Two dogs, a sidecar and a ride to Mount Evans for one of the dogs.

There are things in life which seem to attract and amuse most people, one of them is the sight of a dog riding in the tub of a sidecar rig.

We've friends visiting from SE Texas.  Ken P. has visited by himself before while riding on his motorcycle.  This time, he brought his lovely wife Julana; they were up here visiting their son Eric who'd recently moved into the Denver Metro area for work.

Ken and I are members of the Rounders, a group of riders who ride year round.

Ken and Julana, along with their son Eric are dog people, and experienced trainers of said dogs.  I was very impressed on how well they are trained and how well behaved both dogs are.

Valkyrie, a two year old German Shepherd
"such a ham"

Yesterday, they returned from a day of driving Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park.  Their son Eric and his dog Voltaire, a Golden Retriever, joined us for dinner.

After dinner, it was time to see if either dog would like a ride in the sidecar rig.  Voltaire went first, and after a bit of adjustment and coaxing, was soon enjoying being the monkey while Eric rode slowly around the cul-de-sac.

Voltaire and Eric

Valkyrie took a bit more convincing but after she saw Voltaire ride, was convinced to go riding with Ken:

Valkyrie and Ken

So that was Thursday.  Today, the Fourth of July, we rode out in  a group of three vehicles towards Mount Evans.  I was on Scarlett, Ken was on Brigitta, my '87 BMW R80 and Julana brought up the rear in their SUV with Valkyrie onboard.

We made good time all the way to near Bergen Park and we exited I-70 there as it had become almost a parking lot due to all the folks heading west for the long weekend in the mountains.

We got onto CO103, or Squaw Pass Road and we ascended slowly, twisting and turning our way towards Echo Lake and the nearby lodge.

Scarlett and Brigitta with Echo Lake in the background

Parking the SUV, we decided to see if Valkyrie would like to ride in the sidecar with Julana.  It was 14 miles up to the summit of Mount Evans and Valkyrie did great!  Cagers coming in the other direction would break out in smiles once they spotted her in the sidecar, tongue wagging in the wind and sitting on Julana's lap.  Ken brought up the rear with Brigitta and must have been highly amused the times he saw Valkyrie rise up and look back towards him, checking to make sure he was still with us.

We made it to the top just fine and found a spot to park the motorcycles within easy walking distance of the parking lot at the top of the mountain.

 The requisite pictures of the sign at the top of the mountain.
The real top is a big rock pile with about a 1/4 mile of trail to get to, but
none of us elected to walk up.

 Julana, Valkyrie and Ken

 Valkyrie of the West!

As we started the return trip from 14,130 feet, Valkyrie seemed much 

more at ease in the sidecar.

We didn't stop for pictures on the way down, just slowly descended, entertaining folks in cages once again with sights of a pretty German Shepherd in a bright red and white sidecar rig.  Valkyrie must have been having fun, sometimes she'd lay her head on my right arm, drooling on it of course.

The rest of the ride home was a run to get ahead of the oncoming rain.  We made it home with barely a few sprinkles falling on us in the town of Morrison and as we entered my home neighborhood.

Good day of riding, everyone had fun and I think the experience has convinced Julana to give an OK to Ken getting himself a sidecar one day.  :)

Published on Fix.Com

Pretty much out of the blue, I got an email a month or more ago, from Jesse of fix.com.  He asked if I was interested in writing for them and of course I said yes.

Several story ideas were submitted, and the first one they selected involved the concept of surviving the riding of a motorcycle in city traffic.  I based it on the training I've gone through since I started riding motorcycles and added in a heavy dose of personal experiences and observations.

In my present contract, I commute 45-50 miles a day in city traffic to/from Downtown Denver, not very enjoyable and definitely something that requires close attention!

The story had to be 1000 words in length, and at first I thought: "Wow, that's a lot of writing"!  Turns out, I generated over 1400 words total and still felt there was stuff missing from the article!

Oh, and yes, they do pay me to write these articles.  So along with exposure as a moto-writer, there's a little money to buy tires and gas.  Bonus!

My first article with fix.com is now online:

picture source: fix.com

Link to Article: Survival Tips for Riding in City Traffic

The colorful graphics were generated by fix.com's in-house artist based on sketches I sent in along with the article.

Jesse also recently said they'd be interested in other articles as well, so we'll see how far this particular writing gig goes.

Riding with the C2C50's "Three Amigos"

One of my favorite films of all time, is the comedy "The Three Amigos".  As I rode on Saturday with Jon, Rudy and Dave; aka CCjon, Muzzleblast and Lokiboy on SovietSteeds.

By the end of the my day's riding with them, the nickname of "The Three Amigos" popped into my brain and stuck.  Great day of riding my new friends, safe travels!

 We rode Skyline Drive one more time, this time in broad day for pictures and this video:

The nearby Royal Gorge Bridge was a "must see" stop by the trio, however, last year's fires had destroyed most of buildings I told them and one had to pay and ride a bus to see the bridge.  CCjon decided as we headed on westbound US50 to try for a shot of the bridge from the southern entrance to the site.

The paved way to the south end was closed by a gate.  Not deterred, the four of us left the rigs parked near the gate and we hiked 17 "ural" miles to get the below view.  (note: it was closer to a bit over 1 mile but rough and steep terrain was negotiated, I assure you).

The Royal Gorge Bridge, from near the southern end

We made our way to our sidecar rigs, and saw, with some chagrin, that somehow there was a touring company with tour trucks shuttling tourists over the road that had been barred to us!  Oh well, we go the view for free and it makes for a better story.

Royal Gorge Bridge checked off the list, we motored on US50 West, enjoying the twists and turns of the road as it follows the course of the Arkansas River.  Views of the high rocky canyon walls, the raging waters of the Arkansas River, with boatloads of tourists braving the swift currents and bright sunny conditions made a great ride all the way to Salida, CO

We left CCjon there to rest a bit and Lokiboy, Muzzleflash and myself took a short set of rides.  First was north on US285 from Salida for a quick photo op of the Collegiate Peaks.  The bright sun made for flat picture taking though.  My photos didn't come out, hopefully the other guys had better luck.

Then we rode south on US285, gassed up at Poncha Springs then headed south towards Poncha Pass and one's first view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at the border with Saguache County.

We experienced major UDF at this point, when joined by a couple in a spiffy BMW 1200GS with Dauntless Sidecar, a '71 Beemer R75 Airhead and his traveling companion on what looked like a Harley Davidson.

The requisite picture of the summit's sign

Muzzleblast then used some app on his smartphone called findmyfriends or something like that we located CCjon's current destination, a park in Salida.  Shortly afterwards, we all were together and I said my goodbyes to the "Three Amigos"

CCjon, Muzzleflash and Lokiboy

Safe Travels my friends, safe travels!

I rushed home, made it there in just over three hours with no issues, Scarlett pulling strong on the hills, fighting head-on winds and rushing cagers with elan and aplomb.

Long day, mostly in the saddle, but well worth it to have meet my new friends.

Uraling to meet the C2C50 Riders

CCjon, Lokiboy and Muzzleblast....the usernames used by Jan, Dave V. and Rudy on sovietsteeds.com and presently the stalwart riders who are undertaking the Coast to Coast via US 50 Riding Challenge on their URAL sidecar rigs.

CCjon, or Jan and I had been exchanging emails and texts for over a year now, ever since he'd gone to Alaska right after I had started returning from Alaska last year.  He had, however, started from Key West, Florida!  A much longer journey, with many challenges and many beautiful pictures generated.

Today I rode down towards Cañon City after lunch, it took me about 2.5 hours, arriving there shortly after 5:30 PM due to having to do a work-related phone call/meeting while in Colorado Springs.  The guys were already at the motel in Florence where we'd agreed to meet beforehand.

They'd spent the early afternoon at the URAL dealer in Pueblo West, Hymark Motorsports.  Dave had some work done on his carburetors (clogs apparently), Jon swapped out his front tire and Rudy just hung out with them while the work was done.  Dave S., who lives in Pueblo greeted them and escorted them to Florence.

After introductions, we chatted for a bit, looked over each other's rigs and decided after a bit to get some dinner at a Mexican restaurant that Dave S. knew about from previous trips.

We lingered a bit too long and got to Skyline Drive about 15 minutes too late to catch the prime sunset lighting but I think we did OK anyways.

 Dave S, me, Dave V, Rudy and Jan

 Slightly different angles of a rather glorious sunset, its golden

rays burning through the clouds which presented a great backdrop

At the spot where we stopped the rigs for the above pictures, there was this young couple and a photographer taking pictures.  The couple's names were Erin and Zach I believe, and Renee was the photographer.  Erin and Zach are to be married in about three weeks and they were up there for pictures for the wedding I believe.

After Renee took the group shot above, we asked if the happy couple would like to sit in one of the rigs for pictures.  They happily accepted and chose Scarlett as the rig.   Red always wins when it comes to these situations.

WTF Chuck made an appearance with the happy couple. 

Chuck the Gnome is a traveling companion to the three C2C50 Riders, often blamed for large amounts of drinking, mechanical problems, bad luck and what not.  The guys tried to get the couple to take the gnome but no luck, its staying with the riders.

LINK to short video of the rigs on skyline drive:  LINK

We lost the sun soon afterwards and we cruised on down the remainder of Skyline Drive, arriving in town after dark.  The trip back to the motel in Florence was without incident and I managed to find my way back in the dark.

We spent the rest of the night talking, comparing photos and most people writing up the day's adventures and posting photos.  Tomorrow, we're going to try and squeeze in some mountain scenery along the way to Monarch Pass.