This is the last day of my 8 day vacation. I stayed in Pagosa Springs with my wife Nannette, 2 friends from Arizona, 2 sisters in law, and a niece. John, Angela, Nannette, and I have been riding motorcycles to various destinations and back each day while the in laws did their own thing. Everyone but me left earlier and I'm just heading home now.
In the first part of this blog I wrote about my attempts to find a way north using some of the scenic roads but but a large storm constantly herded me back onto the main highway and eventually it even blew dust across my path.
The main highway eventually crosses a minor mountain range over La Veta Pass, and as I approached the pass, the rain finally caught me. I was forced to pull over and put on my riding gear with cars going past, wind blowing, and rain building. I must be a slow learner because I've had to do this same "rain gear" dance many times over the years. I always seem to put it off until it can't be avoided, and almost as many times, I get the gear on, ride 5 miles and find myself in sunshine and warm weather.
This wasn't going to be one of those times. There was no way those clouds were going anywhere any time soon.
With my gear on and bike ready, I waited for traffic to clear. Not just clear but be WAY clear because I don't want to have to accelerate the bike too hard with rain just starting to fall. I've heard statistics over the years saying that most motorcycle accidents in the rain happen in the first few minutes of the rain falling. It's because oil that has driped from cars onto the road is mixing with the new rain and making the road especially slick. Once the rain has been falling for a while, it cleans the road taking much of the slick oil with it.
When I got my huge gap I carefully guided the bike out onto the road and slowly accelerated up to about 25. I flipped on my hazard lights as I crawled along, slowly accelerating and feeling my way up to 45.
Not far up the road I saw 2 harleys pulled off the road. They were the same 2 harleys that had previously followed me across San Luis valley. They were trying to re-arrange things on the bikes while fighting the wind just as I had done a few minutes ago. They didn't have much gear on their bikes and they were probably putting on every bit of clothing they had. They weren't even wearing helmets, just dew rags. They weren't going to be very comfortable in this.
A little farther and I saw 4 bikes pulled over, but no riders. Right next to them was a small RV. The RV must have pulled over to let the riders in.
The rain was coming down heavy now and I experimented with my speed. So long as I kept about 45 miles an hour, the windshield would throw the rain over me and I stayed fairly dry, but any slower and I'd get blasted with rain. So I kept my speed just above the splash level and rode on.
I saw my first lightning about this time. It was high above me and so far away that I couldn't hear any thunder. It might even have been cloud to cloud, but lightning always scares me on a bike. I was at the bottom of a small valley so hopefully the walls were keeping me safe from the lightning.
Then the valley ended and I rode out onto the flat of the pass. No walls to keep the lightning high, nothing to block the wind, and the rain turned to sleet and finally to hail. It was coming in from my left side and my speed wasn't enough to keep it off me. I really didn't want to go faster and I was already getting wet, so I slowed way down and flipped my hazard lights on again. I couldn't hug the right side of the road because a heavy gust could push me off the road, so I stayed in the middle of my lane and tried to puff up like a peacock and look big to any cars coming behind me.
The hail built up on the windshield and on my visor, so I had to lift the visor a bit and stretch to look over the windshield. My heavy gloves have a built in squeegee on the left thumb, so I was able to clear the visor, but then the visor fogged up with the cold. I had to hold my stretched position looking over the top of the windshield for about 5 minutes as I crossed the pass and began to descend down the far valley. The mountain grew beside me and began to block more wind, or maybe just funnel it down the canyon behind me. I now had a bit of a tailwind as the road turned south and finally the temperature began to drop. I'm not sure how cold it got at the top, but I suspect it was in the 20s.
I have heated gear for the bike. Not only do I have some, but I have it with me. But I didn't have it on and even if I did have it on, I couldn't have plugged it in. A few days ago I did some maintainance on the bike, and as I put the seat back on, I took the plug that would feed the heated gear and tucked it away thinking "I don't need my heated gear for the summer". Dumb me, I live in Colorado and I like riding over mountain passes.
I continued riding down off the pass and it continued to warm up. After all, 36 degrees IS warmer than 29, right?
Once I got out on the flats and away from the mountains the hail and slush turned back into rain and the rain reduced to just a small splatter every now and then, but the wind, oh my, the wind. It raced in across the open flats and slammed into the side of my motorcycle throwing me around. There was no speed at which I could ride that would keep that wind from whipping rain in on me. After just a couple minutes I could feel a regular flood coming in the left side of my jacket right around my neck. I couldn't tell what was going on, so I found a spot to pull off and check.
I pulled down to a small parking lot, turned the bike somewhat into the wind and started fiddling. It turned out that my coat collar was folded under and wasn't blocking the rain. It was hitting my neck then running down. So I straightened it out, then got back on to continue riding. I pulled from the little parking lot up a small embankment to the road. Just as I started to accelerate and turn onto the road, the bike went from pointed into the wind to side on and a massive gust hit me. I didn't have the centrifugal force of the spinning wheels to help me counter the force from the side and the bike just lay over on it's right side.
The armor in my jacket absorbed the impact as I fell on my side so there was no real damage to either me or the bike. The Goldwing has some awsome crash bars that prevent the bike from ever laying on the rider and even prevents damage to any of the bike's body, but now it was laying on it's side, slightly downhill with the wheels higher than the seat.
I know John will be disappointed in me for not taking pictures, but it was cold and raining and I just wanted the bike up and going. I walked around and extended the kickstand. Many people have lifted bikes up just to have them fall over on the far side. I really didn't want that. I came back around, positioned myself with my butt nearly on the seat, a hand on the handle bar and another hand on the passenger grab bar. I bent my knees, set myself and tried to lift the bike. No go. Laying downhill like that, there was no way I was going to brute force 800lbs of bike up.
I've lifted my bike several times on level ground. It's really not hard at all. But the slope away from the road wouldn't let me roll it up. The first foot or so would be brute force lifting.
I stood back up to take stock of my position, and as I stood there thinking, a pickup truck pulled off the road. The driver got out of his truck and walked across the road. His first question was "are you alright". I assured him I was fine. Then he asked if I needed a hand getting the bike up and I said I'd love one.
Once again I got in position facing away from the bike, butt on the seat, hands set, knees bent and started to lift. I'm not sure how strong he was, but the bike came right up. Easily. We set it on the kickstand, then he held onto it as I walked around and got on. It started right up and he headed back to his truck wishing me luck. He must have been freezing because he only had on a tshirt, but it had only taken a minute. I yelled my thanks, then wondered if I was really sure I was OK. The bike had been down for no more than 3 minutes.
I waited for a HUGE gap in the traffic, then I rode straight into the wind up into the middle of the road before starting my turn. I revved the engine near redline and feathered the clutch like a fiend to keep power strong and ready all the way through the turn. The wind hit me again but this time I was ready with a little steering and power to keep the bike upright and accelerating. I pulled back to my side of the road and sped up and away.
The ride into Walsenburg wasn't very hard. My hands were cold, but the rest of me wasn't too bad. I stopped at a KFC/Tacobell to get something to eat and to warm up. When I started this vacation last Sunday I'd stopped here and the place was packed. If anything, it was even more packed today.
I picked the warmest thing I could find on the menu, then found myself a table as far from the doors as possible. Looking outside, I could see allot of rain and wind still coming down, but it wasn't a vicious storm, just a good rain storm. The worst had already blown past. I looked at the weather map on my phone and saw the squal line that I'd been racing this whole time. It was lined up almost perfectly north to south right along the I-25 corridor, so I wasn't going anywhere for a while.
I sat enjoying my original recipe chicken, mashed potatoes and bbq beans while I did a little people watching. A large family obviously waiting out the storm sat at 4 tables. They'd long since finished their meal, but they sat there speaking spanish and trying to keep the little kinds from going bonkers. Another single mother with her 2 year old sat waiting for food. The mom coloring and playing little games with her daughter. She'd been in line just behind me and had put her daughter at the table to hold her place. The little girl kept hopping down and running around. It quickly became a fun game for her to hop down and have her mommy chase her around all these people. When my turn came, I let her go ahead of me and I sat with her daughter a minute till she was done. Everyone in line let me back in which was nice.
There was a guy on a sport bike with a severely injured leg. He'd ordered, then hopped to his table with crutches. I wondered how you ride a bike in that condition, but obviously he was.
While I sat there, a young couple walked over and sat down opposite me. "That was exciting" the man said. I cocked my head and said "yeah it was". "How'd you fare?" the guy asked. "Pretty cold" I said, "But not as cold as a few of the other rider". "That was us" he told me, "We're the 2 harleys that followed you across the valley".
I chucked and we sat talking about that whole race. They had the same ideas and feelings I'd had - "if only we can stay ahead of it we'll be OK". They'd stopped and put on ever ounce of clothes they had, but they'd still gotten soaked and freezing while they crossed. They'd both spent the last 20 minutes in the bathroom running warm water over their fingers to thaw them. I told them my side of the story and they shook their heads in wonder about dumping the bike. She had done the same thing but while still climbing toward the summit. It had taken them and another guy that stopped to get the bike up because of the mud. They'd had to drag the bike around so the wheels were downhill before they could raise it. I still wonder at how strong that guy that helped me must have been.
After 40 minutes the map showed the storm blowing east and the freeway was clearing. I decided to go try to fish my heated gear feed out from under the motorcycle seat. It was allot easier than I'd thought, and a few minutes later I'd put on the jacket liner, plugged my gloves in, and the whole thing was nice and toasty.
I fired up the bike and rolled out for home.
The 100 miles home were pretty easy. The wind wasn't blowing, no rain, and I was comfy cozy in my gear. Again, it occurred to me that I should have done this 200 miles and 4 hours ago. Get warm and let the storm blow by. I'd let "get home disease" catch me even while telling myself I was going to ride some pretty roads. When the pretty roads became impossible, I should have stopped.
Once I got home, I parked the bike and hauled my stuff in. Then I found a nice comfy recliner and covered myself in a blanket. My grand daughter Jessie came over to me with a book to read and I settled in to have the last part of day in the best possible way.
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Let me just add that I've described much of the ride in more drama than I actually felt at the time. There were only 2 scary moments for me. One was when the lightning struck a few times because there is nothing you can do about lightning on a motorcycle. The second was when I slowed way down crossing the pass. I was afraid that a car coming from behind wouldn't see me in time to slow down. Other than that, it was just a motorcycle ride. A little cold and frustrating, but not really scary.
Spot GPS track of my ride (once I found the Spot)
Weather map showing the storm I'd raced and lost to
Sitting in a chair holding my granddaughter. Safe and sound at home
This is La Veta pass in better weather.
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