Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route Documentary Film (COBDR)

the colorado backcountry discovery route is brought to you by the following sponsors turatec the leading brand and aftermarket accessories for large touring and adventure motorcycles venture riders have relied on touratech products to explore some of the most remote locations on earth whether you're setting up your bike for a weekend ride or a trip around the world turatech is your dedicated resource for adventure touring solutions climb technical apparel the leader in high performance all conditioned riding gear klim builds products for the motorcyclist who demands quality and reliable performance in extreme conditions klim supports the backcountry discovery route series because they're riders who have a passion for projects that enhance our sport and our community butler motorcycle maps our mission is simple to make it easy for riders to find the best roads and destinations butler motorcycle maps give riders confidence in their journey and the roads they choose so that when they swing a leg over their bike they trust their experience will be as good as it can be back country discovery routes are unique and foster a special motorcycling experience one that butler maps is extremely proud to be part of bmw motorcycle owners of america dedicated to making the experience of owning a bmw motorcycle more enjoyable by promoting the bonds that motorcyclists share our mission is to foster communication and a sense of family among bmw motorcycle enthusiasts and we're proud to be a sponsor of the backcountry discovery route series [Music] my name is paul gillian i'm president of the backcountry discovery routes nonprofit organization we're out here in colorado creating a route across the state for the colorado backcountry discovery route for this trip i'm riding a yamaha super tanner ray i'm tom myers i'm the owner of turatec usa i'm riding a 2011 bmw r1200 gs hi i'm rob watt and i'm from monument colorado i'm riding a ktm 990. my name is justin bradshaw i am one of the owners of butler motorcycle maps and we make maps for all sorts of motorcycle adventures and the bdrs are now one of them i'm jason wickenkamp and i work with climb usa klim is a company that's all about passion and so adventure motorcycling fits right into the niche of products that we make because adventure motorcycling is all about passion and passionate people well my name is bryce stevens and i'm from seattle washington and i'm here to join the team to verify this amazing route across colorado john beck i'm a professional photographer really enjoy motorcycling and adventure riding and i'm along on this trip to take care of all the still images for media and commercial use i'm sterling noreen from norine films i'm riding a f-800 gs and i'm looking forward to starting this ride tomorrow i'm tony hugo from idaho falls idaho and i rode down from idaho to colorado on my kawasaki klr 650 to chronicle the evolving story of backcountry discovery roots because i think adventure motorcycling is one of the most dynamic most exciting new chapters in exploring the american west that i've encountered many years the colorado backcountry discovery route is the third one in the series the first one we created was across the state of washington the second one was across the state of utah and now we're doing the third one which is across the state of colorado well the purpose of this route is to create a great one-week off-road excursion that anybody can do on a dual sport or adventure motorcycle we have free gps tracks that people can download on the internet we have a butler motorcycle map that's made it's purpose-built just for this route it has the gas stops the mileage the elevation the points of interest and everything so it's a great planning tool and so our mission is to create this route and just turn it over to the community for free for this trip we've got a team of industry people we've got some volunteers for the backcountry discovery routes project we've got two local guys here from the state of colorado so we're here in their backyard they've been working on this route for about 18 months scouting a little bit last year and then intensive scouting this year and so they are showing us the best that the state has to offer for adventure touring motorcycles and dual sport travel we're starting here in the four corners of colorado arizona new mexico and utah uh one of the reasons we picked this as our starting point is that foreigners or people who are not from around this area uh will recognize the name before corner so if you say the colorado back country discovery route is starting in the four corners most people will know where that's at it's also a great transition spot for the arizona backcountry discovery route and the utah back country discovery right the route the arizona one ends in around page and the utah one starts in mexican hat so that's not too far from here and so it makes a really good transition point so you can do whichever way you want to go and uh and that's why we're starting here we're in an indian reservation this is the navajo reservation and then as soon as we get out of here uh we're we leave here and you get into the ute mountain reservation the scenery is is very unique it's kind of a deserty plains but yet there's these big monuments so as you're riding out of here uh you've got this great beautiful landscape and then these monuments they're sticking up and it's it's really quite pretty i think colorado is a destination for a lot of people as it is they they know it for areas like this and the four corn is where we are doing a project like the bdr will just help get people into the back country to explore colorado in places they might not go otherwise and you can get across the whole state and stay off the road and have a good time and be safe about it and that's what we're trying to do the beginning of the trip started roughly the same latitude that our utah run did so it was somewhat similar right off the bat but immediately we started climbing and once you get into the mountains you get into these amazing aspen forests you don't see stuff like that in utah so right off the bat we were treated to some very uniquely colorado visuals [Music] [Music] so we're at this store here but they don't serve any hot food and no one has any food so they're relying on me to do a little shopping so i am going with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the entire crew one of the cool elements of the backcountry discovery routes is that's part of our mission is to help drive traffic and tourism to these towns from adventure motorcyclists and to give an infusion of of dollars to some of these communities that are struggling to keep businesses open as long as they're there it allows people like us to come out and explore this because there are gas stations and food if those places go away it'll really make it a lot harder to experience the backcountry [Music] so far this day has just been full of just a lot of beautiful scenery a lot of great riding lots of different terrain i'm hoping get camp set up get a nice little sprinkle and prep for a really good day tomorrow i'm impressed at how accessible the colorado backcountry discovery route makes the wild lands the beauty the natural environment of colorado to people like me who may need help in seeing where to go how to do it what it takes to do it safely responsibly and just have great bring home great memories from the experience you know this is my first time doing a long trip on motorcycles and camping off a motorcycle so this was the biggest challenge for me was what to bring how do i pack and what what exactly is the right list and paul sent me over a list from tour tech and and they've been revising that and getting it closer and closer so that was really helpful go with the good stuff first of all i wouldn't recommend just swinging by target and picking up a cheap tent and all that stuff because it's gonna fall apart you camp in spots like this where it's not necessarily a camp spot it's just a cool place that we found and there's twigs and stuff everywhere and you wake up every morning and there's dew and water so so i would say don't skimp on the sleeping bag or the tent getting up here and setting up the tent while it was dry and then having an amazing rain and lightning show put on for us that evening was a was a great experience okay so today's camp or tonight we're gonna head um over and uh let me start this so if you're doing the colorado back under discover route or any of the backcountry discovery routes hopefully you've got a good team of people with you well there's a few weak links for sure paul [Music] jason obviously john beck's just learning to ride so we're giving him some some time to get used to it but aside from those guys and guys that crash and slow us all down but other than that it's pretty good justin bradshaw is is one of the funnier guys on our crew first night of camping it rained and i had to take a really bad dome constantly has me laughing justin bradshaw is a guy that can turn the throttle and he also loves to camp and make good food bradshaws will feed you they'll cook the amazing cook so bring the bradshaw it's worth the extra tube you'll want to rob watt because rob really did a phenomenal job laying out a lot of the trails and just kind of being the it's kind of everybody's dad in a way it's kind of keeping everybody on track keeping everybody in line but but in a nice fatherly sort of way sorry rob from making me sound old hey no laughing from the peanut gallery paul gillian he's kind of the the ringleader of this group the guys like at the helm and you don't quite see him until he's like telling everybody which way we're going and how we're going and then it's just like okay aye aye captain here we go that i tell you what you can ride at yamaha pretty well tom was tom's kind of you know i don't know next tom mr smooth he's awesome because he's such a good writer and he's got so much history and so much skill he's kind of like the scientist of the group in a way you know i mean he kind of knows about all the different plants and knows about how to look out for poison ivy and knows like you know weather patterns and satellite i mean he's just it was great and he can wheelie the hell out of a big motorcycle which i have a lot of respect for most people probably wouldn't immediately peg tom for a wheelie guy but yes i've got the photos to prove it so i'm riding the ktm 990 adventure when i first got on the bike i don't think i gave it quite the respect that it needed i've learned to respect the bike a lot more since i started riding it if you have a bryce on your team you want to be careful because he'll probably blow a motor if you let him go off on his own just just rallying where tom takes the wheelie award i think bryce takes the burnout award so if you're if you want to find him in a crowd of people just look for the most dust and and listen for the motor and then you can pick bryce out tony he was a full-time journalist he's authored books he's written countless magazine articles and we're lucky enough that he's going to be writing an article for road runner magazine i really look forward to reading it for about 20 years now i've been let me start over again start over again yeah that's no that's like oh fine okay oh i lost my train of thought let me start over and then of course our crew members as far as you know sterling doing the video and and john doing all the photos i mean those guys are amazing john beck is the man i'm on a bmw r 1200 gs adventure it holds 50 gallons of gas speaks four languages and weighs as much as a small moon that's probably not what i should say sterling's an interesting fella he's a filmmaker so you know you kind of have to go with every little personality that he brings to the table every day you just don't know if it's going to be you know sterling or sterling you know great guy to have along and and a lot of fun [Music] you know the low point of this trip for me was the altitude sickness because it changed my perception of everything i did for the first few few days it was always there and always gnawing at me uh altitude sickness is something you're definitely gonna have to worry about on the colorado back country discovery route and a lot of those symptoms are first starting with a headache then shortness of breath and then it eventually you'll become nauseated and uh at some point get delirious so much that you just don't know what's going on one of the quickest ways to help them is to drop them a thousand to two thousand feet from where you are and uh they'll start to feel a little better but making sure that they get plenty of liquids um and uh give them some tylenol as soon as they get there um as long as they can take that uh but um that's uh something you really do have to worry about all right well we'll test it all right see how i feel hopefully tell your ride i'll get rid of this headache yeah that's yeah that that'll be the big test so have you taken some tylenol yet i did i took some tylenol this morning it hasn't kicked in though the headache's still there okay so we'll see all righty good deal there was that headache and that persistent nagging feeling and uh i didn't expect to have that happen i live at sea level but i still didn't expect that to happen i've been at high altitude many many times and that was very frustrating that was clearly the low low point for me we did have to send bryce down to lower altitude a little early which was unfortunate but he started feeling much better once he got down to lower altitude so that worked out really well in our favor we're leaving today from just above telluride and gonna drop down into telly ride and then go up over over pass we don't want to go up over the big passes late in the day because there's a lot of people coming down off those mountains and late in the afternoon the traffic gets a little hard so try to schedule your trip where you're going up early in the morning if you look at those jagged peaks over there that's where we're going to be riding we're going to be riding around those and that's overpass that'll be your first chance to really get to see what tomorrow is going to be like [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] me [Music] now after telluride we went winding up this beautiful canyon to overpass it's kind of a signature moment for the bdrs where you're you're going up this alpine valley and you can kind of feel the temperature drop and it gets a little bit of a breeze and you know you're going up to the high country it's really a fun moment and it did not disappoint it was rocky and rugged and went way up over this pass for me i was on the ten array and i had the traction control system on and the rocks were so big and they were slipping so much that they be that the uh the traction control kept cutting off the power once i shut the traction control off then it was it was great again so beautiful descent from there and then really the roads just kept getting better and better it's a good warm up for the other passes you get a little bit of rock you get some switch back you get some of the side hill that you're going to see on the next day going over corkscrew and in california and into cinnamon what i learned on this trip was the importance of exercising judgment and being honest with yourself about what your riding level is what your skill level is what your bike is capable of doing tony was always bringing up the bringing up the rear man he was he was our steady steady anchor at the end tony was our litmus test for this one he was he we call him sort of target market tony he is you know average guy new to the sport just getting into it he rides you know an average motorcycle he's not on a very sophisticated expensive you know twenty thousand dollar bike like some of the rest of us are lucky enough to ride for us it was important to have him along just to see how a regular guy on an average bike does and it was it was a challenge for him he did have a few tip overs we took him on some terrain that was on the upper edge what he was comfortable with and on a couple occasions we sent him on the easy workarounds but that's part of how we designed the routes we wanted to be the average guy can make it but if the average guy is not feeling it that day or or he looks at something and says you know i don't feel comfortable with that we provide them with an easier alternate so that's a good opportunity for a guy to do a work around if he's just really not feeling it that day once we got over opher we had to get back on a little bit of pavement to the top of red mountain pass we got to stop the red mountain pass we take a little side shoot into an old gold mining town which was really really fun there's a highway that goes nearby and then there's this little rugged road that goes to this place it's way out of the way and it was really cool it was a window into the past of this this whole area which is really got a mining history [Music] well tonight we're staying in a hotel in uray and it's not uncommon to be in a situation where even if you're camping you want to stay for a night in a hotel all of the backcountry discovery routes are designed so that there are camp spots along the routes and there are hotels at good distances to allow somebody to stay in hotels the entire trip if they want to do that one thing that you'll need to know about this area is that there's not a lot of campsites in and around uray the the mountains are too steep and they're just not available that's why we chose a um a motel here in town tonight uh it's a nice little motel there's several in here in town so that's where we are is enjoying our stay here at the motel we're gonna probably get in the hot springs hot tubs after this and enjoy the evening so you must be feeling pretty bummed right now well you know what i have two blown fork seals and a flat tire but i think that if you expect nine guys to ride all the way across the state off road and not a single flight happen then we'd be fooling ourselves so i guess i'm spying that i'm the guy it's quick fix new tube there's a pinch flat so there's nothing in it and i just got pinched somehow you come in at cool towns like puree here and it's kind of hard to pass up a warm shower and a clean bed so as soon as i'm done i'm going to walk down and get beer and i'm going to bring it back and sit in the hot springs that's conveniently located behind our hotel room so it's not so bad kind of want to watch out for the justin bradshaws because they're going to steal your tubes and your socks and what else did he take of mine [Music] what a way to end the day we just left eurasi colorado and we're heading up the the notorious corkscrew path so if the beginning is any indication it's going to be very challenging and technical way up and over this pass all right so what we've gone through so far is just kind of a little warm up corkscrew the switchbacks are steep coming in and steep going out so you want to keep your momentum maybe stay on the outside and there's good barrels on the outside so you can kind of ride the rail and go around and then take your momentum because it gets steep right out of the corkscrew this route i kind of purposely chose things that are going to be challenging but yet most of the route is just a a great way to get in the outdoors and on the back country you know you're going to have some easy stuff you're going to have some challenging stuff and you're going to have some stuff that you're going to just be sitting there riding along handle hands on your handlebars and just going wow the corkscrew is unique because of the hill in the distance when we crested the hill looking back there was a whole section of the mountain that was pure color there was vegetation here and there on on spots off to the sides but the middle of it was just this amazing swath of color and then there'd be a tree patch over here but it was just unlike anything i'd seen so far at least on this trip just by walking around the corner and turning about 40 50 degrees or so totally different type of terrain so it's pretty amazing after we came over corkscrew pass we were coming down and i was leading and there was a kind of a sharp downhill left hand turn jason was coming down and and took the outside line there was some loose rocks and apparently grabbed a bit too much front brake and unfortunately fell into that drop-off at eight frames a second it looked pretty ugly possibly uglier than it actually was i ended up rolling onto the top of my uh my radial head which is you know the radial bone the head that goes into the elbow and in doing that i cracked it yeah i think i'm gonna have to send that to the hospital the crash sequence so they know exactly what happened but bike was upside down sliding for a little bit he got pinned underneath it and all's well that ends well he's currently at a hospital right now i think he had pictures taken in lake city um so we haven't heard details yet but he did ride the bike all the way from the crash site here with a broken clutch perch that was uh zip tied by justin so it was modified got it got him all the way here he was able to ride so whatever injuries he had he was still able to ride afterwards so hopefully that's a good sign zip ties and duct tape if you can't fix it with zip ties duct tape or jb weld you're hosed little things like that will will save the day because it was really a non-issue it was just five minutes zip ties and we're good to go again the thing that i'm looking forward to most about this trip is the really high elevation roads most of today we've been around eight to ten thousand feet and we are going to go a lot higher than that we're going to be somewhere in the 12 to 13 000 foot elevation range and so i'm a little nervous about that but at the same time i'm really excited to see what things look like way up that high you know our route makers have chosen a route that keeps us high in the mountains and and rising and dropping into valleys it's just it's mind-blowing you can put together a bdr like this but we're lucky enough to have that this route going over the high passes you should be in an amateur level not a novice i don't think it's a novice level to go over these passes they're rocky and they're loose and they're occupied by a lot of other tourists and jeeps there's jeep rental agencies in every town next to one of these passes so you can be sure that there's people up there who don't really know how to encounter motorcycles coming the other way [Music] it's actually not as intrusive as you might think it would be having all those jeeps around because everybody's just kind of moving along and you get spots where you'll just have vistas forever and not see anybody so you get these moments like you're in the middle of nowhere but the scenery is just so unbelievable and that really is colorado at its finest there as we move further north it's going to be less crowded like that we'll be in more remote areas that not as many tourists goes but it's cool to see both i mean you have to go down there and see that that's pretty unique part of the colorado bdr [Music] where are we going next just kind of showing us we're going to kind of go over cinnamon paths yeah and down this and into lake city okay and then from there we're going to kind of fuel up and get supplies and then we're gonna head out this direction either camping here or we're gonna be camping over here well rob watt is a very important and integral part of this team but for this trip specifically in colorado this was his doing i mean he spent so much time researching this and every time we asked him a question about why didn't you go this way or why didn't you go this way he says because of this or because of that he already knows that he's narrowed it down to the best way through this state you might see ten thousand dirt roads on a map but they don't all go through they end up private roads they aren't all accessible on a motorcycle so to filter it out and then stitch together something that makes sense and is fun and you know like i said meets our goals as a group it's really hard to do really hard to do i spent so many months scouting and planning and and trying to find the little offshoots that you're going to take on the on the route and you're going to see a little bit of everything that colorado has to offer from the southern part of the state to the northern part of the state [Music] right now we're in the heart of the historic mining area of colorado there are mines and evidence of of mines from from decades gone past all over the place you see the old rail systems you see the trestles you see carts you see all these old structures just built on the sides of hills it's really everywhere we were able to find this really nice twisty very remote road that went to an old mining complex that was dilapidated and falling down but we were able to ride motorcycles around it and take some photos and kind of explore and just think about what some of these communities were like 100 years ago getting from town to town and seeing the things in between that you wouldn't see if you were on a paved road that everybody else is seeing that's really the highlight i mean i've seen things in this trip in my own backyard that i didn't know were there there were parts to today where i literally felt like i went back in time i felt like we had just walked completely away from everything that is you know that encompasses our lives and just went back 150 years and it was just us and nature and you know it was just it was phenomenal just no one else was around it was it was great so many years ago i lived a hard life i i had the opportunity to ride first in the group through a very fun uphill section and i was really zipping along i mean i'm honestly i was uh just having fun i had clear visibility and there no cars in front of me and i was just ripping it i get up the top and there is a ranger with a 4x4 vehicle with red and blue lights on top looking for speedy speeders and then i promptly grabbed him and started distracting him while the rest of the team zoomed up the same section that i did you know you can get in trouble by for speeding up here when it's 15 mile an hour speed limit it's very hard to hold yourself back and go that speed i can tell when bryce is getting ants he's like can we go ahead you know what what's up there what if we just go check it out a little bit and he's so he's always willing to go scout something or have an excuse to spin it up a little bit or jump off a water bar so i'm waiting for a big crash one of these days and that'll add some epicness to one of these trips but so far he's a he's a character he's got his opinions and i appreciate that for sure we didn't travel a lot of miles today but we covered uh some amazing terrain and five different passes it's hard to top this kind of riding both the riding fun part of it and the scenery combined i thought the colorado back country discovery route is certainly the best of the three routes that we've done so far and it's something that we expected because colorado being you know the high having the highest mountains in the whole country has got to have the most the highest viewpoints and the most beautiful views so it wasn't any surprise how good it was but uh actually seeing it is another thing i mean that that's confirms it comparing this section of this bdr to other bdrs that i've ridden and seen uh mind-blowing you don't see that stuff in in other bdrs other places so uh it is a real highlight if anybody's considering doing a bdr they should definitely put this one high on the list [Music] oh look at this another 990. [Music] very nice that is a handful how you doing we made it so i'm doing good yeah where are you guys from canada john yeah yeah right now i'm glad i'm on this little guy yeah because uh i was cussing on the highway coming down but uh right now it's fantastic have you guys looked at the t-18 maps at all or colorado i have so this is heading you know it's up over in this direction here cinnamon pasta yeah that's as we are here that's a little ghost town screw so we came up there yeah you're reversing what we just did yeah the whole day was amazing but in particular what stood out in my mind was the descent from cinnamon to lake city easily top five brides i've ever done anywhere in the world views were singular one-of-a-kind the terrain was amazing i was on a gs and that road is essentially built for that bike so as a photographer it was incredible it was actually probably one of the toughest sections i've had to deal with simply because you want to stop every four feet to get another photo every single view you looked at no matter where you were was a postcard right after i broke my arm we got to the bottom down there into lake city and we're at a pizza joint having some lunch and we finally got some cell service and i turned on my phone and i had gotten a video from my wife videotaping the ultrasound of our first our first baby you know seeing my first born kid coming from my wife that was pretty awesome pretty excited about that colorado has been fantastic to us you know we've had a few little storms but you know for the most part we've been able to get through everything we haven't had to stop because of rain or anything like that and so it's been good it's been a really good trip anybody who rides a motorcycle knows that you're out there you're in the elements and it could rain depending on what time of year you go it could be 90 degrees down here it could be snowing up there and when you're on a bike you're in it you have to experience all that and you have to deal with it so we're prepared and hopefully that comes across in the video and everything we're doing so that guys see that there there's ways you can do this and be safe and dry and have a good time and be out in the elements on the bike which is a traditional ball race with these sticks and they run for 24 hours night [Music] we did a little offshoot on one of the trails and a little a little wet so i made a little tougher but uh i enjoy the challenging sections uh you know rocky loose rutted two-track kind of stuff really fun for me i got a little wet on that showboat episode but uh it was kind of fun we talk about this a lot on the bdrs is that we i don't think a novice rider somebody just buys a motorcycle should take off on one of these things ever because it's it's not a great training ground you need to you need to work your way up to a bdr because we we go into remote areas where the roads are are rough and the scenery is incredible like this it's kind of an intermediate intermediate thing and so yesterday and the day before they're all the same they're not novice novice trails if you look back over here you'll see this little mud puddle a small mud puddle but wet nevertheless and as soon as i went through it my front end started to go right a little bit then my back end was in front of my front end and i just stepped off and let her slide mr watts we call him mr speedy no we don't he's not a fast rider rob is steady and smooth you will not see him bent out of shape because he won't get there we counted how many bags he had in utah that was nine nine bags on his motorcycle if every time you stop you have to f around with nine bags you have too many bags yeah that's broke what's broken the latch which is pretty typical see how the but we'll see if we can't latch it on [Music] man i'm glad you're here though we were worried we weren't going to catch you you know until later like tomorrow yeah somewhere around leadville or something well that's what i thought i thought i'd give it two days to kind of kind of heal up because i was like hey you know if it's just a pinched nerve it'll all be you know two days of rest still a little bit if i like really jack on it hard then it it hurts a little bit but if i ride easy grip with my knees well and today it's going to be a little easier this afternoon it's high speed and stuff yeah you'll do fine good deal yeah glad you're back we missed you yeah thanks guys miss you guys too this afternoon we're going to go back up high again like we were in the beginning of the state we're going to go up on cumberland pass and then down into the town of taylor park or the area of taylor park and just some really good stuff we'll have a couple of deep water crossings and it'll be a good day [Music] [Music] i've had a saying for some time that is the best twisty asphalt leads to gravel and so the guys that are out there on cruisers and things that don't ride gravel they're missing a lot of the best twisty pavement and in particular colorado's got phenomenal twisty pavement we got a chance to ride a lot of it connecting sections of the off-road portions of this route and so if you like riding twisties there's a lot of it on this route and it's a it's a blast [Music] when we left buena vista you kind of climb out and get into some kind of scrub oak and some pinion trees and then we dropped down into this sand basin and i purposely didn't tell anyone about it because i didn't want them worrying about it i just thought when they get there they'll see the sand and they'll just have to get on the throttle and go it's not very far you know it's maybe a half a mile of sand maybe should have told everyone about the sand come to find out we had a few sand mishaps but everyone got through it just fine [Music] it's fun but it's a handful on a big bike to wrestle it through long sections in the sand like that people should know that it's hard but also i mean tony got through it you just put the outriggers out and paddle or push your bike through it stay on the edges sometimes it's not quite as soft if you haven't taken a course riding then i would recommend taking a course and getting into some sand maybe trying out some of the obstacles you would expect on a big chip like this because one thing you don't want is a guy here and get over your head and feel bummed you didn't make it or something like that so you know practice at home go find some sand go to a clinic something like that then when you get to it you'll be way better prepared [Music] is [Music] we got everything [Music] the camping we've done has been primarily well exclusively primitive camping uh undeveloped sites uh we we find the meadows we find the forest we find appropriate places to camp the silence in the evenings is is remarkable the ability to sit around quietly and have fun conversations relive the day and and revisit the trip you know that's a pretty special experience we're just above the town of buena vista and headed north i really don't know the route uh which is the first time for me because i knew the washington and utah so well before we did them uh it's kind of a blessing for me actually i'm enjoying just writing and not stressing so much about uh all the planning parts of putting a bdr together i got to tell you man our guys from colorado really know this state and they put together an incredible bdr every one of us is kind of blown away by this so anybody else who's going to ride it come coming from anywhere u.s or internationally they're going to really love this [Music] the backcountry discovery route projects have been my big trip of the year for three years now backcountry discovery routes are a good option because someone has done most of the work getting the route together getting a map together and in some cases getting a dvd together so you can see what it's like along the ride you can plan them in the winter time and get ready get all excited about it and we look forward to this the whole idea of a bdr it's it's you get out of it what you put into it so you leave behind work leave behind all this stuff even if you live in the state where the bdr is taking place my guess would be you're gonna not generally see all this different terrain through a normal ride you do from your hometown wherever so on a trip like this you're seeing so much different terrain you get to absorb it all if you put yourself in that frame of mind to just sort of relax and take it all in it's like if life had a refresh button the bdr is a really good way to hit that today was a good day it was a lot of fast driving very scenic riding a few challenging spots going over hagerman pass up those rocky stretches and i was really gratified to see that i was able to do ride the kind of train that we rode [Music] [Music] bye [Music] today we started um in gypsum it's a good point to grab some fuel and grab some food there's a gas station in a grocery store right there so it makes it really handy but right out of gypsum the the terrain completely changes from anything we've seen before you start to get into this kind of clay soil and these kind of bizarre cliffs that are um almost utah like you know just very deserty and we climb up out of that and then get into some high meadows a little bit and then we dump back down into what's called the colorado river road and the road goes right along the colorado river and it's a smooth really relaxing kind of road uh that was really kind of fun just to kind of just sit there and go wow this is this is really cool you know we have red rocks on this side and we have the colorado river on this side and it was it was really something some of the roads in this part of the state are muddy when it rains and so this time of year when it dries out you end up with these ruts so it's a little dicey in some of the sections the southern half of the state it was rocky rocky rocky there was very few ruts and leftovers from the muddy season but up here there are not very many rocks but there is a lot of mud in the rainy season and so it turns into ruts so the ruts are a little sketchy on the big bikes from there we took up and dropped down into an area called state bridge which was a bridge that crossed the colorado river it just kind of has this name of the state bridge had some lunch there at this kind of hippie joint that has these outside concerts a little venue with yurts and tepees and so if you ever want to stay there it's kind of an interesting place to stay instead of camping you can go stay in a yurt one night or a teepee instead of just being out in your tent so that's kind of cool i had a little bit of a dirt road earlier today had some highway riding here some nice little twisties really good road um having lunch outside the state bridge right now loving life it's good stuff great riding is there's a lot of different i mean a lot of valleys a lot of big fields a lot of great dirt roads but then also like there's a really great section of just trails through the woods that was just a blast it was just just had a great time riding today a lot of fun i really had no idea how diverse and beautiful colorado was i mean i'd heard how great colorado was but until you see it like this you just don't there's a whole new appreciation that i have for the state and for just just riding motorcycles out here and being able to have access to these types of roads and trails and views and just being free like this it's one thing to have challenge it's another to have a really hard time that really detracts from the reason i'm out here there's them out here sort of fun i made a misjudgment i followed a group of riders who are very skilled up a little two track that was a cut across a switchback and i paid a price i went down on it and i took a very hard fall hurt my shoulder and the injury haunted me for the rest of the day that's an example of riding behind your comfort zone but i thought i'd give it a try that's the only way you get better for a moment there i exercised bad judgment i overestimated my ability for a moment and i could have paid a high price it could have impacted the whole trip i think he picked a bad line i always find it better to stay all the way left or all the way right usually in the middle there that's where the big rocks and big holes are so i always stay to the outside that's my tip when i was here scouting the route it was deep on the right hand side but the left-hand side was maybe two feet deep now what we're going to do is uh see if we can't get crosstalk so we're just scouting a way across and it looks like kind of further left here is the ticket but i went on the right side of stuff last time but it's really shallow well we're here to water crossing our strategy has been to have one of our colleagues walk across to see where the shallowest area is and just to see how deep it is and so bryce volunteered went through we're gonna try and stay close to the stump and make it through and hopefully everybody stays up the deepest part was probably three feet i would get was a little higher than bryce's knees when he went in there and so it was a little tricky but uh tom and i think bryce went down and removed a few twigs on the dam and let a little bit of water out so it wasn't so deep but it was fun tonight we rolled into this campsite here and on the meadow looking over a valley and we started cooking dinner and we were we were actually lucky enough to have some steaks and it was it was ironic that a bunch of cows kind of came down through behind while we're sitting there cooking our steaks and they kind of looked at us and just kind of kept passing through but it's kind of funny a few of the different bdrs that we've been on we've had cows show up while we're eating dinner and it's always it's always funny it's been a great six days so far we've had incredible views incredible riding um some you know good camaraderie um and it's been fun it's been really a good time it's been a real learning experience i think i'm coming away from this whole experience with a much greater appreciation not just for colorado but for the northern rockies but certainly a tremendous appreciation for the privileges we have embodied in public lands as americans we're very very privileged to have this great concept of publicly owned wildlands that that's what makes the bdrs possible in each of the states where they exist currently is the existence of public lands [Music] i think the plan is to maybe head into steamout for breakfast which is also a really great thing people you know you see us camping all the time and it seems like we're just living off the land but you can camp and wake up in the morning and head into an awesome ski town like steamboat and have a omelet and a cup of coffee and then you know finish the last section in a few hours which is what we'll do [Music] [Music] the end of the colorado bdr ends up at the three rivers ranch when we got to the three rivers ranch you know we were all kind of congratulating each other just because you know you've just done 749 miles uh in a number of days and just the trials and tribulations from guys going down and helping them bikes breaking down and and getting through stuff that is maybe challenging at times and then just enjoying the scenery and the camp together it's a it's just a great feeling to get to the end and just say wow we've done it we finally finished the colorado bdr [Music] we've verified the route we've done it we've shown that it can be passable and we've we've done it on our own as an expedition so it's met all of our criteria one thing about this trip is i can't really think of a low point everything was just so good about crossing this state the colorado bdr i think a lot of people will when they're done say it is the best but uh it's it's it's about the character of the state colorado just happens to have a lot of character to me this group ride really embodies in a small compressed way the sense of community the bond that is adventure motorcycling it's like no other i've ever experienced [Music] i very much now look forward to turning this over to the community to seeing people that come up to me in trade shows or industry events and say man i went out and did that route and so that's really what i'm looking forward to so hell yes i'm very happy to be done with this one and very much look forward to sharing it with community [Music] the ride up was amazing just because it was so tight and switchbacky switch back your word so after i went through the switchbackification camping and dumping in the rain horrible awful my name is paul gillian i'm the president of the back country i'm sorry i screwed it up it'll be in my ear so we just left for a how do you pronounce it you ray so after we left telluride we went uh up this this nice canyon towards uh we got the name of the goddamn thing again hope for pass okay let me start over [Music] the five words that i would choose to describe this route is the best ride in the country is that five close enough yeah sterling's an interesting fella you know he's kind of got that european uh hispanic american swedish filipino flair to him that you can't really figure out [Music] it's not sorry [Music] only take a deep breath hope you didn't be hear so right now we're in pittkin uh we started this morning in los on the pass of los penis he said penis so anyway arms broke let's go riding [Music] [Music]

Channel: RideBDR

Views: 234,282

Keywords: Backcountry Discovery Routes, Back Country Discovery Routes, RideBDR, BDR, Colorado BDR, Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route

Id: mM4KgrYLM5o

Length: 56min 1sec (3361 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 27 2022