Today I joined old friends from the Concours Owners Group (though not many of us still belong, but that's a whole other story) for our annual Spring kick-off event: The Wrench and Wretch.
We meet 12 miles west of Lyons, CO, up South St Vrain Canyon (look at your atlas and you'll find Colorado Hiway 7). There's usually a valve adjustment, sometimes some tire mounting, fork seal replacing, etc. There's always a lot of catching up, tire-kicking, lie-swapping, and eating. Today there were 13 of us there. One NT, one Goldwing 1800, one ST1100, four Connie 14s, two C-10s, two KLRs, one FZ1 and one poor pilgrim who drove 200 miles rather than ride his wife's Nomad. He has C-14 and the saddle is in some place called Lake Shasta City, California, getting turned into a Russell DayLong. There were five Russells there and one Sargent gel-foam revision.
As the festivities came to an end at around three, three of us (two C-14, one NT) got on the Peak-to-Peak highway to Estes Park. We hadn't gone four miles when we rode into snow. It got pretty hard for a while and stuck to my windshield and wet the road. But it didn't slow us down as much as the traffic. We rode down Big Thompson Canyon to Loveland and split up there. I got to Greeley (50 miles from home and realized that I had left my Kindle at our host's house. Can't do without the Kindle, so I called to make sure he was there and rode down to Longmont and Lyons and back up South St Vrain Canyon. 2.5 miles from Rick's house, there was a wreck -- fire trucks, Sheriff's cars, and an ambulance leaving with no lights or apparent hurry. The wreck seemed to be a single-vehicle incident and the vehicle was a Buell of some sort. The front end was dinged up, but the bike didn't actually look too bad. I hope the ambulance was empty, but will probably never find out. Got home at 8:00, making for a 13-hour day and rode 256 miles. Calm when I left, very windy and gusty in the mountains, snow, sunshine, calm as I left the mountains, but then very windy and gusty back out here on the Plains. Typical of Colorado ... a wide diversity of weather and roads.
I saw an owl fly across the road maybe 100 feet in front of me, mule deer grazing -- well off the road, thank goodness -- hawks building their nests, and a flock of 9-10 great blue herons. I've never seen herons in a flock before.
Lots of bikes out -- almost as many sport-tourers and adventure bikes as sport bikes and cruisers.
Gotta' go and get ready for work now!
We meet 12 miles west of Lyons, CO, up South St Vrain Canyon (look at your atlas and you'll find Colorado Hiway 7). There's usually a valve adjustment, sometimes some tire mounting, fork seal replacing, etc. There's always a lot of catching up, tire-kicking, lie-swapping, and eating. Today there were 13 of us there. One NT, one Goldwing 1800, one ST1100, four Connie 14s, two C-10s, two KLRs, one FZ1 and one poor pilgrim who drove 200 miles rather than ride his wife's Nomad. He has C-14 and the saddle is in some place called Lake Shasta City, California, getting turned into a Russell DayLong. There were five Russells there and one Sargent gel-foam revision.
As the festivities came to an end at around three, three of us (two C-14, one NT) got on the Peak-to-Peak highway to Estes Park. We hadn't gone four miles when we rode into snow. It got pretty hard for a while and stuck to my windshield and wet the road. But it didn't slow us down as much as the traffic. We rode down Big Thompson Canyon to Loveland and split up there. I got to Greeley (50 miles from home and realized that I had left my Kindle at our host's house. Can't do without the Kindle, so I called to make sure he was there and rode down to Longmont and Lyons and back up South St Vrain Canyon. 2.5 miles from Rick's house, there was a wreck -- fire trucks, Sheriff's cars, and an ambulance leaving with no lights or apparent hurry. The wreck seemed to be a single-vehicle incident and the vehicle was a Buell of some sort. The front end was dinged up, but the bike didn't actually look too bad. I hope the ambulance was empty, but will probably never find out. Got home at 8:00, making for a 13-hour day and rode 256 miles. Calm when I left, very windy and gusty in the mountains, snow, sunshine, calm as I left the mountains, but then very windy and gusty back out here on the Plains. Typical of Colorado ... a wide diversity of weather and roads.
I saw an owl fly across the road maybe 100 feet in front of me, mule deer grazing -- well off the road, thank goodness -- hawks building their nests, and a flock of 9-10 great blue herons. I've never seen herons in a flock before.
Lots of bikes out -- almost as many sport-tourers and adventure bikes as sport bikes and cruisers.
Gotta' go and get ready for work now!
