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Golden Gate Loop - The Last Warm Day Of Riding


HispanicSlammer

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Arapaho Peak Peak to Peak Highway w/ a new video

Monday NOV 19th, yea thats right November its 72 degrees in the mountains and I was riding. Gotta save that for posterity, because tomorrow it is supposed to snow, and all this great riding weather will be gone. Back to cold days and tons of gravel in the corners. I was on the bike by 9am and heading up Ute pass, slowly since I wasn't sure what the roads would be like. It was like riding in summer, though I took all my cold weather gear and stowed it in the Givi trunk. I never needed it. It was like riding in the late afternoon all day cause the sun was so low in the sky, long shadows all day long. I gassed up in Woodland park after crawling up Ute Pass, I was soon on Deckers road heading west. I love this road but it sometimes scares me cause it was the scene of my first crash. So I always take it easy there, and it was a good thing, there was gravel in all the hard turns. Seems the Rednecks with dual wheels cant stay off the shoulder and they always kick gravel into the turns.

Its always like that but today with the long shadows it was difficult to see so I took it slow, I was following a guy on a K1200S he was riding rather conservative - which was fine for a while, but once he saw me he waved me on by. It wasnt long before Horsepower hill was comming around the corner, where I would rev it up to top speed for the climb. Deckers road is really strange, its a fairly tight mountain road, and smack in the middle of it is a wide three lane highway that has been knicknamed Horsepower Hill by the locals. its a 5 mile climb up the mountain with fast sweepers all along the way, then up and over and back down the other side the fast sweepers continue. You can do the whole thing at triple digits if you have the nerve. Today I did and dropped mister Beemer in no time, at the top the road goes from 3 lanes back to 2 but the speed is the same and you end up in a curvy valley called "the bowl" you can really top it out there and then there is a long strait at the top of that that you can see for 2 miles. More top speed but I always slow down there - no more turns till you get to the bottom so whats the point? I didnt see the Beemer again till I stopped a half an hour later and he finally went by at Pine Junction. I had to get a drink of Red Bull to keep me alert. Working nights messes up my inner clock ya know.

I tossed around hwy 285 for a bit, doing a nice back road called North Turkey Creek road and ended up in Morrison a half an hour later. I was stopped at the stop light pondering to turn left and head up Bear Creek Canyon or turn right and go into town. The light took for ever so I backed up a bit and headed into town - here I got the notion to do a loop up Golden Gate Canyon and back into Central City and do the Central City Parkway to I-70. It was only 1pm but I knew I only had a few more hours of daylight left to ride. I did end up doing Bear Creek Canyon 2 hours later after I finished the Denver loop, that was fun, lots of traffic as usual, but I had the tight parts to myself for a while. There was a guy riding an old Honda race bike, it looked like a small cc, not sure what year, it had dual shocks and it looked like a Cafe racer. He was riding slow so I passed him and waved as I went by and dissapeared into the next turn. Those skinny tires looked like mountain bike tires.

GOLDEN GATE CANYON

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Video Preview

:media: - Golden Gate Canyon Video

I took my camera along not knowing what to film, I should have filmed Horsepower Hill cause I was really going fast on that, but instead I did half of Golden Gate Canyon. I started out going 7/10ths but upped it to 8 when I realized the road was good. You have to be careful this time of year. I stopped half way cause the bike was whobbling like it had a flat tire or somthing, I got off and looked at the tires and concluded the road was just bumpy like that. I then caught and passed the fella on the Norton a minute later - if you want to know. The video is the tight parts, no music just the V4, I cut out all the parts where I got stuck behind a car, or had to tiptoe through some slow gravel strewn road. 7 minutes long wmv format - I will upload it to youtube later if you dont like wmv movies.

I saw about 20 bikes out and about - mostly Harleys and I waved at every one. There were lots of guys riding slow, but not me, I wanted to go go go. So I went alone today. I pretty much passed them all and waved at the ones going by. I only stopped for gas twice and once for a drink, the rest of the time I was rolling. I have done this double loop a number of times - it is really two loops combined, one out of Denver and one out of Colorado Springs and they intersect. Here are some map files below. It felt so good to be railing corners this late in the year!

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  • Member Contributer

Yesterday it was 86 here. Today's high was 52 and were about to start sucking. It's been a great fall if there is such a thing. I'm summer all the way. The dr and I enjoyed yesterday in shirt sleeves.

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  • Forum CEO

Yea I am up all night tonight and the snow is falling, good thing I went riding when I did. Looks like it will be April before I venture out again for a ride like that.

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Vid doesn't work for me? :unsure:

I know what you mean about getting out, those days are precious this time of year. We don't have any salt or dirt down yet, so whenever the wind lets up I venture out. Monday looks nice, I might ride to work again.

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Guest sfarson

Posted

Miguel,

The 19th was a fine day for a ride. I looked at my journal for that day and see I took a day off to explore the Tarryall Rd., Fluorissant, High Park Rd. area, Cripple Creek, Victor, 67, etc. area. Empty roads. Too bad we didn't connect.

Nice to watch your Golden Gate Canyon vid. Want to mention the next time you scoot up GGC, take a right at Crawford Gulch Rd. Will see it at around 2:55 of your recording. Newly paved for about ten miles and it is sweet/scenic. Goes Past White Ranch Open Space Park. Will have to turn around if you don't want to ride dirt a few miles. It loops back through Golden Gate Canyon State Park to the canyon.

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  • Forum CEO
Miguel,

The 19th was a fine day for a ride. I looked at my journal for that day and see I took a day off to explore the Tarryall Rd., Fluorissant, High Park Rd. area, Cripple Creek, Victor, 67, etc. area. Empty roads. Too bad we didn't connect.

Nice to watch your Golden Gate Canyon vid. Want to mention the next time you scoot up GGC, take a right at Crawford Gulch Rd. Will see it at around 2:55 of your recording. Newly paved for about ten miles and it is sweet/scenic. Goes Past White Ranch Open Space Park. Will have to turn around if you don't want to ride dirt a few miles. It loops back through Golden Gate Canyon State Park to the canyon.

Yo Steve! It was a pity we never hooked up for any rides this last summer? I am still free on mon-tues, as you can see from my blog I did a lot of out of state riding this summer. I even rode a couple of rides on Saturday, although at a much slower pace - since I worked the night before.

New pavement up to White ranch eh? I recall it wasnt that bad to begin with I thought about it but it was already 2pm and I did not want to be home later than 5pm? I decided to do some more twities further south. I had CC Parkway all to myself but never got it over 90mph, I kept getting radar bleeps, I forgot they have two radar signs there, I was rubber necking for cops the whole time. I even tore up Bear Creek but took it a bit too hard, I found myself getting awfully close to the shoulder on one of the tighter turns. That road seemed tighter all of a sudden than I remebered it. Then the traffic backed up with 4 turns left to go..

TIM - the man from Chilly town! So we have this big vfrd ride set to go off some time next April - May called the Texas Mac? What say you, Gary, and Bill join me for a loop into North Carlolina, for the Rally. I am sure it is gonna happen. We do the Ozarks on the way in? The Blue Ridge Parkway on the way out and loop back up north for a grand tour? I always have a blast riding with you guys. Its a ways off yet, perhaps? Bill can show us around West Virginia since he knows those roads!

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Guest sfarson

Posted

When I manage vacation days well I often go on longer weekday rides, and when not traveling I'm frequently on weekday lunchtime things... year round. These could be ride options. Had a nice ride today to my favorite hole-in-the-wall BBQ place. Mmmmmm. Hopefully, forecasted flurries for tomorrow will hold off until evening!

Yes, there are some decreasing radius curves in Bear Creek Canyon! More than a few inebriated bikers leaving the Morrison Inn have found this out the hard way. A plus with Bear Creek Canyon in the winter is its nice southern exposure... sand and ice on the road tend to be less.

Want to mention I rode to North Carolina last July, passing through Oklahoma, the Ozarks, seeing a friend in Memphis, on to the Cherohala/DG. Then Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, seeing family, back through Illinois, Missouri, and 36/Pony Express Hwy through Kansas. Fantastic time. Not sure about a ride east April/May. Some of us are thinking about an Ozarks, Tennessee, Kentucky, MotoGP in Indiana next September and will definitely have 5-6 joining on a WSB at Miller Motorsports along with a Utah tour late May/early June.

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