Cyclerides.com Weekly Update
10/5/11

Greetings Riders,

Well, if it is cooler temperatures that you have been waiting for to take a ride, your time has come. Looks like we have mid 70’s for highs the next couple of days which will be great for bike nights. Hopefully the triple digit temperatures are gone until next year. We all deserve a break after this summer in AZ. The weather report is calling for some possible rain on Thursday morning and then sunny skies and 75 in the afternoon. Perfect for a ride to the Cyclerides.com Westgate Bike Night to see the display of the Huge lifted trucks. (Reminder: Westgate Bike Night will be moving to Wednesday nights for the last 5 nights beginning on Wednesday, October 19th with Sand Rail theme night.

We will also be having lifted trucks on display at the Cyclerides.com Mesa Riverview Bike Night on Friday, October 7th with Live Music by valley favorite Rondavous. NEW!! There is also a Spook House called Dark Scares Haunted Attraction that has opened for the month of October next to the Cyclerides.com Photo Gallery that you can visit while at bike night. There are 2 rooms totaling over 10,000 square feet and the cost is $15 per person. It will be nice to get out the leather jacket for a great evening ride to bike nights. See you there.

Highlight event for this weekend in Phoenix will be the Rocktoberfest concert featuring Paul Rodgers at Chester’s HD on Saturday night. I have seen Paul Rodgers of Bad Company twice before and we will be there again. He puts on one heck of a show with songs you were singing when you were a lot younger. If you are in Tucson, the Hogtoberfest at Tucson HD will be a huge party as well. Three separate poker runs and multiple bands.

2011 Ride Day 7 & 8
Jackson, WY to Utah Hwy. 12 to Phoenix, AZ

When I left you last week we were in Jackson, WY. If you missed that letter, Click Here to catch up. There are a couple of good ways to get back to AZ from Jackson, WY and we have done them both. If you take the scenic routes you will be looking at a little over 1000 miles. If you do the fastest way around 900. We have done the route that takes you through Flaming Gorge and that is very good, but we were trying to knock out some miles while also taking some scenic routes. This time we decided to take Hwy. 89 out of Jackson that takes you through Montpelier, ID and across the Logan Pass into Utah. This route takes you through some beautiful Wyoming countryside as well as Paris, Idaho, past Bear Lake and through the Beautiful Logan Canyon. This is an excellent route and Logan Canyon is excellent.

Our destination for the day was to be a 500 mile ride to Torrey, Utah so that we could be ready to take All American Road Utah Hwy. 12 the next morning. To make up some time we hopped on I-15 and headed South through Salt Lake City for 180 miles to Scipio where we caught Hwy. 50 to Hwy. 24 on in to Torrey. These are both excellent 2 lane roads that take you adjacent and through Fish Lake National Forest. Hwy. 24 in particular gives you a beautiful view of the classic Utah landscape and farming country. We really enjoyed coming into Torrey. The old town of Torrey, located within a 5 miles of Capital Reef National Park has become a really cool little town for tourists to stay before going to the park or down Hwy. 12. I would recommend it for a place to spend the night. Lots of lodging. An excellent place to stay is the Best Western overlooking the red rocks of Capitol Reef.

Our last full day of our 2011 Ride was going to take us 550 miles home. The last day of a road trip is always kind of bittersweet. You are kind of anxious to get home to see your family, pets or whatever. But you really hate giving up the freedom of no schedules, no meetings, no expectations and just spending 10 hours a day enjoying the ride and the beautiful scenery. But reality does have a way of rearing its’ ugly head and you know it is coming sooner or later.

On this trip we saved one of the top roads in the United States for last, Utah Hwy. 12, one of 31 roads with the All American Road distinction.  Since we had 550 miles to cover this day we decided to get up early and make our last day on the road a great one packed with scenery. We were virtually right at the entrance of Capitol Reef National Park, so we decided to do a 25 mile round trip through there just to enjoy the beautiful red rocks in this area. If you are in the area, make sure to go through there.

We had done Hwy. 12 before going from South to North, so we were excited to do it in the opposite direction. When heading South from Torrey you will very quickly climb through the Dixie National Forest to over 9000 feet in elevation before dropping down into Boulder, Utah. This 36 mile ride will take you over the mountain through many twisties, pine trees and Aspens. If you like Aspen trees, you are going to love this part of the route as you will ride through about 20 solid miles of Aspen trees on both sides of the road. It is an awesome ride and would be beautiful about now with the leaves changing. Makes me want to go to it again right now.

Boulder is a really good place to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner. There are only 3 restaurants here that I know of, but we had breakfast at the Boulder Mesa Restaurant that is just about a block East of Hwy. 12 on Burr Trail Rd. I would highly recommend this one for breakfast. There is also the Burr Trail Grill for lunch that is right on the corner of Hwy. 12 and Burr Trail. But they only serve lunch and dinner.

Leaving Boulder heading South you will soon leave the forest and get into the Utah red rock and sandstone. About 5 miles from Boulder you will reach a section of the road known as the Hogsback. You will know when you are there when you see the sign that says: Steep Grades, Sharp Curves Next 4 miles. The Hogsback is the part of the road that travels along the top of a narrow canyon, which in places slopes down with little shoulder on both sides to a 2000 foot drop. There is a small turn off to the side of the road that you can stop to peer over the edge. It is worth the stop to see the Escalante River down below lined with trees winding its way through the bottom of the canyon. This is also known as the Million Dollar road to Boulder.

For the next 6 miles you will travel a beautiful road through the canyon lined by red rocks and trees that will break out to miles of windswept sandstone as you make your way back up to the top of the hill for an endless view. Looking down onto the road that you have just ridden is a really cool site. From here you will be only a few miles from Escalante where you will get back into some high desert trees before descending into the farming communities of Henrieville, Cannonville and Tropic. The drive from Tropic to the entrance of Bryce Canyon is exceptionally beautiful and you get a taste of the orange, pink and red hoodoo’s that you will see in Bryce.

If you have never been to Bryce Canyon National Park, I would highly recommend doing this. It is one of the more beautiful and and unique areas in the Western United States. We have been there 3 times and I am ready to go back again. Click Here for some photos from Bryce Canyon from one of our prior visits.

Here is a great interactive map of Hwy. 12.

From Hwy. 12 we turned South on Hwy. 89 through Kanab to 89A where we stopped at Jacob Lake Restaurant for gas, a milk shake and a break. We then continued on 89A by Vermillion Cliffs before connecting again with 89 to Flagstaff for fuel before making the last 130 mile leg of the trip to home.

As I said before, it is bittersweet getting home because you are trading in a week in a fantasy world of nothing but you and the road, for 51 weeks of what you already know. But we always give thanks for having a safe trip and being able to enjoy this beautiful country that we live in, the best possible way it can be seen, from the seat of a motorcycle. This was one of our more enjoyable trips for sure. Not only the scenery, but the amount of wildlife we saw was exceptional this year. The buffalo experience really put the exclamation on that. But the added bonus for me was seeing Mrs. C. enjoying every minute of riding her own bike on this trip. It was a really nice to share that experience with her.

Google Map of the 2 days. Jackson, WY to Phoenix, AZ.
See 178 Beautiful Photos from the days. Click on Slideshow in upper right for best Full Screen viewing.

Recap of entire 2011 Ride:
The trip ended up being 8 states in 8 1/2 days covering 3450 miles. It was a wonderful route and one that I would do again tomorrow. The highlights were The Million Dollar Highway in Colorado, Mt. Evans, Custer State Park in South Dakota, All of the Black Hills riding, Beartooth Pass in Montana, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Tetons and Hwy. 12 in Utah.

I have posted almost 900 photos from this trip, a lot of them are excellent and will give you a virtual tour of the areas that we visited. Click Here to visit the Riding Photos section and click on the 2011 Ride Photos from each day.

Click Here for a Google Map of the entire basic route.

If you would like to read the entire catalog of stories in succession, Click Here to start at the beginning. At the bottom of each editorial you will see a link to take you to the next day. There are links to photos and maps of each day.

Tidbits and Updates:

**For those of you that have been following the bike build I have a couple of more pics for you today. I really can’t believe how tough it is to help design and implement a bike build like this, and I’m not even doing the work! This was supposed to be just a few days in fabrication and is now 6 weeks into the process. The gills that you saw in the side covers have now been removed. Once we got the bags done with the lights in them, the gills/louvers in the side covers no longer matched the theme, so I had Jim take them out and mold the side covers into the bags. So now they are one piece. Sounds kind of funny but it works just fine. Jim also made some low profile bag lids with smooth edges which are really nice looking. I am really happy with how the bags came out and we are back on track. Click Here for new pics.

**Bike Night Updates:
Cyclerides.com Westgate Bike Night will move to Wednesday nights for the remainder of the season starting on Wednesday, October 19th. It will be on Thursday for the next 2 nights. This week is Monster Lifted Trucks theme night.
Cyclerides.com Mesa Riverview Bike night will continue on every Friday night through the end of the season on November 18th. This week enjoy Rondavous Live. This week is Monster Lifted Trucks theme night. Come see the Dark Scares Haunted Attraction that opened the doors this week located next to the Cyclerides.com Photo Gallery. 10,000 sq. ft. of scary fun.

Thursday Nights

Mid Week Updates will be made on the Cyclerides.com Facebook. New Easy to remember Facebook address. Go to Cyclerides.com Facebook. Over 3400 FANS! Take a look at all the new photos posted on the wall. If you are not on Facebook, you can still view the page, but you will not be able to post. There will be a link there for you to sign up for Facebook if you are inclined. Click the LIKE button!

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