The Daily Riders

I don’t know that I would necessarily consider my daily 9 mile commute from home to work an adventure, nor the slightly different route taken home anything worthy of blogging about. This short passage of time is infinitely more enjoyable on my motorcycle than it is in my truck, but day-in, day-out there is really nothing that lodges itself onto the synaptic nerves and forever in my memory. On thing that does make an impression on me are the other daily riders whom I work with. There are a lot people who ride their bikes to work, from time to time – and some more than others. But there are 4 “Daily Riders”, four of us who pretty much ride just about every day we are at work weather permitting – or not… About the only thing I have noticed that keeps one of the four of us away is rain, snow, or if one of us has to drive because we need our alternate vehicle for some other purpose that day. For the most part you can figure that the motorcycle parking area is going to happily accommodate two Honda scooters, a Harley and a Beemer.

That’s right – two of the daily riders are scooters. So any of you out there who do not think the scooter crowd are not hard-core riders, think again. They may not be riding cross-country, but from the since of riding every day, and in just about all weather I can tell you that the oldest most beat up bike of all of the daily riders is Perry’s Honda scooter and he probably wears the crown of the daily riders. That bike is pretty much out there, rain, shine, 115 degrees or 15 degrees. The other day was one of the coolest so far this year. For some reason Perry did not ride. He saw me in the hall and told me that when he saw my bike that morning he thought “oh shit, Eddie’s gonna think it was too cold for me to ride this morning”. I just told him that he was more hard-core than any of us.

The other scooter is a little lady on her yellow Honda Metro. For some reason we tend to pull into the parking area around the same time a lot of mornings. Her from the south side, me from the north, so I get to watch her leaning her yellow machine around the corner into the parking lot in what can only be described in a cute, no-nonsense sort of way.

Warren is the Harley rider, and he works in the maintenance shop. Like most Harley riders he has customized his bike and takes a lot of pride in it. Unlike a lot of Harley riders, he rides his almost every day, not just on the weekends. Warren is one of those lucky guys who works a 3-day week, so you may not see is Harley in the parking lot every day, but if it is one of the days he is working, you can pretty much bet it will be there.

So here’s to all 3 of my fellow daily riders. Enjoy your daily adventure. My 18 daily miles may not be as much fun as it was when it was 60 miles each day, but I know that there are at least 3 others I share the parking lot with that are enjoying the ride.

jump

I get up, and nothing gets me down.
You got it tough. I've seen the toughest soul around.
And I know, baby, just how you feel.
You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real
Oh can't you see me standing here,
I've got my back against the record machine
I ain't the worst that you've seen.
Oh can't you see what I mean ?

Might as well jump. Jump !
























Might as well jump.

















Go ahead, jump. Jump !
















Go ahead, jump.

















Aaa-ohh Hey you ! Who said that ?
Baby how you been ?
You say you don't know, you won't know
until you begin.
Well can't you see me standing here,
I've got my back against the record machine
I ain't the worst that you've seen.
Oh can't you see what I mean ?


Might as well jump. Jump!
















Go ahead, jump.
























Might as well jump. Jump!
























Go ahead, jump. Jump!

An August Ride

Over the last couple of months, I have guided our buddy Rego on some of the better North Texas county roads. He is definitely destined to be a seasoned adventure, and is clearly demonstrating improved skills on his R1150GS Adventure. There is no substitute for experience and practice on a motorcycle to develop the needed instinct while riding, so we went on a couple of long local rides. Here are some images taken last month when we motored toward the hill country and back.

We ate breakfast at Mary's on the Brazos in Tin Top Texas.





After the excellent morning chow, we motored south on 4, 1188, 1189, to enjoy the twisties on 51. Near the intersection of 51, and 67, we paused.



Rego, describing his appreciation for Gatorade.



We continued on through Lipan, Bluff Dale, Walnut Springs, and stopped in the town of Iredell to take pictures of old buildings.









We continued heading south, and paused in Cranfills Gap to fill up with gas and hydrate. After reviewing the time, and consulting our trusty iPhones for weather predictions, we decided to target Gatesville for the next stop.



We stopped at a McD's in Gatesville to cool off, and devise a plan for the return ride. I suggested we just retrace our route, and Rego agreed.



On the return, we paused again in Cranfills Gap to check out The Horny Toad. It's an old feed store converted into a bar and grill. Although I have only enjoyed an ice cold carbonated beverage there, many have indicated the food is good.





With the clock ticking, and the decision to have dinner in Granbury we motored off to Walnut Springs for another break.



Just as we suiting up to hit the road, I noticed my R100GS ticked over to 18K miles. This bike runs like a champ.



We headed North on 203, with dinner in Granbury on our minds. On of the last set of twisties as the road nears the interesection of 67, Rego went wide on a turn. After brushing himself off, he described to incident.



We inspected his bike, and determined it was unscathed, so we continued on to Granbury for some dinner, and a cold drink. After a run North on 51, we pulled into the main square in Granbury, and located a TexMex joint with a porch.



With a cool breeze flowing through the porch, a refreshing amber beverage, and the consumption of some tasty fajitas, we concluded it was an excellent days advenure.



Wait ! ... there's more.
And of course, I captured some video of a couple of the roads. Enjoy the shows.

Rocky Ridge

They say God created the universe and the earth in 6 days and then rested on the 7th day. I guess he created Rocky Ridge on the following Monday because from what I understand, it has been there since the beginning of time. It has been well since the beginning of time that I first rode out at Rocky Ridge, but I guess that’s because I was born about 4 billion years too late and, well – because I did not have a dirt bike until a couple of months ago. I’ve ridden my R1200GS out there before, but it was to muddy for me to really do much, and since I got my XT350, that has been my mount of choice for these types of excursions. The past few weeks Gary and I have made our way out to what has become my off-road park of choice.

On our first trip out there we met Oliver who had just purchased a BMW F800GS and was trying it out in the dirt. The next weekend, we met up with Oliver again, and a few other folks he had put together via Adventure Rider for a dual sport ride out at Rocky Ridge. Unfortunately, due to the untimely demise of my brake handle, we were not able to meet up for riding with the group that weekend, but this past weekend, there was a small group from ADVRider that met out at Rocky Ridge. Oliver started the post, and about 5 of us chimed in that we would all meet at the ranch about 15 mile north of Decatur between 8:30 and 9:00. With the exception of me, who hauled my bike (because it is not quite street legal at this point in time…) everyone rode their dual sports out to the ranch. Oliver on his F800, fully loaded for a “shake down” cruise getting ready for a camping trip in Arkansas next weekend, Scott and his dad Jeff, on their Kawasaki KLX 250 S’s, Cris on his recently acquired Yamaha WR250R, and my on my beat up old Yamaha XT350 (the prettiest bike of them all….). As I was unloading the beauty from the hitch mount MX hauler, I noticed the 4 other bikes ride by and head off in the direction of the only spot at the ranch that could possibly resemble an MX track (sort of…). A couple minutes later I headed that way, and when I noticed nobody there I found the group at the gravel pits. Erosion is an amazing thing, just two weeks earlier, Gary and I had found a little climb at the gravel pits that we could hit and easily jump the bikes, maybe 3 or 4 feet in the air, nothing great by any standards – but a fun little jump that you did not have to hit very fast. Two weeks later, same jump, same speed and it had been worn down so much that I could barely get the rear tire off the ground. After meeting up with the group at the gravel pits, we stopped, talked for a while and then headed off towards the lake. There was a little flat track area just below one of the hill climbs that goes up through the trees. This was a fun little spot that you could get the bikes up to a decent speed. After that we followed Oliver to a part of the ranch I had never been. Oliver and Cris had been there a few weeks ago when Cris was out on his R1200GS. It was a whole other interesting part of Rocky Ridge, and while we would come back and visit the Rock Gardens later in the day, it left me intrigued and ready for more exploration of this yet uncharted area. After finding another little jumping area, we headed back towards some of the single track trail sections. Rocky Ridge has some really good trail riding. Challenging enough to add interest, but not so much so that it destroys any semblance the enjoyment you had envisioned when setting forth on the trail. After meandering our way through the woods, between rock outcroppings, over logs, and across dry creek beds, we made our way back to where I had parked my truck and stopped under a shade tree to take a little break. The weather was fantastic, by this time it was approaching 10:30 or so, it was barely over 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and gentle breezes were making random appearances for the sole purpose of making great weather even better.

After a brief break, we mounted up and headed back out to the Rock Garden. To get to this area there is a downhill road that breaks off of the main road, I find it kind of fun because there are a couple of little bumps as you are heading downhill, you can pop the throttle just a little as you hit these bumps and launch your bike in the air just a bit as you make your way down the hill – yeah, silly I know, but for some reason I find that fun so I thought I would put it down in writing for all of internet blog cyberspace eternity… (A thousand years from now some AI Cyborg will read this, bust his mechanical ass trying to do it, and need to have his flux capacitor replaced – I’ll be laughing my long gone dead ass off.) There is a little bit of trail riding before you get to the Rock Gardens, but once you get there, you know why they call it the rock gardens. Oliver was in front, Cris was behind him, I was behind Cris and Scott and Jeff were behind me. Oliver went up a fairly steep incline and stopped at the top. Cris took a path to the left, Scott, Jeff and I stopped and waited for Oliver to start moving again at the top of the hill before making the climb ourselves. This was a pretty rocky section and we waited at the top for everyone to make it through. Afterward, we all made our way down the boulder ridden path. I’m not sure what happened, but by the time Oliver and I had made our way through the rocks and back down the hills, we seemed to have lost the others in the group. We stopped at the crossroads that headed back to where we had parked, but after about 10 minutes decided we had better head back up the hill to see if we could find the others. We headed back up, and at one point where we had made a sharp right downhill turn we thought the rest of the group might have gone straight along the path. So we ventured that direction.

After the terrain had leveled out in a few hundred yards. Oliver stopped his bike and said something did not seem right with the gears, he said he was in 2nd, but the bike shifted to neutral, and then to 1st. We played around with it a little and once we determined that nothing appeared to be broken, decided to try and ride it again to see if it would shift. After a couple hundred more yards, it still would not shift. We worked on it some more and decided to go back to my truck where I had some tools, and had the number for BMW Roadside Assistance in my cell phone. The ride back was a bit slow as it was a 1st gear ride for the F800. After we got back to the truck, the rest of the crew was already there and waiting in the shade. We worked on the bike a bit and determined that there did not appear to be anything mechanically wrong. A call to the service department of the dealership, confirmed that the most likely culprit was a sensor in the transmission. Oliver then started his ordeal of calling Roadside Assistance. In the end, I think it all worked out smooth, but I think there were a couple of numbers – it was just a matter of getting the right number to call. We went on a quick ride while Oliver waited for the towing company, and then everyone headed for home. As I was the only one with a truck, I waited around until the tow truck got there just to make sure Oliver got picked up. Hopefully the dealership will have the 800 up and running for his trip to AR next weekend.

Other than the gear sensor on the 800, it was a really great ride out a Rocky Ridge. I met some new people to ride with, two of them are heading to Big Bend in October, and another wants to go the next time Gary and I head down. So, there are common interest even outside of Adventure Motorcycles. Small world, even if it did only take 6 days to create.

More Images from the Colorado Trip

I Posted more images from the Colorado trip. Click HERE to see them.

Colorado July 2009 - Part 3

(for more images from this trip click HERE)

Sunday, July 26, 2009
Estes Park CO

It had rained Saturday night so we decided to sleep in until around 8:30 or so on Sunday to let things dry out a bit. An amusing breakfast of huevos rancheros served with flour tortillas instead of corn, and we headed back to Bills Hacienda by the river to determine the days riding itinerary. One of the thoughts was to ride up the Old Fall River Road again, Gary really liked that ride other than the auto traffic, and Bill and I would have liked to get another picture of the bikes at the top to complement the two from ’07 and ’08. Mother Nature seemed to be hinting us in the other direction this Sunday morning however, as the skies over the continental divide did not look inviting. The more appealing heading was towards the Cache La Poudre River and Stove Prairie Road. When riding Stove Prairie in the past, there was a dirt road that broke off towards the southwest that Bill and I had always wanted to take. The Honda was simply not up to the task, so this venture had always been forgone. Not this time. As the Goddess of the Earth was directing us away from the park and it’s pavement, we decided to heed her advice and explore this pathway built of more natural materials. When we got back to the house Gary had decided that after 7 solid days of riding, and a 800 – 900 mile ride planned for the ride home tomorrow, that he was going to forego today’s ride and sit back and enjoy the surroundings of Bills house. I can’t say I blame him. I have been to Bills several times, and have had plenty of opportunities drink a few beers, kick back on the porch, hang out by the river, and just enjoy something we do not get a lot of chances to do living in an urban outcropping of streets, buildings, and concrete.

The ride started off great, what better way to get to a riding location than to burn up the twisting, curling, hairpin turns of Stove Prairie Road. The road that broke off was Pennock Pass, it was mostly grated gravel, but was very scenic. Nothing a car could not drive on and nothing GS could not travel comfortably at 30 to 40 MPH (easily faster if you wanted to). We kept finding all of these trails that would break off of the main road and head up the mountain, we took off on one of them only to find that it was the entrance to a ranch, so around we turned. At on point, we saw a dirt bike coming back down one of the trails; we summoned him over to converse for a moment. He said it climbed for about 7 miles and then came back down. We asked if we could take our GS’s up the road and he said “sure, why not”. That is one thing I find that is quite subjective. Until you ride it yourself, you really do not know to trust what someone is telling you or not. If they tell you no, it is to rough for a 500 lb motorcycle and then you merrily make your way up the mountain, they fear you will think they are a wimp. If they tell you, sure you can take that bike up there, they are insinuating that “they” could do it, because “they are a bad-ass”. It’s still good to ask, but you just have to realize that the info you get is relative. As this particular road goes, the guy said that it was not really a jeep trail, by that I assume he meant that it was because it was so narrow. It was a very fun trail. More difficult than Last Dollar, not as difficult as Crystal River, and probably just a tad bit easier than Pierson Park. It seemed to have a little more sand with some rocks mixed in, and several more whoops as it climbed through the trees at a pretty decent incline. There were a few narrow switchbacks, the nemesis of the 1200… but I seem to manage them all right as long as I took them wide and kept my momentum up. I was handling the trail really well, and Bill was following behind me about 50 or so yards behind. As I was climbing a steep part of the trail, up ahead it appeared that the trail was shifting to the left, there was a rocky wash in the center of the track, so I shifted to the right side to approach the left turn at a good angle. When I got to the turn, to my sudden realization the trail bore quickly to the right across an outcropping of waist high boulders. The boulder outcropping was not an obstacle that couldn’t have been easily overcome; it could have been fairly easily avoided by maneuvering to the left. However the approach would have had to been made from the left side of the trail, not the right – and I of course was on the right. By the time I saw this devilish outcropping, I did not have time to make a judgment call. I was already fairly hard on the throttle, so I picked a spot I thought was the path of least resistance and gassed it. You could see the two-foot long tire mark in the dirt where I hit the throttle, evidence that led to my demise. I am quickly learning that this big GS is a pretty amazing bike, but I guess there are just some things that it is not meant to do unless it is being piloted by the likes of Jeremy McGrath. Crossing a waist high boulder field is probably something this bike was not designed to do under a rider of my skill level, not yet anyway… As I momentarily lay there under my 500 lb dirt bike, Bill came riding up, thinking exactly the same thing I did, that the trail went to the left, he went to the left, saw me laying there, tried to stop suddenly and put his foot down. When he did he fell victim to the age old “no ground under the foot” syndrome, and down went the 650. His first drop, laughing the whole time – a virgin no more. No damage to the 650 and damage to the 1200 was minimal, a broken hand guard, and a loosened side view mirror (very cleverly designed by BMW by the way). Mirror easily fixed, and hand guard easily removed on the trail. Trail repairs/removals were made among evidence of prior mishaps, judging by all the bits of broken glass and plastic embedded in the ground and dirt at that particular corner. Afterward, we made our way back towards Pennock Pass as it looked like the afternoon showers were starting to threaten to make their appearance. After getting back on the main road, we finally hit the pass itself. I have to say that Pennock Pass is a really fun dirt/gravel road, not in the off-road trail riding sense, but more of an off-road race type sense. The road is an auto road for certain, but it has a rather steep grade over several switchbacks, under the guard of giant pine trees that refuse to change seasons because they are in the constant view of the Never Summer Mountains. You can race up these steep inclines only to slow down on the gravely switch backs to shift your way through the gears again in the straight-a-ways to the next switchback, all the way to the summit at around 9,200 ft (have to check the GPS for the exact elevation). The road reminded me a lot of Old Fall River, only without all of the traffic.

After the Pass, we turned right to go the 12 miles to the Poudre Canyon as opposed to the 4 miles left to Pingree Park. Once we hit Hwy 14 more fun was to be had. I had rafted the Cache La Poudre a few times before, but have never been this far up river. THIS is the part of the river we needed to be rafting, the Poudre River in what they call the Lower Narrows is magnificent, it squeezes into canyons that are a kayakers paradise and then broadens into breadths that are a fly fisherman’s wet dream. All of this on a road that convertibles, motorcycles, and bicyclist call home to tell mama about. And we saw them all, I believe the Colorado State motto is “Nothing Without Deity”, but they need to change it to “Outdoorsman’s Paradise”

But wait, it’s not over yet… As we exited Pennock Pass in the Poudre Canyon well above Stove Prairie, we got to ride Stove Prairie back to 34, and then the canyon back to Bill’s house. I won’t continue about S.P any longer, I think by now you get the drift, however the ride up the canyon was rather interesting. Bill knows this canyon; he drives it twice a day, to and from work. There were a couple of Harleys in front of us, nothing against Harleys, but they tend to be a little slow – enjoying the scenery. We thought the two we together and as a passing lane approached we passed one, but the other decided he was going not going to be passed and gave it some throttle. I have to say he was moving pretty good for a Harley. He looked like “The Gentleman” from the movie “Hell Ride”, jacket open and flying, arms up, but this bike was shaking in the corners as he was trying to stay ahead of Bill. It probably did not help matters much that I was standing on my pegs the whole time as we winded our way through the canyon, but after about 150 miles of riding, probably 70 of it on dirt, I had to stretch and the canyon was a perfect place to do that. Eventually we passed The Gentleman and continued our way back to Bills, a last day of Estes Park area under our belts. By this time Bill had 601 miles on his new GS, time for the 600 mile service and ½ of those miles off-pavement. A perfect way to break in a brand new GS.

Monday July 27, 2009
Estes Park, CO – Plano, TX / McKinney, TX

I’m not sure what constitutes an “iron butt” ride. I think technically it is supposed to be 1,000 miles in a single day. We did not do that, but anybody can get on an interstate and burn up 1,000 miles in a single day fairly easily. We did 865 miles in 16 hours, but they were miles with a purpose, they were miles planned out not with the intent of burning up miles, but with the intent of getting from point A to point B. The route was chosen based on past experience as the most scenic, yet most direct route that allowed us to bypass rush hour traffic in any of the major cities we had to travel through. I had made this route several times before, but never in a single day. On past rides I had always stopped in Childress TX, about 650 miles or so from Estes Park. Our original intent had been to do the same, stop somewhere along the way and arrive home, today – Tuesday July 28, 2009, some time before noon. A few days ago, Gary had proposed we ride straight through. Based on making the ride in past years I knew I could have easily made Wichita Falls, another 100 miles or so past Childress, but figured if I did that I may as well just go all the way home since Wichita Falls is only a couple of hours from home. So I always just stopped in Childress and made an easy ride home the next day. Gary proposed riding straight through for a couple of reasons. One, his wife needed to go to work the following day, so he kind of needed to get home on Monday instead of Tuesday, and 2, for the adventure of it. I’m always up for the adventure part of it, and I was ready to beat my record of 650 miles so the decision was chipped away in stone. We sat up Sunday night watching Jesse James bust his ass trying to ride a KTM across the desert, packed up the bikes and said our goodbyes to Bill (he wasn’t getting up that damn early to run down the street waving us bon voyage…). 5:00 rolled around as early as it had the entire trip, and we had the Beemers fired up and rolling down the crushed granite driveway at 5:15 sharp. The ride down the mountain road of hwy 36 in the early morning light was a very crisp 42 degrees. We made our way along 36 through Boulder to Table Mesa where we picked up 93/6 until we hit C470 to I-25. We did not stop until we got onto I-25, where we stopped at a Starbucks for some coffee and a quick breakfast. We made really good time on I-25, running at speeds that were likely exceeding the limits as the officer parked on the side of the road was seemingly indicating as he tapped his brake lights when I flew past. I heeded his advice for a while, and we continued our way to Raton. Nourishment guised as lunch was consumed in Raton at around 10:30 Mountain Time, or 11:30 CDT, and we were back on the road by noon Dallas time. Again we were making good time, each year when making this ride I am like a machine, a man on a mission, focused on a goal – eye on the prize. This year was no different, only that there were two machines and two eyes on the prize.

Some times I wonder why Amarillo is not a rain forest. It seems that every year, every time I ride through Amarillo on may way to Colorado, or my way from Colorado, it rains somewhere around Amarillo. This year was no different, nor did I really expect it to be. I think I am just going to install a rain suit app to my GPS, and when I get in the vicinity of Amarillo, it will automatically pull my rain suit out and dress me in it. Native American Indian Organizations should consider changing the name of their rain dance rituals to the Amarillo Dance, if they moved the Sahara Desert to Amarillo, it would be called Brazil. I have to admit that this years offering was rather weak by the time it hit us, but it rained in Amarillo nonetheless.

One of the things I was attempting as we made our way through Amarillo was to make it from Dalhart to Childress on a single tank of gas. I have not had my 1200 long enough to get a real good feel for the gas mileage. My 650 was a piece of cake. I could figure an easy 70MPG at 70MPH; to be safe I figured 50MPG when running around 80+MPH. I more or less figured I could get about 200 miles out of a tank on my 1200, but I cannot remember if I “completely” topped of the tank in Dalhart. And at 187 miles, 6.2 miles from gas in Childress, the engine died. Damnit. I had just passed a gas station about 20 miles earlier in Memphis and thought; maybe I should just stop here and play it safe. But we were determined to see how far I could go on a tank, and as Agent 86 would say; “missed it by that much”. Gary rode the 6.2 miles up the rode to the gas station, and came back with a little over a gallon. In the mean time, I sat by the side of the road and tried taking pictures of my bike, dragging the shutter as big semis drove by. When Gary got back we put the gallon in the tank, rode into town and filled up. We thought about eating in Childress, but decided to beat our way on to Wichita Falls, knowing we would have to stop for gas at least one more time before home and figured we could kill two birds with one stone. By my calculations, if we could keep our last stop to less than 30 minutes, we could be home by 10 PM. So off we went into the waning sunlight. We stopped at an Arbys in Wichita Falls, but there was not a convenient place to get gas, so we pushed on another 40 miles or so. The last stop, was the last 100 miles to home, and was probably the most precarious of the ride. When we got onto the highway from the gas stop, a truck was barreling down on us, not a big deal, we just gassed the engines, then immediately afterward another truck in the right lane had a blow-out - bits and pieces of the giant tire flying everywhere, all of this in the dying light of the day under an increasingly cloudy sky. By the time we made it to Hwy 380 in Decatur, it had started to rain. Gary had been talking to his wife Rachel several times throughout the day, and each time she had said it was still raining in McKinney. We kept looking at the weather on Gary’s iPhone, but thought the rain would be moving as we were riding, apparently the Amarillo Dance was working quite well in McKinney and vicinity as the rain stuck around to welcome us home. In Wichita Falls, we thought we might run in to spotty showers, so we both slipped on our rain jackets, did not bother with the full gear, as we did not think we would need it. This would have been a big mistake if we were still going to be on the road, and we probably would have stopped and put on the full gear if we were still going be traveling a few more days, but as we were on the very last leg of our epic ride, home awaited and so did dry clothes and washing machines. So onward we pushed. As any last leg of a long trip goes, this last 60 miles of 380 seemed to never end. While our speeds really did not decreases that much, the torrential rains did not seem to make the time pass and quicker, and the stop and go traffic of Denton did not wile away the hourglass either. At the intersection of 287 and 380, Gary and I gave each other a high five and said “good ride”, when we approached the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway where I would turn south and Gary would continue west, we honked, waved and made the last 10 or so miles on our own. I pulled into my garage in Plano at 10:15 PM, exactly 16 hours after pulling out of Bill’s garage in Estes Park. 865 miles collect by the 1200 cc’s of the big boxer engine that day. Another great ride to Colorado, and more great memories stored in my mind and on the flash drive of mine and Gary’s camera cards. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Colorado 2009 Part 2

Thursday July 23,2009

Dillon Co - Estes Park CO

Todays ride was a short ride in comparison to the past few days. About 175 miles or so. We slept in a bit and got a late start knowing we did not need to be in a big hurry. The plan was to be at Bill’s house in Estes Park around 2:00 PM. I had talked to Bill the evening before and he was going to ride the Old Fall River Road (more later on Fall River), in the morning and then be home around 2:00 to meet us. As plans go, the plans did not exactly go as planned. The hyperspace ride through the Johnson side of the Eisenhower Tunnel, the ride up Hwy 40 through Granby, lunch in Grand Lake, all of those well laid plans, fell into place as were they placed the evening before, however the ride through the park on Trail Ridge Road is where the plan was cleanly removed from its well laid tracks. It seems that the National Park Service, in it’s infinite wisdom, had determined that the the middle of the 3 or 4 busiest months of it’s operation would be the best time to repave the only road that runs through this area for hundreds of miles. A two hour delay was the result of this planning, which ultimately affected our plans and we pulled onto the bridge that crosses the Big Thompson River to Bill’s front drive at around 4:00 PM. Our Destination had been made, and the next few days we would add another BMW, a brand new G650GS to the F800GS and R1200GS that had just completed the journey from North Texas.

Friday July 24, 2009

Estes Park CO

Our First Day in Estes Park started off with a ride up the Old Fall River Road. The Old Fall River Road is a one way dirt road that travels from the north entrance of the park off of hwy 34. It used to be the only road that went to the top (which, by the way is only 12, 172 ft, the Trail Ridge road actually climbs to 12,223 ft - it is not marked in any way, so I don’t know if anyone is actually aware of this or not), now it is kind of a novelty, scenic road that travels to the top. It is a beautifully scenic, tree lined, river bordered, road of gravel switchbacks that slowly creeps it’s way 11 miles from the bottom of the park to the Alpine Visitor Center at the summit. When you get to the summit, there is the common tourist attracting gift shops, information centers, $2.37 bottles of water, and restaurant. There was even “Mr. Buckles”, a rather eccentric older gentleman who used to work at the Grand Lake Lodge before it shut down a couple years ago. Traveling up Old Fall River is a great ride, however I have to warn, it has a lot of traffic. Most of the auto traffic is courteous enough to pull aside and allow motorcycles to pass, however on occasion, you will get a Prius, or Hummer wannabe, who just not get it. Once you find the opportunity, you can fly past, but those opportunities are far and few between. The ride back down Trail Ridge from the top was much better than the day before as the road work was on the Grand Lake side, not the Estes Park side.

After our Old Fall River Road excursion, we headed out to Stove Prairie Road. Stove Prairie Road is a fantastic road for a sport bike, and having a dual sport, it was right up our alley. The only problem we had was that it started to rain. That tended to show us down a bit. The rain was scattered, and hence the wet roads were scattered. So we were able to ride some of the road as intended. Our intention was to ride Stove Prairie, then grab a quick afternoon snack a Hooters in Loveland, and then head back to Bill’s. Rush hour traffic in Ft. Collins and Loveland, more or less changed those plans and we ended up having dinner instead of a snack and headed back to Estes Park.

Saturday July 25, 2009

Estes Park

What a fantastic day of riding. Sometimes I don’t understand why every single individual who owns a motorcycle, does not own a dual sport. The weather was threatening to be less that cooperative today, so we got up a bit early to beat the afternoon showers that were posed to be eminent. A quick breakfast at Ed’s Cantina (served by my “muggs” our waitress), and we were on our way to Pierson Park. Bill had camped there a few times in the past, and we had driven my Xterra up a little bit of it several years ago, but a lot of the forest access road would be a first for all three of us. This was a fantastic off-road trail for 3 of BMW’s finest GS models. After the ride today, I am even more impressed with the off-road capabilities of the 1200, it easily ate up the rocky terrain. Perhaps not as easily as Gary’s F800 and Bill’s G650, but I was able to keep right with both of them. In fact there were times I had to stop and let them get a little ahead of me, not so much that the bike more suitable, but more because I have learned over the past few days of off-road riding that I need to keep the RPMs of the big boxer up and the momentum of the big bike moving. I can not creep up some of the terrain the lighter more capable bikes can take on. I have been watching Gary ride the 800 in our back country excursions for a few days now and have grown accustom to his and the bikes abilities, I was very impressed with Bill’s ability off-road - he took his newly acquired beemer up this mountain road like he had been doing it for years. We spent a few hours riding up and around the mountain, ended up making a big loop and headed back to Bill’s house.

After we took a quick break back at the house, we headed out to an unknown road we had found on a map in one of the shops we made our way through a day or two earlier. All we knew was that there was a hiking trail head called Cow Creek. The trail head was just down the road from the Gem Lake Trail Head. A few years ago, I had hiked up to Gem Lake and kind of had an idea of where the road would be if we knew which road it was off of. We did a bit of research, and figured it was off of the Devils Gulch road. Devils Gulch is a great motorcycle road between Estes Park and Drake that runs through Glen Haven. This was perfect. We found the road we were looking for, it was really just a graded gravel road, but scenic none the less. Gary and I had switched bikes so it was interesting to ride the 800 for a while. After riding the gravel road, we switched back to our own bikes and hit Devils Gulch. Once we got to the road, Bill looked over at me and said, “tear your ass”, I obliged, Gary followed in quick pursuit and we downshifted our way through the hairpin turns. The only thing holding us back being a Honda and a Harley.

After straightening out all of Devil Gulch’s twists and turns, the next item on the agenda was to make a quick visit to the BMW dealership in the Ft. Collins/Loveland area, and a quick lunch. While the guy behind the counter seemed pretty cool, the dealership itself seemed to lack the character of the dealership we are used to in Dallas. North Dallas BMW is more of a neighborhood motorcycle shop, they bring pizza in for lunch on Saturdays, and you can really just more or less hang out and shoot the shit for a few hours if you want, this dealership - while very nice, and knowledgeable, seemed more like a car dealership. Of course that did not stop us from picking up a few items. On the way back through the canyons on hwy 34, we got a bit of rain, and pulled into Bill’s driveway around 4:30. During the rain, Bill and I had passed a couple of cars, Gary was not abel to safely make the pass, so he fell behind a bit. As Bill and I pulled onto the bridge I decided to wait for Gary - knowing he may not know where to make the turn because he had only been this direction up the canyon once. While waiting on the bridge in the falling rain. Because my camera was occupying the tank bag, I decided it would be wise to put the rain cover on. When doing so, I shifted the bike to neutral, and started to lean the bike onto the side stand. As the bike leaned just past that point it should have stopped it’s decent, it continued it’s downward travel toward the ground and continued it’s journey of demeaning my self esteem. A great day of riding topped of by dropping the bike on a rain covered bridge over a roaring river. Truthfully not a big deal, a 500 lb bike is really much easier to pick up than you think it would be, and it was just a simple momentary lack of reason, in the end - another great day of riding under our belts.