Last Weekend's Last Minute Ride

Last Saturday I wasn't supposed to ride, I was supposed to meet some photographers for s sunrise shoot up near Rocky Mountain National Park. That didn't happen. even though my alarm clock was set for 4am I didn't rise until 6:30am due to sleeping through the annoying rooster noise I set to wake me up. No matter how fast I rode the bike there was no way I could make it more than 90 miles in 10 minutes or less. It just wasn't happening.

So, at the urging of a friend I met up with some other riders at MoCo for a last minute ride. I didn't know their route and I didn't know but two other riders when I arrived at the staging location. 

Anywho, we met up, we talked shit to each other and then we took off. It wasn't a very exciting ride and one rider really annoyed me to no end. When turning onto Squaw Pass from 74 the light turned yellow and then red before the last four of us could make it through. There was one rider ahead of me and two behind. I never learned the rider in front of me's name, but when he stopped he was in the middle of the intersection. I backed up as much as I could and waved him back. Instead of backing up and getting out of the way of cross- and turning traffic, he stood there in the middle of the intersection until the light turned green again.

And then he took off. I mean, he really took off. He left the last 3 of us in his dust as he tried to catch up to the others. This annoys me. Maybe it's the veteran in me, maybe it's the leader, mentor and coach in me, but whatever it is, it annoys me when people leave the pack like that. Sure, he was trying to catch up to the rest of our group, but since we were fragmented into our own smaller group (due to him not going through the yellow) he should have stayed it us. I was able to watch him for a while as he passed in double yellows, passed inside on hairpin turns and generally rode like a jackass. If he had gone down at any point I wouldn't have felt the slightest bit concern for him. I hate saying that, but it's true. If you ride like an ass-hat I'm not going to waste emotional energy being concerned over you when you wreck.

Having said that there were a few times I lost the people behind me in my rear-view mirror. I had to slow down and at one point pull over to wait for them to catch up. Maybe it was the traffic from all the autumn looky-loos and maybe Squaw Pass is always that busy. I don't know as I don't ride Squaw Pass that often (the road is terrible). We did catch up to the rest of the group at Echo Lake Park near the entrance to Mt. Evans road.

We continued on to I-70 and then Central City (speedway) Parkway to, well, Central City and Blackhawk.

Daniel and I split off and grabbed a bite to eat there. I love casino towns! The two of us ate for less than $5.00: a burger and fries with Salisbury steak and two drinks. Granted the drinks were cappuccino and sodas, both of which were terribly watered down, but it was lass than $5 for the both of us! Both!

After lunch we road peak-to-peak highway to Golden Gate Canyon and then split off: me to go east and south to get home, him to go north then east.

(For some reason my Map won't save properly)

This is the first half of the ride:

View Last Minute ride 2011-09-24 in a larger map