For many reasons it has been
four to five years since I last went to a BMW Motorcycle rally
somewhere in the continental United States. I decided earlier this
summer that I would try and make at lease two rallies in 2014 and I
did. This is a far cry from a decade or so ago when I would routinely
go to four to six rallies each summer, starting with the 49'ER in
California and usually ending up with either the New Mexico rally the
weekend after Labor day or the Autumn Beemer bash somewhere in
California the second or third week of September. In 2004, I went
from the New Mexico Rally at Sipapu one weekend to the Beemer Bash in
Mariposa California the next week. I doubt I will ever do back to
back weekend rallies again. I remember I got home from Sipapu on a
Sunday evening. Went to work the next couple of days and left
Thursday morning for the ride across the Great Basin to Mariposa and
returned the following Sunday night. It ended up being somewhere
between 2,500 and 2,800 hundred miles in those two weeks. That is of
course, a far cry from what I am thinking about doing next spring
sometime, which is to try and ride the Iron Butt Association's 10-48
where I would ride through 48 states in 10 days. That would be well
over 8,000+ miles.
The two rallies I ultimately
decided to attend this year were the Bear Tooth Rally near Red Lodge
Montana and the Sipapu Bavarian Mountain Weekend near Taos. It would
mark about my fourth time attending the Bear Tooth and my 10th
or 11th time attending the Sipapu rally.
The Bear Tooth Rally started
August 14th. I asked my sister Valerie and her husband
Larry if they wanted to go with me, and while Valerie bowed out,
Larry said he would like to go. It would be his first motorcycle
rally. We left Thursday morning and proceeded to spend most of the
morning on the Interstate riding North until we turned off of it for
the ride to Island Park where we had lunch. After that it was a short
ride to West Yellowstone where we both bought our geezer passes for
National Parks, an incredible deal at $10 a forever pass to get you
into any National Park. Just as we pulled through the gates of the
Park, the promenade from “Pictures at an Exhibition” started
playing on my I pod. What a beginning for the ride through the park
to its exit at Cook City Montana. From there is was a short ride to
the beginning of the Bear Tooth Pass. Larry found the pass a little
over whelming with its decreasing radius turns and I slowed down
several times for him to catch up to me. The site of the rally is an
Old Boys Camp that is currently used during the summer for outings
for Special Needs Children. Rather than camp we had elected to pay
an additional $10 a night to have a bunk in one of the many cabins
that dot the hillside.
The next morning we rode via
another road to Cody Wyoming and spend a couple of hours, far to
brief a time at the Buffalo Bill Center for the American West. We
only ended up getting to go through two of the wings of the museum
and I plan on going back and doing two more. Our original plan was
to ride back towards Red Lodge, but to turn off and take the Chief
Joseph Highway to where it meets the beginning of the Bear Tooth so
that Larry could ride it again, and we agreed we would stop so he
could take some pictures. There are some incredible views from the
Bear-tooth . When we were about 20 or some miles from this junction ,
it started to look pretty black and bleak on the pass , and we
decided to turn back. We hit a brisk rain on this return ride and by
the time we got back to the original junction , I was low on gas and
had to actually ride in to Cody again to fill up.
I have always wanted to
visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield and it is only about 120 to 130
miles from Red Lodge. We mentioned our intention of going there on
Saturday to the other person in the bunk and he asked if he could
ride with us. His name is Paul and he has houses in both Colorado
Springs and in North Carolina and he spends his winters in his cutter
rigged sail boat in the Caribbean. We left the next morning and had a
nice ride to the Battlefield. It is very much like what I have read
about and viewed in books, but somehow the fact that there is cell
service at the battlefield and its only a couple of miles off an
interstate exit, I found difficult to wrap my head around. We
elected, on advice from an old fried of mine to take the Indian Bus
tour of the battlefield. I felt the story that the guide told was
very balanced, much more than if I had been telling it, I have always
thought the Custer was a complete blow-hard and egoist. Because his
Indian guides told him the truth, rather than what he wanted to hear,
he and several hundred other men were slaughtered in a brief period
of time by a large group of braves. The cemetery like all military
cemeteries was peaceful, but most of the soldiers have long since
been removed and reburied somewhere else with Custer's being at West
Point.
On the return trip to Salt
Lake , rather than going back through the park, we again rode to Cody
and then from there to Mettesse, Thermopolis, Lander and then through
historic South Pass and Atlantic City , which served as a crossroads
from roughly 1828 to the coming of the rail road in 1869. It is the
most gradual slope from east to west on the continental divide, and
you almost had to cross it and it was only after that, that you
realized you were now heading down a gentle slope. After Kemmer we
ended up picking up the Interstate just before Evanston, but when we
got to Echo, rather than heading towards I-80; construction meant
one lane from Wanship to the junction with highway 40 to Heber City,
we headed down Weber Canyon, turned off at Henefer and came over East
Canyon into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. It was a fitting way
to end this trek filled with beautiful and historic places. I
enjoyed thoroughly riding in some different environments and was
looking forward to the ride to New Mexico .
My sister Valerie has been
to the New Mexico BMW Bavarian Mountain weekend three times before
and we have talked about going again, and while she did not accompany
us to the Bear tooth, she did go with us to New Mexico. We actually
left Wednesday afternoon and rode to Monticello, rather than doing
the whole 625+ mile ride in one day, at least on the way down. Our
typical Sunday morning ride runs roughly between 125 to 175 miles by
the time we return home. We ended up having dinner in Moab and
arrived in Monticello, on fumes and just at Sunset. The next morning,
after a good breakfast at the Peace Tree Cafe, we proceeded to the
Utah/Colorado boarder and wended our way towards Dove Creek and
Cortez. Just before Cortez we took a short cut I have taken before,
that lets you avoid the traffic on the main street of Cortez, there
was some road construction on this route, and I am not sure that we
save any time. Actually on this trip, we ran into a fair amount of
construction but the delays did not amount to a great deal of time.
After gassing up in Pagosa Springs, we turned South towards Chama. I
mentioned to Valerie at the gas stop about Dulce and the Mud people
and she had her daughter do a web search concerning that. Once you
turn of the main road from Chama to Santa Fe, the road gets
interesting, although much of Northern New Mexico has absolutely
beautiful vistas and beautiful skies, and I noticed on this twisty
and climbing road that the pass was over 10,000 feet. There was some
gravel but all in all the air was crisp, there was very little
traffic and after a little over 9 hours and 45 minutes of riding time
from Salt Lake, we arrived in Taos and checked in to the motel we had
reservations for. I have mentioned before, that as a child, we
visited Taos and Santa Fe several times, my parents had friends that
owned an ran an art gallery in Taos and life long friends that worked
Los Alamos, I remember as a young kid, visiting Los Alamos when it
was still a closed city and we had to go through Security and that my
parents had to apply for the visit a month or so in advance. Even
then, it was not as bad, as the security we sometimes now are subject
to when we fly.
After checking in and
relaxing for a while, we rode , with Val on the back of Larry's
R1200RT up to the Sipapu Snow and Summer resort where the New Mexico
BMW club has held this rally for 30 Years. I first when to the rally
in 1994, which means I was at the 10th anniversary. The
week before they had a fire at the main lodge building and part of it
was blocked off and they put up a large outdoor tent for some of the
rally activities. There was not much going on at the rally that did
not really start until Friday and after riding back to Taos, we had a
nice dinner at a restaurant close to where we were staying. Our plan
was to go down to Santa Fe on Friday Morning. That weekend was when
they have the annual Festival in Santa Fe, and every-time that Val
has gone to Sipapu, we have gone down to Santa Fe and spent some time
walking around, looking in shops and having a nice and fairly
expensive lunch before heading back up towards Taos and Sipapu. We
did all of those things, and Valerie and Larry decided to just head
back to Taos, I elected to turn off from the main highway and to take
a secondary road back to the Rally. I registered and got my pin and
spent a few minutes talking with Paul, who we had shared a cabin with
at the Bear tooth. He had actually volunteered to help at the rally
in exchange for a free room Friday and Saturday night.
When I first started going
to these BMW rallies it was about 25 years ago and I was in my late
30's. The people I rode with where for the most part in their late
fifties. I have observed at both the Bear tooth Rally and Sipapu,
that all you now see at these rallies are people from their 60's to
70's and I am not seeing younger people. This does not bode well for
the continuation of these yearly events or for that matter for the
motorcycle industry as a whole. I would like to think that I may
purchase at least one more new BMW before I hang up my helmet and
gear for good. Rally s that once had x number of people come every
year are getting smaller and smaller, because people are either
ceasing to ride, or dying off. Not camping or staying at a rally is a
lot different than I am used to and after careful thought we decided
instead of doing some day trips on Saturday around the area, we would
start home the next day and if Valerie was up to it, we would ride
all the way home on Saturday, if not, we would probably again stay in
Monticello.
Valerie got her sea legs
back and we ended up riding the 600+ miles back to Salt Lake. We rode
back the same way we came, but somehow we lost her husband Larry, who
made a wrong turn in Cortez and ended up almost to Shiprock before he
stopped. We ended up getting back to Salt Lake a couple of hours
before his return. As a joke, I bought him a map of the Western
United States and a compass.
While I will still ride my
bike both during the week and on our Sunday rides for at least a
month or more, this is probably it for any distance rides. Next year
I hope to do a few more rallies and to once again spend at least a
couple of weeks during the summer in a tent.
