Daddy of ‘em all

No doubt about it, Wyoming is an iconic place. There’s the profile of a proud buffalo on the state flag. There are the geologic icons of the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone Park and Devil’s Tower of Close Encounters movie fame. And of course the Bucking Bronc, that silhouette on Wyoming license plates and symbol of the University of Wyoming cowboys.

That Bucking Bronc is also the primary icon of Cheyenne’s yearly blowout event, Frontier Days. Begun in 1897 – when it was just a one-day event to race ranch horses – it now runs the last full 10 days of every July, and is billed as the largest outdoor rodeo in North America, a claim also made by the Calgary Stampede in Canada.

Of course the rodeo is the main event, but Frontier Days is so much more, like a state fair on steroids. For the people of Cheyenne, who refer to this time of year as “CFD,” it's all about parking cars in your yard, hosting out-of-town visitors, or volunteering to help with the show.

CFD actually employs only 13 paid staff. The events at Frontier Park every July are managed by a small army of volunteer workers, some 2,500 of them, organized into committees who handle tickets, rodeo competitors, and Public Relations, to name a few.

Like the other two big-name rodeos – that one in Canada and the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas – CFD has PR problems. Seems that animal rights activists swarm all over these events with cameras and note pads just waiting for an animal to be injured or otherwise harmed so that more evidence for the elimination of all rodeos can be gathered.

So the folks at CFD really stress animal safety. During a “behind the chutes” tour, visitors get to see how the animals are gathered, kept, fed, and handled during the rodeo. No one promises that animals won’t be injured, but they do promise that it will not be on purpose. Oddly enough, they don’t talk much about cowboy safety, except to point out the large memorial to those who have “fallen” at the rodeo.

When asked about how the bulls are made to buck, the tour guide explains that a leather strap is tied around the bull’s – uh, hmm, private parts – but that this is not harmful, more like squeezing into a “too tight pair of underpants," oh daddy!

Speakin' of which, they call CFD the “Daddy of ‘em all” because all modern rodeo is, more or less, patterned after CFD. The Cheyenne Chute, another icon of the west, that big ol’ swinging gate that almost instantly opens wide to free the bucking bronc or brahma bull, is an invention of CFD.

For CFD’s estimated 500,000 attendees, there’s the rodeo, nightly music concerts that feature big-name acts, and a huge carnival midway filled with the screams of thrill-riding teens and the ubiquitous odors of cotton candy and caramel corn. Frontier Park also features old west demonstrations like the Chuckwagon Cookoff and the Indian Village that includes living quarters for the Native Americans who operate the village in authentic Tee Pees.

For the last 52 years another tradition of CFD has been the Old Fashioned Melodrama. This is a frontier style show that pits good vs. evil in the simplest terms – the audience “boos” the villain, “cheers” the hero, and “ahhhs” the damsel in distress. The play’s acts are punctuated by interludes of old-timey singing and can-can dancing.

The 2008 version of the melodrama is held in the historic Atlas Theater in downtown Cheyenne. The theater dates to 1908, making this its 100th year. The melodrama, like much of CFD is all-volunteer. The show, titled, “The Rhyming Rapscallion” stars Tallen Handsome as the hero and Dirk Degenerate as the villain, and features a literary twist where Tallen’s young, effeminate, poetry-loving son, Hardly, is tempted by evil and nearly joins the dark side before coming to his senses and conquering the villain through prose. The play is very funny and cleverly written, blasting away at stereotypes with gender-bending characters and a hero in pink coveralls.

If you like rodeo, big-time country music, ferris wheels and roller coasters, old west nostalgia, BBQ, and beer, CFD is a once-in-a-lifetime definite. You may have such a good time that you’ll want to become a regular.

The Devil and Deadwood

Gillette, Wyoming -- They call Wyoming, “Wonderful Wyoming” but they miss an adjective in this description. It should be “Wonderful, Windy Wyoming” because around here high atmospheric pressure seems to be always trying to push low pressure out of the way, at high velocity.

This makes motorbiking more like sailing than motorbiking. There’s nothing like leaning a bike into a curve when there is no curve, just the pressure from a 60 mile-an-hour gale. But, heck, that just makes the trip more interesting, yes?

And the trip is interesting. There are two spots nearby Gillette that are worth the journey. The first is Devil’s Tower, the iconic, volcanic, geologic feature that was burned forever into the American consciousness when Richard Dryfuss made a model of the mountain out of mashed potatoes at the beginning of “Close Encounters of the First Kind’’ and then spent the rest of the movie with half a sunburned face inexplicably moved to visit the place – only to then take a trip on a UFO to who knows where.

All of that wacky stuff is fiction, of course, but the tower is very real. You get the first glimpse of it from about 16 miles away, but the full flower of the tower is held in secret until you are up upon it. And it is big. Almost 1,300 feet tall it looms above another icon of America, the trading post.

That’s right, the Devil’s Tower trading post dominates the scenery up close. Inside, not surprisingly, they sell every kind of DT kitsch that you would expect, but not a lot of stuff in the extra-terrestrial motif, which can only mean that the Spielberg movie is now very old.

Why is it called the Devil’s Tower? Well back in 1875 when the United States was trying to figure out a way out of the Treaty of Laramie – a treaty that basically gave the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Sioux even though it was really theirs already – Col. Richard Irving Dodge met with the Sioux who tried to explain the importance of the geologic feature, but Col. Dodge’s translator goofed, so the Native American’s description “Bear’s Lodge” was thought to mean “Bad God’s Tower” and the name has stuck.

A bit further down the road is the old west town of Deadwood, just across the border in South Dakota. This place, too, has connections to that Laramie Treaty the U.S. was trying to break, and why? Well, gold, of course.

Deadwood is also a place with a Mass Media connection. There’s an HBO series running with the same name as the town that’s been something of a controversy mainly because the show’s characters use the F-Word so much. Again with the fiction.

Deadwood is also a real place, though, and also dates to 1875 and the Black Hills gold rush. Today’s Deadwood is a Disneyfied Las Vegas in the mountains. The town motto should be “A slot machine for every tourist and a tourise for every slot machine.”

The ambiance is old west, but seems forced, which is too bad. The place has real history that includes famous westward expansionists like George Custer, Phillip Sheridan, and even more famous names like Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane.

The ride from Gillette to Devil’s Tower and beyond to Deadwood is about 230 miles, round trip, and well worth it, even though a major portion of the journey is spend at 80 miles per hour on Interstate 90, tilted into 60 mile per hour headwinds. Ah, Wonderful.

Cowboy up in Gillette

Ride your motorbike to the middle of nowhere, then go 110 miles north and you’ll find the coal and oil town of Gillette, Wyoming. For three and an half days in July 2008 you’ll also find more BMW motorbikes and their riders in one place than anywhere else.

Gillette is host to the 2008 BMW Motorcycle Owners of America international rally. This year’s event, the 36th annual, is being held at Gillette’s Cam-Plex, a kind of multi-use special events, rodeo, state fair grounds and convention center.

Nearly 6,000 riders – some with bikes and some without – are in attendance. There are a multitude of events, seminars, and entertainment along with vendors offering food, drink, and an assortment of motorbike gizmos so extensive it boggles the mind.

Included in the indoor vendor area is a display of vintage BMWs with a collection of very early bikes in like-new condition. The owner of the bikes boasts that they all still operate perfectly, including a 1924 model.

The vast majority of rally-riders are also campers. The grounds surrounding the Cam-Plex have blossomed like a giant multi-colored, garden of tents, tarps, and trailers in every shape and size. Parked next to nearly every campsite is an equally diverse variety of motorbikes.

It seems that every bikes has customized his or her bike just enough to make it unique. There’s an R1200GS with its side panels painted with a Great White Shark motif. There’s a 1977 R100RT pained like a yellow cab. Every bike is just different enough to make wandering the grounds ogling bikes seem like a new experience every time.

There are but a few food vendors, and the selection is decidedly institutional. The only fresh offerings come from a couple of trailer-sized smokers churning out $9 and $12 plates of BBQ pork, beef brisket, and beef ribs. A Pizza Hut in an RV is making a killing cranking out $5 slices of pizza at an amazing pace.

A staple of any motorbike rally is of course the Beer Garden. This one’s inside a giant rodeo barn and is serving horse-troughs full of thin American Beers and pouring four microbrews on tap. There is literally a tractor-trailer full of beer kegs parked out back – hidden from the prying eyes of fun-quashing abolitionists, no doubt.

And there’s entertainment. Unfortunately the first band to take the stage only got one tune out before rally organizers announced an ominous and looming “severe thunderstorm” due to arrive in minutes. This prompted nearly the whole audience to leap to their feet and scurry to their tents to secure tent pegs and batten down hatches.

The T-Storm proved less devastating than advertised, luckily, and the show continued after about an hour. But a four-hour overnight rainstorm left the whole rally waterlogged the next morning

Asking a rally official for the reasons behind a rally in the middle of the middle of nowhere the reply was unpredictably reasoned. It seems the middle of nowhere is actually quite centrally located for people who are traveling from the four corners of the U.S. and Canada.

The location also comes with a nice variety of day rides in the area, including Devil’s Tower, the icon of Steven Spielburg’s classic film “Close Encounters,” and the old west settlement of Deadwood, in nearby South Dakota, also made famous through the current HBO series named for the town. So, maybe it’s not the middle of nowhere afterall.

Welcome to Skeeterville

If you’re looking for a very quiet, simple and sparsely populated camping area near a large body of water in a Western state, Wyoming's Glendo State Park, about 90 miles north of Cheyenne on Interstate 25, might be for you.

However, if you have a low tolerance for mosquitoes, Glendo could be a challenge. Then again, if you just can’t stand those teensy, whiney, blood-sucking bugs dive-bombing your soft tissues, camping near any body of water in Wyoming in July is probably a bad idea.

But Glendo is quiet. And sparsely used. The folks who visit this State Park are generally Coloradoans seeking a boating or watersports experience without the maddening crowds typical of Colorado’s lakes. And at Glendo they get it.

Glendo is a reservoir, so its water level is managed by the state. This July the water is reportedly 85% of normal, and it’s clear from the shore that recent levels were considerably higher than now.

At $12 per night it may very well be one of the least expensive camping areas in the Rockies.

The little nearby town of Glendo is hardly a town at all — and quite probably would be a ghost town if not for the reservoir. Bring everything you need with you, there are no amenities at Glendo State Park.

If you’re just looking for a nice, quiet overnight campsite on your way from here to there, this is a pretty good option. But for goodness sake, don't forget the bug spray.

Coffee and Dirt

Sedalia, Colorado -- What do we search for? Well, many things; people who really, truly love us, a perfectly executed béarnaise sauce, a great cup of camp coffee. What did you say?

There is this one particular coffee-snob, who shall remain nameless, who requires a piping-hot, 1 ¾ cup, cup of coffee each day before anything else. But, not just a regular cup of coffee. This extra-sized, extraordinary beverage must be a mix of dark-roasted, fine-grind Sumatran beans and Café DuMonde brand Chicory, ground medium. This elixer must be sweetened with the best Tupelo honey that ever came out of Florida, and it must be lightened with real ½ and ½.

And it must be reproduced both at home and on the road.

Okay, the constituent parts are easy, as long as you have the luggage space and a willingness to carry a great many thimble-sized cups of UHT-grade half and half that Land-O-Lakes appropriately calls “Mini-Moo’s.”

The hard part, until recently, is how to get the coffee infused into the hot water so that little chunks or the sandy, muddy grit of coffee grounds don’t get included in the final product.

Forget all those fancy gizmos and convenient coffee presses. What works best is a basic pour-through filter cone. The water from the Jet Boil is plenty, plenty hot, and the coffee tastes just like home – that is unless you burn your tongue on the fist sip.

With the required caffeine dose coursing through the bloodstream it’s off to find an alternative to that horrific stretch of I-25 between Colorado Springs and Denver. For Motorbikers who prefer taking the time for a bunch of curves and a bit of dirt, there is an option, State Road 67, north out of Woodland Park.

This road is a joy. The paved part is narrow and twisty and roams through thick forest and an area recently devastated by fire. At a place called Deckers it gets really fun. The road more-or-less mirrors the Platt River, so there is almost no straightaway, just a bunch of curves that zig-zag both wide and tight like long a downhill ski course. At places the road is almost level with the raging waterway, making one wonder what happens to the road when the water rises. At another place called Oxyoke — not a going concern so much as a collection of seemingly ramshackle cabins — the road to Sedalia, Colorado turns to dirt and delivers buckets of fun.
Just a fraction of SR 67 is the loose stuff, a mixture of sand, gravel, and a beautiful red clay, but well worth the detour. There are big wide curves that turn to sand on the low side, and teeny hairpins that really get the heart pumping. For the real dirt bike set there are a number of side roads that look like logging roads, at best. Not for the heavily loaded dual-sport big-bike with street knobbies, but for the brave on a 500cc dirt bike — oh baby!

State Road 67 in Colorado is one of those roads that make owning a GS bike worthwhile.

One bit of warning though, the fine grit from a long ride on dirt really gets into everything. The MacBook used to post this article was safely sealed, supposedly, inside a padded aluminum briefcase, and held inside a sealed, supposedly, Touratech pannier. But at day’s end the laptop was dusted with a very fine coat of the most beautifully red clay. Now where did that come from?

The Rig, The Elf, and the Peak

Cascade, Colorado -- The Rig, as it sits in its home driveway, is a 2006 R1200GS outfitted with 41 litre Touratech panniers, a BMW GS tank bag, a MotoFizz camp bag, a Garmin Zumo, Metzeler Tourance tires, and a Ztechnik windshield. The Rig is headed to Wyoming and the BMWMOA National Rally in Gillette – happily, it’s taking me with it to points north that include not only the rally, but also Pike’s Peak, Devil’s Tower, Deadwood, Mount Rushmore, Cheyenne Frontier Days, and – with luck – the home driveway at journey's end.

After a 330 mile journey on the Interstate, the first order of business upon arrival in the Colorado Springs area is to find a campsite near the Pike’s Peak Highway – and to hastily set up at Lone Duck Campground even as dark skies loom, promising a blasting cold rain but delivering only weak sprinkles. Once the heavy bike baggage is safely ensconced in the tent, it’s time to blast off in search of dirt at high altitude.

There’s a well known stretch of dirt road in Colorado that’s very popular despite the fact that it dead-ends after just 19 miles. Was a time the whole 19 miles were dirt – and home to a famous stock-car race called the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb, a coming-of-age race in the 1960s and 70s for driving legends like Bobby and Al Unser.

But now the road is part paved and part dirt – about 6 miles of it is the loose stuff. This may not seem like enough gravel and mud for the average Adventure Tourer, but rest assured it’s a road that should not be missed.

But first it’s best to pull off the Pike’s Peak Highway and visit that jolly old elf himself. That’s right “The North Pole – Home to Santa’s Workshop” is located on the highway just before you reach the Colorado State Park entrance station, where you fork over $10 to ride to the Peak.

For those of you who thought the North Pole was at the North Pole, oh no. It’s located just outside Colorado Springs and is – as advertised – fun for all ages. It’s also an opportunity to speak to the old elf himself while he’s not overwhelmed by the whole Winter Holiday thing. He seems more relaxed, and appears to be eating right, which is nice.

Anyway. The road to Pike’s Peak is a barrel of monkeys. It’s too bad it’s so popular with slow-mover SUVs and Minivans – but as usual, nimble motorbikes with street knobby tires make easy pickings of behemoth Fords and Chryslers. The trip up to 14,000 feet takes about an hour, or a bit less, the trip down, just about the same amount of time. Signs all along the way warn that “Hot Brakes Fail!” and advise using “Your Lowest Gear” meaning some of the more timid drivers might as well be walking.

But who can blame them, the road above the treeline has no guardrail; one misstep, one errant move and over you go, and where you will stop, nobody knows. The smell of hot brakes is noticeable on the way down, too, so the advice is sound.

The ride both up and back is thrill-a-minute. The air at the top is respectably cold at about 55 degrees and dizzyingly thin. Needless to say there aren’t many roads that go to the summit of 14,000 foot peaks, at least not in the U.S. There might be five or six such roads states-side, and at least three of them are in Colorado. Certainly, the only one with a stop at Santa’s place is the Pike’s Peak Highway – so you better be good, you better not pout, and you better make time to ride to the top, you won’t regret it.

Happy Independence Day!

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays, if for no other reason that it's one of the only Federal holidays that's actually celebrated on the 4th whether it's a Monday or not.

For all of its faults, the USA is still the greatest country in the world, in my humble, patriotic opinion.

So, happy 232nd birthday to the United States of America, long may Old Glory wave.

The 4th of July also means that summer is finally, completely, really here, so let's ride!

-- Kevin

Buying tires online

Does it save money?

The 2006 R1200GS comes standard with Metzeler Tourance street knobby tires. And they are great tires, but of course you would expect nothing less from German tire-maker Metzeler. The tire is made to perform exceptionally well on pavement regardless of the road’s overall quality, and to perform admirably on maintained dirt roads. For the adventure-touring rider who enjoys more time on wilderness dirt than smoothly paved track – a more knobby tire like the Continental TKC-80 might fit the bill.

GS riders report that their Tourance tires last between 8,000 and 14,000 miles – depending on road conditions, riding style, and time off-road. Sooner or later, though, it’s going to be time for new shoes and a decision about where to buy the tires and how to get them mounted. For many riders this is a decision based on both an economics and shop skills.

So, do you buy tires and have them mounted by the experts at your favorite shop or BMW dealership, assuming of course that they have the tires in stock, which is painfully not the case all too often. Or, do you buy the tires online and have the shop mount them, or, gulp, do you try to mount them yourself?

Buying online.

In this case it’s a comparison between two online motorcycle parts suppliers that offer tires, Motorcycle Superstore and Dennis Kirk. The rear GS tire in question is a 150/70R/17 Tourance. At Dennis Kirk the tire retails for $158.99 including shipping. At Motorcycle Superstore it’s 10 bucks cheaper, $148.99 with free shipping. The Dennis Kirk tire comes via UPS in 5 days and is packed – albeit loosely - in a cardboard box. The Motorcycle Superstore tire is delivered by the same Brown Truck in 6 days, but is packaged in only a plastic bag. Both tires arrive in excellent condition, though.

The same tire purchased exactly one year ago from a BMW dealership was $177.25 retail. Of course you would expect a few dollars of markup, and this seems pretty reasonable.

Mounting.

For the rider who does not posses either the knowledge or the tools required for mounting ones own tires, there is little choice. In this case, mounting an balancing two new Tourance tires at the BMW dealership comes to $144.51 and the peace of mind that comes with knowing the job is done right.

Anomalous Oddity?

However, in an attempt to create a fair comparison of costs an oddity arises in the equation. One year ago the BMW dealership charged only $70 to mount the same kind of tires – tires purchased at the dealership. This year that amount doubled, but is that because the tires were not purchased at the dealership – or are there other factors? 100% inflation in a year is not unheard of, but is a puzzle.

Saving money.

Clearly the only way to truly save any appreciable money on tires is to buy them online and mount them yourself. Actually knowing how to repair or replace a motorcycle tire is valuable knowledge to possess, especially if you’re out in the boonies with a flat.

GlobeRiders offers a BMW R1200GS adventure touring instructional DVD featuring globetrotting motorbiker Helge Pederson, who demonstrates step-by-step tire repair and replacement techniques for this model bike. Some special tools are required, like a bead breaker, tire irons, and a wrench specifically to loosen the motorbike’s front axle. Marc Parnes offers just such a wrench, and some other expertly machined tools like a nifty wheel balancer. Pederson also outlines all the things you need to pack under your seat for a long tour free of panic attacks related to tires in his DVD.

Next year, assuming another 100% inflationary period, a savings of nearly $300 will be realized through buying online and mounting and balancing in the home garage. Helge tells all who view the DVD that changing ones own oil is also very easy and since the dealership charges more than a hundred bucks for that service, it may find a place at home as well.