| Author | Message | ||
     Ghostrider |
Jim, Dave Kaminen and crew are going to be meeting some CO Springs people at 285/24 sometime Friday heading to Durango. You should ping them to see if you can meet up and ride in together. | ||
| Testcase |
Think I'm going to make it from Salt Lake City! Chuck B of the Wheelnerds Podcast (shameless plug!) http://www.wheelnerds.com | ||
| Ghostrider |
Chuck! Great to hear. Look forward to meeting you! | ||
| Buellhusker |
Where and when is the group from the Denver/Colorado Springs area going to meet up for the trek over to Durango???? If you don't mind I would like to join up for the ride over. | ||
| Testcase |
I ended up in the Studio for 2. If someone wants to bunk and split it, drop me a line! | ||
| Aldo_x1 |
I have a buddy coming to denver from steamboat and we will probably head down on friday. we have'nt made any room plans I'm kicking the idea of splitting a room so we probably wouldn't mind splitting a room between three. Two nights three people split it that would be great. What do you think? | ||
| Jumpinjewels |
So Dan and I have decided to join the group. Send an email to Testcase to share the studio with him. We do look forward to meeting up with all of you guys. I just hope my new stator doesn't fail. LOL | ||
| Agfish18 |
I know not everyone is from New Mexico, but with the help of a few others from the NM group, we designed and had produced 50 patches. So far I have sold 23 of the 50 ordered. if any of you all (who will be at the rally) would like to purchase any, they are $6.86 each. I'm not making any profit on these, in fact I am covering a small portion of the cost of them. The total price for all of the patches was $343 plus tax. I am basically selling them for the same price...minus the tax. anyway, I still have 27 left if anyone is interested Here is what they look like  | ||
| Wbrisett |
OK folks. I've got the Uly packed and I'm getting ready to take off. I'll see everybody in Durango. I'm stopping and camping in Lincoln National Forest outside of Roswell for the night. Wayne | ||
| Ghostrider |
Sounds great, Wayne! Look forward to meeting you! | ||
| Bartimus |
Well, frank, Lynn, and I are here. Sitting at the bar getting some chow and having a few cold ones. Where is everyone??? | ||
| Buellhusker |
we are right here | ||
| F_skinner |
Yep, too bad Jody could not make it. That is stator number 4 for him. I have to hand it to me because I think I would be questioning my loyalty at this point. Bart took off to do a pretty aggressive ride this morning. My clutch is going south. I did a road side adjustment just outside of Durango so I am not sure if it will make it 300 miles home but we will see. It looks like it is going to be a great day. | ||
| F_skinner |
How did our trip start? I dropped Lynn's helmet scratching the face shield, I found my front isolator was torn so I replaced that with the new improved one (that is a story in itself) the night before we left. I lost my footing and dropped the S2 in the driveway smashing a turn signal and breaking the brake lever.... We thought our bad karma was behind us until Lynn decided to place her new Buell jacket on the hot XB headers..... No matter, we are safe, dry and above ground.... It has been a good trip so far. | ||
| Bartimus |
Frank, make sure that harness is tight, and enjoy yourselves today. I'm in peona right now getting ready to head up to Carbondale. Everyone else, ride safe, and enjoy the ride! | ||
| F_skinner |
Bart, the harness was fine. Lynn is no longer worried about pinching anything. We did the ski lift and the zip line. That ramp looking thing called the Alpine Slide is for these skate board looking things that you ride down. Pretty lame and looks to be for smaller kids. If you were here I am sure we could get a race or two going LoL. You are making great time. Make sure you stop and take plenty of pictures. (Message edited by f_skinner on August 20, 2011) | ||
| Bartimus |
Yea, good time and great curves. Blew off the straight line and opted to go over wolf creek. Finally caught some rain 13 miles north of Pagosa springs and am holed up here in a nice $60 room. Fixing to walk to a steakhouse and chow down, then finish them mikes lemonades. Rode about 450 miles today, not a bad day.  Glad to hear you had a nice relaxing day. I'm sure I would have tried all the kiddy rides, lol. Ride safe tomorrow, good seeing you two again. | ||
| Bartimus |
Some pics from the ride... 1180 miles, not bad for a weekend ride.    Trying to get the lake in focus and blur the Buell emblem didn't quite work   When I came through here, the end of June, there were 20' snow drifts on each side of the road. No snow now.     As I crested Wolf Creek Pass, I saw the only rain storm I would have to ride through that day.  Left this morning at 0730 and headed down to Chama, and over the Brazos   Jody's issue with his stator had me worried some, especially while I was up on some of these passes. I have about the same mileage, and am on my 2nd stator. As I came through the pass from Tejeres, my engine light came on, I saw my voltage at 12.3. I reached down and unplugged my headlights, (who needs them in the daytime anyway?), and the voltage went up to 12.5. The voltage kept dropping, and I kept praying, the battery light came on as I turned onto 98th St. and my voltage dropped down to 11.7 by the time I pulled into my garage. Home sweet home  3 months left on warranty, I guess I will suffer through one more visit to an HD Stealership... | ||
| F_skinner |
Good pictures Bart. I am glad you made it home before the stator gave out. I nursed the S2 home but she made it fine. I only did a few clutch adjustments although it was starting to squeal a bit when we got into Canon City. I will post pictures over in the Colorado section when I get around to downloading them. Thanks CJ, another great event. | ||
| F_skinner |
My photos here: http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/37/ 642387.html?1313976051 | ||
| J2blue |
Frank and Bart, glad you both made it back ok! For my stator I'm not going back to the dealership, I'm just going to have mine rewound, I think. I will do the removal and installation work myself. | ||
| Jumpinjewels |
Dan and I got home around 6:15. Took the scenic route and missed all the highways. Left 24 in Woodland Park and headed north to Deckers then made a right and took the back way home. Had to ride on a gravel road for a few miles but it was well worth the detour. No rain, which was nice. If we decide to go next year we are driving our RV and trailer the bikes. That way we can bring our own food LOL. Frank, that fruit cake from Calif was really good  . I think we'll try to order some, Dan really liked it. Glad you all got home safe and sorry to hear about the stator Jody. I was just praying that mine wouldn't go out on this trip, but it probably will on the next one LOL | ||
| Ghostrider |
OK, so it's a huge pain for me to resize every single photo that I want to share. So I just uploaded all of them to a flikr page for you to browse. Go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjrodden/ Enjoy. | ||
| Ghostrider |
And a quick recap for those who might not have made it: Most of the NM folks met up Friday morning. Ed, Adam & Stacy, Russ & Shannon, Nick, Doug & I met in Bernalillo and rode up to Santa Fe. We stopped for breakfast at the Flying Tortilla in Santa Fe. I hadn't eaten there before, but it was ok. After breakfast, we headed north via the bypass to meet Murrae & Mabel north of SF. At that point, we met Joy, a friend of Mabel, riding her BMW F800 (or something like that). We went up 84/285 thru Espanola and then up 285 to Tres Piedras. There, we turned on US 64 and headed toward Tierra Amarilla. It was a very nice ride. It's funny how that road is so nice on the east side and then so bad on the west side. I think there must be a county line on the top of that mountain. We stopped for lunch in Chama and enjoyed the ribbing the crusty server gave to Russ. About a mile outside of Chama, we ran into road construction, again. We'd been in some on 285 and now again on 84/64. It was like 12 miles long and we were not in the front of the line, so we had a bunch of cars to pass when we finally got out of the one lane road. At Pagosa, we didn't stop. I ended up riding sweep the since just before Pagosa. At a gas stop in Durango, I was on the phone with Luis trying to get him in when I was abandoned by the rest of the crew. I ended up having a really nice solo ride the last 20 miles or so to the hotel. We found the Colorado crew already in the bar (big shock!) and so after we checked in, we went down to join them. This is where things started to get sticky. When I booked all this stuff, I asked the girl at the resort if I needed to book a meeting room or if we could use the restaurant for our group dinner Saturday. She said that we should use the restaurant, they could accommodate us, and we could just order off the menu. That works well for us, so of course, I signed us up. Well at Dinner on Friday, I find out that the bar/restaurant we are in is the ONLY real outlet open at the entire resort. So, it looks like we're going to eat in the same place two nights in a row. Then, I speak to the restaurant manager who tells me that there is a wedding on Saturday, the reception is in the restaurant, the restaurant is closed and so we have no place to go. I explain how I set this up, what we were told, etc. He tells me that the girl I booked through no longer works there because of "this type of thing." Well, that doesn't mean shit to me, so what are they going to do with us? The guy tells me they have a grill on the patio that they can put us at, we can sit and eat outside and they'll serve us off the grill's menu. I look at it and it's all chicken strips and grilled cheese and stuff. It's not dinner. I ask what the other options are and he says there are a few other restaurants nearby, within one to three miles, and they have transportation available for us but it will cost us to set it up. (We don't want to have to ride to the restaurant because most people are starting to drink with dinner.) So, I explain that this is totally unacceptable. I was sold dinner availability and that's what I want. So I say to the guy that he can do one of two things for me: 1) put us on the patio but serve us off the main restaurant menu; or 2) get us in at one of the comparable nearby restaurants and provide complimentary transportation for the entire group. After going back and forth, his boss comes out and apologizes and says that they can get us free transportation to a nearby restaurant and he'll make a reservation for us, etc. He tells me that "The Sow's Ear" is nearby, comparable to Purgy's, and can accommodate us. "Great. Set it up." We also discover that breakfast is not in a restaurant. There's a coffee shop/snack bar thing that has breakfast burritos and breakfast sandwiches with bagels and stuff. So, we make do with that. It's overpriced and mediocre, but... whatever. We gather at the bottom of the hill in front of the resort and find out that Bob Rowledge is having some memory issues and is generally not well, so he begs off to get checked out. Dan & Julie Aguilar and Greg Kremer decide to ride to Gateway, CO instead of on the group loop. Jeff & Julie Ring were on the lookout for dirt, and Aldo & Luke had tire issues on the X1's, so they didn't go with us. Chuck vanished after the AM gathering. The rest of us head down to Durango to gas up and meet up with Luis, who rode up from Santa Fe Saturday morning. Then we head out west toward Dolores. We make a short pit stop in Dolores to stretch, socialize, etc. Got some photos of that. Heading to Dolores, I was the #2 bike behind Murrae and his radar detector. After Dolores I lined up #4 behind Murrae, Luis, & Ed. Luis also had started to show thread on his tire, so he started doing this weird counter lean thing trying to keep off the center of the tire. As we get going up into the mountains, the road was amazing. There were a few (or more than a few) cars to pass, but the passing zones were plentiful. I'd say about a third to half of the group was moving pretty quickly. Pretty soon, I'm thinking we should be nearing Telluride. The mountain ahead is STEEP and Telluride sits in a really cool bowl of steep mountains. As usual, I am checking my mirrors often to determine who's behind me and how far. On one of those many checks, I see flashing lights behind Doug Rusk, who is right behind me. Naturally, I pull over, as does Doug. Johnny Law passes us both without hesitation. At this point, I'm not sure if he's just after the leaders, who are less than 100 meters ahead of me, or has somewhere else to be. When Doug pulls over, he says he didn't realize the guy was behind him. Adam & Stacy quickly pull over, too and Stacy looks like she can hardly walk. (She has really bad knees and for some reason continues to torture herself on the back of an 1125.) A few others keep going. I don't. I figure if I go around that curve, wherever they are pulled off, I'm going to get waved in and get cited, too. Stacy jumps on with me for the last stretch to Telluride and we all eventually get going. As we pass, we see the lead three, Murrae, Luis, & Ed, all on the left pull-out getting their tickets. Down the hill, the remainder of the group is stopped just short of the turn to Telluride. We decide to just get to the restaurant and have them catch up. The restaurant for lunch was Smuggler's Brew Pub, about two blocks off the main drag. I had called the owner to set things up and he was pretty excited to have us. Our tables were pre-set and the staff was waiting. I thought things went pretty well there. Eventually, the speeders arrive and tell us about their encounter, where they got cited for passing in no passing zones and careless driving. $275 and 8 points!!! Naturally, we wondered why no speed ticket? Looks like they weren't radared or paced. In fact, based on what the officers said to them, it looks like they were responding to a phoned in complaint. Curious. Bryan rode down for lunch. FROM DENVER! Dude got up at oh-dark-thirty and rode straight to Telluride to meet us. After lunch, it was really getting dark and gloomy so we all donned rain gear and gassed up on the edge of town. Bryan took off back to Denver and I lead the procession back toward Durango via Ridgeway/Ouray/Silverton. At this point, it rained. HARD. There were some really strong rains and all I can say is I'm glad I have water-proof boots and quality rain gear. I need to get water-proof gloves, though. I turned on the grip heaters since it was getting cold going over some of those passes with wet hands. Heaters kept me both warm and dried off the gloves pretty quick! Pulling out of Ridgeway, Dave Kaminen got in front with Jeff Cowan. I had Jim Goettche behind me and felt like maybe I was holding him up. Going up the Million Dollar Highway, it was wet, wet, wet. We waited a couple minutes at the bridge construction, but no big deal. Road was good, but wet continued most of the way down toward Silverton. I had told everyone that I was going to Silverton, so if they didn't want to, they should drive on to the hotel. Only Jim seemed to do that. Everyone else went into Silverton, but this is where the group really broke up. Ed's buddy Brandon rode up from Farmington on his Speed Triple and we met him here. Most of the other folks quickly turned for the hotel. Dave & Denise intended to shop for a bit and stayed. I lead back a new, smaller group of Me, Nick, Brandon, Luis, Ed, Doug, and Adam & Stacy. The ride from Silverton to the resort was, in my opinion, pretty good. The roads were mostly dry, but we still had our rain gear on. There were a few steep drops that kept me conservative, but once we got off that, we were able to bring up the pace. On return to the hotel, I had about an hour to get ready for dinner. I showered and changed and we all went down to meet the bus. The van could only accommodate about half of the group at a time, so I stayed back to make sure everyone got aboard. I was one of the last ones to the restaurant where Adam informed me that he wasn't sure it was "comparable" since most dishes were over $30 each. I look at the menu and realize this is a fine dining restaurant. True, this is not comparable to the regular restaurant we were in the night before. Apparently, our waiter was upset because they set aside half of their restaurant for our group and one whole table didn't order even one dinner. I guess two guys got together and split an appetizer as their dinner. I was upset, but not at this restaurant. They are what they are. We didn't know. It was Durango Mountain Resort that set us up there and didn't warn us about the menu and cost. So, several of our group did not buy ANY dinner. We did our awards, as usual. Wayne Brisset got the furthest traveled, coming from Austin, TX. Russ got highest average mileage for 1200/month. Frank Skinner got award for oldest Buell for his '95 S2T (pretty sure it's a '95). Adam got youngest rider (25). Bob Rowledge got People's Choice for his most farkled carbon Uly. I'm pretty sure there was a sixth award but I'm drawing a blank at the moment. We also gave away three rally shirts from last year as door prizes. Those went to Lynn, Shannon, & Adam. We also auctioned off a pair of men's medium Buell puck gloves that Bryan had gotten online and then couldn't wear because they were too small. After some intense bidding wars, AldoX1 from Denver came away the "winner." Only $56.50. So, more socializing and then a return to the hotel. It's almost 10pm. I guess on the first trip back, Doug was trying to get the driver to take him into town for a pizza or McDonalds or something. No go. When I get back, I ask the girl at the front desk what the options are for food. The answer: None. Oh, wait! Vending machine. Oh, wait! It's broken. So, it's not quite ten o'clock and there is not one place in this entire resort to get a drink or any food. I ask if the security guy can open the snack shop and we can get some off the shelf stuff and pay for it at the front desk?? No. We can't. No options. We're screwed. So, I'm pissed. Nick, Ed & Brandon actually crashed the wedding. They went into the restaurant/bar and got some drinks (apparently no food available) and then sat on the patio drinking and smoking cigars. Sunday morning, I make the rounds, see a bunch of people off, and then help Luis get his bike on The Doug's trailer so he doesn't have to worry about that tire going home. In the end, Nick, Ed and I are the last three. We depart late, after 1000. we get to Pagosa around noon and stop for lunch at The Malte Shoppe. Food was ok, shake was really good. We then go down to Chama and gas up. We decide since it's getting late (almost 2pm) we're just going to blaze direct via US84. Just before we get to the intersection of 84/285, we get rained on. Not too strong, but we didn't stop to put on gear, so we were a bit wet. We gas up there, and then ride direct home, non-stop. We were going pretty fast on the freeway (90 or so). It was windy and that speed is not optimal for gas mileage. Nevertheless, we did fine. Apparently, I passed Adam & Stacy at the Wendy's in Bernalillo. They'd gotten stopped on 550 just before San Ysidro for speed. 86 in a 75, knocked down to 79. Overall, I had fun. I will be writing a really nasty letter to Durango Mountain Resort on behalf of the whole group. Many people were unhappy with their rooms, the meals, the options, etc. Obviously, we won't be going back there. On Saturday night, we discussed possible locations for next year. Many suggested Silver City or Ruidoso. Sunday, suggestions were made for Gunnison or other areas "in between" the two main groups. I'll figure something out and post as we approach next year. Thank you all for coming out. I hope you all had fun. I did. | ||
| Wbrisett |
Thanks everybody, had a great time. You're a wonderful group of folks. Murrae and Mabel, see you in Austin in October. FYI... I made it to Phoenix without too many problems (my GPS gave up the ghost. Took apart the bike today and found it was just a blown fuse). It's hotter here than at home in Austin (forgot how hot it can get here in AZ). I'll post up updates later. Wayne | ||
| Testcase |
"Chuck vanished after the AM gathering." You make it sound like I threw a smoke bomb and shouted "ULY! VANISH!" Oh, man. How cool would that have been? I got buddies in Durango, so I actually followed the group down until it turned right to head up 160 (if I got my #s right) and stayed heading south. Aldo, Luke, and I stopped in at Durango Harley for awhile to annoy them with our Buells and then split up from there. My friend has a new Can-Am Spyder so she let me test-ride it for a review on the podcast. I was pretty wiped out from not being able to sleep in the room and downing some white russians that I passed on the loop this time. I had just run it a few weeks before, so I enjoyed the break day. Oh yeah, CJ forgot to mention that when he was arguing with the restaurant folk he kept motioning to me, Ed, and Russ about "how much money there is here *just* from the drinkers!" Yay for us! I'm shocked that I wasn't even nominated for having a 20 dollar toolbox bolted on as a topcase. Maybe, next year... Nice thing is I got some really good stories for the podcast about Buellers now. Heh. As for next year, I'd humbly put forward Utah's own Route 12, maybe basing out of Torrey. Beautiful road. Nothing at all to do with it being closer to me than Silver City. Nope. Not one bit. Looking forward to next year! Chuck The Wheelnerds Podcast (Message edited by testcase on August 22, 2011) | ||
| Bartimus |
Nice write up CJ, and good job trying to make the best out of a bad situation with the management at the resort. Glad everyone made it home safe and sound, bummer about the tickets, | ||
| Needs_o2 |
Here are some pics I took. CJ - Thanks for all your work in organizing this event. We had a great time riding and seeing everyone. - Julie & Jeff Cottonwood Pass - on the way!     Jim - Here's Old Lime Creek Road.  Old Lime Creek Road. Some parts were a little hairy. Jeff did great with me on the back. I was holding on too tight on some parts and didn't take pics!  Me at Owl Creek Pass. Road 8, then Rd 10 just north out of Ridgeway. This road was very smooth. There were cars on it. Would be a great color ride (lots of beautiful Aspens) even from the cage.  | ||
| Ghostrider |
Wow... nice pics Julie. Glad you guys had fun! Hope to see you next time! | ||
| Buellhusker |
CJ Many Thanks for a another great SW Buell Rally. I was fortunate to meet more really great Buell riders and that includes Wayne my room mate from Austin. I know we had issues with the resort but even that could not dampen the great Buell group fun. And also a special Thanks to Dave and friends from Denver area to allow me to join their group for the ride down the the resort. Once again I had a great time. I finally made it home (Columbus, NE) at 5:30AM Tuesday after a all nite ride starting in Grand Junction at 10:00 AM Monday via Orchard, Hotchkiss, Gunnison, Canyon City, and Pueblo when leaving Gunnison I was trying to find my through a line of big thunderstorms. Boy Eastern Colorado is flat but has good high speed roads with lots of wildlife roaming after dark to make the trip exciting. PS I did make the ride via the gravel/rock over the mountain from Moab to Gateway only got lost up there twice, got to Gateway at dark Sunday PM. Thanks to everybody for the info on that route. |
