May 13th ride to Fairplay, CO and on... Pics

[pilot]

Whilst many of you were enjoying the excellent weather on the ride to Palmer Lake, several of us decided to go west to Fairplay and beyond. We began our ride with the usual jaunt up from Morrison to Evergreen. 10 bikes headed up the canyon. At Evergreen Five riders took the path to Echo Lake (we hope they had a safe and enjoyable ride).

Our route took us through Brook Forrest (still plenty of sand) and on to Conifer where we then rode up Hwy 285 to Pine Junction. As we were taking the customary break at PJ a horrid micro burst hit us from up above. We must have been close to it's impact zone as we were sand blasted for at least 20 seconds- painful and our gear was totally impregnated with sand. The only warning we got was Mark yelling, "Oh SHIT!" as he saw the dust storm come rolling in.


http://www.weather.gov.hk/aviat/amt_e/cause/microburst_e.gif


After 10 minutes of picking the dirt out of our ears and gears we headed on to Kenosha Pass. Traffic conditions were light so we were able to make good time. At the top of the pass Diego blew by me and signaled to pull over. Turns out Terra had lost his shifter linkage bolt at the bottom of the hill (some 4 miles back). Dammit! We hooked a quick U-turn and headed back.



We found Terra on the side of the road dead in the water. The support bolt had completely fallen out and the shifter was just hanging by its front support. He looked all over his bike for a "spare" bolt that he could cannibalize. Mark came to the rescue with a bolt from his Busa! Go Mark! I read once that if you plan on taking a trip away from a close dealership that you might want to consider brining along a spare shifter as if you break it off it will be hard to replace on the road to nowhere. Other parts you may be able to do without.
a shifter, well, that's just plain bad news.


See Terra's handiwork bellow.

[pilot]

We then made the jaunt through Southpark to fairplay where we had lunch at the infamous Fairplay Hotel. You can see a picture of the building here. Just in case you want to go up for lunch sometime. The food was good and the atmosphere was "Gold Rush".

[pilot]

Originally we planned on heading to the Royal Gorge. But, the weather that way did not look less than stormy so we headed up Independence Pass to Breckenridge. After a run through the twisties we soon arrived in Breck and made our way to the backside of Dillon Reservoir. On the fast corners of Swan Mountain Rd.

Soon we were riding past snowboarders at A-Basin. Loveland Pass was super clean and dry. It allowed for some fine technical work by our group. This areal map shows a good shot of the route we took.
http://www.jamesniehues.com/images_preview_regional/LovelandPass-CO.jpg

After a short run down I-70, we stopped off at Silver Plume for a photo op with the trains. This is where Diego discovered his chain to be quite loose. Darn thing was stretched to the max! For the second time we pulled out the tools but we did not have wrench the correct size for the axle nut. Fortunately, Diego was able to borrow a wrench from one of the train mechanics and after two attempts we got the chain adjusted well enough for the ride down to Georgetown and beyond. But not before Terra had to get his hands dirty...

[pilot]

We had fun while we waited for bike repair 101 to get done.

[Repsol a095]

Nice, Pilot. I need your job! Are they hiring because my job doesn't seem half as fun as yours?

[Brat]

nice pics. :D

[Devaclis]

Looks like you guys and gals had a great time!

[denverbusa]

Had more fun on that ride than I have had in a long time. The pace was great but no one got stupid or pissed off any cagers. Took breaks when needed but not too many.

Pilot, PM me your number so I can set up a time to swing by with a disk to get a copy of that Lookout Mtn video.

[Sortarican]

Looks like you guys had a fun ride, wish I'd had one of my bikes ready.
The family's got a place about two miles down the road, we could have bbq'd.
Bumbed that I'm gonna have to miss Burro Days this year.:(
Same weekend as the CSC track day.

Pilot, you need to give a dissertation on McGyvering techniques at one of the tech days.:)
"Necessity is the Mother of invention, and duct tape is her bastard child."

[pilot]

Meanwhile, other things were happening at the station: It was a good day to take a nap; Terra thought he found a piece of candy between the tracks (I’ll bet you can come up with something better than that—tear ‘em up, will ya?)

[pilot]

and out of nowhere turns up this chick walking up the canyon on the tracks. She says to us, “Yah, someone told me that there was a nice bike path to walk on. But I never saw it. Hell, I had to climb up the mountain side in high heels!!!” Turns out she walked all the way up from Georgetown to Silver Plum in heels, WTF??? And it was just to go to the tea shop to have a cup or two. After she bummed a smoke she was off again (in more ways than one- me thinks).

[pilot]

Well, Diego got the Suzuki up and going again and we headed down the hill. As we rode down the Georgetown Lake frontage road I noticed that the group was falling way behind??? The road was in the worst shape I’d seen in years—potholes, huge dirt patches, more of a dirt road than the paved one we were use to. They caught up with me at the Empire exit and said, “Hey man, didn’t you see that State Patrol guy on the interstate paralleling us?” I replied, “Errr, no.” “Yah, he was flashing his lights and pointing out the window at you!” “Uh, I guess he was concerned for me on that crappy road.” “Yeah, right.”

Needles to say, I offered for the group to ride point for a while whilst I “peeked” around every corner on the way down.

[pilot]

It was down to four of us by the time we made it to Starbucks in Dumont. It had been a long day. It was nearing 4:30 p.m. and the others had to limp back home. Happy but tired. We had coffee. Terra decided to drink out of his boot and ended up spilling coffee inside of it—good grief.

The day was not done for us. We rode the back way along US 40/6 between Evergreen and Lookout Mountain where we got in one last taste of the twisties. Got some video of that. Now, if I can just figure out how to edit it down to a manageable size…

[pauliep]

haha, I loved the pics. I think I'm going to start doing converation bubbles in mine future pics post also

[pilot]

haha, I loved the pics. I think I'm going to start doing converation bubbles in mine future pics post alsoI can't figure out a better way to get the words with the pictures. Source files from the internet are easy to attach almost anywhere on a page, so you can put text right next to them. Attachments seem to end up back to back at the bottom of a page. Thus making it harder to describe what is going on. It takes a while to do this stuff, but it is fun. Enjoy.

[pauliep]

I can't figure out a better way to get the words with the pictures. Source files from the internet are easy to attach almost anywhere on a page, so you can put text right next to them. Attachments seem to end up back to back at the bottom of a page. Thus making it harder to describe what is going on. It takes a while to do this stuff, but it is fun. Enjoy.


What would be easy is have a bitmap file with premade bubbles already. Cut and past and add the words.

"nice and easy, jap-pa-nezy"
-Brooks Hatlen (shawshank redemption)

[pilot]

What would be easy is have a bitmap file with premade bubbles already. Cut and past and add the words.

"nice and easy, jap-pa-nezy"
-Brooks Hatlen (shawshank redemption)Good words my Brother, but not from my Mother-you be from another.