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Colorado & Utah Tour
Scenic Overload
August 13 - 22, 2004
Sunday, August 15
Day 1: Frisco, CO to Gunnison, CO
Total miles for the day 299I laid there but I could not fall asleep, my headache was a bit better now. I was also starving, so I got up in the middle of the night to eat some of my sandwich. In the morning I took two more Excedrin, the headache was not as severe as last night but still lingering. I ate the rest of my sandwich for breakfast. I was feeling confused and weak, out of it. After we all took our showers, we packed up, but somehow things just took forever. We were finally ready to leave at 11AM.
I slammed a Red Bull at the gas station hoping to clear my head some more. I was worried that I could not ride safely feeling so out of it. We got on I-70 West and took the exit for 24 South, which was a nice twisty road. There was some construction on it but it was Sunday and we went straight though without any delay. The temperatures where in the mid to high 60’s and it was sunny. We turned off on 82 West. This road had many different characteristics, sweepers, switchbacks and steep sections with hairpin turns. We stopped at the Independence Pass at 12,095 feet. I tried to walk to the scenic overlook but it was uphill and I only made it half way before loosing my breath and turning back around to snap more pictures by the bikes. The temperatures were brisk up here but we had on our layers and we were comfortable. There was just a bit of snow left over on the peaks of the mountains, not much at all.
82 West of Independent Pass was very steep and I let a cruiser pass me as I descended very slowly, still feeling a bit shaky. To this point, this was the scariest, steepest road that I have ever ridden on. The speed limit at times was only 25 mph, turns posted at 10 mph. Several times there was no centerline and the road was very narrow with no guard rail and no shoulder, just a straight drop off the mountain. The rest of the road was awesome, just a bunch of great twisties. I started to finally gain some more speed and confidence. On top of not feeling good, I was having trouble navigating my bike at slow speeds (parking lots/gas stations) due to the heavy luggage I was carrying. I have toured with the saddle bags before, but the big tail tote was a new purchase for this trip and it was pretty heavy even when empty. Those two bags including the tank bag must have weighed at least 100 lbs. altogether, which made my bike feel very heavy at low speeds and I almost killed it a few times while taking off from a light or stop sign.
We finally arrived in Aspen and decided to have a late lunch. Aspen is a busy tourist town even in the summer and it was busy on this Sunday afternoon. We decided to eat at the Ute City Bar & Grill which, wasn’t cheap, but we could watch our bikes from the window. I ordered a bayou crab melt sandwich, Brian got the independence grilled veggies panini and Dave ordered a Monterey chicken sandwich. The food was really good. It was really hot in Aspen, so we had to de-layer at bit, fueled up and headed west.
From Aspen to Carbondale, 82 was mostly a four lane highway full of cars. There was a strong headwind blowing and traffic was moving at 20mph above speed limit which is a bit nuts since this road had a bunch of stoplights on it. I was happy to turn left at 133 and head south. 133 road was more remote and right away I noticed how fun was going to be. Feeling even better after lunch, I continued to increase my pace. This was my favorite road of this trip so far. Great scenery, not a lot of traffic and nice twisties all the way from Carbondale to the road that goes through Keebler Pass.
McClure Pass at 8,755 feet was not very steep and the red rocks looked cool. I got in to a groove coming down the mountain and ended up hitting the sweepers pretty fast. In Paonia we ran in to a bit of peagravel, not too bad and shortly arrived in Hotchkiss were we took a brief gas/water stop. We could not hang out here though, the clouds were following us for the last hour and now we were feeling rain drops and hearing thunder in the distance. We got on our bikes and tired to outrun the rain.
We turned on 92 and headed Southeast. Right in the beginning, this road is flat and straight running through some farm country, but has brand new pavement. After a while it gets wavy with some hispeed sweepers and past Crawford it begins to climb and gets twisty. The small mountain we were on had some hair pin turns and great views. We stopped at the scenic turnoff to look at the San Juan Mountains and the lake below. The storm was still behind us and it was already getting dark. We knew that we had to spend the night in the nearest town, which was Gunnison. We got going quickly, the winds started to blow harder. I made one last stop at the dam overlook to take some pictures but the winds were blowing so hard now that I was worried that I would dump the bike.
As we passed the dam and the reservoir, I wanted to pull over again and take some pictures, but it had started to rain a little already so I didn’t want to delay us getting to a motel. As we came to the junction for 50 and headed east it was already pouring. The speed limit was 65 mph with some spectacular scenery and unbelievable hi-speed sweepers, but with the heavy rain we rode the last 25 or so miles at speed limit all the way to Gunnison where we called it a night at the Holiday Inn Express. It had stopped raining just as we reached the town. Brian rode over to Taco Bell and picked up our dinner, which we ate in the motel room. When you are blowing all your cash for lunch you have to keep dinner simple. It was a good day after all, although 24, 82 and 50 had a lot of traffic on them, 133 and 92 were pretty empty.
