Jul 25 2015

Byebye Boulder

Time to say goodbye to Marshall and Ali after a wonderful stay where they thoroughly spoilt us. We take Marshall’s recommendation and ride the Peak to Peak road, following the Boulder Creek to Nederland before heading north to Estes Park. A perfect biking road, with gentle, nearly rhythmic left then right turns. We ride through Ward, a community of hippies, which looks more like a massive junkyard. Interestingly, whereas most of Colorado views Boulder as too liberal, too different and too weird, that is how the residents of Boulder view the residents of Ward!! We stop in Estes Park for a hot coffee and tea to warm up, and add another layer – it is nippy and will get even colder as we climb into the Rocky Mountain National Park next. It goes down to 7 degrees celcius! We even get our winter gloves out.

Peak to Peak road sign

On our way to Estes Park

Wow, to think we visited this park back in 1980 – we had no idea then that we would be back 35 years later on bikes!! We thought it would be fun to get a photo at the same spot as the one we got of ourselves back then but thank goodness, Anthony suggested we had walked far enough and not to bother going all the way: at 3700m high, walking uphill is much tougher for both of us than it was in 1980 – and it was hard enough back then! We walked back to the bikes, ready to explore more of this stunning park. Ooops, I am feeling weird. Pull over quick – crouch down, breathe, wait, head down. We need to get down, as soon as possible. I am ok to go on – it won’t be long before we loose altitude. It is a battle for me. Concentrate, breathe slowly, Anthony, talk to me, about anything! Anthony is calming. Four cars in front me suddenly slow down and stop in the middle of the road: stupid drivers, move on, just because they want to take a stupid photo of a stupid male deer, a perfect picture postcard stupid photo. My legs are shaky but I know that staying up and wait for the feeling to pass is not an option and as soon as we move again, the momentum of the bike will keep me up. I am fighting with my head as I know what’s going on, especially when I caught myself about to say to Anthony to carry on and just leave me here. Eventually, the cars move on and after a final extra short climb, it is downhill all the way. Anthony reads out the altitude we have reached every few hundred feet. It is not long before I start feeling better. What a pity I didn’t get a photo of that amazing elk (thanks Karen), looking straight at me, huge perfect antlers against the deep blue sky!! The picture is imprinted in my mind though. And Anthony captured it on the video!!

Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park wildflowers

Rocky Mountain National Park

From there, we went to Granby, Kremmling and stopped in Steamboat for the night as there was a massive storm ahead of which we were not going to be able to avoid and we didn’t feel like getting wet. We have ridden through a few interesting places today, witnessing some topical aspects of Colorado and US politics Such as the distinctive smell of cannabis, whose sale for recreational use was legalised early 2014 in Colorado. And such as a pickup (ute), driving with a massive Confederate flag flying high above its canopy. Since the recent massacre at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, there has been a lot of debate about the use of the Confederate flag and whether it represents pride or racism. While the US flag flew at half mast atop the state Capitol, the Confederate wasn’t. There was outrage. But things are not that simple as is often the case. The height of the Confederate flag was regulated by law, it had to fly at 30 feet, there was no pulley system to lower it and unless the lawmakers voted to have it removed, it had to stay where it was!! That was until a week ago when legislation was passed to have it removed.

We stop for lunch at a tiny road side restaurant, the Chuck Wagon Restaurant, in Granby. The poor waitress is completely rushed off her feet, being the only waitress there. The green chili burrito is delicious. On our way out, we chat with a great group of 3 ‘mature’ Harley riders. Real salt of the earth characters, with eyes that tell me they must have so many fabulous stories and experiences. Unfortunately, they are riding in the opposite direction to us.

Between Granby and Kremmling

Once again, we manage to dodge a couple of storms but as we arrive into Steamboat,we realise we would be heading straight into the next one. Time to stop as we don’t feel like getting wet and we could do with a rest. We find a nice little hotel on the main road, the Nordic Lodge, run by a lovely young Polish couple. We have been to Steamboat before but always to ski – we go for a lovely walk around town before find a place for dinner.

Just love those wildflowers

Managed to dodge this storm as we approach Steamboat

Steamboat

Steamboat ski slopes

Outside a Steamboat bookstore

After a delicious breakfast (with real bread instead of the usual sweet American ‘bread’, quality jams, fresh fruit and good coffee), we load up streak and Storm with our overnight bags (we have got quite organised since we got to South America: we each have a day pack that lives in our top box which contains all we need for 5 days, including pillows, slippers, rain jackets, fleeces and snacks. Our walking shoes live in a side pouch of our panniers.

Thursday, we leave Steamboat under a bright blue sky. After riding along the river, through a final canyon, head north of Craig on Co13 and we are suddenly out in the open country. This country is vast!! It is incredible that while we are riding through flat land, we are still above 2000m/7000ft!! Time for a stop and a snack of fruit and nuts. We enjoy stopping, watching grasses blowing in the breeze, listening to the chirping birds. We stop again for lunch outside Rawlins next to a gas station we have just refueled. Once again, we chat to a group of Harley Davidson riders. We’ve enjoyed chatting to fellow riders, but we have found that, apart from a few exceptions, people who approach us for a chat are invariably riders themselves. And so far in the US, they have all been Harley riders. Apparently, HD sales represent 50% of large bike sales in the US. I would have thought it was more than that from what we have seen on the road.

Leaving Steamboat

Co13 north of Craig

New section of Co13

It is windy most of the day. In places particularly windy, difficult and tiring to ride. Nothing like the scary gusts we experienced in South America luckily. We see signs warning of 35mph gusts on the outskirts of Casper but we got much stronger than that on the open road. Today has been pretty tiring with a combination of boring straight roads and strong side winds and we are ready to call it a day by the time we arrive in Casper.

US287 to Casper

Interesting rock formations along US287 to Casper

US287 to Casper

Which way will head tomorrow?? Maybe towards Sturgis and the Black Hills before the big crowds hit Sturgis as a number of riders we have met recently have told us it is already getting busy in anticipation of the motorcycle rally’s 75th anniversary. There is a bit of shopping I want to do there…

– Anne

Jul 21 2015

Fabulous Rides through Colourful Colorado – 2

Our departure from our Durango campsite is delayed by our meeting lovely Dave and Elaine from Conneticut whom Anthony met and spoke to on the way to the shower block this morning. They have dropped by our tent to give us their address should we need a place near New York or need anything. They are riding on a Harley and heading to Utah so we give them one of our Butler maps as we are not going to Utah on this trip.

Elaine and Dave at KOA campground

We decide to visit Meza Verde National Park outside Cortez. Another Unesco World Heritage site!! This park, created by President T Roosevelt in 1906, occupies 52,485 acres and protects some of the best preserved Ancestral Puebloan archeological sites in the US, with more than 4,000 and 600 cliff dwellings. Check out wiki for more info. It takes an hour to get from the entrance to the first dwellings, so a minimum of 3 hours is required to drive around, more if you visit any of the cliff dwellings. Being peak season, it is too late for us to book a tour of the main dwellings. So we drive around and stop at the numerous viewing points and short walks. That alone was well worth it. As we get to the museum and look for a parking spot, we bump into Dave and Elaine, who kindly leave us their parking spot – perfect timing and fun to see them again!

Mesa Verde, Colorado

Mesa Verde National Park

Cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park

The Balcony at Mesa Verde National Park

The Palace at Mesa Verde National Park

An early stop and night in Cortez as they are predicting afternoon storms today and a clear day tomorrow. We have our now traditional tub of hummus, crackers and mango juice from Walmart for dinner.

Up early, we head out of Cortez on route 145 through Lizard Pass, another stunning ride – thank you Butler maps!!

Colorado wildflowers

Heading to Lizard Head Pass

San Juan National Forest along CO145

Rico, Colorado

Up to Lizard Head Pass

Lizard Head Pass

Cahone, Colorado

Ophir, Colorado

Heading up to Telluride

We stop at Telluride for morning coffee.

Telluride, Colorado

Lunch back in Montrose, quick check of the radar and we decide to head for Paonia State Park on route 133 which has a number of campsites. We ended up riding more today than we have since being in Colorado, 365kms, but we are definitely travelling to ride at the moment. Colorado is a truly beautiful and colourful state and paradise for motorcyclists. The rushing creeks and rivers, lush green meadows, dotted with wildflowers. You couldn’t design more beautiful gardens or rockeries. Even the rock faces are dotted with delicate white, yellow, pink, red and blue flowers. And the Colorado smells take us back to our first visit here in 1980. The smell of pine, the white flowers. We are lucky we do not suffer from hay-fever. We decide to stop just north of McClure Pass where we spot a campground below us, by a creek. This is just the sort of place I wanted to find. We must just remember to be careful with our food and clothing in case of bears as the sign on our picnic table reminds us.

Along Leopard Creek on CO62

San Juan Mountains from CO62

San Juan Mountains fromCOI62

Vinyards near Hotchkiss

Paonia State Park on CO133

Paonia State Park

McClure Pass

Just over McClure Pass

Camping at McClure Pass

Warning sign on our camping table, McClure Pass

The next day, 17th July, after a very cool night, we pack up and decide to go to Aspen for breakfast as this will take us towards yet another top motorcycling route: the Independence Pass!! It is the 2nd highest paved road in the state and provides 50kms/30miles of dramatic riding.

White River National Forest

Independence Pass

Independence Pass road, Colorado

Just over Independence Pass, Colorado

Independence Pass road, Colorado

Twin Lakes, Colorado

Looking towards Mt Elbert, Colorado

Colorado has not had a summer as wet as this year’s for a very long time. We have kept an eye on the weather radar and changed our timetable or route to avoid the storms on numerous occasions. Today is no exception and once again the 2slowspeeds luck is in. We decide to head north towards Leadville and onto route 91 instead of south towards Buena Vista. Hikers got struck by lightening and one person died that afternoon near Buena Vista…

We arrive at Marshall and Ali’s in Boulder on the afternoon of the 18th. We have known them for about 15 years and I have visited them numerous times while they lived in Chicago and I was exhibiting Aboriginal art in the US so it is great to see them again, in Boulder this time. Ali has remembered how much I love dried mango and had left a packet of it our room for me!! So sweet!!!! We are treated to fantastic meals, taken on a few drives around Boulder and up to Nederland and we enjoy our many lively discussions on all sorts of topics, including American politics of course. A wonderful time with great friends. And it is great to see two of their sons again too.

Boulder wildflowers

Boulder

Container house in Boulder

Chautauqua Park, Bolder

Marshall and Ali

We take up Marshall and Ali’s generous offer of us staying longer than originally planned – it is expected to rain early today and we are behind with our blog so we make the most of this extra day to get up to date. We finish off the day with yet another wonderful barbecue on their terrace, spending a few hours reminiscing about our past and (not!) solving the world’s problems!! Wonderful company and generous hosts – thank you Ali and Marshall. We are off heading west again tomorrow morning – on the road again…..!!!

– Anne

Jul 13 2015

Fabulous Rides through Colourful Colorado – 1

Sunshine greets us for the first time in days as we head south from David and Leslie, their wonderful hospitality still fresh in our minds. We head south with Cañon City as our likely destination today. Swiftly we travel down I25 to Colorado Springs, passing the US Airforce Academy (USAFA) which Anthony is certain will not allow visitors in today’s security conscious but I spot the visitor’s hours, so we turn back, and pass the offramp for Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, of Cold War and movie fame. Surprisingly, the only security check consists of handing our Australian driver’s licence (which has our name and our photo) to the guard at the entrance, who looks at each one briefly and hands them back and off we drive through the vast USAFA grounds. It surprises us that it is so easy for us to get in, nothing written down, nothing checked. What incredibly huge and scenic grounds the USAFA is situated in. It is one of 580 sites put forward at the time of choosing a suitable site for the Academy and was selected as such in 1954. The graduation of the first cadets took place in June 1959. And the first class of cadets to include women entered in 1976 and graduated in 1980.

Sign on the road leading to the US Air Force Academy

B52 at the US Air Force Academy

We head to the tourist centre which is a good few miles from the entrance gate. After visiting part of the museum which explains the ranks new graduates go through, we watch an interesting film on life as a new recruit during their first year. This is when we learn why they are so brutally waken up every morning, with loud banging, shouting and pounding on the doors: this is how you are likely to be waken up in real life, in case of bomb, attack or other emergency, so get used to it. We see how new recruits are ‘broken’ and ‘built up’ again over their 4 year course. It reminds me of what I learned from my nephew: they break you because when you are at your lowest, your true nature comes out. And that’s when you find out whether you have what it takes to be an officer.

Where we have lunch, we see a very interesting display on the Tuskegee Airmen: a group of African-American military pilots who fought in WWII. Because the US military was still racially segregated at the time, these airmen trained at a separate university and air field. They were flying escorts for heavy bombers and never lost a bomber they escorted, although 84 Tuskegee pilots lost their lives. Interestingly, and sadly, the Tuskegee airmen were some of the best pilots of their time because of their training and personal drive to be accepted for training and it wasn’t until 1949 that black airmen were allowed into the formerly white-only units.

We also visit the stunning USAFA chapel, which has sections dedicated to different faiths.

USAFA Chapel

We stay in a cheap motel in Cañon City and head towards Gunnison on US Route 50. We get to Salida again, stopping at the Royal Gorge – very touristy but worth seeing.

Royal Gorge bridge, west of Cañon City, Colorado

On the Royal Gorge bridge built in 1929, 321m/1053ft above the Arkansas river

Royal Gorge bridge – the world’s highest suspension bridge – spot the train below

A stop along the Arkansas river

As we approach Salida, large storm clouds are looming so decide to have lunch where we had breakfast a week ago and wait for the storm to pass.

Approaching Salida, storm clouds building

After lunch in Salida, will have coffee somewhere and wait this one out

An hour later, it is still raining, so we head into the old Salida and find somewhere for coffee. That is when I notice wires hanging from Anthony’s bike: BMW Denver, when they serviced our bikes, didn’t bother returning the cables where Anthony had them carefully wrapped and tied under his ‘tank’ cover and they have worked themselves loose…

Storm passed, time to move on. US Route 50 has some stunning stretches. We climb up to Monarch Pass, at over 3,445 metres (or 11,300ft), and cruise down towards Gunnison, along Tomichi Creek.

Poncha Springs

Approaching Gunnison

We get to Gunnison around 4pm. All hotels are full, so camping it will be. We recall seeing a number of Klim banners, they made our motorcycle jackets, as we entered town at one of the inns so we decide that we will try the hotel there.

We meet Tonia and Katie, who are running an Adventure Rally Series event on behalf of motorcycling magazines including Dirt Rider, Cycle World and Motor Cyclist. This is an event over three days, limited to 100 participating riders working in teams, that tests their motorcycling skills and gives them the opportunity to explore central Colorado. Tonia quickly offers us a place to pitch our tent and then invites us to be her guests for the evening, how generous of her and how lucky we are!!

Our camping site behind the Inn at Tomichi Village outside Gunnison

It is hard to describe the evening as we met so many kind and interesting people. Offers of accommodation from Domenic and Petra, Ned who offered us use of his room and shower at the inn, gifts from sponsors such as Chris from SBS who gave us T-shirts, gloves and brake pads, and Justin from Butler Maps who gave us 3 maps designed by motorcyclists for motorcyclists: these state by state maps highlight and provide information on the most scenic and beautiful riding within the state, with detailed maps of each route, colour coded depending on grade and skill. Riders had travelled from far and wide across the USA. These maps are great for anyone touring the western US and looking for scenic routes – check out http://www.butlermaps.com. It was such a pleasant and interesting evening with simple, friendly, fun and open likeminded souls. The final prize was fun. Participants were asked to who has an interesting to share: the first one described how he rode for a half a day operating by hand an adjustable wrench which replaced the gear shift lever sheered off by a tree root. The 2nd explained how he broke a Ducati electronic key on a friend’s bike (irreplaceable at short notice), and that friend hot wired another key via the light wiring. The 3rd one to put his hand up told how he spent the first 2 days of this 3 day event in prison: on his way over to Gunnison, his expensive bicycle was stolen outside his motel room. He called the police who, after getting his details, promptly told him he was under arrest, handcuffed him, threw him in jail for 2 days – all because he was supposedly in contempt of court for failing to appear in court 24 years ago when his wife filed for divorce, but he had moved interstate and never got the notice. He won the prize.

Chris from SBS

Justin’s starting early on a KTM

Alex, Petra, John and Domenic

A slow rise and pack the next morning from Gunnison, we make a leisurely and short route to Montrose where we find a great little motel as the afternoon storm is building fast – we prefer to stop early, avoid the rain and leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Time for shower and machine wash our clothing there.

Leaving Gunnison, on US50

Running along the southern side of the Arkansas river

Along US50 near Cimarron

The first G1 section of our new map (perfect biking road) which we covered was the ‘Million Dollar Highway’, so called due to the cost at the time. Part of US Route 550 runs over 40kms/25 miles from Ouray to Silverton, through the Uncompahgre Gorge via the Red Mountain Pass at 3,358m/11018ft altitude. An absolutely stunning road. We stop at Silverton for tea and coffee, watch a steam train arrive and book ourselves on that train ride for tomorrow.

Ridgeway State Park

San Juan Mountains with Mr Abraham in the distance

Uncompahgre Formation outside Ouray – exposed rock going back 1.4 billion years showing perserved ripple marks

Red Mountain on the Million Dollar Highway

Million Dollar Highway

Silverton, Colorado

Watching the DSNG RR arrive at Silverton

Silverton, Colorado

Million Dollar Highway at Silverton – fabulous bike riding road

Leaving Silverton on the Million Dollar Highway

Colorado wildflowers

Our campsite outside Durango

We stop in Durango and set up our tent at the KOA campground for the next couple of nights. Not our favourite type of place to camp but the managers there have added some lovely features like fresh herb garden which we can help ourselves to, fresh pizzas made to order and delivered to your tent!!! See Anthony’s next post for commentary, photos and video on that train ride.

– Anne

2slowspeeds

Loving life – Turning Dreams into Memories

Tag Archives: Boulder

Byebye Boulder

Fabulous Rides through Colourful Colorado – 2

Fabulous Rides through Colourful Colorado – 1

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