Today, I met my old Concours-riding buddy Mike at his home in north Loveland. Mike and I met when we both parked our Kawasaki Concours in the motorcycle parking area at Northern Colorado Medical Center here in Greeley. I went home after seeing Mike's '98 parked next to my '99 and posted a question on the Concours Owners Group mail-list asking if the green bike belonged to anyone on the List. Within 20 minutes Mike had replied that it was him. We met a week later for lunch and he's one of my best friends and has been for almost as long as I've been married to Joanne.
Mike is an IT guy and he's self-employed. That means he works way too much. We haven't ridden together in two years. I knew today was supposed to be pretty good weather, so last night at 10:15, I texted Mike and asked him if he wanted to ride today. I was surprised when he said that he did. So, I met him and we headed west on US34 to Estes Park.
This route goes through the Big Thompson Canyon, where over 100 people had died in a flash flood in 1976. There had been more flooding last summer and I hadn't been up the canyon since that happened. It was amazing seeing the damage that had happened again.
It was a windy day, gusts up to 40-45, but we did OK as we wound our way up from a bit over 5,000' to 7,600' elevation in Estes Park. There were lots of motorcycles out all day, mostly Harleys and other cruisers. Some of them were very-well ridden. The most impressive sight I saw was a pair of Goldwing 1800s coming toward us around a tight 30mph curve. They had sport-bike lean angles!
I dragged my left peg all around one curve in the Canyon and I confess -- that slowed me down a bit.
After we ate in Estes, we took US36 down to Lyons, one of the communities that had been hardest hit by last year's flooding. From Lyons, we wandered north on county roads to the east side of Carter Lake and then down the hill on our way back to Loveland. That hill is one of three that had helped me attain my (so far) ultimate terminal velocity on a bicycle -- 58mph. I didn't go any faster than that today, but we were following a couple on another bike.
When we got back to Mike's house, he had to go meet some guys who were buying his share of the Citabria that they've owned for the last ten years. I realized that all I needed was another 65 miles to roll my odometer past 96K. So changing mountains and foothills for eastern Colorado Plains, I wandered some more to the northeast until I got to Ault, a little town at the intersection of US85 and CO14. Then it was to the east on 14 as the light turned a beautiful glowing gold on the grasses of the Plains. I rode to Briggsdale and then back to Greeley, making exactly 200 miles for the day and taking me to 96,017 miles on the trusty NT.
Way to go, Dudley!
Mike is an IT guy and he's self-employed. That means he works way too much. We haven't ridden together in two years. I knew today was supposed to be pretty good weather, so last night at 10:15, I texted Mike and asked him if he wanted to ride today. I was surprised when he said that he did. So, I met him and we headed west on US34 to Estes Park.
This route goes through the Big Thompson Canyon, where over 100 people had died in a flash flood in 1976. There had been more flooding last summer and I hadn't been up the canyon since that happened. It was amazing seeing the damage that had happened again.
It was a windy day, gusts up to 40-45, but we did OK as we wound our way up from a bit over 5,000' to 7,600' elevation in Estes Park. There were lots of motorcycles out all day, mostly Harleys and other cruisers. Some of them were very-well ridden. The most impressive sight I saw was a pair of Goldwing 1800s coming toward us around a tight 30mph curve. They had sport-bike lean angles!
I dragged my left peg all around one curve in the Canyon and I confess -- that slowed me down a bit.
After we ate in Estes, we took US36 down to Lyons, one of the communities that had been hardest hit by last year's flooding. From Lyons, we wandered north on county roads to the east side of Carter Lake and then down the hill on our way back to Loveland. That hill is one of three that had helped me attain my (so far) ultimate terminal velocity on a bicycle -- 58mph. I didn't go any faster than that today, but we were following a couple on another bike.
When we got back to Mike's house, he had to go meet some guys who were buying his share of the Citabria that they've owned for the last ten years. I realized that all I needed was another 65 miles to roll my odometer past 96K. So changing mountains and foothills for eastern Colorado Plains, I wandered some more to the northeast until I got to Ault, a little town at the intersection of US85 and CO14. Then it was to the east on 14 as the light turned a beautiful glowing gold on the grasses of the Plains. I rode to Briggsdale and then back to Greeley, making exactly 200 miles for the day and taking me to 96,017 miles on the trusty NT.
Way to go, Dudley!
