Fortunately God sometimes protects the stupid. But we made it down the pass with no real falls or injuries. We stopped at a spot that had an outhouse and took a snack break, trying to collect our wits. We hadn't been there but about 10 minutes when a truck comes around the corner and stops in our area. With about 16 tourists in the back like on a safari! We thought they were turning around, but no, they were headed on up after a break here.
The tour guide had this funny schtick of a "baby badger" he was going to release. It's a joke with a fake furry tail that flings out of the "cage" to spook the tourists. We added local color as we told them we'd be praying for them heading up the mountain since we had just come down it.
The rest of the ride was almost uneventful, but we had three more jeeps to pass by and wouldn't you know it, Tim and I drop our bikes again! That's just being tired – that's all there is to it. We got the bikes back up and on our way, finally reaching the highway by 3:30pm. From there it's a short ride to Ouray where we stopped to take a break and get some parts to get Tim's kickstand back on. We had a nice chat with a guy from Ridgeway, which is just up the road a bit, about bikes, traveling, etc.
We decided to stay at the KOA in Ridgeway and this ended up being another brilliant camping spot.
Not because of the surroundings, but because they had a top-notch restaurant, laundry, and showers. Something we all needed. We got camp set up and then had dinner. The food was excellent and I ordered this big 3-meat smoked plate and planned to take the leftovers for dinner another day. We did laundry, called our wives, took showers and by then we were so pooped we just collapsed in our tents. No fire! And how many miles did we ride today? Just 55 miles.
Sunday, September 26, 2021
The last day of the COBDR had arrived. We had a good night's rest and were looking forward to today's ride because we knew we didn't have any nasty road sections ahead of us. After breakfast and packing up, we hit the road about 9:20am heading toward Telluride today. Back in 2014 I was in Telluride for a bluegrass festival and really enjoyed the town.
I wanted to show the guys the town and original wanted to spend time riding to Bridal Veil Falls, but because of our lost day earlier we just decided to get some fuel and a souvenir t-shirt and then keep heading south. Getting back on the road by about noon, we could have taken the actual BDR dirt route, but we were trying to meet our friends Bill Motsenbocker and Dan Schneider in Utah today. They were in the area on a trip of their own riding matching BMW 1200 GT's So instead we headed south on state route 145 and stopped in Delores for a break. This is where the BDR route ends it's dirt section on the way to Four Corners. While we stopped there, a group of three very large guys on Beemers stopped to chat with us.
They were from Georgia (sounds like "gee-oh-juh") and all three were riding the biggest BMW 1200 GS's I'd ever seen. The fuel tanks must have been 8 to 10 gallons. Large aluminum panniers and top cases. And the three guys were big to match. We felt like hobbits standing next to them. They ferried the bikes part of the way and were just riding where they wanted – not on any of the difficult BDR paths. That was smart considering how much weight they were carrying around.
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.
