Miscellaneous Road Stories from All the Way...

There are a few recollections of things that happened during this amazing wonderful week on the road that I either forgot to include, or couldn’t work into the storyline, or had no idea where they fit. I wanted to include them here as a sort of epilogue…

Cave of the winds road:

My friend Mike lives in Colorado Springs near Pikes Peak and the Cave of the Winds. He posted on our Goldwing message board a picture of a road that looked like a roller coaster ride more than a place for vehicular traffic. He told Bill and me about it if we had extra time after Pikes Peak. Of course, we made time for it.  This road runs up the hill on a series of tight switchbacks and very short straights. You flop from left to right to left almost as fast as you can just trying to etch your way up the hill. It is not a very fast ride with speeds posted at 25 MPH, but our beast of a bike can do it near 35 MPH and even more as we wrestle the 800 lbs. behemoths through this snake of a road. I lost count of the number of quick turns we had to make, and they seemed to go on and on for some time although I am sure it was only 6 or 8 times we needed to change direction. The road finally tops a hill and empties into the parking lot for the Cave of the Winds attraction at the top.  Once we arrived, we laughed and turned around and went down the hill as quickly as we went up just because it was so much fun. It was like an adult rollercoaster and the ride depended on your ability to switch turns quickly. After we finished the run down we stopped at the bottom and we both had monstrous grins on our faces. A sly smirk came across Bills face and I knew what he was thinking...With an approving nod from me we turned around and went right back up the hill, except this time we went a little faster. Our newfound confidence emboldened us and we pushed hard up the hill this time looking to reduce our time from bottom to top in a competition against our own skills. Once on the top we just turned around and sped down again. This time it was different…On my way back down we had increased the speed sufficiently that the steep down grade combined with the rapid lateral motion of the direction changes conspired to make me a little queasy …I was getting motion sick!   I knew then I needed a break so we gently motored back to the top and the parking lot for a short break.

Once on top, we had the opportunity to survey our surroundings and found more of nature’s splendor that we have come to expect in the Rockies.

In every direction, the mountains and the beauty of the high desert surrounded us. The trees mostly pine and the scrub brush clinging to the sides of the steep hills were proof enough of the quick vertical ascent we had been playing so aggressively with.  We walked around the parking lot looking out at ridges and peaks on every side, and knowing that we had started this climb above 6000 feet elevation gave us an assurance that we were high on the hill.

2 kinds of riders…

It is said that there are 2 kinds of riders out there...those who have dropped their bikes and those who will drop their bikes. I am in the category of those who have dropped their bikes…and now I am in a new category…Those who have dropped their bikes-twice. I am not sure of where we were when this happened, it was at some unspectacular fuel stop we made during our days together, and I know it was before we got to Colorado. It was mid-day, dry and warm; which eliminates most of my excuses. We stopped for fuel at a medium sized convenience store gas station. I pulled up, hopped off and quickly and efficiently topped off my tank. After the many times I had done this lately, I was getting quite good at it. I sauntered inside to use the restroom as this stop was particularly well timed and I needed to relax a few moments. When I got inside, I knew we had chosen poorly…the line to use the restroom was several people deep already and I was neither in the mood nor in capacity to wait. I had noticed when we rode in, that the parking lot of the filling station also adjoined the Honda car dealership next door and I quickly decided to make a visit to them.  Throwing my leg over the saddle, I idled away from the gas pumps and up to the car dealership front door. I wandered inside, and used the facility with no wait (and no one bothering to say a word to me) while Bill waited at the fuel station.

When I walked outside, I saw that Bill was getting back to his motorcycle and we were going to prepare to leave soon. I had not zipped my jacket nor buckled my helmet yet but I still elected to ride over to where it was convenient to wait for him to get ready to leave, and there I could zip my coat and buckle up. As I approached, I kicked the bike into neutral, and prepared to stop. Standing on the sidewalk was a small group of about 6 or 8 people all of which had been in line for the restroom when we first arrived. Now they were milling about outside waiting to reform their group and get back into the 15-passenger van they had come in.  I stopped away from the pumps and out of the normal traffic moving about the station, and put my left foot down while my right foot applied the brake. My plan was to stop, zip, buckle, and go. Much to my surprise my left foot found no purchase as I stepped into a pile of loose gravel that had accumulated in this non-trafficked area. My foot slipped out and up as the full weight of the bike leaned over onto the support leg and almost immediately, I knew it was going down. I quickly regained my left foot stance and took my weight off the bike seat, at the same time as I wrestled with the dead weight of the stopped bike.

 The Goldwing is a marvel of engineering, and quite nimble once moving at even a moderate speed, however it is ungainly at slow speeds and even worse when unevenly tilted at a stop. Somehow, I managed to stand up on my left leg as the bike tilted farther and farther to the left, with a firm grip on the handlebars I tried with all my strength to stop the gravity-induced tip over in progress, however my resistance proved futile and the bike “gently” dropped onto the left side crash bars.  Surprising to me was the amount of noise an 800 lbs dropped bike can make even if it only falls a few inches. I had stepped over the bike as it went down and was left standing there, next to the bike, as it lay ungracefully on the left side. I knew everyone had heard the noise, and when I glanced up, I saw the group of people looking at me as if I had just popped into view mysteriously from another dimension. 

Bill was by now saddled and ready to go, and looked over with a puzzled face as if to say…”What are you doing?” All I could manage was a weak smile and a half hearted gesture of confusion toward the bike as I raised both arms slightly and pointed toward the bike with palms raised skyward.  It had all happened so fast I had no time to react. One second I was sitting on the bike and the next I was standing next to it.?  One of my motorcycling buddies had once told me…”When the big girl wants to lay down all you can do is let it.” I believe that is what had happened here.

Now for the tricky part…righting the fallen beast. I was fueled by adrenaline and embarrassment so it seemed a good idea to simply bend over and pick it back up. Taking a firm grasp on the passenger grab handle and the left grip I hoisted the bike upright and calmly put down the left kickstand. By this time Bill had motored up and inquired as to what the heck I was doing, a question that had no answer at that moment so I simply laughed. I looked her over for damages and realized the crash bars had performed their engineered duty and nothing was the worse for a slow speed tip-over.