August 20th, 2011 -- Veteran's Rally

August 20th served two purposes this year: on the one hand, it's one of my best friend's birthdays and on the other it was the weekend of the annual Veteran's Rally in Cripple Creek, CO.

My friend, Danni (inside joke) wasn't sure what he wanted to do on his birthday, he just knew that he didn't want to spend it with his girlfriend (of 15 years). That's a long story and not the point of this blog.

Some friends of his, and acquaintances of mine, invited me to the annual veteran's rally and ride. They're Harley riders and go every year as the husband, Johnny, is a vet and the wife, Jackie, is the daughter of a vet. I know Danni wanted to go to this as we're both veterans, it's actually where we met back in 1994.

But I had a memorial ride to go on first. Back in July, while I was in Florida, a local rider friend of mine, Gary, and a friend of his (Dave) were riding the Deckers Run when Dave crashed and died. No one knows the exact details of what happened to Dave: did his bike malfunction, did he hit something in the road, did he lose control? No one knows for sure.

Gary organized a memorial ride for his friend Dave the same morning and the veteran's rally, but luckily the two groups were taking the same route to Deckers and then it was nothing more than going to Cripple Creek while the memorial riders returned to Denver. I was able to fit both rides in!

We met at MoCo for an 8:30a KSU (kickstands up) but we didn't actually get kickstands up until about an hour later, which put me an hour behind the other riders. Arrgh! And the route wasn't the direct route, but rather a longer round-about route which put me even further behind the people going to the veteran's rally.

Quite annoying.

We rode down to Deckers and out of about 45 bikes one went down. He was behind me, but from what I understand he tried a dangerous pass inside a turn on a double solid line. When we arrived in Deckers at the traditional turn-around point, I noticed my other group wasn't there. Either they'd stopped and moved on after waiting for me, or they didn't stop. I said my good-byes and hauled ass south.

As I came into Woodland Park, right at my turn to Cripple Creek I see my friend on my old SV and his friends at a gas station. Apparently they had decided to stop for a bathroom break and it was taking much longer than they thought it would. Lucky for me.

We headed west as part of a very long line of motorcycles. I'd say miles and miles of Harleys interspaced with a few choppers, adventure tourers and very few sportbikes.

It was slow, but every single person on their bike was either a veteran like myself or related to one. We rode the last few miles to Cripple Creek, which would normally have taken me about 20 minutes, in a little more than an hour.

Riders riding in

A sweet ass custom U.S. Army themed ZX14r

The veteran's honor guard

The Pledge of Allegiance

The crowd at Cripple Creek

Patriot Guard Riders out of Kansas

Naked Liberty

More bikes

A little custom

The Monster's Inc. trike

Danni, Jackie, Johnny

An Indian

Ghost Rider is here?

More bikes

Antique

Memorial bike for a fallen soldier

A veteran needs a home. So, apparently this GSD served for 6 years in Afghanistan seeking bombs. His handler died and he lost a leg. When he came to the USA he was offered up for adoption. He still needs a home. If I had the room...

Phoenix

Air Force bomber-themed Harley

Me, on the SV

Danni and Me

Motorcycle Expo

The day after our August ride up Trail Ridge Road was the first annual Denver motorcycle expo. Since it was a first annual it was fairly small, but they did have the Colorado state patrol motorcycle unit, dyno tests, Harleys, sportbikes, racers and stunters. And of course, everyone stayed with their own group. :D

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I did get some.

So, after our July moonlight ride up Rocky Mountain National Park we decided to do it again, this time opening up the invitation to anyone who might want to go. We had 30 people on 27 motorcycles. Since our group was so large we did not stop for meals but instead just met in Lyons, CO and broke into two groups: one, a faster group and the other, a slower group. I rode with the slower group because it was raining and and getting dark, but about halfway through I realized I should have ridden with the faster group.

This ride had some setbacks. Luckily it wasn't anything mechanical (at least not yet) but more of a logistical series of setbacks.

There are two east-side entrances to RMNP from Estes Park and the two group leaders did not coordinate which entrance we'd be going in from. Therefore, one group went into the East entrance and one, my group, went in at the North entrance. Where the two roads cross in the park we were able to send someone to the other entrance where, sure enough, the other (faster) group was waiting for us to show up.

They joined us at the T-intersection and we headed up as a group. I can't really explain to you how surreal the riding is when there are no lights other than your headlamps and yet the moon is giving off enough light that you can see by. Granted, we couldn't see a lot, but we could see like anywhere with a full moon.

Watching the string of head- and tail-lights riding up and down the mountainsides is amazing, as thought a giant white and red serpent was winding its way about.

We got to the top and pulled into the visitor's center to hang out for about a half an hour before we headed back down.

This is where it really annoyed me. Without coordination or consensus people were hopping on their bikes and taking off in smaller groups than the one large or two small we rode up in. This created confusion and people didn't know who to ride down with, what speeds the smaller groups were trying to keep or which exit the groups were exiting the park from.

I ended up in one group and followed them out the east exit where a couple of us pulled off at a gas station to regroup. While there a couple more people pulled up, people who rode with other groups but didn't want to leave Estes Park from highway 7 at midnight. We decided to take the less risky 9and therefore faster) ride down highway 36 to Lyons where we stopped at our original staging point. Other riders filtered in and we all agreed that the return trip down the mountain was a giant cluster f*ck.

I was worried about a friend of mine, a good rider but a guy who doesn't ride as often as I do. I hadn't seen him since the top and lost him in the fray to get down the mountain. Where was he? He is an old Army buddy I reconnected with on Facebook and although he's technically a year older than me, I still think of him as one of my troops and therefore my responsibility.

A few minutes later more riders pulled into the gas station where we were waiting and I finally see my friend with them. Whew!

As it turns out, his bike is old enough to still be carburated and had trouble starting at the nearly 12,000ft above sea level. But, he was able to make it down so all was good.

For those of us heading south from Lyons, to Boulder and the Denver Metro Area, we mounted up and started to leave. At that point I see a another friend of mine ride into the gas station. I'd lost track of her at the scramble to get off the mountain, but she was with about 10 people in the group I last saw her in. yet she rode into the gas station alone.

I ran over to her to let her know we were heading south if she wanted to go. It took me a few minutes to realize those were tears in her eyes and not just from the colder weather. She was shaken up. Apparently, the group she was riding with left her on the way down to fend for herself. She's not a strong rider to begin with and as I found out later, that was her first night ride at all. I asked her if she wanted to ride south with us, we weren't going to go fast and there were a number of people in our group she knows and who wouldn't leave her stranded. She shook her head no and said she would wait for someone else she knows who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her. I verified she was sure of her course of action and when she said yes, left to catch up to my group who had already taken off.

Who knew the highway would be the most treacherous part of the trip for me? Somehow, for some reason, an ass-hat in a dark (blue or black) Audi kept trying to run me off the road. He first changed lanes so close behind me that I swear he was within a foot or so of my rear tire. Then he moves up next to me and comes over directly where I was, not in front and not behind. I slammed on my breaks and he moved into my lane in front of me. The slammed on his breaks. I was able to change lanes before running into the rear of his car and he tried to come over to the left lane, either on top of me or pinning me to the concrete barrier wall, I had no idea. This happened for about 10 miles and I was ready to follow him home and beat the snot out of him (I was wearing head-to-toe body armor after all). However, I lost him when we came close to downtown Denver. While trying to keep up and not get hit by other cars I lost his tail-lights and therefore lost him.

Luckily there were 3 of us and the other two bikes witnessed the whole thing.

I arrived home somewhere around two-am.

This is how dark it looked to the naked eye at the top.

The SV. Unfortunately I wasn't getting the pictures I wanted.

Most, but not all of the bikes that went.

Same, but without the light in the corner.

Route

View 2011-08-12 20:08 Trail Ridge Moonlight Ride in a larger map

So, my friend Eric decided he wanted a longer saddle day. Great! I have no problem with Iron Butt trips, or as in this case, something closer to a Bronze Butt. The idea was to hit some roads up in southern Wyoming and come back to Denver through central Colorado, Steamboat Springs, Berthoud Pass and back to town.

There were five of us: VFR1200, R1, Concourse-14, Triumph Speed Triple and my SV1000s. The VFR, R1 and I met in Denver proper and we rode up to Lyons, CO to meet the others who lived up that way.

Here we are meeting at 5:30am (for some ungodly reason)

We met the others in Lyons and then took some back neighborhood-style roads up to Rist Canyon which let us out at highway 287 north of Ft. Collins. There we rode 287 to Laramie, WY where we went west to Medicine Bow National Forest. MBNF was a very pretty place and I'd love to go back there when I have more camera time, but we didn't stop for photo-ops.

We did, however, stop here where the road fell away killing a family a few weeks before.

We stopped again to check directions in southern Wyoming, a little north of Riverside, a dinky little town that really has no reason to exist.

Like I said, we didn't stop much for pictures, but you can see our route on the map link below. All in all it was about 630 miles for me that long hot day. 

View 600 Mile Ride 7-30-2011 in a larger map

So back in mid July we decided to take a (full) moonlit ride up Rocky Mountain National Park and Trail Ridge Road. Without getting into too many details, let me just say: it was dark to the point where headlights were useless, it was hot (read: upper 90s) in Denver when I left and yet in the low 50s at the top of Trail Ridge Road. Brr...

Since the group was smaller we stopped at Lake Mary Lodge and had a nice dinner although I ended up with a stomach ache the following day which I can't blame on the food, but I have no other idea of why I would have had a stomach ache.

Anywho, these are pictures from the trip:

From Lake Mary Lodge looking east towards the moonrise

The SV with peaks in the background (severely lightened)

The SV with some moving clouds in the background.

Believe it or not this is close to midnight, but with a 30 second exposure we see it a though it were late dusk.

Not focused very well, but you get the idea.

My friend Maria's Triumph.

And more SV.

Sorry for anyone who's actually been paying attention to this blog -- ever since Google+ came out I've been woefully neglecting my writing duties. And the sad part is, I've been riding the bike a lot. I will try and catch you up on a couple of things. Granted, they will not be time stamped appropriately, so I apologize for that.