A meandering ride day

Temps in the mid 30s to high 50s, nice and sunny. Great riding day.

I attended the regularly scheduled Saturday breakfast in Morrison with the ColoradoBeemers club. There were even more people there than the first time I attended two weekend ago. In fact this time Santa Claus showed up with his motorcycle and sidecar:

Santa is the club's Ride Captain, Ziggy.

Here's a closeup of Santa's Beemer, an R80.

A pic from Coloradobeemers site

Afterwards I rode with Dave and Terry whom I'd ridden with before on my first ride with the club members. We went to BMW of Denver for their Customer Appreciation Day event. I did not buy anything though I did spot a couple of things that were well priced but I really did not need.

I left the guys there and headed down to Palmer Lake by way of I-25 to Happy Canyon Road, down 105 and got a burger at O'Malley's Steak Pub at Palmer Lake. It's a favorite stop by riders so I thought I'd give it a try. After lunch I continued South to Monument where I got back on I-25 until I got to Colorado Springs.

My intention was to then take 115 West towards Canon City in order to take a picture of Cheyenne Mountain from its south side. However, I again took the wrong turn off the offramp and missed 115. Got disoriented making my way back and gave up on the picture plan. It was around 1415 or so by now and I foolishly thought I could make it back to BMW of Denver for their planned class on roadside tire repair that was supposed to happen at 1500.

Traffic was heavy heading North on I-25 and I was keeping it just 5mph or so above the speed limit. Needless to say, I was too far from the dealer to make it there in time so I turned off instead and headed home on E-470. Got home around 1530, having logged about 232 miles of pretty much aimless wandering around with no clearly defined goals. Nice day for a ride but was glad to get home, I felt pretty tired and the burger I had at O'Malleys had pretty much just sat in my gut during the post-lunch ride making me a bit lethargic! : )

Cherry Creek State Park

The kids woke us up an hour earlier than usual this morning in order to get some more playing time on the video game my wife rented for them last night. Ye shall reap what ye sow!

So, as long as I was up, decided to get on the road earlier than normal and catch the sunrise at Cherry Creek State Park and Reservoir. I had cruised through it yesterday, sans camera, and I had spotted a nice picture point.

Got there way before sunrise, so tried to stay warm while waiting for the sun to rise and give me some light to shoot by. I did not want to use the flash, trying to capture the early light and it's effects.

Maria and the Moon

Cherry Creek Dam

The temps were in the low low 20s and it was pretty humid which added to the cold factor. Still it was an enjoyable ride through the park which meanders around the southern end of the Cherry Creek Reservoir and dumps me in the Denver Tech Center near where I work.

I use the road on top of the dam to get across the reservoir normally, and while its nice up there, its nicer to take it slow (35mph speed limit max) on the park roads to get past the reservoir and onto my side of town.

I even saw three deer munching on grass by the side of the road. I managed to spot them far enough to slow way down and make sure we all knew where the other one was going to go or not go. They all seemed used to the vehicle traffic that goes through the park daily so no big deal. Still, you never can tell, and the deer blend in with the background very nicely so you have to look carefully as you ride along.

After work today, I rode to Golden along the E-470 superslab for some work, then rode it back to C-470 and on home. Got from past the NW end of the Denver Metro Area to the SE side of it in about 45 minutes. Traffic was medium heavy but kept moving, Maria did beautifully and the electric vest kept me warm as the temps dropped steadily as the sun set and it got darker and darker.

A Big Mak for Maria

It's been a great set of commute rides this week, temps in the 20s on the way in to work and in the 40s on the way home.

Today, I received a "pre-owned" Big Mak tank bag courtesy of a fellow rider who lives in Fla and had upgraded to a 2007 R1200RT. She no longer had use of the tank bag she'd gotten for her earlier RT and responded to an ad I placed on the BMW Internet Riders classifieds email system.

The bag sits on a mounting bracket affixed to the gas cap ring on top of the gas tank. There's plastic spacers to maintain distance between the bag and the tank so no more worries about scratching the paint on the tank. I just flip the bag up to access the gas cap to fill up and it slips off by removing one velcro strap and slipping it off the plastic mount that slides within the bag itself. Very nice.

The bag is in great shape and I got it for a great price. Mounted up in less than 2 minutes, I spent more time looking for the right sized torx wrench to take out the stock screws than I did mounting the whole thing. It's bigger than the Cortech bag I had before and since there's no contact with the tank, it was an easy sell with the wife.

Notice, no contact with the tank!

Better pics on this site on this bag.

Getting a small riding fix, finally!

It's been snowy and icy here since Wednesday of this past week, hence, no riding. This is unusual for Colorado as it usually is nice and sunny after a snowstorm and the snow does not linger for long.

The urge to ride was always there but fortunately common sense prevailed and I drove the car to work instead on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was pretty much a wash since I was up all Thursday night and Friday morning working a change. Yes, I did think about studded snow tires but, again, I managed to land on the sanity side of the the line between common sense and stupidity on that one.

Saturday, it snowed again. So much for the weather forecast: "light flurries and no accumulation". The snow that did accumulate, about an inch worth in my neighborhood mostly melted by the afternoon, leaving icy patches on the streets and both exits to the main roads blocked by sheets of ice. So, no riding again.

Sunday, cold and sunny. Temps in the 20s as I finally was able to escape the neighborhood by negotiating gaps in the ice patches on the streets leading to the main roads which were dry. I only rode a for a little bit to test out the liners for the overpants. Had all my cold weather gear on including the heated vest but I think I could have done without the vest as the temps did not get below the 20 degree mark during the whole ride.

I rode over to Parker's main drag where I took this picture of Maria:

Notice the ATV Hand Covers on Maria

Here's what the onboard thermometer registered:

I guess I got out too late in the day, it was around 1030am, because the temps were already soaring! I took this pic less than one minute after the first pic:


Rode home after the picture taking, the gear kept me warm as usual. The electric vest kept me more than toasty along with the heated grips inside the ATV hand covers. As usual, the only part that was starting to get cold were my toes within my army boots which are apparently in the airstream under the motorcycle. Must work on something for that region.

Short but sweet, now I can feel the withdrawal symptoms subsiding...