Day 11 – Boulder, CO
Date: 06/12/2016 Sunday
Starting Location: Boulder, CO
Ending Location: Boulder, CO
Starting Odometer: 9206
Ending Odometer: 9294.5
Mileage Today: 88.5 Miles
Mileage Total: 2441.2 miles
Today’s MPG: 44 mpg
Total Average MPG: 43 mpg
Hospitality
Most of you don’t know how I met Jim, the individual that is hosting me while I’m staying in Boulder. In Feb of this year, Jim purchased a pair of MotoGP tickets from me, for the race in Austin, TX. Over the 2 month period while Jim was getting ready for the race, we often emailed, and spoke a few times.
Because I’m a Season Ticket holder for Circuit of the Americas in Austin, for all of the events that I attend, I’m usually granted some extra perks, such as a pit walk for the Formula 1 race, and also a pit walk pass for the Moto GP race. As soon as I received the Pit Walk Pass, for the MotoGP race, I forwarded it on to Jim, so that he and his son Alex would have a better experience while at the race.
Since the race in April, my plan to ride across the US has firmed up, and when I mentioned to Jim that I would be riding through Colorado, he offered for me to stay at his home, with his family for a few days, if I wished.
As I’ve mentioned a few times in this Blog, one of my main objectives is to connect with some old friends, and even though Jim is a new friend, I accepted his offer, and planned to spend a few days with him and Christine, Alex and Ashley.
All of us have met strangers that we’ve connected with, and some of us have even extended courtesies to those strangers, but the idea that Jim and Christine would welcome me into their home really blew me away. This is the kind of gesture that brings a tear to your eye, and gives you faith in your neighbors, and people that you meet.
So, I wanted to acknowledge that not only am I grateful, but this gesture of kindness has affected me deeply, and now I will work to pay it forward.
Today’s Ride
I needed to get some laundry done, and also some small bits of maintenance on the bike, so I was not really in too much of a mood to go for a ride, especially because tomorrow is going to be another long day. Nevertheless, Jim didn’t really take no for an answer. The next thing I knew, we were heading out at noon, for a ride that would take no more than 2 hours.
The ride ended up taking about 3 hours, but Jim found us a number of beautiful roads with slot canyons, and amazing views. So, it took a little longer than expected, but it was certainly worth every minute of it.
Just a little bit of dirt…
As I mentioned, Jim is riding an S1000-R, which is a motorcycle that should definitely not be driven on or in the dirt. But, I think that Jim was feeling sorry for me for missing out on the dirt riding that I had hoped to get in CO, and so he found us about 10 miles of dirt roads, as we were ending the ride and were headed back to his house.
Another nice gesture, and Jim seemed completely fine with it, except that it became apparent that he was going to really need to clean up his bike. You see, S1000-R motorcycles don’t really like dirt. On the other side of the coin, my R1200 GSA loves the dirt. As soon as we hit the dirt, I shifted twice, and accelerated to about 70 mph. That bike of mine handles these dirt roads almost as good as Jim’s bike handles the twisty roads.
It was nice to finally get a little dirt riding in, even if it was only 10 miles or so.
Looking at the map above, you’ll see the tracks are not exactly efficient. Jim made numerous turns all at the wrong place, just so that we could get a little dirt. Very nice indeed.
What’s in store for me tomorrow
Tomorrow I’m scheduled for a ride of about 400 miles. I’m heading across CO, towards Dinosaur National Park, at the western edge of Colorado. In fact, the entrance to the park that I’ll be using will be from Utah, and not from Colorado.
Here’s a glimpse of what tomorrow’s route is going to be.
In order to be able to spend a sufficient amount of time at the park, I’ll need to get packed up tonight, and leave Jim and Christine’s place by about 6AM. Wish me luck…
