CABIN FEVER: I just want to ride.
Interstate 70 in Utah
Winter is always a difficult time for me. You see, I ride motorcycles, that’s what I do. When I’m not riding a motorcycle, I’m usually working on one, and when I’m not working on one, I’m dreaming about riding or working on one. However, living in Colorado presents some obvious challenges to riding motorcycles. Primarily, the long winters. Now, sure, we get plenty of sun during the winter and lots of days that you would probably call “riding weather” days, but that’s not the whole story. The problem is that when it does snow here in the “Mile High City” the department of transportation will throw out tons and tons of salt and magnesium chloride on the roads trying to keep them as free of snowpack as possible.
While the caustic mixture of undercarriage rotting, high power salt does a great job of melting snow and ice, it tends to stay around on the road for weeks and even months, depending on the area. This sand and salt will turn your motorcycle into a 500-pound sled in a heartbeat if you hit it while in a turn or while trying to stop quickly. It is very slippery, and when you only have two wheels to make contact with the ground, it can be quite impossible to navigate through. There is also the problem of encountering side streets that may not have city and county maintenance or plowing. On these streets, the south side never gets any sunshine during the winter months and if it stays cold enough, there will be snow and ice for extended periods of time. In fact, we are currently in one of those situations here in Denver where it just hasn’t gotten warm enough for the snow to melt.
So, what is a motorcycle fanatic to do in order to scratch the itch? For me, it usually includes watching the weather forecast in an area nearby that I can trailer my bike to for a few days and enjoy some warmer weather while out on the road. I have a Kendon, stand-up trailer that fits in my garage. It is super light and easy to move around, has wheel chocks for 3 bikes, and goes down the road straight as an arrow. One of the drawbacks, however, of having a light, mobile trailer is that it is completely open. It has no sides, no wind deflector on the front, or anything else that will keep the elements off of the motorcycles. In the winter, if I am traveling to a warmer destination, it means that I have to drive through snowy areas to get there. Those areas will obviously have the magnesium chloride mixture that is so corrosive to metal products. That being said, it is crucial that when you get where you are going you get the bike(s) to a car wash and get all of the road grime off of the machines.
I have a KTM 300 XCW that I trailered out to Grand Junction a couple of months ago so I could ride for a few days. Last week I noticed that I had a seal leak on both of my forks. I took them to my suspension guy here in town and he immediately noticed that I had mag chloride deposits on both of the forks that were starting to eat away at the chrome. This happened while pulling the bike down the highway on my way back home when it was snowing in the passes. Fortunately, it was caught in time and I don’t need to replace the forks, but you can see how important it is to keep your bikes clean and free of these kinds of road deposits.
A couple of weeks later, I trailered my Husqvarna 701 Enduro out to St. George, UT where I offloaded the bike and headed south through the desert to Las Vegas on a 3-day trip. When the ride was finished and I got back to St. George, I loaded up the truck, pointed the front end east, and drove home. The drive home was 10 hours of snow and sleet and tons of magnesium chloride. When I got to my hometown, I drove straight to the car wash and made sure to get the bike spotless before putting it in the garage until the next opportunity to ride came along.
January 2022
I loaded up the truck and headed south to Arizona to escape the cold and get in some riding.
As I write this article, it is late February, and like all years past, it is time to start dreaming of the riding season again. But Mother Nature plays her cruel jokes on us Coloradans every year. At some point in mid-February, when we are all as tired of the miserable cold as we can be, she will throw in a warm couple of days, getting our hopes up that spring is finally just around the corner. Nope, just kidding. Last week we had a couple of days that were true t-shirt weather. This morning as I loaded up my kids to haul them off to school, it was -1 degrees. As I said, it happens every year at this time. That delusional hope that it is finally over. That we can finally shed our winter coats, and maybe even start prepping our paddle boards for the lake, or filling the motorcycles with new fluids and taking them off of the battery tenders. When in reality, last week was just the first of three or four false springs that we are famous for here in the Centennial state.
In this region, we can’t really count on spring to be here until about late April or early May. And then it will only last about a week or two until we are fully into summer with temps nearing the 90 and 100-degree mark. But at last, I can feel spring coming right around the corner. I don’t care what that oversized groundhog in Punxsutawney, PA says, spring is on the way. I can feel it in my bones. However, as any smart man would, I have a plan in place in the event that spring doesn’t quite get here as soon as I would like. In mid-April, I’ll load up the BMW GS1250, put on some of my cold-weather riding gear, and point the front end south to Arizona, the land of year-round sun and warmth. In my eyes, Arizona is heaven on earth and I can’t wait until the day when I can move there full-time and ride year-round.
Last year, I wasn’t able to get the whole AZ Back Country Discover Route completed due to some logistical issues, so this year I am going to go back again and do the whole thing. As I make my way from Denver to the Mexico border, the first part of the journey will likely be less than ideal, temperature-wise. I will have to cross the eastern planes of my home state in a month that is known to be quite windy and oftentimes very cold. Then I’ll have to navigate my way through the Raton pass crossing from Colorado into New Mexico. Even if there isn’t snow and ice in the area, the roadway is sure to be littered with sand and debris from the recent winter storms. Once I’ve managed to get through all that, there are still about 500 miles of New Mexico wasteland to cross before I get into what is sure to be 70 to 80-degree bliss in southern Arizona.
Chasing warmer weather, just for a chance to ride a motorcycle for a few days might seem a little excessive or compulsive for some folks, and I can certainly see their point. And, maybe I am a little OCD, but that is neither here nor there. As I've stated before, I don’t want to ride motorcycles, I HAVE to ride them. Riding is the thing that lights a fire in my soul. It is what keeps me dreaming about tomorrow and the days to come after that. Everyone has something that they just must do in order to feel truly alive, and for us two-wheeled enthusiasts, it’s no different. Except, if you are unfortunate enough to live in an area that limited your riding time as my state does, you sometimes have to travel far from home to fill the need.