[DanKearney]

I'm psyched.  All packed up and ready to leave early tomorrow morning for the last multi-day motorbike trip of the season.  The very first trip on my new C5 Special.  Will be heading up and over the high Rockies and camping at the destination in Hotchkiss, CO.  Looking forward to a few 11,000' + passes, dirt roads, and some gorgeous fall colors along the way.

The metal panniers are filled with the heavy gear. The pelican case on top, although quite heavy looking, is mostly taken up by my sleeping bag and some clothes.  I was pleasantly surprised that the bike is very easy to lever off of the side stand while fully loaded.  My old BMW F650GS was a bear to grunt upright.







The route on the way out will be all on pavement.  A good protion of the the I-70 portion can done on U.S. 6 which parallels the interstate.



I didn't make a route for the trip back, but will definitely take Cottonwood Pass from Carbondale over to Gypsum and then follow I-70 service road/U.S. 6 for as much as possible on the way home.  Including Saturday's ride up to Kebeler Pass near Crested Butte, I should get in a little less than 750 miles total.  I managed to put 650 miles on the bike in the three weeks I've owned it, so she's almost broken in.  A good start to a hopefully long Royal Enfield career.

Cheers,

Dan K.

[mattsz]

Wow, that's quite a load!  How many months are ya' stayin'? 

Seriously, have a great trip!  Don't forget - your battery cable terminal ends are a weak link - mine failed me twice, but I knew what to expect, so it didn't hardly slow me down!

Dan, how did you make that map?

[High On Octane]

Awesome Dan!  You know, you will not be very far away from forum brother baird4444 (I think he's the only other member from CO besides us).  I've been meaning to make it out that far to say hi and just haven't gotten around to it.  Have fun and be safe!

Scottie

[DanKearney]

Wow, that's quite a load!  How many months are ya' stayin'? 

Seriously, have a great trip!  Don't forget - your battery cable terminal ends are a weak link - mine failed me twice, but I knew what to expect, so it didn't hardly slow me down!

Dan, how did you make that map?

Thanks for the tip on the battery cables.  One of my other bikes is a Ural, so I'm stocked up on the usual spare doo-dads, including wire and solder.

The map is just from google maps, using "terrain" view.

Cheers,

Dan K.

[DanKearney]

Awesome Dan!  You know, you will not be very far away from forum brother baird4444 (I think he's the only other member from CO besides us).  I've been meaning to make it out that far to say hi and just haven't gotten around to it.  Have fun and be safe!

Scottie

If I knew where he was, I'd look for him.  I plan to take it slow and easy.  Thanks for the good wishes.

Cheers,

Dan K.

[mattsz]

Follow the USPS to baird4444's house - I finally got around to shipping his battery tender to him.

Re. your ride: take a lot of pictures.  I like a lot of pictures...

Re. the map:  I can make a google map all day long, but I can't make it share a map the way they want me to.  I can post a clickable link to the map, but when I instead try to embed the map in the body of a message here, all I get is the pile of HTML text and no map.  I see your map is a .png file - did you just take a screen shot of your map and post it as an image?

[High On Octane]

baird4444 is in Montrose, CO, doesn't look like too far from where you are camping.

Man I wish I was making a trip like this right now.  It's been a HELLISH week at work.  Between painting customer cars, painting cars that need to be sold, putting my own car together and running out of gas last night, I haven't been home from work before 7:30p all week and have been waking up at 5a.  I could use a late summer camping trip.

And I know what you mean about having the F650 loaded up with camping gear.  A couple friends and I did a camping trip on our adventure bikes on Labor Day weekend.  I was on my friends F650 that I borrowed.  Once I had it loaded up the bike felt like it was just going to topple over on the side stand.  It actually did topple over on the center stand as I was loading the bike up to leave the campsite.  Luckily no damage done.

Scottie

[baird4444]

Ride safe my friend....
   rt. 133 south out of Carbondale is a beaut. Up and over MClure pass is one of my faves. The colors may be started showing in the high country.
why Hotchkiss? There is an awesome Beef Manhattan to be had at a
restuarant-bar down town...
   - Mike

[mattsz]

There is an awesome Beef Manhattan to be had at a
restuarant-bar down town...

Beef Manhattan?  Do they serve it in a Manhattan glass?  On the rocks?

[baird4444]

roastbeef, mashed potatoes, gravy all on a sandwich....
tasty

[D the D]

roastbeef, mashed potatoes, gravy all on a sandwich....
tasty

I love it!  Monday leftovers from Sunday Dinner when I was growing up.

Godspeed Dan!

[baird4444]

     also called a "Horse shoe...." I believe.

[mattsz]

I know it's nothing to do with rides, but since we're just chatting waiting for Dan to wow us with his report...

Speaking of restaurants and drinks:  We were at a restaurant in Saint John, NB, for a friend's 50th birthday.  She'd never tasted a martini, and tonight was the night!  We told them all about it when we were ordering.

The first warning sign should have been when the waitress asked us what kind of dressing we wanted on our salads - when we asked what our choices were, we were told, "creamy or oily".

The martini arrived... in a manhattan glass.  When pressed, the waitress said that their martini glass was being used.  After about 5-10 minutes of my friend sipping her martini, the waitress came back with the now available (and hopefully clean) martini glass, and she took the half-consumed drink and poured it from the manhattan glass into the martini glass.   

Classy joint - happy Birthday, Cathryn!

[High On Octane]

That's flipping awesome!  LMAO  Reminds of Dumb And Dumber when Harry says "Excuse me, waitress, there isn't any bubbles in my soda" and the waitress takes his drink and starts blowing into the straw.   

Scottie

[DanKearney]

Arrived home late this afternoon after about 710 miles of flawless riding.  Awesome mountain roads, and navigating Little Cottonwood Pass's clay surface in a torrential rain on the way home today.  I should have heeded the "Road impassible when wet 3 miles ahead" sign. . .

Will post a few pics tomorrow.

Cheers,

Dan K.

[DanKearney]

Better late than never.  It's been a week since the trip, but I finally got around to downloading a few pics from the old point-and-shoot.  The ride and the rally were excellent.  I won a free pair of tires as a door prize at the rally.  I opted for a new set of Winter skins for my Ural hack as the Enfield tires still have the rubber nubs on them.

Loveland Pass is the first crossing over the Continental Divide west of my home.







I took the curving and climbing service road of I-70 as much as possible, then headed south and west along Colorado Route 91 down to Leadville.  I think Leadville is Colorado's highest "city" at a little over 10,000'.  Then it was over Independence pass on Colorado Route 82.



Then down through Aspen, over to Carbondale, up and over lowly McClure Pass (8755') and down along lovely Colorado Route 133 that follows along the North Fork of the Gunnison River and down into Hotchkiss.  The rally is held each year at the Delta County Fairgrounds.  Nice grassy and shaded tent spaces and hot showers.





Of course, it is a BMW rally, so there were a lot of interesting bikes there.  I like the older model Beemers the best.





Next morning my buddy Don and I did a little 200 mile round-trip ride down along the edge of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River, past Blue Mesa Reservior and down to scenic Lake City. 





It was a beautiful warm fall day.  The annual color change of the trees is late this year and we were treated only to a little color at the higher elevations.  This next photo is on the banks of Blue Mesa Reservior.



Overlooking Lake San Cristobal a few miles south of Lake City, Colorado.



Late that evening, we were treated to some spectacular lightning and thunder as a weather front moved into the area.  It was harsh for a few hours, but when morning came, we were treated with purple clouds on the western horizon (Coming our way) and low level sunlight from the sun peaking over the mountains to the east.

We packed fairly quickly that morning, hoping to stay in front of the weather, but were not so lucky.  We were mostly dry until we reach Carbondale, Colorado about an hour later.  Of course, this was the beginning of the dirt road portion of our ride that would take us up and over little Cottonwood Pass and down into Gypsum, Colorado.



This road is built on Bentonite, which is a clay rich soil that turns to grease when it gets wet.  We were committed however, and blissfully ignored the sign which read "Road impassible 3 miles ahead".  We hoped that the rain would take a little time to soak into the soil.  We were sort of lucky, but it became really slippery as we neared the top of the pass.  Although this pass is a low one and not real steep, there are some quite sharp curves in it.  Both myself and Don had a few close calls with the berm at the side of the road.

We managed to keep the rubber underneath us, and the eastern side of the pass is paved with the rotomilled remnants of the old runway from Eagle County Airport at the eastern end of the pass road.  I exhaled a great sigh of relief when my tires touched that rough pavement.

The rest of the ride home was alternately wonderful and miserable.  We followed U.S. Route 6 most of the way, which was the main east-west road in Colorado before Interstate 70 was completed in the 1970's.  It winds its way under the interstate in many places and is a very nice ride.  However, we were forced back onto the interstate as we got about 60 miles west of Denver.

All was fine until we started down the eastern flank of the Continental Divide just west of Georgetown, Colorado.  As is all to common here, the interstate was at a standstill as all of the weekend adventurers from Denver (Guess that includes me too) tried to get back home.  It took us nearly an hour to move the 7 miles or so from the pass down to Georgetown and our opportunity to get back off the interstate onto the service road.

We were cruising along fine once again for about 10 miles until we caught up with the tail end of the line of traffic composed of all the other folks who are savvy enough to get off of I-70 at Georgetown.  It was stop and go for another 3 miles and another 30 minutes until we finally reached Idaho Springs, Colorado.  Mercifully, this is where I am able to head north to my home and leave the traffic behind.  My poor riding buddy Don had to endure the traffic for another half hour until he was also able to get off that bloody road.

The remainder of my trip home was uneventful if not wet as the heavens had decided to open up once more to ensure I would be nice and wet and muddy as I pulled into my garage a half hour later.  My last 1/2 mile home is on a dirt road. . .

Cheers,

Dan K.

[mattsz]

Looks awesome, Dan!  What beautiful scenery - I'm envious, even though there are those who would argue that I live in a pretty nice place, too... and I do, of course!  But I'd love to tackle some of those mountain roads...

Thanks for the great report and pics!

[DanKearney]

Looks awesome, Dan!  What beautiful scenery - I'm envious, even though there are those who would argue that I live in a pretty nice place, too... and I do, of course!  But I'd love to tackle some of those mountain roads...

Thanks for the great report and pics!

Thanks Mattsz.  Where are you located?

Cheers,

Dan K.

[baird4444]

what a great trip!!  you were in my back yard,
next time your over Montrose way, give me a shout- Mike

[mattsz]

Thanks Mattsz.  Where are you located?

Mid-coast Maine...

http://www.enfieldmotorcycles.com/forum/index.php/topic,17019.0.html

[High On Octane]

Great pics Dan!  Sounds like you had a good ride. 

Scottie

[rvcycleguy]

Thanks for sharing the ride and pic report. Excellent ride. I was out that way last summer myself on a much bigger v twin 800 Boulevard.  To get across those divides is a workout with a constant pull on the throttle.  Nice ride. 

[Arizoni]

Thanks for the great write up and pictures.

[AussieDave]

Great pictures and magnificent country. I've always wondered what John Denver was so exited about and now I see!  A Rocky Mountain high .