Colorado July 2009 - Part 1

Colorado 2009 - GS Adventure

The past two years I have made a solo journey to Colorado, since then, it has been a highlight of my year. This year the sojourn would not be solo, this year Gary and I are making the trip together, and in fact we are writing this blog entry while on the road, in Dillon Colorado, to be exact - 4 days into the ride. We will try to blog more, but we will be in Estes Park tomorrow and I think it may be a while before we have access to the internet again. Here is a brief summary of our stories to this point

Sunday July 19, 2009

McKinney TX - Taos NM

We departed around 7:30 in the morning with the intent of making Raton NM, but hoping we might be able to make Taos. The ride was about as relatively uneventful as any ride can be when riding through this part of Texas, however much to our satisfaction, the 105 degree weather had calmed down to the low 90’s on Sunday. So the riding was bearable with mesh gear. Just past Amarillo, the long straight flat roads gave way to a little more interest as we bypassed Dumas for a more direct route to Dalhart. When we got into Dalhart we saw that storms were starting to build up in the direction of Taos, so we decided to just make Raton and call it a day. That plan held weight until Clayton NM, when we looked at each other said “Taos?”, at which point we promptly headed west. Good call, unless you don’t like riding in storms. The storm did not last to long, but it came in strong for a while. After the rain, we rode through Cimmaron and I don’t know if it is because it was the first of the trip, or if it is really that grand, but the road between Cimmaron Taos, is some of most beautiful riding I’ve ever done.

We pulled into Taos 670 miles and 14 hours after leaving Gary’s house in McKinney, and around 8:30 Sunday (time change) evening completed our first days ride.

Monday July 20, 2009

Taos NM - Telluride CO

The morning was crisp and bright and the coffee was hot and black. Our dual sport Beemers would take us through northern New Mexico, over the Rio Grand Gorge, and past the Dr Seuse looking houses that lined the long, straight, undulating roads that vanished into the horizon. We made our way north towards Colorado where more adventure would await. The as we sat at the bar in Taos the evening prior, we had decided to make our way through Durango, up 145 to Telluride, spend some time in Telluride and then ride a road called the Last Dollar Road the next morning. The only change to that plan was that the GPS took us to a rode through the Purgatory Ski Resort that did not exist. Gary thought 145 broke off of 550 in Durango, but the GPS was saying to keep going, and like a robot wired to the technology which it was built upon, I blindly followed. In the end, we had to ride through Ridgeway to get to Telluride, about 70 miles out of the way, but it was a nice ride up 550, Silverton, Ouray, and the Million Dollar highway. One of the options was to take Ophir Pass from Silverton to 145, but I had not been feeling well the entire day and thought the wise decision was not to make my first off-road mountain pass on my new 1200 under those conditions. In the end, it probably would not have saved to much time by taking Ophir, so it was probably the right decision although not the “adventurous” one. We got in to Telluride around 7 PM, checked into the hotel, and had a really great dinner at a restaurant at the top of the mountain. While Gary had been to Telluride before, I had never been and I’m glad we wanted to go - Telluride is a great little town. Population, 2,500 we were informed.

Tuesday July 21,2009

Telluride CO - Glenwood Springs CO

I think the very first words I spoke Tuesday morning were “you want to ride up to Bridal Veil Falls?”... When we rode into Telluride about 12 hours earlier, we rode to the end of town and Gary showed me Bridal Falls, pointed at a gravel road and said “I think that goes up to Bridal Veil Falls”. I don’t remember if we really discussed riding up there - as I said, I was kind of out of it on Monday, but I remember waking up thinking, we could ride up there after breakfast and then head up Last Dollar. I was feeling much better this morning, and after a quick breakfast, we aired down the tires a bit, left all of the luggage in the hotel room and made our way through the nostalgic buildings towards the unpaved road we had spied the evening before. They say the F800GS is a more capable bike than the R1200GS off-road. Today, the proof was in the pudding. Gary easily made his way up the switchbacks while I struggled. I can chalk some of this up to inexperience with the new bike off-road (other then the off-road around the Dallas area), but this was Gary’s first off-road on the 800 as well. It got a lot easier as we continued to ride up the rocky road, but I was not exactly looking forward to coming back down. To help avoid an extra dose of prilosec for the day, the low gearing of the big GS made the descent a non event, I even got the switch backs under control after a couple.

After Bridal Veil, we loaded up the bikes with all the gear, checked out of the hotel and headed to Last Dollar Road. Last Dollar is a really fun and easy road. There is about a 5 or 6 mile section in the middle that is a little more narrow and challenging (and fun), but most of the roads 20 miles is just gravel. The road winds it’s way through, Aspens, crosses streams, overlooks grand vistas, and grasslands. While we rode it in the summer, they say it is one of the most scenic and photographed places in Colorado in the fall.

The next stop on our agenda was Marble Colorado and the Mill in Crystal. We made our way North on 133 until the turn off to Marble. Winded our way to Marble and stopped at the General Store. We went inside to get a cold drink and talk to the locals about the road to Crystal. What we got was “it’s rough”, and “my brother can come and get you if you can’t get out”. Then we met some really nice folks from Kansas on the porch while sipping on our cool beverages. Ironically, one of the guys names was Gary... (easy to remember). They gave us some advice on the road as well, and even offered to store our gear at their house so we could lighten our bikes for the ride. We took Gary up on his offer, took the side, case, top cases, etc... off the bikes and headed out towards Crystal. Long story short, we did not make it to Crystal. We made it almost 1/2 way. If it had been earlier in the day and we would not have had to rode back in the dark - maybe we would have continued... maybe not. This was a pretty rough rode. Having ridden to Bridal Veil earlier in the day certainly helped, and all of the ridding we rode on our 650’s certainly helped, but personally, I had been in situations where I would cross one obstacle, think it was the last, cross another - then get in too deep and have to cross all of them again to get out. At one point we stopped and I told Gary that I thought if we kept going the last 3 miles, I may be in to deep for me to handle getting back out. He said that he was kind of thinking the same thing and we decided the best thing was to turn around and make our way back out. One thing I can say is that we were told that it would probably take us a couple of hours to make it one way, to Crystal and then another 2 hours to make it back out. We had actually made it to almost 1/2 way in about 15 minutes - but of course on a bike, especially a 500 lb bike - you have to commit, you can’t creep. When we got back to Gary (from Kansas’) house, we stopped and chatted for a while before making our way to Glenwood Springs. We were going to stay in Carbondale, but figured Glenwood would have more hotel options with wi-fi so we could update this blog. In the end, a full day of riding, with all of the off-road included pretty much zapped up and after dinner, no blogging was to be done.

Wednesday July 22, 2009

Glenwood Springs CO - Dillon CO

The continental breakfast of coffee and danish at the hotel in Glenwood Springs served purpose of sustaining us as we burned up the 40 miles of southbound highway 82 towards Aspen. A more substantial early morning meal was devoured at a popular Aspen Cafe. Although it was just the house fare, the coffee was quite aromatic and flavorful. After leaving Aspen, it was on to Independence Pass. I had ridden this stretch of twisted, happily misshapen highway before, and it is one of my favorites for its tree lined, river following, mounting hugging winding turns. At one point we caught up to two riders, one on a Harley, and one on a Gold Wing. I found an opportunity to pass the Harley and when I did the Gold Wing rider hit the throttle and I have to say that I was quite impresses with the Honda. As the Harley fell away, I would have really had to push it to pass the Gold Wing, and an opportunity never safely presented itself, nor was I seeking one, I was happy to fly to the top under the gold wings of the Honda.

We wanted to do a little more off-pavement riding today, and I remembered a spot a couple of miles from the Continental Divide at the summit. There was a river crossing that I wanted to do on my 650 that I chose not to attempt due to being solo. When I found the access to the road, Gary and I pulled off of hwy 82. We stopped and analyzed the crossing for a few minutes. Plotted out the best path to cross the 20 or so yards of rushing water, and decided that Gary would cross first. Gary rode across the river, water cascading up both sides of the bike, and made his way to the other side. I was looking forward to my crossing, it looked easy. However, when he got to the other side, he had a different story. He said that it was not that easy and that he almost busted his ass. Evident was the fact that he did not take the path we had discussed, I thought it was just that he decided to go a different way. He said it was because the loose rocks on the bottom of the river forced him that direction. We spent some time discussing it, and ultimately it was decided that the wise call would be for me not to cross. The dilemma was that Gary would have to get back to my side of the river. After discussing options of removing the luggage and walking it across Gary decided to just ride back across slowly and be ready to stop if he needed to. The 2nd crossing was a bit slower, but successful. After Gary got back across we talked about it more. I had been thinking about crossing this river since not doing it two years prior, and after making two crossings already I think Gary decided that it may not be as hard as it was the first time, so we made the executive decision to push on, cross the river and see what was on the other side. The road after our agua adventure was not so rough under wheel as it was rough on the handle bars and side cases. I remember this from two years ago as this ended up being a different part of the road I had taken an excursion on from the other side. Over all it meandered its way back to the highway after a couple of miles through the forest. Another adventured logged under the engine guards, and logged by the GPS.

The remainder of the day was spent riding from Independence Pass through Leadville to Dillon, fairly uneventful, if you can call fantastic scenery uneventful. Which brings us, her. Dillion Colorado, sitting behind the keyboard of an apple laptop blogging about our Colorado adventure - while still in Colorado. More to come....