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A Flatlander’s Trip to the Mountains By Jim Starnes
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The dream of every true motorcyclist is of long rides with great pavement, lots of curves, majestic scenery and great camaraderie at the end of the day. Living in western Illinois it is easy to exhaust all the great roads in a short time. The only solution to finding great rides is a trip to the mountains with a group of good friends.
E-mails bounced back and forth in the days before the trip as final plans were made. The goal was a long weekend in New Mexico and Colorado mountains and a chance to ride with old friends. Mid-September was chosen as the time of year because first, it fit everyone’s schedule and because it is a “not too” time. Let me explain, September is “not to cold”, “not too hot”, and “not too crowded with tourists”. All of those conditions proved true. In preparation for leaving the BMW K1200 LT was loaded with gear and packed for a 3,000 mile trip. I was fortunate in that the LT has plenty of room to pack for a seven day ride.
Day 1 was a nice trip along the Mississippi in western Illinois and across Missouri on Highway 24 going from Hannibal to Kansas City. This is a scenic two-lane road, good pavement, many non-technical curves and little traffic. I joined Interstate 70 in Kansas City and stayed on 70 halfway through Kansas to Salina. There I met with old riding friend, Gary Cook, shared some good fellowship, good food and a good night’s sleep. Gary had just acquired a new K1200 RS and was busy packing as this was his first long trip on the new bike.
Day 2 dawned with some clouds in the sky but the weatherman promised only a minimum chance of rain. Unfortunately the first 2 hours of our ride were in continuous rain. Leaving Salina we followed Highway 56 all the way to the Oklahoma border. In the little town of Kinsley, Kansas we met up with friend Tim Schumacher who had traveled down that morning from Hayes, Kansas. Tim was riding his 1993 Dynaglide Harley that he has trusted for the last 45,000 miles of travel.
Whenever I take a trip west I
always wonder why I don’t do it more often. Now I was remembering why. My
excuse is Kansas. Kansas consists of 600 miles without any curves, repetitive
scenery and the only senses that are reached on the trip are those in your nose
as you pass the many cattle confinements.
That night we made it into New Mexico, rode through the mountains until we got to the quaint skiing community of Red River on Highway 38. Finally some great scenery and excellent curves.
We awoke the next morning in Red River with a little early frost on the bikes and some threatening clouds overhead. The thunderstorms were all relatively small and isolated so we decided to take our chances without rain gear and ride around the storms. Our day was spent riding in and out and around the roads to Taos, New Mexico. We went in on Highway 58, out on Highway 68, back in on Highway 76 to 75, back out again on Highway 518 to Las Vegas where we jumped on Interstate 25 to Santa Fe. By now it was 3:00 in the afternoon and we had spent 7 hours dodging thunderstorms but one finally caught up with us in Santa Fe. In a gas station it was on with the rainsuits and down Highway 14 to make the run to the top of Sandia Mountain. At 10,500 feet the temperature was in the low 40s and the rain felt like small icicles piercing at your rainsuit. The view from the top surrounded by dark clouds was very ominous but very breathtaking. We went down the mountain and met old friend, Steve Roe, at his beautiful home in Albuquerque.
Steve and his wife, Judy, were
great hosts, putting Gary, Tim, and I up for the night and refreshing us with
food and drink. The next morning, Tom Panowski joined us for our ride in the
mountains. Steve was riding his R1100GS and Tom his R1100RT. Our goal for the
day was to take the most scenic ride possible and arrive in Durango, Colorado
before nightfall. We went north out of Albuquerque on 
Interstate
25, headed northwest on Highway 550, and branched off toward the Jemez Mountains
at San Ysidro. A mid-morning breakfast was enjoyed at Jemez Springs. After
breakfast we rode into Los Alamos and then north on Highway 64. From there we
went north on Highway 84/64 to Chama, stopping at a little café for lunch and
refreshment. The afternoon took us through Pagosa Springs and Bayfield going
into Durango.
In Durango we found a small hotel that had rooms for five tired bikers and a good hot tub. Durango may not be the center of the universe, but there was a good blues bar that provided libation and entertainment into the wee hours of the morning.
The much later in the morning
we headed west out of Durango on Highway 160 to Cortez. It was Sunday morning
and we joined the parade of
after church-goers for breakfast at the local restaurant. From Cortez we took an
absolutely gorgeous ride up Highway 145 stopping in Telluride. A jazz and blues
festival was in full swing but we were unable to enjoy it for long, because we
had decided we had many more miles to ride before calling it a day. We continued
north through Sawpit and Placerville, and then took Highway 82 toward Ridgeway.
A word of caution, go very slow
entering Ridgeway as this town of a few hundred people had two speed traps on
each end. This was obviously their largest source of revenue. We then proceed
south from Ridgeway to Ouray. From there taking in all the spectacular scenery 
from
Ouray to Silverton including the 11,000 foot Red Mountain Pass. At Silverton we
had a late lunch and a reacquaintence with an old friend, Everett Lyons, from
the mental health business. Everett had just recently retired from his job in
Illinois and decided to spend his time in the solitude of the San Juan National
Forest. Upon leaving Silverton it became apparent that to stay on our schedule
we had many miles to go.
Steve and Tom were headed back to Albuquerque. Tim, Gary and I thought we could make it as far as Walsenburg, Colorado. We parted company in Durango. Our party went west on Highway 160 going over the absolutely gorgeous Wolf Creek Pass at 10,850 feet and the La Veta Pass at 9,500 feet. In both cases the temperature decreased by 20-30 degrees at the high elevations compared to the lowlands. This is a special word of caution for people riding on Harleys without much rider protection and who forgot their heavy gloves.
During the day on Sunday we
noticed that Gary’s BMW and Tom’s BMW both had unusual tire wear on the left
side of the front tire. These
tires had gone from looking good to showing the cords in only 1,000 miles. This
may have had some to do with the Telelever front suspension on the BMWs or the
very rapid pace that Steve and Tom set for our group. Another word of caution
here is that Harleys may have a hard time keeping up with four crazy BMW riders
in the twisties.
We spent the night in Walsenburg, very tired without any adverse events. Please be aware that you will find no restaurants open after 8:00 on a Sunday in a very small town. We managed to talk the people in the local Subway into allowing us to eat a sandwich after the store had closed and while they swept the floors.
Monday morning was a beautiful day and our only concern was the abnormal wear on Gary’s tire. We decided though that the tire, with some conservative riding, should get us back to Salina, Kansas. Highway 10 from Walsenburg to La Junta was beautiful and totally unoccupied as we passed only 2-3 vehicles in our 70 mile ride. Stopping to look at his tire, Gary decided it did not have enough tread to get him back to Salina. We started making calls trying to find a motorcycle dealer that was open on Monday and that would also stock a 120x17 front tire for the BMW. Colorado has a custom of all motorcycle dealers being closed on Sundays and Mondays. We found this to be the case universally. We slowly wound our way back to Pueblo and Colorado Springs, leaving Gary at about 4:00 p.m. in front of the Colorado Springs BMW dealership with a promise of a motel only a few blocks away. Tim and I then began a forced march at high rates of speed trying to make Hayes, Kansas before bedtime. Six hours of hard pushing down Highway 24 and Interstate 70 got us to Hayes by 10:00 p.m.
My last day on the road was a repeat of my first day – 600 hundred miles through Kansas and Missouri with a couple of thunderstorms thrown in. For those of you into statistics, the trip was 7 days and 6 nights, 3,356 miles and I averaged 46.1 miles per gallon and an average of 58.6 miles/hour while the bikes were running. No, I’m not an anal retentive statistic freak. The trip computer on the BMW kept tabs on this for the full duration of the trip. I do strongly recommend the trip computer and the six disc CD changer for the rather boring and uneventful trip through Kansas.