Monday, September 20, 2021
Well, we were finally here. The start of the COBDR and it started with a bit of a foreboding evening before. A storm passed through leaving the roads wet, so we knew we might be in for some wet roads depending on how far south the storm traveled. Spoiler alert: it went right through where we would be riding.
All of the BDR routes have their sections numbered from south to north,
so we were riding it backwards, so to speak. So our first section is number six. After breakfast we left town at about 8am. It was overcast and a bit cold so we were layered up well. From Baggs it's about 19 miles on state route 70 to the start of the route. We stopped to take some pictures and then headed off down the road which turned to dirt pretty quickly. It's a well kept road that the local ranchers use, so though it had some mushed up mud here and there from trucks, it wasn't too bad. So we can be forgiven for thinking that we've got this figured out. We rode by some very expensive looking ranches wondering if some hollywood type owned them. At one point we realized we missed a turn and nearly kept on going since it joined up with the main track later on. In hindsight we really wished we had done that.
But we were going to ride the official route, so we turned around and caught road 503 that we were supposed to ride on.
This is where things got "fun", and by "fun" I mean slow and muddy. This is cattle country. And there are a lot of cattle and cattle guards (prevents them from crossing a road but allows vehicles through) all through this area. Between the rain and the cattle, the road was a greasy, slimey mess. All of us fell multiple times. Tim ended up with his kickstand sensor getting broken and we had to wire it together in a bodger fix so his bike would run. Dave bent part of his rear brake lever on one fall. Tim bent both his shifter and rear brake lever in different falls.
All of these were slow speed falls – we couldn't go anywhere near a description of "fast" – so none of us got hurt. Just wet. And muddy. And the bikes got VERY muddy. So just how slow going was it? This little stretch is 4.7 miles long. It took us three hours and ten minutes to get through it. To say we were whipped is an understatment. Dave was ready to go home. I was ready to make it a highway trip from there on. Tim was in full agreement with anyone. But we improvised, adapted, and overcame the mud obstacles as Gunny Highway would say (see "Heartbreak Ridge" with Clint Eastwood).
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.
