The East Side and Some Very Cool Cars

After a good meal and a few glasses of wine, I had a great night’s sleep in the smallest and cheapest room of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. The hotel is rather splendid....

The front of the hotel....


















The lobby....



















What good is a lobby if it doesn’t have a vintage car in it?....



















The make of car is appropriately a Stanley. This is a 1906 Stanley Steamer made in Newton-Watertown, MA.....



















I should imagine that a lot of people probably ride to the Rocky Mountain National Park via its west side, on US 34. This gets you quickly to the Trail Ridge Road in the park which is where all of the high and splendid mountains are. That is how I got there. But, it would be very easy to miss the roads on the east side of the park, namely Colorado Highways 7 and 72. While the views are not as impressive as those on the west side, these roads are much better for motorcycling with their tight twisty and sometimes flowing bends.

I also took a side diversion down the St Vrain Canyon which is very picturesque and well worth riding through. As I went down the canyon I rode behind two other bikes and took a few pictures of them as I rode....















































The two bikers stopped to check the map and I stopped also and chatted to them for a while. They are Kirby and Joan from Nebraska....





















After a quick chat I rode back through the canyon and then joined Highway 72 heading south. As I rode I marvelled, not for the first time and how the original road builders had done such a magnificent job. It is down to their skill, determination and hard work that we are able to enjoy riding (and even driving) such terrific roads. Just consider this one photo where the rod had to pass through where a hillside used to be. Can you imagine the difficulty in creating this gap just so the road could pass through it? This one short piece of road probably took many men a great number of months to build and we ride through it in seconds. I say we owe a lot of thanks to the road builders!....





















I was soon heading through Nederland in Colorado and I stopped to look at two things in particular here. The first is a steam shovel. Not any old steam shovel, but this is the only remaining Bucyrus model 50-B left in the world. This very machine was one of 25 that were used to build bridges, roads and drains that were needed to shift the massive quantities of soil and rocks cut from the Panama Canal.

This means that this steam shovel and my bike, the Leading Ladies, are linked through time as my bike will go back to the UK from Los Angeles on a ship through the Panama Canal, a journey that would not be possible without this steam shovel.....





















The second thing I saw in Nederland was strange. It was a sculpture made from old steam irons....





















I got the link between the steam shovel and the steam irons almost straight away! Tenuous to say the least!

I rode south through Central City couldn’t help but notice the large number of casinos located there. I hadn’t seen any for quite a while, but then this one place has many of them, so I guess there must be a relaxing of regulations that has allowed casinos to exist in this one small city. I don’t gamble, so I didn’t feel the need to stop and try my luck!

What I did do though was to get out my map to decide where to stay for the night. I randomly picked the town of Golden, for no other reason that I liked the name. I arrived there quite early and decided the time was right to get the mud off my bike after the mess of a road construction I encountered in Rocky Mountains National Park. I spent hours washing it but I could not remove all of the mud which had dried onto the engine casing where it has a rough finish. To be honest, I am not sure it will ever come off as it has badly marked the surface. I will try again when I get the bike back to London.

While I was washing the Leading Ladies I did hear that there was a car cruise in Golden on every first Saturday in the month. Guess what! Today was the first Saturday, so I got my camera out. Now, I do love motorbikes, but I also have a soft spot for some types of cars, mainly old cars – yes, I know this will horrify some of my die-hard biker readers!

No words are needed really to describe some of these beautiful machines....

































































































































































































































































































































Just look at the rear wings on this!....




















And finally, my personal favourite....









































I think I may need to buy another car, or at least think about it..... !

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How To Get Wet On A Sunny Day.

Day 73 of my tour saw me riding north to the Rocky Mountain National Park, an area I was looking forward to immensely.

I didn’t have far to ride on this day and the weather had turned warm again after a chilly start. As I rode I wondered if I would listen to my music at all on this tour while I was riding. So far, I haven’t used it once and I was quite happy to keep it that way. On previous trips across Europe and riding over the Alps, I have had days when I listened to music all day while I rode, but for some reason, I don’t feel like doing that in the US.

As I rode I did see this ‘dozer on a pole. It’s not a sight you see every day, so I did an about turn to go back for a picture. The sign underneath says “Truck and Tractor Heaven” so I think I had stumbled on somebody’s lifetime passion. Oh well, each to their own!...





















Soon I reached the 11,000 mile point of my tour and I took the usual picture looking ahead at the ‘000 mile mark....





















However, just looking ahead doesn’t tell the full story, so I have added a sideways picture as well this time. This is Grand Lake, and grand it is too!....





















Another shot of the lake with the Rocky Mountains behind....



















As I didn’t have far to ride today, I thought I would check out the town of Grand Lake. I found a small but lively place that caters for the tourist industry. Small neat shops lined the main street, the lake was in full use by boaters and swimmers, plus there were a few reasonable looking places to eat. These are a few of the buildings on the main street through the town....





















This building caught my eye and I wondered what sort of a grand building warranted such a clever and no doubt pricey exterior....





















I walked to the front of the building and couldn’t quite believe what I was looking at. The building housed public restrooms! Well done to the town of Grand Lake, this was excellent!....





















I did see a couple of things in Grand Lake that amused me....

This is an unusual load to be carrying in the back of a pick-up....





















I guess there isn’t anything unusual about this sign.....



























.... until you see where it was located....





















This Ice Cream shop has a familiar look to it, but something isn’t quite right....





















Here is a short video panning around the lake edge.....




I headed out of Grand Lake thinking this would be a fun place to come to for a few days.

Just before I entered the Rocky Mountain National Park, I spotted this RV, complete with a garage for two bikes. It had just been purchased in Phoenix and the new owners were driving it back to its new home in Canada....





















Riding in the Rocky Mountain National Park was in three parts. 1. The ride on the western side of the park where I rode up the mountain range 2. The ride at high level at the highest points of the mountains and 3. The ride from the top, down a little to Estes park, on the east side.

Riding on the road was a mixture of straighter sections and then the twisty parts where the road climbs steeply. This part of the road mainly has trees on either side and there are places to stop and look at the views....to test the riders of any bikes, even those with pedals! Here are shots from a couple of the viewing points....









































This part of the road is great fun to ride with some tight hairpin bends (US = switchbacks).

Once above the tree line, the road straightens out a little and generally hugs the side of the mountains, rising or falling in long straight sections, with the occasional bend as the road turns with the topography. On one of these sections there was some road construction work happening and I accept this is absolutely necessary in order to maintain the roads we all ride and drive on. Plus of course, at these high elevations the work has to be done in the summer months before the snow starts to fall again. I have now grown accustomed to the way the roads are left between the different stages of work.

So, I found myself riding up the last part of the mountain on a road surface that was nothing more than bare earth. It was very well compacted with just a few loose spots, so riding it at a slow speed was no problem at all – I had to be very careful, but I am used to that now on such roads.

Riding the road soon became a big problem though when a water bowser (a large water tanker that sprays the road generally to reduce dust) came in the opposite direction as I was still riding up. I could see him spraying a long way away and even though his truck was spraying both sides of the road, surely he must have seen me and would turn off the water as he drove passed me coming in the opposite direction..... he got closer and closer, but no, he just kept spraying and as we passed each other I got as far to the right as possible but my lower half and my bike got soaked. What a jerk!

Even worse, the water now turned the top surface of the road into a slippery very fine mud which in the next few minutes, caked my bike and my legs. Lovely!

I had my video camera on at the time....here is a short piece of video showing the ride up on the twisty section, and the water truck spraying the road....



I think I might send a link to this post to the National Park Service so they can tell their road contractors to be more careful when motorbikes are on the road.

After getting to the top, the views of the mountain range are stunning. Of course I took some photos but the pictures do not do the scale and majesty of the peaks justice....

These mountain tops are huge....



















There is still some of last winter’s snow up here....



















On the very top, the land is called Tundra. This is where the winds are so strong, the snow gets blown away. The cold winds and a lack of moisture present a problem to any plant life. As a consequence, very slow growing plants that keep very low to the ground are the only species that can survive up here....



















In places, the mountain tops are very barren and almost take on a lunar type landscape....















































At one place I stopped there was a path you could walk. The walk to the top was steep and long and I had to stop a few times to catch my breath. The views from the top were worth it though....

































































On the walk back down I walked and chatted with a couple of guys, one of who told me he had an accident 6 weeks ago and had two broken ribs and one of his lungs had punctured and collapsed. He had a lot more grey hair than me as well, and it struck me that he must has been very fit to have been able to walk up that slope with his recent accident. I was impressed!

After visiting the top, it was time to continue on and ride back down the other side. Part way down, I stopped and looked at yet another view. Here you can easily see the road I was about to ride down and the way it hugs the side of the mountain. I stood there are considered just why and how these roads were constructed. Can you imagine even working out where such a road should go through areas often so thick with trees that you cannot even see very far? The road builders of the time did an incredible job and all of us that use those roads today owe them a big debt indeed.....







































At the top, I chatted with a couple from Kansas, Donald and Margaret. It is good that riding the Leading Ladies, with its portraits and big yellow license plate is a great conversation starter. They told me Donald is a Kansas boy and Margaret an Iowa girl who got married in 1990. Donald is a trumpet-playing house builder and Margaret has a family that she can trace back to England, Germany, France and Wales! It was a pleasure to spend time talking with them....





















The Rocky Mountain National Park was a great place to go see. Being so close to Denver, the people that live in that city have a terrific national wonder very close by.

Now, where can I wash my bike to get all that mud off....?

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It Must Be A Female Thing....

As I sat on the front porch of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park this morning, I cannot help but overhear a telephone conversation that a woman is having about 20 feet from me. Like me, she is a guest at the hotel and it is 7.15 in the morning.

“Are you awake?” is her opening line to the person who answers the phone. Silly question really. However, I thought it was nice that she was probably calling her husband this early. I was wrong as it became clear she was talking to another guest in the hotel.

“What is your room like?” was the next question. “Mine overlooks the pool...”

“Were you cold in your room last night? I was and I had to close the window.....”

“Oh really, I woke up at 2am and I had a cramp in my foot. I thought about going and getting my medicine from my car but I didn’t want to wake anybody up and the walls in the hotel are so thin....”

“Oh, yes, I am sitting on the porch, but don’t come down here on my account....”

“Are there shops in the park, or is it just a park?.....”

The conversation carried on like this for about 20 minutes as I drank my coffee and ate my breakfast. It must be a female thing, talking on the phone with nothing more than chit-chat when the person you are talking to is in the same building as you.

Two guys would have just said “I’m downstairs. See you later”.

I am glad I am a man. Life is so much simpler.

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Happy Birthday to My Blog!

My blog is a year old. Happy Birthday Blog!

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Three Passes and I Didn’t Sit One Exam!

Today started badly, but then got much better!

It is said “An army marches on its stomach”. The same goes for bikers sitting in the saddle all day – they need their breakfast! I was feeling tired last night so I went to bed early. I woke early and sorted my pictures from yesterday, wrote my words and posted on my blog. Satisfied, I packed and went downstairs for breakfast. It was 9.05am and I was hungry. I walked into the hotel’s restaurant to be told that breakfast finished at 9am. This was my 72nd day on the road and the first time I had missed breakfast. No, correct that, it was the first time a hotel had been stupid enough to finish breakfast so early!

This pissed me off greatly and I told the hotel manager exactly what I thought about this when I checked out. For the record, this was the same strange hotel, the Delaware, that I wrote about this morning while breakfast WAS being served. My advice – don’t stay there. Anywhere that disregards its customers like this deserves no custom whatsoever. The hotel is too weird - one guy told me this morning that if he had stayed there as a child, he would have been put off hotels for life!

I left the hotel in a bad mood and went and ate breakfast at the only other establishment that had food in the town of Leadville – the local gas station. Stale coffee and a cardboard fruit bar. Yuck. Now I was in a really bad mood.

I don’t know why, but I decided to ride away from Leadville via some back streets and bizarrely, I found an old railway engine hidden away on one of those back streets.... I used to watch steam trains when I was a boy. They passed near to the first house I lived in....





















Many times on this tour, I have seen something and turned around to go back and have a look. This morning I did my now well practiced U turn to take a closer look at a lot of snowmobiles for sale or rent. They were a striking colour (US = color).... I was pleased with this picture when I saw it this evening on my laptop....



















Soon, I was riding over my first pass of the day – the 11318 foot high Fremont Pass. Beyond the summit, I stopped at Clifton Creek Lake. It was beautiful as it shimmered in the sunlight. I talked to two guys on bikes – one BMW and a Yamaha and I didn’t get their names, but save to say, we stood there for a while exchanging road stories. I like doing that. It is very easy to talk to other bikers!....



















I needed to find a restroom (but I didn’t need to rest), or a bathroom would have done (no, I didn’t need a bath either), so I rode quickly north hoping to find a toilet. Why don’t Americans call it a toilet? Luckily I soon arrived at Copper Mountain and I found what I was looking for. Relieved, I went for a ride around this mountain resort and I was surprised to see a golf course this high up. My GPS / Sat Nav told me I was at 9737 feet so I tried to think of how playing at this elevation would help or hinder your game. No doubt, in the thinner air, you ball would travel further, but you would get more tired walking the distance of the course. I looked for golf buggies but didn’t see any....





















I wonder if this is one of the highest golf courses in the US. Somebody will no doubt tell me.... !

On reaching the city of Dillion, I rode on top of the rock and earth dam that held back the Dillon Reservoir and headed for Swan Mountain Road. This wasn’t very high, but had an overlook. The view wasn’t great but I did see this little girl trying to feed the chipmunks.... she was getting near to a steep drop....



















Nearby I saw this good sculpture of an eagle....





















Next was Loveland Pass at 11,990 feet and on the continental divide....



















Riding down Loveland Pass, on its northern side, the road goes down at a steep gradient and meets I-70. I stopped on a bend, right where I shouldn’t and snapped this picture of the Interstate below. It was like being in a plane looking down....





















Before I left the UK I read about the Georgetown Loop Railroad, so today, it was on my list of places to see. How about this for a scary railway bridge.... and no, my picture is not at an angle – the track was inclined like this!....



















This was the same train at the nearby Devils Gate Station. There is something very appealing about the power of steam trains....





















A few pictures of buildings in Georgetown.....

It is made of wood and is 143 years old!....





















This church was built just 7 years later....





















My third pass of the day was Berthoud Pass at 11315 feet. This was my favourite as it had wide sweeping bends... yippeeee!.......



























For tonight’s stop I called into the Winter park resort and got a small condo for the night in this building.... being out of the snow season, it was remarkably good value....



















I went for a walk and soon realised this was a popular place for mountain biking. I liked this couples outfits....



























I rode the chair lift to the top....



















This mountain biker made me laugh. It was like he was saying something like “Shit, I left the oven on”.....



















This guy was going very quick over the rocks..... ok, maybe riding a motorbike isn’t quite as dangerous as this....





















It is remarkable how quickly these mountain bikers ride on such rough surfaces. No wonder they wear all that protection....





















A few shots from the top of the mountain....

































































I got back to the condo and took off my boots. After wearing them for 72 days in a row, they are beginning to get a life of their own. Here they are going out for the evening....





















I might need to buy some more boots, or at least leave these outside when I take them off!

I just re-read this blog post and realised there are no pictures of motorbikes. Note to self – take bike pictures tomorrow........

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