Day One: Colorado State HOG Rally and Moab - 3 Day Ride

June 19, 2009
Fort Collins, CO

We're baaaccckkk! Ha! Last Friday, June 19th we rolled out of the drive at 4:30 am for a three-day trip across the state to the Colorado State HOG Rally. At least, the rally was the loosely conceived reason (not that we need one) for our ride to the western slope and parts beyond.

Friday - June 19, 2009
Riding out - Fort Collins to Idaho Springs
Yawn! Despite the fact, that neither one of us could sleep the night before our trip, we were up early and eager to ride at 4:30 am. The temperature in Fort Collins was chilly (in the upper 40s I think) as most of our mornings are in northern Colorado. Chilly I say, but not uncomfortably so. We believed we would shed our heavy leather jackets by mid-morning. Some places south of us along Hwy 287 south had rain the night before but most of the clouds were clearing out about daybreak. As we turned west on I-70 into the mountains, it became one heckuva frosty ride. We ran into a cold mist of rain at Genessee near the notorious Floyd Hill so by the time we rode the 18 miles or so to Idaho Springs (elevation= 7524), our fingers were numb and we were cold through and through. We have been to Idaho Springs many times before but never this early in the morning. We found a promising restaurant, filled with locals (always a good sign) called Marion's of the Rockies across from the Shell station on Colorado Blvd, as luck would have it. We fumbled with buttons and snaps on our clothing with numb fingers and wrapped our hands around a steaming mug of hot and tasty coffee. Ahhhh! That's better. Marions was clean and the decor was homey or cozy, a little dated but that was part of the charm. Service was good, the breakfast was excellent. I had biscuits and sausage gravy with eggs. Tim had chicken fried steak and eggs. Just shy of an hour later we were warmed and ready to get back on the road.

Eisenhower Tunnel
Riding west in the shadow of the mountains that cradle I-70, we found that the morning had not warmed much in the hour we paused at Idaho Springs. We were glad for the full-fingered gloves we wore as we knew we would climb in elevation until we reached the Eisenhower Tunnel. Still, the temperature didn't matter... we were having such a great time. We've driven this part of I-70 many times in the years we have lived in Colorado but this was the first time we have ridden it on the motorcycle. Can you see me smiling? It was early so the west bound traffic was light. We rode past the mountain towns of Georgetown and Dillon remarking at how full the lakes were, how green and lush the mountain valleys. The remarkable point in this part of the trip is the tunnel, located between Georgetown and Silverthorne. The Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel was built in the 70s. It is located approximately sixty miles west of Denver. It is the highest vehicular tunnel in the world, located at an elevation of 11,013 feet at the East Portal and 11,158 feet at the West Portal. The Tunnel traverses 1.7 miles underneath the Continental Divide, the line which separates the nation into Atlantic and Pacific watersheds. I made a video clip of the trip through the tunnel and will share it soon in another post.

We stopped for a few minutes at a Visitor Center/Museum in Eagle, Colorado (elevation 6601), located just off the interstate in Chambers Park. It was somewhat warmer. We were too early to visit the museum which included a railroad car, a couple of log buildings and a barn. It was a nice stop for a stretch of the legs and a cup of coffee. But, when Tim popped the top on the thermos, he discovered the coffee was darn near frozen. Ah-Oh! As a result, we were back on the road quick, and off again at Glenwood Springs. We took a short (not altogether intentional) detour into Aspen, looking for something more than convenience store coffee, but got caught in a traffic jam of a Strawberry Festival or something of the sort. This is not the first time we've experienced stupid traffic (as Tim calls it) in Aspen. Needless to say, we got the heck out of there and settled on coffee and a cookie at a McDonald's in Glenwood Springs.

Glenwood Canyon
The next part of this ride took us through scenic Glenwood Canyon which winds, for the most part along the Colorado River. Wow - that's the best adjective I can come up with. Again, we've been through the canyon before -- but on a motorcycle -- well -- as I said - WOW!

An engineering marvel, Glenwood Canyon is about 150 miles west of Denver and 90 miles east of Grand Junction. The 16 mile-long canyon is on the Colorado River between the towns of Glenwood Springs and Gypsum. A huge engineering challenge was undertaken starting in the 1980s to complete one of the last stretches of Interstate Highway through the canyon. Transportation, environmental, recreational and economic considerations all had to be taken into account before the completed highway opened in 1992. In the end, the canyon ended up with a freeway snaking through its length using bridges, tunnels and retaining walls to create a highway that did not hurt, and even contributed to, the canyon's appearance.

Yeah, I shot video clips through the canyon... I will post them soon.

Grand Junction and Colorado State Rally
The remainder of the ride into Grand Junction leaves the grandeur of the Rockies behind. That doesn't mean that the descent isn't every bit as scenic. Now you travel through rugged hills and get a taste of the southwest with painted cliffs, mesas and sand dunes. And, it was warmer. We never did shed those jackets but the sun on our faces was something to celebrate. We rode into Grand Junction and checked into our hotel just after 1 pm. We chose to stay in Grand Junction because the motels in Montrose were about twice the rate. Pooh! Plus, we didn't plan to spend the whole weekend at the rally. We planned to ride.

We freshened up, called the folks to let them know we safely arrived and rode the 71 miles to the Colorado State HOG Rally in Montrose. It took a few minutes to find the rally site as it was in a new park (not on the maps yet) and the signage could have been a bit better. We probably should have stopped at Black Canyon of the Gunnison Harley Davidson on the way through, but we were eager to get to the rally.

This was our first State HOG Rally, so we were not sure what to expect. We arrived about 4 pm amidst two to three hundred or so other riders. The park was small. The rally was small. We dutifully registered and contributed $50 to - uh - wrist bands and - uh - whatever. No rally pin. No rally shirt. It was supposed to be a sanctioned pin stop, but we never found the booth or anyone who knew anything about it. We did receive a City of Montrose pin. We found coupons for a free rally shirt from the Grand Junction dealership, after we got home Sunday in the pile of local discount coupons we received with a bunch of other rather odd freebie items (mostly from Walgreen's). OK. No big deal. That's not why we made the ride. We wandered through the twenty or so vendors, only about half of them with motorcycle oriented offerings. We shopped one patch booth, one leather booth, one t-shirt booth and avoided most of the other booths. We enjoyed a funnel cake and visited with a few other riders. The on-bike games began at roughly 5pm and were fun to watch until an equipment malfunction delayed the second game (road kill cleanup - funny) indefinitely. More riders were arriving and I'm certain they had a great crowd for the evening. I believe the music was a DJ and of course the beer garden had just opened. After about half an hour of admiring bikes and standing around, we decided to head back to Grand Junction. We planned to attend the rally Saturday afternoon after a ride through Utah.

We put The Ride to bed, and took a short walk to Applebee's and had a good supper and a couple of beers. We called it an early night and looked forward to whatever the next day had to offer. We rode 464 miles and made a really great day of it.

*****

Afterword: Finding the Rally. We rode through Montrose, slowly looking for signage of some sort until we saw a group of bikers rolling by rather quickly. We're thinking they are headed to the rally and they know where it is. We followed them. As it turned out, they were headed to their motel. We were laughing at ourselves. We rode back the way we came and finally spied one of a very few teeny-tiny signs at ground level (I think they were made of paper plates) - most of them blocked from view by vehicles. Oh well! We found it eventually.

Afterword: Funnel Cake Mischief. There's nothing like a fresh funnel cake as was evidenced by the number of bikers in line for them. We got ours and found some makeshift hay bale seating next to a group of other bikers. We are all in black leathers maneuvering cheap paper plates in high winds. I looked down the row as Tim was about halfway through his funnel cake - his leather chaps were decorated with my powered sugar and the leathers on the guy next to him were decorated with his powdered sugar and so on down the line. The guy looked at us, looked at his leathers, grinned and looked at the guy next to him and so it proceeded for about a dozen or so bikers - everyone grinned and shrugged and kept on munching.

Historic Idaho Springs
Eisenhower Tunnel
Glenwood Canyon