High/Low Country Sunday Ride and Eat and eat and eat

June 12, 2011
Colorado, USA

Weather and time didn't permit for giving The Ride a bath last week, but make no mistake, come a sunny day fit for riding -- we will ride a dirty bike. We rolled out of here this morning (on a dirty bike) with no agenda other than to get the heck out of the house and this town for the entire day. We were lookng to ride roads we haven't yet traveled this year. Heading south, our first stop was about 60 miles down the road in a northern suburb of Denver for breakfast at Denny's. It wasn't a planned stop, it just happened to be the place where our hunger and the first available restaurant crossed paths. Fortified by coffee and a couple of french toast breakfasts, we looked west and said yeah - let's ride the high country.

We chose to travel up by way of Morrison and on through Evergreen. One of our favorite rides is over Mount Evans. Today, we took a look at the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading in that direction and shook our heads. Tourist traffic is bad this time of year. Couple that with the Denver locals who have been cooped up all winter and we decided to pass Mount Evans by this time. Instead, we traveled a bit further north, then west on I-70 for a short way before turning off on the Central City Parkway just before Idaho Springs.

Central City Parkway is a great ride, frequented mostly by people intending to gamble in the casino cities of Black Hawk and Central City and bikers looking to ride the high country or canyons beyond those cities. We always enjoy riding through the casino cities, but we rarely stop.

The turn west out of Black Hawk is basically where the peak-to-peak highway begins or ends. It's a gentle ride up to the high country from here and about as scenic a route as one could hope for. Today the view around curve after curve were mountains still blanketed in white and glistening with an impressive show of snow and ice for so late in the season. We had record snowfall in the mountains this year and winter has lingered. It is mid-June and the snow melt has only just begun.

Next stop was Nederland, a small moutain community known locally as Boulder's playground. Main street in town is about two blocks long. Nederland is always busy whether with the winter traffic up for a run down the slopes of Eldora or in spring/summer when half the world is riding or driving the peak-to-peak highway or in fall when the color draws photographers and more up for a peek at aspen gold. It is rare for us to ride through Nederland without stopping for a stretch of the leg and then a cookie and coffee at the New Moon Bakery which sits right next door to Town Hall. Today was no exception. The baked goods are excellent, always just fresh from the oven, generous in size and the coffee is strong and rich. We sat on the tiny patio and people-watched while we munched on a cookie.


We continued on our high country journey, enjoying the brisk air, although we had more clouds than sun (darn weatherman got that wrong - again). Fortunately, the winds were mild today. Strong winds blowing across the snow and ice can be down right cold, no matter what time of year it is. We made it over without stopping for our jackets.

Forgoing the trip through busy Estes Park this time, we chose the least traveled route down from the high country, riding along beside the rushing Saint Vrain River. It was warm, make that hot by the time we rolled into Lyons, CO which was just tearing down from some sort of festival. After a few miles, we started thinking about ice cream and root beer. Those thoughts carried us to a favorite stop in our own neck of the woods - the A&W Root Beer stand in Berthoud, CO.

Still reluctant to call it a day, we rode out from under clouds that spit a bit of rain on us as we traveled east from Berthoud. Soon, we were cruising familiar country lanes taking the long way home. We had traveled with a picnic cooler most of the day, just in case we found the perfect spot for lunch or roamed too far away from civilization. As it turns out, the patio at home seemed as good a spot as any so we moseyed our way home, parked the Ride, popped the top on a couple of beers and had our chicken and noodle salad.

We traveled over 300 miles today, barely able to ride a mile without greeting another motorcycle or two or three or six.

We're getting a little antsy to be out on a road trip now...