9/16 Ride to Deckers

I woke with the dismal prospect of having to go in at 10pm to do some work, 2300-0100hrs was the time granted by the customer since we were going to have a possibly impactive outage during the change.

My loving wife made me breakfast and basically encouraged me to get out of the house and go riding and I did not argue at all.

Here's the route I took, details below.



The weather was sunny most of the ride, it was briskly cool at times and I was glad I brought along the jacket liner and overpants for parts of the ride. The heated grips worked fine when needed, had my windshield with me so the gusting windy conditions were no big deal though they did tend to raise the "excitement" level up when the really big gust would try and blow one sideways on the roads.

Note: Route 67 is a dirt road once you enter the Pike National Forest! I had been enjoying some really nice twistys on Colorado State Rd 67 but once in the Pike National Forest, it became Douglas County 67 (39.348N/105.120W) and turned into a dirt/gravel road for the next long 9-10 miles or so. I barely got Gretl into second gear during this stretch of dirt road and spent it mostly in first gear. This road was also named Sugar Creek Road.

After that slow stretch, was back on CO State 67 and headed south towards Deckers, passing the picturesque villages of Ox Yoke (39.303N/105.204W) and Trumbull (39.266N/105.221W) that sit by the South Platte River. The waters were running quite swiftly on the Platte river and I saw several fly fishermen trying their luck along the way.

Once I got to Deckers (39.254N/105.226W) I continued on CO 67 hoping to get to CO 24 and from there up Highway 22 or Rampant Range Road back to Sedalia. Alas, it was not to be. There was road construction barely 5 miles from Deckers and while they were slowing letting cars through, they were not letting motorcycles through at all! Apparently, according to the flagman who stopped me, some other motorcyclist had gone on before and gotten into an accident due to road conditions. So now the rider was suing the construction company and the construction company was not letting any more motorcyclists through!!! Not sure how legal their authority was on barring my way but decided not to make an issue of it.

I turned around and headed back to Deckers where I talked to the convenience store clerk. He said to try and get to woodland park(which is where I was heading) by way of Forest Road 211 which was up the road on 126 (39.241N/105.261W). I found the road, dirt again, and tried it for maybe two miles and gave up and turned around when I saw signs saying motorcycles were not allowed. I was bummed at this point but saw no point to continuing on the narrow dirt road that comprised Forest Road 211.

Back on Highway 126, I headed north away from Deckers, transited through Buffalo Creek (39.387N/105.275W) and kept heading north towards US 285. On the way up this nicely paved, winding highway, I saw this cool mountain and took this picture:

Long Scraggy Peak

Once I got to US285 headed towards Denver on it until Turkey Creek Road or the TinyTown exit which I took to get to Fenders Junction where Turkey Creek Road meets Deer Creek Canyon Road (39.572N/105.217W). The weather was continuing to hold as sunny and brisk but the winds were now really picking up so I decided to take Deer Creek Canyon Road home, the fact that I saw a silver Rolls Royce Phantom turn onto it helped make that decision as well. : )

I followed this Rolls Royce all the way to the end of Deer Creek Canyon Road where it ends at the Chatfield Reservoir (39.549N/105.087W) and that's were we parted company, he headed north and I headed south on 121 to Waterton Road, riding south of the Chatfield Reservoir and eventually back onto US 85 and Sedalia (39.438N/104.961W) where the loop had started earlier in the trip.

The way home was uneventful until I got onto Inspiration Drive from Parker. There was a bike race apparently and I caught the tail end of it. I could see the "peloton" of bicyclists about a mile ahead with cars stacked up between me and them slowing things way down. So we crawled along, me making slow s-shaped turns to pass the time, until eventually the peloton turned off to the right and traffic was able to pick up speed.

I know I am always close to home when I see this golfball:



I see it each time I use the backroad from Parker to get back to my house. It means another great ride is near its end and I always find myself in pretty good spirits after my six hour motorcycle riding therapy session.