I live in Northern Colorado, so I have GREAT riding near year round just out my back door (don't want to make anyone jealous ).
Right now I am limiting my rides to 100-200 miles as I don't have a very good bike for longer rides. My current ride is an '80 Suzuki GS550L which I got on trade from a guy for two .22s. It was a little rough when I received it, but after alot of work, some new tires and a carb rebuild, it runs great and is a very good little bike for these mountain roads. I am planning on obtaining a V-Strom 1000 in the future (hopefully soon as my 6'4" frame is a little squished on my GS550).
Well, without further adieu, here's the report for August 17, 2008.
The plan for today was to head up to Estes Park (home to Rocky Mountain National Park) then head south on 7 and go through some old mining towns down on 72, then go down Left Hand Canyon, hit 36 and head home. This is a short ~110 mile trip, but with a tank that only runs 120 miles on a fill up (VERY small tank on the "L" models) thats just about right. This route is also mostly tight canyon roads with A LOT of curves, so that 110 miles takes about 2.5 hours of riding.
After eating a great cream chicken lunch (with mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh slaw made with cabbage from the garden and fresh corn on the cob, also from the garden) that my mom cooked, I headed out at about 2:30 p.m. The skies looked decent, so I filled up and was off. Headed up 34 though Big Thomson Canyon and hung a right at Drake (the back way to Estes). After 4 extremely tight "s" turns (roughly a 10% grade and tight), I broke through to Estes valley.
Looks like the clouds came in. Oh well, it will still be fun, but won't get the best pictures of the 14er's.
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