Today I joined a group of co-workers who are also bikers on a group ride to Echo Lake which is about ten miles short of Mt Evans, which I think is the tallest mountain on this side of the continental divide. We started off from a place near home at 1015am and we arrive in time to be seated at the restaurant near the lake by 1300.
Nice ride up, not too twisty or fast. I did however pull the "classic" noobie mistake and left my turn signal on most of the way up the mountain! Doh! Some other guy did it on the way down so I was not the only one forgetting his turn signals. I had been doing so well up until then too, oh well.
We experienced about a 30 minute delay as we entered Evergreen because we happen to hit it as they were winding up their Evergreen Rodeo parade. Traffic was blocked in the direction we wanted to go so we took a breather and watched the parade go by. Typical hometown parade, the fire department was out with the marchers along with some wagons with waving people. There was one guy with a bullhorn haranguing passerbys and the crowd attempting to be amusing, not sure he succeeded.
We had a nice lunch at the restaurant and then proceeded down from the mountain to Idaho Springs where we go on I-70 for a couple of miles till we could get to Highway 6 which we took into Golden. Traffic was surprisingly light on the interstate which was fine by me during the really short while we were on it.
The road to Golden was nice and twisty too, not as bad as the way up Mt Evans/Echo but nice. I had been trying to figure out the best position for my feet on the footpegs as I had been experiencing some pain in the knees on the way up. Finally found the right position just before we stopped for lunch so I should be good to go from this point on.
Once we got to Golden, we stopped at this restaurant/bar called Buffalo Rose. There were many other bikers there and the place was quite crowded. We had one drink together and then a couple of the group split off to go their own ways. The core group then headed down Highway 6 and to 285 which we used to cross Denver and back to our respective homes. We split apart on Parker Road at the intersection with Quincy, waving goodbyes to each other as we went our own separate ways.
Quite a fun day though I did not realize it would be an all day affair. Quite enjoyable overall, my Honda Shadow performed flawlessly and got me home safe and sound.
I rode a total of 144.9 miles today, started with a full tank and when I went to fill her back up, was only able to put in 2.007 gallons before she was full. Works out to just over 72mpg! Wow.
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