For day 7 of our motorcycle tour of Colorado we were joined by Craig who was from New York and he asked if he could join us for that particular day and the three of us had a blast!
From the start we had great motorcycling roads, the first being the ride from Aspen over Independence Pass – it was beautiful with the road climbing to 12,000 ft. We had a photo stop at the top of the pass and were joined by some others from the tour group and an inpromptu press up session was undertaken to see who could hack it at that altitude and on the Continental divide at that……
The three of us set off after the headrush of exercise! and headed towards Buena Vista which certainly lives upto its name. We rode through stunning scenery before joining some 65 miles of tarmac which were made for motorcyclists. Our climb over Monarch Pass was just awesome, huge open sweepies and very little traffic. After the ascent to just over 11,000 ft we started to drop into valleys and vast open plains wth remote ranches dotted on the horizon.
We arrived in Gunnison in time for lunch where we were able to sit outside enjoying a “pulled pork” hot sandwich with barbeque sauce – delicious! This set us up for an amazing stretch of road – 100 miles of open roads, mountains and canyons along The Silver Thread highway which followed the Rio Grande.
Mid afternoon we pulled into the town of Creede for a refreshing drink of lemonade at Kips Grill. Creede used to be known as the roughest mining town in Colorado!! fortunately for us times have changed and we had a great welcome.
We left Creede to head for Pagosa Springs and more fantastic motorcycling roads through Wolf Creek, arriving at our hotel late afternoon to be welcomed by the aroma from the hot sulphur springs which were at our resort. Just what you need after a day on the motorbike – a hot soak before dinner!