Photo Insets - Denver's 16th Street

While nowhere near as cool or well done as the photos shown in this previous posting: LINK; or even as well done as the pictures show on dearphotograph.com; I give you my rendition of vintage photos of Denver's 16th Street.

Back in the day, it was apparently a main parade route for events and celebrations.  I found several photos in the Denver Public Library's archive; and using photoshop, merged them into photos I took just the other day of the same location (mostly).

I will show the original photo first, then the merged version.  I hope you enjoy them, I found them actually pretty easy to make.  The call number is listed below each pic as sourcing information.  Just use the archive link above or try the call number link below each photo.

16th Street and Tremont Place, 1979, 

before it was made into a mall.

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16th Street looking north towards the Daniels and Fisher Tower

1938

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Armistice Parade, November 1918 

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Decorated for Christmas 

Circa 1930-1940

16th and Arapahoe Street

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Denver Police and Firemen's Parade

May 21, 1921

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Policeman standing in Tramway Loading Zone, 1928

16th and California Street

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16th street looking south from Stout Street 

Circa 1935-39

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I know, not a single view of my motorcycles.....private vehicles are not permitted on the 16th Street Mall these days, just official vehicles and the buses.

Do you have a street similar to Denver's 16th Street in your town?  

Testing the Snow Chains

Another snow storm, and we woke to snow falling on the Denver Metro Area.  Accumulations would only be about 4 inches, tops, in my neighborhood area.

After a sumptuous lunch of chili, I installed the snow chains on Valencia's pusher tires and headed out to give them a slight workout.

The chains did fine on the unplowed neighborhood streets, I even made it a point to go on the deeper accumulations of snow and there was no drama, just steadfast traction.

The main roads were "kind of" plowed by then, and I had to keep my speeds under 20 mph to avoid damaging the snow chains where the pavement showed through the snow-packed streets.  I stopped numerous times to ensure the chains were tight and that I still had eight of them.  :)

It was quite enjoyable, as usual, watching folks reaction when they see a sidecar rig motoring by them as they cleared snow from their driveways.

 Near Timberline Elementary School, where both my sons went.

As you can see, the snow was not very deep.

On Berry Street, the main road leading out of my neighborhood.

Overcast skies and still falling snow made for rather monochromatic pictures, so the above pictures have been tweaked a bit for effect.  

I went about ten miles of wandering about in 20°F temperatures, wasn't ever cold as I had one my layers.  I even left the heated grips on their low setting.  The chains did great, no issues that I could see with clearing the drive components, a more careful examination to be done once all the snow melts from Valencia.

PS: As a slight poke to scooterinthesticks......Snow equals riding, assuming a sidecar rig is handy.

Update: 05JAN14, Sunday.

Miles and I rode over to the mall to get him some new jeans.  Here's Miles and Valencia once we returned after dodging all the idiots who had come out of the woodwork.

A View of Longs Peak

One of the larger mountain peaks visible from the Denver Metro area, laying almost directly west of it, is Mount Evans.  It's claimed to be country's highest paved highway, CO5, which takes one to its summit at over 14,100 feet.

Mount Evans has been the subject of many of my postings, today I would like to show you views of the other large peak visible on a clear day from Denver:  Longs Peak.

Lying more to the North/NorthWest of Denver, its one of Colorado's Fourteeners

It is named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820s. Longs Peak is one of the most prominent mountains in Colorado.  More here on wikipedia.

Popular with mountain climbers and hikers, it's not climbable by motor vehicle that I know of.  You get great views of it when riding the Peak to Peak Highway on the way to Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Today, I was in Northglenn picking up a Harmonizer Carburetor Balancer tool from my friend Darrell S, a fellow Uralista.  He sold it to me as he's trading in/selling both his 2006 URAL Patrol sidecar rigs in order to finance the purchase of a 2014 Ural Patrol, the one with fuel-injection and many other modern improvements.  I can't wait, for him to get it, so I can get a first hand look at one of these rigs!

Anyways, I was north of the Metro Area, the weather was pretty clear, and the views I'd seen of Longs Peak while going to Darrell's house had set my pictorial objective of the day.

I rode NW from Darrell's house, ending up on 160th Street heading west till it junctions with Sheridan Parkway.  From there it was a dirt road to a nearby construction area which unobstructed views of Longs Peak.

 Above and below pictures taken with my Nikon AW110 camera.

 Above and below pictures taken with my old and mostly

non-working Panasonic Lumix ZS8.  I use it for long focal length shots

as its optical zoom is greater than the Nikon's for such shots.

What do you think of the clarity of the last two pictures?  I think it's "acceptable" after some tweaking with ribbett.com's online tools.  The Panasonic never did recover from the big rains we had weeks ago, that led to the big floods which made the national news.

Hope you're getting some riding in this new year.

Update: Just noticed that URAL's Facebook page is sporting one of my pictures!  :)

URAL's FB Page

New Year, New Snow....a Good Start.

New Years Day, 2014

It snowed overnight and we woke to about an inch or so of new fluffy snow, a nice little present from the motorcycling gods I thought.

I'd been fighting a cold though, drugged up on the "good" Sudafed, so it took me a while to geared up in my freshly laundered riding gear and headed out onto the fresh snow.

The temperatures were in the low 30s °F, although it was overcast skies hiding Valencia's and my view of the front range mountains.

It's going to be time soon to replace my pusher tire on Valencia, the thread is worn down and there were some fishtailing motions on some of the hilly portions of the ride.  I had my tire chains with me so I wasn't worried.

Valencia looks forward to what the new year will bring.

Here's hoping you got a ride in on New Year's Day.  Wishing you great riding conditions and opportunities.

It's a brand new year ahead of us, let's see what we can make of it eh?