This thread is actually more for myself and a few friends & relatives than it is for the user group, but if you haven’t been to Colorado and are thinking you might, there’s possibly something useful in this trip report. I’ll try my best to make this funny, although some find my sense of humor a bit off. There are also some pictures at the end that I took with my dirty lense dumb phone.
I left our home in Argyle Texas (8 miles south of Denton) shortly before sunrise, on Friday August 16th. I already dropped my wife Lois at Dallas Love Field. Lois was heading for a cousins reunion in New York, and I had 8 days to beat the brutal Texas heat wave riding my 1998 Valkyrie around Colorado. We push hard to beat the Texas heat for a week in Colorado each summer. I push a lot harder than Lois as there is always a motorcycle involved, but this was to be a special bucket list trip. This time I was riding the bike all loaded with camping gear straight from home, something I hadn’t done since the 70’s. A/C and windshield wipers are nice, but something about looking at your motorcycle in the rear view mirror just never seems right. The plan on this beautiful Texas morning was to run hard on 287 toward Amarillo until the devastating heat set in. That plan got us (me & the Valk) to Childress Texas. I took my wet cool vest into the restroom donned it and went back out to my cooler with 7 lbs of ice and put a frog tog with ice around my neck, then hydrated. This was pretty much the process all the way to Tucumcari NM. The stops got more frequent as the temperature rose, but I was heading for a night camping in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Overnight temperatures were forecast to drop below 60, what could possibly go wrong. Got to Amarillo, the wind was blowing out of the South like a blast furnace, they had I40 down to one lane for construction and I was riding an 800 lb bike loaded with camping gear, no worries the Valk with her new rear suspension didn’t even notice the load. Lois and I were just through Amarillo the first week in January. Then the winds were blowing out of the North and the forecast snow flurries turned into a blizzard with the associated tractor trailer truck donut show. Back on the bike, she was pulling great through that terrible wind even with all that gear strapped on, until I almost ran out of gas. I was running about 75 and mileage dropped from low 30’s to low 20’s, apparently due to the nasty cross wind. We finally made it through the blast furnace and got gas & cooled down in Tucumcari. I’d only been on 104 from Tucumcari to Las Vegas once the previous January in the blizzard. Even in the blizzard I could tell it was a beautiful high mesa road that we had to get back to. It’s 100 miles of nothing but raw beauty but you won’t see so much as an overpass not to mention gas, food, or water, so be prepared. The last time I had to pull the truck off on the shoulder and put on chains in a blizzard, but that was January. It was August and I was finally off the hot super slab heading for Las Vegas, what could possibly go wrong? That’s when I saw the black storm clouds ahead. I mean how bad could a summer storm in the desert be, especially when there isn’t so much as overpass for protection? Well 104 got me again. I wanted to cool down, but not in a hail storm! This time I was on the shoulder putting on rain gear getting pelted by hail. I got my rain gear about 8 years ago at a hardware store in Alpine Texas on a visit to the big bend area. Always thought I’d replace it with high tech stuff as it’s the really heavy yellow farmer stuff. I’m never going to replace it. Summer hail storms are just too prevalent. Things actually got better after the rain stopped and I could see the road again. We got into the KOA in Las Vegas at about 6PM on a Friday. The manager was a really nice guy, a biker, he said they were completely full except that all his tent sites. I was thinking about the State Park, Story Lake, but it was open field, all RV’s. The KOA was full service and well worth it. Hot showers and flush toilets are much appreciated after a hard day one.
Day 2 was loosely planned. First cross the Sangre de Cristo mountains on 518 from Mora to Taos. There are three routes to choose from here, not to mention climbing the escarpment from Cimarron to Eagles Nest which is an awesome ride further to the north. You really can’t go wrong, it’s beautiful and there are places to camp no matter which route you take. Lois and I like to follow the Chama river up past Abiquiu and Ghost ranch when she’s following in the truck, but when your riding a Valkyrie it has to be the high road every time. I stopped in Taos for gas and an Albertson’s grab and go and headed for the Rio Grande Gorge for lunch. At Taos I picked up 64 west which would take me all the way to Chama. It was starting to get a little warm, picnicking at the Gorge, no problem the pass through the Jemez mountains to Chama was only 20 miles west. From Chama NM, I took 84 to Pagosa Springs Co. My loose plan had me camping at Vallecito Lake Co, just north of Bayfield. It’s at the base of the San Juan high Peaks SE corner. There’s a great hiking trail out of the main campground, two pretty good restaurants and there’s good access to the million dollar highway on county roads, thus bypassing the whole Durango 160 / 550 mess. Based on what I learned in my two days thus far with camp setup and breakdown it would be relaxing to run a little over 300 miles a day. I decide to stop at 5:30 pm, on a Saturday in August, 12 miles west of Pagosa Springs at the Ute Reservation camp ground - Capote Lake. Same story, RV sites full, tenter’s have their pick. Pretty much, if your tenting, you can tour Colorado all Summer long on the cheap with total flexibility, no reservations.
Day 3 started a little slow, after breaking camp and having breakfast I started out, but it took me some time to get off the reservation. I guess old Indians like to tell motorcycle stories to old bikers. My trip plans were really loose as I hadn’t done anything like this in 45 years. I was pulling up the big grade out of Durango with a big smile on my face thinking, wow 300 miles a day. Should be able to do all the roads I love to ride and some I’d been meaning to get to. I’d take the million dollar Hwy 550, Silverton, Ouray Ridgway, down to Montrose to 50 East, past the South Rim of the Black Canyon, over Blue Mesa dam following 92 north along the North side of the Black Canyon, 133 North following the north fork of the Gunnison from Paonia over McClure pass to Carbondale, then to Aspen, 82 over Independence Pass to Twin lakes, back down to 50 West and over Monarch Pass, 149 South over the top at Lake City, then 160 West over at Wolf Creek pass back to Pagosa Springs. What a plan for my Colorado bucket list trip! That’s when the banging started.
No problem we pulled over on the shoulder. It had to be I broke a weld on my home made hitch hauler rack that was carrying all that camping gear. It couldn’t possibly be my 26 year old Honda motorcycle right? So the hitch hauler pasted all inspection checks. It was still ready if the neighbor’s great Dane wanted to go for a ride. Anyway after much head scratching, I decided it would be best to limp down the toward Durango and think about next steps. Riding her back to Durango it became very apparent it was the final drive. You really don’t own a motorcycle like this unless you do all you own work. I definately wasn’t about to try and get the bike repaired in Durango Co. It was Sunday and I likely wouldn’t even be able to talk to anyone about repairs until Tuesday, as the motorcycle industry takes Sunday and Monday as weekend / ride days off. I could look into renting a truck, but I’d need straps, blocking and help loading the big bike. I decided the best path was to go home, get my truck, trailer and gear and haul the Valk home. What could possibly go wrong? We pulled into the Adventure Inn, a little mom and pop hotel in Durango. Of course there are no longer any mom & pop’s in Durango. This place was corporate owned, with the rates that are adjusted nightly by AI. Mom & pop were nowhere to be seen. Anyway the kid, Jordan, behind the desk was nice. He said to check with the manager Jason in the morning, but he was sure that Jason would let me take a spot in their little lot for a couple of days and also store my sizable pile of camping gear. Amazingly Jordan, the nice kid behind the desk was correct. Just maybe my luck had changed. I got my room, which ran close to $200 on a Sunday night with all the fees, unloaded the bike, and thought about how to get home. I pulled out my trusty dumb phone and started searching. It said I could fly out of Durango in a week for just over $700. No worries, I already knew from recent experience that I don’t know how to fly anymore. I hit the app I can still run and told my dumb phone to call my daughter Michelle. Michelle is a successful adult with two children, and she knows how to use her smart phone, which of course I pay for in these modern family times. It’s amazing how the world works today. Michelle had me flying the first silver tube out of Durango the next morning for $400. The AI went fraud alert crazy when she tried to use my credit cards. Oh well she just used her cards and Lois venmo’d her the money out of NY to cover. They know how all that magic stuff works. In fact I remember not long ago Michelle had a joint card with Lois. If Michelle ever said she would pay for something, I would say, “that’s not paying, that’s just transferring money between my accounts”. So anyway Michelle got me into DFW around noon, and I proceeded to get lost in the terminal I used to fly out of when I worked for corporate America. No worries I told my dumb phone to call Michelle and she got me to the uber she had all set up. The Uber driver didn’t speak English, no worries, her GPS spoke Spanish and it was magically programmed to take us safely to my door. I had something to eat, pulled my trusty 20 year old truck Egor out of the garage, hitched up my $450 harbor freight trailer, grabbed my big ramp, some blocking and ratchet straps and I was back on the road by 6 pm. Of course Lois was on the phone telling me to wait until the morning, totally irrational as usual, I mean what could possibly go wrong? Egor Pulled that little trailer over a huge bump about 20 miles from home in Crumb Texas. It wasn’t until about a 100 miles later that I realized I’d be making this trip without a trailer license plate. Oh well, officers are usually pretty understanding when it comes to such matters, I just kept Egor pointed for Durango. We (me & Egor) found a Holiday in about midnight just past where the construction had been, past Amarillo, on I 40 the previous Friday. A couple of hours sleep and we were heading west again on I 40. Sunrise would be to our backs, our luck obviously had changed. We had to deal with morning commuter traffic in Albuquerque, but it really wasn’t too bad. Headed up I 25 past the old Intel plant I helped build in the 1990’s, and got on 550 toward Durango. I haven’t been on 550 in many years. It’s the fastest route, so there’s a lot of traffic and trucks, not preferred when your on a bike. On 550, you run just west of the Jemez mountains through the high mesa with lots of gorgeous pink and white sedimentary erosion. It’s very similar to the Abiquiu area only much more vast, the colors might not be as intense and you don’t have the beautiful red rock formations of Abiquiu lake. Also 550 takes you to the access for Chaco Canyon, which I believe was the largest city in the southwest before it was deserted 1400 years ago. Anyway back to Egor pulling hard along beautiful 550 through the Indian reservations. We weren’t scared the reservation police probably see people pulling unlicensed trailers through here every day, surely they wouldn’t take the time to bother an old white man with Texas plates. At the rate we were running, we’d get the Valk picked up and wouldn’t need to stop until we were back east of Albuquerque. That would leave us a relatively easy Wednesday home. Just then my dumb phone started complaining about running out of batteries. I kept reconnecting it to the car charger but it seemed it’s battery got so rundown it would no longer take a charge. Oh well, no worries we were really only using it for ETA’s. We know all the roads. Once home, I could get a new phone. When we hit Aztec New Mexico, about 30 miles south of Durango, the TPMS started telling us the right trailer tire was losing pressure. This would need to be dealt with. With no GPS, cave man method would need to be applied. No worries, I’m older than dirt, who better to use caveman techniques. I saw a big well drilling company over on the left and decided it was time to meet the locals. You can make friends very quickly in Aztec NM. There was a Honda Shadow parked out front. Talked motorcycles & trailers with the boy’s for about half an hour. They told me where I could change the tire in their lot, then how to get to Big O tires, no gps necessary. Remember ahead two lights then left at Betty’s bakery. The guys at Big O were great. I told the guy behind the counter I wanted 2 new speed rated 12 5.30 trailer tires. He said that’s a special order sir. I’m not sure why but even tire shops that do lots of trailer tires don’t typically stock small trailer tires. So I asked him to give me directions to the nearest Walmart or Tractor Supply. Went a little further to the tractor supply and bought their last two. They only had pre mounts, but it was hot and I decided to drive back to Big O anyway. I told the guy at Big O to put the 2 new tires in the bed on the trailer, take the two on the trailer and throw them in the bed air all four to 70 psi and the last 2 were his. I would pay all labor and disposal fees and eat lunch in his air conditioned waiting room. I need to drive across Texas tomorrow in a summer heat wave and I certainly didn’t need to worry about blowing trailer tires. Traveling with two spares, a spare hub, a tire patch kit and 12 volt compressor there really wasn’t much to worry about, but I had no phone and I didn’t want any silly little under rated Chinese component failure slowing Egor down on the way home. The guy behind the counter interrupted my train of thought, told me I was good to go “no charge”. I’m like really, “how do you guys make money”. He said come back and see us sir. I’m like, “ I live Dallas. The last time I was in Aztec was in the 1990’s when we forced the kids to tour the Indian ruins.” It’s funny I haven’t been to the town in about 30 years, now I want to move there.
So off we went to Duango. We loaded up the Valk and spent another night in the Adventure Inn. This time I took Lois’ advice and got a good night’s sleep. With the Valkyrie snug on the trailer sleep came easy. We were on the road by 4am and the brutal ride home went ok except that the coffee really stop working long before we were all safely home. My neighbor Phil had shutdown the AC for me. He was over using the pool with his wife Cindy when he noticed the fan on the big unit didn’t want to spin up. No worries there’s the pool and the travel trailer has A/C. Walked outside in the morning to make sure the A/C unit just needed a start capacitor and the trailer grabbed my eye. The trailer was missing it’s right tail light and the signal light wire for the left was broken. In effect I ended the trip in the dark with one red running light on the back of the trailer. If an officer had stopped me, it would have been like Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. Gee officer I didn’t even know, but look there’s a clearly visible plate right here on the bike, there’s a light at the back of the trailer and you can see the truck signal lights around the bike. Anyway I climbed on the VTX and picked up a start capacitor for the A/C and a mechanics stethoscope to aid in Valkyrie diagnostics. Turned out the issue was a bad left rear wheel bearing, which has since been upgraded and replaced.
My mother told me I should never ride a motorcycle. Maybe she was right? Naaah! The Valkyrie has all new wheel bearings, and I inspected the final drive. I already started asking Lois about next year. What could possibly go wrong?????
All loaded up just out of Texas
This picture was taken in the Sangre De Cristo mountains just a few miles West of Mora NM.
This is a picture of the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge with Taos off to the lower right and Wheeler Peak (highest in MN) in the background.
This picture is of the Chama Valley from the high ridge at the west side of the Jemez mountains.
This picture with the Valk all tucked away on the trailer was taken from 550 looking west, just west of the Jemez mountains, very close to where we lived in NM in the 1990’s. Taking the fastest high traffic low road home.
This is a picture of the Valk sitting on the trailer with the rear wheel up getting ready for stethoscope evaluation prior to entering the shop for repairs. My truck Egor was a little upset. He was left under the tree, while the other two bikes got his spot in the garage, and the one that caused all the problems got the air conditioned shop.
When Lois got home I showed her what I was doing and she made some silly comment like” why’d you ride the stupid bike across Texas in a summer heat wave anyway?” Then my friend Phil got back from Az. and I showed him what I was doing. I also showed him the outer race I had to cut out of the wheel and let him know it would have been much easier if he just had stayed home. Then I would have taken him my wheel and told him I can’t get that race out of this wheel. Of course Phil being a man had a completely logical take on the problem. He asked why I didn’t just throw the Triumph in the bed and finish my trip on that, then haul both bikes home with Egor. Then he would have cut out the race when I got home. I felt pretty silly, especially since I likely could have left Egor, the Valk, and the trailer in a lockup in Aztec NM with my new friends, no charge!
If there's anyone still with me, amazingly I had a similar motorcycle vacation in 2023. Not sure what the common denominator could be, but this is the link to last years story on the VTX Cafe:
https://www.vtxcafe.com/threads/lois%E2%80%99-last-motorcycle-adventure.245211/
