Colorado Cruiser: Colorado Ride

Yesterday was a fairly long riding day, so I was very tired last night and thought I'd have a hard time waking up. But no such luck. I woke up at 6:00 and felt wide awake and refreshed. I thought we'd ride to Pagosa for a quick breakfast, then try to catch church at 9:00.

As we left South Fork the temperature was in the high 40s or low 50s. It was very chilly riding, at times even downright cold. As we wound through some canyons near creeks and streams it got even colder from the humidity and shadows. Then we started the climb up to Wolf Creek Pass and the temperatures dropped even more. My knuckles started to ache from the wind chill and I couldn't close my helmet face shield or my glasses would fog up in seconds. We rode that way for about 30 minutes, then finally the pass climbed enough to get some sunshine and the temps warmed up very quickly.

We got to the top of the pass and took a few pictures and warmed up in the sunshine. We stayed about 15 minutes then began the descent toward Pagosa Springs. We hadn't gone far, maybe10 miles and we saw a line of cars stopped on the road. We creeped past a few semi trucks till we could see an accident up ahead. A big rig was lying on its side across the road and a group of people were out of their cars talking, so we parked the bikes and walked down to see what was up.

The driver of the truck was young and inexperienced. He'd come down the hill in too high of a gear and got going too fast. He tried to down shift, but once the truck was in neutral he couldn't get it back in gear so it went faster and faster until he was out of control and his brakes wouldn't stop him. He also didn't realize there was a runnaway truck ramp, so he jumped out of the truck, the truck went out of control, rolled onto it's side and spun half around and crashed into the bottom of the runnaway truck ramp. If he'd held on for another 100 yards he could have gone up the ramp and saved the truck. He did survive the crash when he jumped out. He was walking around the truck talking on his cell phone.

There was only one officer there, and he said the road would be closed for at least 2 hours, so we settled in to wait and got to know some of the other drivers around us.

After an hour a front end loader arrived and cleared the load of pipe that was blocking the road, then 2 tow trucks arrived and righted the truck and trailer, and finally a little bobcat arrived and cleared all the small debris from the road. Once the road was clear, we were moving within a couple minutes, so in all we were there about 90 minutes. Not suprisingly, all of the big rigs were driving very slowly down the hill from there on.

We got our breakfast in Pagosa, then rode on to Durango where we "stopped to see the Harley Shop", and gassed up. John and I talked a bit about the road to Telluride and I made a comment that the road west out of Durango was going to be hot and boring. He told me my perspective on roads and heat was really warped, and that if I had to ride around Mesa, Apache Junction, Miami, and Globe, I'd think the road was beautiful, and that the weather was fantastic.

Once we got out on the road, I realized he was right. It was a beautiful road and the temperature was great. I settled in and enjoyed the ride.

We left Durango in the middle of a fairly large group of vehicles, with some cars constantly trying to pass, and others just meandering slowly. It was a little bit of a relief to reach Mancos and turn North towards Telluride. As we climbed higher and higher, the clouds began to gather. We could see verga dropping all around us, then it began to sprinkle. It never did rain hard, but the sprinkles came and went all through the ride up to Lizard Head Pass. We stopped there for pictures and a short brake.

The mountains all around Lizard Head were mottled with sunlight and deep cloud shadows. It was beautiful to watch the clouds moving by so fast and making such changing patterns across the forests. If I had a good chair I could have sat and watched the mounts for quite a while. But I didn't so we mounted up and rode on.

Once we reached Telluride we parked the bikes and tried to find somewhere for lunch. We check Yelp on our iPhones. Almost everything has 2 or 3 dollar signs by it, but we searched around until we found a decent sounding sandwich shop and started walking. But when we got there, it wasn't a sandwich shop at all. So we just looked around (so much for technology). There as a little pizza shop/sports bar next door so we gave it a try.

I'm not sure what the building was originally meant to be, but the floor sloped and the walls were crooked. We ordered soda, wings, and pizza. The waiter brought me regular soda but never came back to check on us. The wings never arrived. And worst of all, the Diamonbacks were beating the Rockies 2 to 0. The pizza finally arrived and by this point we didn't know what to expect. The pizza was great. It was so good I ate all of my half including the crust which I usually don't eat.

Once we were done it was well after 3:00 because of the accident delay in the morning. So gassed the bikes up and headed down the road.

We continued to pass majestic peaks, beautiful rolling meadows, light rain showers, panoramic vistas, and other things that might distract us from finishing todays ride. We just kept going because it was getting late and neither of us wanted to ride the Million Dollar Highway in the dark. We blew through Ridgway and Ouray to begin the climb. I did manage to get some pictures on the MDH, but they were always snatch and shoot photos, so few came out. It really is hard to capture the beauty on film.

We stopped for a little brake and to relieve the "Monkey Butt" feeling you get after riding a couple of hours straight. While we sat drinking our gatorades, a father and his young son pulled into. The dad was taking a picture of his son, the bike, and the mountains, so I walked over and offered to take a picture of them together. It made me really miss my son Kyle on this ride. Kyle is in school and doesn't get time off, so he couldn't ride his bike with us. Kyle's learning to be a motorcycle mechanic. Next year we'll try this again if he's done with school.

The last leg of the ride was relaxed but tough after so much sun, wind, and riding. We pulled into our great 5 minus 4 star hotel and flopped on the beds. John just ate a power bar for dinner. I went and got a sub sandwich and we endured some "America's got talent" and I wrote this report.

Leaving South Fork in 48 degree weather.