The last stretch of this second pass was the worst. Tim was leading at the moment, but got tipped over and Dave was helping him. They waved me on past since I made the corner and was still upright. I got to a flat spot just before the last 500 yards or so to the summit. We're all within intercomm distance, but I could only stand there helplessly while Tim is waiting for 5 or 6 vehicles to get past him. Finally it's clear and he gets up to where I am, only to have to wait because another Jeep is heading down. The minute they're past, Tim roars up the road to the top. Meanwhile, Dave has dropped his bike trying to turn it around. He had pulled into a corner to stop and help Tim, but the bike was pointing the wrong way. It's steep, the road is gravel/marbles and down it went. Another bunch of side-by-sides go past, but one nice one stopped to help Dave turn his bike around and pick it up when he dropped again. Then, just when he's ready, a parade of 12 trucks and Jeeps come down the mountain! So he's got to wait for them and then finally gets a run at it. Meanwhile, Tim's trying to hold up traffic so we can get to the top. Dave runs by me and when I give him a good interval, I take off too, praying that no one decides to come down. But we made it to the top.
There's no place to stop that's level and we take a quick snap of the sign and head down the other side. These passes are steep and gravelly. We weren't too far down when Dave got hung up on some thick stuff and sort of fell against the bank. I was too close and was able to bail out on a little outlet that was right at that spot. I thought I'd need to help him, but he got out of there just fine. I then got on the road, was going too slow and fell nearly in the exact same spot.
The problem was, my right foot got pinned against the hill with the bike pointing backwards while I was still facing the other direction. The pain was excruciating and I may have used some inappropriate language (okay, I definitely used inappropriate language).
Dave was still in comm range and came up to help lift the bike off me five minutes later. I stood up and found that I hadn't broken or torn anything and was very thankful. We headed down to the bottom next to Lake Como and took a much needed break for about 20 minutes. That's the closest I've come yet to actually hurting myself on a motorcycle. While there, Tim took some time to readjust his luggage and used a big board to hold his bike up since his kickstand was still off.
We had two more passes to cross and there was no other way down. So we next went up and over Hurricane pass, which just up and over a little hill compared to the previous two passes. That rated another picture of the sign. The last pass for us today is Corkscrew Pass which is steep going up and down. Compared to the other passes, Corkscrew wasn't as big a problem, but there was still traffic (including tourist trucks)
and the steepness of the road was an issue, but only going back down. Going up our bikes did awesome! We could just motor up and slow or as fast as we felt comfortable. But going back down you've got upwards of 600 lbs of bike, luggage, and man which can make for the wrong kind of momentum.
We had stopped at a spot because Dave had fallen and a guy on an e-bike with a little girl on the front wizzed by us.
Call me "old" but that seemed a little dangerous. Just a few minutes later at the next corner I was sliding sideways trying to avoid Tim and came literally within inches of knocking him and I both over.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
