Went Down

Years ago when I was in the Army, I had an old, crusty First Sergeant who rode a dresser. One morning he came in all skinned up and he related how he had laid down his ride to avoid someone who turned right in front of him. Then he said, "Lieutenant, there's two kinds of motorcycle riders. . . those that have been down and those that are going down." I had hoped that I might remain in the latter group for a long time, but this past weekend I joined the former.

My brother-in-law Rolly's church organized a ride last Saturday to benefit a crisis pregnancy center. There were probably 30 bikes and the plan was to ride country roads between Colorado Springs and Castlerock, stopping at various points for refreshment and instructions for the next leg. We would finish up back at the church and then have lunch together. It was a nice day, not too hot, the bugs weren't too bad, and we were putting along at fairly low speeds due to the narrow country roads and the fact that most of the bikes were Harley Big Twins which aren't particularly fast through curves.

We had completed about three-fourths of the ride and were entering a tight S-curve just outside Palmer Lake. As we entered a curve to the left, I grabbed the front brake lever to keep from riding up the tailpipe of the Hog in front of me. I think my thumb must have inadvertently rolled on some throttle as I grabbed the brake, so rather than slowing down, I sped up, the back end broke away, and down I went.

I was up before the dust settled, more or less in one piece, although I could tell that my left elbow was skinned up, my left knee had a big lump on the inside, and my right ankle was sore. The bike was lying on it's left side just off the narrow shoulder, point back the way we had come. By this time, several other riders were gathering, and a couple of them helped me get the bike up on the road. At first look, the shifter lever was broken, the left handlebar appeared to be bent, the left rear view mirror was cracked, the left side of the tank was scraped, the left rear turn signal was snapped off, and the license tag was mangled. But since we were in the middle of a narrow road in the middle of a blind curve, I thought I'd best move the bike. It started right up, and once I cleaned some dirt out of the clutch lever, I rode it down to a wider place on a straightaway where I could check it more closely. I found that I could still shift gears by hooking the edge of my boot sole under the stub of the shift lever. So I thought I'd give a try at riding it home. Rolly followed me and it ran fine the 20 or so miles to my house.

Once at home, I took the following pictures of the damage to the bike.

I finally took off my leather jacket to look at my elbow and found that, although my jacket sleeve wasn't penetrated, my elbow was split open pretty badly. It was definitely going to need some stitches. My wife took me to the emergency room downtown where they checked me over and X-rayed my elbow. Mostly bumps, bruises, and sprains except for my elbow. The elbow bone (whatever it's called) was chipped, and the wound over it was pretty ragged. Somehow, some dirt and gravel had gotten up my jacket sleeve and into the wound. So the doctor had to trim the wound and pick out the junk that he could get to. Finally, he sewed it up, leaving a drain tube to prevent infection. A week later, this is what it looks like.

I've replaced or repaired most of the mechanical issues on the bike but will have to wait on the cosmetics such as the tank and rear fender scrapes. I'll have it rideable hopefully by the Fourth. The ironic thing in all of this is that the Friday before this happened, I started coming down with a toothache. So in and amongst the various medical appointments that I had this past week to repair the damage to my person there were also a couple of dental appointments including a root canal. At the worst of all of this, my tooth hurt worse than my other booboos.

I'm a true believer in the value of protective gear. The leather jacket protected my torso and arms from direct scrapes and scratches, my helmet had a couple of skobs and scratches that would otherwise have been to my head and face, both gloves had scuffs on the palms and knuckles, and the old jump boots that I was wearing potentially kept my ankle sprains from being breaks. A lot of the other riders were wearing tee shirts and bandanas. I wouldn't have walked away from this if I had been dressed like that.

First Road Trip

My wife's sister lives nearby and her husband Rolly is a rider. The girls planned to go back east to the wedding of a third sister's daughter over the weekend a couple of weeks ago. Rolly and I started talking about riding while they were going to be away and that discussion quickly expanded into planning a three day road trip through southwest Colorado. So both of us arranged to take Friday off and Rolly reserved a cabin south of Montrose for Friday and Saturday night.

I was coming up on my 1,000 mile service for my Sporty so Rolly helped me with that and put new tires on his Yamaha FZ750. We did a shakedown ride the weekend prior with about 60 riders from my church to Breckenridge, about 260 miles by a circuitous route. And I ordered a tail bag and tank bag to have something to carry enough stuff for a three-day trip.

Friday morning, I was loaded up, gassed up and ready to roll by 8:00.

Our route for the first day was south on CO 115 from Colorado Springs to Penrose, then west on US 50 all the way to Montrose, about 240 miles.

We stopped in Gunnison for gas and lunch then visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

We checked into our cabin in an RV park about 10 miles south of Montrose, rode back into town for dinner, then back to the RV park to soak in a hot tub and relax with a cold brew.

The route for Saturday was to ride south from Montrose on US 550, CO 62, and CO 145 to Cortez, stop at Mesa Verde National Park just east of there on US 160, continue east to Durango, and then head back north to Montrose by way of Silverton and Ouray on US 550, about 287 highway miles.

After breakfast at Denny's in Montrose (I highly recommend two fried eggs over biscuits and gravy!), we headed down into the San Juans. In my mind, this is some of the most beautiful country in Colorado and therefore in the world. Back in the Seventies, I backpacked and climbed in this area and have loved it ever since. Rolly had never been to Telluride so we stopped at Maggie's Bakery for coffee and apple struedel while soaking up the mountain sun and admiring Bridal Veil Falls above the town.

Just a few miles south of Telluride, we stopped to gaze at the mountains I had climbed 35 years ago. In the picture immediately below, looking southwest, Sunshine Peak (14,001') is on the left and Wilson Peak(14,017') is the peak on the right. In the summer of 1973, I climbed Wilson Peak, Mt. Wilson (14,246'), and El Diente (14,159') in one backpacking week.

The next picture is looking east, with the San Juans behind the bikes and Rolly.

From Telluride we rode south to Cortez over Lizardhead Pass (10,222'). Gassed up there and continued on to Mesa Verde National Park. It was in the low 90s there but we walked down to check out the cliff dwellings.

From Mesa Verde we rode through a thunderstorm to Durango and pulled in there to dry out and eat dinner at Serious Texas Bar-B-Q. We couldn't resist calling our third brother-in-law, the father of the bride, to ask him the day before the wedding if he was having as much fun as we were - riding motorcycles through the Colorado Rockies, eating Texas barbeque, and drinking Lone Star beer! After eating, drinking, and gloating, we rode on to Montrose through some great twisties all the way to Silverton and Ouray, crossing Coalbank Pass (10,640'), Molas Divide (10,910'), and Red Mountain Pass (11,018').

Finally back to the cabin just as it was getting dark to dry out our raingear, soak in the hot tub, and drink a couple of cold ones.The route planned for the ride home on Sunday was to go north from Montrose on US 50/550 to Delta, then CO 92/133 northeast to Carbondale, CO 82 east through Aspen to US 24, and US 24 east back to Colorado Springs, 291 miles altogether.

We started out after another hearty breakfast at Denny's, crossed McClure Pass (8,755') near Capitol Peak (14,130'), and got to Aspen around lunchtime. Aspen was a highbrow circus so we continued on, past Twin Lakes to Buena Vista, passing along the Collegiate Range through the upper Arkansas River valley. We crossed Independence Pass along the way, the highest paved pass in Colorado and one of the highest in North America at 12,095.

In Buena Vista, we stopped at K's Drive In for one of the best double cheeseburgers and chocolate malts you'll find anywhere. Then we stopped again in Hartsel and bought two dozen frozen tamales at Dorothy's to take home. Dorothy's tamales are some of the best in Colorado.

Rolly split off north in Old Colorado City toward his home and I rolled back up my driveway about 4:00, just in time to take my car to bail out my dog from doggie day care. 935 gorgeous miles! The bike ran great, no mishaps, great weather (except for the one brief thunderstorm - hey, this is Colorado in the summer after all!), and great brother-in-law time with Rolly.

Unfortunately, a ride the following weekend wasn't so wonderful. But that's another post.

In the Beginning . . .

In 1971 I bought a 1942 Harley-Davidson WLA in a basket for $200. It was a WWII Army bike that had been "civilianized" after the war. It had a 45 cubic inch flathead motor, a tank shift, foot (suicide) clutch, and springer forks. This is what it would have looked like if I had restored it.

Unfortunately, those were the hey-day years of choppers, so instead of putting a modest amount of money into rebuilding it to stock, I commenced to putting a lot of money (which I didn'y really have at the time) into chopping and customizing it. Three years later I sold it for considerably more than $200 to pay for my second son's birth. Never did get it finished.

Fast forward about thirty-three years. I'm now living in Colorado with some of the most beautiful cruising country anywhere. My son and my brother-in-law both have bikes and although it's wintertime, they're talking about the upcoming riding season. So I start thinking "I could dig riding again!" Now motorcycle technology has advanced quite a bit since 1974 (or 1942 for that matter), but there's something classic and timeless about a Harley V-Twin. So I start looking at Harley-Davidson webpages and settle on the Sportster. 2007 is the 50th Anniversary of the Sportster and it is the inheritor of the 45 inch Harleys of yore. I ordered a 2007 XL883 Custom in mid-March from Outpost Harley-Davidson in Pueblo, Colorado (they were the only dealer that didn't try to blow marketing smoke up my leg), and took delivery on March 31st. Dodged tumbleweed all the way home in gusty 50 degree winds. But here's my new toy.