Road Less Traveled - A Documentary by James Beatty

Day-18

July 24, 2006

Leaving Oklahoma for New Mexico & Colorado...

It’s gorgeous out here in Colorado - beautiful mountains, green trees, big up hills & big down hills - we were just flying around on these gravel roads. The only problems were the sharp corners on mountain sides. If you don’t watch it, you can lock up the brakes and slide right off the side of a mountain. One intersection T’d into a road on the opposite side of a railroad track… you can’t see the upcoming road at all! I saw Steven go over the railroad track, then Michael. We were riding about 60 mph. When I came over the track, I saw Michael locking up his rear wheel as he tried to miss Steven. I knew I was going to fast to stop even with my wheels locked up. So I followed my instincts, as I was skidding for about 40 feet, and cut to the right of Michael. But at the last second, Michael also cut to the right and I had a millisecond to throw my bike to the right with the back tire still locked up, let go of the front brake, then let got of the back brake as I split between Steven and Michael and jumped off the road into a field of grass. I got back onto the road without a problem, but it was an extremely close call that could have had all three of us down on the ground.

Now we’re in a cool fortress made out of the Rocky Mountains. The wildlife you see on the trail never ceases to amaze. Today we saw a Bobcat jump off of an embankment and take out the bunny. It happened in a split second as we were riding down the trail and only seconds after I told Steven to cut his helmet-cam. I’m still bummed out about that one.

The clouds are dark in front of us as lightning and thunder roll in. We had to ride directly into a storm, high in the mountains and with lightning going off all around us, one after the next, so we pulled off at the first safe cover we found, an overhang of a house, and waited out the storm. We waited for at least an hour but the storm wasn’t letting up, and we had to ride on to meet up with the chase crew. This late in the day, we were exhausted, cold and wet but we had to push on and ride further in the storm. We made it to the nearest town and called the guys in the chase vehicle who met up with us. Unfortunately the small mountain town we used as our rendezvous point had no occupancy in any of the few motels nearby, so after a few cups of hot coffee, we're back on the bikes riding another 50-minutes in the rain to Salida Colorado where our hotel awaits, with hot showers and dry beds.

We’ve been talking about riding the Rainbow Trail for awhile, which is now just a stones throw away. Steven has serious concerns about whether the risk of riding the trail is worth it.

Photography Copyright © 2006 Motorrad Media. All Rights Reserved.

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