans, I think, yearn to move – it’s in our cells, in our desires. We quiet our babies with cyclic movement, and we quiet ourselves by going. — Melissa Holbrook Pierson (I think)

Motorcycles used to be pretty undependable. From what I gather, at least, breaking down alongside the road used to be pretty much an every day occurrence. If you were a rider, you were a mechanic.

Out of that reality a brotherhood developed where it was just unacceptable to pass by a brother alongside the road who might be in trouble. That ethos continues today, although I think it has gotten weaker. Bikes are more dependable now, you don’t have everyone looking at a rider alongside the road and thinking “that could be me” and stopping.

I know I’ve been stopped and very definitely having problems and watched in annoyance as other motorcycles went right on by. I particularly think about a couple BMWs one day . . .

The ethos seems to remain the strongest among Harley riders. There have been a number of times when I have had problems and a number of other times when I was just stopped to shoot some pictures. And more than one Harley rider stopped to check on me. I really do thank you guys.

Well it happened again Saturday but this time I wasn’t even on a bike. Judy and I were down in Colorado Springs for a wedding reception and we decided to drive up Pikes Peak. We were in my car.

So we got pretty high up the mountain and the car started dragging. It had no power at all. It’s fuel-injected so the altitude should not have been the problem the way it once would have been. But something was definitely wrong.

There we were just stopped on the road up the mountain; the car would not go forward. I had my flashers on but it took a while for the guy behind me to figure out that I wasn’t just stopping to shoot a picture or something, and he finally pulled around. We’re sitting there discussing what to do and a couple on a Harley coming down the mountain pulled into our lane and stopped directly facing us. We wondered what the heck he was doing until we saw that he was letting a car that had come up behind us get past.

Once that car got past the folks on the bike pulled alongside and asked if we were having trouble. You bet. So thinking quickly, I asked him to just block the road momentarily for us so I could roll backward and do a Y-turn and head back down the hill. Which he did, and as soon as we got pointed downhill the car was ready to run just fine. Had the gas just not been able to reach the fuel pump on this steep uphill?

We didn’t need any more assistance and after going a little ways we pulled over to assess the situation. The folks on the Harley pulled over and checked and we said thanks, we’re fine now, thank you very much. And they rode on.

That’s what I’m talking about. We weren’t even on a bike, they had no idea we ride, but they stopped to help. And they were on a Harley. Wasn’t there a slogan years ago, something like “You meet the nicest people on a Harley”? Kinda? Sorta? Well you do, even if you’re not the ones on the Harley.

Biker Quote for Today

Happiness is finding you still have more throttle.

I’ve had a good bit to do with EagleRider over the years, the motorcycle rental and tour outfit, you know? They invited me on a media tour in California a few years ago, we rented a bike from them in Vancouver a couple years ago, and they used a photo of mine in a promo they did one time as well.

Back on that media tour I spoke a lot with Chris McIntyre, president of EagleRider, about doing some writing for them. Chris is a guy who generates ideas almost faster than he can spit them out and when he talked about sending me on some of the tours they lead to be the resident scribe I was all for it. Of course, the thing with people who have that many ideas is that only a very few of them actually come to pass.

It has been a while but this one has come to pass. No, I haven’t gone on any more EagleRider tours, at least not yet, but they have made the decision to put up a blog and have a variety of people from different parts of the country writing pieces for it regularly. I get to be one of those people. And going on some of the tours is very much a possibility for the future.

In fact, I’ve already written six pieces and turned them in. And I’ve already been paid for the first two. But nothing has been published yet. I haven’t been able to get the details nailed down so I’m not at all sure when the blog will launch–I believe it is going to be a blog–but you can bet I’ll put the information up here once I do have it and once these things start running.

Mostly I think it’s going to be pieces about terrific rides to go on. That’s what four of mine have been. My other two are tips about riding with a group and going for extended, long-distance rides. The kind of stuff I’ve done a heck of a lot of.

I’m really very interested, though, to see what everyone else is writing about. I know my friend Alisa Clickenger has also been taken on as a writer and I have to guess that she’ll be writing from the woman’s motorcyclist angle. I mean, she’s not exactly going to be doing regional stuff because at this moment she’s in Africa, and will be there for quite awhile yet. And then I’m also really interested to see who else they’re working with, who I’m rubbing shoulders with.

So I guess I’m just going to have to be patient until this thing starts rolling out. Meanwhile, I suppose I ought to start thinking about new story ideas to pitch. When you latch onto a good gig you definitely want to run with it.

Biker Quote for Today

The other 3-percent rule: If you want to have fun, ride with people who are 3-percent slower than you.

Change is afoot for ABATE of Colorado. The motorcycling advocacy and training organization will soon be moving into a new home and is also looking at significant changes in its financial structure.

First off, that run-down old farmhouse you see in the picture above will soon be the headquarters for the state organization. Owned by Larry Montgomery, resigning District 10 representative, it is being rehabbed in a couple of “barn-raising” weekends. With all the volunteer labor going into it, it is being referred to as “Habitat for ABATE,” a play on the Habitat for Humanity organization that builds homes for poor people. ABATE currently pays $2,500 a month for office space and Larry will be charging about $500 a month, with all the money ABATE puts into renovations counting toward rent. Thus, $6,000 put into renovation will cover the rent for a year.

ABATE is also considering cutting back publication of the “Spokesman,” its membership newsletter, to bi-monthly from monthly, saving about $1,500 for each of the six months not published by doing so.

Cost savings need no justification if they do not hinder an organization’s mission but in this case they are also needed. Membership has been declining and as of January 1, 2015, changes in the Colorado Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program will have an additional impact on the group’s revenues. At that time the state intends to switch the way the program operates so that instead of paying money to the training organizations, MOST money will be rebated directly to students.

The MOST program was set up to use an extra fee tacked onto all motorcycle license renewals to help decrease the cost of rider training. The idea being that the more riders who receive training, the fewer accidents and fatalities. Significant recent changes in the way the MOST program is administered have not set well with the training organizations so the program that organizations such as ABATE were instrumental in creating is now falling more and more out of favor with these very organizations.

Meanwhile, according to ABATE State Coordinator Terry Howard, this latest change will mean that the price ABATE charges for its training courses will increase and with every increase she expects to see fewer numbers of students signing up. Specifically, it costs ABATE $253 per student to put on a Beginning Rider Course. ABATE currently charges $215 and MOST kicks in $35. After January 1, says Terry, ABATE will need to charge $253. The ultimate cost to the student will remain the same essentially but the higher up-front charge is expected to dissuade some percentage of potential sign-ups.

Biker Quote for Today

The 3-percent rule: If you want to go faster, ride with people who are 3-percent faster than you.

I’ve been in touch recently with Ron Coleman, who runs Western Dual Sport Motorcycle Adventures, and I asked how business is doing in the motorcycle rental field here in Colorado considering that so many more companies have gotten started in the last few years. I said I hoped there was enough business that people don’t start folding left and right.

Ron’s reply was that business is good and he just figures that the market is growing and there’s room for everyone, at least everyone who is out there now.

That is so great. Before I ever bought my first bike my roommate and I decided one day to rent a bike just to see how much we might get into riding. We naively went to a nearby shop and found that there was nothing. No one rented bikes back then. What were we thinking?

Times have changed a little, haven’t they?

So I thought I’d do a run-down here of the rental places I know of here in Colorado. I’ll make note that I’m not going to go into the list of Harley dealerships because I think pretty nearly all of them do rentals. Just add them to the list of the others.

Of course there’s Ron with WDSMA. He used to run strictly Suzuki V-Stroms but now also has Suzuki DR 650s and a Yamaha Super Tenere. He used to have a BMW GS800 but I don’t see that mentioned on his site so maybe he got rid of that one.

Kevin Smith, with Colorado Mountain Moto, runs V-Stroms out of Gunnison and he also now has at least one Honda XR650L.

One of the newcomers is Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Adventures, owned by Paul and Marsha Minock. Unlike many of these folks, I don’t know them. Their website says they offer BMW F800GS and F700GS.

Colorado Motorcycle Adventures (do you start to see a theme in the names and the types of bikes rented?) is run by Scott Lee. I rode with him earlier this summer and had every intention of doing so again sometime soon but boy the summer is flying by in a hurry. Scott has a whole herd of bikes, from KTMs to BMWs to Triumphs and Kawasakis.

Ben Kriederman has been operating House of Motorrad for a few years now. He specializes in BMWs, as the name suggests, and recently opened a store in Boulder. I haven’t ridden with Ben but he did fix me up with some good gear for my V-Strom.

Colorado Sports Rent is run by Brad Pester. Brad rents a lot of recreation gear and dirt bikes are just a small part of his offering but they’re the only bikes he has. I spoke with one of his employees recently who told me they were considering getting a couple street bikes as well.

Another outfit that has a whole stable of different bikes is Colorado Tour Bike Rentals and Sales. They have a lot more road bikes than the others I’ve mentioned so far. I don’t know much else about these folks; I’ve never met or talked with them.

Of course along with all the Harley dealerships there is also EagleRider. EagleRider rents mostly Harleys but they do have other bikes as well. I’ve met the manager of the Denver location several times but can’t remember his name just now. I’ve also rented from EagleRider and was on a media tour with them once. Recently another EagleRider location opened Grand Junction.

Another one I really don’t know anything about is Extreme Rentals. They appear to have a number of Honda dirt bikes.

MountainADV.com is out in Durango and they rent KTM and BMW dual sport bikes.

The folks at San Juan Backcountry rent some dirt bikes plus ATVs and Jeeps.

And finally, there is ScooTours, a scooter rental outfit in Denver. This is run by David Howard. David and I went out scooting one day. I keep intending to touch in with him to see how business is going. Scooters are fun, you know. One of these days I’m going to buy one.

So those are the ones I know of. If you are aware of any rental outfits I haven’t listed please send me a note. It’s just amazing to me that all these companies have gotten going and they’re all staying in business. That’s just great.

Biker Quote for Today

A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul.

We decided we wanted to go camping up past Mount Princeton Hot Springs and looking at the map we saw there was one campground way up there where they didn’t take reservations. Campground reservations are fine except when you want to go spur of the moment. Too often you get there and everything is reserved, even though no one is there at the moment and in some cases never show up. At least at this one campground we’d have a chance.

The trouble was, looking at the map it appeared that maybe the campground was not accessible from the main road, but only by going up a less-developed parallel road on the north side of the creek. The main road runs on the south side of the creek and it was not clear if there were bridges. So we took the less-developed road.

Yeah, “less-developed” only scratches the surface. This was an out-and-out dual-sport road. Very doable on the right bike but do not take your cruiser on this road.

We reached the campground and were lucky to get the very last site. And we then soon found out that indeed there were bridges, including one just about 100 yards down the road from the campground. Oh well, we got there.

It was a nice place to camp. Way back up there you’re not going to have a lot of traffic going by on the road, especially this road. If we had camped further down the canyon we would have had traffic going by all the time. So we spent a pleasant evening and night.

In the morning we figured to go out via the main road. We also knew that St. Elmo, said to be one of the best-preserved ghost towns in Colorado, was just a little further up the road, so we’d go there first.

Well, boy, were we surprised when we crossed the creek and made the turn and found ourselves almost instantly right in the heart of St. Elmo. We could have walked there.

So we walked around checking out St. Elmo. There was a sign right there for the turn-off to Tincup Pass. That would definitely be a road you would need a dual-sport bike on. But then we heard this familiar roar and what should come cruising into St. Elmo (on the main road) but two fully dressed Harleys.

All of this is just to say, if you don’t mind a little gravel, places like St. Elmo are accessible even on your street bike. My friend Dennis is pretty short but rides a big Harley and he won’t touch gravel–except the quarter mile he has to ride every time he goes to or from his own home. But with feet that barely reach the ground as it is, he will not ride gravel because he’s afraid of not being able to keep the bike up when he stops. One little pebble that rolls under your foot and it’s all over–that’s his thinking.

I’ll give it to Dennis that there’s some truth in what he says. I don’t accept it as a reason not to ever ride gravel, though. And if you’re not the sort to avoid all gravel at any cost, then I’m here telling you that you can do the road to St. Elmo. And it is a pretty cool little town, although I’m not sure why it’s called a ghost town when there are people living there. But it’s a lot of remarkably well-preserved really old buildings. Cruise on up and check it out sometime.

Biker Quote for Today

Ruts are like side-panel screws: just when you think you’re in the right groove, you get cross-threaded.

I was discussing two-up motorcycle camping recently and got a response from Thyrza, who has done this a lot. She agreed to allow me to reprint what she sent me. Here it is:

So I found your website while searching for motorcycle rides in Colorado and noticed from some of the stories that people thinking camping 2-up without a trailer is difficult or impossible even. My husband and I live in Ohio and have traveled to Michigan, Maine, North Carolina, South Dakota and this year will be going to Colorado. We tent camp the entire time and ride 2-up. I thought I would share how we have made it work.

We ride a Honda VTX-1800 – it’s a large cruiser style bike so can easily handle the weight of anything we strap to it. We currently have soft bags so there isn’t a lot of room in them. However, we just bought new hard bags and are waiting for the paint job to be done. They will hold at least half as much more stuff as our current bags, so I’m quite excited to see what more I can take with us! We added small luggage racks to the tops of the bags so we could still strap on the sleeping bags.

First and foremost, compression/dry bags are your friend. We put his sleeping bag in a compression bag alone, and mine w/both of our small camp pillows, a sheet, and two hoodies in another (his bag is quite a bit bigger than mine). Each bag compresses down to just a little bigger than a lumpy basketball. We use bungee nets to strap one to the top of each saddle bag. The compression bags are also dry bags so they keep everything 100% dry – and we have been caught in more than one torrential downpour. We use our saddle bags for personal items – each of us gets one and whatever fits is what you get. Lucky for him I’m a light packer and reasonably low maintenance. We have a large bag on the back that we put all our “stuff” in. We love our JetBoil – it heats water in about 1 minute so you never have to go w/o coffee on a cold morning. We also bought the cooking pot and frying pan and they work great! Instead of a sleeping pad, we first used Big Agnes air mattresses, but got tired of having to manually blow them up. We just replaced them this year with new ones that inflate with a built-in foot pump. These each role up to about 6-7” around and about 11” long. They are bit bulkier than the Big Agnes but more comfortable. We also have a tank bag that we use for his camera, all our charging cords, and miscellaneous items that we want quick access too.

As far as rain gear, my husband is quite a safety freak, so he insists when traveling that we are in full gear. So we made sure that our coats and pants double as raingear, so one less thing to have to pack. I used to whine quite a bit about how ugly it looked (because it is after all, all about fashion), but after going w/o my jacket in 100+ degree heat riding into the Badlands 2 years ago and getting sun stroke/sick, I learned the value in keeping my jacket on. Gym shorts under the pants make them actually quite comfortable and less hot than bluejeans. Hard to believe, but true! And ladies, all the pockets in the jacket eliminates my need to haul a purse. Plus, when you ride into an unexpected rainstorm and there are no overpasses to hide under, it’s nice to stay dry w/o taking the time to get re-dressed.

Our biggest purchase was the tent… as you can see from the picture, the tent has a built-in garage for the bike! In the actual sleeping area, you can fit two people comfortably (husband is 6” and has no trouble end to end fitting), but there isn’t a lot of extra space. We store our gear in the vestibule area of the tent. We strap the tent onto the top of the tail bag with rock straps. And then to top it off, we have a small soft-side cooler bag (rectangular in shape and just tall enough for a short can of soda), that we strap on top of the tent. It’s a tight fit, but we make it work. Last year we found small folding chairs – they have 2 back legs and then you use your legs for the front and sort of rock back… comfortable, but hard to get into initially. Not something to sit in if you are drinking a lot! We connect these with straps to the D-rings on our tail bag and they tuck down between the bag and sleeping bag on each side. We got tired of having to sit on a picnic bench or the ground, so they were a good investment. (You can see the chair bag – it’s the red little bit sticking out on the left – the other one is on the other side.)

There isn’t a lot of extra space, and we really have to think twice about everything we take, but we manage and it’s a lot of fun! When we go on long trips, we take 3-4 day’s worth of clothing and just plan on doing laundry every so often. If someone wants brand names on any of the gear, I can dig the stuff out and get it.

The pink jacket is where I sit, and the yellow jacket is his seat. I joke that we won’t get hit by someone cause they can’t see us, but more because they’ll be laughing so hard! (I have gotten rid of the pink jacket and bought a nice conservative black one – got tired of looking like the Pink Power Ranger!)

Anyway – tent camping on a motorcycle without a trailer, riding 2-up is 100% doable! We have a great time! Our goal is to hit every state in the continental 48 – after Colorado this September, we’ll be at 25!! In just 5 years of traveling. Not too shabby!
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So there you have it. It can be done, if you’re ready to be selective and resourceful. Thank you Thyrza. Here, below, is the other photo she sent showing the VTX loaded for camping.

Biker Quote for Today