I can't stay out of Colorado. Every year when my son Mark and I start talking about our annual trip, we always say let's go somewhere different. Well, we try but usually end up going back to Colorado like we did again this year. I never get tired of riding there. Most roads west of I-25 are great riding.
I believe this year was the coldest and wettest trip we've had there. We always go around Labor Day and usually have nice weather. We had a little of everything on this trip; hail (although the worst storm was in New Mexico on the way up the first day), rain, of course, sleet, and even a little snow in Estes Park. We had at least rain on every day of the trip including the ride home from Amarillo. That's in Texas, what the heck is rain in the summer? The lowest temp we rode in was leaving Creede at 35 degrees. We had several mornings in the mid-forties.
Day 1, Home (Arlington, TX) to Trinidad, CO - 580 Miles
Here's our route for the day:
Mark was at my house by 5:45AM. It looked like this right before we left. You can barely see his bike and my messy garage.
Our first stop was about 80 miles up the road in Bowie. The car between our bikes drove in on just the wheel. From the looks of the rim, he drove several miles like this. Something makes me think alcohol may have been involved, although he did park very straight.
Most of the first day looks like this. Not much to see in west Texas.
We made it into New Mexico and just south of Capulin the sky didn't look too appealing.
A little further down the road and we get our first rain drops. Not more than a minute later it turned into hail. It was the worst hail storm I've ever been in. It wasn't real large, but it poured down hard. Luckily we had our helmets on and just stood on the side of the road and let it beat on us. They were about the size of a pinto bean. There wasn't anything for us to get under, not a tree in sight, nothing. After about 20 minutes a guy stopped and let us sit in his car. We were cold and wet. His car said it was 42 degrees and 30 minutes earlier before it started was around 80. We sat in his car for about another 15 minutes until it finally stopped although it was still raining. We had to wait a while to start again because the hail was about 2-3 inches deep on the road. Wish I had a picture but I just wasn't thinking about that at the time.
That's the Colorado state sign in the middle to the picture. We're almost to Trinidad where we stopped for the night.
This is about 7-8 miles short of Trinidad and we were getting a few raindrops again. No more pictures, I was ready to get dry and have a margarita.
When we got up the skies were overcast. The rain was supposed to be over though. Last night we ate at Tequila's Family Mexican Restaurant. It was a short walk from our motel. In Texas we're blessed with many excellent Mexican restaurants, but I must say this one gives them a good challenge.
Here's our route for the day.
Our bikes at the motel under the overcast skies. It sprinkled a few drops right after we left but began clearing as the morning progressed.
We had a little over 60 miles of interstate to ride before we turned west at Colorado City. I-25 is on the eastern side of the mountains and is fairly straight and flat. But there is some great scenery just to the west.
I don't think I had previously ridden Hwy 165 but it's a great road. Just a few miles west of Colorado City it starts getting fun.
We stopped briefly at Bishop's Castle for a look. That man has spent years building this thing. From various signs posted around, he's quiet the anti-government sort of guy.
A couple more looks.
Shortly after the castle, we turned on Hwy 96 which was really fun.
We stopped in Canon City for lunch. It was getting warm here and the sky was fairly clear.
We ate lunch at the Royal Gorge Brewery. We had one of their light beers and sandwich. Both were very good. Wish we could have had a couple more of their beers, but they don't mix well with riding.
Headed north out of Canon City toward Fairplay. It's pretty flat and straight across the valley.
It was uneventful until we reached Hwy 6 which parallels I-70. This is a very pretty road, but usually has a lot of traffic.
One of the tunnels on Hwy 6.
That's the last pic for the day. Our motel was just around the corner. We checked in, showered and went downtown Black Hawk to play in a poker tournament. No luck. Mark missed getting in the money by one place. He was pretty pissed. I don't blame him, it's happened to me before.
Today we toured the Coors Brewery in Golden. I didn't realize it but it's the largest single brewery in the US. Since Coors' merger with Miller, they brew all of their beers in several locations now except for the original version in the yellow can/label because they advertise it as using Rocky Mountain spring water.
Before we went to the brewery we went to Avalanche Harley to let the service department look at my bike. The check engine light kept coming on occasionally and when it was on the cruise control wouldn't work. Of all the bikes I've owned this in only the second one with cruise, but I got used to it very quickly. Their service department was loaded up and this was on a Saturday. The service writer was very nice and took my bike in and did the code diagnosis. They thought it was probably the regulator but couldn't tell unless they took it apart. They said I should be OK unless it started to discharge. Occasionally the battery light would come on and the voltmeter would indicate only about 7 volts. But I was lucky and that would only last a few minutes. So I waited until we got home to have it checked which I haven't done yet. I'll get it in next week.
While the service department had my bike we walked over to the showroom to see the new bikes. One of the salesmen was talking to us and insisted that we test ride the new ones. Even after explaining we lived 900 miles away and weren't good prospects, he still insisted. So I rode a Limited and Mark rode a Streetglide. At the halfway point we switched. That new engine has substantially more power than the 103. I've done a few HD tours where they have a leader and a lag person and basically go very slow. This was a dealership demo and the young guy that led us must have been practicing for the Saturday night races somewhere. When we got on the interstate, I can vouch that both bikes will easily reach 95mph very quickly. The total ride was a little over 12 miles. Their staff was very nice and offered for us to try other models, but we didn't.
Here's our route for the day.
Hwy 6 headed toward Denver.
Another one of several tunnels on Hwy 6.
Inside one of the tunnels with a shaky camera.
That's downtown Denver in the background on the way to Avalanche HD.
The service department.
They had a much larger crowd than I expected. We had to stand in line for over an hour to begin the tour. They have shuttles that carry around 20 people at a time over to the brewery from the parking lot.
This rock is behind the brewery and is featured in some of their advertising. You can't see them in this photo, but there were several people on top.
One of their brew kettles. To put it in perspective, 615 barrels is over 33,893 six packs. So if you drank a six pack every day, it would take you over 92 years to drink it all. That's just one kettle, they had over 50 of them.
Some of the other kettles.
Bill Coors turns 100 this year and is still active in the business. It's a tough job but someone has to do it, I guess.
Well that's it for the day. Back to Black Hawk for another poker tournament. It just wasn't our turn at poker. I did better in this one but went out in 18th place, 8 from the money.
Robert...isn't your bike a '12 Limited? Your CEL coming on and your volt meter dropping reminds me of the voltage regulator campaign Harley did on a bunch of 2012 FL's. Harley's supplier shipped a bunch of bad regulators and dealers had to swap them out for new ones under warranty. Hope yours holds up, but I guess we'll find out in later posts. Always enjoy your trip reports.
09-22-2016, 03:56 PM
Another Colorado Trip in the books
The lowest temp we rode in was leaving Creede at 35 degrees. We had several mornings in the mid-forties.
