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Official check in time for the rally wasn't until 4 pm, so I passed the time with some new friends Rick and Lisa Rohlf, John Irvine, Jim and Wanda Young, and Brian Boberick in the Christie Lodge parking lot.  The Christie Lodge is a condo complex that rents as a hotel during the summer months, located just off I-70 and a pretty good rally HQ site.  Covered parking, no less, which explained "where were all the bikes?" once I found where to park underground. 

I got situated in my room, shook hands with my roomie Jerry McCumby from NC, and just relaxed a while till time for the odometer check at 4pm.  I made the 20-mile round trip to Wolcott in shirt sleeves, as many did, had my new odo checked for accuracy ("what, this bike only have 900 miles on it?"), bs'd some more, then Jerry and I went down for the rider's meeting.  Met up with Jim Breed and Barb, and George Wacaser, fellow Missourians all, and introduced myself to Randy Bishop, whose Concourier article about the TATT had been so informative.  We checked in for real, received our materials and T-shirt, then listened to Bill Gillespie and Bob Norton go over the base route for Saturday, and answer the few questions.  Jim, Barb, Jerry and I adjourned across the street to a nice pizza joint for dinner and some grain beverages. 

Saturday's festivities began with bonus packets being handed out at 4:30a, and first bike off at 5:30a.  The rally format was like many others, with "base route" outlined by the rally master(s) that was to be completed by the participants.  Points are scored for achieving the checkpoints on time, as well as points for "bonus locations" that can be visited.  These usually are obscure points of interest that the rider may visit, either to take a Polaroid photograph or to take down some information ("at milepost 23, how many cubic feet of natural gas does the sign say flow through the pipeline each hour?"). 

The base route took the riders down thru the mountain pass regions on CO 9 around Breckenridge, past the Royal Gorge, and into the grazing lands of south-central Colorado to the checkpoint at Walsenberg.  From there, a couple of choices to continue further southeast, or start heading back thru Alamosa and Del Norte, then thru Aspen and Glenwood Springs and back to Avon.  The wildcard bonus was to capture pictures of mountain passes that were part of the Continental Divide, so some route extensions / creativity were definitely part of the plan. 

We had about an hour to look over the bonuses and to plan out any route extensions to capture them.  I pulled out my Colorado map, and fired up Street Atlas on my laptop to get a feel for the distances between the base routes turns.  It was going to be a long day, over 600 miles on the base route not counting any extra bonuses like mountain passes.  I drew up a routing directions sheet that I placed on one side of my tankbag map case, and a carefully folded Colorado map on the other. 

I headed east on I-70 on time, and within a few minutes had bagged my first-ever LD rally bonus.  Continuing east, I found and noted a plaque listing the elevation of the Copper Creek golf course (9900 feet!, highest in the US), and the depth of the Dillon reservoir.  The morning went on like that, and there generally were several other rallyists in view or at each bonus stop.  Seemed like the two-up competitors had an advantage -- the passenger could just write down the info, time, and mileage of each bonus without stopping.  Solo guys like me stopped, fished out the bonus packet, uncapped a pen, and made note of such things before getting underway again.  Time-consuming. 

We had a mid-day checkpoint at a hardware store in Walsenberg, and I was trying to keep track of time to make it on time between 11:00 and 1:00.  Caught up with Jerry McCumby at Hoosier Pass, then visited with Rick and Lisa Rohlf at my second gas stop in Walsenberg.  I'd picked off most all the bonuses listed so far, but I had some choices to make at this point, and I'd already made a couple of rookie bonehead errors.  I trusted my written directions, not my map, so I made a wrong turn in Florence, wasting about 30 minutes (15 minutes the wrong way, then 15 minutes back), and then counting on gas at Wetmore, junction of CO96 and CO67, finding none, riding back to Florence yet again, then continuing on my way.  Sigh.  Over an hour lost altogether. 

Heading west across US160 towards Alamosa was pretty uneventful, with Colorado looking more like New Mexico at this point, sensible since it was just a few dozen miles south.  I'd skipped an extra bonus loop at Walsenberg, but chanced one at Del Norte that was worth quite a few points.  Stopping for gas, I saw Rick and Lisa again, exchanged hellos, then spotted my exhaust system. 

The muffler core retaining bolt on my Supertrapp had worked its way loose and disappeared, letting the muffler core try to exit the assembly.  What kept the core half-hanging on for how-many-miles I don't know, but I was glad to have it be there, all ratty fiberglass and blackened hot metal sticking out a foot from the muffler shell.  Gathering my wits ("Hmmm, how can I fix this thing?") my luck held as I spotted a NAPA parts store across the street.  Finding a 1/4x1/2 coarse thread bolt and lock washer took a few minutes of sifting through the hardware rack, not bad, and fishing my work gloves and tool roll out of my saddlebag let me reassemble the hot components and be able to get back on the road.  But all told, another 45'ish minutes lost. 

Jim Breed caught up to me at CO112 and US285, and we rode together for awhile, nice to have a friend along, and separated again when I stopped to secure some gear.  Caught up with Jerry McCumby again in Buena Vista at my gas/dinner stop (that would be a gas station ham sandwich) and I reconn'ed my situation.  I'd lost too much time to run the whole base route across CO 82 to Glenwood Springs, so I planned just to go up US24 through Leadville, then head west to Avon by the 8:30 checkpoint time. 

Even so, I still messed up some.  By not reading the map well, I rode west on CO306 to catch a bonus at Collegiate Peaks campground.  But did I ride the next 11 miles west and back to get the 250 point Cottonwood Pass bonus?  Nope, didn't figure I had time (wrong).  Then continued up US 24, but riding west on CO82 enough to catch the bonus at Twin Lakes.  Another mistake: did I realize Independence Pass, another 250-point bonus, was but 20 more miles away?  Nope.  Passed it right up, along with the chance to make a 250-point snowball and get a picture from snow that was still up on the pass.  Rookie mistakes. 

Really nice riding in the early evening towards Leadville, and I stumbled onto Tennessee Pass, where several other rally riders had stopped to pick up the bonus points.  Good idea.  Then it was just a matter of finishing out the last of the 600+ miles I'd covered that day, returning to Avon, refueling, and checking in. 

Our rally sponsors held a very nice cookout for us, and it was a lot of fun to hear of everyone's rides throughout the day.  Lots of stories of mountain passes located and bonuses claimed, and *lots* of riding.  Several had ridden 850-900 miles that day alone, WOW, in the same time I covered but 600 or so.  Amazin'. 

Day two, Sunday, was organized the same way, up at 4:30 a.m. for the bonus packets, the riders off at 5:30.  I followed the same procedure as the day before, adding a few more details about bonus locations to my directions sheet.  The route for today was northwest Colorado, a part of the state I'd planned to see on family vacation in '93, but hadn't had time to cover.  West through Glenwood Canyon, Palisade, Grand Junction, then north to Rangely.  A huge bonus would accrue *if* you had pictures of the Glenwood Springs pool *and* of a pink dinosaur from Vernal, UT, so I factored them in also.  My ride plan said I needed to be in Rangely at 11:00 sharp to allow time for Vernal, then return east through a bunch of pretty desolate Colorado, south thru Rio Blanco back to Rifle, I-70, and Avon. 

The base route and early bonuses were all along US6.  I'm a big fan of old US highways, and US6 had a lot of history as an early route through the mountains.  Showtime began for real, though, at Glenwood Canyon; there may be no more magnificent stretch of interstate highway in the country.  Expensive, too, so our rally master said.  I stopped for my photo bonus, and continued west. 

The area around Palisade is peach country, odd to find orchards here, and with the late July season you could smell that wonderful scent in the air everywhere.  It was all I could do to not stop and buy a half dozen or so to put on the bike someplace. 

Thru Grand Junction, now I realized I'd killed too much time along US6 sight-seeing, and was "nipping along smartly" through more high-desert type terrain, and climbing a range to cross through Douglas Pass.  It was here I tagged onto the back of another rally rider, going two up "with authority" through the canyons.  I always ride better when I follow a good rider, I can't read bends well at all.  This rider was doing very well, pegs within an inch or two of the roadway, but keeping a nice steady pace throughout. 

Wonderful riding, lots of 3rd and 4th gear work for the SR, definitely in its element for a change.  Slowing for a milepost bonus, the passenger opened a clipboard and one page of the bonus instructions flew out, followed by a quick brake and U-turn to retrieve them.  I chose to ride on alone, down a couple more canyon turns then onto the floor of a valley where I gave the SR some leash to cover the final miles to Rangely. 

At the other end of this valley was a Colorado state trooper, spotted as I crested the knoll at the end, stationary with lights ablaze and motioning me to the side of the road.  Sigh, a 10-year absence of speeding tickets was now coming to an end.  His setup was perfect, he had at least a 4-mile view of the valley floor, but was pretty much invisible to oncoming traffic until they crested that small rise.  I was toast, definitely.  He was finishing me up when I noticed his lights began twirling again...wow, triggered automatically by the radar unit since the trooper was still out of his car, all he needed to do was motion over the next bike and tell him to wait a minute, he was finishing with me.  Quite an effective setup, cha-ching. 

I arrived at Rangely, the mid-day checkpoint, much later than planned, nearly noon.  I got my paperwork stamped, then began the 60-mile ride to Vernal, UT.  And then promptly turned around.  It was now 12:30; Vernal was one hour out, one hour back; and I had a minimum hour ride back to I-70, *then* ninety minutes ride to return to Avon.  We were due back at 4:30, so it all didn't fit, at least not at speeds my SR can attain.  Too bad, there went most of my bonus points for the day! 

Forlornly, I resigned myself to just head east on CO64, then ride south on county road 5 to Rio Blanco.  I wouldn't finish well, but I reminded myself that I'd just come to Colorado to get a chance to ride the Rockies on my SR, and to finish a rally.  I'd done my Rockie-riding, now I just needed to finish. 

Really remote part of this country, this one...I hadn't seen a town of any type since Rangely, and few if any houses.  The beautiful asphalt road I was riding was explained by the dozens of petroleum-product sites along the roadway, apparently helping the tax base of the area and helping keep the road maintained.  Mile after mile of high-desert beauty, a nice way to decompress for sure. 

From Rio Blanco, it was down to Rifle, and stop for gas; it had been just over 100 miles since I'd had a chance to buy gas, barren country.  I now had "too much" time, but no real chance to ride anywhere decent to use it up and collect some additional bonus points.  I hit the few bonuses along I-70 on the way back, marveled at Glenwood again, lingered at Wolcott to read a bunch of the historical markers at the rest area, then finished the rally a bit ahead of time at Avon. 

Just an hour or so to unwind and freshen up, then it was off to the banquet site in Minturn.  The Minturn Country Club hosted us, offering steaks-cooked-as-you like them, since we cooked them ourselves.  It was great getting to visit with all the riders, and lots of stories about both days of touring Colorado. I took a nice round of applause for getting ticketed on the oldest, slowest bike in the rally, apparently one of over a dozen "performance awards" handed out by Colorado's finest over the weekend. 

Everyone got a nice finishers trophy, then winners were announced in each category.  Very well done, the top finishers had ridden 1500+ miles over the two days, just under 1100 for me, well out of the running.  But a great time.  We separated about 9:00 or so, some folks heading out right then, others returning for one more night at the Christie Lodge before the ride out the following day. 

Adventures in Road Service

You can bet I slept soundly Sunday night, getting ready for a long day of riding back to St. Louis on Monday.  My wife had campaigned long and hard with me on the phone to please, please don't attempt the entire ride home coming back in one day...please stay over in Kansas City or close by to avoid that last 3-4 hours after dark when I'd be tired.  Ok, fine. 

So I slept in, no rush, and when I rose at 8:00a my roomie had already packed and departed for his ride back to NC.  I put my last few things together, finished loading up the SR, and left Avon about 8:30. 

Early morning mountain valleys are so unusual, the sunlight is blocked from entering them directly, so the colors have such different qualities.  Greens are so dark, everything looks and is so cool.  Again, lots of 4th gear work to keep the SR engine spinning and making power over the high passes, but it was running great in the cool weather.  Pretty sunshine, a nice way to leave Colorado.

Going east, that change at Denver remained remarkable, now coming out of the mountains and back to the plains.  My first tank of gas held and held...near Denver...thru Denver...finally hitting reserve east of Denver with 130 miles showing.  The next couple of exits were empty of gas, I finally found an open station with 143 miles on the trip odo, over 60 mpg for this stretch.  Great. 

There's actually quite a bit of eastern Colorado to cover, but the miles went quickly.  The day seemed about 10 degrees cooler than when I rode out on Thursday; though hot when stopped, highway-speed air still had some "cool" in it, even now at mid-day.  And traffic *does* move right along; posted 75, everyone runs near 80, a bit fast as a cruising speed for the SR, I kept it near 75 indicated and was fully happy with my progress. 

Burlington, CO came and went, and I got a grin out of the Burlington local cop running radar on I-70.  At these speeds, how long is a traveler actually *in* the Burlington city limits?  Three minutes?  Yet, here was Barney Fife, out raising revenue on the straightest, flattest piece of interstate for miles around.  Hard to figure from a safety standpoint, and of course that's not the point at all. 

I was pondering my evening options, at 4:30 pm about 3.5 - 4 hours out of Kansas City.  Seemed like I'd be in the KC area about 8:00 or so; time to get a Combo sandwich from Gates BBQ, along with a quart of Budweiser and find a motel to shower and unwind after a long day's ride. 

I was musing on these thoughts when my SR made one last thump, then had no power -- just flat quit.  I quickly pulled in the clutch lever in case something internal got the idea to lockup, and headed for the shoulder.  Bummer.  Now stopped, I tried a few kicks...no compression at all, it just spins over.  Definitely a stuck or burned valve; maybe a holed piston?  I pulled off my jacket, and gave the engine time to cool and me to think for a minute.  Try kicking again, maybe the valve let loose?  Nope.  I retrieved my toolkit from the saddlebag, pulled the spark plug.  Hmmm, nice light gray, not hot-looking, not hammered like something was loose, rattling around in there.  Good.  So puzzling to have this failure: a cooler day than last Thursday when I rode out, my oil temp gauge was reading 10-20 degrees cooler also, smooth running, good gas mileage. 

But I'm stuck here, all right.  Time to summon help, so I tried one, then the other of my cell phones. The Nextel wasn't within range of anything it recognized, but my normal Ameritech cell phone had a strong signal.  I dialed the number to AAA, then an Alltel recording came on demanding a credit card number.  Ok, fine.  Then the expiration date.  Then the numeric portion of the billing address.  Then the zip code of the billing address. Sheesh.  Not accepted, it says.  Try another card.  Then another. Then another.  Then variations of billing addresses.  Nothing.  *Four* credit cards, two of them corporate ones, and *none* of them work.  And, no option to get a "live" person.  You can guess my opinion of Alltel at this point. 

It dawned on me to try 911, since I did have signal.  They answered right away, and I explained that I didn't think this was a dire emergency, but that I was broken down near exit 219 on I-70.  No problem, they said, and added that someone else had already called about me, the Ellis County sheriff was on his way.  Great. 

Waiting for him, a Honda Shadow rider with Kansas EL county plates stopped and offered assistance.  A nice guy, he'd owned an SR years ago, always liked 'em.  I told him I was all set, help was on the way, so he shoved off.  The sheriff soon arrived, saw that I was calm and composed, and called AAA for me.  He took off to get another call, said he'd check on me from time to time till  I was retrieved.  Very helpful, I appreciated it and said so. 

It took about an hour for a huge flatbed tow truck to arrive, and I'd finished both of my liters of bottled water and applied more sunscreen by then.  Two friendly, middle-aged types from a local body shop emerged from the cab, and we started plotting getting the SR out of there.  "Do you wanna just lay 'er down and tie it?" they asked.  Hmmm, no I don't think so.  Motorcycle Towing Services, who I've also used, claim they have an edge over AAA since anyone they send will know about towing/hauling bikes.  I'm now a believer.  Er, um, no, I'd appreciate it being tied down upright please, many of the body parts on that bike are no longer being made, thanks. 

We managed to get it on the bed, and tied down pretty well.  I asked for a tow to Salina, about 35 miles away.  I'd spent time there myself, and knew that it would be large enough to have a Yamaha shop (actually, it has two).  I'd initially thought to just leave it there, have it repaired, rent a car to drive home; then return in a week or two to retrieve it and ride home.  But on the ride in, now 7:00 pm, I decided to take it to my motel for the night, then rent a truck and haul it back to St. Louis myself, dropping it at my favorite Yamaha shop here. 

Easier said than done, it turned out.  Salina has four U-Haul joints, but none had trucks.  A call to national U-Haul dispatch turned up none nearby.  I broke into a bit of a nervous sweat.  I called Motorcycle Towing Services for ideas, and the agent told me of two Ryder truck rentals; one in Salina, and one in Manhattan, KS.  Salina Ryder turned up empty, but Manhattan Ryder had a truck.  Too big.  Expensive.  And 70 miles away.  But it seemed like my only option. 

Now I just needed a ride to Manhattan.  The fifth cab company I called agreed to be bribed to have them take me there.  Payment up front, of course.  I visited the ATM at the gas stop next to my motel, hopped in to the mid-70's Dodge Diplomat that was my cab, and left for Manhattan.  Nice people there at Ryder fixed me up, then sent me on my way 70 miles back west to Salina. 

I stopped in at one of the Yamaha stores to buy 4 tie-downs, drove to the motel and checked out.  I opened the back door of the truck, a one-ton Ford van-cab with a 15-foot box, and pulled out the ramp.  A first couple of runs at it with the SR revealed that I couldn't get enough momentum to run it up the ramp, even if I could stand on the ramp with my SR at the same time.  Two housekeepers on smoke break took pity on me, and offered to help push it up the ramp.  Shamelessly, I accepted their help and soon had the SR in the truck.  I went ahead and removed the tank and seat, fearing a tip-over and not wanting to ruin my original-paint, never-dented SR tank.  With no floor tie-downs, I did the best I could to loop and secure both ends of the bike to the walls of the van.  It seemed solid, no bounce, so I crossed my fingers, locked up, and hit the road about 2:00pm for St. Louis. 

The ride there was unremarkable.  The truck was governed at 70 mph, but seemed to thrive on 65, so that's where I left it.  With a good radio, I tuned in KC sports-talk radio stations on the way in, and yes I did stop at KC for my Gates BBQ I'd planned.  I didn't lose much time doing so, and jumped right back on I-70 to continue east.  An easy night's drive, I tuned in Royals baseball for company across Missouri, very pleasant and a rare treat now that I'm living in St. Louis. 

Stopping for gas just east of Columbia, MO, I pumped about 30 gallons of 1.79 regular into the 11-mpg beast, and fired back up for the finish run to my house, home about 10:30 pm.  That left the next morning, Tuesday, to take the SR to the shop, return the truck, and to finally be finished with this trip. 

I really stretched myself on this ride, and it was so essential that I had been prepared.  Yes, I experienced a breakdown, but I had what I needed to deal with the emergency.  I'd ridden 2600+ miles at that point, enjoyed glorious Colorado scenery, met a bunch of new friends, and spent constant hours doing what I love most.  Still hard to beat, even with the ending trauma. 

Where do we go next?