Golden Gate Canyon Road Ride

Temperatures from high 40s at the start of the ride to high 60s by early afternoon. Sunny.

Another beautiful riding day here in Colorado and the motorcycles were definitely out in force in the parts fo the state I rode through.

Today's ride was to bag another pass for my ongoing Passbagger 50 attempt. It's a "event" hosted by my motorcycling club, the ColoradoBeemers wherein one has an unlimited time to ride over or perhaps as close as possible to 50 named passes within the state. Today's objective was Golden Gate Pass on Golden Gate Canyon Road on County Road 46.

I punched in the GPS coordinates of the pass from the COG's Randy Bishop's Pass Bagger 50 website, thanks Randy! I then wended my way through Denver using the I-225 and I-25 slabs till I got on Westbound I-70. I took this slab to the CO58 exit, following the directions from the GPS, past the Coors Brewery's buildings and then saw the sign for CO46.

This is one marvelously twisty road! It was very challenging right at the get go and really did not let up until I was near CO119! That was about 20 miles or so of nice twists and turns, high canyon walls and cliffs bordered this road and kept one's attention from wandering too far from the road. As you head uphill towards Golden Gate Pass, you can keep the throttle twisted pretty good and enjoy the twists and turns. Coming back down, you have gravity adding speed to your momentum and I found myself actually having to lightly use the brakes during several turns. Engine braking was not enough and I don't think I went over 3rd gear during those turns!

Another pass bagged, Golden Gate Pass

The Gilpin County Sherriff's patrol cars were patrolling heavily around the Golden Gate Canyon State Park area. I saw them snag three cagers as I made my way up and down this road. My skill levels made the 35mph limit on this road not something that was limiting, if you get my drift. I don't think I went much above this limit when I could see far enough ahead to do so.

Starting my way down from Golden Gate Pass

I'd mentioned before that the bikes were out in force today. I was passed by at least 15, maybe 20 sportsbikes as I took the above pictures for the panoramic shot. They looked like they were having as much fun as I was having with the curves!

I caught up with this group of sportbikes where CO119 meets CO46. They'd stopped to chat amongst themselves, I just turned around and rode the canyon road again!

Once back in Golden, I road the I-70 slab to the east side of the Denver Metro Area and took Gun Club Road home, it was quite warm at this point and though I was not sweating, I was glad to get rid of the jacket liner when I stopped to run an errand near home!

180 miles of riding today, beautiful conditions. I hope you got a ride in today, wherever you're reading this from!