~ Nice Long Ride This Last Saturday ~

This last Saturday the Mountain Shadow Riders (a chapter of Women on Wheels) had our monthly chapter meeting. It was fun seeing everyone. We've got a lot of runs/activities lined up for the summer and I can't wait!!! The details have to be finalized, but our summer scavanger hunt has been decided on. Starting April 1st and going thru October 31st, we are to find businesses with either the words "Mountain" and/or Shadow in their title. We are to get a picture of our motorcycle with their sign. This will be a lot more difficult and some serious searching to find. But I'm up to the challenge!!

After the meeting those of us who could, gathered at 11am for a "Saddle Time Ride." We started off with, I believe, 11 motorcycles and 12 people. Added 4/7/07 - I can't believe I forgot two people, but I did. We had two of our members following in their car as back up, if anyone were to pull out and need assistance. Well, at a couple of time we did have some ladies pull out and off to the side of the road. Paula and Don stopped to offer any needed assistance. Paula and Don live up in the mountains and couldn't ride their bikes into town due to ice. But they came on the road trip and were very helpful a couple of times. Thanks Paula and Don, your help was appreciated by all.

We lost one before getting out of town. She was having problems with her contacts. The sky was overcast and threatening to rain. It was pretty windy all the way to Penrose down Hwy 115. Passing Penrose we stayed on Hwy 115 and somewhere we got on another hwy. I wasn't sure where we were going. Good thing I wasn't leading this group, lol. After a while we emerge on the main drive thru Canon City. As soon as we got on the main drive (Hwy 50), I recognized where we were.

We headed out of the city on Hwy 50, going west. A couple of miles out of town we took a right onto the famous Skyline Drive. I had never been on this road and I will never forget it. It's an extremely narrow paved road that rises 800 feet above Canon City. It's a one way road, thank goodness!! It is very steep going up and I kept hoping no one in front of me had any reason to stop before we got on level ground. I found out that this road was built in the early 1900's by convict labor chain gangs. I'm sure back then it was a dirt road.

Here we are at the top. We pulled off into a gravel pull-out and this is when one of our group had an oopsy-daisy. Her brand new Harley fell down. She's not sure what happened, but with gravel things can get squirrely. I've seen an experienced biker accidently drop a bike in gravel. It just happens sometimes. Many jumped to her aid and got her righted up. She was okay and there were only a few scratches on her Harley.



We took a little time to enjoy the view. It dropped for a long ways down. As you can see in the above photo. The above is a view to our right.

Here is the same view looking straight down!!!

Here is the view on our left side. It a great view of Canon City.

Here I am, helmet hair and all, lol. After we had a chance to look around, it was time to get going. It was raining off in the distance and we hoped to get home dry. We did stop on the way home at a coffee shop for a quick bite to eat. This particular shop was one of our awesome sponsors for our breast cancer run last year. Come back tomorrow night and I have a special post about that stop. I had my fellow comrade riders help me with the Saturday Photo Hunt.

It was soooo fun to have a nice long ride. It had been a while since I have been on my motorcycle for that long a ride. We left at 11:15am and I got home at 3pm. When it was all said and done, I had 131 more miles on my Star. An hour after I got home it downpoured. What great timing.

Wishing you travel adventures in your part of the world,

Biker Betty :)