Passes & Canyons Blog

The City on the Side website.

My thanks to Alan for giving me a heads-up on this: An outfit called City on the Side is now offering motorcycle sidecar tours in Colorado. They offer predefined tours or you are free to tell them where you want to go and what you want to see. They will take up to two passengers on their Ural sidecar rigs, one in the sidecar and the other riding pillion behind the “sidecarist.”

From the City on the Side website homepage:

side-car (sid’kar) n.
1. An extraordinary form of transportation that brings diverse people together for a multitude of reasons, the most prominent being sheer enjoyment!

Colorado can be discovered in many ways; however, none are as exhilarating and adventurous as on a classic Russian sidecar motorcycle! Our original and unique concept of tour operations delivers safe, unforgettable excursions creating memorable instances of excitement for all of our passengers.

City on the Side provides an exceptional sight-seeing journey, a different look, authentic and genuine, allowing passengers to experience Colorado from a completely unique perspective. An exhilarating, personal and private tour on a classic and glamorous Ural cT sidecar motorcycle. We are the premium sight-seeing tour experience, not available anywhere else in North America. Our passengers discover Colorado in the open-air, unconfined and free with 360° views of its breathtaking landscapes and magnificent beauty.

Four set tours are offered:

• 1.5 Hour: Essential Denver City Tour — Various Attractions, Landmarks, Points of Interest in and around Downtown Denver
• 4.0 Hour: North Mountain Exploration — Morrison, Idledale, Kittredge, Evergreen, Idaho Springs, Clear Creek Canyon & Golden
• 4.0 Hour: South Mountain Exploration — Clear Creek Canyon, Central City, Golden Gate Canyon & Golden
• 8.0 Hour: Peak to Peak / Estes Park — Clear Creek Canyon, Blackhawk, Nederland, Estes Park, Lyons, Golden Gate Canyon & Golden

Five extra services are also available:

• Custom “Tailor-Made” Tours
• We Do Weddings and Special Events
• Give a Sidecar Motorcycle Tour as a Gift
• Picnic Lunch in the Rocky Mountains
• HD Quality Video of Your Experience

A guy named Scott Kirkwood is running this outfit, and while I haven’t had a chance to speak with him yet, I hope to do so soon. I’m always interested in these new companies that open up and offer motorcycle touring and/or rental opportunities. And you can bet I’ll be adding them to my Colorado Motorcycle Rentals and Tours page; in fact, by the time you read this I probably will have already done so.

Finally, I would personally like to offer my best wishes to these folks to make a terrific success of this endeavor. It sounds like something a lot of people might really go for.

Biker Quote for Today

Sometimes people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to, it’s not for them.

Along the Peak-to-Peak.

Friday was hazy so the temperature never got up to what had been forecast but it was still nice enough I decided it was time to head for the hills.

I make it a point to just stay out of the hills all winter because even when it’s nice down here on the flatlands it can be cold and icy up there. Of course, if you ride on three wheels like Dom Chang then it doesn’t matter. I don’t, so it does.

I took the V-Strom up Clear Creek Canyon and it was a great day to be out. I didn’t wear any electrics because I figured it was warm enough I wouldn’t need them. That has been a mistake at times in the past but I was confident this time. Traffic was light and I didn’t have anybody behind me. I like not having anybody behind me on roads like that. And the people in front of me were making good time, no laggards.

Reaching Black Hawk it was still warm and I had not even seen snow in the shady areas. A little past Black Hawk and that all changed. Now the shady areas on the north-facing slopes had a lot of snow and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. My legs were getting chilly because all I had there was jeans; on top I had layers.

All the way up Clear Creek Canyon and along the Peak-to-Peak the road was completely clear–no ice, no sand. But by the time I got to where the road down through Golden Gate Canyon peels off from the Peak-to-Peak there was snow everywhere (except on the road) and even cooler temps. I was looking forward to heading down.

And then there was sand in several places on the Golden Gate Canyon road. You’re definitely going to want to take it easy if you go up that road any time soon.

But what a great day it was to be riding up in the hills, nevertheless. Did you know the roads up there have a lot of curves? I’ve been riding down on the prairie the last few months and you don’t see near as many of those down here. Wonder why?

It was especially fun, too, being on the V-Strom. That bike is light and agile and you just zip around those curves. My other bikes are both heavier and just don’t have that feel to them. If I was in a place where I could only have one bike I could have the V and be plenty happy. But I’m glad I’m not in that place.

And then I was getting back near out of the canyon and I passed a guy on a Ural sidecar rig going the other way. I can’t help but wonder, was that you, Dom?

Biker Quote for Today

Meditation doesn’t mean you have to sit still.

Two side car rigs with two dogs.

No sooner had Alan read my remarks about sending dead dinosaurs through my bike than he emailed me to ask if I wanted to join them on a ride Sunday. I did.

Alan, of course, now rides a Gold Wing sidecar rig and his daughter, Abby, joined us in the hack along with her little dog. Then we headed west to the Conoco station out by Morrison where we met up with Sandy, in her Harley sidecar rig, with her dog, Bentley. Alan met Sandy in Sturgis at a sidecar rally this spring and considering that both live in the Denver area, they had been trying to get out for a ride together. This was the day.

And just as an aside, while Alan’s rig is a true beauty, Sandy’s was chosen Best of Show at the rally, so you know it’s a very nice piece of machinery.

We took off with Alan in the lead, me in the rear, and Sandy in between. Although I hadn’t planned it, this allowed me to observe Sandy and Bentley throughout the day. Periodically she would reach over and stroke his head, which was sweet and made me wish I could get a photo of it. Going through towns she would also pet him and on quite a number of occasions she also readjusted his goggles so they would be where they belonged, protecting his eyes.

Bentley doesn’t seem to mind the goggles when they’re at speed but when they slow down or even stop, he wants them off. He has become very adept at turning to the back of his seat and using it to brush the goggles up off his face. I saw him do it time and again. The straps of the goggle are pretty ingenious: one strap goes all the way around his neck, while another goes under his ears and holds them in place. That way, when he brushes them off, they don’t fall off. They just sit on top of his head until Sandy puts them back down.

Everywhere we went Bentley was a head-turner. Everybody was tickled to see the dog with goggles in the sidecar. I remember in particular when we passed a girl of about 10 and her face just lit up as she pointed him out to her friends.

And Bentley was well behaved, too. Though he was not strapped in, he never jumped out inappropriately, although there was one time, again in Boulder, where we were stopped for a red light and he saw a squirrel. “Squirrel!!” Oh man, he wanted that squirrel, but Sandy saw it, too, and poked him to remind him to behave. She had to poke him a couple more times before we left that squirrel behind.

I have to confess I did not even catch the name of Abby’s dog. She and the dog were tucked down inside Alan’s sidecar, way out in front of me, and it was easy for me to forget the dog was even there. Abby did share with us the amusing fact that her dog–more than any she has ever known–has absolutely no idea how to brace itself for the inevitable curves you encounter in a car or any other vehicle. We’d go around a curve and the dog would find itself laying on its back, feet in the air, thrust up against the outside wall of the sidecar. “How did I get here, Mom?”

So it was a beautiful fall day up in the hills and we had a good ride, though it definitely got chilly later on. Caught just a few drops of rain coming through Golden. If the forecast holds out this may be the last good weekend for riding we’ll have for awhile. And there were a lot of folks on bikes out taking advantage of it.

OK, this just arrived. Here’s a group shot.

Group shot in Nederland.

Biker Quote for Today

Only animals belong in cages. (That’s the quote, but I say no, animals don’t belong in cages, either. But some dogs do belong in sidecars.)

You’ve got to love coincidence. It came through for me this time.

Last summer my wife and I were going camping in the mountains. We were headed out US 285, getting near Bailey, when we saw a guy going the other way in a motorcycle sidecar rig. Not unusual, except that in this case, he was controlling it from the sidecar, not the bike. What the heck?

So almost as a throwaway, I put up a short note on Examiner.com saying, “Do you know this person? I want to meet him.” I figured maybe someone would respond, but I doubted it.

Fast forward a year. I was taking off one day this summer on my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom and it died on me about a mile from home. This was a day when the bike gave me trouble twice, and I wrote about it here. Almost as soon as I got the bike rolled out of traffic another guy stopped to offer assistance. This was Roger. Roger was very helpful, giving me a ride home to get a gas can and then helping me get it started when adding gas was not quite enough. I gave Roger my card, along with a big thank-you.

Imagine my surprise about two months later when I received an email from Roger. He had been to my Examiner page and had read the piece about the guy driving from the sidecar, and he had just run into him at a gas station. Roger got the guy’s contact information and forwarded it to me. How cool is that!

So I called the guy, Glyn McDowell, and went up to meet him at his home. He showed me his rig, took me for a ride, and let me drive it. Like they say, it’s dirty work but someone has to do it.

I wrote a piece for RumBum.com about Glyn and his rig and you can read it there. And this all happened because of a throwaway piece that I never expected to result in anything. I hope you go to RumBum and read the piece. It’s a pretty interesting rig.

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Biker Quote for Today

You’re a biker wannabe if you spit out the bug that just flew in your mouth.