A Week in the San Juans

[JasonJ]

We had been talking about doing the COBDR for months and months. plans were laid, video and ride reports were read/watched. We had 6 of us going.

The more I looked in to the San Juans the more I wanted to ditch the bdr and just base camp in Ouray. We got together over some beers and ended up deciding to do just that. We booked some cabins in the KOA at Ouray and I went to work on getting some tracks together. 4 of us had no experience off road in this area, and 2 guys had years of experience.

The plan was to be on the road by 5am, and spend the night in Durango, then drive up to Ouray the next morning and get into it.

Here we are loaded up the day before:

Joel made the mistake of leaving his bike with Thumper prior to the trip, leaving Thumper to his own devices and he decided to repay an 8 year old debt in a pretty funny way....

Joel's bike and Thumper's "it wasnt me" face...

Then for the long long long, long, long long, loooooooong, drive out of Texas.
Here's Jim getting a little antsy on the way, he was ready to ride!

we made it into Durango with out any issues, and pulled in to our hotel at around 10ish.pm. As i was spotting for Daniel backing up the truck with the trailer, a Colorado local got chatting with me, pretty obviously smoking a joint. It didnt take him more than 5 minutes to offer us all a hit, which we politely declined. We got a chuckle out of not being out of our truck for more than 10 minutes before someone offering us weed.

We settled in for the night and quickly fell asleep dreaming about the next day.

 

[JasonJ]

We woke up early and were ready to hit the road. Joel had eaten at this local place for breakfast before called Oscar's Cafe so we headed there. Food was good.

To quote my wife when she saw this pic, "jeebus thats a lot of gravy". she wasnt kidding, I ate half and was more than full .

We rolled into Ouray around 10am and immediately set to:

here's Joel on his Hello Kitty bike..

The plan for the afternoon was down 550, on to Lime Creek Rd, then cross over 550 and go up Ophir pass down into Telluride and then up Last/Lost Dollar Rd to Ridgeway, back into camp. Fairly easy first day/afternoon to get us used to the elevation.

Lime creek Rd was a ton of fun, giving us our first taste of ups and downs in the area. Jim's dad Michael was very new to off road riding and had a few ups and downs, but he kept at it. Oddly, he breezed through the "hard stuff" and consistantly fell over on the "easy stuff".

god help us if there was a meadow with yellow flowers in it, because by hick or by crick Michael was going in it.

At one point he whipped around a left hand switchback with ease, only to keep going to the left and over the ledge, into you guessed it, a grass patch with yellow flowers .

 

[JasonJ]

At one point i came around a bend on Lime Creek and there was Michael in a field of yellow flowers off the side of the road. I mentioned on the Sena "Jim's dad is down" and then i rode past to find a flat spot in the road to go back and help him get it back on the road.

Immediately after i mentioned Michael was down, Daniel responds with "err I'm going down too!" and he promptly followed Michael into the field of flowers. Now Daniel had been giving me and Jim good natured crap for months for us crashing at Bastrop and hidden falls, while he remained unscathed. Jim and I were pretty eager for Daniel to crash .

I was at a flat spot at the top of the hill, probably 50 yards away. I saw Daniel trying to lift his bike and i yelled through the comms "dont you DARE pick up that bike!". I didnt walk, i ran down the hill camera in hand, to get the much valued shot...

We had a good laugh about it, i think Daniel was happy to get his first crash out of the way and Jim and I enjoyed letting him know it was about freakin time!

couple more pics of Lime Creek

Daniel and Thumper:

me sitting in the grass waiting to video the guys as they road by:

coming down the hill heading towards 550, we were probably waiting for Michael to get out of some flowers at this point

Lime Creek done

At this point Michael was pretty beat and decided to head back to camp. Thumper decided to join him so he wasnt alone back there while we were riding. The rest of us decided to cross 550 and go up Ophir.

 

[JasonJ]

Ophir pass turned out to be much faster than expected, it was just a quick run up to the top from 550, pretty simple but scenic. the trip down the other side had some steep sections but overall was quite easy and fun. we just kept looking at the scenery and saying "wow" a lot.

Jim and Daniel

the gang

after the steep section it leveled out a bit

We ran in to Telluride and the sky opened up on us. we pulled into the Telluride airport parking lot to get our wet weather gear on. We got a few miles in to Last Dollar and the sky really opened up on us, starting with itty bitty hail and ending up with us hiding under trees and waiting it out. it was the funniest 15 minutes ive ever heard on comms, we alternated between laughing at each other swearing from the pain of the hail to swearing ourselves.

By this time it was getting to be around 5:30pm and we were standing at a sign stating road gets horrible when wet and 4x4 with good tires only for next 8 miles. none of us had been down this road and i was concerned it was getting dark and didnt want to end up 3 miles in and stuck. everyone said screw it and we forged ahead. so glad we did, it was slippery but super fun. i'll never forget riding through that hail storm on super slippery roads hearing 3 other guys swearing like sailors inbetween saying "ouch" a lot.

we road into Ridgeway then back down 550 into camp, wet, cold but really happy with our first afternoon riding here.

 

[bugg77]

I should add, it was the first of many, many times Daniel would go down in this trip... Even though I had one of the more inexplicably spectacular crashes of the trip... But we'll save that for later.

 

[humanrace]

Fell on Lime Creek. Don't do Black Bear. Looks like you're all having fun. Love Hello Kitty.

 

[Tourmeister]

I gotta save some of those Hello Kitty pics for the front page!

Last Dollar Highway is a great ride! We turned around on the Telluride side back at the end of April because it was wet. However, we were on big bikes without knobbies. It was treacherous even before we reached that sign... Later that day, we came down 550 from Ridgway to Durango. There was still snow/ice on the road up by Ouray!! It was beautiful though.

Looking forward to the rest of the report

 

[Deleted member 23845]

Nice. Durango is home for me.

 

[JasonJ]

Day 2 was an ambitious loop, from Ouray up to Yankee Boy Basin, then over Imogene Pass into Telluride, then out west going backwards on the BDR route, and finally down on to the start of Bolam pass, across Bolam back on to 550 south of Silverton, then north back to Ouray. it was the longest track of the week (160ish miles), i didnt know the state of Bolam Pass and i had zero idea how long it was really going to take.

We headed out and pretty soon i noticed my track split in two, one track going down hill, one going up hill. Jim noticed too and over comms asked what was up. i had no clue . we rode on for a bit more and came to a sign pointing out imogene pass and yankee boy so we stopped for a sec while i took a good look at my track.

looking up the road to Yankee Boy:

I didnt know what my track was doing , but the sign made it easy and we went up towards Yankee Boy. Joel and Thumper were by far better riders than the rest of us noobs, Joel asked if it was an up and back, which it was, so they took off at non-noob speed, planning on meeting us at the top.

Daniel ended up in the front of the rest of us, and upon arriving at a fork in the road, he took the right fork. the one that went up a steep slope with imbedded watermelon size jagged rocks. Like lemmings, we followed, ignoring the smooth road on the left hand fork . Daniel got half the way up the hill before getting crossed up and dropping his klr. Like idjits, Jim and i were following too close so came to a screaming halt on the slope, but thankfully not dropping our bikes. We took a few seconds to enjoy Daniel on his butt again , then worked on getting turned around. Naturally 17 jeeps and 47 razor ATV's came down the hill and had to wait on us as we got Daniel up and turned around. Apparently the left fork lead up to the basin and we were going up the wrong way. . Hey, it was our first time there!

We got back on to flat ground, and i voiced my concern about it being a long long day and maybe we should just get going on Imogene. We stopped to take a bunch of pics while we waited for Joel and Thumper to come back down.

one of my favourite pics:

Joel showed up wondering where the feck we had been, we explained and then took off for Imogene. Following the sign, my track was nowhere near where the sign was sending it. Oh well, we forged on. The road ended up connecting to my track after a few miles, and it was very fun. Rode in a creek bed for awhile, lots of rocks and puddles and just plain good fun.

We eventually climbed out of the trees and started the climb up towards the pass. we stopped for a break and pics a bunch, just really enjoying the day.

Finally we made the last push to the top. The last few switchbacks at the top were fun, at one point i was leading and after quite a steep ride up a section there was a sharp right turn, then the road went to the left, looping around a rocky wall section. Well, i came around the corner a bit too hot, and there was no way i was making the left turn around the rock wall, so with about 0.00003 seconds to pick a line, up the rock wall i went. I made it, and yelled in to my sena "dont go the way i went!!!". Which naturally begged the question, that Jim asked, while laughing, "well which way did YOU go??". he then made the turn and faced with the same dilemma, charged up the rock face as well. Daniel saw Jim go up the rock wall, so naturally assumed that was the way to go, so he charged up it as well . So much for my warning .

Eventually we got to the top and I was very happy. It wasnt difficult for us, but it was enough of a challenge that we really enjoyed making it to the top.

the steed:

 

[Tourmeister]

Great pics! I've saved a couple for use on the front page

I can't believe you guys attempted Yankee Boy with noob riders!!

Imogene is tough enough on the Ouray side. But man is it worth the effort once you make it to the top!!

Bolam is a nice pass. Not real hard and lots of nice scenery.

How'd the bikes run? Did you mess with the jetting at all?

 

[JasonJ]

At the top of Imogene we took some pics and just enjoyed being there for awhile. We were supposed to have dinner that night with a member of Jim and Michael's family up in Ridgway, and given the leisurely pace we were taking i didnt think we'd make it. We decided that Joel and Thumper would continue on the main loop down to Bolam pass and we'd bail from the loop and go up Last Dollar again, this time in sunshine, back to Ouray to make sure we were in time for dinner.

So we headed down

The ride down was fun, steep (duh) with a few butt puckering slides out of control down hill. Near the bottom we were following my track and it appeared to dead end. We rode around for a bit as we could see the road further down, but couldnt work out how to get to it. Finally a jeep came down the pass and they did exactly what we did, and couldnt figure out how to make it down. We figured out we missed a turn and made the run into Telluride.

We jumped on Last Dollar and it was all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Recent rain kept the dust down, and we tore down that road, sliding around the bends, getting airbone over some bumps and just laughing the whole time. Daniel ended up hitting a large rock in a creek crossing that smashed his bash plate and bent it, which caused contact on his shift lever.

This wasnt a big deal, because we were happily flying down the road. but as we came to the end of it and make the run into Ridgeway, he tried to downshift. No bueno. he was stuck in 4th gear. he didnt want to stop as he was worried we couldnt fix the problem and leave him trying to take off in 4th. So he rode into Ridgeway, made the turn on to 550, all the time stuck in 4th gear, he was a clutch feathering fiend. We got into camp, found the problem and he got his shifting fixed up. We then cleaned up and went to dinner with Jim and Michael's cousin.

Joel and Thumper ended up getting back in to camp around 8pm..ish. They talked about miles and miles of uphill babyheads, and a creek crossing that was huge and full of (you guessed it) baby heads. Heck of a ride that they really enjoyed, but very long. We made the right decision to bail.

 

[JasonJ]

Great pics! I've saved a couple for use on the front page

I can't believe you guys attempted Yankee Boy with noob riders!!

Imogene is tough enough on the Ouray side. But man is it worth the effort once you make it to the top!!

Bolam is a nice pass. Not real hard and lots of nice scenery.

How'd the bikes run? Did you mess with the jetting at all?

the bikes ran great! i was on a 2015 KTM 500, Jim was on a 2015 Husky 501s, Daniel on a KLR, Joel was on a TE610 (mebbe 630, i forget) and Thumper was on a BMW X something. All but the KLR was fuel injected and they all ran great. Daniel was way down on power on the KLR, when he went over the rock wall section near the top of Imogene he said he had it pinned and barely made it up.

Imogene was a great day, Daniel had a few falls, I ran out of momentum once and with both wheels locked up still slid back down the hill for a ways, ended up laying it down. Jim lost it over a rocky section once. Joel and Thumper just powered through everything like it was just a walk in the park.

We had no mechanical failures, Daniels shifter was the only hiccup, and i got a flat rear tire. that was it for the trip.

 

[Tourmeister]

No flats?

When we went over Imogene, I seem to recall at least two different flats because of all the nails from the abandoned mines.

 

[JasonJ]

No flats?

When we went over Imogene, I seem to recall at least two different flats because of all the nails from the abandoned mines.

i got a flat on Last Dollar a couple of days after imogene. other than that, no flats. No problems at all over imogene.

 

[JasonJ]

Day 3 dawned, and it was one of the most fun riding days ive ever had. The plan was to ride down to Silverton on 550, then up to Animas Forks. From there do Engineer, down in to Lake City for lunch, back on the loop and over Cinnamon pass, then back in to Ouray via California Pass, Hurricane Pass and Corkscrew Pass.

The ride up to Animas Forks was easy peasy, and we stopped to take a bunch of pics.

Then off to Engineer Pass we went. The ride up was just flat out fun. Daniel had one off on a switchback, but other than that it was uneventful. Once section of the ride up was crazy steep and we just powered up in second gear grinning the whole way. We went to a lookout point before reach the pass for some more pics...

Then we scooted around to the pass itself.

 

[JasonJ]

Hopefully the other guys chime in with some of their photos soon.

 

[JasonJ]

From Engineer we took off down into Lake City for lunch. the run in to town was fairly easy and pretty dusty. We got into Lake City ready for foooood.

After lunch we took off for Cinnamon Pass. we got a few miles in then the beer at lunch time let us know it was time for a break...

We got to Cinnamon in good time, pretty easy run to the top, i was getting spoiled by the scenery, so i was expecting Cinnamon to have better views.

From there i am not sure which pass we hit in what order, so some random photos are incoming. It was great fun, and we had some interesting downhill runs in some sections where i felt completely out of control,
going way too fast but too scared to touch the brakes, but still managed to make the turns.

We made it back to Ourey tired but really happy with how the day went. We got cleaned up and headed into the Ourey Brewery for Dinner.

i know there were more pics taken at the brewery but i cant find them, so hopefully Jim chimes in soon with his pics.

 

[JasonJ]

well crap, some of those pics are way too big for here, but i dont know how to resize them so they are smaller here.

 

[bugg77]

Day two (Imogene) turned out to be a long day for Daniel. We should've known he was in for it when he started with the dropsies on Yankee Boy. He did okay for most of the way to the base of Imogene but those dang daisies were calling his name and he couldn't resist their siren song on a fun set of switchbacks leading up Imogene.

Here's Daniel taking in the sights after turning around at Yankee Boy

I wasn't as adventurous as Daniel. He was chasing great pictures of waterfalls and such and I just wanted a couple pictures here and there. Nothing but the naked eye does these views and justice.

Unfortunately the rest of us were mid ascent when Daniel went to sniff the daisies and there wasn't even a moderately flat place to stop. Who would've thought there wouldn't be any flat spots on the side of a mountain? *shrug* When we finally found a spot to stop, the screw holding the spring for my side stand decided to rocket off into the rocks so my side stand wouldn't stay up while riding.

Thumper, the handiest man in the world, couldn't find a screw that fit, even though he'd brought a small shop with him. Instead, he "Thumper Tech'ed" it with a bungee cord and some half hitch knots so that I could put it up and take it down while on the bike. It lasted the whole trip like that even though the bungee was on its last legs by the end.

Here's my improvised side stand... As well as some sticker decorations Joel and Thumper put on while we were picking up dinner!

While I was getting my issues sorted out, we suggested Joel (best rider in the group) should ride back down and check on Daniel. Apparently, there was some good natured discussion between them on who Daniel's "real" friends were since we didn't come to his rescue. Eventually Daniel made it out of the daisies, for a couple seconds before having another look at them. They finally got some assistance when one of those 4x4 tourist jeeps came by. We suspect that was around the time Daniel lost his license plate... But hey, anything you can do to shave weight off a KLR is a good thing!

We made it up a bit further and Daniel was having a heck of a time with his front tire. It was all over the place. Thinking the dropsies had gotten into his head, we stopped for a bit... Oh and I saw my first marmot; which nearly resulted in me riding right off a switchback while I stared at it. (I'm an idiot).

The guys catching their breath and a snack before moving on.

Joel enjoying the view, and I assume looking for Daniel's license plate.

After resting for a bit and seeing several jeeps making their way up to us, we mounted up and headed out only to have Daniel go down a couple more times. Finally, Thumper took out his pressure gauge and checked Daniel's front tire. Turns out that with the elevation change, his tire pressure had gone up quite a bit and was way too hard... Either that or we intentionally over inflated it while at camp and didn't tell him, but I'll never tell. Once that was sorted out we continued on our charge up the mountain. We came to one last spot where everyone but Joel crashed. I was leading and was trying to pick a line that took me around a sheer rock ledge, I got a bit too wide and ended up on top of a large rock pile.

Jason didn't even make it that far, Daniel managed to get his bike past where I stopped only to do a flying superman... Back down the mountain. Thumper crashed right behind me.

With a little guidance from Joel, Thumper and I got it sorted out and continued our assault to the summit. Aside from the "Don't go where I went" mystery hint from Jason, we all made that last butt puckering climb up one last sheer rock face and met at the sign.

 

[bugg77]

I think Jason is being a bit modest on our skill sets. Joel and Thumper are clearly better and excellent riders. Daniel rode a lot of dirt as a younger man and Jason has been on and off (mostly off, lol) dirt bikes for years. The way Daniel handled that pig of a KLR up there was really impressive. I don't think I would've made it up Imogene if I'd have been riding anything like it. I'm probably the newest to dirt as I've only really been riding dirt for under a year, and not all that frequently due to family and work obligations. I will say the MSF dirt class with Brad probably gave me months and months worth of experience in one day. I can't recommend it enough... I'm also the youngest, smartest, and best looking of the bunch so i picked up on things pretty quickly.

Well, once at the top of Imogene, I was mentally exhausted. My nerves were shot as that was the hardest thing I've ever done on a motorcycle. I don't think it would be nearly as bad to do again, but at that point I had no idea what it meant to ride in the mountains.

Not wanting to keep Joel and Thumper from stretching their "legs", and knowing we were all pretty shot, we opted to just make our way back to camp. I took the lead as we slid and crawled our way down Imogene. About 3/4 of the way down the steep part (which part is that?), Daniel says over the comms, "uh, guys, I don't have a rear brake" His poor rear brake had overheated trying to control that beast. We found a moderately flat spot and took a little break to let his calipers cool down.

As Jason said, the rest of the ride in was incredibly fun. The remaining descent of Imogene into Telluride is gorgeous and fun. Then Last Dollar Road was such a blast. Daniel and I were having a ton of fun opening it up as we slid around curves and cruised over bumps. Just an easy, beautiful road... Remember that I called Last Dollar Road easy because that comes into play later.

 

[Tourmeister]

well crap, some of those pics are way too big for here, but i dont know how to resize them so they are smaller here.

www.irfanview.com

It's free and real easy to use. If you are viewing an image, just hit CTRL R for resize. Type in the size you want, hit okay, and save in a NEW DIRECTORY so you don't overwrite your original image files

You can even do batch resizes where it does all the files at once. You can do batch renames where you give it a sequence like, Colorado0001, Colorado0002, etc,...

You can also do minor image color/exposure tweaking.

Cropping is real easy as well.

You don't really need the plugin pack to do all that stuff.

 

[JasonJ]

www.irfanview.com

It's free and real easy to use. If you are viewing an image, just hit CTRL R for resize. Type in the size you want, hit okay, and save in a NEW DIRECTORY so you don't overwrite your original image files

You can even do batch resizes where it does all the files at once. You can do batch renames where you give it a sequence like, Colorado0001, Colorado0002, etc,...

You can also do minor image color/exposure tweaking.

Cropping is real easy as well.

You don't really need the plugin pack to do all that stuff.

oh i know how to resize pics, i was hoping for a BB code way to do it just for the forum. Im just linking all these off of my facebook page, it typically resizes photos when you upload them. I was trying to be lazy and not resize the originals and then upload them and re-link 'em.

 

[Tourmeister]

Gotcha

The forum does not automagically resize them. There are some mods for that, but that just means one more mod to have to mess with... and I'm lazy too

 

[JasonJ]

Michael had sat out imogene and the alpine loop, he realised after the first day he was a bit in over his head. Jim was wanting to ride with his Dad, so rather than do the planned Black Bear pass the next day, Jim said he was going to spend the day riding with Michael. I mentioned we could run down last dollar again, than back up and over to owl creek pass. I thought both these roads would work fine for him.

The next morning Joel and Thumper headed to Black Bear, and the rest of us headed up to Ridgeway and then down to Last Dollar.

We took off down Last Dollar, with Michael in tow, hoping he would really enjoy the day. not 5 minutes in, and i get the first flat tire of the trip. there was a nearby ditch, so we hung the rear over the ditch, took the wheel off and got to replacing the tube.

Note the cattle in that last photo. a couple of cowboys with their dogs were driving several hundred head of cattle down the road. I was actually panicking a bit because i was worried they were going to come right through us and trample my bike etc. Thankfully the cowboys got them past us without incident but there were several "oh crap" comments amongst us.

this was the first time i had ever gotten a trailside flat so i actually didnt mind it, wanting to go through the process and get it worked out. the change was no big deal and it was good to have done it once.

Jim's dad was still having some difficulty in avoiding yellow flowers in the fields and had several offs. We could tell he was getting frustrated, and we all just wanted him to have a good day riding. Somewhere along the route, Jim, proving that "yellow flower affliction" was genetic, leaned over to the left to grab some yellow flowers from the bank, only to find himself now veering sharply to the right, off the road into the meadow .

this section of road was straight, level, and easy dirt. Yet Jim ran off the road like a goober. Even better, several jeeps and guys on bikes came down the road from the opposite direction just after he crashed. You just know they were looking at the road, then where the bike was, and thinking "what the heck did you do". We gave Jim a lot of grief for this one.

A bit further along, dark clouds rolled in, and we could hear thunder getting louder. Michael looked beat so we decided to book it into Ridgeway and eat some lunch, and decide what to do there. We managed some quick pic's first.

here's Michael with a smile

On the way to Ridgeway the heavens opened up, and we even managed to get hailed on again.

We stopped in at a burger joint, ate a great lunch and tried to dry out. Joel and Thumper joined us, having made it over Black Bear they dashed up Last dollar and saw our bikes at the burger join. We decided to pass on Owl Creek given it was still raining, and made the dash down 550 back to camp.

Here is some pics that Joel and Thumper took at Black Bear.

thumper down!

That night we picked up some pizzas, bought some beers, and got a fire going. We sat around eating/drinking and just chatting for awhile. Really enjoyable evening.

 

[JasonJ]

here's a video of some day1 and day2 stuff...

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmZmtdyXoQ"]Day 1 and 2, Colorado. - YouTube[/ame]

and a run up to Engineer from Animas Forks.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh8okms-KyE"]Animas Forks to Engineer Pass - YouTube[/ame]