Heading west: NYC to CO & UT

The plan so far is to blast through the northeast and midwest in the next few days, then spend a week riding in south Colorado and Utah with no particular destination, but a few way points: pikes peak, the San Juan mountains, Moab, monument valley etc... then drop the bike at a storage in Vegas and fly back.

I had planned to leave tomorrow, but I managed to get out of new york early this afternoon and cover 250 miles dodging thunderstorms.. Here's my ride for this trip:



I'll try to update this thread with some more interesting pictures and ramblings as I go along..

Blue skies,
Victor

ride safe and have a groovy time!

You should try to hook up with Kenny (VegasRider) in Vegas!

Damn, you ride in NYC, that is one challenging place to ride. I've been to the city dozens of times, and it's freaking crazy. Once you get out west, you will love the space, it so empty compared to the densely populated NE. Give me a shout if you get near Vegas. Might as well go to California, all this way to just turn around and head back east when you're just a state or two away.

VEGASRIDER said:

Damn, you ride in NYC, that is one challenging place to ride. I've been to the city dozens of times, and it's freaking crazy. Once you get out west, you will love the space, it so empty compared to the densely populated NE. Give me a shout if you get near Vegas. Might as well go to California, all this way to just turn around and head back east when you're just a state or two away.

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I agree we can catch a few really nice scenic rides out here.:rockon:

victorb said:

The plan so far is to blast through the northeast and midwest in the next few days, then spend a week riding in south Colorado and Utah with no particular destination, but a few way points: pikes peak, the San Juan mountains, Moab, monument valley etc... then drop the bike at a storage in Vegas and fly back.

I had planned to leave tomorrow, but I managed to get out of new york early this afternoon and cover 250 miles dodging thunderstorms.. Here's my ride for this trip:

I'll try to update this thread with some more interesting pictures and ramblings as I go along..

Blue skies,
Victor

Click to expand...

I live in Durango, Colorado and could show you around this neck of the woods, have fun!

victorb said:

The plan so far is to blast through the northeast and midwest in the next few days, then spend a week riding in south Colorado and Utah with no particular destination, but a few way points: pikes peak, the San Juan mountains, Moab, monument valley etc... then drop the bike at a storage in Vegas and fly back.


Blue skies,
Victor

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And I live at the foot of Pikes Peak....give a shout when you get here, maybe I can ride up there with you, rumor has it, it's paved all the way now.

VEGASRIDER said:

Damn, you ride in NYC, that is one challenging place to ride. I've been to the city dozens of times, and it's freaking crazy. Once you get out west, you will love the space, it so empty compared to the densely populated NE. Give me a shout if you get near Vegas. Might as well go to California, all this way to just turn around and head back east when you're just a state or two away.

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Well I'd love to keep going to the coast, but I only have limited time and didn't want to spend 5 days hauling a** to get to the coast.. but maybe there will be a California trip while my bike is stored west.

major tom said:

I live in Durango, Colorado and could show you around this neck of the woods, have fun!

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Sounds great! I had planned to spend a night in Silverton and maybe rent an ATV the next day to do some of the mountain passes.. all of this is weather depending of course.. but I should be in the area tue. or wed., I'll keep you posted!

lytehouse said:

And I live at the foot of Pikes Peak....give a shout when you get here, maybe I can ride up there with you, rumor has it, it's paved all the way now.

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Damn I was looking forward to some gravel action I should be in Denver tomorrow, heading south from there sometime Monday morning.. I'll get back in touch when I know more..

To sum up:
PA was hilly
WV was just a few minutes
OH was wet and cold
IN was pretty nice
IL was boring
MO even more so
KS has been surpringly nice so far

I'm 150 miles into Kansas on US-36, stopped for the night.. Will get to Denver tomorrow where I have a pit stop scheduled for Monday morning to get some new tires on.. and then the fun should begin!

Couple pictures from KS tonight:

Nice pics, sounds like fun. Would like to ride out to Rapid City, SD, cruise the Black Hills, maybe next year. Ride safe.

Picking up where I left off 4 months ago. I thought I'd be updating this as I go along, but it's way too much work when on the road all day.

So last post was in the middle of KS. The next day I made it to Denver. It was still pretty uneventful straight line riding ("uneventful" is my recollection after 4 months.. I think back then I was so bored I was ready to blow my brains out). After 2 days of this straight line stuff, I upped the pace somewhat since I hadn't seen one cop over 1,000 miles. Even on a naked bike, the wind blast is really not that bad when you tuck in and have a tank bag to deflect some of the wind of your chest.

Random picture somewhere in Kansas:



Crossing into Colorado, it's more of the same landscape:



With one difference.. even less gas stations. Actually there is none for the first 140 or so miles on US-36 in Colorado (well there's one, but it's not opened on Sundays.. ask me how I know). I ended up taking a slight detour from my straight west route to find some gas.

Cutting it close



That little detour took me by a cool field of wind turbines though (note to self: when running out of gas, don't stop to take pictures!)




After filling up, I headed to Denver and I have to say I have never been so happy to see some mountains in the horizon! I made it to Denver by 4pm or so.. went for a walkaround the city, grabbed some food and off to bed.. After 3 and half days of riding, the fun finally starts tomorrow!

Next morning, the first stop was a pit stop. See, I had a pair of Q2 on the bike before leaving, with about 3,000 miles on them. These had been my weekend fun and occasional track day tire for part of the summer, and the center part still looked pretty good. Being the cheapo that I am, I decided I'd try my luck crossing the country with soft tires It worked out pretty well actually as they weren't even nearly worn down by the time I got to Denver. These Q2s are really awesome tires.. super sticky at 30/32 psi, and touring capable at 38/42 psi. Bravo Dunlop.

Anyway, before leaving I had sent some tires to Woody's Wheel Works in Denver and made an appointment to have them mounted on Monday morning. Showed up at 9am, an was out the door by 10. These guys were great to deal with - highly recommended. With new shoes on:



and a breakfast burrito in:



I started heading south towards Pike's Peak. Following the "no highway" theme of this trip, I took 67 south, and quickly ended on dirt.. Awesome! just what I wanted, except maybe not that early in the trip Up and down the mountain for 20 or so miles, first switchbacks on dirt etc.. all went well as I was starting to get used to the feeling of the bike (city guy here.. never had a dirtbike and hardly ever rode anything but pavement besides the old gravel driveway ). But man did it feel good to be out there riding! I can still remember the smell of those pine trees!



After a while, the road switched to pavement again and I was in Pike's Peak soon after. Going up was great, but as Brenda had mentioned here, they were finishing paving the whole road when I was there.. No more dirt sections on the Pike's Peak hill climb I guess.. kind of a shame!
I got to the top and I almost fell down when I reached for the sidestand! There's like 0 oxygen up there! 14,000 feet isn't a joke! What it lacks in oxygen it makes up for in scenery though:





After walking around a bit (and being completely out of breath just doing so), I started going back down. This is the road going up (down) :thumbup:





Somehow going down just a thousand feet or so made a huge difference, and I'm back to ear to ear grin in my helmet:


Further down the road, the aspen were in full yellow.. and since I have a SLR with me, I am somehow obligated to take pictures of trees and rust.. that's just how it is:





After getting back down, I headed southwest to the area where the last Colorado gold rush took place at the turn of last century. It sounded like a cool thing to see, was in the direction I wanted to go, and they named the town Victor so of course I had to go. This area is really cool actually if you read up some on wikipedia:

On October 20, 1890, however, Robert Miller "Bob" Womack discovered a rich ore and the last great Colorado gold rush was on. Thousands of prospectors flocked to the region, and before long W. S. Stratton located the famous Independence lode, one of the largest gold strikes in history. In three years, the population increased from 500 to 10,000 by 1893. Though $500,000,000 worth of gold ore was dug from Cripple Creek, Womack himself would die, penniless, on August 10, 1909.

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An old mine shaft (told you about the rust):


It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the whole landscape was leveled by the mining, almost like the rice paddies in southeast asia:





Right after the small town, the modern mine is still very much in operation:


(To give you a sense of scale, that white dot on the mountain above the second pillar of the bridge is a proper mining truck)

I wanted to continue south, but there was a big nasty storm and the only way south I wanted to go was a dirt road.. dirt + storm + unexperienced rider + 5pm = no thanks! I went to the next town over (cripple creek, little casino town), and called it a day.

Great pics! I remember Pikes Peak in 1968! Lots of mines around there and tough on getting O2 to the lungs.
Thank you for the great pictures!

I road coast to coast and remember how hard it was staring at flat lands for so long! I'd open up the KZ1000 every once in a while to break the boredom.
That's a 78 or earlier KZ that in that window.

i envy you, one of these days ill do that, ill have tochange from this factory seat tho....


be safe!!

What a GREAT ride and pics!!!

The next time you travel bring your Motojoe credit card, dont leave home without it:thumbup:

:BLAA::BLAA:

Motogiro said:

Great pics! I remember Pikes Peak in 1968! Lots of mines around there and tough on getting O2 to the lungs.
Thank you for the great pictures!

I road coast to coast and remember how hard it was staring at flat lands for so long! I'd open up the KZ1000 every once in a while to break the boredom.
That's a 78 or earlier KZ that in that window.

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You had a KZ1000? That's awesome! Do you know about this shop in Japan that rebuilds vintage Kawasakis with their own manufactured parts (custom swingarms, handmade headers etc) and top shelf components (ohlins, brembo)? Their bikes are incredible:





Their website is there: RCM Sanctuary Gallery. Great way to waste an hour or 3!

motojoe122 said:

What a GREAT ride and pics!!!

The next time you travel bring your Motojoe credit card, dont leave home without it:thumbup:

:BLAA::BLAA:

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Tell me more.. Does that mean I get to ride and you pay the bills? If so, sign me up for one of those right now

Awesome! Didn't ya love that little road between Victor & Cripple Creek? It's one of our favorites. I hope you had the chance to get some donuts on top of Pikes Peak....yum!
And again, I'm sorry we didn't get the chance to meet when you were here
Next time though!!!

Picking up were I left off.. I Woke up to a brilliant day the next morning. The night before though, the weather report was on full panic mode with big storm cells that moving from the pacific across California and Utah, and forecast of cold temperatures, rain, and snow on the Colorado peaks for the next couple days. So it was time to get out of there!

I stuck to my morning plan though and headed south towards Cañon City via Phantom Canyon. Even just the name sounded freaking cool, and knowing that it was 30 miles of dirt riding in a canyon just sealed the deal!





Tunnels blasted through the rocks:





After grabbing a bite in Cañon City, I started heading west to cross Colorado. First I had to ride that little stretch of road called Skyline Drive outside Cañon City: A useless 1 way road that parallels the normal highway, except it's perched on top of a peak with hundred feets cliffs on each side! Well of course I'm in!




(the highway is down below and to the right, the town is on the left)

To be honest.. it was kinda anticlimactic and sounded better on paper than it was in real life.. worth the 15 minutes detour but that's about it
With that out of the way, I took route 50 heading west, following a river for a while. Wonderful easy riding with long sweepers and beautiful scenery:





The weather started getting a little dodgy after a while, but it makes for good pictures:


Just after Monarch Pass (and yes of course, I'm headed right there!):


It's funny how sometimes you look at a map and what you picture in your head has nothing to do with the reality! Take this for instance:

When I see this I think of a nice lake in a forest, maybe a beach or two, i don't know.. well it wasn't anything like that!





That was such a weird place. It felt so desolate and barren.. like being on the moon for some reason. I had definitely never been in a place like that, like a high altitude desert landscape. But it was awesome to see it, and definitely more interesting than what I had pictured in my head.

I made it to Montrose, CO by 5pm. I had a dilemma in front of me. I needed to go south, via Hwy 550 (of 'Million Dollar Highway' fame). But there were some nasty clouds piled up in that direction, and the weather map on my phone showed rain and snow over the area. On the other hand, I could stay in Montrose for the night but if the weatherman was right, I could end up being stuck in snow the next morning and below freezing temperatures for the next few days.
So I said f**k it, and headed south.. It's only a 100 miles anyway, can't be that bad kind of thing Made it to Ouray in no time, and then started to climb up the pass.. And man was it beautiful.. and even though it was raining and bitter cold (hence no pictures), it was damn gorgeous mountains and wonderful twisty tarmac! As we reached the pass, I stopped for a minute pondering going back to Ouray as I had 60 miles of mountain roads at 10k+ feet ahead of me, in this:



After pondering my options over a wet cigarette, I guess my stupid brain told me something like turning back is for p**sies (yeah I'm an idiot ), so I kept going!

More rain and fog going down to Silverton. A few miles later, the road start going up again ("hum.. didn't expect that").. and then a sign: Pass in 7 miles.. ("yay, another mountain in the freezing rain").. followed a few miles later by a proper snow shower.. got up to the summit, and started going back down on the other side.. after a while the snow stopped replaced by steady rain and I'm thinking it wasn't so bad after all. At this point it's completely dark out, and I'm drenched and cold so I hook up behind a car and plan on sticking behind it for the last 30 miles or so.. then of course we start going up again.. Pass in 5 miles sign.. rain turns into snow.. pass.. snow turns into rain.. getting used to it by now
I eventually made it down to Durango in the pouring rain, checked in the first motel I saw on the side of the road and stayed forever under the shower to warm myself up.

550 was an awesome road though.. even in those really crappy conditions, I could tell this road had the potential to be an awesome piece of riding! I'll definitely be back, hopefully with the sun on my side this time!

Even though I took this picture the next morning, it sums it up pretty well!

lytehouse said:

Awesome! Didn't ya love that little road between Victor & Cripple Creek? It's one of our favorites. I hope you had the chance to get some donuts on top of Pikes Peak....yum!
And again, I'm sorry we didn't get the chance to meet when you were here
Next time though!!!

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Yeah that road was really nice!
Dude, at the top of Pikes Peak, I couldn't have swallowed a donut without choking I'm a sea level guy, I'm not equipped for this stuff I did see a woman in her 50s smoking a cigarette up there though, so I guess I should try harder
Next time sounds good! It's hard to coordinate on a long trip, and it was just bad luck that I missed your vacation by a couple days.