Million Dollar Highway Freaks Bikers Out!
The One Your Mom Warned You About!
Once you've ridden this stretch of blacktop, you'll know what switchbacks are all about. The so called "Million Dollar Highway", begins innocently enough. After leaving the ABM base camp, near Cortez, Co., we pointed the black bike northward along route 146, toward Telluride. As elevation increased, so did the scenery, morphing from creekside hills lined with Blue Spruce, into jagged rocks, vegetation begging for a simple crack in which to grow, then, Mount Wilson, over 14,000 feet high. At this altitude, only rock and snow can exist, and snow there was, plenty of it.
Going Up, Up, Up...past bicyclists begging for enough oxygen to survive in this razor-thin air..you'd have to wonder why they beat themselves to death, even risking a heart attack from lack of breath.. Be sure of this: most of them detest "bikers". Most of them are well-to-do people who probably feel that the road belongs only to them, and their rubber shorts, or whatever that crap is they wear...
On this first leg of the journey..we finally reach Telluride, a literal conclave of the world's richest people, everywhere, wooden and log homes costing milllions to build & maintain. For a while, our new road, rt 62, meanders through canyons & beautiful tree-lined waterways, finally reaching the northern-most part of this loop, (and the deadliest, as we're soon to find out), US Route 550, quite unremarkable until you reach the outskirts of the first major town, "Quary".
What's with the "Million Dollar Highway" name?
We knew you'd ask, so we asked the locals. The most common answer was because of the cost of the iron ore on which the road surface was built. In fact, the creeks run over a bed of golden to bright red color due to the ore contained in the rocks. This alone is worth the trip to see, but it doesn't end there...no..no. After gassing up in one of only two stations in Quary, the real fun begins.. Or should we say, adventure. We're headed toward Silverton, an 1800's mining town, which shows it's age, a thing of beauty. It's been a brutal ride down into town, over mountain passes, & suprising switchbacks, and as we pull the bike up against the curb in front of the "Pickle Barrel", a local eatery, ominous cloud activity gets me to thinking that leather time has arrived. The burger is filling, & the lettuce looks as if it had been just picked from a local garden. Some bicycle people are staring at us as we fire up, & head out south, away from 9300 ft Silverton..
Dude, the girl is really freaked out!
Rt 550 is narrow to begin with, and it's getting narrower. The locals have never heard of a guard rail. With barely enough room for two cars to pass each other, we climb, & look down into an abyss of a thousand feet or more. When cars, & trucks roll over the side of the embankment out here, they are left to rust & eventually decompose. There is no way to remove them from way down there.. They pick up the body (if they can find one), and move on. We know the Harley foursome which we've caught up with knows this, and especially one girl who looks to be a new rider, on her Sportster.. she is putting a death grip on her handlebars, going maybe 8-10mph, and looks scared to death. The other three aren't doing much better. We get to a tunnel, maybe a mile (straight up) from town, & they've had it, trying to get their bikes turned around on the steeply graded surface, & back to Silverton. 550-Silverton-NOT-4-Beginners. (or intermediates, for that matter).
By the time we reach Coal Pass, elevation 10,700 ft, surrounded by Turret & Pidgeon Mountains, over 13,000 feet high, it begins to rain. No make that POUR. Amid 180 degree switchbacks at what seems like every 100 yards, the rain is ponding & pouring across the road, & sometimes seems like it might carry us away, toward a 1 to 3 thousand foot freefall. Are we freaking out? You bet. Are we stopping? No. Where do you want me to stop, when there's over a foot of drop off the side? So we press on..and the rain gets worse, we're soaked to the bone, rounding switchbacks where the posted speed limit is 10MPH. The scenery is spectacular. Creeks ablaze with copper, ore, & gold color. Mountains, extinct volcano, & air so fresh, yet so rareified, you grab a rush with every mouthful, and belive me you need to be a mouth-breather up there just to survive. FINALLY... we reach Hermosa, a mobile-home infested small town, & pass just feet from a grazing doe roadside. The fact that she noticed my telling the better half, & NOT the sound of the chopper, is sending chills down my spine as I post this blog.
Is it over... yet? Man, it should be. Takes an hour to go 25 miles. As we approach Durango, the sky parts, clouds disappear, the sun comes out, & it's almost 90 degrees. That's the mountians for ya, but wait, there's more. It ain't enough that the bike looks like it's never seen soap & water. Now we're headed toward Cortez on 160, and Mom Nature opens up..AGAIN, this time with a vengenance reserved only the truly non-deserving! Only one of maybe a couple bikes south of Silverton, we're passing by dozens & dozens of Sunday-drive bikers, pulled over roadside. One has a giant blue tarp spread over his ride..another flashes his headlight as if to say.."pull over, cool yer pipes"...but we ride on, and finally break through the storm around Mancos, just short of Cortez. Arriving at our campsite, it's once again...(can you guess)..85 degrees & sunny. Doesn't matter. We make a huge campfire & stand there, in our wet clothes, afraid to even take them off until we are dry & warm.
So that's it, race fans: One of three fanstic loops. Just the day before, we roasted off our toasties in the high desert of Arizona, & Utah. More on that, next blog. Also: The ride to the "Cliff Dwellings" of Mesa Verde, a great day.
Two, Two, Two Rallys in One?
What we have here is the tale of two rallys. For reasons we'll divulge later, the dude who used to throw in with the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce & the Southern Ute Tribe for the Ignacio Motorcycle Rally, always thrown on Labor Day weekend, has split from the Ignacio Rally, and is having his own party at a nice place called the "Sugar Pine Ranch", a few miles from Mancos, wich is about 50 miles from Ignacio. Of course, the locals on this side think his is the place to be, & are strong supporters. They don't seem to care much for the goings on in Ignacio. Ditto the Ignacios on Sugar Pine. ABM hears his permit is limited to 5,000 vehicles per day, and if each vehicle comes & goes, does that make it 2500? These are legit questions we want to ask, but so far, the ranch hasn't returned our request for a pow-wow. (If you're reading this, you got my number.. CALL?) So, barring any unforseen circumstanes, It looks like 3DOGNITE & LRB 4us. We think Ignacio could see over 100,000 if the great weather holds. Yesterday's soaker was the first rain we've seen since Sturgis!
Trout Update:
Yeah, they're still biting! We're limiting what we catch to just what we can eat, so please...PLEASE. No more requests for dry ice shipments of Rainbow?? (dw, bb, are you listening????????????????)
Sturgis Update: 445,000 came to play
Yeah, it was down. According to the bean counters, about 12 percent. What gave it away to me was the number of emergency room visits.. 86 last year, 60 this year. Everyone we talked to said too much Johnny Law, not enough of us. To be fair, they seemed to be... everywhere.
One final clarification:
When ABM mentioned some native americans gave us incorrect info, or none at all, we only include those who work for the casinos. Throughout our travels, the local natives who have no professional axe to grind are the most friendly, talkative, engaging of any we have met. Their respect for the chopper, their questions about it, us, where we live, what it's like, and most of all, the smiles on their children's faces, don't lie. I just wanted to make that clear, thanks for letting me vent.
"til next time...ride safe, keep the rubber side down, shiny side up, & be extra careful of the Labor Day Cages.
ps: Can you beleive this? Ignacio's rally-finder pamphlet: A stern box ad from the highway safety council warning of still fines & jail for any biker over the legal alcohol limit. The ad just above it? BREAKFAST HAPPY HOUR FEATURING BLOODY MARYS! Only in America Dude, Only in America.........
Once you've ridden this stretch of blacktop, you'll know what switchbacks are all about. The so called "Million Dollar Highway", begins innocently enough. After leaving the ABM base camp, near Cortez, Co., we pointed the black bike northward along route 146, toward Telluride. As elevation increased, so did the scenery, morphing from creekside hills lined with Blue Spruce, into jagged rocks, vegetation begging for a simple crack in which to grow, then, Mount Wilson, over 14,000 feet high. At this altitude, only rock and snow can exist, and snow there was, plenty of it.
Going Up, Up, Up...past bicyclists begging for enough oxygen to survive in this razor-thin air..you'd have to wonder why they beat themselves to death, even risking a heart attack from lack of breath.. Be sure of this: most of them detest "bikers". Most of them are well-to-do people who probably feel that the road belongs only to them, and their rubber shorts, or whatever that crap is they wear...
On this first leg of the journey..we finally reach Telluride, a literal conclave of the world's richest people, everywhere, wooden and log homes costing milllions to build & maintain. For a while, our new road, rt 62, meanders through canyons & beautiful tree-lined waterways, finally reaching the northern-most part of this loop, (and the deadliest, as we're soon to find out), US Route 550, quite unremarkable until you reach the outskirts of the first major town, "Quary".
What's with the "Million Dollar Highway" name?
We knew you'd ask, so we asked the locals. The most common answer was because of the cost of the iron ore on which the road surface was built. In fact, the creeks run over a bed of golden to bright red color due to the ore contained in the rocks. This alone is worth the trip to see, but it doesn't end there...no..no. After gassing up in one of only two stations in Quary, the real fun begins.. Or should we say, adventure. We're headed toward Silverton, an 1800's mining town, which shows it's age, a thing of beauty. It's been a brutal ride down into town, over mountain passes, & suprising switchbacks, and as we pull the bike up against the curb in front of the "Pickle Barrel", a local eatery, ominous cloud activity gets me to thinking that leather time has arrived. The burger is filling, & the lettuce looks as if it had been just picked from a local garden. Some bicycle people are staring at us as we fire up, & head out south, away from 9300 ft Silverton..
Dude, the girl is really freaked out!
Rt 550 is narrow to begin with, and it's getting narrower. The locals have never heard of a guard rail. With barely enough room for two cars to pass each other, we climb, & look down into an abyss of a thousand feet or more. When cars, & trucks roll over the side of the embankment out here, they are left to rust & eventually decompose. There is no way to remove them from way down there.. They pick up the body (if they can find one), and move on. We know the Harley foursome which we've caught up with knows this, and especially one girl who looks to be a new rider, on her Sportster.. she is putting a death grip on her handlebars, going maybe 8-10mph, and looks scared to death. The other three aren't doing much better. We get to a tunnel, maybe a mile (straight up) from town, & they've had it, trying to get their bikes turned around on the steeply graded surface, & back to Silverton. 550-Silverton-NOT-4-Beginners. (or intermediates, for that matter).
By the time we reach Coal Pass, elevation 10,700 ft, surrounded by Turret & Pidgeon Mountains, over 13,000 feet high, it begins to rain. No make that POUR. Amid 180 degree switchbacks at what seems like every 100 yards, the rain is ponding & pouring across the road, & sometimes seems like it might carry us away, toward a 1 to 3 thousand foot freefall. Are we freaking out? You bet. Are we stopping? No. Where do you want me to stop, when there's over a foot of drop off the side? So we press on..and the rain gets worse, we're soaked to the bone, rounding switchbacks where the posted speed limit is 10MPH. The scenery is spectacular. Creeks ablaze with copper, ore, & gold color. Mountains, extinct volcano, & air so fresh, yet so rareified, you grab a rush with every mouthful, and belive me you need to be a mouth-breather up there just to survive. FINALLY... we reach Hermosa, a mobile-home infested small town, & pass just feet from a grazing doe roadside. The fact that she noticed my telling the better half, & NOT the sound of the chopper, is sending chills down my spine as I post this blog.
Is it over... yet? Man, it should be. Takes an hour to go 25 miles. As we approach Durango, the sky parts, clouds disappear, the sun comes out, & it's almost 90 degrees. That's the mountians for ya, but wait, there's more. It ain't enough that the bike looks like it's never seen soap & water. Now we're headed toward Cortez on 160, and Mom Nature opens up..AGAIN, this time with a vengenance reserved only the truly non-deserving! Only one of maybe a couple bikes south of Silverton, we're passing by dozens & dozens of Sunday-drive bikers, pulled over roadside. One has a giant blue tarp spread over his ride..another flashes his headlight as if to say.."pull over, cool yer pipes"...but we ride on, and finally break through the storm around Mancos, just short of Cortez. Arriving at our campsite, it's once again...(can you guess)..85 degrees & sunny. Doesn't matter. We make a huge campfire & stand there, in our wet clothes, afraid to even take them off until we are dry & warm.
So that's it, race fans: One of three fanstic loops. Just the day before, we roasted off our toasties in the high desert of Arizona, & Utah. More on that, next blog. Also: The ride to the "Cliff Dwellings" of Mesa Verde, a great day.
Two, Two, Two Rallys in One?
What we have here is the tale of two rallys. For reasons we'll divulge later, the dude who used to throw in with the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce & the Southern Ute Tribe for the Ignacio Motorcycle Rally, always thrown on Labor Day weekend, has split from the Ignacio Rally, and is having his own party at a nice place called the "Sugar Pine Ranch", a few miles from Mancos, wich is about 50 miles from Ignacio. Of course, the locals on this side think his is the place to be, & are strong supporters. They don't seem to care much for the goings on in Ignacio. Ditto the Ignacios on Sugar Pine. ABM hears his permit is limited to 5,000 vehicles per day, and if each vehicle comes & goes, does that make it 2500? These are legit questions we want to ask, but so far, the ranch hasn't returned our request for a pow-wow. (If you're reading this, you got my number.. CALL?) So, barring any unforseen circumstanes, It looks like 3DOGNITE & LRB 4us. We think Ignacio could see over 100,000 if the great weather holds. Yesterday's soaker was the first rain we've seen since Sturgis!
Trout Update:
Yeah, they're still biting! We're limiting what we catch to just what we can eat, so please...PLEASE. No more requests for dry ice shipments of Rainbow?? (dw, bb, are you listening????????????????)
Sturgis Update: 445,000 came to play
Yeah, it was down. According to the bean counters, about 12 percent. What gave it away to me was the number of emergency room visits.. 86 last year, 60 this year. Everyone we talked to said too much Johnny Law, not enough of us. To be fair, they seemed to be... everywhere.
One final clarification:
When ABM mentioned some native americans gave us incorrect info, or none at all, we only include those who work for the casinos. Throughout our travels, the local natives who have no professional axe to grind are the most friendly, talkative, engaging of any we have met. Their respect for the chopper, their questions about it, us, where we live, what it's like, and most of all, the smiles on their children's faces, don't lie. I just wanted to make that clear, thanks for letting me vent.
"til next time...ride safe, keep the rubber side down, shiny side up, & be extra careful of the Labor Day Cages.
ps: Can you beleive this? Ignacio's rally-finder pamphlet: A stern box ad from the highway safety council warning of still fines & jail for any biker over the legal alcohol limit. The ad just above it? BREAKFAST HAPPY HOUR FEATURING BLOODY MARYS! Only in America Dude, Only in America.........
posted by americanbikerminute at 10:07 AM
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