Floribama Riders

We're up early on Tuesday for our first long day in the dirt. After a great breakfast buffet at the convention center next door, we head back to the room to gear up. We haul our gear bag downstairs and hand it to the crew who will be hauling it to Ouray in a big Penske truck. Back through the hotel and out to the bikes. One of the great things about riding Yamaha is there are only about 10 blue bikes in the parking lot, as opposed to 250 orange KTMs. I wonder how many guys rode someone else's bike by mistake.

We rolled out about 8:30 AM. The weather is nice and cool. We turn off the main drag and putt through some neighborhoods before reaching dirt roads.

You can make a fairly high speed run to Ouray by mostly smooth dirt roads, but where is the fun in that? The organizers have laid out some fun side loops along the route, and we take most of those. The first one comes pretty quickly. It is an entertaining jeep road into some fairly dense woods, which meets up with an abandoned railroad bed back out to the road. The railroad bed has a very large tree down across it, and someone has laid smaller tree trunks and limbs on either side to make it easier. It looks like an obstacle from an EnduroCross course, but is actually not difficult to ride over, as long as you don't stop and think about it too much.

The route brings us out near Gunnison around lunch time. The Kawasaki truck has set up in a little roadside park, and they are grilling hotdogs. Your choice is a hotdog and a donation to charity, or to ride into Gunnison to hit a restaurant. We went for the hot dogs.

South of Hwy 50 near Gunnison, there is a radical change in the terrain, turning into a desert-like terrain. This link takes you to Google Maps to see the change. tinyurl.com/nxygao  There is a spectacular descent down a mostly bare mountain side under a high voltage power line, not difficult, just hard to keep your eyes on the trail instead of the view. That afternoon was filled with incredible scenery, fun riding, several mountain passes, a touch of rain, followed by a ride into Ouray on the Million Dollar Highway, one of the ten best scenic drives in the country.

We rolled into Ouray about 5 PM, exhausted after 185 miles of riding, about 160 on the dirt. Washed the bikes, cleaned up, and headed across the street for a reception with beer and some snacks to hold up over until our dinner reservation that night at the Outlaw Restaurant. Sam had a treatment from the volunteer chiropractor, for a charity donation, of course.

The Outlaw is the place to be, and it is packed with Colorado 500 riders. It is a pretty narrow restaurant, with a bar along one side, and tables along with the other. Service is not fast with a crowd this size, but no one cares. It gives more time to sit and BS with your buddies about the day's ride. Partway through dinner, one of the guys who works to organize this event, Ben,  came in and handed a digital camera to one of the guys at my table, saying "You will need this". In a few minutes, we hear a bike running outside. This is rare, as the Colorado 500 has an agreement with the locals not to have dirt bikes running all over town at night. The door opens, and Ben comes riding in to the restaurant on his dirtbike, with the restaurant owner's wife on back. They make their way through the restaurant and out the back door. I'm sure a few of the guys at the bar got a bark buster in the back as they went through.

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel, dodging deer that had come into town to keep people's lawns trimmed. Exhausted, and full of steak and beer, we had no trouble sleeping.

(to be continued)