Trip To Colorado

There are three of us - Lucien, Lee and myself. We are all about the same skill level; none of us have raced, but do enjoy taking the fringe off of the outside rubber on the twisties whenever we can. Lucien is on a ’01 Honda VTR (Previous bikes owned, Aprilla 650 Pegaso, Triumph Sprint ST, Suzuki GS 500, and Suzuki 125). Lee rides a ’02 Triumph Speed Triple (’01 Ducati Monster, ’84 Night Hawk 750 – code name Night Rider). My experience comes from growing up on a variety of dirt bikes, first road bike was a customized ’74 Honda 750 with a super long rake, eight bend bars and was as ugly as you can imagine. (oh yea – all class) Then on to a BMW R1100 and finally to a really great ’04 Ducati ST3. It’s a full day in the car and pretty sure the Kansas landscape put us into a trance. Should be to the Hotel around 1:00 a.m. Monday (3:00 Indy time)

bikes in front…… Tai Food it is!! Tasty treats. After a great lunch we rolled thru Glen Haven and Drake, and then decided to take the big loop in Estes Park. What an experience that decision turned out to be.

It’s a beautiful drive that takes you a little over 12,000 feet. While we were up there we noticed some ominous clouds and waited to see if they were going to be threatening to our position. Easy answer – YES! I think I read somewhere that you don’t want to be on top of the mountain, above the tree line when a storm comes thru. It didn’t take us long to come to the conclusion that it was time to find some cover. Noticing a shelter house with a couple of restrooms on the way up, we turned our sights toward lower elevation. Too late!! The rain, hail and 50+ mph winds were on us. It was a white knuckled descent. When we reached the shelter we met a couple of guys from just north of Toronto. They were heading back tomorrow and were going to push the distance in just two days. We talked and hung out until the storm passed by and the roads started to dry a bit. Check out the rainbow. I don’t think the pictures do it justice, but it was awesome. We climbed back on the bikes to finish the route. On the way, we stopped and took some cool shots as we came around the bend. The ST3 was made for a ride like this and felt great!

I can’t believe they stopped making the ST..

Note: one thing no one told us about was the 15 miles of gravel road that finishes out the loop. If you go out there, take the big loop to just past the top, turn around and ride it out. While it took me back to my dirt bike days of being up on the pegs and letting the bike work underneath me, it was NOT a fun part of the ride. We fueled up at Grand Lake, continued on thru Granby when it started to rain again. By the time we reached Winter Park it was dark, cold and rainy. I forgot to bring my clear face shield, a really bad decision with the rain at night – in the mountains. Did I mention that was a really bad decision? The repair lines get REALLY slippery when wet and after a couple of small shifts from the back wheel, coupled with the poor visibility, my confidence level went straight down. Safety first right? It was a long and slow ride back to I-70 that would take us back to Denver around 12:45 a.m. A long day in the saddle, but what a great experience.

Steak was on the menu for dinner and we found a true steak lover’s restaurant in Emil-Lene’s Sirloin House. Recommended in the local dining guide, we decided to give it a try. A little off the beaten path – yes. If you like steak this is the place. No menu, there were only three options. T-bone, Filet and Sirloin

of various ounce cuts. The meal came with the basics. They do offer fresh ground pepper for the salad! Seriously!

Riding along 40 took much longer than anticipated, but it was worth it to see the small towns and way that people in this part of the country live and work. It’s a tough environment. Today’s ride took thirteen hours. Riding past Park City and thru the mountain pass to get to Salt Lake was nice. Good to see the family, have some dinner and relax with good conversation.

The next morning, after spending some time cleaning off ‘bug juice’ from almost every leading edge of the ST, I took off. I was ready to get back to Denver and decided to take a different route via I-80 thru Wyoming to Laramie and down to Ft. Collins, Colorado. The winds along I-80 were consistently strong and from the southwest. I am pretty sure I wore down the right side of the tires as I had to lean into the wind almost the whole way to stay in my lane. Really – the winds were strong today. Back to Denver in about eight hours and dinner with Lucien and Lee. Typically, I don’t like chain restaurants when on vacation, but Outback was within walking distance from the hotel and seemed like a good place to have dinner and talk about the last two days of riding. They had found some more ‘absolutely sick’ roads and we enjoyed a solid meal before crashing (should I say that) for the evening.

We decided to hang out at Erico Motorsports and talk with the crew some more about routes and the upcoming Pike’s Peak race this weekend. It seemed like a 50/50 shot on catching any good pictures or meeting any of the teams, so we decided to take off for the mountains again. But not before going to lunch! We ate at a really cool place right up the block from the shop, highly recommended by the Erico crew called ‘The Walnut Room’. Great suggestion – I could see myself hanging out here to enjoy several beers all day. The place was cool and casual and was even adorned with a cool Duc racer. My kind of place. If you go, try the pizza.

Since it wasn’t raining and the forecast looked good, no beers were had, just lunch and back on the bikes. The previous day Lucien and Lee came upon Mount Evans. Mount Evans holds the title of the highest road in North America. Problem was – they don’t open the road until 1:00. So, after a thrilling run thru the mountains, we made it to the base of the mountain for our shot up the narrow curvy road. This is NOT a road to take chances on, we were warned about the ice buildup that occurs in small dips in the road, the fact that there are no shoulders, possible high winds and oh yes – goats! Yes goats – sometimes the local mountain goat herd will park themselves on the road and it’s suggested that you pretty much leave them alone until they move on. I have to say at this point, I am from Indiana; I live at 870 feet above sea level and I DO NOT like heights! So all the warnings had me feeling a little nervous about the ascent. Go ahead, face your fears, lots of people have done it – so stop being ridiculous and get on the bike. Whew – I was white knuckled all the way up and said lots of prayers, but I made it. Lee and Lucien don’t have the fear of heights that I do, so they cruised up pretty easy. While we were up there, it seemed like a good time to take a couple of pictures.

I didn’t stay long, breathing was tough for me and I decided to descend shortly after arriving. Lucien and Lee hung out a bit and met me at the base shortly thereafter.

This is apparently a good place for auto manufacturers to send their concept cars for emissions data testing at altitude and we were able to see cars from Mercedes and Lotus. The Mercedes guy – not so friendly, but the Lotus engineers were great to talk with and didn’t seem to mind that we took pictures

of their cars. They had two cars here to test. Sharp cars that are powered by Toyota engines. The Evora has not been released in the States yet, but is due to hit this market in September. By the looks and performance of this car, it should fare well in the United States.

After talking cars for a while we took off on our last run of the trip. A BMW K1200 had joined us as we headed out. Since this was the last run, we really hit it and while I think the K1200 is a gorgeous bike, there was no way we were going to let him hang on our tail lights. I have never thought that I would lean so far to have a chance at scraping the panniers, but it was close! The acceleration off the corners with a V-twin was outstanding……….we dropped him like a bad habit. Wow – that was a great way to finish off the week! After some strong consideration, we decided to work our way back to the hotel to load the bikes while we still had daylight. Some good Italian food and we were off to dream land and an early, 3:00 a.m. wake up call. Did I say early?

So, I’m in the car on a 21 hour trek back to Indianapolis. The trip was a success. We came to ride and that’s exactly what we did. I have been fortunate enough to motorcycle in the Smoky Mountains on several occasions and for technical, tight turns with lots of shifting there is nothing better. But if you want to hit some long banking, high speed, hair raising turns that seem like they are never going to end, make the trip to the Rockies at least once in your lifetime. If you go – be sure to stop at Erico Motorsports and say Hello for us!

I’ve included some other pics from the ride. Enjoy -- Jim