An Eventful Veteran's Day Ride

Happy Veteran's Day!

After spending the whole day yesterday servicing my motorcycle, I rode out after 0930 towards Fort Logan National Cemetery on the SW side of Denver to pay my respects to the veterans buried there. I got there in time to take these pictures before the 1100hrs Annual (30th one) Memorial Ceremony put on by the the local VFW chapters with the help of several ROTC detachments, a color guard from Fort Carson and a fly by made up of four F-16 Fighter Aircraft.

Fort Logan National Cemetery, rows upon rows of our country's heroes

The attendance by veterans, their families, and others was pretty good. There was a good sized crowd assembled to listen to the speeches and witness the ceremonies done to honor both fallen and living veterans. The two passes made by the F16s overhead were major crowd pleasers and the speeches were not too long.

The most poignant part of the whole ceremony was towards the end when several trumpeters played Taps. One would start then a couple of notes later, a second trumpeter would start playing and so on. There were at least four trumpets and one french horn doing this, making this heart-stirring melody last much longer than usual. It was a quite lovely performance and the reaction from the crowd reflected it in their applause.

The Color Guard from Fort Carson did well in their 21 gun salute. Their movements were crisp and in unison. Saw a lot of Hog Riders in their leathers, most of them Veterans there to pay their respects. A lot of them from some outfit sporting large patches stating "Combat Veterans Riders". There were also a lot of veterans from Korea and Vietnam and even a wounded sargent from the Iraqi AO who was part of the wreath laying ceremony.

I left soon after the end of the ceremony and made my way SW towards the Chatfield Reservoir where I picked up my usual ride on Deer Creek Canyon Ride, traffic was very light and I enjoyed the twists and turns to Fenders where I took Turkey Creek Road South towards US285.

I spent a short time going South on US285 till I got to the Foxton Road exit, a very small sign marks the exit right after Conifer Pines so you have to watch for it. Foxton Road is very full of twists and turns as well and is quite enjoyable as a motorcycling road. It was perfect riding for me today, the weather was sunny and warm, and the road was empty.

I got to the small "town" of Foxton and took these pictures of the rock formation/mountain nearby.




I continued on Foxton Road till I ended up at the small community of Buffalo Creek and US126. I headed south on this road and many miles and curves later ended up at Deckers where I took a short water break.

After I left Deckers, now heading towards towards Woodland Park on US67, I was cruising along pretty good and about 5-6 miles from Deckers came upon the scene of a motorcycle accident! I spotted it from pretty far off and slowed down to stop to see what assistance I could render.

There was a car and several other motorcycle riders there ahead of me. Most were clustered around one rider who was prone on the north edge of the highway. I approached and saw he did not seem to be bleeding, but just lying there grimacing from pain. His clothes were not torn up that I could see and his riding buddies had made him as comfortable as possible on the ground.

I learned that riders had already gone back towards Decker and forward towards Woodland Park to try and find a landline or cellphone coverage (there was none at the site of the accident) to try and get an ambulance.

I helped three other guys move the injured rider's totaled sport motorcycle a bit further away from him since it was leaking gas from its tank. The motorcycle was really messed up on both sides, made me speculate it had to have spun and flipped a couple of times. The injured rider had apparently been wearing a helmet and leather jacket with jeans. No obvious injuries but he definitely was not about to get up on his own.

I was there perhaps 30 minutes total trying to be helpful but the injured rider's riding buddies and other riders had the situation well in hand. An ambulance got there perhaps ten minutes after I did and started working on the injured guy. I left shortly after a second ambulance showed up since I was really not needed at that point and continued heading towards Woodland Park.

It looked like a single vehicle accident to my untrained eye. My guess? Too fast on the curves, which were pretty tight in the section of US67 that we were in. I don't know for sure, but this is one Veteran's Day ride that rider won't be forgetting, at least he's alive and no visible road rash.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, got to Woodland Park then US24 to Colorado Springs and from there the I-25N Super Slab back to the house. Got home around 1615 or so, about 186 miles of riding in some pretty nice Colorado fall weather.

Sidenote: Here's a pic of the "town" of Bust which one sees on CO24 while heading towards Colorado Springs. More of a clever gimmick to draw in the tourists to hopefully buy something but amusing nonetheless:

My First Brake Bleed for Maria

Today was the day I'd been prepping for about a month, with some of the parts bought months ago. I had, when I first bought the motorcycle a year ago, let the Beemer dealer whom I don't trust anymore to service my motorcycle; do the annual brake bleeding of the wheel circuits and the bi-annual bleeding of the ABS control circuits in November.

So, Maria, my R1150RT was due again for the required annual bleeding of the wheel circuits for both front and rear brakes. I had also planned, since the gas tank had to be off to do the brake bleeds; to also replace the fuel filter which was supposed to have been changed out at the 36K service interval. If things went really well, I would also tackle the ABS control circuit bleeds too.

I took off the fairings and the gas tank last night, that turned out to be pretty easy actually.

She looks quite slim without the fairings and the gas tank!

Right after breakfast this morning, I started work. My guides were the DVDs put out by Jim VonBaden of BMWSporttouring.com and a pdf "how to" guide I'd found on advrider.com which I followed pretty much the whole operation. Link to Jim's site for the DVDs. Link to advrider site and the pdf file in question. Both sources made the operations seem very doable even for non-mechanical types like me who have aspirations to becoming a wrencher!

I'd bought, months ago, speedbleeder valves for both the front and rear brake calipers. These went on first, removing the stock bleeder valves was a bit messy but no big deal otherwise. I took my time securing the speedbleeders since I did not want to strip the threads or break off the new valves. No issues, got them secured and tested them for leaks by actuating the brakes.

I am not going to describe the steps involved with bleeding the brakes since they're plainly written in the above reference. Just some notes of things I ran into or observations I made.

Speedbleeders are the bomb! Truly do they make brake bleeding a one man operation, specially for motorcycles with ABS brakes since the motorcycle manufacturer thoughtfully has provide a powered pumping mechanism to push the fluid out the valves.

I found the color of the old brake fluid was a bit darker than the new brake fluid. I'd have to describe it as a dark red beer color. The new stuff look like pilsner beer, a light yellow.

I ran a full bottle of new DOT4 brake fluid through each of the two front wheel circuits to ensure all the old brake fluid was gone. Ditto for the rear brake wheel circuit. Did I mention speedbleeders are the bomb!? Oh, and the mini-stan funnel is a must! Well worth the $60 I had paid months ago though apparently you can also make your own.

Pic of Mini-Stan funnel in place from bmwsporttouring's kmg_365, he's put together a guide to do this as well. Check it out here: Link.

Lesson Learned: The fancy turkey baster my loving wife had gotten me was destroyed pretty quickly by the brake fluid! Must get the cheaper kind or some sort of large syringe that can take the corrosive effects of brake fluid for the next time! I lucked out in that I spotted the corrosion before little pieces of the baster fell down the brake fluid reservoir on the ABS module! As it was, I was using forceps to pull a small piece out that luckily was clinging to the edge and had not fallen in! That, would have sucked.

Lesson learned the hard way: When the guide says "finger tight" and "plastic parts may be brittle", take it to heart! I foolishly used a socket wrench to tighten the front circuit reservoir and ended up breaking off the top half of the damn cover cap! 2.5 hours, $62, and 140 miles in the cage later I had obtained the assembly which included new reservoir cover caps. BMW of Denver was closed for Employee Appreciation Day, Foothills BMW and Colorado Springs BMW did not have it in stock. The motorcycling gods finally took pity on me and I found the assembly part I needed at Northern Colorado BMW:

The circle shows the cap I broke off by being stupid

So, I got the new cover cap in place and then "entertained" the notion of doing the control circuits next. Turns out you have to disconnect the hoses leading to the ABS reservoir cover caps to get the right pieces/wires out of the way to get to the bleed valves so I decided to wait one more year when they're actually due for a brake bleed. Why tempt the motorcycling gods right? I also plan on buying the speedbleeder valves for the control circuit bleeding next year and also the one for the clutch bleeder valve!

I moved on to the next major service task, replacing the fuel filter.

It takes a bit of fiddling around and moving the fuel filter/fuel pump assembly in order to get it out of the tank without damaging the fuel level indicator wire. Take your time and it will come out eventually. Make sure, as mentioned in the DVD, to mark the orientation of the flange which mounts the fuel pump onto the gas tank, it helps when putting things back together!

Major hassle for this service turned out to be the stupid hose clamps used by BMW to assembly this unit. It apparently requires a special tool to actuate these clamps and pliers were unsuccessful in trying to operate them. I ended up using fuel-injection rated fuel clamps (which I had pre-bought at the dealer thanks to Mike O's advice) to secure the new fuel filter in place. I also had to go to the auto parts store to get clamps to replace the POS bmw clamps on the two hoses one has to disconnect before removing the fuel pump assembly from the tank! What a pain, not to mention time waster.

Although I had marked the two fuel hoses inside the gas tank before disconnecting them, letting them fall back into the tank erased the markings I'd done with a sharpie pen! I ended up mixing them up and hooking them backwards when I first replaced the fuel pump assembly into the tank and secured it in place.

How do I know this? Because after I humped the tank (which had about a gallon left) over to the motorcycle, put it in place, reconnected all involved hoses, wiring connector and fired up the motorcycle. She ran fine for maybe one minute or two then died. Oh shit I said to myself, what did I do wrong when repeated attempts to restart the motorcycle failed. I even tried putting some more gas in, no go.

So, I took all the connectors back off, humped the tank over to the workspace and removed the fuel pump assembly ONCE again, swapped the hoses that are in the tank around and put everything back together again. All the while I am doing this I am praying that it was that simple a mistake and my prayers were answered! The motorcycle fired right up after I got the tank back in place and connectors hooked up. Good stuff. I let it run while I secured the tank and glove box and air scoop back in place. Wheeew.

You have to take your time with the fuel line "quick disconnects", not only are they plastic and apparently prone to breaking but while they do come apart pretty easily, they take a bit of patience to put back together. The lower of the two gave me quite the hard time. I think a bit of oil on the o-ring next time will help. I had pre-bought a quick-disconnect assembly which I did not use so it'll be a good spare to have.

Took her out for a test ride before I put the fairings back in place, both the engine and the brakes worked fine. No leaks at all from the gas tank flange which is part of the fuel pump assembly.

Had some "issues" putting the fairings back into place though. I managed to strip one mounting bracket on the right side of the motorcycle so will have to order that on Tuesday when the dealer is open. Had a couple of other screws give me some problem but got past those. Ended up putting the fairings on, taking them back off, back on and then back off a couple of extra times before everything was fastened!

The piece I stripped the screw hole on is circled above

Still, a very good learning experience for me. I saved perhaps $300 dollars by doing it myself which I can spend on a new front tire and more gas for riding! I now am confident I can do wheel circuit brake bleeds on an ABS equipped motorcycle with no problems, specially if you have speedbleeders mounted! I highly recommend them to anyone wanting to service their motorcycle or car for that matter!


I am so glad one only has to replace the dang fuel filter every 40k miles or so! What a pain, but it will be easier next time since I have the better clamps in place now.

This pretty much took all day, will hopefully go on a long ride tomorrow to celebrate.

Formalizing an informal quest of mine

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know I like to take motorcycle rides which involve going over one or more mountain passes as part of the day's ride. Well, I discovered a site today by the Concours Owners Group or COG that lists many, many rides in Colorado that have now become candidates for rides of my own! Link to COG site.

While perusing COG's Colorado Rides site, I rediscovered that my own motorcycle club, the ColoradoBeemers sponsor the "Pass Bagger 50" achievement program. In their words:


The Pass Bagger 50 is an effort by the BMW Motorcycle Club of Colorado to promote riding your motorbike to the many, many beautiful areas of Colorado connected by roads that "Pass" over the impressive mountain ranges. Riders may choose any 50 passes within Colorado so long as the pass appears on a published map. The contest is perpetual and not year-specific, so contestants may take as long as they want or need to complete all 50 passes.

The COG site has a link to a spreadsheet listing over 400 "named" passes for Colorado so there's plenty to choose from in my attempt to qualify for a Pass Bagger 50 award of my own. Heck, I've ridden about ten of the passes so far though I don't have the required pictures of some of the ones I've ridden! For instance, the La Veta Pass picture was not doable when I rode it since it was snowing and dark at the time! Not safe for me to stop. : (

Or, I remember going across some passes but there's no signs stating their name....so sometimes it'll be a little hard to document such events.

Regardless, this program ties in nicely with my riding in this state, just have to be a little more concientious about taking pictures of Maria when encountering Pass signs.

Now to go back to my rides archive and see which passes I can already "document" from previous rides! I already paid the $15 the club charges for the stuff required for documentation and the eventual stuff you get for achieving the 50 passes.

Riding the Cache La Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway

Temps ranging from a low of 16.7 to mid 50s, sunny and clear skies.

Wow, what a great day for riding in Colorado! I rose early and after a hearty breakfast from my loving wife, headed out a little after 0700 using the I-25 Slab to cut across Denver and onto the westbound slab of the I-70 Interstate Highway. My objective was the US40 exit which would take me to Granby and from there onto CO125 to Walden and the midpoint of my ride.

Walden is the western end of the Cache La Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway, here's a link with more information on this byway. LINK.

All the road reports said the roads all over the state that were open were also dry and quite safe for travel so with such nice weather, I decided to add this byway to the list of ridden roads within this state.

Dawn was breaking as I left and the roads through the city had light traffic. Once I turned off of I-70 onto US40, traffic got even lighter and I arrived at Granby with no issue and temperatures in the vicinity of 22 degrees. It felt quite chilly as I tanked up Maria and I was glad to be wearing a fleece jacket along wth heated vest, jacket liner and long underwear pants and shirt! I did manage to leave home without my grip covers dang it, they would have been nice to have. But the heated grips on high and my "Deer Creek Leather" gloves kept my wants warm enough!

I continued for a short while on US40 after leaving Granby and soon came upon the turnoff to CO125 and started headed North towards the Arapaho and Routt National Forests through which CO125 cuts through. You traverse Willow Creek Pass as you cross these forests:


The road to the pass has several sharp hairpin turns, very nice motorcycling to be had getting up to the pass.

As you exit the Routt National Forest on the North side you come upon this large open valley where I stopped for these pictures.

Looking West towards the Rabbit Ears Range

Looking towards the SW, still looking at Rabbit Ears Range

It was shortly after I took the above pictures, as I motored northward on CO14 on that nice straight road that I encountered some pretty strong winds which buffeted me around for a minute or so.

Once they stopped, I had one of those rare moments that riders describe where everything just comes together in one's mind and one achieves "oneness" with one's surroundings. The cold biting wind seeping into my helmet, Maria's smoothly running engine vibrations underneath me, no one in sight and snowcapped mountains all around me in the distance. Wow. It's been quite a while since everything just "flowed" and the world was perfect, no worries and no thoughts but the pure enjoyment of the ride at that moment.

To soon after that momentary feeling of "riding joy", I arrived at the small town of Walden shortly before 1030 and kept going onto CO14 where it junctioned with CO125. Now I was heading more of less East on CO14. The roads were pretty straight and you could see the mountain ranges to the West of Fort Collins getting nearer and nearer.

I pretty much had the roads to myself since Granby and it allowed me to stop pretty much wherever I chose to take pictures. The solitude mentioned in the byways.org website is really something tangible in this part of Colorado. Of course, the temperatures below 30 that I rode in till mid-morning probably kept people in their warm homes instead of riding around! The vistas of faraway mountain ranges are quite striking when you're in the open valleys.

There was Medicine Bow range of mountains to the Northeast which turn out to border the Rawah Wilderness and the Roosevelt National Forest according to my maps.

Medicine Bow Mountains

Once past the small town of Gould, you enter the Colorado State Forest and CO14 is a nicely winding road that is heavily forested on both sides by pine trees. You are climbing towards Cameron Pass all the while and then you come upon a couple of turnouts for slow vehicles where one is rewarded with the below views of Comanche Peak and Stormy Peaks.

Nokhu Crags on the left, Seven Utes Mountain on the right

Snow blowing off towards the left off of Nohku Crags

The view to the South as one approaches Cameron Pass

The road continues on, smooth and clear all the way to Cameron Pass:


As I made my down from Cameron Pass, the scenery slowly changes from forested hillsides to bare rock strewn hillsides. This continued for many miles as I neared Fort Collins, still on CO14. I did get stuck behind this truck which was pulling a trailer with two dirt bikes for quite a while on the slightly twisty roads leading down from Cameron Pass.

I finally had a safe point to pass him and I am glad that I did, his truck was apparently spewing fumes that although I could not see were making me dizzy and giving me a headache! Once past him, I sped on with no further issues and made it to Fort Collins near where CO14 junctions with US287. I stopped at the McDonald's there and had lunch and checked in with my loving wife. It was good to stop since I was tired, and was hot from all the riding gear I had on. The temps were now in the high 50s and low 60s and it felt positively hot after the early morning temperatures I'd ridden in!

The rest of the ride was slab riding, taking I-25 from Fort Collins south towards Denver and I-70 to the E-470 Toll Road and home. The only incident was this stereotypical punk with a sparse goatee in a white beater cage who could not seem to understand why my headlight was modulating it's high beam light. He kept pulling up next to me and gesturing to as to say: "what, why are you blinking your highbeam at me?". I quickly left him behind to his puzzlement.

A nice ride ride, about 350 miles and getting about 5o mpg on the tankful of gas I got at Granby. Perhaps 6 hours of saddle time overall. A bit chilly at times, but still, a beautiful riding day. No motorcycles in evidence while I was in the mountains, saw a few on I-25 after lunch and around town once things had warmed up.