Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route

It seems that I start all of my journeys with one thing in common. Heat! I suppose that is what comes with living in Texas. Well, my newest journey takes me to the beautiful state of Colorado. This is an epic ride along portions of what is known as the COBDR. The Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route. Backcountry Discovery Routes is a not for profit organization whose efforts involve keeping backcountry routes open. Please consider a contribution if you are an adventureseekr such as myself and want to help keep these areas accessible. You can learn more about them here.

So, I begin my journey as I always do, from home. I never trailer my motorcycle anywhere. I believe that the journey is the adventure. I don’t normally participate in “group” activities. I enjoy riding alone, where I can pick the stops, the hotels, the restaurants and choose to do what I feel is important. At the risk of sounding selfish, I like what I like. I think that it is rare when you find a friend, or better yet, a soulmate who you can travel with and do so in harmony. I am fortunate enough to have both. However, not on this trip.  I am leaving from my small town of China Texas. It is approaching ninety degrees at 9 o’clock in the morning. I have about 1200 miles to go and my bike is loaded. I kiss everyone goodbye and take off. The first day is rather uneventful. I get about 400 miles into the trip and it has rained on and off the entire time. The rains arent of the cooling type, but rather the steaming type. They occur just long enough to make it steamy and humid. After 400 miles, I notice myself starting to make stupid decisions, not paying attention as much to the roadway as to the 105 degree temperature reading on my display. I cant take any more so I stop in Graham TX. for the night.

I am rested and ready for day two. By now, I am far enough north to just begin climbing in elevation. Leaving on day two was outstanding. It was cool. I could feel the brisk air through the vents of my riding jacket much more pronounced that the previous day. I was off and happy about the ride. I was hoping to make it as close as possible today to Denver. This is where I would meet up with a Colorado adventure riding company who organizes tours of this type. I felt that I needed the support that comes with doing a group tour. I was a long way from home and had no local contacts in the event of a breakdown. In hindsight, this wasn’t necessary. This day was more of the same. Rain! Its OK, I can handle the rain as long as the heat was gone, and it was. Day two took me the rest of the way north, through a slice of Oklahoma and into southern Colorado.

I made my stop in Springfield. I stayed at a small quaint hotel called the Stage Stop. This place was old school right down to the actual keys. You know, the kind with a big plastic key-chain tag with the room number on it? When I saw this, I knew that I was at one of the last places to holdout on technology, or so I thought! After writing my receipt on one of those ticket books you buy at an office supply store, the owner told me that the password to the wi-fi was her cell phone number. Inquisitive as I am, I asked why in the world did you use your cell phone number. Her reply “the tech was here and told me he needed a password and forced me to give him something I would remember”. Classic. The owner was a small no nonsense lady. I don’t remember what I paid for the room, but it wasn’t much. She began laying out the rules from memory, before I could even pay her. I had a feeling that anyone who walked through that door would not be confused on exactly what they could or could not do in her hotel. I like people like this. It was a blessing to meet her.

I woke up late this morning. Day three was simply a run into Denver where I would grab a hotel room and spend the night. I would wake up the next morning and get a new set of tires on my bike. I had street tires and opted for a set of TKC-80’s to handle the off-road riding which would come. It was a rather uneventful ride with wonderful weather until I arrived in Denver. It began to rain just as I began to enter the city. I know we all have our fair share of bad drivers, but I swear Denver has the worst. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed a necessary constant vigil to keep from being plowed by people who seemed to be oblivious to their surroundings. Nonetheless, I made it to my hotel and was ready for day four. This would be the day that I would meet the tour company owner and get a feel for what I was in for the next week.

Ah, day four…. I woke up to amazingly cool morning temperatures. I see why Denver is such a popular city. The days were warm as it was the middle of summer, but the mornings were wonderfully cool. The temperature was a much needed break from our Texas heat. I got on the road and followed my GPS to the heart of the city. I managed to get wonderful service and was pleasantly surprised by the courtesy and professionalism of the tour company. The tires were on and I was off to the first real location of my trip, The other stops were basically a function of the travel. No thought went into those locations other than that of necessity.

The evening of day four was the wonderfully majestic from a distance but seemed in need of repairs at a closer look. I had  read several reviews about the hotel and there were a surprising number of negative reviews. I decided that I would keep an open mind and judge the hotel myself. I was fortunate enough to stay one night in the room which was occupied by Stephen King and the room in which he supposedly had a dream which was the inspiration for the movie “The Shining”. Needless to say that I had no experiences of the paranormal type during my stay. While checking in, I began to see why there were so many negative reviews. The hotel staff, while pleasant, was extremely slow. Slow to the point of being ridiculously slow. I was made to wait to precisely the check in time before I could occupy my room. I know the room was ready and I feel like there must have been tours of the room or some other reason why I couldn’t check in 30 mins early. This is a real pet peeve of mine. At any rate, I checked in and was surprised to hear a tour guide outside my room at the rate of about every hour and a half. This part didn’t really bother me, as I was determined to make the best out of it and I went in knowing this was predominantly a tourist attraction as opposed to a hotel which valued their guests privacy and comfort. The hotel lobby was full of people throughout the day who were not staying at the hotel but simply there to tour the grounds. I would say to anyone staying in Estes Park CO to stay somewhere else and tour the hotel.

I had a day to kill before the official beginning of our start to the backcountry discovery route. I took this opportunity to drive up through Rocky Mountain National park and it was a very nice ride. If you are in an all terrain vehicle or a dual sport motorcycle, consider doing Old Fall River Road. It is one way up and as long as the weather allows, it is a spectacular off-road ride. I was riding on new tires and a bit worried about the grip as I havent ridden enough on them to “scrub” them in. Basically these tires dont have full grip until the surfaces are roughed up. So, this combined with wet roads and my inherent fear of heights made for an interesting ride. I was thinking as I was riding off the mountain how happy I was that this was over. I mean, dont misunderstand, it was beautiful. I was just a bid nervous with what looked like weather blowing in. I get off the mountain to the lowlands of the park and with relief, I start to relax. I then see this sign, Old Fall River Road. Being curious, I dart down the road. The farther I progress, the more intriguing it becomes. Signs stating one way only, steep grades, switchbacks only intrigued me more. I start down this wonderful path. I continue in awe at the sights and scenery. I progress down the path in partial relaxation that I am on dirt, the substrate my tires were designed for, and off the mountain where water, curves  and pavement are not the most ideal combination. I progress and begin to realize I am nearing the top. In my mind, I was going to ride a small hill up and then down only to end up out of the park or at some other low lying area of the park. No…. I could see the visitors center at the top of the mountain of which I was just so relieved to be the hell off! Yes, I had managed to place myself right back on the summit and found myself needing to traverse down through worsening weather on brand new knobby tires. Man, sometimes I am my own worst enemy. Nonetheless, I managed to make it down. I had a nice relaxing “Old Fashinoned” at the hotel and soothed my nerves contemplating where to eat dinner.  I will end this day with one of the best meals I have had in recent memory. The Twin Owls Steakhouse in Estes Park serves the best elk medallions. This is my first time to have elk so I cant say that I am an expert but this was an absolute divine dining experience. I was pleasantly surprised. Tomorrow I will make my way back to Denver, check in to the hotel booked for me by the tour company and meet the others riding with us. We will leave Saturday morning and begin the proper Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route.

It is time!! We all wake up early and meet to discuss where we will ride and the terrain. Today is a mixture of pavement and groomed dirt roads on our way toward Steamboat Springs. We made our way to a wonderful stop for lunch in Grand Lake Co. The Sagebrush. Really pleasant people and wonderful food. Visit if you are in the area. After refueling, we were off again to Steamboat! All off-road finally. We were still on somewhat groomed roads but the last half of today’s ride would take us next to Apiatan Mountain, Gravel Mountain, Radial Mountain, Cascade Mountain… through Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest into Steamboat Springs. We had a taste of what we would experience for the next week. Beautiful morning and rain beginning about 2 o’clock. The rain became trying and really began to get old. However, we endured and made the best of it. We would find ourselves leaving earlier and earlier each day to try to beat the rain to our next destination. We were all still quite new to each other, but we managed to make it through the day and into Steamboat. The town was wonderful but crowded. I believe there was some bike race staging there which brought more visitors than usual. After walking around from restaurant to restaurant we were able to finally find a place for dinner. This brings to an end day 1.

Day Two starts early. Our plan is to ride all off road through Stagecoach State Park and through Gypsum and finally staying in Eagle Co. Little did we know what was in store for us and how the rain would create havoc. We had our first water crossing this morning on our way to Rock Creek Stage Station. This was a really beautiful part of the trip. Colorado is a beautiful state and the people who have access to these wonderful places are really fortunate. After spending time here, we were off once again to Gypsum. We were anticipating riding through sand or silt or whatever it is you call the stuff that causes bikes to come down on their side. I wasn’t as much worried about this terrain because I spent my early riding years learning to ride on the beach. Sand was a necessary thing and we rode it frequently. What we did not anticipate was the brief rain shower which arrived early than we did. You can see from the photos that this stuff was nasty. It caked in our tires and would not come out. I have been in a lot of mud and in my opinion this was worse than the clay that I was used to. We spent hours pushing bikes up and over hills and even had one who managed to burn a clutch. We were all lucky we didn’t cook the clutches.. This stuff was bad. Hey… This is what adventure is all about. One bike towed the broken KLR and we were finally out of there and all wanting a shower and hotel room. By this point in the trip, we learned about each other and our tolerance level. I must say that we all stuck together and worked together to get through this day. For the most part the group was from very different geographic areas. We came from different economic backgrounds and we all had different political views. We elected to put this aside and ride. I think by the end of this trip a lot of preconceptions about what “the other” person is like, was put to sleep. It taught me a lot about looking past someones political or religious beliefs and see the person for who they were as opposed to what they believe. It was a good lesson. I will end this here as the next couple of days was rather uneventful. Nonetheless, it was an epic adventure and one which I am so fortunate to have made.